From Christendom to Kingdom

 

 

 

 

I was very blessed by the 3rd article in the open heaven newsletter this week.  Here is the direct link to the author's blog entry.

 

http://mouthpieceministries.wordpress.com/2014/07/02/my-journey-from-christendom-to-the-kingdom/

 

This article spurred a hunger in me and a remembrance of times when God has worked in my life for a season. Mountain-top experiences are awesome, when we are soaring on wings like an eagle and our vision/clarity increases. I appreciate seasons of personal revival/renewal because it reminds me of what is really important and draws my attention back to God. However, we aren't meant to go through the revival cycle like the Israelites in the book of Judges. We are meant to walk with God constantly, abiding in him. If we are in need of revival, it is because we have forgotten he is present with us and have allowed idols to replace him. I have found myself in that state many times, especially during the busy summer months where many responsibilities and tasks can become immense and overwhelming. However, when I am brought back to the simplicity of relationship and his overwhelming love for me, the mountains become small and are easily moved.

Seems the experience the woman in the article is having is happening to many. Many are becoming hungry for more of God and to know him more deeply, becoming dissatisfied with the shallow. Call it baptism in the Spirit, a second, third, or fourth work of grace, whatever - God is calling his people into deeper fellowship and surrender to him. For some, it may look like this - for others, it may be more slow and gentle as the Lord strips away the layers of selfishness and pride in our lives - exposing us to his perfect love that casts out all fear. The point is, the Lord works differently in all our lives - we aren't meant to copy the experience of others - however, we can be encouraged about how he is working in them and it can encourage us and spark hunger.

True Fellowship

 

The Lord led my wife and I to study the meaning of true Fellowship this weekend, and we ended up sharing what we learned with the group of believers we relate to in our home on Saturday night.   I can honestly say, we enjoyed true fellowship that night, and we were truly encouraged by what we are seeing.  The Lord is opening our eyes to so many things, and this issue of Fellowship is just one of them. 

I had been pondering a statement made by Bryon Wiebold of Forerunner Ministries in Texas.  He said, "we don't gather for fellowship, we gather because we already have Fellowship".  This statement prompted my wife and I to study out the word "fellowship" as it is used in the Bible.  My wife and I love to re-think and re-discover what the Bible really says about many words or subjects that many times have lost their meaning since we have been in "church" for a while.  Religious thinking, or familiarity sets in and we can stop thinking about what we are saying or hearing.  We learned that true Fellowship is much more than just getting together to discuss life, religion, sports, or politics.  Fellowship is also more than getting together to "do" religious things like prayer, worship, bible study, etc.

The greek word for Fellowship is Koinonia, and it is used in several ways throughout the New Testament.  It means to partake, participate in, have in common, and can also be translated as the  word "communion".  We discovered from 1 John 1:3-7 that before we can enjoy fellowship with others, we must first have fellowship with the Father and the Son, Jesus Christ. It is impossible to have Christian fellowship with someone who does not have true fellowship with God first!! 

1 John 1:3
We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

1 John 1:6,7
 ⁶ If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. ⁷ But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.


Our fellowship with God will be manifested in whether we are walking in the light of God's love.  Then, our fellowship with each other will be manifested in our love for each other!

1 John 2:9
Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness.

In 1 Corinthians, the word "Koinonia" sheds further light on how we see and relate to the body of Christ.

1 Corinthians 10:16,17
¹⁶ Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? ¹⁷ Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.

The word for "participation" used in this passage is, you guessed it: Koinonia.  As believers, we enjoy true fellowship because we have each been baptized into the body of Christ.  We are participants of being part of the body of Christ because we have each eaten of his flesh and drank of his blood.  In a spiritual manner, we have allowed the very essence of Christ to enter into us and he has made each of us members of his body. 

Our fellowship with the Head(Christ) determines our fellowship with the rest of the body.  We are each participants(Koinonia) in the body and blood of Christ.

The last instance of the word Koinonia I want to share is in 2 Peter 1:3,4
³ His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. ⁴ Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

The word "participate" here is of course the grk. word Koinonia.  This is perhaps the greatest revelation of all I discovered when doing this study.  Not only do we have fellowship with God because we are in the light of his love, and because we are now members of his body.  We have fellowship with God and each other because we now have his very nature imparted to us!!  We love  each other because it is now our nature to love!  We share gifts of the spirit with one another because his Spirit is now one with our Spirit!  We now share the same Father!  We are members of the same family!  We are sons of God, just like Christ, the firstborn son!  Does this mean we "are" God?  No, but it does mean we are now "like" God in the sense that he has imparted his very nature and essence into us.  We are no longer of Adam, we are of Christ.  We no longer have a dead Spirit, our Spirit is alive to God, energized and full of the Life of God.  Our life-source and nature no longer comes from the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil(Adam), our life-source is now the tree of Life(Christ)!

