DRIVE THE CHANGE
Radical
reshaping the church paradigm
Only
for the eyes of carnivores (meat eating Christians) and not for milk drinking
vegans
Victor Choudhrie
25
Steps to transit from being barren to a
millionaire of souls.
1. Shift from
church culture to kingdom culture: Yeshua Messiah came preaching the
Kingdom (Matthew 4:17-19), trained twelve disciples and sent them two by two
(2x2) (Mark 6:7) with authority to heal the sick, cast out evil spirits and
preach the Kingdom. His church exploded to seventy members, whom he also sent (2x2)
to find Houses of Peace (Luke 10) and plant the Kingdom. The church exists for
advancing His Kingdom, demonstrated by restored missional communities of love,
joy, justice, peace, security and beauty. Our God is a ‘sender’ God. If you are
only gathering and not scattering your members 2x2 to advance the Kingdom,
among the lost of the city, then your church is just a cowshed designed for milking
cash cows. To rectify this, the church needs to get out of the bondage of
religion (re=again; ligare=bondage) and adopt kingdomization of the world as
its mandate. The world applauds power, position and possessions but kingdom
values, kingdom impact and kingdom advance are our governors and motivators.
The
contemporary church needs radical overhauling and not a cosmetic job. For Kingdom
advance, rewrite the job description of Dr. Fixit from that of a pulpit orator,
sacrament dispenser and tithe gatherer, to one who identifies the gifts and
talents of all those on the pews; “For
the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable” and equip them to be two-legged
walking and talking temples of the living God whose passion is to catch two-legged
fish. Our God does not ordain ‘Reverends’ but fishers of men. He is a shepherd who
feeds his flock to be healthy, reproducing and multiplying by encouraging them
to practice priesthood of all believers with authority to baptize, break bread and reproduce fishers of men. His
flock must model an inclusive flat missional church structure wherein there is
no hierarchy but everyone submits to one another, prays one for another, serves
one another, exhorts, forgives and loves each other, and fifty more “one
another’s” so that, “The world may know
that you are My disciples.” Kingdom
cannot be experienced alone in isolation, but together as members of the
household of God. 1 John 5:19; Rom.
11:29; Matt. 4:17, 19; 24:14; Galatians
1:8; 2 Cor. 6:16; 11:4; Isa. 6:8; John
13:34-35;20:21; Eph. 4:11,12; 5:21; 1Peter 2:5,9; Ephesians 2:19
2. Move away from
corporatized, commercialized, fossilized, ritualized, traditionalized,
monopolized, politicized and over-organized Christianity which needs
to be democratized, decentralized and diversified; to gathering in simple
organic ‘houses of peace’, which are biblical, kingdom oriented, customizable,
effective, productive, flexible and free. From Moses to Yeshua, for nearly 1500
years God lived in tents (tabernacles) and temples made with human hands but
since then ‘God no longer dwells in
temples made with human hands’; rather He dwells in human hearts. You are
the mobile walking and talking temples of the living God, with a maximum of
organism and a minimum of organization. These are not just semantics but
strategic. It does not matter how good a strategy you have for church growth,
if you have the wrong platform (brick and mortar church) because that is
grounded on mere verbiage (sand), “having
a form of godliness, but denying the power of it; even turn away from these.”
2Tim. 3:5.
Growing
radicalism and hostility in many countries is uprooting millions of families
including innocent children, from their home, hearth and culture and bringing
them to your door step as economic migrants, desperately in need of urgent
humanitarian and spiritual help. Regardless of caste, colour, gender or creed;
Muslim, Hindu, Jew or Jihadi, Yeshua said, children are the greatest in the
Kingdom of God and anyone offending them could end up taking a deep dive to the
bottom of the ocean with a mill around his neck. God is orchestrating this unprecedented
mass migration in human history and creating the greatest opportunity so that
they can hear and see the Gospel of love in action and come to the saving
knowledge of Christ. How myopic can the church get if it saw it as a problem
rather than as an opportunity? While coming out of Egypt, God destroyed Edom because
they refused to provide food and water to the hungry and thirsty Israel, even as
they were willing to pay for it. (Matt. 19:14; Ezekiel 25:12-14)
The
attractional churches should give up their gimmicks and set up coalitions of emergency
task force to handle this special situation. It is well known that if help is
forthcoming when it is most needed, grateful people readily accept the faith of
their benefactors but once they settle down, it becomes very difficult because overtime,
the hurting people become bitter. Planting below the radar, invisible churches
that quietly and covertly multiply, is not only wisdom but is the only option
available. Do not take Christians only for the bus ride but also invite seekers
in your house gatherings. Even though designed for eternity, most Christians do
not have a sense of destiny and therefore leave no legacy behind. Think
eternity and leave behind a legacy of a miracle-working “houses of prayer” movement
among the perishing. The job of the shepherd is not just managing the sheep but
engaging them in the secular world to catapult not-yet-Christians into the kingdom
of His dear Son. Anything less is preaching half-truth. Knowing the truth and
not practicing the truth makes you a hypocrite.
The
core motivation of your life must be to share Christ, the image of the
invisible God, with other fellow creatures. This is not optional but
obligatory. Do not try to be politically correct. You do not need permission
from a drowning person to save him. True leaders are addicted to spotting
talent, mentoring and empowering them by giving responsibility, authority;
resourcing them and releasing them to do greater things than them. Teaching is
not transferring knowledge but helping them to discover biblical truths and
obeying them. Coaches demonstrate hands on discipling skills, while elders build
character, together they impart vision and passion, elevating degraded people
into saints of the Most High. Luke 10:5-9; Matt. 10:11-13; Acts 7:48-49; 17:11;
2 Cor. 2:14-17
3. Phase out programmed Sunday ‘services’ with lots
of feathers but not much chicken. With Christians, especially the millennials
leaving the church in droves and swelling the ranks of atheists and agnostics,
there is no doubt that the church has goofed it up big time. Those who do not
mend will end up in garbage dump. Actualize
informal, small interactive “meatings” (breaking bread from house to house) designed
to proliferate into every home in the city. The first thing that happened
during the first Pentecost after the baptism of 3000 souls, was that instead of
meeting under one roof in the temple, they blessed the city by meeting under
thousands of roofs. The Bride of Christ must have intimacy with her Lord every
day, not only for a couple of hours a week, lest she become unfaithful. However,
discourage cross-gender
disciple-making, lest chemistry fouls things up.
Christ, the creator only planted the Garden of Eden
as a model and left the rest of the earth desolate for His Bride, to complete the
Creation Mandate, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it and have
dominion over it.” Honor the Lord with first fruits and not with the leftovers.
A household exists not only for producing biological children but also to be a
center of vibrant spiritual activity for reproducing and mentoring spiritual
children, “My house shall be
called a house of prayer for all nations.” Yeshua did not come to start a religion but to restore the Old
Covenant that was broken by Israel of being a kingdom of priests to the
nations. (Exodus 19:5,6) He not only saves us but restores us as royal priests
through his blood sacrifice. (Revelation 5:9,10).
Do not try failed methods of doing church, mired in
status quo, but initiate strategies and processes to ignite a cascading
movement by being creative and innovative. Look at a lost person, as a cat
looks at a mouse, and you will get him. You do not need a
lost sheep’s permission to rescue it. Believe that God is going to work a work
among the nations through you, which will leave you utterly amazed. Our God is
God of second chance and He can use you as you are and where you are. God and
Yeshua, they are not stagnaters but senders, “As the Father has sent me so I send you.” Everyone can reach
someone. You are not just a nobody, but wired up to be a discipler of nations. “Seek the Lord while he may be found and do
the works that he sent you to do for the night comes when no one can do any
work.” Acts 2:46-47; Matt. 16:19; Col. 1:15-20; Heb.3:13; Gen.1:28; Prov.
