“As He is, so are we in the world.” (1 John 4:17)

Even charismatic/pentecostal theologians (such as the writer of a note on this verse in my “Spirit-filled Life Bible”) say that this statement by the apostle John relates only to our position in Christ – justified, seated with Him in Heavenly places, co-heirs with Him etc. – but doesn’t refer to being like Him in other ways. However I feel challenged by the Scriptures I find that say we are, at least potentially, like Him in other ways too. I believe that He is calling us to a place where we are like Him in character and in power as well. I have written about much of this is, with Bible references, in the post “It is Finished”, so I won’t repeat it here. In that post I cover the fact that we are like Him, by faith, in the following:

Death – we are “crucified with Christ; it is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” (Gal 2:20)

Resurrection – We are raised up with Christ (Eph 2:6)

The Baptism of the Holy Spirit (Mark 10:39)

Being born of the Spirit (John 3:5, 2 Cor 5:15)

Heavenly authority (Matt 18:18)

Being sons of God (Gal 4: 6-7, Rom 8:29)

In addition,
we have His life flowing through us, not our own (John 10:10; John 20:21)

We have the Spirit who raised Him from the dead giving that life to our mortal bodies (Rom 8:11)

And his character is being formed in us, (Gal 4:19) so that we manifest the fruit (SINGULAR!) of the Spirit: the indwelling Christ Himself.

All of the above bear out Luke 6:40, in which Jesus declares: “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher.”

Throughout their time with Jesus, pre and post-resurrection, the disciples did not have a clue about the Kingdom of God. Even moments before He ascended to Heaven, “they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6). All the seeds of His teaching were dormant until they were baptized in the Holy Spirit, but once he was filled with the Spirit Peter was able to say to the lame man at the Gate Beautiful “Silver and gold have I none, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!”

The Day the Church Started Walking

This was the first of the “works that I am doing …and greater” that Jesus prophesied (John 12:14), brought glory to God through out the city, was recognised by the Jewish elders as a “notable miracle”, and led to a further 5,000 men (plus, one assumes, may women and children) being saved. While Pentecost itself was the birth of the church, this was the day that the Church started walking. It came about because a fully trained disciple was filled with the Holy Spirit, believed the words of Jesus and acted on them.

We say we are filled with the Holy Spirit. But are we? This is what Paul calls being filled with the Spirit, when he prays for the Ephesians “…that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend (the Greek word used here means to understand through experience, not just in our heads) with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”    (Eph 3 16-21) When were we last “filled with all the fullness of God”? When we are exhorted to be filled with the Spirit (eg Eph 5:18) it’s not a one-off occasion; it’s an ongoing process. In the template that we have, the New Testament, being filled “with all the fullness of God” is the normal Christian Life. Why are we so far from it, we who have had years of teaching from the Word and who are baptized in the same Spirit as Peter and Jesus?

Two possible barriers:

1)      That we are still clanking around in the armour of Saul instead of putting on the armour of God; walking in and relying on the flesh instead of the Spirit. God spoke to us  about this in SOP a few weeks ago. Have we removed any of it since then?

2)      We do believe the Word of God. But do we believe with our hearts, or with our heads? Just as salvation, which is the beginning of our life in Christ, comes when we “confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead”, surely we also have to believe with our hearts that God’s promises for the rest of our life in Christ are true as well. There is a big difference between believing that they are true on paper, and walking in them as Peter did at the Gate Beautiful. Yet it’s not a big step between believing with our hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead, to believing with our hearts that the same Spirit who raised Jesus dwells in and gives life to our mortal bodies also.

Praying in the Spirit

We looked at the first corporate prayer of the church recorded in the NT, which is in Acts 4: 24-30. The disciples “raised their voice to God with one accord and said: “Lord, You are God, who made heaven and earth and the sea, and all that is in them… grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.”

How often are our prayers formulaic, relying on how we always pray instead of relying on the Holy Spirit to show us how to pray (Rom 8 26-27)? We need to be praying in the Spirit, not in the flesh. If the Gate Beautiful was where the church started walking, Acts 4: 24-30 is where it started talking. I’m sure that if we prayed as we were led on each occasion, instead of just praying as we always do, we would see God’s hand moving a lot more frequently.