This is what forms the basis of our fellowship with other believers.  Our fellowship is not based around believing the same doctrines, praying the same way, worshiping the same songs, attending the same "church".  Our fellowship is based on our new nature and our new relational position with the Father.  We are new creations - the old has passed away and the new has come!  Our fellowship(Koinonia) is based around "who" we have become and who we have relationship with(the Father), not based around what we "do".  What we do as the Church flows out of who we now are, and the direct connection we have with the head.  We are no longer "sinners", we are "saints".  We no longer have a "sinful" nature, we have God's divine nature of pure, spotless, holy, Love.  As Bryon Wiebold says in this blog post, we are no longer "Apples", we are "Oranges".  Apples vs Oranges

Do we still struggle with the flesh?  Of course. In our Soul, the mind, will, and emotions we still struggle with ingrained patterns of behavior, fears, and areas of our heart that need to be surrendered to Jesus Christ daily.  We can still allow sin into our soul and practice sin, but it is now a foreign invader that has no right to be there.  We are not defined by that sin any longer, we are defined by what God says about us. We are now Sons of God, members of Christ's body, new creation Spirit-men(and women), free from the law of sin and death. 

This is what Jesus died for - this is what his body is all about - this is what true fellowship is based upon.

Spiritual Growth

Just like a book needs revising as an author looks back and sees what he wrote years ago, so we felt the need to revise some things in this blog.  As we looked back on the things we wrote when we started the blog 3 years ago, we realized how many things God has shown us since then.  We realized our "vision" had changed, and we aren't really as excited about farming as we used to be.  Yes, we still enjoy it, but it isn't where we get our life from anymore.  We also realized much of our terminology was kind of funny - things like wanting more of the presence of God.  We know that God is with us everywhere we go.  Yes, we understand that God does manifest his presence in different ways at different times, but we aren't so much longing for a goosebumps experience anymore.  Its more about love, and out of that flows an awareness of God's presence.  We have realized that much of our focus was on self, "fulfill our destiny and discover God's love for us".  Yes, those things are all very important - but for what purpose???  If the purpose isn't also to share God's love with others, then we're nothing more than clanging cymbals.  We make a lot of noise, but that's about it.

In another 3 years, we will probably look back on this season and wonder, "what were we thinking back then?"  When I look back on where we were 4-5 years ago, I am in shock.  My wife and daughters could only wear skirts, we were "patriarchal", we thought raising good Christian kids meant conforming to the outward traditions of men. We thought your measure of spiritually hinged on how many "arrows" were in your quiver and if you could grind your own wheat.  My wife and I had no real relationship, we were just fulfilling our "roles".  We weren't listening to God's voice, we were just doing what seemed the right thing to do.  The list goes on and on.

Spiritual Growth involves change, and if we can't look back on our lives and see where God has adjusted or changed us in some way, something is wrong.  There were certainly seasons where I didn't change in my Christian journey.  Times where I was stuck.  That is a miserable place to be.  Some call it a desert season, some call it the wilderness.  Those are times where not much growth is happening.  If you are there, don't give up, keep going.  Turn to God and ask him to deliver you and restore your faith.  Cry out to him for help.  If you are relationally dry, ask Jesus to show you how to relate to him as head properly first, then ask him what to do so you can grow in those relationships in your immediate sphere.  Don't ask God where to go to church, ask him how you can be the church with whoever he connects you with relationally.  Allow the Cross to be applied to those areas of your life you haven't wanted God or others to touch.  John 12:24

Why we homeschool

When my wife and I started this homeschooling journey 11-12 years ago, we started out with many "good" reasons for homeschooling our children, and I am thankful for them.  When considering homeschooling, I remember a pastor at the church we attended giving us some wisdom out of the Bible.  He said,  "If you want your children to become fools, let them spend most of their time with fools.  If you want your children to be wise, let them spend most of their time with wise people".  That made good sense to me, and it still does.  Also, since most of the people in this church were homeschooling, it made it easier for us to decide to homeschool.   Furthermore, since the public schools are a haven for foolishness, bad behavior, bullying, etc. we wanted to protect our children, shelter them, and provide a Christian worldview for them to follow.  We wanted to be able to influence them more than their peers and protect them from the public school agendas of evolutionism, gay rights, sex ed, etc. 

