It’s been awhile since the last post – longer than usual anyways – and I can’t say I know why exactly. So I’m just resting and waiting. What is coming ahead feels very heavy. I recently had a brief vision of a staircase with 4 steps, and sense this was significant. Taking a new step requires new effort, especially when leaving something behind in the process of entering in. I believe the Lord is preparing me, and all of us, whatever that means, for a level of intimacy with Him that is going to make everything else we’ve experienced feel like child’s play.
Meanwhile I’ve been reminiscing through older posts. It’s hard to see any one as my ‘favorite’ because each one has been a part of a personal journey with the Lord and others. But I can’t help but feel that House of Peace or House of Cards is the most foundational. The embracing of God’s heart in how He is building the Ekklesia (His intimate kingdom) in a critical first step to becoming more mature, fruitful, and seeing true spiritual reproduction at work in the world. There is a difference between working on the outside of the Lord’s house as a mere laborer, and dwelling in the house as His Bride. It is the latter that I long for.
Since writing the aforementioned post I had a shocking insight into a verse that I have been quoting wrong about the Ekklesia (church). It is not “where two or more” are gathered, there He is in the midst. It is “where two or three” are gathered! See Matt. 18:20. In other words, the number is not a minimum – it is a building block principle. It speaks of life and union. Have you noticed how many times in the book of Acts it says, “they were all of one accord”? In divine math, two or three of one heart (without any regard to the flesh) is actually one. Jesus spoke of this in John 17:21. He prayed His experience with the Father and in the Trinity would be ours.
I’d like to share something by T. Austin Sparks that speaks to this subject and blew me away me when I read it. And it’s sobering. Because if I shrink back from more intimacy because of it’s greater pain (and resort back to a safe generic love), not only will the ‘greater pleasures’ be missed, but the life of Christ will be quenched. For the Kingdom of God to grow and change the world, there must be a living in of what Sparks calls “life centres.”
The article is located on this page: https://intimatekingdom.com/growth-church-t-austin-sparks/ I hope you get a chance to read it! At the end you can comment on it.
Until next time,:)
Pamela
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Thank you Pam, for being so sensitive to the lead of His Spirit… and right, if you abandon yourself and give yourself with ALL you are into His love, this love is going to kill you! But there is no more beautiful way to die than this one!
This love is restless. Words alone aren’t sufficient. There is this unquenchable urging to express itself, It has to break through the veil of the flesh… and has to become the source of ALL we live on.
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Even though we’ve never met, Markus, ‘meeting you’ online, and in heart, at the beginning of this Song journey has been more than just coincidental. I have no words for it. Bless you and thank you.
Spot on, Markus. Amen!
Oneness ! :-D unfold that a little more. what does that look like to you?
I too have had such peace about this ‘two or three’ in the last couple of years. With us, it started off with two, and has changed to three in the last year, and there is such unity and peace about it. Unless the Lord adds, we will do nothing to search for more. He is teaching us so much.
This is exactly where my wife and I are at. We have suffered through the waiting, but like you, we will not do the adding. Just recently He has shown us that He is bringing others. Oh, to wait on His perfect provision! Jamal’s recent blog talks about this.
Amen, Paul. How much time we have wasted in the past, trying to add people WE thought would fit. How wrong we were.