Acts 7:46... who found favor before God and asked to find a dwelling for the God of Jacob. 47 But Solomon built Him a house. 48 However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says: 49 "Heaven is My throne, And earth is My footstool. What house will you build for Me? says the LORD, Or what is the place of My rest? 50 Has My hand not made all these things? 51 "You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. 52 Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers, 53 who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it."
On a beautiful August Sunday morning I was going out to my car ready to go to church when I notice my neighbors doing the same thing. We were each going to church in a different city. Suddenly, my heart became very heavy for I realized they were part of the body of Christ yet we never have had any fellowship even though they have a bible study once a week. I have never been invited to their church, study or home. But, then I have not invited them either. I know they would not understand my knowledge in the Lord.
I began to hear the spirit tell me this was not right. It was never the plan of God to have multiple groups of believers in one city separated, competitive and uncaring for each other. All believers are a part of the one body of Christ, Jesus and each city should be the complete expression of his person. Today we have many expressions of men pretending to represent God and his Christ in the earth. While I do not doubt our sincerity, our love for the Lord or the good works we do I must say we have missed the mark. We have bowed and conformed to traditions of men and not the word of God. We are all out of the will of God and do not recognize our own rebellion. We go to different churches two to three times a week and have no awareness that we are out of his perfect will. Our rebellion is so deep rooted that we call “Evil good and good evil.” We continue to do our thing and not the things of God.
Do we expect God to bless us when we refuse to adhere to his word? I am not talking about material wealth but the blessing of power, and the full anointing of the Holy Spirit enabling us to do the greater works. We can only do what the father tells us to do. He never told us to build according to the traditions of men, denominations or any large structures physical or philosophical. We have deceived ourselves into thinking we are doing his will. We have been deceived! Many of our leaders are really building their own kingdoms and not the Kingdom of God. Gal 3:2 This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 3 Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? 4 Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain. We must open our eyes and ears and not neglect our salvation. Perhaps, we have not suffered at all.
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Gen 2:22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. 23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. 24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
It was out of the dust of the earth, the Lord gathered the clay that made man in his image, both male and female. The Lord laid out the plan in the very beginning. When God created man in his own image, he created him in the form of male and female. The two were created together. They were the expression of God. Matt 19:4-7, And He answered and said to them,” Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female," 5 and said, "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?" 6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
Man and woman were the expression of God in the earth they were not to be separated. Moses gave the bill of divorcement because of the hardness of hearts. It is the hardness of heart, the heart not circumcised or the heart of unbelief, which separates man and woman not God. And so it is in the church. It is man who divides the church not God. It is not the new wine that brings separation but it is the hardness of the evil heart of unbelief that causes the divorcement. It is God’s purpose that his church expressed all of his fullness and not the favored doctrines, the tradition of men or parts of his teachings. He wants his substance of reality expressed and lived by his body.
Do we see the difference between his character the essence of his being as compared to his teachings interpreted by man? One is reality and truth and brings about the divine nature of God in our being while the other fills us with pride, arrogance and everything that brings separation. When a woman is separated from her husband, she commits adultery if she remarries while her husband is still alive. The churches across this nation and world have committed spiritual adultery for they are married to their doctrines and denominations. They have different spouses. This is a hard saying for it reveals the hardness of our hearts. Let us repent and turn unto the Lord that he may heal us and raise us the third day.
Eph.5:23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Eph.5:31-31 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." 32 This is a profound mystery-but I am talking about Christ and the church.
This is a great mystery! The plan prepared by God. The blue print, the schismatic, the eternal purpose of the Father in the earth is the relationship between himself and his church. He is the head, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit is the guiding force in her. The church is in subjection to him and guided by no other. Acts 1:2...after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the Apostles whom he had chosen: No doctrine or person should put this relationship asunder. No new teaching or understanding should bring about her separation from the will and eternal purpose of God. There is no bill of divorcement allowed in the church of the living God. The church is the fullness of his person. It is here that the Lord has chosen to dwell and manifest himself.
Eph. 2:20 Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; 21 In whom all the building fitly framed together growth unto an holy temple in the Lord: He is not going to manifest himself in an old or new wine skin that man has developed or prepared. The church is the wine skin he has chosen. The church is an organism with the capacity to breathe in and out the old and new wine breathed into her by the Holy Spirit. It is true we must all come out of Babylon, out of the traditions of man and out of the confusion of doctrine but we must also realize where we are going. We are the called out ones, the ecclesia of God called out to assembly ourselves together in his name and form the functioning church. Just because we feel we have great enlightenment does not change the original plan as to where we must go. When the children of Israel were called out of Babylon, they did not go to their own places of worship they went to Jerusalem.
God called them out to bring them into the place where he chose for them to worship him. That place has always been Jerusalem, which is above and has a local expression from the ecclesia in every city. Our enlightenment does not give us the right to abandon the pattern nor to ignore the mystery of God, which is his church the fullness of him. While those who walk not in the spirit give their full attention to correct doctrine and traditions there are those who have received enlightenment feel they have the license to by-pass what they consider unimportant in the eyes of God. The church was born out-of-the-side of Christ and the two became one. There is no separation from bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. We must build according to the pattern. There must be a place for the new wine to collect.
Throughout the history of the church there have been great moves and outpourings of God. What came in strength, and power waned and ebbed into dead doctrines and teachings. These moves were absorbed into a present denomination or it created a new denomination. The reason for this is the wine was poured-out but there was no place for it to flow. It ended up in old wines skins and burst or it was put in new wine skins and lost its taste. The only place the new and old wine belongs is in the vessels that the Lord has chosen and not man. He put the new wine in six earthen jars. He has chosen his church his body and in that body lives full the One who fills the whole wide world. (J.B. Philips)
the voice 1998
Readers may direct questions and comments to: hiswinepress@live.com
The Place I Have Chosen 1b:
return