Holiness and Power

That was me done, but lots more came through various people. Marion is reading Andrew Murray’s commentary on Hebrews, and we considered how the Holiness movement preceded Pentecostalism, and both holiness and the power of God  are essential aspects of the Kingdom message. Holiness and Power go together, just as Word and Spirit go together. Rob reminded us that everything has its foundation in love: the whole of 1 John 4: 16-17 is “And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.” Whatever we face, we need to trust that love and “lean into God”, rather than away from Him. When we read the Word, we must ask the Holy Spirit to speak to us through it. When we pray He wants us to give Him a platform to speak into our lives, not just spend our time talking to Him.

Wild Love

Rob had a lovely word about the love of God: he said it was “wild.” I have a (secular) book called “Wilding,” (which I strongly recommend to all nature lovers) about a “rewilding” project is Sussex where a large farm estate (Knepp Farm) has, over the years, been carefully and scientifically released back to its original balance of nature from decades of intense agriculture, and is now teeming with flora and fauna that have not been seen there for a hundred years or more. God’s love is “wild” like the life in Knepp Farm: rampant, untrammelled, uncontained, triumphant, and above all fruitful

The Contagion of Sin

Sin is sinful!! We need to be obsessive about contagion with sin, just as we are learning to be with coronavirus. It’s the result of the Fall; it gives dominion to the devil. We need to deal with it by keeping short accounts, repenting and asking the Lord for a right spirit every time we fall. Elaine said that God had shown her that he is serious about all this, because serious times are ahead, and we need to take Him seriously and look at ourselves seriously. One of the Eagles prophets has also had a word from the Lord about being serious. We have all that we need to do whatever He says with authority, but we need to push through in prayer and not be lazy. Jake gave us Romans 12:3: “For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.”

I’ve just seen how many times in this I have said “we need to…” But I think it’s true. If we want to walk and talk as normal new testament Christians there are a lot of things that I think we do need to take on board. God is shaking Heaven and Earth, He is pruning His vine, and He is poking us out of our comfort and complacency. Another of the Eagles prophets said that Jesus is “walking round and inspecting the foundations of His church.” It’s challenging, but it’s very exciting!

“Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” (John 13:1)

We have looked at two conditions of fruitfulness so far: die to self, and remain in the Vine. As I pointed out in “abiding in the Vine,” Jesus tells us In John 15 v 8 that “producing much fruit” brings glory to the Father and is evidence of our discipleship. A third test, not specifically of fruitfulness but of the reality of our discipleship, is in the extent to which we fulfil the “new commandment:”

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13: 34-35)

Jesus didn’t pray for the world. He carried the love of God for it, He died for it, but He didn’t pray for it, so we mustn’t waste our time praying for it either: “I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours.” (John 17:9) This means that we do pray for specific individuals that we believe God has put on our hearts, but we don’t “pray for the world” in general terms. But what Jesus does ask is that “the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.” (John 17:23) He wants the world to know that we are His disciples, and he tells us that this will happen if we love one another.

We tend to think of the Lord’s precedent of Love for us as His death on the Cross for our sins. There is indeed no greater love than this, but according to John 13:1 He gave the disciples a lesson in Love before He went to the Cross. He washed their feet. And He told them/us specifically: “”For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you.” (John 13:15). He wants us to wash one another’s feet to demonstrate our love for one another, and if we do that the world will know that we are His disciples. It’s right there, and it’s been there for 2000 years: we know it’s true. But what does it mean?

The aspect of this story that is – I think – most frequently taught is that we need one another to clean off the “dirt” of our walk. We share, we confess, we pray for one another, we encourage one another, and so we keep our feet clean. But what strikes me is that Jesus “took off His outer garment.” What’s your outer garment? It’s what identifies us; what makes us stand out from the crowd – or possibly shows which crowd we belong to. But if we are going to show our love for one another in a way that the world will notice it’s no use to us at all: it needs to come off. To love one another we need to stop thinking about who we are. All I need is whatever will get the dirt off your feet.

Just today I have heard of two examples of people in ministry criticising other ministers. I think this is an example of what NOT to do. If I think your feet are dirty I need to take off my robe and come to you with water and a towel. We may well find out that mine are far worse than yours and need washing more urgently. What I don’t do is stand up with my robe on, so that everyone knows who I am, and tell the world about your smelly feet. This does not show the world how much I love you, but just confirms their suspicions about Christian hypocrisy.

