Walk in What You Believe
I’ve been working on something for several years; and that is that we have a level of what we believe, of what the Scriptures have provided for us and we believe it, but then there’s always a level down here where we’re walking. And I’ve worked for thirty years to shorten the gap, that you would walk in what you believe. Really, when you get right down to it, everything that we’ve been working on is a matter of’ faith, isn’t it? Shorten the gap.
Practice It
How many know that you’re not walking in all that you really believe? You’ve got to change. How do you do it? We’re not going through a lot of stress to try to discipline ourselves to be something. This has to be the time that you just know, you believe, you walk in what God has done for you; you practice it.
A Service In The Kingdom
I want to talk to you about the pattern, the plan of God for a service in the Kingdom. What should we do? What’s the difference between the services that we’ve had for two thousand years and the services we’re having now?
I don’t know whether you are subscribers to the electronic church, or if you even know what I’m talking about, but they have their rituals and routines and things that they follow, and people get something from it, I think. There’s something that they get from it on the soul level. There’s a certain emotional, psychic, religious satisfaction.
We’ve All Waited For This Hour
I want something real. I don’t want anybody to fool me about anything. We’ve slowly watched our services change, as God led us on. And then we hit sort of a vacuum. How many have come to church and said, “Who’s on first?” You’ve felt, “Well, where are we going? What are we doing?” And I think we’ve all waited for this hour in which we will say, “This is what we’re going to come to church to do.”
Shift The Responsibility From A Spectator Thing To A Participator Thing
We need the services to take on a certain potential format. I used that instead of the word “liturgy” because we don’t want to get back into rituals. We don’t want to get into that, but we do want to know the various ways that we can move in a service that’s going to be good, and shift the responsibility from a spectator thing to a participator thing. How many times have I told you that? But we can make very definite steps so that when you come, you feel responsible to function; you’re a member of the Body. You really are.
Now the thing that is happening is that we are changing from churchianity. I didn’t say “Christianity,” but I said “churchianity”—the institutionalizing of what Christ did for us. We have been in a period where nobody could get anything from God but what they began to organize it; make a denomination out of it; make it an institution to raise money. Isn’t that right? And there you’ve got Babylon. Now we’re swinging away into something else. It’s not going to be popular. Do you think that any of the leaders of Christianity are going to sponsor what we do? Of course not, because it means there will be no Kingdom but His. We have to face this. Read I Peter 5. It talks about the elders and shepherds, and how humble they have to be as they walk with God: Shepherd the flock of God among you, not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. I Peter 5:2–3.
We’re Going To Be All Chiefs And There Are Going To Be No Indians
We are not going to be overlords. That’s why the Lord gave a Word that there are not going to be any leaders, a loose term. There are always leaders, but we’re going to be all chiefs and there are going to be no Indians.
Think Of Ourselves As A Colony
We’re all going to flow together. And I’ve got to tell you how you’re going to do it. The first thing you have to see is that you can just throw away a lot of terms, or words in your mind that have certain meanings: “Kingdom”—forget it; let’s use the word “family.” Family! We’re a family. “Well, we have all got to come together.” Forget it! We’re one. We are one. Just think of ourselves as a colony.
Paul wrote the Epistle to the Philippians, and he said (one translation puts it this way): “For our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20). But it is better translated by Moffatt: “For we are heaven’s colony.”
We Are A Prophetic Colony—We Speak Things Into Existence
We are a planting of God here in the earth. We realize we are not of this earth; we are of the Kingdom of God, but we are in an amazing period of time in which the Kingdom of God is beginning to spread into the realms and the kingdoms of this world, because “the kingdoms of this world must become the Kingdom of our Lord” (Revelation 11:15).
When we come together, we must remember that we are a prophetic colony. We are here to speak things into existence. We’re here to proclaim. Every time you come to service, come to believe! And come with an expectation that you’re going to say things, you’re going to do things. Never think, “Well, it’s my duty to come to church.”
