We come to Thee, O Lord, for we sometimes become impatient and weary, feeling it will take a long time to get into that which You have for us, and it is not true. Teach us the way to submit to You and the wonder of appropriation. Teach us to lay hold upon that which You have for us, to bypass the processes of time and enter into miraculous, instantaneous growth, springing forth before Thy sight without further delay. Oh that You break through the barriers we feel within our own spirit! We pray we will not have barriers in our thinking: that we will be able to lay hold with new boldness and faith that can touch You for what we need. Amen.
Every apostle in the New Testament labored under certain restrictions and limitations. Paul called himself at one point an ambassador in bonds (Ephesians 6:20). We should always be aware of the persecutions we can experience because of our commissions and the hard sayings or messages we may be called to preach. Paul had to learn that. The very processes of growth and revelation would have caused him to be exalted to the point where he would have lost out completely. So the Lord permitted unto him an angel from Satan to strike or mistreat him. And three times He asked he Lord to remove him, but God said, My grace is sufficient( enough to meet the need) for thee. II Corinthians 12:9.
Never worry about God’s men getting to the place where they are going to be destroyed because they have such great revelation.
We ought to learn to walk humbly with God, but we also have to learn how to shake off the limitations that are imposed upon us by Satan or by our own conditioning: the things we have gone through that do not need to be. This is not only true of an apostolic ministry, but I believe it is true for every brother and sister. You must learn to move in the Lord and shake off the viper into the fire as Paul did after his shipwreck (Acts 28:3). The Lord has to teach you to have your mind purged so you no longer think in a limited manner. Think freely, reaching in to the Lord and everything He has for you. Then the delays only seem to recondition you again.
Will it ever be? We have to believe God’s provision for us is complete and not that it is going to be; it already is. With faith we need to reach in for what He has for us. That is what a walk with God is all about.
A walk with God is not just learning to be resigned (accept something reluctantly). I have never seen the word resignation in the Scriptures. I do not think we ought to be resigned to things; we ought to live violently. When we come against something that will not move, God says, “My grace is sufficient for you.”
We ought to pray and seek God in everything. Our path of liberty should know no impediments except in those moments in which God causes us to exercise with weights and causes us to run with restrictions upon us. It is good conditioning, but when the real race comes He intends for all those things to be removed. We can lay aside every weight and sin that doth so easily beset us and run with endurance that race God sets before us (Hebrews 12:1). Let us claim it.
Ephesians 4 gives the pattern for the Church and these days of restoration. It is good to take a look at it again and again.
But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says, “When He ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives, and He gave gifts to men.” (Now this expression, “He ascended,” what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.) And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by the craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. Ephesians 4:7–16.
Two words are emphasized: descend and ascend. “He ascended”; what does it mean except that he also had descended into the lower parts of the earth? Verse 9. Christ is our great example. We will follow through just as He did.
We will be made conformable to His death and conformable also to His resurrection (Philippians 3:10–11). That must be within us if we are going to move into all God has for us. There must be a descension. There must be a relinquishing of the human element, the human abilities. And even though they may seem to lodge within us, they must remain dormant or dead until the Lord sees fit to sanctify and revive them and use them for His glory.
Someone with an ability to sing, coming into a real walk with God, will have more difficulty getting into singing psalms than someone who does not. Someone who speaks fluently has more difficulty learning how to preach the Word than someone who does not. This is true because men tend to lean upon their own capacities. That has to die until self-reliance ends and the confidence in the Lord takes over.
There has to be descension if we begin to walk feeling adequate for anything. We may think that because of our few abilities we can walk with God. Then we watch God slowly apply the cross to us, putting us through a death and a burial. When we feel we will never do anything, the Lord begins to revive us, and we begin to ascend. First the work of the cross takes place; we descend, and then we ascend.
That, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Ephesians 4:22–24.
We have to lay aside before we can really come into what God has for us. Then we begin to think like Paul, who said, “I have no confidence in the flesh” (Philippians 3:3). “We are not sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God who also makes us able ministers of the new covenant” (II Corinthians 3:5–6). It is all so simple.
