I love this question posed over at Douglas Weaver’s site, “Where do you go to church.”
Ever since I heard this question posed by Darin Hufford over at the Free Believer’s Network- Into The Wild pod cast (Worship in the Wild), “What is worship to you” verses, “This IS worship,” I have been freed, launched, catapulted even further to abide within ‘what is worship’, ‘what is church’ to me, etc. etc!
Within the community of Father, Son and Holy Spirit there is NO divorce, schisms between what it says in the letter (of the Scriptures) and the life quickening-empowering spirit, nor will there ever be one!
It’s the natural man working, operating independently from His spirit that produces such an un-malleable rigid template that keeps so many from enjoying and experiencing the reality of His abiding closeness in them as them.
I continue to marvel over the corrupted and erroneous thinking that it all boils down to the “right way verses the wrong way” of doing things, but what about His Way, and that is spelled Jesus!
The template he uses is who He is, Love, but to those who have not experienced the essence of who God the Father is, love is but a cryptic message that cannot be deciphered.
Rich
I love the word ‘malleable’ but becoming what this word means on a personal level is definitely not traveling the road of least resistance.
Our ability to move forward in our journey with Father is not happening without great and at times extreme pressures. Our brother Paul said at one juncture in his journey, “For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life; indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope. And He will yet deliver us.”
In being processed * by our Father, there is an impatience that rises to the surface in our soul, and the father of lies enjoys working through this opened availability and will try to get is side tracked, disillusioned or whatever it takes to lose site of Him in us as us being fully able to handle what we are facing. Again, it’s a revelation, not a seminar!
* "God is educating you; that's why you must never drop out. He's treating you as dear children. This trouble you're in isn't punishment; its training, the normal experience of children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves. Would you prefer an irresponsible God? We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God's training so we can truly live? While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God's holy best. At the time, discipline isn't much fun. It always feels like it's going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it's the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God.”
One of my favourite sayings is, “Blessed are the flexible, (pliable-malleable) for they shall not be broken.
I so want to encourage the body of Christ with the dependability of His abiding faithful commitment to us. These hope, love empowered words speak of the wonder and majesty of this One who is being fully formed within us. “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.”
I want to further encourage those who are going through or facing what ‘appears’ to be more than they can handle. These God breathed words from Os Chambers. "And the parched ground shall become a pool." Isaiah 35:7
We always have visions, before a thing is made real. When we realize that although the vision is real, it is not real in us, then is the time that Satan comes in with his temptations, and we are apt to say it is no use to go on. Instead of the vision becoming real, there has come the valley of humiliation.
"Life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And batter'd by the shocks of doom
To shape and use."
God gives us the vision, then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the valley that so many of us faint and give way. Every vision will be made real if we will have patience. Think of the enormous leisure of God! He is never in a hurry. We are always in such a frantic hurry. In the light of the glory of the vision we go forth to do things, but the vision is not real in us yet; and God has to take us into the valley, and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the place where He can trust us with the veritable reality. Ever since we had the vision God has been at work, getting us into the shape of the ideal, and over and over again we escape from His hand and try to batter ourselves into our own shape.
The vision is not a castle in the air, but a vision of what God wants you to be. Let Him put you on His wheel and whirl you as He likes, and as sure as God is God and you are you, you will turn out exactly in accordance with the vision. Don't lose heart in the process. If you have ever had the vision of God, you may try as you like to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never let you.
Rich
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