The Perfecting Church

Before the foundation of the world God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit functioned as family. The world was established to be an extension of that family in the earth. But when the original earthly family rejected The Father -- sin the seperation from their source destroyed the earthly family. God has been working to restore His earthly family since that original separation in the garden. We have to restore our relationship with The Father and learn how to relate to Him so we can take our place in the recovery of what nearly became extinct -- The Family.

Before the foundation of the world God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit functioned as family. The world was established to be an extension of that family in the earth. But when the original earthly family rejected The Father sin destroyed them. God has been working to restore His earthly family since that original separation in the garden. When we get an understanding of what family truly is we become a part of what Jesus came to do. He came to restore what had become an endangered species --The Family.

Before the foundation of the world God operated in family. The world was established to be an extension of that family in the earth. God's family was to live in community and be governed by the Kingdom. But with the dysfunction of the family came the destruction of community and our exile from the Kingdom. Jesus did not come to simply save us from sin. He came to restore what had become an endangered species -- The Family.

The resurrection of Christ was not a religious event. The resurrection of Christ was the single greatest event in human history. Christ did not come to save us from our sins. Christ came to restore God's eternal purpose. Delivering us from sin was only part of God's eternal purpose. We have continued to struggle with living because we have focussed so much on sin that we have missed God's original intent for us. God would have beamed us up the moment we entered into relationship with Him if the entire plan was about getting to heaven and staying out of sin. Today we are going to start discovering what it means to be divinely human. We are going to start to uncover God's eternal purpose for man.

On that day there were at least three different audiences as Jesus entered Jerusalem to be crowned as King -- His followers, the religious leaders and the Roman government. His followers were excited. Finally their time had come. All the mocking, threats, doubting and skepticism was about to be silenced. The one they had followed was about to be crowned King. He was going to establish His Kingdom and they would be honored and celebrated. Would they have to take up arms? Would He just call down fire? Who cares today was the day. There were the Pharisees and religious leaders who were threatened by this so called messiah. He was upsetting the tedious balance they had established with the Roman government. He was bringing unwanted scrutiny upon their well established positions of religious prominence. They knew they had to kill Him. Then you had the Roman soldiers. They were the least moved. They had seen their share of insurrectionist, rebels and trouble makers. This Jesus was different but no threat to the great army of Emperor Julius Caesar. And lastly, we have Jesus. He was in a crowd but physically alone. No one, not even His disciples really understood what Jerusalem meant. It meant death. It meant separation. It meant He'd soon be tortured, crucified and banished to a place, to pay a debt. It meant becoming God's sacrifice for people that still couldn't grasp what His Kingdom actually meant.

Fasting is replacing food with prayer and seeking. It is an act of humility that goes beyond the natural act of denying ourselves food. It's an act of repentance. To fast is to acknowledge that we can not live by natural things alone. It is crying out from our hearts to God -- we want you. It is the humbling of our hearts and the admission of our need that brings us into the powerful presence of our King. We are not coming for what we want. Fasting is above trying to get His attention for what we want. Truly fasting is getting the King's attention by giving Him what He wants -- us, our hearts, our souls, our bodies, our all.

Man can not live by bread -- natural resources, natural relationships and natural knowledge alone. We were never made to simply exist naturally. We exist in the physical, natural realm but we did not originate here. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by Him and without Him was not any thing made that was made. We began as a word out of God's mouth and to truly live life and life more abundantly we must continue that way. Fasting and prayer restores and intensifies our awareness of and sensitivity to God's influence. It is a supernatural door He has given us the keys to. As we yield to His influence through fasting and prayer we invite Him to unleash His ability to impact every area of our lives.

Since the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden, God has worked progressively to restore our relationship with Him. Why? So He can be the voice of influence in our life. Hebrews 1:1 says “God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son…” While God, according to Ephesians 4:11-13, has given us pastors to perfect the saints, they are NOT the “middle man”. They are simply the tools God is using to perfect our relationship with Him—undershepherds to lead us to the great shepherd. God wants a relationship directly with you—one defined by us knowing and obeying His voice. This is the very thing Satan stole in the garden as well as the reason Jesus gave His life as a ransom for us—to restore not only our access to God, but His access to us. In this series you will learn why and how to “Develop an Ear to Hear” because as you will discover, our lives and purpose, as well as that of our families depend on our ability to know and follow the voice of God.