3:9; Hab. 1:5; Isaiah 55:6; John 9:4
4. Replace legalistic
tithing
with freewill offering and extravagant sharing specifically for reaping
the harvest. Tithe was never cash but always “food”, the firstling of animals,
corn, first fruits, wine and oil etc. to be eaten by the devotee’s extended oikos
(household), which included Levites, orphans, widows and the strangers
(Gentiles). If you came from a long distance, you had to buy an animal at the temple
market, as gold or silver coins could not be barbequed at the brazen altar. Gifts
and free will offerings can be in cash or kind, like the widow’s mite. Even
today, the Kingdom grows on ‘Widow’s mite’, the poor people who give from their
meager pensions and scanty savings, and not the rich who give mere tokenism
from their abundance. In the NT they must be offered at the apostles’ feet for
the apostolic agenda of reaping the harvest. If you must, then just give half a
shekel ($5 per year in today’s value) to the church as Temple tax to have your baby
baptized, your daughter married and you to be buried in a Church’s cemetery. Yeshua
called it ‘tribute’ and made it optional saying the children of the kingdom do
not have to pay it. (Matt. 17: 24-27; Exodus 30:13,15)
While
in the OT, the Tithe was eaten by the extended oikos, in
the New Testament, Tithe is pot luck dinner in a house church, “Breaking bread from house to house” and
eaten with gladness of heart to multiply Messiah, the bread of life that came
down from heaven. Harness the enormous financial resources, hospitality and
goodwill available in Christian homes. Why give only a tenth for the salvation
of others when Yeshua gave hundred percent on the cross for your salvation? We are
free in Christ and not under legalistic bondage. Jews tithed dutifully, but we invest
cheerfully and abundantly because the gold standard of success is the quality
and quantity of harvest reaped through the stewardship of that resource. You
are blessed, “So that His way may be known on earth, His salvation
among all nations.” (Psalm 67:2) God loves harvest, so,
invest in the harvesters first, family second and job last, will set your
priorities right and He will supply all your needs according from his riches in
glory. Reversing it results in a dysfunctional family and a lost paradise. Yeshua
made a full and final sacrifice for our atonement and the best way to add value
to that is by saving sinners. Deut. 8:17-18; 14:23-27; Luke 6:38; Acts 4:34-35;
John 6:51,58; Rom. 16:20; Mal. 3:10; 2 Cor. 9:6,7; Matt. 6:33; 1Tim. 5:8; Phil.
4:18,19; Jam. 4:13; 5:20
5. Demythologize
wafer-and-sip sacrament of the Lord’s Supper and instead promote breaking
of bread with simple Agape meals (love feasts) from house to house, that
believers take with glad hearts, ‘and the
Lord added to His numbers daily’. The Lord served roast lamb, bitter herb,
bread and wine, not in a synagogue but ‘in a house’ for the Last Supper. Melchizedek
served bread and wine to Abraham in the middle of a highway. Father God had
lunch with Abraham, the Father of Gentiles, under a tree and discussed Sarah’s
pregnancy, Sodom’s ruin and Lot’s rescue plan. On the day of Passover, an
Israeli slave with zero identity, sacrificed a lamb in Egypt and splattered its
blood on the door posts, he became a protector, provider and a priest of his
family and corporately a kingdom of Priests. The greatest sin of the church is
to keep you blind and ignorant about your authority, rights, privileges and
responsibilities as a priest to your family and to the nations, thus degrading you
into a non-functional Layperson. Gen. 18
A
priest in the Tabernacle offered a sacrifice, then washed his hands (works) and
his feet (walk with God) and examined himself (conscience) in the mirror like
brass Laver before taking the sacrifice saturated fire on to the Altar of
Incense, in the Holy Place, lest he die. We are asked to examine ourselves
before taking the Lord’s Supper, lest we take it unworthily. Yeshua also saw
Zacchaeus, the tax collector and the Samaritan woman as sinners but did not condemn
them but transformed them into valuable kingdom resource and game changers. The
priest in the OT offered animal sacrifice on a daily basis. Not fulfilling your
role as a royal priest by offering lost sheep as spiritual sacrifice, amounts
to taking the Lord’s Supper unworthily. Choices made here on earth will decide whether you will
be counted worthy to sit and eat the wedding feast at the Lord’s table with the
Samaritan woman, the Gadarene and Zack, the tax collector. Acts 2:46-47;
20:7; 1 Cor.11:20-30; Exo. 12:8; 19:5,6; 38:8; 1; 1 Pet. 2:9; Cor. 11:28
6. Replace professional
music
with speaking to each other in psalms and spiritual songs, making melody in your
hearts; “Let the word of Christ dwell in
you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and
hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” The
Holy Spirit in the apostate church has been displaced by technology. The church
is a discipling hub and not a singing club. Not the ear piercing ecstatic
variety inside the church with lots of icing but no cake but ‘worship’ took
place, not inside the Haikal (Holy Place) in the Temple but out in the
open court, where man met with God at the altar with his sacrifice, penitence
and gratitude. Worship must result in reconciliation and relational restoration
with the Father.
Worship
in the Temple required a Sword, the Fire (altar) and Sacrificial animals. On the
Pentecost, the birthday of the church, “worship
in spirit and in truth” took place in a house and not the temple, with the
Sword (Word of God); the tongues of Fire (Holy Spirit) and 3000 repentant souls
offered up as a living Sacrifice. This was to restore the 3000 unrepentant
souls that were killed by iron sword in the wilderness for worshiping a golden
calf. The Jews worshipped God by offering four-footed dead sheep; the traditional
church worships by offering empty praise of their lips by singing endless songs
but the New Testament church worships God by offering the lost sheep as living
sacrifice, “to be a minister of Christ
Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the
offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.”
Not the quality of worship inside the chapel but the quality and quantity of disciples
made outside the chapel that glorifies God. “Worship
in truth and spirit” is no longer confined to any religious meeting or building
but “from the rising of the sun to its
going down, pure offering (repentant souls) and incense (intercessory prayer
for the nations) will be offered up” in anyplace, where you make disciples.
Gen. 22:5-7; Psalm 51:17; 2Chron. 7:12; Eph 5:19; Col 3:16; Psalm 50:14; Rom.12:1,2;
15:16; John 4: 20-24; 15:8; Acts 2:47; Malachi 1:11
7. Upgrade your church from a community of believers
to a community of disciple-makers: Shift from the building that is
erroneously called the church for we are the church, the Body and Bride of Yeshua. The brick and mortar building
church has done more harm to the spread of Christianity
than anything else, because it is dedicated to Christians only, that grows by transfer
and not by conversion. Many shamelessly
celebrate silver/gold/diamond jubilees even centenaries without having won any
souls and with zero citywide impact. They are resource guzzling institutions
that dictate but do not engage. Their era is over, ready to implode from
within.
If you want to transform your city then
upgrade your church from a community of believers to a community of
disciple-makers. Convert your own house or some other convenient place into Bet
Tafillah (House of Prayer) inviting non-believers to an interactive,
participatory, gender-neutral prophetic church, where everyone can share a
psalm, a doctrine, a revelation, a tongue, a testimony, a dream or a vision, all
laced with a cup of coffee and a sandwich. Remember there are four kinds of soil in your church, only the good
soil will produce thirty-fold, sixty-fold and hundred-fold. 1Cor. 14:23:32; Rev. 3:20; Luke 10:5-8
Encouraging
the believers and non-believes to share their points of view, has the potential
to unleash a disciple making movement and ignite a citywide Kingdom
multiplication. In the Synagogue, the Ruler was only a facilitator and not the
orator, where several elders reasoned, persuaded and even disputed and the audience
was free to react, sometimes violently. (Acts 17:1,2; 18:4; 19:8-10) Spiritual
maturity is not how much you know but how obedient you are to what you already
know. Not using your God given tools makes you rusty, ineffective and worthless.
Making disciples and leveraging organic house groups as platform for igniting
Kingdom movement is not only fun but has the potential to have your name
written in the Book of the Lamb.
To
precipitate a seismic shift, find Samaritan women and demonized Gadarenes, detoxicate
and dispatch them as workplace apostles (sent ones) from day one. The dragon is
now driving the world by default because 99 percent of sincere Christians are
sincerely incompetent to disciple anyone in their work places. Remember his
family and friends saw David only as a shepherd boy but God saw him as a king.
People saw Esther only as a refugee slave girl but God saw her as a queen. So
give up your hang ups and maximize ordinary believers using their unique gifts
and talents to dethrone the enemy and populate your city with the “saints” of
the Most High. Saints are those who have made a covenant with God (to be a blessing
to others) with a sacrifice (sanctified lost soul). Only the prayers of the saints (not all prayers), saturated with the
sacrifice of broken and contrite hearts, reach the Throne of God via the Golden
altar.
The sinful Samaritan
woman was transformed into a saint when she understood that worship in spirit
and in truth is bringing the whole village to the feet of Jesus. Saints do not
just sing songs and call it worship, they offer lost sheep as sweet-smelling fragrance
to God. People saw the Samaritan woman as a sinner but Yeshua saw her as a
saint.