Dying (the work of the cross) and coming into the resurrection life like Christ had is something we follow also. If He descended into the lower parts of the earth and ascended far above all heavens leading captivity captive, then that spiritual process must become real in our minds and hearts. We have to experience it. Two Scriptures confirm this.
Galatians 2:20–21 says, I have been crucified with Christ (I went through the same thing with Him); and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God (King James says, I do not frustrate the grace of God); for if righteousness comes through the law then Christ died needlessly.
We can frustrate the grace of God by trying to live out the Christian life in human energies and abilities instead of really depending upon the Lord to bring it forth. Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ. I am alive, yet not me; Christ is living in me. I have learned how to yield to the enveloping, engrossing life of Jesus Christ which is taking over, and my old self life is dying.” Galatians 5:24 continues with that same idea: Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
Sometimes you may feel you have done this and it did not work for you. You thought the flesh was dead, but it is not dead. Reckon it dead, because what you believe in your mind is going to be the fact that presents itself in your life. And if you believe with all your heart that the old flesh is crucified with Christ, and you accept that as a valid experience of identification with Him, it will work in your life. Maybe for a little while it may not seem to.
You could lay an axe to the roots of a tree and sever all of them, and go out the next day and say, “Hah! It doesn’t look like that tree is dead at all!” There is enough life in the old trunk that it keeps the leaves alive for a while. It may even mature some of the fruit on it. I also have seen this happen again and again with people. God gives them a deliverance, and they praise God, believing they have prayed through and been delivered from their problem. The next day they fall flat on their faces concerning that deliverance they claimed. They come back and are convinced they were wrong. No, the axe was laid to the root of the tree. The tree is severed; it is dead. However, things have momentum that makes them continue on until they clear themselves up. You may find that true of disease: an illness may be cured, and yet there may be certain symptoms that seem to linger on for a while.
After a snake’s head is cut off, it will continue wiggling for hours. Likewise, reckon yourselves dead (Romans 6:11), and if there is still a wiggle do not worry about it. Keep trusting the Lord with all your heart. We have to go into this descending, this work of the cross, or we will never go into the rising.
But may it never be that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Galatians 6:14. It works. You simply believe God, and by the cross of Jesus Christ the world dies to you, and you die to the world. You look at each other without a single response. The world does not have any use for you because you are not part of its own. You have no use for the world because you have died to it.
What happens after we descend? We ascend with the rising God wants us to enter into. This is a very basic principle which makes everything work.
Suppose you want the ways of the world to drop off: there are things to get rid of and things to rise into. How do you do it? It is by the cross that you come down, and it is by His resurrection that you come up. You have to go through both processes. Someone who has had bitter experiences, without the work of the cross in his life, is a person who has never risen very high in the Lord. If you become an enemy of the cross of Christ, you will also fail to walk in the resurrection life of Christ and to glorify Him in your life.
Romans 6:5–14 is a passage about death: For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death (descending), certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection (ascending). Verse 5.
If we have become united in Him … You reach into Christ, You do not have to plan it, because it is going to just happen to you.
“Since I set my heart to really walk with God, so many things have been happening to me.”
You reached into the Lord, and the Lord began to put you through it. That is the process.
“Well, I didn’t count on that. I saw all these other people go through it; they probably needed it. But I was ready for resurrection life. I like that idea of the manifestation of the sons of God. But oh, this thing of dying out—I don’t like that.”
It is necessary. Sometimes two processes are going on simultaneously. One aspect of your life will be dying, and another aspect of your life has already died. Life comes up in that dead one, and the other aspect has to die a little more.
Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin, once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead (descending and then ascending, just as Christ did), and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace (there it rises). Verses 6–14.
This is important to grasp. In other words, you come to the place where you hate the restrictions, the relationships, the appetites, and the desires of the old nature so much that you want them crucified. And how do you know that you want them dead? If you would rather be dead, literally, than to live in those things, you have reached that desire God works in a man for the cross to be accomplished in his life.
I have reached that place completely in certain aspects of my life. I would rather be dead than to be a slave of them or restricted by them. And you have to feel the same way in your heart. What comes out of it will be the resurrection life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Unless you go this route of descending and ascending you are not going to move into the glorious life and liberty that belongs to the children of God.
