THE TWIN RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE CHURCH

THE TWIN RESPONSIBILITES OF THE CHURCH

 

It always amazes me when I see new things in scriptures that I have never seen before. This happened to me recently when reading (Eph 3:10) for the umpteenth time. I suddenly saw the Lord's explanation of the True Church's responsibility, as well as what I had seen before in (Acts1:8), and also in

(1 Peter 3:15), so I'm now calling it our "Twin Responsibility". As we know Acts 1:8 tells us that when the Holy Spirit comes upon us when we receive the "baptism of the Spirit" we will be witnesses of Jesus everywhere. And the passage from Peter says to always be willing to tell people about the hope that is within you. But as I now understand Eph 3:10 to say that we have the responsibility to fulfill, "God's purpose in all this was to use the Church to display His wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places". NLT. This then brought forth the question about what is meant by the "heavenly places", and exactly where they are located. This led to the creation of a 5 part article on this topic that I put together earlier this week. My conclusion is that this place Paul refers to as the "heavenly places", must be that space between the first heaven and the third heaven where God's throne is presently located. The first heaven that is visible when we look up at what we call the "sky". Psalms 8, and 19    describes it quite well, and shows forth the glory of God both by day or night. Therefore we can safely assume that these heavenly places must be somewhere between these two known locations.

 

We know that this location is still invisible to our "natural" eyes, and therefore requires the use of our "supernatural" eyes of the Spirit, so to speak. This is where "walking in the light", as John commands us to do in his first letter (1 John 1:5-7), and Paul tells to walk in the Spirit (Gal 5:16), which is a command by both of these apostles. So guess what we must do if we wish to make use of this supernatural ability? It is not difficult to understand, any born again child of God who has been adopted into the Father's Forever Family (Eph 1:3-14), is able to function in this spiritual realm. So we need to stop listening to the lies from our enemy, who is the father of lies (John 8:44), and spend time in God's Word, and believe the words of Jesus who claims to be "The Truth" (John 14:6). This is rather a simple process, wouldn't you agree? It only requires faith in Jesus, and obedience to His will, which is always meant to be a blessing to those who "Have decided to follow Jesus"!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                                    24/03/12  

HOW OUR FATHER SEES US

HOW OUR FATHER GOD SEES US

 

As followers of Jesus we need to know for sure just how our Heavenly Father sees us. We all enter this world as little "lost sinners", because of the inherited sin of Adam, who was the first sinner because he disobeyed the only restriction his Creator placed on him. In (Rom 5:12) Paul explains how this sin affected all humans because of that original sin on his part. Then when Paul wrote his letter to the church in Ephesus he repeats this dilemma we find ourselves in, (Eph 2:1-10). Only God can deliver us from this crisis, but he requires our cooperation. God lives outside our realm of time and space, in what we refer to as "eternity". There is no such thing as "past" or "future" in eternity, as I understand it, and everything is an "eternal present". So that is where God lives, so to speak, and with our finite minds it is difficult to really comprehend it. And because He lives outside of time He sees the beginning and the end of things all at once. We refer to this as the "foreknowledge" of God, and we call this "predestination" in human terms.

So when Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, and brought sin on the entire human race, He knew immediately what He would do to "reverse the curse" this brought on all of creation. This was when the complete plan of redemption was set in motion that required His Son Jesus to come down to earth and be born of a virgin so he would be the only "sinless" human being that would be able to die on the cross to pay the price required for satisfying the demands of His Holiness! What a marvelous God we serve!!

 

Jesus was referred to as the "Lamb of God" that takes away the sin of the world by His sacrificial death on the cross. There is a little chorus we often sing in the church we attend, that goes like this.

 

"When He sees me, He sees the blood of the Lamb.

He sees me as worthy, and not as I am.

He views me in garments, as white as the snow.

For the Lamb of God is worthy, and He loves me this I know".

 

This applies to all sinners who acknowledge their sin and repent of it, and accept the finished work of Jesus as payment for that sin. They are then "born again" and the Father "adopts" them into His Forever Family!!