1 Cor.14:26-32; Luke 6:13; James 4:17; 1John 5:19; Dan. 7:18,27; Ps. 50:5;
51:17; John 4:20-23; Rev. 8:3,4; 2 Cor. 5:1-4
8. Your Lord did
not preach from the same pulpit twice. Why should you?
Especially as 150,000 people die every day worldwide, most of them into
Christless eternity. Out of seven billion people of the world only two billion
are Christians, who will also perish for non-performance. Yeshua came to seek
and to save the lost. Are you proactively seeking and saving the lost? If not,
why not; when there are tens of millions that have yet to hear the gospel for
the first time? After three months of fruitless exhortations in the synagogue,
Paul shifted into the Hall of Tyrannous in the noisy fish market. There he put
on his working apron, crafted tents to earn his living, as he conducted T4T
(Training for Trainers) for his twelve Ephesian disciples, as well as implanting
the DNA of Multiplication in his clients, the nomadic pagans into zealous itinerant
evangelists. They took his healing napkins and aprons and shared with other
pagans what they had seen and heard. The outcome – all Asia (Turkey) heard the
gospel. This model stridently negates the myth that synagogues (churches) are
needed to be launching pads for a CPM (Church Planting Movement). They are
designed for profit and not for mobility and momentum for they lack the DNA of multiplication.
For
explosive impact, do not be seduced by rhetoric, or buildings or music or by numbers
but invest on a few to metastasize your mega-church into city, regional,
national and even multinational networks of mini-churches and shoot for the ends
of the earth. Instead of one roof, encourage multisite gatherings under thousands
of roofs; just like the mega church at Jerusalem birthed myriads of mini-churches
in Samaria, Antioch, Corinth, Rome, Cappadocia and beyond wherever people were
dispersed in diaspora, that grew daily, in faith and in numbers, both in
quality and quantity.
The
objective is to see that your country with many nations under many gods must
become one nation under one God. Many nations to their peril have turned away
from God in their schools, hospitals, courts, governments, administration and
media while their shepherds are slumbering. Can the little churches doctrinally
go wrong? Of course, they can, just as the big churches go wrong in a big way. Stay
with movers and shakers. We, the seed
of Abraham are blessed; “with
multiplying I will multiply you and your seed will possess the gate (cities) of
the enemy”. Not possessing the cities can rob you of your inheritance. Rom.
16:3-15; Acts 1:8; 16:5; 17:6; 19:8-10; 26:18; Nahum 3:18; Gen. 22:17-18
9. Shift
focus from Christians to the lost: Every organization knows its mandate and tells its members their job
description on day one. Why should you be wasting your time going to a
church that does not know its mandate to seek and
save the lost and teach her members how to seek and save the lost. Yeshua knew that he came to seek and save the lost and that is what he
did all day and every day and taught his disciple to do the same. Should you
not be doing the same? 70% Christians do not have any meaningful contact with non-Christians
and the remaining do not share their faith even with their best friends. On an
average, barely 2% of any congregations are evangelicals. Then how do we reach the ends of the earth as his witnesses when we do
not witness even in our neighborhoods and workplaces? (Acts 1:8) Do not send theologians with academic tags as missionaries who do not
have the tools in their tool belts to convict and convince and make disciples of
peoples of other faiths. God is not looking for aquarium keepers (Pastors) of
pretty and colorful but non-productive Sunday fish, but He is looking for fishermen
that go out daily to catch the fish lost in the whirlpools of the world. Church
is the launching pad for reaching the ends of the earth.
By
the time a Jew came to worship God in the temple, he had already used his tithe
to feed the fatherless and widows, clothe the naked and provide justice to the
oppressed, lest God reject his sacrifice. Yeshua took worship to higher level
by making it relational by asking them, “Go back and mend broken relationships
before offering sacrifice”. It is not the content of the sermon but its practical
application that creates the movement. Just like fishing, discipling is a
skill. If you do not use it, you lose it. Yeshua said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Being a follower of
Christ (faithful member of a church) is not enough; for that is just the
beginning of your spiritual journey; you must aim to graduate as a prolific fisher
of men.
If
your pastor is not striving to convert you into a competent fisher of men then
go and find coaches with fruitful ministries to implant DNA of rapid
multiplication in the infertile Bride to maximize her fertility rate. A healthy
mature female (Bride) implies that she is ready to have babies. Rebecca, the
Bride of Isaac, was blessed by her family to have myriads (tens of thousands) of
children. The Bride of Christ must not be barren but stretch her tent to the
left and to the right, to the north and to the south, reproduce millions of mini-brides
and fill the earth until there be no human habitation left where Christ is not named.
Remember the Bible begins and ends with a wedding. Titus 1:5-9; Matt. 4:19; 5:23,24;
Gen. 24:60; Isa. 54:1-5; 58:6,7
10.
Empower women – The Lord designed His church to be gender-neutral
where men and women are equal members of His Body. He ministered to women who
were off limits. Mary of Magdala, a redeemed sinner, was the first apostle
(sent one) to the apostles. Priscilla, Phoebe, Lydia, Apphia, Nympha and host
of other women were apostles, prophets, teachers and house church facilitators.
Paul never asked women (gune)
to keep their mouths shut, he only asked wives (gune) not to embarrass their husbands (aner) in public but to ask them questions
at home. He encouraged everyone, men
and women to share psalms, teachings,
revelations, testimonies and prophesy.” Paul instructed Timothy, “what you have
heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men
who will be able to teach others also.” Here Paul instructs faithful men
(anthropos= both men and women) to teach others. (2Timothy 2:2)
Yeshua’s blood removes the curse of Eve. Paul
did not ask women to cover their head with a piece of cloth, but with hair. As
a Jewish man, Paul covered his head with kippah
(cap) all the time and wore a talit
(prayer shawl) while praying. Even today, for orthodox Jewish women covering
their heads with Prayer shawl in public is a criminal offence. Paul is not
talking about a piece of cloth but hair. He simply asked men not to have long hair and women not to
have shaved head (sign of temple prostitutes), but both women and men to have
Christ as their covering. He was not setting a tradition because God does not
look at the length of hair but at the heart.
God formed the man from dead dust
(Hebrew yatser=mould like a pot) to
be filled with one purpose at a time but fashioned
the woman (Hebrew banah=build) from a
living rib, to be a builder of relationships. Women are the custodians of faith
in any culture. One woman can reach many and many women can reach everyone. Not
empowering women to make disciples, baptize and serve the Lord’s Supper, would diminish
her role as a helpmeet to her real spouse (Yeshua) and disenfranchise the most
productive part of the evangelistic workforce of the church. 1 Cor. 12:12; Gal. 3:27-29; 1Cor. 7:25; 11: 15,16; 14:34,35;
Genesis 2:22
Drive the
change- Start with your family. Your real
marriage is to the Lord. The husband-wife-children relationship is just an
earthly model to see how you make it work. If you can’t make it work, you may not
be invited to the wedding banquet of the Lamb. Sons and daughters - honor your mother and father, if you want to
live long. The Hebrew word kabad and
the Greek word time’ for ‘honor’ means ‘making rich’ or even ‘money
paid’. Providing for your aging parents’ ranks higher than paying Korban (Tithe)
to your church. Tithing for church maintenance are neither a part of the Ten
Commandments, nor a requirement in the New Testament but taking care of parents
and the poor, widows, orphans, the disaffected, the marginalized and the
hurting are the focus of the Scriptures because the church thrives in the
broken world where people sincerely pray, “Give
us this day our daily bread” and mean it. The church rapidly stagnates when
it starts entertaining the rich.
While regular Christians seek the King
without seeking the kingdom, the social activists seek the kingdom without the
King. Both are deluded. The kingdom is wholistic, is here and now and advancing
daily, and presumably only those who are advancing it will have their names
written in the Book of Lamb, a mandatory requirement for obtaining a passport
for entering the Kingdom. The business of the church is to wipe away tears until
there be no poor in the kingdom, not by just providing “soup kitchens” or
declaring a “war on poverty program” or by handing out candies, thus creating
dependency but first do “resource mapping” of gifts, talents, skills and
abilities that already exist in the community and then strategically invest in restoring
dignity by identifying with them and empowering them to dislodge the oppressive
systems that make them poor and powerless. This is possible only through the
power of the gospel. Eph. 5:25-33; Matt. 19:23,24; James 2:5; Deut.