Since the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden, God has worked progressively to restore our relationship with Him. Why? So He can be the voice of influence in our life. Hebrews 1:1 says “God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son…” While God, according to Ephesians 4:11-13, has given us pastors to perfect the saints, they are NOT the “middle man”. They are simply the tools God is using to perfect our relationship with Him—undershepherds to lead us to the great shepherd. God wants a relationship directly with you—one defined by us knowing and obeying His voice. This is the very thing Satan stole in the garden as well as the reason Jesus gave His life as a ransom for us—to restore not only our access to God, but His access to us. In this series you will learn why and how to “Develop an Ear to Hear” because as you will discover, our lives and purpose, as well as that of our families depend on our ability to know and follow the voice of God.

Since the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden, God has worked progressively to restore our relationship with Him. Why? So He can be the voice of influence in our life. Hebrews 1:1 says “God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son…” While God, according to Ephesians 4:11-13, has given us pastors to perfect the saints, they are NOT the “middle man”. They are simply the tools God is using to perfect our relationship with Him—undershepherds to lead us to the great shepherd. God wants a relationship directly with you—one defined by us knowing and obeying His voice. This is the very thing Satan stole in the garden as well as the reason Jesus gave His life as a ransom for us—to restore not only our access to God, but His access to us. In this series you will learn why and how to “Develop an Ear to Hear” because as you will discover, our lives and purpose, as well as that of our families depend on our ability to know and follow the voice of God.

God is unmatched. There is none like Him. He can't be compared to any other being, person, angel or thing we have ever been exposed to. He is God. His will, His vision, His plan encompases all of creation for all time. He is the author, designer, architect and creator of all things. Every single thing that ever existed and every thing that has yet to exist all come from Him. And He wants to be in a relationship with you unlike any other. He wants to influence every detail of your life -- spiritually, soulishly, physically, materially, relationally. He wants to be the only God in your life.

One of the atrocities of war is if you fight long enough you eventually forget what you were fighting about. What are we fighting for? We are fighting to be under the absolute influence of God. That's what was lost. That's what must be regained. We have not been influenced by God to the extent that He deserves because we have been deceived into seeing God as a means to an end. But relationship with God is the end, it's the middle and it's what we had in the beginning. Entering and remaining in deep, triune, relationship with God is the fight, it is the battle, it's what the war is all about. Satan wants what only God has a right to--us!

The world system is built based on external influence or produce. It teaches us if we get a good education and obtain an advanced degree or if we can sing, dance, run and perform better than others we will have the best jobs, contracts, companies and careers. This leads to our having the good life and being envied by others who are in turn influenced by our example. But God's Kingdom is the opposite it's built on internal influence or process -- the yielding of ourselves to the God of creation, who we've invited to reside within. As we yield to His influence we begin to see Him, ourselves and others in an entirely different way. This inside out transformation allows Him to promote -- positioning us as He desires working in and through us to demonstrate the perfection of His original design.

The hardest thing to find is something you've had all the time. Satan tricked Adam and Eve in the Garden by getting them to think he had something they needed. Their desire to get what he claimed he had opened them up to his influence. They allowed him to powerfully affect their thoughts, beliefs, actions and direction and it changed the entire course of their lives. It changed the entire course of humanity. All because they believed satan could promote them and transform their lives for the better.

The world we live in is at war in 30 of it's 196 countries. Eight countries in the world have nuclear weapons programs and over 1.6 trillion dollars was spent on military programs in the past year. We are truly living in perilous times. But the greatest war is not the war for territory, natural resources, or economic power. The greatest war is for something that can't even be seen -- the biggest battle is for influence --the compelling power to affect the thoughts, behaviors, actions and direction of mankind.