His Life Is Built, Not Found

1/1/2007

I supposedly got converted when I was in Bible school many years ago. It was in 1963, and I was only three years old. I then went to different Bible schools for many years—for 40 years, even until now. What you have been explaining about fellowship, I’m afraid I haven’t found. I haven’t found that kind of fellowship in my own family with my wife and my children. I think I have failed. We are a family because of biological relations, but I’m afraid the life in Christ you describe is not there. My son here is 9 years old, and this other one, he is 12, and my wife sometimes meets them with, “Did you read your Bible? Did you, did you…?”

I listen to that and say, “My Lord, should we be forcing this on them? Please give us bread from heaven and milk.” I’m just being honest with you all here. I took Bible school for about 40 years and I am afraid. The kind of fellowship that you mention and that I read in your book, I have yet to find here.

That kind of fellowship is never found. It is always built. Praise God for that because…

In your place, how long have you been together?

It has been over twenty years now that we’ve had the kind of life we’ve been describing, with everyone in the Church. There is no periphery. Everyone in the Church has that kind of relationship. But twenty years ago, it was not like that. It was just like what you described—there was no fellowship. Then some normal people—not spiritual people, not great mighty men of God with great Bible knowledge and great consecration to God and full of the Holy Spirit—all decided to bind together to have this kind of life. It was just normal people like all of us here that took those steps.

What you just did in being honest is the seed of a great future. Your wife looked at you and she looked at your children and…

I cannot hide anything…

But you were honest, and it’s that kind of honesty that is the seed. Brothers have now heard your heart as you’ve expressed yourself. Brothers will begin to fill those needs and they will feel what you feel. They will admit to themselves that their own circumstances aren’t that much different than yours. God will begin to bind hearts together out of honesty—not out of greatness, or out of spirituality, or out of commitment. He binds us together out of humility when we begin to break down those barriers and say, “God, I need that and I want that. I need that for my family.”

Proud and selfish men and women will never experience the fullness of the Life of God. They might be saved and “escape as one through the flames,” but their life’s work will be burned up (1Cor 3:15). But for those of us who will humble ourselves, we will experience His Life in its fullness—if it’s for Jesus’ sake, not for our own.

That is one of the very important parts here. It’s for Jesus, the Lamb! It’s His dream and it’s His heart. The Lamb deserves a Bride that has made herself ready. That sounds active, doesn’t it? She MADE herself ready, meaning there are steps that we take. It’s a switch that we flip that says, “I will begin to be honest and not just during meetings (which is better than most meetings where no one is honest), but I want to begin to be honest on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday also. I will make the phone call. I will stop by a brother’s house, and pour my heart out. We’ll cry together, we’ll pray together, we’ll get our families together. I’ll confess my weaknesses and my failures.”

God doesn’t always meet us with greatness and the sound of a mighty rushing wind. Sometimes it’s through the seed of humility that has been watered with our tears that we begin to experience these things that we long for. We didn’t “accomplish” them. We never “started” them. One of the biggest tendencies in human flesh is, “Let’s start doing this thing. Let’s do that. Let’s build one of those.” The things of God can never be “built” or “done” or “accomplished.” It’s like the farmer who sowed the seed. Like Jesus said, he goes to bed, he sleeps, he wakes up and it grew. He knew not how (Mark 4:26-28). That is the beauty of God.

How did 3,000 in a single day begin to experience this life we’re speaking of? Did somebody “accomplish” it? Did somebody figure out how to do it? Should somebody say, “Let’s begin like they did in Acts 2. Ready, get set…”

(Laughter)

No! They looked around and there were 3,000 people and they didn’t know what to do with them. They were sore for weeks from baptizing 3,000 people in one day. They had no practice, right?

“Let’s start a church with these 3,000 people.” No way—they didn’t “start a church.” They didn’t even know what church was! They never even heard the word ekklesia. Jesus said it only one time. “I will build my ekklesia that the gates of hell cannot prevail against.” And they said, “Your what?”

Look it up. You won’t find that word in the teachings of Jesus or from anybody else until all of a sudden there was one! So they didn’t know how to “do it” and they didn’t “start it.” All they did was respond to God. They knew how to love, and they knew how to repent—“Confess your sins one to another and pray for one another that you might be healed.” (James 5:16). If we want God’s healing, we’ve got to have the humility that comes before God’s healing. God will then take that life and the honesty and humility and begin to bind the broken hearts and begin to heal the wounds. It won’t be because we started something that is “good at healing,” but because we humbled ourselves before God who is the Healer! It’s about a “Him,” not about a “what” we do. It’s something like the question of how do you become full of the Holy Spirit? Mostly it’s by repenting of things that get in the way of being full of the Holy Spirit!

That’s good.

Most of the time, it’s not something that descends from Heaven in a rush. He already lives inside of us if we’ve been Born again. He was with us but now He shall be in us.

Do you really want to be like Samson when you grow up? I don’t! People say, “I do! He was a mighty man of God and he tore down the pillars. He was even there in Hebrews 11 and he…” So what? We have something better than that! “The least in the kingdom of God is greater than even John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:11). Why? Because He was with us, but now He shall be in us. Most of this covenant isn’t about accomplishing something. It’s allowing God to work out what He’s already accomplished. Do you see it? We get in the way too much of the time. It is not our job to “go do it.” Our job is to get ourselves out of the way, so He can do it. “Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders build in vain”(Psalm 127:1).

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