6:5;7; 15:4; 2 Cor. 9:6,7; Luke 4:18; Col. 3:17; Rev.19:9; Psalm 14: 6; Exo.
20:12, Mal. 4:5,6
11.
Know your
identity in Christ: Shun going to a church that does recognize you
as a Royal Priest, made so by the blood of the Lamb. Look in the mirror first
thing in the morning and say, “I am a Royal Priest” and then go out as an
ambassador of Christ, the highest-ranking representative of the government of
God, to bring people to repentance, baptize, disciple and plant the kingdom wherever
God has placed you. Peter, Paul, Lydia and others went out every day first as
Royal Priests and only secondarily as fishermen, tentmaker or seller of purple
clothes. Dismantle ‘Reverend’ culture because only God is worthy of reverence;
“Holy and reverend is his name” and
breach the preacher-creature divide. Minimizing the Kingdom of God to “Sunday church”
is hamartia (missing the mark), translated “sin” in English. What you do
on Sunday in the church is man-made religion, not to be found in the pages of
the Bible. What you do on weekdays to expand the Kingdom is worship. The
secular (godless) Federal, State and City governments daily find out the
problems in their domains and find urgent solutions to them. God ruled Israel
through prophets but they asked for a king and there is long list of kings,
beginning with Saul who messed it all up.
There is a long list of people who will not make it
to the kingdom that includes; “But for the cowards, and unbelieving, and abominable, and murderers, and
fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, their part shall be
in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone; which is the second death.” (Revelation 21:8) Notice, it is not the brutal
jihadist but the cowards that are leading the pack. If you are scared of witnessing
– beware – you have been warned. “If anyone is
ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of
Man will be ashamed of him when he comes with the holy angels in his Father's
glory.” (Mark 8:38) If you want to make it into the kingdom, then stop being polite and
bashful, you must dare to live beyond caution, because for the lost, it is a
matter of life and death. Evangelism is bringing people to faith, discipling is
equipping them to be
reproductive. You can bring a thousand people to faith but that will not
make much of a dent but each disciple creating a downline of multi-generational
disciples will get you to the finish line much quicker. 2Timothy 2:2
12.
The church is supposed to be the authentic Government
of God,
“…and the government shall be upon his shoulders...” with authority to
reign on earth through her saints. She should be identifying current issues and
finding practical and spiritual solutions to them on a daily basis. Unfortunately,
all that the saints are doing is sitting and singing songs and listening to pep
talks, once a week and throwing coins into the collection box for the
entertainment. If you abdicate your authority, Satan will gladly fill in the
gap. God chose you to be a colonizer, so you should be colonizing your domain. If
Christians understood their identity and colonized their domains, “the
Kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ.”
Like
Melchizedek, the royal-priest of Jerusalem (City of Peace), who served bread and
wine, took a tithe and blessed Abraham, bring godly governance to your city
whose builder and maker is the Lord. Do not be deluded into thinking that you
elect your President or Prime minister or your Mayor and other political
leaders. Lucifer, the father of lies, does. He said so to Yeshua; “All these kingdoms have been given to me
and I give it to whomsoever I like.” Why will he give it to anyone who will
ravage his kingdom? To dethrone Lucifer, catch the vision of cloning and
saturating the city with royal-priests with authority to bind the strongman; run
with that vision and reign on earth.
Remember
every royal priest is ordained (John 15:16) to offer sanctified lost people as mincha (bloodless sacrifice), baptize
and break bread from house to house. This authority you receive on day one of
your Christian journey. God is not looking for shepherds who just entertain his
sheep once a week but entrepreneurs who go and “seek the sheep which are not of
this fold,” and multiply his sheep daily. Be a game changer and be the change
that you want to see changed. Eph. 6:20; 1 Pet.2:9; Rev.5:10; Hab.2:1-3; Isa.
9:6-7; Gen. 14:18; Hebrew 11:10; Luke 4:6,7; 22:19; Rom. 12:1; 15:16; 1Cor.
6:20; Psalm 111:9
13.
Paul’s
passion was to catalyze a disciple making blitz in every city, where
Christ had not been named, not just with rhetoric but with mighty signs and
deeds. Ever since missiologist Ralph D. Winter’s catalytic speech on the Great
Commission of Matthew 28:18-20, at the Lausanne Conference in 1974, and his
interpretation of ta ethne as People Groups, a whole industry has
spawned on research, training, mentoring, mobilizing and monitoring. However,
we do not see this model in Yeshua’s or Peter or Paul’s ministries. Although,
their ministries were inclusive, all we see is Yeshua and others recognizing
only two People Groups, Jews and Goyim (Gentiles). Their main strategy was on
going from village to village and from town to town to cover as much territory
as possible. Yeshua told his disciples, “Let us go to other towns and
cities, for that is why I have been sent.” (Mark 1:38; Luke 4:43) Even at his
last moments on earth at the ascension on the Mount of Olives, his very last command
to 500 saints, “You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and
to the ‘ends of the earth,’” (Acts 1:8) This does not sound like a People
Group approach but a very Geographical approach.
Churches, missions, grant-makers and
individuals should be adopting streets, neighborhoods, villages, cities and
region, if we are ever the reach the finish line. For a start, defining and
monitoring People Groups and Movements can be very difficult and confusing
compared to monitoring the number of villages reached. Without abandoning the
People Group approach, there needs to be an intentional shift to Geographical
approach. There are 638,000 villages in India and around 2.5 million villages,
worldwide, majority of them still waiting to have a House of Prayer for all
nations. We need to plant a beach-head in every human habitation by raising
Persons of Peace and then encouraging them to reach every nation, tongue and
tribe in their domain. His end-vision was to declare that there be no place
left where Messiah has not been named.
Become
relational and an obedient practitioner of your faith and go fishing for two-legged
fish. You have a choice to swim alone and drown or swim together, not only to
survive but to thrive. Focus on catalyzing a rapid disciple-making and planting
bet tafilati (Houses of prayer) in every human habitation but do not try
to build churches because there is only one church for the whole wide world and
building that church is His job. He said, “I
will build my kehilah (Ekklesia i.e. called out).” The root word kirke for church is the same as for circus, a
place of entertainment. Kirke (Cerce) a goddess, whose sense of
humour included turning men into wild beasts, hence the circus includes wild
animals and jokers. Kirke is derived from the Greek verb kirkoô meaning
"to secure with rings" or "hoop around"--a reference to bondage
to sorcery and magic. The first time the word qahal (Ekklesia= summoned
group) was used when Israel was summoned at the Mount Sinai to make a covenant
with God. Deut. 18:16.
First
catch the fish and then clean it (repent and baptize) up. Christianity has no
walls and no borders. The world is rapidly reaching its tipping point and ready
for implosion. Armed with maps, stats, city metrics and the Great Commission,
go 2x2 treasure hunting, find “a person
of peace”, heal the sick, cast out demons and then teach them the divine arithmetic
of discipling at least one soul every month, and very soon, you will have thousands
of souls in your savings account. Not doing so can result in a mysterious hand appearing
and writing on the wall, “Mene, mene,
tekel ufarsin”; you have been weighed on the balance and found wanting. Your
kingdom has been taken away from you.” John
14:12; 2Tim 2:3:5; Rom. 15:19,20; 1 Cor. 2:4; Matt. 16:18; 23:10; Acts 16:5; Luke
10:1-9; Isa. 60:22; Phil.4:17;
Daniel 5:25-28
Most church going Christians are deluded into thinking that they are believers. Most Christians will
fail the “believer’s test” because – “These
signs shall follow a believer; he shall cast out demons…and pray for the sick
and they will be healed.” Even a believer will not make it to heaven, if he
just says Lord, Lord or prophesies and casts out demons, if he fails to
disciple the delivered. A priest when he offered incense at the golden altar in
the Holy Place was acutely aware that the ingredients came from many nations,
so in effect he was a priest to the nations. Secular work done with spiritual
motive is spiritual while spiritual work done with financial motive is carnal. Elohim
chose Israel to be priests to the nations but they failed. Similarly, Yeshua
did not choose you to be just a member of the church, but to be a priest to the
nations.
