Jesus Christ and the Affairs of this World

Some of the responses I've had over the last months when I talk about the folly of believing the extraordinary hype and misconceptions concerning the cult of environmentalism and outright lie of global warming, shows that many who read Acts 29 Review have bought into the brainwashing, and don't mind drinking the koolaide without checking it out to see if there's any poison in it.

The scriptures teach us we are not to follow every wind of doctrine, and the Lord Jesus has provided us with the means to resist false and spurious doctrine which leads us into all directions but the right one.

But let me say this before anything else; even if everything about global warming, climate change and environmentalism were true, I would still say what I've been saying, and it changes nothing.

Now the things being foisted upon us aren't true, but it's the underlying purpose of God that's at stake, and nothing in this life or world was meant to distract us from that, no matter how
it's presented to us.

So let's again look at the eternal purpose of God in Jesus Christ, which trumps everything else, and really, shows us there is nothing else.

The end of the eternal purpose of God, and that which has dwelt in Him and has been part of Him from before creation, is that He will fill everything with Himself, that He may be all in all. That's it! End of plan! No confusion! Nothing else! Period! Got it?

Everything in this - our selves, the world, and our spiritual enemy, works toward moving us away from God's eternal purpose, and is done quite creatively.

Remember the extraordinary response of Jesus Christ to the situation with Martha and Mary, where Martha complained that Mary wasn't helping her serve everyone?

Jesus first of all identified the source of Martha's complaint: she was always worried about so many things. Then He corrected her by saying Mary was doing the only thing that was really necessary for a human being, and He wasn't going to take that away from her.

What was it? She was simply humbling herself at the feet of Jesus listening to and fellowshipping with Him and the others at their home.

To be filled with Jesus Christ to the point of Him being all in all is to humbly and quietly walk with and before Him while He permeates and imparts Himself to us within; on a moment by moment and daily basis. It's nothing less and nothing more than that. That's why we were created, and that's why Jesus Christ created us. That's our purpose with nothing else added to it.

What all these other things do is take our attention off of what is really important so that we can get caught up with and think we're doing something important because we're busy blabbing about it or somehow taking part in it in a way that makes us thing we're saving the planet or some other delusion of grandeur.

The cost is fellowship with and centering our lives on Jesus Christ. I believe one of the major reasons we cooperate with this, aside from allowing ourselves to be led astray, is because true fellowship with Jesus Christ is a death blow to our self, and we don't like to walk in the light as He is in the light, as it eventually exposes who we are, and we don't like that.

So it's easier to follow a bunch of causes which do nothing to build the person of Jesus Christ within us, but actually becomes an enemy of God because it takes us away from what He has always only cared about: being with us in a loving and intimate way, in order that we are changed into His image.

Causes, possibly more than anything else in our generation, draw and entice us away from the Lord's purpose to chase after endless rainbows and salvation projects which we feel are more important than Christ.

Part of the reason for this is enshrinement of politics as the agent of change rather than Jesus Christ in His people. So you go chasing after confisgated money called taxes to get your share so you can chase the latest activist fads.

Much of this is generated by fear and torment that the world is going to end, and people embrace it as if it's a statement of fact and faith, and don't bother to check assertions out to see if they're even true.

This is why there are tools used by evil people to attempt to pressure the masses into allowing legislation to be enacted, which of course must be done today if we're going to have a world tomorrow. That's an old but effective tactic used to tap into the innate fears so many people have and to make them believe the government can be our savior.

Only Jesus Christ is our Savior, and there is nothing else that can be allowed to replace Him in our lives in that capacity. Government for a long time has been attempting to push Jesus Christ and Christianty out of the equation in order to position itself as god to the people. The fact that many of you reading this aren't even aware of that and have embraced that uncritically shows how far down the rabbit hole you've traveled.

Again, as I've mentioned several times recently, winds of doctrine doesn't only refer to doctrine about Jesus Christ, but it refers to teachings and assertions made from generation to generation which attempt to sway the masses to believe a lie in order to gain more power and control, effectively placing Jesus Christ as some type of usurper or fraud who needs to take His place as one of the many gods out there, and quit attempting to assert His rights as the only God of this universe, although He is the King of kings and Lord of lords.