Religion flourishes on what you think you should do—your duty—but the Kingdom flourishes on what your faith initiates and brings forth.
Everything you see—prophesy the Lord into it.
Be Flexible
Now there are things that you’re going to do when you come to service; I want to tell you about them. We could get into forms, or we could get into just an understanding of what should be in a service, and be free in it.
Don’t be locked in to trying to have a certain type of service, but be flexible.
See Where To Take The Next Step
One thing you have to understand in the Kingdom of God: There’s always a vision set out before you, and you see the Himalayas that you’re going to climb, the moons that you’re going to walk on; you see all of these things in the spirit, but it’s important that in every service you see where to take the next step.
The Eternal Life Is Lived By One Step After Another
You say, “I’ll stumble if I keep looking at the mountain.” No, keep looking down to see the next step and keep your focus on what’s happening. That is more important than anything I can tell you today. You must have a focus on what is to come, and never lose it; but you’ve got to know what is the next step, because you live it one second at a time. The eternal life is lived by one step after another.
Refuse To Be Just An Audience
I’m going to have to tell you what you’re going to have to do in these services. When we come into our gathering together as a family in the Kingdom, the first thing we want to do is refuse to be just an audience.
Everybody Gets His Turn
Everybody gets his turn, because if you refuse to be an audience, then also refuse to be the preacher. Everybody has to resign from monopolizing the thing and say, “We’re all going to have a chance.” Everybody is going to have an opportunity. Didn’t the Scripture say, “You may all prophesy, one by one, that all may be comforted, that all may learn”? (I Corinthians 14:31.) So we refuse to be a spectator, we refuse to be an audience, but we refuse to monopolize also.
Prophecy Can Proclaim Into Being—Prayer Can Degenerate Into Begging
In the Kingdom we are going to multiply by the faith that everybody brings, and by the fact that we are a prophetic community. We prophesy to one another. I think we should have prayer. I believe in prayer. But I believe in prophecy more, because prophecy can proclaim into being what prayer can degenerate into just begging and wishing for.
You Are More Often Met By Meeting The Need
These are the things we come together to do; now you’ve got the general principles. We come for warfare. Give yourself to it. You say, “But I want to be met.” You are more often met by meeting the need. Forget yourself as an individual and think of what God is doing for you as a Body, and pray for it.
There have been more people delivered, more people blessed when they took on my warfare, than when they prayed for themselves. In fact, if you want to see the church really met, declare a thirty-day fast that nobody can pray for themselves. At the end of thirty days the people will be more spiritual, with more blessing than ever.
The Most Creative Prophecy The World Has Ever Heard
The focus on ourselves tends to take away the focus of our faith on the Lord and on His Word.
We’ve gone through a phase in which the prophecy was rather shallow. But we’re ready to make the most creative prophecy the world has ever heard. And it’s not going to come by some vociferous, loud yelling and screaming, because what I’m saying to you right now is prophecy. You’re aware there is a prophetic flow. You’re hearing it. It’s creating you. I’m speaking with faith. You’re changing. You’ll never think the same or be the same after this Word.
The time is upon us when people will just quote a Scripture and loose the judgments of God and the blessings of God in the earth. There will be that much faith in what they prophesy, in what they proclaim.
We Come For The Love-Feast
Well, what else should we do when we come to the Church of the Lord? First, one of the things we do—come for the breaking of bread, or the love-feast, because your love and your faith as the Father’s family have to be expressed.
Come to share together. It isn’t what you eat; you don’t have to make a federal project out of it that’s going to take ten years to accomplish. Do it simply. Just come and love each other. Break bread with each other.
There is going to be a level here where the love is going to be so pure and so beautiful in God that you’re going to come and express it if you just break a slice of bread together. Now do this in your services. Do it frequently.