Jesus is coming for a bride without spot or blemish. I think He wants us to show our love by helping each other to get ready of when He comes, and if we do that we will also be pointing others towards Him because they will see that we are His disciples.

Jake has felt that the Lord has given him the following words over the last week or so. There is a definite theme to them, which fits in well with what I believe God is saying to us at Wildwood and to the wider Church.

The best, or nothing

The Mercedes slogan is “the best, or nothing.” God wants us to think in these terms for ourselves: let’s be the best, which of course we can only do as we yield to His Spirit. Jeremiah 29 11 says “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (This is the New King James version. NIV says “the plans I have for you…”)

A note from Bob: God’s thoughts towards us for our future in Christ are nothing less than perfection. We all love to quote Jeremiah 29 vs 11, but we would do well to keep verse 11 in the context of what the Lord goes on to say in vs, 12-13 “Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” If we want to walk in the fulfilment of God’s perfect plans for us, we need to seek Him with all our hearts.

White Hot Metal

In Rev 3: 15-16 Jesus says to the church at Laodicea “”I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot,  I will vomit you out of My mouth.” Jesus wants a church He can work with, writes Jake. He is spurring us on to be “white hot for Him”. White hot metal is pliable and can be purged of impurities. When we are white hot the Holy Spirit can shape us and mould us to reflect His image, the way He originally intended.

The Old Wireless Set

Jake writes: “I have a picture of an old fashioned wireless set, that you have to tune into each station. I feel God saying, ‘How clearly do you want to hear my voice?  Are you satisfied with background noise, or even huge amounts of interference so that you have to strain to hear what I am saying? Or are you focused on hearing me? Do you want clarity enough to be prepared to spend time fine tuning into me?  I have given every one of you interests: I will use your interests to link with what I am saying to you. Are you prepared to fine  tune in to what I am saying?'”

I enjoyed Markus’s teaching from Ephesians 6 on Sunday about having our feet “fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace”. If you’re anything like my vintage you will remember the chorus “Our God Reigns”, that begins with an adaptation of the words from Isaiah 52:7

How beautiful upon the mountains
Are the feet of him who brings good news,
Who proclaims peace,
Who brings glad tidings of good things,
Who proclaims salvation,
Who says to Zion,
“Your God reigns!”

This person with lovely feet is obviously wearing those shoes of the gospel of peace. Paul may even have had it in mind when he wrote about them to the Ephesians (and to us). I have  a prayer-zoom every week with Bernard (who used to lead our church if you have joined us since he moved on), and last week The Shoes of The Gospel of Peace came up, the shoes worn by messengers of the gospel. I felt the Lord gave me a picture of the shoes worn by Mercury, the “messenger of the Gods” in Greek mythology. They looked like this:

In my picture though, the wings were wings of fire. God has been speaking about fire: there is the fire of Pentecost that we are eagerly waiting for, and there is the fire of purification that destroys the virus, as Andrew Baker has written about (“Fire kills viruses“). If we want to be effective messengers of the gospel, we need them both: the fire of the Holy Spirit to empower us, and the fire of purification to ensure that we carry that fire without it going out.

Bernard said last Tuesday, “If we want the fire on our feet, we need to go through the fire ourselves.” He’s been through it, as he contracted COVID himself and is still recovering. But we can be comforted in this, too, for the Holy Spirit says in Isaiah 43:2:

“When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned,
Nor shall the flame scorch you.”

So if you feel you are going through the fire, I hope this will encourage you: not only does the Word say that you won’t be burnt because the Lord is with you, but it’s also possible that as you walk through the flames some of them will stick to your feet, and become for you the “Shoes of readiness that comes from the gospel of peace”.

They’re better than a Roman soldier’s sandals, and even better than Markus’s running shoes…

Here’s an encouragement for all of us all to be bold in our witness to Jesus and to our faith, and a testimony to God’s faithfulness to His word.

Proverbs 16:3 says “Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.” He WILL establish them. That’s not a “might”; that’s a promise.

If you use a computer, you will probably use the font “calibri”. It’s the default font for Microsoft Word, and is one of the most used fonts in the world. It’s created by a Dutch font designer called Lucas de Groot. If you click on the“fonts” page, showing all the different font families created by his company Lucas Fonts, you’ll see this, right in the middle:

Lucas teaches typed design at Potsdam University in Germany, and lectures all over the world. It would seem that he doesn’t do it alone…

So commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.