I will never stop calling for people to abandon the misguided and baseless assertions connected to environmental and other causes like that, which in many cases are based upon outright lies and manufactured data, and at best need time to work out as we gain wisdom.

But people who even name Christ have bought into this or have become pragmatic in order to gather those who insist upon this being part of the Church, when Paul told Timothy that a good soldier of Jesus Christ isn't to get caught up in the affairs of this world.

So now what are you going to do about that wisdom of the Holy Spirit spoken through Paul to Timothy, and by extention - to us

Christ wants to be seen, not simply heard

The end result of the eternal purpose of God is that He will be all in all; everything that He is will be embodied in His people. This is the ultimate purpose of creation, that who He is invisibly will be shown forth visibly in a people.

He does this through a love relationship with His people, whom He calls His bride. But Christ isn't looking for a trophy wife that is seen as worldly eye candy; an ornament built to impress the world. Many of the people of God wrongly believe they can impress the world by outdoing them. Yet it's futile to try to impress the world this way. You can't outworld the world - we were never meant to.

Just like Christ is completely different than us, as we allow Him to form and shape Himself within us, we become completely other than this world, which bears the imprint of Satan.

In other words, our purpose as a Church is to show forth Jesus Christ, to bear His image, to be a testimony of who He is. That's why Paul tells the churches that they are a letter meant to be read by all men.

Talking about the church as a candlestick, T.A. Sparks said:

"But we say to one another together - what matters it that we have meetings, larger or smaller, and go on with our teaching, with our magazine with a candlestick of gold printed on it? None of these things matters at all. I say, let them go, the Lord save us from them, unless, as the fruit of all and as the source of all, there is this light which is an impact - without any inconsistency, without contradictions, without a lie - so that our teaching is not in the first place heard but seen. If there is to be a coming and an enquiring, it is because something is seen. 'I turned to see the voice.' People are hearing things, and they are turning to see. What do they see? A light, not a teaching? A light with an impact?"

Sadly, a number of believers who think they're being radical and doing this, have already started off wrong, and instead of being a testimony of Christ are moving off Him as their purpose for being a people, and are embracing all types of worldly ideas and thoughts they think are important to God.

Instead of pursuing Christ, they're more interested in being politically correct and believing the many philosophical lies taught them in the school system and universities.

They are trying to impress the world by parroting their psychology and philosophies, rather than embracing Christ as their wisdom. They're blindly following the environmentalist mantra of endless fears, and think they're doing some type of service to Christ. They're following cunning fables created by fallen man and attempting to wrap the name of Christ around it like He's approving of it.

Those doing this won't last along outside the religious systems of this day, as Christ doesn't give or commit Himself to these types of irrelevant things. As the scriptures say, "perfect love casts out fear," and the river of doctrine flowing out of the world that attempts to strike fear in the hearts of man (and God's people)doesn't belong amongst the people of God. We not only need to quit embracing it, but we need ignore it for the most part.

I'm even starting to see a number of misguided and deceived people repeating the ugly lie that homosexuals are born that way, not even realizing they're attacking Christ and His view of that evil lifestyle. It doesn't matter whether it's the old or new testament, homosexuality has always been condemned by God, and to imply that it's the fault of Christ is wickedness, and there are people being given a voice that are spewing out this garbage.

I'm bringing these things up because many seeking to change the practices of the Church of Christ are being deceived and/or talked into pursuing this nonsense, while basically abandoning Christian teaching and doctrine that has refuted this from the beginning.

The thing Christ is after isn't to change the basic doctrines of the church which have been in the scriptures and part of church life from the beginning, He's changing the practices of the church and calling us back to a close fellowship with Him intimately.

He's calling us again to embrace the cross and allow Him to work His work within us, weakening the old man so that the new humanity - represented by Jesus Christ - can be formed within us and be read by all men.

Christ isn't interested in changing or saving this dead world, He's interested in calling us out of it, which is what the term used for the church in the Greek actually means.