Remember
the sin of Sodom was not sodomy, that was the end result. “Behold, this was the iniquity of
thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness
was in her and in her daughters, neither did she take care of the poor and
needy.” (Ezekiel
16:49) The church should not be debating sexual (dys)-orientation and same-sex
marriages because she herself stands indicted for arrogance (We are
biblical, the biggest and the best), gluttony (look at the sheer number
of obese people in the church), non-performance (not one disciple made
in a lifetime) and despising the poor and the needy (rampant). All these
sins committed by the church has resulted in the LGBT lobby running the government,
the media and the judiciary. Unlike vagina, the rectal mucosa (lining) is thin,
allowing easy transmission of HIV, AIDS and STD. The dirty, smelly shitbag was
designed for excreting faeces and flatus and not for sex. Ten righteous people
could have saved the sin sick cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Your city will
suffer the same fate, unless you act real quick, otherwise God will have to
apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah for what he did to them.
Unglue
from the pews all those fat butts who sit, soak and stagnate, for the Lord is
crying out, “Let my people go” and
send them as righteous people to heal the sick, raise the dead, tread on snakes
and scorpions (expel demons), bind the ‘strongman’, plunder his possessions,
demolish the gates of Hell, and advance the kingdom. By the way demons do not
live in stone idols but colonize minds and ravage people’s world views. Do not
depend on horses and chariots (dollars) but in the power of Yeshua Messiah, put
on the whole armor of God and doggedly pursue demon demolition drive and
dethrone the territorial spirits by adopting streets, colonies and blocks for prayer
walking. Cleanse your city and graduate into an apostle, “Truly the signs of an apostle … in signs, and wonders, and mighty
deeds.” Carry on until, “The kingdoms
of this world have become the Kingdom of our Lord and His Messiah.” Not
doing so can land you in the dog house. Mark
16:17,18; 2 Cor. 13:5; Matt.7:21-23;
11:12;12:29;16:18-19; Luke 10:19; John 15:8; 2 Cor. 12:12; 1 Cor.
10:19,20; 2Cor. 4:4; Rev.11:15; 1John 3:8
14. Yeshua
was anti-establishment: If nothing else, one must get this one thing right.
Yeshua came to reveal the truth to set men free from the bondage of religion. He spent his childhood out in the
sun and serpent worshipping Egypt. He grew up in the Galilee of the Gentiles
(Matthew 4:15). He got mikved (baptized) outside the religious Judea, beyond
Jordan at Bethabara (John 1:28). He broke the Jewish religious taboo to
minister to Samaritans and the pig worshipping Gadarenes of Decapolis, cursed
the Jewish fig tree with only leaves but no fruit, deliberately broke many
man-made Rabbinical takanots (edicts) that conflicted with the Torah, bad-mouthed
the gender-bender, people exploiting religious leaders in the harshest language.
He rejected the religious elites and chose “no
bodies” as his disciples, imparted practical skills to them out in homes,
street corners and the market place, by-passing the knowledge-based scholarly
Madrassas, and sent them to preach the kingdom by eating, “whatever is laid
before you” kosher or non-kosher. He cleansed the Temple which had
become a market place and declared it to be a house of prayer for all
nations that included Gentiles. Giving the final blow to the Jews, ending centuries of their hegemony
over religion, he announced, “The kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to the Gentiles
bringing fruits thereof.” (Matt.
21:43) Note that, the Kingdom is not given to all the Christians of Gentile
origin but only to those bringing forth fruit.
15.
Replace Reverend
culture with Royal priesthood culture: He preached and practiced
spirituality to destruct the stranglehold of religion by revealing the truth
and thus resurrect the dead religious organization into a living organism. Missions is too important to be left to extra-biblical bureaucrats
with cosmetic titles like President, CEO, VP, Secretary and other
non-performers, who sit in cozy offices and control those who work in the field.
Leadership is about influencing and not controlling. Replace “Reverend culture”
with five-fold ministry-gifted Elders of either gender, like Apostles, Prophets,
Evangelists, Shepherds and Teachers. The primary function of the church is to equip
the saints, stagnating on the pews, to be work-place ministers. Eph.4:11,12
Stop praying selfish shopping list
prayers. God showed Moses how to pray in the temple. First techinnah
(supplications, while offering the sacrifice at the brazen altar); second tefillah
(prayer of self-examination while washing hands and feet at the laver); third –
bakkashot (intercession for the nations while offering incense at
the Golden altar in the Holy Place; and fourth – Hodayah offering
thanks to God for accepting their offering. Offering sacrifice was central to
prayer without which it would be “strange prayer” and therefore not acceptable.
1Timothy 2:1-4
There are four types of sacrifice
mentioned in the Scriptures. In the OT they daily offered animal sacrifice for
their redemption. (Exodus 29:42) Second is Yeshua as full and final sacrifice
for the redemption of the world (Hebrews 10:10). Third sacrifice is offering
your bodies as reasonable worship (Romans 12:1,2) and finally offering Gentiles
as ministers of Yeshua. (Romans 15:16; James 5:20). The first two are blood
sacrifices because without the shedding of blood there could be no redemption.
The last two are for us to offer mincha – bloodless sacrifice. Sacrifice
continues to be central to our faith because God said to Solomon, “My house
shall be called Beth Zebach, a house of sacrifice.” The only difference is
that while in the OT they offered our legged dead animals, in the NT we offer
two-legged living repentant souls. The other difference is that in OT they
could offer them only in the Temple while in the NT we can offer them anywhere,
even in a Gentile homes. Malachi 1:11
The NT royal priest offers lost sheep
as sacrifice and then offers all these prayers for them. First of all we offer prayers
for kings and those in authority and then for atheists, agnostics, polytheists
and skeptics to be transformed by the power of the Gospel; washed (baptized),
sanctified (separated), justified (made righteous) and sent to do the same to
other godless pagans. If the church followed this pattern, shown to Moses on
the Mount Sinai, Kingdom advance would go ballistic. Anything less would be strange
fire, that mimics the genuine, but is fake.
Many
intercessors suffer from “yell and tell syndrome” but will not take one step to
seek and save a lost person. Prayer cells, prayer towers and prayer fests in
isolation will not produce any fruit; they must network and bring convergence
with apostolic ministries to bring forth lasting fruit. True intercession is
going out weeping with seed and coming back rejoicing with sheaves. Although
men got the credit, over 85 percent of churches today have been planted by simple
women. Making disciples and planting organic churches requires multiple skills
and women are multi-tasking superstars. Lack of understanding by the Pastors
that they are to pastor the whole city through their congregations, is
destroying the cities. True Pastoring is pasturing the sheep everyday in the
pasture-land (the world) to eat, mate and multiply. Healthy feeding and leading
will keep the flock fat and fertile and build bridges with the “other sheep which are not of this fold so
that there will be one Shepherd and one flock.” Not doing so can land you,
your congregation and your city into an ash heap of wood, hay and stubble. Tit.1:5-9;
Ps. 126:5,6; John 10:16; 1 Cor. 3:12-15
16.
Not the Mega but the meta church is the real
deal: “For it is not by might nor by power but by My spirit says the Lord
therefore, do not despise the day of the humble beginnings” (Zechariah 4:6,10) for it is the meta (beyond) churches that are
changing the spiritual profile of the nations. The meek are the
inheritors of the kingdom and so endeavor to partner with them so that you may be
found worthy to spend an eternity with them. The profit oriented mega-stars are
focused on “revival and churching the un-churched,” not to be found in the pages
of the Scriptures. Despite mass marketing, mega crowds and mega claims, they make
little dent in the global religious demographics. In the last couple of decades,
thousands of unknown and unsung, story tellers belonging to the oral tradition
grassroots level workers, who are focused on holistic transformation have emerged
as global players in changing the spiritual profile of the globe, especially
the 10/40 Window countries.
Peter had the first mega church in
history in Jerusalem with myriads (Greek for tens of thousands) who were
unfortunately “zealous for the Law” (Acts 21:20) instead of being
zealous for the Lord and to his command to go and make disciples. Not
surprisingly the Jewish church withered as Peter completely failed to turn them
into disciples. No names are mentioned in his letters. On the other hand, Paul raised up local
leadership wherever he went and mentioned them by name in his letters. We are
here today because of Paul’s Gentile ministry which has kept raising
generations of disciple-makers. Warning - Your church will also wither if you
only make “members zealous for the church” but not reproducing disciple-makers.