How does the Word describe this risen life? If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Colossians 3:1. If He ascended, then you should constantly aspire to ascend also. Keep seeking the things that are there. He descended; then He ascended, and He gave gifts. But if we want to move into the grace of God, into the gifts and the ministries of the Spirit, we have to go the same route. The route is the death to our lives by the cross, and then we ascend; we aspire.
Set your mind (or, “be intent on”) the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God (that is certain). When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. Colossians 3:2–4.
If you go this route, Christ will be seen in you more and more with every increasing stage of revelation as His return approaches. Those who will be seen clearly as mature sons of God during this period just before us, will be those who have identified themselves with Christ. They will have gone through the work of the cross, into this resurrection life and into this seeking the things which are above. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.
You do not have to worry about your place; all you have to worry about is being in Christ Jesus. Everything else will come out of that. Every time He moves, it will be through you to the glory of God. Every time He is revealed, you will be manifested as His son, as an instrument in His hand, as one He has ordained to walk into all these things. Do not dodge the cross. But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.… Galatians 6:14. It is the instrument that brings about the death of everything that hinders you from moving more fully into the life of Jesus Christ. It is not far off nor vague; it is very real. Apply it to your own spirit.
Ephesians 4 says, And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers (what is their primary purpose?) for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ. Verses 11–13.
These are the basic functions of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. They are given for a specific purpose. Many think they were supposed to win souls, the lost and the dying heathen, but the job of a shepherd is not to give birth to sheep. Sheep beget sheep, and shepherds take care of sheep. That is the way it is supposed to be. The ministry is to equip the saints for service.
The sheep go out, and they have a way of reproducing. They can do it. They really do not need to be taught the how and why as much as they need to have this walk with God. They need to be equipped for the work of service, building up the body of Christ, maintaining the unity, and bringing forth the knowledge of Christ to their hearts. They will be mature and measure up to the stature of the fullness of Christ. All these things are to be held before them.
A true shepherd sets pastures before the sheep. Even when they are not conscious of it he sets before them the goals of growth and maturity. He feeds them so they enter into that; he exercises them for it. He brings them into rest and peace. This is the function of foundational ministries.
First there is the descending and ascending, then we pass through this list of purposes. After that we come to the tremendous function of love, which has to prevail in every member of the body. Verse fourteen starts giving further purposes of these foundational ministries: As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming.
Several things are to be eliminated. First, there is the elimination of immaturity, next, the elimination of instability, then, the elimination of deception. Some churches believe in the charismatic renewal and the restoration of the Church, yet they do not believe in apostles and prophets for this day. They draw back from that. The leaders and everyone else in such churches will be open to immaturity, instability, and deception by the elimination of the function of the foundational ministries that are given to the Church. Look closely at the lives of all the true leaders, and you will see these functions in operations.
But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ. Verse 15. This opens up an important principle: to speak the truth in love and begin to grow. I do not think you grow unless you learn to speak the truth in love. Suppose you denounce a person and say, “Well, it’s the truth.” No, there can be no truth spoken unless there is love. Even if you have all the facts, what are you going to do about him? “Well, I’m going to expose him.” It cannot be the truth. In the first place, if you know something about your brother, perhaps he has repented, and it is under the blood. Then you would become a direct instrument of Satan who is the accuser of the brethren. You cannot speak the truth unless you speak it in love.
Remember, …love covers a multitude of sins. I Peter 4:8. Love is not known by what it seeks; love is known by what it conceals and believes for. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love. Galatians 5:6. You believe for someone, and you love them. If we are going to speak the truth in love, we will speak less. What we speak will be for the edification of a brother, not for his destruction.
What happens then? We grow up in Him, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together (notice this) by that which every joint supplies.… (notice that we are fitted and held together). Verse 16. The purpose of ministries is to make you a functional and organic member of the Body of Christ, not an organizational member.
The Church is an organism, not an organization. A tree is an organism, but a car is an organization. You bolt a car together, fill it up with gas, and it runs. But it is not a living thing. A tree is alive. You trim it and prune it, and it produces fruit because it is a living thing. I have never seen a car produce fruit. There are churches that are organizations. The people are bolted or glued together. They are held together by various motivations. But the real Body of Jesus Christ is fitted together, and it grows through that which every joint supplies.
