Sunday, December 28, 2008

The Revealing of Christ to Me.

5:21 AM by Christi Bowman

Revelation - The speech act of making something evident
- communication of knowledge to man by a divine or supernatural agency

the Bible talks about Christ being revealed I have been taught and have therefor thought that those passages are referring to Christ's second coming. I have lived my life expecting to only see Christ after death. I am beginning to see that the revelation of Christ has little to do with His appearance later; and exponentially more to do with His heart right now. Christ reveals Himself to me today. I know Him intimately. He pours Himself into me; I know His heart.

I have found there to be a grave difference in who God reveals Himself to be and how "the church" has revealed Him. I have had to wrestle with this difference and the stark contrast between the revelation of God and the revelation of "the church" has blown me away. "The church" is made up of man, and without the constant pursuit and leadership of the Holy Spirit, man is dead wrong in his revelation of God! This puts me in a precarious position.

Man is someone I must deal with on a daily basis. Man is a constant forceful affront to my five senses and I find his invasion to be especially overwhelming when we disagree. God is spirit and He is gentle, however He is also very powerful. God is neither forceful, nor is He invasive, but He does have this uncanny ability to change my entire world view in one single whisper. His whisper alone is overwhelming, but there is no disagreement. This situation brings about a lot of conflict.

Man is flesh, man is tangible, and man is convincing. "The church" has always been made up of men, and many of those men have refused the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I find it hard to turn my back on the church's revelation because the church has been my truth, but truth obtained without reverence for the Spirit is no truth at all. And therein lies the tension that I find myself in.

It is hard to crawl out from underneath this heavy rock that is "the church". "The church" is the only truth I have ever known, but it pales to the truth of God when Christ reveals Himself. I have become painfully aware of my dependence on man for God. Man has been my god; he has been a cruel god and he is crueler still as I begin to wriggle from his clutches and into the hands of God Almighty.

This god I call man demands that I stay put, and this god dares to use the real God against me. But what this god doesn't understand is that, despite his efforts to keep me from God, God has found me and He has rescued me and I can't help but walk in His salvation. I cannot turn my back on His beautiful deliverance and settle for a cheap imitation that binds when the Real Thing sets me free. At times I find myself thinking that the imitation was safer when I believed in it, and I would be lying if I did not acknowledge that in those times I long for the comfort and the safety of my old god, man. But going back is not to be; for when I try to return I come face to face with how disappointing he really is.

I cannot return to "the church" because I am the Church! Wherever I go and whoever I am with and no matter when we meet Church is happening. It is not for me, right now, to take Church into "the church". It is the responsibility of some and I will not deny the calling of God in that, but it is not what He is calling me to. God is not angry with me nor am I boxing with Him. Matter of fact I would be operating outside of His will if I were to return, and it would make Him sad that I was unable to accept the freedom He was offering me from my old god "the church."

I understand that Jesus went into the synagogue and Paul "the church". They were men and they were allowed a public pulpit. But lets be clear, when they went in they fought religion! This is my pulpit, and from here I will fight religion. If, in another time and another place, God leads me back in to "the church" to fight religion in person than He will provide me with the means and the strength to do His bidding, but for right now that is not mine to do and to be honest I thank Him for it!

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