It
is the shift from the religious superstars to the common man/woman for, “God has chosen the foolish of this world to
shame the wise”, as the real drivers of the kingdom at the fringes. Like
their Master, they are not using mere words but launching out miraculous
movements and declaring the kingdom, “Go
and show John, the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed,
the dead are raised and the gospel is being preached to the poor.” To reach
the ends of the earth, maximize every cell church, Sunday school, bible school,
prayer cell, youth and women’s fellowships, cottage meeting and indeed every
Christian household into full-fledged, authentic harvest reaping hubs. Viralize
“reproducing disciple-maker’s movement” by encouraging and empowering everyone,
men, women and youth, to baptize, break bread, equip and send apostles, prophets,
evangelists, shepherds and teachers to turn upside down, the spiritual landscape
of their cities. It is not to the mega-churches but to the little meta (beyond)
gatherings that Yeshua promised, “Fear
not little ones for it has pleased the Father to give you the Kingdom.” Luke 12:32; 1Cor.16:19; Luke 7:22-23;
Acts 4:13;19:8-12; 1 Cor. 1:26-30; Rev.3:2,5; Gal.1:8-11; Exo. 25:9; Jer. 29:7.
17. Filter out non-performing goats that come
only for hatching (baby baptisms), matching (weddings) and dispatching (funerals).
Replace them with sheep that reproduce by taking care of the hungry, thirsty,
naked, strangers, sick and prisoners. Culling i.e. getting rid of the non-productive
sheep and donating them as free gift to the nearest Pentecostal church, will
greatly improve your standing in the local Pastor’s Fellowship. Pastors are not
the solution, they are part of the problem, because despite unprecedented
opportunities and plentiful resources and one pastor for every 250 people in
the USA, the institutional church is heading for the dustbin of history. One
billionaire remarked, “I am not a smart guy, but I am smart enough to surround
myself with smart guys, who have made me a billionaire.” To be effective,
finding effective partners, such as Apostles, Prophets and Teachers is crucial.
Culling is an integral dynamic of the ‘best practices’ of sheep rearing, so
that the shepherd does not waste his time and resources on the barren sheep but
feed and take care of the most productive ones in the green pastures. Scripture
is full of examples of culling; good fish from bad fish, prepared virgins from
unprepared virgins, wheat from tares, two women grinding corn, sheep from goats
and finally rapture of the
obedient remnant from the non-obedient workers of anomia (iniquity) meaning
those did not obey the instructions; “If you love me you will obey my commands.” . Matt. 7:23S; John
14”15,23
Scripture
tells us that a man shall be known (judged) by his fruit. Yeshua guarantees
that if you truly abide in him, you will bear fruit. If you do not have fruit
(saved souls) in your bag then it does not matter how religious you are, you
are not truly attached to Yeshua (Yahve saves). There are four kinds of
branches attached to Yeshua, the true vine. The branch that does no bear fruit
is to be culled (cut off) and thrown into fire (Hell). The second branch that
has some fruit is to be pruned off from its worldly and religious bondages so
that it can bear more fruit. The third branch has abundant fruit but some are
rotten. They go in one end of the revolving door and come out the other end
without bearing any fruit. The fourth branch that the Lord likes most are the
ones that produce fruit – that keeps reproducing. Matt. 7:16-20; John 15:1-8;15
God
chose David to shepherd Israel, not because of his academic tags or for his hunting
skills, not even for his musical talents, but because he was skillful in taking
care of the most productive segment of his flock, “the ewes great with young”. Now God is pouring out His spirit on all flesh (that
includes you); both men and women, young and old, Jews and Gentiles to edify and
multiply His church. Not church splitting but church multiplication, not empire
building but kingdom building must become our war-cry. As the dominance and the
power of the clergy diminishes and the effectiveness of the empowered believers
increases, the kingdom goes ballistic. Not the politicians but it is the
responsibility of the church to establish godly governance with kingdom values
of peace, justice, security, and abundance for all. The reward is eternity and
co-rulership with Christ. Even though we live in a temporal world, in Christ, we
live and move and have our being with eternal perspective and hope and our eternal
life starts now.
Yeshua came not come to rebuild
the grand Temple of Solomon but to rebuild the fallen Tent of David. The
architecture of an organic “household of God” is radically different from an
organized church. It’s structure and her functional dynamics are entirely
different. Imposing man-made supra-structures over God’s pattern, like the
Pharisees, who had planted themselves as custodians of the synagogues to
control, manipulate and intimidate ordinary folk, were told by Yeshua that, “What
God has not planted will be uprooted.” Pharisees (separated ones) and the
synagogues did not exist in the OT, as they were never part of God’s plan. Modern
church and its guardians, if they persist in practicing unbiblical methods of doing
church and worship are equally in danger of being uprooted and have their names
blotted out from the eternal Book of the Lamb. Eph. 2:19; Matt. 15:13; 25:31-46;
Psa. 78:70-72; Isa 40:11; Acts 2:17,18; 17:28; Leviticus 10:1
18.
Simplify
disciple making. Yeshua clearly declared that, “No one can come to Me
unless the Father… draws him…” (John 6:44) The Greek word translated “draw”
is helkuo, literally means “to drag.” Not your scholarship,
any special technique or ability or screaming your head off at the crusades and
conventions, but creating situations for broken and contrite hearts to have an
encounter with God, like providing simple hospitality that will allow Him to
drag unwilling sinners into the kingdom. Invite a couple of truth-seekers for a
meal where the main dish is - The Lamb. Redefine authentic church as “the
household of God” with a mission; wherever two or three, eat, meet, gossip the
gospel, and multiply. There is no better cost-effective strategy than a triplet
church, because it has all the power in heaven and earth for discipling the
nations. Because Yeshua himself is present, it is simple, authentic and
complete church and you do not need anything else to be a church. (Matthew
18:18-20)
Like
Paul try reasoning first, if that does not work, then try persuading and if
that fails, try disputing and when push comes to shove, perform a notable miracle
that they cannot deny. The primary
business of the church is to coordinate between heaven and earth. By the way, no one is going to heaven
because the pearly gates with streets of gold and glittering mansions, is
coming down to earth and God will tabernacle with men. “As in Adam all die.” So,
when Yeshua comes, all the dead will
rise, some to eternal shame and others to eternity with Christ. So if you want to sit and eat
with Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David and the apostles, better get
moving to reserve your seat at the banquet table.
We live in a polluted world. The air we
breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat are all polluted with
chemicals. Nothing is kosher; the vegetables, the fruit, the grains, meat and chicken,
they are all genetically manipulated and hybridized. Even the basic bread that we
eat is not made from the original wheat with 14 chromosomes but the hybrid
variety that has 42 chromosomes. However, it is not just the food but the moral and
spiritual freefall that indicate dark trajectories that the “count-down” has
begun and this event is imminent, hence it is not enough just to sit and pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on
earth” but take steps to make the
kingdom a reality
You
will not be eligible for a mansion unless you make down payment here and now by taking your butt off the pews and go and “fill the earth with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord is the
waters cover the sea.” Do some quick diagnostics and you will find that communication is no longer a one-way traffic?
Internet, social media, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, YouTube, Skype and Smart phones
are radically changing the world. It is not just surfing the net but fruitfully
engaging the lost netizens. This requires not just being techie geeks but
discipling dexterity because God does not read e-mails but only knee-mails. He is now preparing a new generation with vision to drive the
change, to restore the Bride which has become fat, flatulent and grossly
disfigured by centuries of extra-biblical additions and accretions, into the
original Bride without spots, wrinkles and blemishes. It is no longer just
managing the youth but productively engaging them in multi-way conversation
between the generations. If you don’t mentor your spiritual descendants, atheists,
Islamists, Yoga gurus and pornography are already polluting their minds. Acts 2:42-47; 4:16; 18:4; 19:8-12; Eph.
1:9,10; Matt. 6:10; 18:18-20; Rev. 21:3; John 14:2,3; 1Thess. 16,17; Hab. 2:14;
Eze. 9:21
19.
Re-baptize seminaries: For they
are like the Indian holy cows, with neither milk in the udder nor beef on the
hoof. There are fundamental differences between the objectives and
methodologies between man-made seminaries and the Bible based trainings. In the
OT there were no seminaries to train pastors, only a School of Prophets because
God ruled Israel through prophets and not through pastors. All the teaching was
done informally by the parents while the children were sitting, lying or
playing (Deut. 6:1-9) but formally on the dining tables on the Sabbath. In the
NT Jesus and Paul trained Practitioners out in the field with discipling
skills to turn the world upside down and not orators trained in the classrooms with
skills to empty the pockets of the listeners, inside out.
