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.

Moravians - Centered in Christ

There was a time when the group of people history has called the “Moravians,” solely lived for Christ. Everything they did was done for the purpose that all would depend upon Christ.  

Before getting into the practicals of this, I want to say that it is what is behind the practicals that matters, much more than what is seen.

Nonetheless, from what was unseen and desired was born a response that for a season of time brought tremendous results.  

So in talking of these things, let’s remember why things were done the way they were, rather than what was done. Again the reason these things were done was for simple devotion to Christ.  

A lot of what is remembered about the Moravians was the well publicized period of 100 years that they unceasingly prayed and went in many places of the world spreading the gospel. What is less well-known is their emphasis upon spiritual growth concerning the body of believers; especially intimacy with Christ.  

One of the ways that they encouraged this to happen was to establish what they called, “choirs.”

Choirs were people of the same gender, age group, and marital status. They would live together communally. This happened as early as 18 months old, all the way to a time when people were widowed.  

All aspects of a person’s life took place within these arrangements. For example, when a child was approximately 18 months old, they were put within a choir of all the children of similar ages, until the age of 4. At that time they were separated until marriage from the opposite sex, as far as living arrangements and work was concerned.  

There was a series of these choirs throughout their lives. At around 12 they would go into another choir of older children of the same gender. Then at around 20 they would go into single brothers and single sisters’ choirs. If and when they married they would be in the choir of those who were married. When one was widowed they would be in the choir of those who were widowed. If they were remarried they would go back into the choir of those who were married.

The major reason this was done was to encourage intimate union with Christ.  
The practical reason was that those in the same age groups, gender, and life circumstances, would be in similar spiritual junctures. Thus they could support and encourage one another in their journey.  

Another very important reason for this was to deemphasize blood ties so that fellowship with Christ was first in their lives. The history of this practical outworking was that when there was counsel sought, the various brethren would direct them to Christ, not to themselves.  

The overall separation of genders was also for the sole purpose that there would be a total dependency upon Christ rather than a soulish dependency upon another human being.  

This doesn’t mean that they didn’t live close together; they did. They simply lived in different lodgings and worked separately, with differing responsibilities.  

The reason I mentioned at the beginning of the article concerning why these things were done is what’s important. Someone could easily copy these things and get terrible results. The point that was made was that they saw the most important thing in life: the simple devotion to Christ. Everything else was to pale in comparison to that. The practical steps they took were in response to that understanding.  

We need to center into the eternal aspect of these things, while looking to see if some of the practical can apply for us today.