| << | Contents | >> |
Articles 2018-2020
And someone came to Him and said, “Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?”
Here is the question that religion tries to answer. Outside of Christianity, every major religion focuses on what deeds people should do to be righteous. And even many Christians fall into this trap. But Jesus’ response was powerful.
And He said to him, “Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good…
Goodness is not found in what people do; it is found in the one who at His very core defines it; God is good. And it is as we come into harmony with Him through repentance and faith that His goodness is revealed in us.
...but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.”
Jesus was clear. To enter into life, we must keep (Greek, TEREO – to guard, to keep, to watch) God’s commandments. Obeying His word is then a symptom of keeping it. We must take what He says and watch over it, count it as important, and not let it leak away. One whose heart is tender toward the Lord will count His word as important and will treasure it. The wealthy young man questioning Jesus had been living in this manner but knew that something was still missing. God had brought him to the next step in his quest; He was now face to face with Christ.
So, which commandments should he keep? Our Lord lists some while leaving out the most important one of all (Matthew 19:18 - 19). Instead of telling the young man that he needed to love God with all of his being, He simply showed him what he loved more – his wealth. In Mark’s account of this event, we learn that Jesus immediately felt love for this young man (Mark 10:21). Here was someone pursuing God. He was not an adulterer, a thief, or an idolater. He counted as important what God had revealed in His word. But now for the first time in his life he was facing Heaven’s final Word to man. And it would cost him everything.
Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be complete (Greek, TELEIOS), go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
Though sometimes translated as “perfect”, TELEIOS does not hold out the promise of sinlessness in this life. It carries more the idea of someone coming into all that they are supposed to. God is TELEIOS; He is everything He is supposed to be. For us it could be likened to a small acorn ultimately becoming a full-grown tree. God was calling this young man; there was a Heaven-designed fullness awaiting him. And he had to choose correctly. In fact, Jesus even invited him to join His apostolic entourage. This was not an offer He made every day.
But when the young man heard this statement, he went away grieving; for he was one who owned much property.
He did not leave and mock Jesus’ offer; he walked away grieving. It seems that the hand of the Lord was upon him, convicting him, drawing him, causing him to see his emptiness apart from Christ. Having personally experienced the Lord’s pursuit and conviction of sin in my own life through several years of sinful rebellion in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I am confident that at some point this young man came to the end of his conflict, cried out to the Lord, and came into significant usefulness in God’s kingdom. Our Lord can be very persistent.
In the early 1970s I gave my life back to Him. Though I had walked with the Lord as a child, I rebelled in my teenage years. When I returned to Him, I had to lay my whole life down at His feet. So much of what I was involved in at that point expressed a heart of rebellion. But within two years I was teaching His word on a regular basis. I am so thankful for the teaching elders in our church who trained me and especially my dad who was mighty in the ministry of God’s word. It was a time of revival and there were many young people coming to know Him who needed instruction in the Scriptures. And though I made a lot of mistakes, God was gracious, merciful, and patient to help me learn His ways. Over the next twenty years, He sent me to a number of different nations teaching the Bible. It was an exciting time and I am personally convinced that I learned more from my experience than those to whom I spoke.
Then in the 1990s after attending some meetings where the presence of God was powerfully manifest, I had an unsettling encounter with Him. I was asking Him whether or not I should go and speak at a particular church that had invited me. What He said was unexpected. “I want you to stop all extra-local ministry. I want you to stop leading worship. I want you to stop teaching the Bible. And I want you to stop going to leaders’ meetings.” Uh, what? “But Lord, You are the one who gave me those things. And You have blessed them.” It seemed that what He was saying was that I could have a ministry with a measure of His blessing, or I could have Him. In the ensuing years I have prayed many times – “Lord, I don’t want a ministry. I want You.” Ministry is not our goal; it is the symptom of intimacy with God. Like Paul, our ambition is to know Him (Philippians 3:7 - 10).
It was some months later that a visiting prophetic man prophesied over me that the Lord was putting the sword back in my hand.
Today there is so much “stuff” in Christianity. Local churches are too often known for their approach to church structure, their musical excellence, their particular school of theological thought, their eschatology, their present expression of a certain stream of Christian tradition, their connection with the youth of this generation, etc. While all of these may carry a certain importance, yet I believe the Lord is saying that we face a looming confrontation with Him. Like the rich young man questioning Jesus, Christ’s Church has an amazing eternal call resting on us. Where we are is not where we are going. How are we to arrive at our destiny?
We have the option of a continuing ministry with a measure of God’s blessing or we can have Him. And what the earth needs is a clearer manifestation of Him. And His purpose is to reveal Himself to us and through us to the nations in ever increasing clarity in the coming years.
Paul spoke of the foundation of the apostles and prophets (Ephesians 2:20). These ministries are not themselves the foundation of the Church since there can be no other bedrock than Christ Himself (1Corinthians 3:11). Therefore, they must be the ones uniquely called to unveil Christ foundationally in His house. Through their influence, believers will gather to Him and receive Him as the center of both their individual and corporate lives. One result will be that leaders who have been far too much the focus in Christian gatherings will discover how to step back and give way to Christ. His coordinating power as the Head of His body must come into clarity and be revealed so that the miracle of “body-ness” can emerge again among the nations as it did in the first century. In other words, local churches will start to function more like human bodies than like organizations. While organizations reflect the mind of its leaders, a body reveals the thoughts of its head. Christian leaders can then function as overseers in a more biblical manner. They will watch over/see over a people learning to move as one, coordinated from heaven. Apostolic and prophetic insight coupled with authoritative yet servanthood-based input will be crucial for the Church to make this transition.
But what would ever motivate strong Christian leaders to give ground in such a way? There can only be one answer – Christ. The rich young ruler needed to come face to face with Him before he could ever see the cost necessary to embrace his eternal destiny. And even then, it was an impossibility – about as feasible as getting a camel through the eye of a needle. In other words, for the Church in our generation to get from where we are to where we must go is totally impossible. But with God, nothing is impossible. And besides, He has a strategy.
Again, He is raising up authentic New Testament apostles and prophets. But His purpose for them is not that they would simply plant a new stream(s) of churches connected to them and their oversight. Rather, they will see Heaven’s larger goal – a singular people in every region united around Christ. And they will unveil Him wherever He sends them, having no agenda but Him. Through them God will reveal Heaven’s perfect foundation for what He is building. But for this to work, they must be walking in what they are preaching. They cannot simply have a disconnected ministry, a state-recognized corporation identity with themselves as the CEO. They must be walking in “body-ness” themselves, accountable to other ministries who with them are practically involved in giving oversight to local functioning expressions of the body of Christ.
Otherwise, validly called apostles will simply bring forth more sects while validly called prophets will function like Old Testament prophets. In large part, this seems to describe our present condition. But a day of change is dawning.
To get His servants to His priority, our Lord intends a confrontation with them. Choices will have to be made. When leaders are willing to give up to Christ even the very ministries that He has given them, then He alone will become their life message. No agenda but Christ. Partial surrender will allow for only a diminished revelation of the foundation guaranteeing the construction of yet more limited and competitive sects revealing too much the mind of their leaders as over against the singular mind of Christ in each particular region.
Again, getting from where we are to where He is leading us will be about as easy as getting a camel through the eye of a needle. Human ingenuity simply will not suffice. But our hope is not in the leaders of the Church taking us where we need to go but in the One who has determined to establish among us what is categorically beyond our ability to accomplish. In the end, He will be recognized as the only one worthy to be glorified for what He has built.
Donald Rumble – September 2019
Search Comments
This page has been visited 0041 times.
| << | Contents | >> |
10 per page