A few years later, our family joined a very traditional, “family-integrated” church group. Our reasons for homeschooling stayed the same in some ways, but we became more legalistic and behavior-focused.  We wanted our children to grow up to be "good" people, who attend a "good" church, find a "good" spouse, get a "good" job(only if they are men :) ), be good citizens, have many children, dress nice, and do all the things we thought were best for them. We wanted our children to stay true to the faith so we would look like great parents, and our children would turn out to be model Christians who dress, talk, and act like a Christian. We figured that by sheltering them and keeping out all evil influences, we could achieve this goal. Our goal was to only allow them to associate with others who were "like-minded".  We have since left that church and many of the ideals they represented.

What we have been considering lately is this:  Are these reasons for homeschooling enough?  What are the main reasons why we homeschool?

After looking at the first three websites that popped up on Google search, I am convinced that most people are excluding God and any spiritual reasons from their decision-making process. Although practical reasons are good, they are not enough.
Reasons to homeschool web site 1
Reasons to homeschool web site 2
Reasons to homeschool web site 3

My wife was looking at a facebook post the other day that asked for a vote on reasons for homeschooling. She was amazed that out of 120 responses, only two of them said that God had led them to homeschool.  Most of the responses involve some sort of a criticism of the public school system, and the need to protect their children from it.  Other responses involved the superior education their children were able to receive at home.

Even though I happen to agree with many of these good reasons for homeschooling, they aren't the primary goal any more for us.  If our goal is to shelter, protect, and produce good behaving people who are well-educated, we haven't really gained much.  Yes, good character and being different from the world is good, but why?  If that's all we have, we are only going to produce Pharisees who look down their noses at those who are different or don't measure up to their standards. 

Philippians 3:4-9
⁴ though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: ⁵ circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶ as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless. ⁷ But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸ What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in^[a] Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.

So, what is our goal now?  My wife wrote this last week, and I think it sums it up very well.

The world is and has been changing, the tide has/is turning….. It is time to rethink “Christianity” in our country. Who are we called to be? Why are we doing what we do as far as homeschooling/raising our children/discipling others?  Why has God called us to raise our children this way? Live this way?  Is it to protect? Shelter? NO! God is asking us to be and raise up a people that KNOW and LOVE Him in such a way that they will be able and willing to stand ALONE with Him in adverse circumstances. Yes, as Christians, we are a blessing to one another but the world needs Christians that won’t back down individually or in small groups, a people that don’t need or rely on a mediator and 100’s or even 1000’s of other likeminded people standing with them.  There is a time coming and has come in some countries, when there will no longer be the possibility of crowd following and still walking with God.  Our children and families may not have “beautiful” lives and futures by our homeschooling, “Christian” standards…they will need to have an intimate relationship with God to walk through adverse circumstances with Him. Our goal in homeschooling is not and cannot be to “protect, instill, groom, etc”. It is to raise up godly men and women that are willing to walk with God in a Holy Army that will require everything of them.

To summarize, we homeschool because we believe God has called us to raise our children up as disciples of Jesus:
1. We believe God has called us to this task of homeschooling(discipleship).
2. We want our children to know Jesus relationally, and love him with all their heart.
3. We want our children to love others and be a light to them, not judge them harshly.
4. We desire our children to have the ability to think for themselves so they won't follow the crowd.
5. We desire our children to be strong in the face of adversity, willing to follow God no matter what the cost.
6. We desire our children to be among those who do not love their lives even unto death.  Rev. 12

To wrap this up, let me share with you something I learned from watching the new Hobbit movie: The Desolation of Smaug.  In the movie, the wood elves are hearing reports about the evil rising in middle-earth.  They argue amongst themselves about whether they should just continue hiding in their safe place, ignore the suffering of others around them, and try to wait for the evil to pass.  Here is a quote.

Tauriel (female elf): When did we allow evil to become stronger than us?
Legolas (male elf): It is not our fight.
Tauriel (female elf): It is our fight.

Tauriel ends up defying the wishes of the leader of the elves(Thranduil), leaves the safety of their home, and helps those who need help.  First, by healing a dwarf, and second, by giving her assistance in the fight against evil.

