Pilgrim Heart

The Purpose of the Power

Here's a great quote from Bill Johnson from his book "When Heaven Invades Earth" (p111). This book is one of the best I've read on the Kingdom of God. Why not visit his church's website or buy the book.

Many believe his power exists only to help us ovecome sin. This understanding stops very short of the Father's intent for us to become witnesses of another world. Doesn't it seem strange that our whole Christian life should be focussed on overcoming something that has already been defeated? Sin and its nature have been yanked out by the roots. Many constantly call out to God for more power to live in victory. What more can he do for us? If his death wasn't enough, what else is there? That battle had already been fought and won! Is it possible that the process of constantly bringing up these issues dealt with by the blood is what has actually given life to those issues?

Many in the Church are camped on the wrong side of the Cross. The apostle Paul spoke to this issue when he said, "Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom 6:11). The word reckon points to our need to change our minds. I don't need power to overcome something if I'm dead to it. But I do need power for boldness for the miraculous and for the impossible.

Part of our problem is this: we are accustomed only to doing things for God that are not impossible. If God doesn't show up and help us, we can still succeed. There must be an aspect of the Christian life that is impoosible without divine intervention. That keeps us on the edge and puts us in contact with our true calling.

The Transformation of Creation #2

"Man is God's agent for the glorification of the world. Man is positioned between heaven and earth. He started out at the apex of the pyramid, the holy mountain. There he was able to see into heaven, to perceive the heavenly pattern, and then bring it down into the world and transform the earth. "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Just so, Moses was shown the pattern on the mountain, and then he built the Tabernacle on the plain (Exodus 25:40). Just so, Jesus ascended to a mountain to speak the Sermon on the Mount, giving the pattern of the Kingdom to His disciples.

The labor of glorification takes nature and turns it into culture."

James B. Jordan, "Through New Eyes" p117-118

hover over the image for a clue

The Transformation of Creation #1

"The Bible opens with a Garden and closes with a City. This simple observation point to the meaning of history, of process, of change, of time. Something has happened during the years between Genesis 1 and Revelation 22, and that something is the work of glorification. The world, created good, has been transformed or transfigured. The potential has become actual. The raw material has been worked into art."

James B. Jordan "Through New Eyes" p117

(bonus points for getting the picture)

The City and the city

God calls us to work with him in transforming today’s urban centres into outposts of the city of God. Just as the kingdom themes of shalom and land are very material, this-worldly realities, so God’s concern is not with “mansions in the sky” but with liveable communities on earth. Finally he will bring his city and kingdom when the time comes to “restore everything” (Acts 3:21), and evil will be judged. But God’s concern, and the present mission of the church, includes making the city a place of justice and peace now, rather than condemning and fleeing. This requires effective witness to the living Jesus Christ as both Saviour and Sovereign Lord.

Howard A. Snyder, Kingdom, Church, and World, p48

God's Plan for You!

I read this yesterday and thought it would be good to share here:

We can be sure we are not going to advance one step on the highway of realising God’s intention until His resurrection and reigning life are operating through us in a creative way.

How few believers there are who have found God’s plan for their lives. How few, who are abandoned to the purpose for which God has placed them in this world! We are largely playing at Christian work in these days. We go in and out of services and meetings. We like, perhaps, to preach, or are content to offer what we conceive to be some help to His work; and we give a little of our money to Christian causes which appeal to us. Yet we have missed the real issue; all Christian service must result in action, creative not imitative action.

Listen! “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus UNTO GOOD WORKS, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). Here is what He has predestined you to be in Christ Jesus – a vessel through whom He will work creatively. This is not optional. We have said before, this divine life can only be manifest unto God. From the beginning God has marked out every son to fill a niche which no one else can fill. Just as surely as we live by His life, shall we recognise that ours in an ordered life – a God planned life.

What is His plan for you? How will He live and pour His life out through you?

DeVern Fromke, Ultimate Intention, p 87

Where are you from?

I read there words by E.W. Kenyon recently and enjoyed it a lot! (strange punctuation though...)

This is an unveiling of what we are before the Father, and how the Father looks upon us in Christ.

John 16:28, “I came out from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go unto the Father.”

