True Fellowship

I re-read some of the introduction to the book True Fellowship by Art Katz today.  Art (as some of you know) is one of my favorite authors/speakers and his work and ministry has had a profound impact on my life.  Below is an excerpt from the introduction that I thought I would share.  It's long, but hang in there.

It would not be unfair to say that the Church of today is essentially an aggregate of individualities; we sit alongside each other, but we are not yet "together" in the biblical sense of that word. We do not yet constitute that wholeness or completeness. We do not yet reflect the genius that is in the Godhead itself, where the Son does everything for the Father, likewise the Spirit for the Son, and the three are One. When we come to that kind of corporateness, the principalities and powers of the air will know it; but God first needs to reveal to us how deep-seated our individualism, self-will and rebellion are.

The powers of the world are increasing, captivating the souls of men, rooting them in time, and blocking from their consideration the things that are eternal. We cannot come to freedom from this evil influence by ourselves alone. Separation from the world is so painful, and those evil powers are so pervasive and strong. And it is only through the support, the encouragement, the prayer, the wisdom, the counsel of others and the atmosphere that we generate together as the community of God's people that we can live and maintain that freedom without again being sucked back into the power of the world.

Community or life together is one of God's main provisions to resist and to overcome those powers. The sons and daughters of God are those who overcome the world, the flesh and the devil, and there is no place more conducive for being or becoming this kind of people except in such an intensive community setting.

There is not a living soul whose life is, or will be, totally free from deception. Our lives need to be submitted to the examination of God through the brethren in Christ. It is a painful revelation, but rather that pain now than the unspeakable pain of learning at the Judgment Seat of Christ that we were living a delusion. We may have thought ourselves to be spiritual, while all along we were far removed from authenticity and reality. The Lord is not going to indulge our romantic or wistful view of what we think true spirituality is. His gracious provision, therefore, is community life in which the true condition of our heart, and the things that would not otherwise have been understood, have the greatest possibility of being revealed to us!

The quality of our fellowship with the Lord vertically cannot be any better or more authentic than our fellowship with the saints horizontally. We cannot have the one independent of the other, and we cannot have the one out of proportion to the other. How many of us think that we can, and love to be solitary and isolated saints, having some kind of imagined and euphoric relationship with God privately, but hardly having any patience at all for the saints who are His Body? How can we cherish the Head more than the Body, and how can we honor the Head outside of the Body? The Lord has fixed it like that-the vertical and the horizontal beams of the Cross-and the one is in exact proportion to the other. It saves us from exactly that soulish thing we would love to indulge, namely, isolation, separateness and privatistic living.

God has called us to fellowship, and we are not going to see resurrection power and authority if we are not related in the Body authentically. God will not let us 'get by' with a supposed and imaginary vertical relationship with the Resurrected and Ascended One independent of an actual and existential one horizontally in His Body. 

This requires something more than Sunday services. The Church needs to consider becoming a community in the sense of a closely-knit integration of life together in an intensive way. If it exceeds the numbers by which true relationship is feasible, then it cannot, in my opinion, attain to this reality. A generalized congregation of three hundred, five hundred or a thousand cannot effect what I am suggesting. Sadly, large church numbers are the great emphasis today, and constitute, therefore, a moving away from God's very provision for our sanity as well as the greater glory, namely, of being "witnesses unto Him." 

As the conditions of the world become more extreme, people are going to be forced to choose more radically for or against God. We are in that painful interim between a conventional Christendom and the apostolic entity that God is wanting established again. And as we shall see, it is only the Church as an authentic, apostolic presence in the earth that can possibly fulfill its eternal purpose of making known the manifold wisdom of God to the principalities and powers of the air (Ephesians 3:9-11).

Apostolic Authority

By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.  John 5:30 (NIV)

“By myself, I can do nothing.”  It would seem that if there were ever a person who DIDN’T need to say that, it would be Jesus.  Yet, He said it.  It goes without saying then, that we should be a people who follow our King’s example and become nothing in our own eyes, and in the eyes of the world.

By our flesh and our striving, we will achieve only that which is temporary… that which will not withstand the refining fires of judgment at the end of this age.  It is only the things that are born of the Father… born of the Kingdom of God that will stand.  All of our plans, strategizing, and best intentions will amount to little more than ash if they are not truly heaven born.

"I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.”  Such a King is worth following.  Such a King is worth losing everything for.  In this simple yet profound declaration, our Lord sums up what is at the heart of His apostolic authority…His apostolic perfection.  “I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.” 

It would appear that Jesus’ death to self was not limited to His sacrifice on the cross, but encompassed every waking moment.  What would my life look like if I truly lived that way?  What would the church look like if we truly lived that way?

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.  Matthew 16:24-25 (NIV) 

The Cost of Following Jesus

Luke 9:57-60 (NIV)  As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”  Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”  He said to another man, “Follow me.”  But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”  Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”  Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.”  Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

These words seem (to me anyway) to fly in the face of what we’re often told, and what we’ve come to know concerning what it means to be in the service of our Lord.  In fact I think these words fly in the face of all human civility and sensibility.  These words seem so cold and callous, even heartless, especially coming from someone we know to be so loving...so merciful.

“Let me bury my father.”  No.  “Let me say bye to my family before I make this choice to come follow.”  No.  “Let me first do this or that.”  “Let me raise these funds, or get these credentials, have this meeting, or work out a plan.”  “Let me prepare personally and professionally so that we can do this thing responsibly.”  And the answer is still the same… NO.  Come follow Me.

And when we receive such a calling, may we not follow the lead of Lot’s wife, but instead follow the lead of Elisha who did request to say goodbye to his family, but ultimately returned to slaughter his oxen and burn his plowing equipment – essentially burning his bridges, making sure that he would not have anything to return to.

Such a calling, like the one we receive when Jesus calls us to go, demands that we with both word and deed declare our intent with ultimate finality.  “At once they left their nets and followed Him.” (Mt. 4:20 NIV).  I believe it is only then that we become fit to serve in the kingdom.  Not because we’ve reached some great spiritual mark, but because we’ve become absolutely nothing.  We have no credentials.  We have no personal ambition.  We’ve been humbled… even made a fool in the eyes of the world… in the eyes of our culture… in the eyes of our friends… in the eyes of our family.  We have nowhere to go, nothing to do, other than that which the Father has asked of us.  And it is from Him that we shall receive our manna.  Not by our own hands.

To what degree are we (am I) willing to pay that price?  Will we hang onto that which we should not hang on to?  Will we trust in what we should never trust in?  Will we fear what we should not fear?  Will we continue to make Ishmaels for ourselves?  Will we accept something “good” because the “perfect” thing He’s asked of us is just too hard?

“No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”