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Articles 2024-2026
After Paul had informed the Ephesian believers of God’s purpose to ultimately fill His Church with all His fullness, he decided to personally issue a challenge to them.
I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep (Greek, TEREO – to guard, to preserve, to watch over protectively) the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
The only way we will participate successfully in God’s purpose of unifying His people around His presence is if we walk humbly with each other and learn to interact together with gentleness of heart. When we were born again, we quickly discovered that we were one in spirit with His people. God had given us an amazing present.
Unity of the Spirit is a supernatural gift that no man can produce. But the Lord challenges us to make sure that we guard and preserve it. The reason is clear. He has called us to walk in the reality of our God–given identity which is rooted in our oneness with Him and revealed by our oneness with each other.
There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
In Paul’s description, there is no thought of denominational divisions, competitive attitudes among brethren, or separation between believers of different ethnicities. There is only the singular set–apart people of God. But in that unity is the diversity of spiritual gifts that He has personally given to each of His people. And each individual is unique.
But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.
God has measured His grace to each one of us. Some have said that individually we are to minister to others just like Jesus did on earth two thousand years ago. But Jesus was apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, teacher, and the whole body of Christ all by Himself. There is no one individual alive today who can duplicate that. When it comes to character development, yes, we are to be conformed to His likeness. But when it comes to ministry, God’s answer for the nations is an integrated corporate body with Jesus Himself functioning as the coordinating head. Such a vision is beyond organizational capabilities. It is simply impossible for us to produce.
But if we walk together with lowliness and gentleness of heart, God will enable us to welcome His grace in each other. And we will need to be humble in heart because His expressed grace often looks different in others compared to how it looks in us. In an evangelist compared to a teacher, in a prophet as over against a pastor, etc. God’s strategy is clear. He has determined to reveal His wisdom both to the spiritual powers in the heavens and to the nations on earth through the diversity of His grace displayed in His people. In other words, no one person can express the full multifaceted revelation of His grace, no one person can be the whole body of Christ.
On the other hand, God can do anything He wants through any one of His people. He can raise a dead man to life using any believer. But by and large, He has decided that there are some who will move in the gift of miracles more than others. Some will function more in a teaching capacity, while others will be more prophetic. At the same time, all of us must have the heart of a servant no matter what God’s grace looks like in us.
God has measured His grace to each of us so that apart from each other, we are incomplete. Those who do not see their need for their brethren will often tend to think more highly of themselves than they ought. As Paul said to the Roman believers:
For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them:
So, to sum up these few thoughts, when Jesus died and rose again, He had in view His purpose of manifesting His multifaceted grace in and through the lives of His uniquely diverse people.
Therefore He says: “When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men.”
Having won total victory over sin and death, Jesus then took captivity i.e., bondage or enslavement and made it His captive. He captured bondage; He enslaved enslavement. Jesus is now the king over the bondage of sin. While sin’s power had seemed invincible over the course of many centuries, everything changed at the cross. It was there that Jesus obliterated the power of spiritual bondage. Satan’s power to enslave people has now been nullified for all who have repented and have been plunged into Christ in His victorious death, burial, and resurrection. Now we must by faith reckon/conclude ourselves to be dead to sin (Romans 6:7 - 11).
But once He had captured captivity and made it subject to Him, He then turned and began giving gifts to His people in order to facilitate across the earth the spiritual freedom He had just purchased at such great cost.
(Now this, “He ascended”–what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things (Greek, PAS – everything).
Having defeated sin’s power to enslave, He ascended on high in order to invade and fill simply everywhere with His presence.[1] And He has. For example, two people on opposite sides of the earth, because they are both filled with the Holy Spirit, can say at the same time that Christ has come to dwell in them and that He is their hope of glory (Colossians 1:27). Indeed, the man Christ Jesus is now omnipresent through the power of the Holy Spirit. Yet multitudes have not acknowledged this truth nor opened their hearts to His appeal. And so, the King’s invasion continues.
Let us agree with His stated purpose and specifically invite Him into our homes, our extended families, our towns, our universities, our nation at all levels. And let us welcome Him in greater manifestation in the midst of our local churches. After all, as David said in the second Psalm, the Messiah has received the promise of an inheritance – even the nations reaching into the ends of the earth (Psalm 2:8).
But in many ways, political leaders have in the past and also today presently rage against such a thought and scheme empty plans for the very world that is not theirs but Christ’s to inherit (Psalm 2:1 - 3). So, our God mocks their rebellious arrogance and proclaims (He actually has been proclaiming this since the resurrection of Christ) that He has installed (Hebrew, NASAK – to install, to pour out as a drink offering) His King on His holy hill of Zion (Psalm 2:4 - 6). Of course, Mount Zion is the place on earth where the redeemed gather and the Lamb is worshiped (Hebrews 12:22 - 24). Such a word is unnerving, to say the least, to the hearts of fallen world schemers because the proclamation about a new king is in fact the announcement of a new world order. And to admit that it came into being apart from them would be to call into question everything about who they think they are as well as about what they have planned for the nations.
Two thousand years ago, as a result of His victory at Calvary, because His whole life had been a poured–out drink offering, Jesus received all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18) and began His invasion of the whole creation. Again, let us cooperate with Him and invite Him into all areas of our lives and nations.
But here is a question. How far will He go in His invasion project prior to His return in glory? This matter is debated by many within the Church. Some say that He will largely Christianize the world through the power of the proclaimed gospel and the outpourings of the Holy Spirit. Others say that where we are now is about as far as He will go and that His return is just over the horizon. Either way, let us be clear. The fallen world schemers will not succeed in their plans for the nations. Notice the promise of the Father to the Son.
You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.
And here is His counsel in this present age to those very world leaders.
Now therefore, be wise, O kings; be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.
Today, let us embrace and welcome Heaven’s invasion of the earth. And however we view the end times, let us agree that the return of Christ is the blessed hope of the Church and will gloriously fulfill our prayers in our present spiritual warfare. Amen.
Donald Rumble – December 2024
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