He who has an ear.... Let him hear what the Spirit of the Lord is saying!!!!!!

Do you know what the number one priority of Jesus was/is? I know... it's a loaded question right? But, I think the answer is more plain than we may have realized. And not only is it plain, but Jesus was very out and open about it. So much so he talked about it over 120 times before He left this planet.

"But seek ye FIRST the KINGDOM of God AND His RIGHTEOUSNESS, and all these things shall be added unto you." - Matthew 6:33 AMP


In this case not only is it a priority... It's THE priority! It's pre-eminent above all else. Above every other task. This ONE thing comes first. To know the King's way of doing things and seeking to become rightly aligned with that way and mind set. Maybe, you would say to me, "But Jason, what about my family and church body... shouldn't they come first? Shouldn't my wife and child be the MOST important thing?" And the answer is simply...No. Unless you and I have an accurate view point and filter with which to live this life we can't even begin to care and serve our families or local assemblies the right way... The KING's way.

This way of thinking requires us to change our CONCEPTS about life and the way we live it.

I believe that the first place to start when seeking the priority of Christ Jesus is to start with our own concepts of what that priority is. Our Concepts of what KINGDOM is. Our concepts of what RIGHTEOUSNESS is.

I have been reading this book by Dr. Myles Munroe called Rediscovering the Kingdom: Ancient Hope for our 21st Century World. In this book one of the first topics that Dr. Munroe deals with is our concepts. One of the significant statements that I have come across is, "There is nothing as powerful as a concept, and nothing more dangerous than a MISconception."

I believe that this very reason is why the first word out of Jesus' mouth when He began His ministry was "REPENT".

Repent is the word metanoeo which means literally to 'change ones mind for better'.

We have to REPENT because to seek this KINGDOM and RIGHTEOUSNESS... to know and understand the mind of Christ Jesus. Kingdom living requires a mentality shift.

A mentality shift away from the mundane and ordinary, away from a thought process that leaves us empty and longing for more, away from the simplicity and inaccuracy of old religious mentalities, away from .... well you can fill in the blank with your own things that hold you back.

"When Jesus had finished these parables, He left there, And coming to His own country, He taught in their synagogue so that they were amazed with bewildered wonder, and said 'where did this Man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? Is not this the carpenter's Son? Is not His mother called Mary? And are not His brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And do not all of His sisters liver here among us? Where then did this Man get all of this?' And they took offense at Him. But, Jesus said to then, 'A Prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house.' And He did not do many works of power there, because of their unbelief." - Matthew 13:53-58 AMP

It's their lack of repentance... their inability and UNWILLINGNESS to change their mind sets that left them lacking a full expression/understanding of just WHO Jesus was and WHAT He could do to, for and through them.

"He replied, 'You've been given insight into God's Kingdom. You know how it works. Not everybody has this gift, this insight; it hasn't been given to them. Whenever someone has a ready heart for this, the insights and understandings flow freely. But if there is no readiness, any trace of receptivity soon disappears. That's why I tell stories: To create readiness, to nudge the people toward receptive insight. In their present state they can stare till doomsday and not see it, listen till they're blue in the face and not get it. I don't want Isaiah's forecast repeated all over again: Your ears are open but you don't hear a thing. The people are blockheads! They stick their fingers in their ears so they won't have to listen; They screw their eyes shut so they won't have to look, so they won't have to deal with me face-to-face and let me heal them." - Matthew 13:11-17 Message Bible

Harsh! Right?! But, needed. TRUTH. This is the kind of people that Jesus encountered back in His hometown. These are a people who couldn't shift their mentality from what 'thought' they knew to actual truth. They couldn't get past their previous concepts of who they knew Jesus was.

There has to be a change of desire. A change in the longing of the heart.

"Again, the reign of the heavens is like to treasure hid in the field, which a man having found did hide, and from his joy goeth, and all, as much as he hath, he selleth, and buyeth that field. Again, the reign of the heavens is like to a man, a merchant, seeking goodly pearls, who having found one pearl or great price, having gone away, hath sold all, as much as he had, and bought it." - Matthew 13:44-46 YLT

How badly do you want it? There is a saying that I grew up hearing and I never really understood it until I got older.

