| Reconciliation |
Reconciliation
How is it that we can stare Truth
"right in the face" and still not see it?
We've wondered that many times.
There in the Upper Room where Jesus
shared His last meal with His disciples, He told them some things that they did
not understand. It took the Lord's death, burial, resurrection and the
overwhelming Presence of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.
So it is with us today, as it seems
that at times we can be "blind as a bat!" Like the bat, we can be living in
darkness, due to sin, religious tradition, or just plain orneriness. We need to die to ourselves, be made
new in Christ, and be filled with His Holy Spirit.
In 2005 I took a trip to London, England, and a side trip to Edinburgh, Scotland.
One day I was in the same train
station where three weeks later, the suicide-bombers would meet for the last
time before their bombs destroyed them, and others near them.
Please bear with us as we visit a
thorny time in history. As we get better knowledge of what happened during that
era, we will better understand the anger, bitterness, and commitment to kill
instilled into terrorism recruits by their masters:
The Crusades
English Parliament
While in London I was introduced to an
English couple who were well experienced in the practice of prayer-walking. With
a team gathered by God's sovereign hand, they had retraced the steps of the Crusaders of the 11th century, from
Cologne, Germany to Istanbul, Turkey, which was then called Constantinople.
As they walked, they prayed, and spoke
to the people they met - particularly to Jews and Muslims.
Their
mission was to literally walk out reconciliation with the descendents of the
people who had been so brutally treated by the self-righteous Crusaders. These
were the men who "in the name of Jesus Christ" had wielded their swords,
killing both Jews and Muslims, and then plundered their possessions.
In the 1990s, the little praying group
went as humble followers of their Lord, to ask forgiveness for these
atrocities, and apologize to every Jew and Muslim they met. They did this on an
individual basis, and in meetings with pre-arranged groups.
Horribly, the Crusaders had claimed the
authority of heaven, while they had acted on the orders of hell.
The
religious leaders and kings who organized the crusades proved to be more
concerned about the acquisition of lands and possessions, than the teachings of
Jesus Christ. Perhaps they had never read the Sermon on the Mount? (Matthew 5,6,7) At least, it is clear that they
ignored it.
At the beginning of one meeting with a
Jewish group, a leader apologized for the
temporary delay which had occurred.
One
Jewish man exclaimed:
"We
have waited nine hundred years to hear these words.
We
can wait a little longer."
This pained the praying group, but
after all, that was why they had come. They knew the truth, and now they were committed
to the humility required for healing the past.
This brings us to the essence of The
Lord's Supper, also called, the Eucharist.
In the Holy Bible, 1Corinthians
11:23-34 (NASB), the Apostle Paul writes:
"For
I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord
Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread;
And
when He had given thanks, He broke it and said,
"This
is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me."
In
the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying,
"This
cup is the new covenant in My blood, do this, as often as you drink it, in
remembrance of Me."
For
as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death
until He comes.
Therefore
whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner,
shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.
But
a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink
of the cup.
For
he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not
judge the body rightly.
For
this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep [have died].
But
if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged.
But when we are judged, we are disciplined by
the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world.
So
then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.
If
anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, so that you will not come together for
judgment..."
Therefore
whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner,
shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.
But
a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink
of the cup.
For
he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not
judge the body rightly."
There was a season in the writer's
life when she stopped thinking of herself as an individual in a sea of other
individuals. The self-life that is so puffed up in contemporary culture was
gradually disappearing from her view of life and all of its parts. Her Greek
mindset was changing to a Hebraic mindset. As the Apostle Paul had put it, her
mind was being "renewed. "
According to Holy Scripture, God had
chosen the Hebrew people to know Him personally, and so reveal Him to the rest
of the world. God's purpose was for the Hebrew nation to be His family.
At the writer's conversion, she had truly
been born again by the Spirit, and been grafted into this special relationship
with God - but babies don't know who they are. Born again, yes, but just a
baby. She was different now, but she did not realize just HOW different she was.
History has shown that there have been
many tragic lapses from the high calling of "God's chosen people." Their past,
according to biblical prophecy, will yet be resolved for the Jewish people. As
she thought about this, the reminder came:
"Therefore
if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away;
behold new things have come.
Now
all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and
gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that
God was in Christ reconciling the world to
Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us
the word of reconciliation.
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as
though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be
reconciled to God." 2Corinthians
5:17-20
This passage was a very special and
personal answer given to me. Just a few hours after my miracle of conversion
that night in October of 1960, I asked,
"What has happened to me?" Immediately
I opened my Bible to the page where I saw the passage above. I saw it lift off
of the page, IN BOLD PRINT before my
eyes.
I now had a new identity. This was
clear: I was "in Christ." In this new identity then, I had a mission to accomplish.
Now I knew why I had been born. Isn't
this what we ask ourselves, sooner or later? In the words of the spiritual
song:
"Go, tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere!
Go, tell it on the mountain, that Jesus Christ is born!"
Oh, oh, OH!
The 'new me' had a new family too! The
problem was that I did not know who they were, or where they were. This search
has been going on now for nearly forty-nine years. To encourage me from time to
time, Heavenly Father has allowed me to meet and fellowship with other members
of "The Family." You may ask, WHO are "The Family?"
It is far easier to describe who "The
Family" is not:
Not a
religious denomination of whatever name
Not followers
of a leader (other than the Son of God, Himself)
Not those
who claim to be "The Family", insisting that you must be just like them
Not those
who say, "Yes there is Jesus and the bible, and we have this other book too..."
Not those
who worship deceased human beings and angels
Not those
who worship themselves
and of
course, not those who worship satan, or as some call him, lucifer (the fallen
angel)
The reader can probably add to this
list, as well.
So what then IS the Church that Jesus
Himself is building?
How can we recognize the Body of
Christ in this world?
We have to open The Book and then read
what its Author has said:
All members
of "The Family" acknowledge their sinfulness and need of a Savior.
They must be
born again, believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
They must
turn away [repent] from things of self, because self-anything is sin.
They must be
converted (changed).
They must be
baptized into the Name and nature of their Lord and Savior.
They must
love God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength, and
They must
love their neighbor as themselves.
Having fulfilled the above
requirements, each member of "The Family" must endure their appointed
trials and testings until they die, or until Jesus comes again at the end of
this age.
So let us examine ourselves, fellow
believers, and make sure that we are truly members of "The Family" for which
Our Lord Jesus will return.
This
is why the Lord's Supper is so important for us.
As
we worshipfully share His Body and His Blood,
W
e c a n r e - m e m b e r
(
p u t t o g e t h e r a g a
I n t h e p
a r t s o f )
H
i s B o d y , t h e C h u r c h.
Forgiving, Granting mercy,
Meeting
one another's needs,
And
the needs of the poor,
Q
u I t e s I m p l y , b y L O V I
N G O N E A
N O T H E R .
Then Father God will say:
Now they are loving one another. Now My children understand.
As they love one another, they are loving Me, for I
indwell each of My children.
Now, Yeshua, My Son, I can answer your
prayer,
that they all may be one, in US!
(John, 17th chapter)
A
M E N !