In an organization there is no life-giving quality. The people are merely organized; as in politics, no one is going to heal anything. Like an old car, all it can do is rattle around and develop more knocks in the whole system. A sick carburetor cannot be healed by a healthy manifold. Yet there is a Balm in Gilead (Jeremiah 46:11). There is life in the Body, and we are fitly framed together, compacted, and we grow strong by that which every member supplies. A sick arm can be healed by the functioning of the rest of the body. Life flows through us. We rejoice with those who rejoice; we weep with those who weep (Romans 12:15). We are made strong as the Body makes increase of itself in love. That which makes it all hold together in a living organism is love.
“But, Brother! we need sermons on Achan, the man who sinned by having treasures hidden in the camp of Israel” (Joshua 7). Maybe we do, but what will we do if we find someone like that? “Stone him!” That attitude is back under the Law. Instead, let us try to find a way to heal, a way to minister. Let us find that the whole Body is healed by that which every joint supplies. It means that you cannot be remote, unrelated, or uninvolved with any other member of the Body of Christ. You are a part of your brother and sister, and something flows through you from God. You wait upon the Lord, because it is not only for your strength but for theirs too: not only for your blessing but for your brethren.
The proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. Ephesians 4:16. Again it is not circumcision nor uncircumcision, but faith working by love that is the key to it all.
“Well, we will get the church all cleaned up and righteous, all sin exposed.” Then what is going to happen? You will make everyone angry with your legalism, and you will turn brother against brother. Whereas, if you go the other route, and in love and grace help minister to one another, life will flow.
I do not tackle ninety-nine things out of a hundred that I see wrong with the church. Neither do I ignore them. I keep on feeding the flock and encouraging them to love and feed one another. Ninety-nine percent of all that is wrong with people will heal without drastic action if you keep feeding and ministering to them and holding them up to the grace of God. In problems of growth, they will be crucifying that old nature, and the symptoms and the habits will drop off. The problems will drop away, and life will flow into that body.
The legalist demands that there be a standard. Those people want a standard for you but not for themselves. That is what Jesus said about the Pharisees: they would lay heavy burdens on the shoulders of the people but not move one finger to help (Matthew 23:4), nor would they walk by their own regulations. The religiosity that manifests legalism and parades as being Scriptural is hostile to the heart of God and to the growth of His Body.
If we are going to survive, we are going to do it by loving one another. We will be a living Body, with nothing dividing or separating us. Let it flow. We are involved with each other. We have an openness to God, and His grace flows to us. If we go to a brother in kindness and entreat him, he can be delivered. But if we mutilate a member of the Body, he may never be what God wanted him to be.
By the cross we descend; by His resurrection life we ascend. Then we are partakers of His grace and begin to move and flow in love to one another. It is a love that is creative because it comes right out of the heart of God and flows to every member of the Body, strengthening and making us alive. Do not let anyone take away from you the glorious vision of Body ministry. It is essential that we function as a body.
The Lord must help us to throw everything out of the way that is wrong. We need deliverance from the legalists, from the criticisms of man that have a show of self-righteousness, but have no power to change any man’s life. God will bring us into such a union with Him, such a unity of faith, such a presenting of ourselves into His resurrection life that we can be a source of real life and strength to everyone.
Take down your walls (the desire not to be involved). You are going to be involved. You are committed to the welfare of the Body, just as they must be committed to your welfare. You are members one of another. If your finger were cut off, at times you would still feel as if you had it. If another member of the Body is cut off, there will come a day of testing, and you will feel he should still be there with you. You never lose the feeling of it. You may sometimes awaken in the night crying for those members who have been lost.
We never lose sight of our oneness. We belong together. We cannot abandon one another nor even build a wall against another. If members of the body hurt us very deeply, we cannot withdraw from them. The breastplate of righteousness gives no defense against the betrayal of brethren. We are so open and vulnerable because we do not build a wall against our brothers and sisters.
If we bite and devour, take heed that we be not consumed one of another (Galatians 5:15). We have all kinds of protection against the flesh, the devil, false prophets, and everything else, but we have no protection when someone hurts us within the Body. We are most vulnerable, because we are members one of another. We must love one another very deeply, with no walls to each other.