FIRST THINGS FIRST     -    “Related to The Lord”

          A number of years ago I was asked to teach Church government in a local congregation.  My job was to “set the house (The Church) in order”.  There can be no order in the corporate Church until there is first order in the heart of believers.  After all, The Church is not the ornate buildings we meet in. The Church is the Ekklesia (the called out ones), the redeemed of every land, the people of God.  I feel that most of the Body of Christ would handle some physical changes in their religious tradition much easier than real heart change. 

The first order of change: God’s people must develop personal relationship with Him. Our purpose must become the doing of the work that is in His heart and there is no way to know His heart apart from personal time with Him.  The priesthood of Eli’s day had fallen into “man pleasing”, excess, and doing their own thing in the Name of the Lord.  The prophet told Eli that God would judge his unfaithful priesthood, [1]“And I will raise me up a faithful priest, that shall do according to that which is in mine heart and in my mind”.  That “faithful priest” is the Lord Jesus Christ and that priesthood is the priesthood of Melchizedek, the priesthood of Christ, [2]the priesthood of Believers. 

A Table Set For Me

The church has received and walked in countless false paradigms, dictated by the ideas and philosophies of man.  As a child there was a table set for me.  When I sat down to that table, I was told, "This table is the fullness of God.  Eat it.  Eat it all."  I was eager and obedient and after I had eaten its fruit, I found myself satisfied for a season.  The cup I drank was the marvelous “New Birth."  Soon however, as little babies do, hunger returned.  I needed another bottle.  I was placed into Sunday school and began learning the wonderful Bible stories.  For many years the learning seemed to pacify me.  I had an intellectual, historical understanding of a living God who loved, spoke to, dwelt among, contended with, and judged people. 

However, my life seemed relegated to the single encounter at the new birth.   Progressively, my soul became fueled with a hunger to know the God of these great things.  I wanted to have another encounter with the God of my Salvation.   My “spiritual fathers” answered me with puzzled looks and “busy work”.  I became the church janitor, Sunday school teacher, youth leader, delegate to the convention, song leader, and finally in desperation they said I must be called to the mysterious “special service”.  I was sent as a witness to the lost.  After all, I couldn’t do lost folks much harm and it got me out of their hair.  Still none of this filled the longing I had for Him.  So I began a personal crusade to answer the question: Is there more?  Surely, this is not all!  So, I searched for God.  I looked for Him.  I hungered for Him.  I longed for His presence.  I prayed, fasted, searched, and pressed and I found Him.  I discovered Him in new and wonderful ways.  As I pursued God I found that the tradition of men had deceived me.  I found the spiritual benchmark that had been passed to me fell greatly short of fulfilling the purpose and plan of God for my life.  The error of my fathers was by no means malicious or an orchestrated plot to keep me from growing on.  They simply gave what they had and followed the pattern of those that had preceded them.

With each encounter I became more and more awed by the wonder of His person.  As I studied the scripture, I found these “new ways” were only new to me.  I learned that God created man to fellowship him, to talk with him, to walk with him, to enjoy an intimacy with him that only the dearest friends know.  I learned, the customs of my heavenly Father, were not even the ways of mans religious tradition.  I began to discover the ways of the living God, and to fellowship the living head Christ Jesus who loved me and gave himself for me. 

I found him to be more than a storybook Jesus.  I found him to be much more than the God of a single encounter.  He has become my “most treasured friend”.  In the darkness of troubled circumstance, He has never abandoned me.  I have met Him and made Him “The Lord Sovereign” of my life.  He has visited me.  He has instructed me.  He has equipped me.  He is the beloved of my life.  I cherish talking to Him.  I love to sing to Him.  In the cool of the day, I love walking under the trees with Him.  Never have I known the love and care he gives me.   I am convicted of my lack but convinced and empowered by His sufficiency.  I am fulfilled as I live my life in the awareness of His presence. 

God is calling us to a passionate pursuit of Himself.  He wants us to walk and talk with Him.  We must be unwilling to lie down and sleep comfortably at the feet of religious dictates and lifeless traditions that do not produce a deeper relationship with him.  God is calling us to turn from them to Him.

          After Adam sinned he heard the voice of God in the midst of the garden and ran and hid himself.  He was hiding from the presence and word of the Lord.  Moses told Israel to sanctify themselves and to prepare to meet with the Lord at Sinai.  For three days the children of Israel cleansed themselves and got ready.  Moses went up on the mountain and the people gathered around.   The Lord came down on the mountain and began to speak to Moses and the people.  The people were so terrified by the voice they ran away from the mountain and told Moses, “You go talk to God for us”.  Much of the Church lives this same way.  They are afraid of the voice of the Lord.  It is much easier to pay someone to hear the voice of the Lord for us.  Then, if we don’t like what we hear, we have someone to blame.  We fire the messenger.  We keep our lives so busy. We play tapes, read books and listen to music.  The TV and radio are our constant companions.   We are amused, mindlessly entertained.  We keep the atmosphere of our lives filled with activity and most of it serves to keep us from having to deal with an encounter with God. 

          When Jesus asked his disciples the question, “but who do you say that I am” Peter quickly responded,  “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.”  Peter had the right answer.   Jesus made a remarkable statement to him, “[3] flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven”.  What Peter new about the identity of Jesus didn’t come from a conversation among the apostles.  It didn’t come from the latest teaching, Jesus had done.  Peter didn’t read this revelation from the current issue of “Christianity Now”.  He didn’t hear this word through a Tele-evangelist.  He got this revelation from following the example of His Lord.  He had watched as the Lord Jesus regularly stepped away from the crowd and inner circle to communicate with His Father.   Jesus said, [4]“I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.”  The prevailing successfulness of the life and ministry of Christ came from his unceasing relationship with the Father.   Peter had watched, taken notes, and followed this example.  He had developed his own close, personal, and intimate communion with the Father.  Peter received the revelation of the Christ while in the presence of the Father.  Paul declared that the word he preached, [5]“For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ”.   Paul ministered the mystery that came out of his intimacy with the Lamb.  These men only tapped a resource that is available to every believer.  Many times we settle for the scraps, when He has prepared a treasure of understanding and insight for us.