The
Corinthian church gathered for open discussion (1Cor. 14:24-32) while Bereans
conducted discovery Bible study (Acts 17:11) but in both instances, the result
was, new believers being added. Obviously, these were not just academic
exercises but non-believers were active participants. The most fundamental
difference is that while seminaries give worthless paper degrees, worthless
because they do not impart skills to disciple the nations and thus no help in
having your name written in the Book of the Lamb while Yeshua gave power-packed
Keys of the Kingdom to his disciples to, shut the doors of Hades and open the
doors of heaven to the lost individuals and the nations. (Matt.
16:19)
Shift
from training aquarium keepers to equipping fishers of men. The fishers of men
must have at least three-way competences – 1. They must know the Scriptures and
be obedient to it; 2. They must know how to confidentially defend their faith against
those who oppose by learning culture specific apologetics from their texts (Muslim,
Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist etc.) and 3. Entrepreneurial skills to kick start self-supporting
income generation business to avoid dependency on the congregation as milk cow.
In other words, your product should be spiritually vibrant, culturally relevant
and professionally successful tent-makers. Currently the Seminaries are The Great
Omission centers and need to be re-anointed as The Great Commission training
centers. Africans trained in western New Age theology are as irrelevant as
Indians trained out of Hindu, Muslim or Buddhist context. They need to put on their
ethnic garb, rather than the western colonial dog-collar and serve the Gospel
in ethnic platter. Less than this would not incorporate new believers into a
household of God rather it would make them strangers and foreigners in their
own land. (Ephesians 2:19)
Be
the Tree of life, wherever you are planted, and bring forth abundant fruit
every season, even your leaves should be for the healing of the nations. Share
the whole wisdom of God from house to house, and set up an unstoppable momentum
of multi-generational discipleship chain. Even if they have Ph.Ds, all communists,
evolutionists and atheists are damn fools (Nabal=willful rebel) and
treat them as such because the Scripture says, “A fool has said in his heart
that there is no God.” (Psalm 14:1) Using pseudo-science; they aggressively
preach doctrines of demons in our educational campuses, seducing the young
minds and turning them into atheists, agnostics, deists, evolutionists that
minimize and publicly vilify Christ.
Christians
in general and students in particular are dead ducks, if they are not trained early
in apologetics to defend their faith in a hostile world, “Always be ready to give a reason in defense (apologetics) of hope that
is in you to everyone who asks.” Be they delinquent Christians or defiant devotees
of other faiths, sound doctrine is not cerebral sermons from the pulpit, but the
ability to convince, convict, convert and bring the recalcitrant to repentance,
dunk them and turn them on their old buddy’s, cronies and comrades. Most
Christians who say Lord, Lord on Sunday are phony because they continue with their
pursuit of the lusts of flesh the rest of the week. They have never come out of
darkness into His marvelous light and become a light to the gentiles who sit in
darkness and in the shadow of death.
A
stable church remains economically stable, sustainable but barren, while more
the urban chaos, deviant behavior, filthy and fluid the situation, the better
the chances of new churches germinating from the quag-mire. A Triplet-church, “where two or three are gathered in My name”
is the most cost effective strategy for reaching the ends of the earth by
saving one household at a time. God is not looking for transformed brains but
transformed hearts. The lost of this world do not need scholars who deliver
watered down lukewarm, man pleasing sermons as much as they need spiritual
fathers and mothers “who birth many spiritual children to glory” with
ability to possess the gates (cities) of the enemy. Titus 1:9; 1 Peter 3:15; 1 Cor. 4:15; 14:24, 25; Mark 16:20; Acts
20:20, 27; Psalm 14:1; 1 Tim. 4:1,2; 2 Tim.
2:2; Heb 2:10; Rev. 22:1-3; Gen. 22:17,18
20. God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden to ‘work’
and to guard it. Significantly the Hebrew word Avodah for ‘work’ can
also be translated ‘worship.’ Adam
was to worship God through his work in the garden while guarding it from
demonic attack. God took an accountability walk every evening to see how Adam
was doing. Sadly, Adam disobeyed and climbed up the Tree of Knowledge of good
and evil, fell down and fractured his relational equation with Father God. He
died instantly but was buried 930 years later. Paul, Aquila and Pricilla,
Cornelius, the Jailor, Lydia, Phoebe and many others while continuing to work
in their professions and business, also transformed their workplaces. The Lord
commanded us to pray for laborers until we become part of our prayer. Persistent
and ceaseless prayer will not work unless accompanied with persistent and ceaseless
offering of lost sheep.
The
church needs to shift from the policy of containment to the practice of being aggressively
interventionist. Do not
just start Bible study and prayer cells but focus on setting up a discipleship
chain to qualify as a fruitful laborer in the kingdom. The Lord appointed the
Gadarene demonic as the Bishop (overseer) of Decapolis (ten cities), as a
witness among the very people who despised him. He did not start a Bible
study group or a prayer cell but witnessed to pig worshipping pagans. Yeshua
prefers obedience to fulltime but fruitless ministries. The same infallible and
Holy God, in His wisdom has placed you, a redeemed fallible sinner, as a cat
among the captive pigeons, not to eat them but to redeem them. Stop minimizing
Christ as your personal savior, but magnify Him wherever you are, as the liberator
of those in bondage and the savior of the world. Gen. 3:15; Luke 8:26-39; 10:2;
4:18; 2Tim. 2:2; Acts 19: 8-12; Rev. 21:8
21.
Remove the
chapel, the chaplain, the pulpit, the
collection box and the Sunday service and the church will still be there
because you are the walking and talking mobile temple of the living God. Reorient
your personal paradigm. Recognize ‘Hi, Hello,’ happy clappy Sunday Service, where
they serve sugar coated cyanide, as your ‘secondary, optional church’. Your
business, workplace or home, wherever you spend most of your time, is your ‘Primary nuclear church’. It matters
little whether you are the CEO, or the janitor or the kitchen queen; you are a
full-time work-place minister and accountable. The ancient worshipper did not
just listen to the minister and sing a few songs. He was actively involved in
worship. He slaughtered and dismembered the sacrifice with his own hands and
then watched it go up in holy smoke (Burnt offering - Olah meaning ascending). Offering your bodies and mind as olah is the most reasonable form of
worship. Anything else is all shadows and no substance.
There
are as many expressions of the church as there are believers (temples of the
living God), as each one has different giftings. Not even a house church fits
all size because Church is about Him and not us. The traditional church is neither
the sole guardian of the revealed Word nor the provider of salvation to the
lost. Step out of your convivial zone as the party is likely to be over sooner
than you think. Only those whose cup runneth over can drink from the saucer. Salvation
is free but discipleship is costly. Salvation restores your relationship with
the Father but discipleship restores you in the image of God because there is
no blessing greater than being a blessing to others. Salvation is not enough,
for you are saved to save others. The Christ in you must compel you with
compassion to seek and save the lost, lest you turn out to be deaf, dumb,
immobile and flawed temple of the living God for, “It is appointed for men
to die once and then the judgment.” Rom.
12:1,2; Eph. 2:8; 3:6; Luke 15:7,10; Luke 14:23; James 5:20; Heb. 9:27
22.
Offer Mincha
and then Pray. God said, “My house
shall be a house of sacrifice and I will meet and speak with you at the altar
where continuous sacrifice is made.” Jews prayed after offering sacrifices.
Yeshua said, “My house is a house of prayer for
all nations” which means “all nations” will come there to be prayed for
healing and deliverance and then discipled all the way into the Kingdom. In the
NT we are to offer saved souls as lasting fruit as our sacrifice of thanks
giving and then pray, “I have been chosen
and ordained to bring forth lasting fruit and (then) the Father will do
whatever I ask.” Fruit is the ovary of a plant, full of seeds to be
disseminated. The tasty bit is only to attract you to spread the seeds. Your lasting
fruits are those seeds which produce fruit elsewhere. Paul’s ministry was to
offer Gentiles as mincha (bloodless offering).