Reading Is More Important Than Listening To Tapes
You should have reading. I think that the reading is more important even than listening to tapes. You can listen to tapes but you’ve exhausted your concentration level by the time you’ve heard it, and you don’t get to act on it. So now what we’re doing is making gleanings; in ten minutes you could read everything in a gleaning. Read it a phrase at a time and people participate in it, because, you see, dialogue is going to replace preaching. It already has.
How many hate that preaching tone? How many prefer that we talk together? We are friends, aren’t we? We’re family, and we get into that speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord. Ephesians 5:19.
Communion—A Way Of Appropriation
What about Communion? Oh, don’t forget that when you come together in the Kingdom, you’re going to believe that you eat the bread and you drink the wine, and you have His life in you. You see, it’s not a form, but God set that down for us as a way of appropriation.
Will you remember that? It’s a way of appropriation. Isn’t it interesting that He said, “He that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me” (John 6:57). So you take the bread and you eat it—eat of His flesh, drink of His blood. Do that for one another.
How often do we come together? “Well, we have too many services.” No, Hebrews tells us that we should cease not the assembling of ourselves together, and so much more as we see the day approaching. And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. Hebrews 10:24–25, KJV. What if there is only one half a dozen there? The Lord is there. You see, the importance is not how many people, but how much of the Lord is there. And you come together to love one another, to feast upon the Lord. Appropriate. Bless one another.
We Have To Touch Each Other
Well, suppose we come together and there’s nobody that has a Word, and nobody can play the piano and nothing is happening. What do we do? You could even just lay hands on each other, and bless one another with faith, because, you see, this is the time that we are participating together. We have to touch each other. And we have to be touched by our brother. Walls have to come down. This becomes something in which we come joyfully together.
No Walls Is A Painful Process
No walls can be a painful process. Exposing yourself that totally to God and to one another is a strange thing. Love is a wonderful thing, but it has a humiliating quality to it. I Corinthians 13 says, “We’re going to know even as we are known” (I Corinthians 13:12). It means in our spirits and in our souls we’re naked.
Then Shall We Know Even As We Are Known
There’s something embarrassing about being exposed. You take your walls down, and you say, “I’m going to love my brother.” And your brother says, “I’m going to love you too.” Then shall we know even as we are known (I Corinthians 13:12).
You’re Going To Know Me Because You See Me As I Am
I want you to love me, not because you think I’m some special preacher and you have finally discarded all rumors and attitudes towards me. I’m not interested in defending myself, because you’re either going to know me by the persecution attitude, or you’re going to know me because you see me as I am. And when you see me by revelation of love, well, you’re still not going to think that much; you’re going to know me.
That’s what you’ve got to shoot for when you come to church. You’re coming to these meetings, and you have to strive to impart to one another, to bless one another.
If you really are going to walk in the Kingdom, you’ll never see a need that you don’t, by faith, try to impart to that person to meet the need. But if you don’t have the love, you never see a need that you don’t judge that person for—you’re critical of him.
Perfect love can accept people, without rejecting them, as they are, but refuses to leave them as they are.
We’re Not Trying To Get Our Heads Together; We’re Trying To Get Our Hearts Together
Now this is what we’re going to do in the services. This is the first time that this has been spoken in any church, anywhere. And you’re going to have services, you’re going to come—I like the family circle idea—and you’re going to have reading, you’re going to have teaching, you’re going to have love-feasts, you’re going to touch and flow. This is the purpose—to participate, to be a family. What if one doesn’t agree with the rest? No big thing. We’re not trying to get our heads together; we’re trying to get our hearts together.
Turn Loose Your Faith For Each Other
Impartation is the big thing of flow, because you get a bunch of people together and they can meet one another’s needs. There are enough people right here that if you turn loose your faith for each other, you can just do anything for anybody.
“I’m Going to Agree, And Something Is Going To Happen”
Synergistic action is that you can take ingredients or chemicals and put them together, and you can create something that’s so fantastic. And that’s what the Lord said: “Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 18:19. Now why don’t you believe that when you come together for a Kingdom service as the family? Say, “I can’t wait to get there because I’m just going to agree, and something is going to happen. People are going to be changed. I can be met too. A couple of people can begin to agree with me, and I will be changed, transformed.” It’s within the scope of our faith.