 

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                          08/03/12

MENTORING

MENTORING

As I understand the meaning of this word, it is nearly the same as making disciples. As we know from scripture, Jesus Christ was the original disciple maker, when He was here on planet earth for a rather short period of 30+ years. He chose 12 ordinary men and "called" them to come and follow Him. In the NLT version we read in (Mark 1:12) "Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people". These 12 men are referred to as disciples, and later are called apostles. And in heaven these same 12 men are referred to as "the twelve apostles of the Lamb" (Rev 21:14). Paul, the man who is often referred to as the "apostle to the Gentiles", also spoke about making disciples in his second letter to one of his disciples, (2 Tim 2:2).

So as I see it, mentoring is simply showing another person certain things that you have learned in your spiritual journey along the Agape Road, as you follow Jesus toward "intimacy with the Father" (John 14:6). The only requirement on your part is that you are a "born again" follower of Jesus, who listens for His voice, and obeys His commands. These commands are listed in the Bible, the "Written Word" of God, and made known to present day disciples by His Holy Spirit who was sent to earth by God the Father and the resurrected Jesus. He was given to everyone who was "adopted" into God's Forever Family the moment we believe in and receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. This is the result of hearing and putting our faith in the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. (Rom 1:16)!

 

We have prepared a series of teachings, which we called "Marriage Mentoring", which followers this line of reasoning. It consists of 8 topics of things the mentoring couple has learned from their journey with Jesus since receiving Him as Lord of their lives, and simply sharing those things with the couple they are mentoring. It is quite different from official counseling, in that it can be done in a home environment, as opposed to a "counseling room", which can be much less threatening. And in our case we make sure everything we teach is based on scripture, and therefore are not in the class of "Psychology" based, but "Biblical" based. We find there is a lot of teaching circulating around the Body of Christ that is not really rooted in God's Word, but is often based on some experiences, that are questionable at best, and really based on some "New Age" teaching that is often based on definite occult Eastern Religions. It has always amazed me how open many followers of Jesus are to these "false prophets" and teachers, that Jesus and the early apostles like Paul, Peter and John warned us would show up!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                                      

AN APOSTOLIC TEAM

AN APOSTOLIC TEAM

Recently we put together an article based on (Phil 1:1) where we see God's perspective of what He must consider a typical local community Church. Here Paul, who was definitely called by God as an apostle, at his conversion experience on the Damascus Road, received his divine appointment. (Acts 9:1-25) As he recorded in his letter to the church in (Eph 3:1-13), God had given to him a revelation of the Church, that had been kept "secret" from mankind until Paul came on the scene. In chapter 4 and verses 11 to 16 we see the "gifts" that Christ gave to His Church, and what these gifts were meant to add to the various different churches that Paul had started. These gifts were certain people who Christ had placed with in them the ability to function in these 5 different "roles" within these churches. But certain ambitious men have chosen them as "titles", and have set themselves up as "Apostle so and so, or Prophet so and so, or Pastor so and so" etc. This scripture has been taken completely out of context, and has become known as "The Five Fold Ministry" completely separate from the local Church setting that Jesus had meant these gifts to function in! This is only one of many examples I have seen where the modern day church has veered off course!

 

Are there any groups of churches who are still operating according to this original plan that was given to Paul? Yes there are, and I believe I have discovered one and am presently exploring them a little more carefully. They have a website called <New Covenant Ministries International>, and you can check it out for yourself. The main way they differ from most denominational churches that I have been familiar with is in their local church structure, and who they are accountable to. Their local structure is governed by 2 or more elders, assisted by 2 or more deacons, who are set in place by an "apostolic team" who form their accountability party. Very much like we see in the book of Acts, where Paul the "Apostle to the Gentiles", where Peter was known as the "Apostle to the Jews", operated in this way. "Gentiles" was the name given to "non-Jews", and from God's perspective this was the way He divided the then known world. So it seems He gave the responsibility of spreading the good news of the "Gospel of the Kingdom" to the then known world through these men. And any brief study of early church history after the book of Acts, up until the fourth century, will prove they did a very remarkable job. That would appear to be the turning point, when the Church was joined with the Roman Empire!!

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer                                                                               06/02/12