Building tall prayer tower does not bring you any closer
to God as he is not deaf. It minimizes the Christ in you, the hope of glory of
the Gentiles. Yeshua taught his disciples, “When
you bring your offering (doron=sacrifice)
to the altar…and when you stand praying.” Saying sorry to God is not
repentance; like the tax collector, you must recompense. Fasting and prayer alone are not acceptable to God unless
accompanied with “Unloosing the chains of
wickedness, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke.” Then God will
answer, “Here I am.” Offering
sanctified sinners glorifies God. Be the altar of sacrifice for the lost wherever
you are, lest you end up as barbecued burnt offering like Nadab and Abihu, the
sons of Aaron. 2Chron. 7:12; Exo. 29:42;
John 15:16; Luke 18:1; 19:1-10; 1Cor. 3:16; Rom. 15:16; Col. 1:26,27; Isa. 58:1-10; Matt. 5:23; Mark 11:25; 1 Tim. 2:8; Isa. 6:1; 1Pet. 2:5; Lev. 10:1
23.
Most good missionaries practice bad
missiology because they naively export dysfunctional Christianity, heavily
preloaded with money, knowledge, power and superiority complex based church culture
and traditions which they impose on others but utterly lacking in the supernatural.
But God specializes in the supernatural. They must delete all that is western
church cultural baggage and bells and smells of Eastern Orthodox churches, instead
revive, regenerate and fertilize all that is of virtue and noble and good. Do
no violence to their food habits, dress code and do not vilify their culture
and worship style, just because they are different. Do not hurriedly church a
new believer into an institutional church, where he will be lectured to but not
discipled. If children go to school without doing their homework, they are
punished; why should you go to church on Sunday without doing any house church
during the week.
Yeshua
did not call us to be church-goers but cross-bearers and disciple-makers. Because
of lack of instruction in the Sunday church, 99 percent Christians are clueless,
on how to share their faith even with their best friends. And by some fluke if they
lead someone to Christ, then they commit worse sin by making him a church-goer rather
than a disciple-maker. Simply because they themselves have never been instructed.
And how will the parents instruct their children if they are not instructed in
the church. Fathers – you are the priests of the family, improve your relationship
score with your children, lest the Lord smite the earth with a curse.
Just like a snake charmer teaches his young
children to catch snakes from early childhood, pass on the DNA of rapid
multiplication and create a family culture of making many disciples, while they
are still young. Find a coach loaded with lasting fruit, to take you out
for practice sessions in the harvest field. Paul shaved his head, circumcised
Timothy, offered sacrifice, advocated eating meat offered to idols, visited
heathen temples, contextualized their pagan books and used it to disciple
Athenians. He did all these weird things to save as many weird people as he
could. Acts 16:3,4; 17:17-28; 18:18;
21:20-25; 1Cor. 10:25; Phil. 4:8; 1Tim 4:3-5
24. Are
you Rapture ready? Do
not wait ‘till death do us part’, rather do whatever it takes to precipitate Rapture
by bringing Christ back on earth in your own generation. Re-set your priorities to preach Christ
where He has not been named including your workplace, home or neighborhood. Do
not light candles in the chapel but be the candle that kindles the lives of those
who sit in darkness and in the shadow death. For this you do not have to go to
church from Sunday to Sunday nor work from paycheck to paycheck. Most people
are so busy worshipping Mammon, the god of Debit and Credit cards, that they
have no time to go fishing to catch two-legged fish. You are chosen and “ordained”
to be a harvester and blessed to possess the gates of the enemy.
The only hands-on skill the church imparts is how to drop your coin in the
collection box but what it really needs to impart is how to skillfully wield a sickle
in the harvest field. How do you see the crowds - nuisance, stressful or as
cash cows? Yeshua saw the crowds as harvest fields and commanded us, “Lift
up your eyes and see the fields, for they are white for harvest – already!”
The harvest has been ready and waiting for the last 2000 years. If you do
not go and reap the harvest, it does not matter to Yeshua, the King with the
Crown, but to your peril, he is coming
back as harvester with a laser sharp sickle in his hand. But if you want your
crown, then your first priority is to learn to effectively wield the sickle for,
“Multitudes, multitudes are in the valley of decision! For the day of
Jehovah is at hand. Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you
down.” The angels will be rejoicing and clapping their hands in heaven even
as you begin reaping the harvest, for they are the ones who will be gathering
the harvest from the four corners of the earth. 1Cor. 15:52; Matt. 4:16;
6:33; 9:37,38; Gen. 22:17,18; Luke 11:33; 15:7,10; John 4:35; 15:16; Rev.
14:13-15; Joel 3:13,14; Matt. 24:31
25. Adopt a ‘completion mindset’. Yeshua completed his ministry in
seventy weeks and not as Bishop Eusebius (325 CE) concocted, in three and a
half years, which most Christians hold without a shred of biblical or any other
evidence. Daniel clearly prophesied, “Seventy weeks are decreed upon
thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish transgression, and to make an end
of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting
righteousness, and to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy.” (Daniel 9:24) It does not
stand to logic that he would be eating three Passovers lambs before himself becoming
the Passover Lamb. 490 days were enough to accomplish whatever he came to do.
His ministry lasted from the day He was baptized in the river Jordan with water
and the Holy Spirit to the Day of the Pentecost, when the church was birthed
with three thousand baptized in water and the Holy Spirit. In John 17:4 in his
high priestly prayer, Yeshua claimed, “…I have finished the task which You
have given Me to do.”
Evaluate
your ministry by the Great Commission as your mandate, with the numbers of disciples
made, baptized, equipped and sent out as the benchmark. This authority and
responsibility you receive when you receive Christ and should be put into
practice from day one. Like our Lord, focus on a few strategic people to reach many.
Aim to become a millionaire of souls. And why not? After all, you believe in a
great and awesome God for whom nothing is impossible. At the very least, like
Peter, shoot for 3000 baptisms every Pentecost. Or like Paul, plant a multiplying
micro-church every day, till you can claim, “There are no more places left here for me to preach.’ The minimum standard to qualify as a follower
of Yeshua is, that like your Master, equip twelve disciples who can turn their
world upside, wherever they are placed. God of Israel lived in a tent house (tabernacle)
for 400 years to stay connected with his people. If you are not impacting your
area of influence, then you are disconnected with God for He has placed you
there to write Acts 29.
Do not waste time and resources on celebrating non-biblical
pagan festivals like Christmas, Good Friday and Easter. Yeshua was not born on
25th December, nor was he crucified on a Friday while Easter is
named after pagan goddess Ishtar. Celebrate the Feasts of the Lord. They
are not Jewish Feasts but the Feasts of the Lord because God said, “They are My
Feasts,” like the Feast of Tabernacle when Yeshua was born in a Sukkah
(tabernacle.) The Passover when he was crucified on a Thursday,
otherwise the mandatory three days and three nights of Jonah code will not be
fulfilled. First Fruits because that is when he was resurrected.
Celebrate the Pentecost with 3000 baptisms, because that is the church’s
birthday. All these Spring Feasts have been meticulously fulfilled. Also
celebrate the Fall Feasts that are yet to be fulfilled. The Feast of
Trumpets when the Rapture is likely to take place. The next is the Day
of Atonement – the last chance to repent before Yeshua returns on the Feast
of Tabernacle for his millennial reign on earth. You will never
understand properly what Yeshua did, and why he did, and when exactly he did them,
unless you fully understand the significance of the Feasts of the Lord.
(Leviticus 23; Jonah 1:17 and Luke 11:29)
Do not
watch the world go by, but resonate with the will of God, which is that none should perish, reach out and make a difference. When the King comes, he will
not go to a traditional mainline church because there will be nothing to eat
there. He will knock on the door of a house-church and have supper with them. Having
your name written in the church’s membership register is no ticket for entry
into God’s Kingdom. Make sure that your
name is written in the Book of the Lamb. That
will happen only when you shift from your comfort zone of being a hearer of the
Word to a doer of His will, which is that all should come to the knowledge of
truth and be saved. Why wait, plan on bringing Christ back on earth in your own
generation. It is doable. Matt. 28:18-20; Joshua 13:1; Acts 2:41; 16:5; Rom.
15:19, 23; 2 Peter 3:9; James 1:22; 1Tim 2:4
Shalom and Shabbat.
Kindle version of GREET THE EKKLESIA IN
YOUR HOME available at Amazon
PRAYER WARRIOR
TEACH THEM TO OBEY
DOST (Friend) A Christian/Muslim
Dialogue
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HINDI
https://www.prarthnayoddha.com
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