Built Up A
Spiritual House 1Pet 2:5.
Do you have one man doing it all in your
church? Do you go to a church once a week and once of an evening in a home
group? Would you store up your physical food for four hours on a Sunday morning
and maybe two hours on a Wednesday evening and then expect that food to sustain
you for the rest of the week? I should hope not! Imagine what we would look
like in the flesh. What a thought! What do you do for the rest of the
week? It’s the same with spiritual food and water being God’s Word and His
Spirit…Are we eating and drinking daily for our selves or are we still
relying on being spoon fed?
When you hear or read the word “Church”
what image does this word create in your mind? May be a building with a steeple
and bells and smells with a priesthood or a Vicar on an alter behind a pulpit?
Or maybe a called out people set apart unto God? Some kind of temple as in
Mormonism? An assembly within the Jehovah’s Witness? They all
call themselves “Christian” right? How do we go to church? I
don't understand...is it not something that we go to but something we
are...Isn't that the correct biblical concept?
If so…then what’s gone wrong?
The Bible teaches that we are built up a spiritual building..Then what’s
the foundation? 1Pe
2:5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy
priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus
Christ… Remember that all we do is by Faith which is the substance of things
hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1.. the substance of
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen? How do we see the unseen?
How do we do this: While we look not at the things which are seen, but at
the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but
the things which are not seen are eternal (2Co 4:18). Can you see what the
Apostle Paul is saying hear? Can you hear it? If you don’t understand
this now then don’t read on because you will become even more confused…
As in a natural building, this spiritual
building consists of firstly a foundation, four corners; bricks and a
roof… Jesus as the foundation 1Co 3:11-12: For
other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is
Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver,
precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man's work shall be made manifest:
for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the
fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which
he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be
burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved;
yet so as by fire. We know that Gold Silver and precious
stones are birthed out of the fire/magma from the core of the earth… The
foundation of this spiritual house is of pure gold which is Christ and is
unshakable. The four corners/pillars are the Pastor the Prophet the Evangelist
and the Teacher. The Apostle holds all four ministries and is able to
build up/form the four pillars and lower them into the
foundation/Christ JesusWhom is The Word Of God John 1:1. The
stones/bricks/precious stones are the people that God will add to the spiritual
house as He sees fit and Jesus is the very word of God John 1:1 as the corner/centre
stone Acts 4:11 but the spirit the word and the Father hold
the whole building together 1Jon 5:5-8 and Colossians
1:17: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist/hold
together.. Our Father will not add one living stone to the walls until
the foundation in our heart is firmly secured as we must be one as a body with
the foundation in order to support the roof. Wood hay and stubble are
from the dust of the earth and are easily burned up but because they are still
on the rock/foundation they shall be saved through the fire…
The aim/focus of the
prophet Evangelist the Teacher and Pastor Eph 4:11-12 is
designed from our Father in heaven with three
objectives: 1. For the perfecting of the saints, 2.
For the work of the ministry, 3. For the edifying of the body
of Christ: To accomplish three goals 1. Till we all come
in the unity of the faith, 2. And of the knowledge of the Son of God,
unto a perfect man 3. Unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ
Eph 4:12-13.
Three objectives and three goals, nothing
more nothing less. All four work together to achieve these objectives and
goals; that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and
carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning
craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive Eph 4:14. The
Shepherd/pastor looks after the sheep, the Teacher teaches the sheep, the
Prophet keeps everything on track like a rudder on a ship or the satellite
navigation system and the compass. If the body sins/ misses the mark, which is
Christ Jesus the Word of God, then Prophet will warn everyone. The evangelist
is to walk with people side by side who are in the World and call them out of
the world into Christ Jesus…that’s not the Pastor, Prophets or Teachers job
description. Only one letter separates the world and the word. The essence of
the Apostle is the pastor, teacher, prophet and evangelist, all three offices
are in the Apostle so that the apostle is able to nurture the gifting of all
four. You could call the apostle the seed and the Pastor, Teacher, Prophet and
evangelist the Apostle’s fruit. The idea that one man rules the roost is from
Rome. If you are having to go through a leader before Christ Jesus, then that
person has become a mediator before man and God..That’s old covenant..If you
are an Anglican and you are read this...then i'm sorry but the word Vicar means
this:
The term Vicar is short for vicarious:
1. performed, exercised, received, or suffered
in place of another: vicarious punishment.
2. taking the place of another person or
thing; acting or serving as a substitute.
Reference: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/vicarious
Solomon referred to the ant in this
way: Pro 6:6-8: Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her
ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her
meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. If you have one man
in your “Church” that does it all…then you are under Romanism and the old
covenant law through a new covenant disguise and you have been beguiled into
another gospel not of the Word of God through His Holy Spirit but another as
the apostle Paul teaches in the book of Galatians …Easy to see within Romanism
or Anglicanism… However… how many see this within the Baptists, Methodist,
Pentecostal and the rest of the Pantheon of Christian denominations in
Christendom?
Gal 3:1-3 O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should
not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set
forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of you, Received ye
the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so
foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?
1Ti 2:5-6 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men,
the man Christ Jesus;
Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
Without the unity of the faith we will not see Acts chapter 2:1 being one accord as
a personal reality in our own lives. It's the Holy Spirit that
baptizes us/immerses us into the word of God who is Christ Jesus: John
1:1. The measure of the fullness is the understanding of Him in us and
us in Him and that we may be one with the Father through Christ and walking in
that reality not as individuals but as a body: Joh 17:22 And
the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as
we are one. Then and only then will we see the Holy Spirit come in power.
If we are led by the Spirit then
we are Sons of God: For as many as are led by the Spirit
of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have
not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the
Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit
itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so
be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together Rom
8:14-17.
If we are led by the flesh then
our father is the devil and we follow the lusts of the flesh:
John 8:44: Ye are of
your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a
murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no
truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar,
and the father of it.
The fruit of the spirit is
easily distinguished and the works of the flesh are easily distinguished in
Galatians chapter 5. Mat 7:15 -20: Jesus said: Beware of false
prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are
ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of
thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good
fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot
bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the
fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
Linked articles:
Is Judaic/Christianity the Women that Rides the beast?
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