Metamorphosis—A Change Of Form
Do you know what the word “metamorphosis” means? A metamorphosis is almost a change of form. That’s what it means in the Greek. Metamorphoo is the Greek word, and it means “change.” A worm goes into a cocoon and comes out a butterfly, and they call that a metamorphosis. Now, we know that within the scope of God making little worms He intended that they become butterflies. But when He made you worms, He intended for you to fly too.
Change Comes By Exposing Yourself To The Lord
Change comes by exposing yourself to the Lord. We’re all changed as we behold the Lord. As we come together and the Lord is exalted, we’re changed (II Corinthians 3:18). We can know change. We can know it in our spirit. We can so exalt the Lord in our midst that He can change everyone in the service. That metamorphosis has to take place.
I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. For through the grace given to me I say to every man among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. Romans 12:1–3.
Come Expecting That God Is Going To Meet You
I think we should be more concerned about the results of our services, and not be content to walk out the door with nothing having happened. Come expecting and anticipating that God is going to really meet you.
You’re beginning to see how you can come together—and you need to believe this—not as a spectator, not as an audience, but as participators. Come with this idea that you’re going to come to impart something.
They Oversee Your Participation
There will be a necessary phase of this to be covered, too.
You’re going to need authority. In time, in the church, the word “bishop” came to be a name of a position; but in the Greek it just means “overseer”—somebody who oversees. We need shepherding and we need overseeing.
Do not look upon it as a position, but look upon it as something that oversees your participation.
It’s The Team That Wins The Game, Not The Manager
They can be kind of like a manager in the ball park. He puts in the hitters, the batters, the pitchers, and so forth. He gets kind of a plan of action, but what he’s really doing is overseeing the activity and the coordination of the whole team. But it’s the team that wins the game, not the manager. Probably the manager couldn’t strike out anybody, and he couldn’t hit a fastball if he tried—but he can oversee. It’s not his qualifications of a position, but it’s an authority that looses participation.
Look For An Anointing That Is Perceptive And Sensitive To What God Wants To Do
That’s what you look for—you look for an anointing that is perceptive and sensitive to what God wants to do, and you draw the people into it.
Somebody has to oversee it and say, “Nobody’s going to be neglected. Nobody’s going to be ignored. Everybody’s going to he taken care of.” You see, the only thing you have to watch is that you move in love with faith. Don’t be harsh. Don’t have walls. Don’t have barriers. Don’t think, “Well, I’m being ignored, so I have to come down hard.” Just love a little more. Let the love come through.
The Maximum Results Of Faith
The whole thing is that we can’t have as much faith for ourselves as we can have for the other brother. And so if we want the maximum results of faith, we just believe for each other! How many find it’s difficult to believe for yourself? But you pray for somebody else, and he gets healed. “Pray for one another that you may be healed” (James 5:16).
An Exaggeration The Enemy Has Put Upon Some Little Thing
Don’t be harsh with one another; don’t be hard on one another. Be kind to each other. There’s such a thing that we can be kind of brusque; instead, be a little tender—tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven us (Ephesians 4:32). Don’t hold grudges. Don’t be bitter. Don’t take into account a wrong or a slight (I Corinthians 13:4–5). Just forget it and love one another. Be kind to each other, because most of the time, in anything that the devil throws at you that stumbles you, it’s ninety-five percent a lie—an exaggeration the enemy has put upon some little thing.
Helpers Of One Another’s Faith
It’s very important that you overseers do not construe this to be position, but that you realize that you’re going to be helpers of these people’s faith. Don’t be overlords over God’s heritage, but be helpers of one another’s faith (I Peter 5:3; II Corinthians 1:24). That way you won’t make an assumption that is going to make a division, but you will just open your heart to one another.