I ask you this same question - When did we Christians allow evil to become stronger than us?

A word of encouragement and Blessing to Homeschoolers

 

Word of Encouragement and Blessing to Homeschooling Mothers, Fathers, and Children

If Jesus were speaking directly to you right now, and he is speaking to you, he would say: 

Thank you for choosing the narrow path, the difficult way. It leads to abundant life, great blessing, and eternal benefits and rewards.  I have called you to a Holy, set apart lifestyle and you have responded.  I know the way is difficult and you feel like giving up sometimes.  Come to me when you feel worn-out, tired, burned-out, stressed out, and heavily laden with many burdens.  I will give you rest and life.  Resist the pull to compare yourself with others and look to the right or the left.  Re-focus your gaze and your heart upon me.  Remember that your main purpose in raising your children is to teach them to love me with all their hearts and to follow me.

Homeschooling Moms, the Father is so pleased with your love and care for his children. Nothing escapes the Father’s notice.  Your purpose and calling as a mother and teacher during this season is valuable and significant beyond what you can see with your limited perspective.  You have sacrificed much to make the decision and accept the call to train up your children in the way the Father has created them.  The Father is pleased with you and proud of you.  Don’t grow weary in doing good, continue to fight the good fight of faith and finish the race.  Strength, wisdom, and energy will fill you.  May an increase of love, purpose, and vision come upon you.  Moms, resist the lie that comes and tells you your task is without purpose or significance just because nobody seems to honor or recognize you.  The First will be Last, and the Last will be First in my kingdom.  You may appear to be Last according to the values system of this world, but in the Kingdom of Heaven, you are first because you are a loving servant.

                Homeschooling Dads, support and love your family in more ways than just financially.  Encourage your wife and children, be genuinely interested and engaged in their day.  Your interest and encouragement will help pull them through difficult seasons.  You have sacrificed much to be a homeschooling Father, and the Father notices.  He is pleased that you work hard to support your family in many ways.  Your words have life and can encourage your family to be the overcomers I have called them to be.  You, as a Father, have the power to call forth and encourage the identity of your wife and children.  Your example of hard work, servant-leadership, self-sacrifice, love, and courage sets the tone for your family.  Come to the Father for your true identity and vision, do not go to the world for identity and their standard of success.  You are a true son of God, now go and call forth your children as sons and daughters of God.  Teach them to love this world with my love, and train them for war to defeat the darkness.  I didn’t call you to homeschooling so that you and your family would hide from the world, but I called you to homeschooling so you can raise up world-changers who will carry my love to the lost sons and daughters.

                I declare over the children clear vision, ears to hear, and teachable, tender hearts.  Let them have open minds that listen to their mother and father’s wisdom.  Give the children the Father’s heart for this world and his love for people.  Let the spirit of rebellion over this generation be broken and not touch these children.  Let the children choose wisdom and life that leads to blessing.  Let the children really come to know God in a deeply personal way.  Let them resist the world, the flesh, and the devil.  Let them avoid the snares of the enemy and stay on the narrow road.  Let them learn to hear the voice of God and obey that voice.  Let the Holy Spirit fill them and flow through them.  Show them who you really are, Father, and show them what you have created and called them to do.  You children are precious to the Father, you are his beloved.  Come to the Father through me and you will know true life.

Cessationism is Dead!

Cessationism is on its way out, but those like John Macarthur with his "Strange Fire" conference, are still trying to beat this dead horse.  Here are a couple links I would like to share regarding this issue.

AW Tozer states the issue very clearly when he says in the article I have linked to below:

"it will be seen how empty and meaningless is the average church service today. All the means are in evidence; the one ominous weakness is the absence of the Spirit’s power. ... The power from on high is neither known nor desired by pastor or people. This is nothing less than tragic, and all the more so because it falls within the field of religion, where the eternal destinies of men are involved.
Fundamentalism has stood aloof from the liberal in self-conscious superiority and has on its own part fallen into error, the error of textualism, which is simply orthodoxy without the Holy Ghost. Everywhere among conservatives we find persons who are Bible-taught but not Spirit-taught. They conceive truth to be something which they can grasp with the mind."

An open letter to John Macarthur from A W Tozer

Michael Brown appeal to John Macarthur

Link to earlier article on our Blog - Cessationism is heresy

"John Macarthur's Strange Fire" - from Stephen Crosby