Commitment To
Christ
It is the heart cry of this ministry to see Revival in
the land of Australia and across the nations of the earth, that we might experience
the power of the early church in both witness and miracles. For this
to be possible we believe we must re-establish the things of God and
pull down the things of man. In other words,
allow God to
establish a church where God
feels
comfortable, rather than buildings and programs
designed to make man feel comfortable.
Psalm 37:4 states that
‘As we delight
ourselves in The Lord, He will give us the desires of our hearts’
If God is indeed to provide the desires of our heart, this is
conditional upon our delighting in Him. We can delight in The Lord
only from a place of intimacy. We can remain in this place of intimacy
only by our willingness to surrender all to Him and trusting God
completely to meet all our needs. The Psalmist takes up this theme in
the very next verse of scripture:
“Commit thy way unto
the Lord; trust also in him; and He shall bring it to pass”
Psalm 37:5. The key word here is
'commit'. The thing I see most lacking
in the church today is commitment, this lack of commitment by large
sections of the body of Christ, has led to complacency and a lethargic
attitude towards the things of God.
If we are truly serious in our desire to see revival
sweep the nations, indeed truly serious regarding our very walk with
Christ, we must take stock of our attitudes today and compare these
with our forefathers of the early Christian church, as described in
the New Testament.
The preeminent characteristic of the early church was
the total devotion to Jesus Christ as Lord, by all members of the
church. Jesus established the church under His authority (Matt.
16:13-20) and created the foundation for its existence
through
His redeeming death and demonstration of God’s power in His
resurrection. Christ’s position as Lord evoked, sustained, and
governed the major characteristics of the life of the church. This was
clearly illustrated in the way members were admitted, treated one
another, witnessed to His power and lived in hope of His imminent
return.
Persons were admitted to the local congregation only
upon them placing their complete and absolute trust in Christ as
Savior (Acts 2:37-42), openly confessing this (Rom 10:9-13), and being
baptized (Acts 10:44-48). Baptism by full immersion in water was
performed, more or less immediately, because Christ had commanded it
(Matt. 28:18-20) and was itself a dramatic symbolic picturing of the
burial and resurrection of Christ (Rom 6:3-4). Joining the church made
one a fully participating member in it. When Christ accepted the
person, the congregation did also, even though the members might be
aware of weaknesses (Rom 14:1-4).
The way in which church members were called upon to
treat one another was modeled by what God had done in Christ for the
church. They were to forgive one another (Col. 3:12-14) and to love
one another (Eph. 5:1-2, 1 John 3:16) because God had done this for
all of them in Christ. This foundation for Christian fellowship was a
basic corporate requirement that reflected upon each church member’s
relationship with God (1 John 2:7-11).
Members of the church were called upon to demonstrate
the power of Christ’s redemption in their own lives by exemplary
conduct, embracing every area of life (Rom. 12:1-13:7; Col. 3:12-4:1).
The overcoming of sins in the lives of Christians bore witness to the
redeeming power of Christ through action within the community (Gal.
5:22-26), and the sins to which the communities were prone were
clearly identified and challenged (Gal. 5:19-21). Christians were
expected to adopt a new life style that was appropriate to their
commitment to Christ (Eph. 4:17-24).
Membership of the early church was not a question of
meeting one day a week, with perhaps a mid week prayer meeting or home
fellowship attended by a small proportion of the church. The
bible shows us that;
'daily
in the temple, and in every house, they did not cease teaching and
preaching Jesus as
the Christ.'(Acts 5:42)
The complete and absolute surrender of all
things and possessions to God was accepted as the norm in early
Christian society
(Acts
4:34-35).
All
of these characteristics of the life of the church existed in the
context of an urgency, created by the awareness that Christ was going
to return (1 Thess. 1:9-10). Christ’s return would bring judgment to
the unbelievers (1 Thess 5:1-10) and thus made witnessing to them an
urgent concern. How central this belief was to the early church is
illustrated by the fact that the Lord’s Supper, which they observed at
His command was seen as proclaiming
'the
Lord’s death till He come'
(1 Cor. 11:26). The return of Christ provided early Christian’s with the
hope necessary to sustain them in difficult times (2 Thess. 1:5-12).
The lessons we learn from the first New Testament
church lead me to the belief that we will not see the
full manifestation of Gods presence working through the end time
church until such time as we see His order restored to the church.
Just a few examples of areas, we feel, require redress by the body of
Christ are as follows:
Commitment to a local church
Submission to church leadership
Appropriate tithe and offering
Sanctified unity of believers
Restoration of the five fold ministry
Development of a kingdom mentality
Gods truth without compromise
We realise some of these areas are contentious to many and most
certainly do not appeal to those who require regular doses of ‘ear
tickling’ sermons. Jesus said
“My
sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me”
(John
10:27). It is our belief that the voice of God is calling out to His
sheep, calling us to a place of intimacy, holiness, reverence and
repentance. It is only from this position, as we die to self that God
can truly work in us and through us, reaching out to a world desperate
for Him.
W.
Joe Ingram
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