Gathering to sit as an audience to hear great sermons and pay into the offering plate in every meeting allows Christians to assemble, display loyalty to a pastor while:
• avoiding discipleship
• avoiding letting our “light shine”
• avoiding face to face love of other Christians.
If that’s what a Christian wants to do. If that’s how we choose to hide while keeping a clear conscience… then its a great system.
The kingdom Jesus is like a federal agency called NASA. Equipped with many billions of dollars, many scientists, engineers, managers, and spokespeople. With the full support of their government and the people all with ONE shared mission.
Like federal agencies there is an spiritual agency of the kingdom of Jesus called the ecclesia. It is the body of Jesus Christ and it has one glorious mission. A mission with limitless resources from its king. This mission is alluded to in Ephesians 1.
ESV verse 10 reads to unite all things in him, NASB reads the summing up of all things in Christ, NIV says to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ
Jesus Christ has a gathering together in one, a unification of all things, a bringing of unity to all things, and a summing up of all things in himself ministry. And this ministry has been delegated to his followers, his body in the earth.
One of the primary ministries of the church is to gather together, to sum up, to comprehend and to explain all things according to Jesus Christ. That is our ministry, that is our mission, that is our vocation.
We are like a federal agency for him, by him, about him and loyal to him.
The kingdom of Jesus is not like a loose collection of competitive religious shows who compete for the same few audience members. It’s not at all like a show or a intellectual religious lecture. Its not like a performance and an audience.
The kingdom of Jesus is like federal agency of Jesus Christ, which displays and explains to all of creation the magnitude, and the importance of the king over all things, Jesus Christ. Explaining and displaying how everything in all of creation revolves around, and is defined by, the true king.
When God gave his only son to the world he abandoned the ministry of finding certain select people to “tell my people” this or that.
He basically said “never mind Holy man, I’ll tell them myself and when I finish with them, if they follow me, they will all hear my voice, because my sheep hear me.”
And hearing him is like a fountain bubbling up from within.
So now when we hear Holy men telling their sheep…or even implying that “God said tell my people” we should get a major red flag! 🚩
Because they don’t understand the nature of the church, they don’t understand (or care about) what it means to be led of the spirit and they’ve taken it upon themselves to speak FOR God to people. God is speaking to us another way now and it’s much better.
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