posted
We in the house church community are often viewed as separatistic and that may be often true. Being separatistic isn't always a bad thing, imo.
Jesus' dying prayer was that his people might be one just as He and his Father were. John 17. So, how do we demonstrate that we are one and in real solidarity with every other believer?
Let's say you were in a plane, eight miles up. The captain announces that the jet engines had just malfunctioned and couldn't be restarted. Would you refuse to join in prayer with another true Christian because of your different ideas about church structure, church leadership, etc?
The plane, btw, is planet earth. It's going crash and burn some day.
posted
David, Thanks for opening the topic of unity. The question is: "How do you teach unity in Christ to your children?" The answer to that question is found in the experience of unity. The life of the New Covenant is to be learned by living and by relating in what we live; it is not learned by teachings that goes from theory to practice, in the way academia operates. Our life is someone Who lives in me and you and with Whom we relate in truth and love. The New Covenant is not an accumulation of information that eventually adds up to salvation. I live because of my knowing this SomeOne Who I invited and Who settled in my heart and spirit from my being grafted into Him, the Christ-Jesus in Whom the Father brings me and Who gives me the Spirit of Holiness. It is because of knowing that He knows me in His trinity that I live. The whole matter of unity in the prayer of Jesus in John 17 calls upon the Father to look after the whole sequence of unity through the present and the future with His presence and identity that He reveals with His Spirit by the Word of God made flesh. Unity is the completion of that which is accomplished by God in Christ and ministered to me and you and us all by the Holy Spirit. Nothing can be added nor taken away because unity comes as a result of the glory of God's Fatherhood being bestowed upon one's heart and spirit by the Trinity's manifestation in the creation and salvation of humanity. So when it comes to my 4 children, they come from me and my wife. They are genetically from the life that I hate in me and that my wife hates in herself. Only by being met by God Himself, can each one of them ever know life and be saved from flesh, world, Satan and hell. The only part I can truly be of service with to my children, is by feeding from the constant humility that the Lord causes to happen by His faithfulness(Ps 119) within me and in my life circumstances, so that I do not obstruct the ongoing growth of my obediance to God and of my mutual subjection in truth and love with my wife, while remaining with wide open arms to them. As they see me and my wife struggle onto the road of sanctification, they can observe God at work in our transformation. Because of holding the line of being a House Church for 26 years and because of the deep immaturity in which we began our marriage, our 4 children are struggling a whole lot more than they should be. I ask God to forgive me but most of all, I ask God to set me free from that which He forgives me. I deeply long for true sanctity so that my wife and children may be lifted by His glory that makes us one in Christ-Jesus, our brother and King. Our children are 25, 23, 21, 18. Our 21 years old is a girl who needs daily living assistance as she was born with spina bifida. We pray that the Lord shows us the way to become a local assembling of God such, that our struggle may become the drive to a functional local body of overcomers. Whenever I speak of the vision, we all agree, but the task at hand calls for much more than just one House Church but rather for the Church of House Churches to rise up to the present calling of the Lord, through the currency of times that makes up the History of Destiny. The last prophecy of the Old Testament calls for the Lord to turn the heart of the fathers toward the children and the heart of the children toward their fathers. Dear Father in heaven, bring us all so close to You that there may be no more delay in Your turning of our heart toward our children, in the way that will draw them to Your turning their heart toward us. Show us the practice of washing our robe in the blood of the Lamb and to be spotless and blameless for Your return, all one by Your glory. Do allow such movement of Your Spirit to capture all of Your children across the earth, that Your Fatherhood may come in full sight of humanity. In Christ-Jesus name our Lord I pray...amen to Your Yes...
-------------------- ...all blessings be with us all... Benoit Couture
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