While we are to be salt in this world, it's for the purpose of keeping the world from completely imploding and self-destructing before its time, and so Christ can call all those who are to be saved to Him.

When I mentioned above that Christ isn't interested in saving the world, I mean by that that He's already done it. Anybody that calls upon His name shall be saved. From there we are to get back to the purpose God created us: to fill us completely with Himself. That is what we are to focus on and pursue.

Why God not Dwelling in Temples made with Hands is so Important

Many times when talking about the practices of Christianity - especially what are wrongly called "churches" - referring to buildings, it can seem to be a irrelevant point, as it was just the way things were done back at the beginning of the church.

That would be wrong thinking, as the revelation that God doesn't dwell in special buildings wasn't something related to the culture of that day, or lack of money to build some type of special building, it is something that has always been part of the very heart of God.

Steven died defending this fact, with Saul - whose name would be changed to Paul - listening and looking on. He would have never done that if it wasn't crucial to the people of God.

Calling a building a church is a horrid idea and thought, and needs to be wiped out of our way of life and thinking. It contradicts "everything" the New Testament says about what the church is.

God always had the eternal thought in Him that He would dwell within a people; to be in intimate union with them, fellowshipping on an ongoing, daily basis. What does that have to do with a building? Absolutely nothing.

So what these buildings do is take away from what it is God really wants to experience together with us, which is sharing and living His life within a people, i.e. dwelling.

When people think going to a building has anything to do with what the church is, they think they've discharged the will and purpose of God during a couple hours a week, and then go on living in a false sense of personal satisfaction and gratification, thinking God is pleased with them.

God is after much more than going to an edifice, He created us so that He could live in an intimate relationship with us: individually and corporately. That's why there was never a special building with the idea of it being a church. That idea never entered into the thought of Christians before Constantine turned them to it.

While early Christians got off track in other areas before Constantine, this wasn't one of them. He built what was the first special buildings eventually called a "church." It was an historical, monumental disaster.

The point in continuing to talk about this? We must open ourselves to what it is that God intended before creation and time. These buildings and what is practiced in them is one of the greatest hindrances to that happening.

Centered in Christ

One of the most important characteristics of the early church was their life being centered in Christ. You cannot read the New Testament without encountering this reality over and over again.
 
When the believers were first called “Christians” it was done as an attack upon their way of life. Of course the word Christian basically means that those who it was directed at were Christ centered. Those who first applied it to the believers at Antioch did so for the purpose of mocking them.  Their lives so lived for and from Christ that those who did not believe scoffed at their passion for Christ. This is not a problem that exists among believers too much in our day.  

There is an absolute call to return to this fervor for Christ again. When I say the word fervor, I am not referring to some emotional high that goes up and down with the events of life. No I am referring to a daily, moment by moment fellowship with Christ that depends upon Him for all things.  

Since all things have been summed up in Christ, when we are in Him, we have all things. While all who believe are in Him, I am talking about the practical, daily outworking of this reality. When we truly believe, we have all of Him, not just a bit and a piece here and there.  

When you read the account of the early church, you get a glimpse of the practical reality of being centered in Christ. You see the outworking of the spirit through Christ’s body, giving and sharing Christ with one another, building one another up in love.  Their entire lives existed for Christ and Christ alone. Oh it included the many aspects of everyday life as Paul reveals in his letters to the churches. For example he speaks of work, marriage, children, loving one another, among many things.  

The point is that none of this existed outside of the person of Jesus Christ. It was showing forth who Christ is to the world. They saw Christ as the resurrected, living Lord and then responded to one another as a result of this reality. Christ was their truth, He was their reality. There was no other truth or reality.  

This is the most needed thing that any believer throughout history will ever need. Nothing can be right if a person isn’t living a life that is absolutely centered in the person of Jesus Christ. You can do all sorts of external things and look good to man, but you will never be able to enter fully into that great eternal purpose that has existed from before creation to live a live that is totally in Christ Himself.  

When you commit yourself and ask God for this privilege, He will more than answer your hearts request and bring into all that the Father has prepared for you before the foundation of the earth.