You remember Jesus said in John 3:3-5, “Except one be born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

The believer is born of God. He comes out of the very womb of God.

“Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world” (1 Jn 5:4)

“For in one Spirit were we all immersed into one body, and were all made to drink of one Spirit.” (1 Cor 12:13).

Just as truly as Jesus came out from the Father, so we have come out from God thought the energy of the Spirit. We are born of God.

In 1 Jn 4:4 we read, “Ye are of God my little children.”

We are a part of the very Life of God.

God’s very nature had been poured into our spirits, for we are of God.

Now we can understand Jesus’ confession. It staggered the Jews.

It startled the disciples.

“I came out from the Father; I came into the world: again, I leave the world and go back to my Father.”

Just as truly as we came out from the Father in our New Birth, when we leave our bodies, we go back to our Father.

In John 8:23 Jesus said, “Ye are from beneath; I am from above.”

Jesus was ever conscious of Him heavenly origin and of Hid heavenly relationship.

Nothing would help us so much as to be aware that we do not belong to the earth. We are on the earth but we are not of it. Our citizenship is in heaven (Php 3:20).

We are not longer a part of this Satan-rules world. We are born from above.

We have the Nature and the Life of the Father. We are in Christ.

Believers are in danger of bring attracted to earthly things, such as money and the pleasure of life.

If we could know we are not of the earth, as we know we are men or women, and know that our highest joy is to be found alone in Christ, it would make a great difference in our earthly walk.

E. W. Kenyon, New Creation Realities, pp27-28

(Interesting to note in this quote that Kenyon, who is seen as the grandaddy of the Faith Movement, quotes here from the ASV, which was the most modern translation in his day, whereas today you can't be a real faith preacher unless you preach from the KJV! It's in the faith-preacher rulebook!)

What the World needs now...

Having now finished Snyder's "The Radical Wesley" I was heartened by this in the closing paragraph:

"What the world needs now is not Radical Protestantism but radical Christianity."

That of course and "love, sweet love"!

Are You a Radical Protestant?

I have nearly finished reading Howard Snyder's "The Radical Wesley" - a very interesting read blending biography with an easy to understand analysis of church renewal.

In the book Snyder suggests 7 characteristics for a model of Radical Protestantism. I thought you might be interested to see where your church experience and personal convictions compare with this model!

The Radical Protestant Model of Church

1. Voluntary adult membership based on a covenant-commitment to Jesus Christ, emphasising obedience to Jesus as necessary evidence of faith in him. Believer's baptism has usually been the sign of this commitment, but nor always. The point is not, fundamentally, the form of joining the covenant community but the fact and meaning of the conscious committed membership in it.
2. A community or brotherhood of discipline, edification, correction and mutual aid, in conscious separation from the world, as the primary visible expression of the church.
3. A life of good works, service and witness as an expression of Christian love and obedience expected of all believers. Thus there is an emphasis on the ministry of the laity, rather than of a special ministerial class and the church is viewed as "a missionary minority."
4. The Spirit and the Word as comprising the sole basis for authority, implying a de-emphasis on or rejection of church traditions and creeds.
5. Primitivism and restitutionism. The early church is the model, and the goal is to restore the essential elements of early church life and practice. This usually implies some view of the fall of the church as well.
6. A pragmatic, functional approach the church order and structure.
7. A belief in the universal church as the body of Christ, of which the particular visible believing community is but a part.

So, which boxes do you tick?

Quotation from "The Radical Wesley" p 114, Snyder. P.S. the pic is Snyder not just some random bloke in a beard! Click on the link to WineSkins to visit Snyder's website.

Is Orthodoxy Overrated? Part 2

"A man may be orthodox in every point [and yet] have no religion at all."

John Wesley, "The Way to the Kingdom," Works, VI, 141.

[Please note, the title of this post is not an indication that I intend to publish heresies on this blog!]

Keri Said...

Just as short post with a quote from the Ministries Without Borders Leaders' Conference.

"It's not so bad to re-dig a well - you already know where the water is." - Keri Jones

If there are wells of blessing, or intimacy with God, or gift or ministry which you have allowed to be filled in - go and re-dig that well!