"The proof of desire is in your pursuit."

What is your pursuit... take a good look at it, because that is your priority. If it isn't the Kingdom and His Righteousness it WILL fail you. EVERY single time.

Consider this question, "Is your number one priority the same as our King's?" Now, don't give a quick answer. Really think about it. Look at what you are pursuing.

Are His words enough proof to you of the things that are MOST important?
OR will you go about your day, your week, your life still looking for something else to the be the MOSt important thing?

Maybe you are asking yourself the question, "How am I going to MAKE this happen? How DO I TURN this thing around? How DO I manage to BRING MYSELF out of ... fill in the blank....

The answer is YOU can't. And YOU are not supposed to.

" A new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you shall heed My ordinances and do them. And you shall dwell in the land that I gave your fathers; and you shall be My people, and I will be your God." - Ezekial 36:26-28 AMP

Hi is LORD and KING. It's HIS Spirit that causes it to happen. It's HIS Spirit that causes you to walk in HIS ways. All you have to do is SURRENDER!!!!

So let me ask you again... Is your number one priority HIS number one priority?

Look at what you are pursuing. Is it time for you/us to surrender? To step outside of self and our little world and say.... Not my will, but YOUR'S be done!

I'll end it with this question.....

Who is your King? You OR .... CHRIST?

As I as headed to my meeting with my mentor this morning the Spirit impressed upon me that my definition of surrender and His... Weren't the same. Hmmmm... Yeah that didn't make me feel to awesome. But, the upside to it is that He informed me of what surrender truly is. To be fully given over to the will and way of the King. Holding nothing back from Him, but giving it all. Allowing him access to my heart where He exchanges my stoney heart from a heart that is moldable and willing.

The Ekklesia of God

Hi Everyone! Just thought some of you might like to see what I have been studying lately. This is a study of the True Church of God and how He intends for it to function. This is part 1 of the study that my mentor/teacher has me on. Take some time and dive in.

In order to understand what the ekklesia is (and is not), it is necessary to come at it with the forethought that it is Christ who builds His church (ekklesia). (Matt 16:18, 1 Cor 3:6,7)

The only concept of building and growing that matters is that which comes from the mind of the Father/Christ. And it is further important to grasp that I in myself cannot make something have life and grow. My concepts are irrelevant. If the Spirit doesn’t give the direction then it is all in vain. Once we grasp that we are mere tools/vessels in His grand purpose we can stop trying to do something other than what He intended for us to do and He can actually do what He wants done without being hindered by our need to “go and do.”

This mentality shifting is the rooting out and tearing down of our old concepts and ways so that He can build a proper foundation. (Jeremiah 1:9,10) The word speaks of a great shaking in Hebrew 12: 26-28 He has to shake the foundations of what has been built so that we can see what has been falsely built up. He is taking us (or will if we let Him) back to core truth. He cannot bring about reformation based upon years and years of reformation on top of reformation. Reformation in and of itself is cannot hold up under His building upon it. Only absolute TRUTH can be built upon, and last. We don’t need reformation we need RE-building.

To re-build we must look at and seek the pattern that was first laid. (1 Cor 3:9-11) We are to “take heed how we build.” There is a notion of rebuke in the way Paul says this statement. It’s almost like a pre-buke because He knew what would come and go.

Once we realize that we don’t know what in the world WE are doing and that what WE have built isn’t functional and appropriate for the Kingdom, the King can start to do what He wanted in the first place…. To build His Church… His way.

Part of the ‘rooting out’ phase is realizing what the church is not so that we can see a better picture of what the church is. The Ekklesia is not a building. Of the 140 times that the word Church is translated in scripture the word is never intended for the use of describing a building. The Ekklesia is a living, breathing organism. Living Stones. 

The Ekklesia is not bound by the constraints of denominationalism where men have taken bits of truth and built entire belief systems in hopes of ‘grounding’ the moves or understandings of God and His ways. Division in the body of Christ is ANTI-Christ at its very core. These occur when men try to build the body of Christ rather than letting Christ build His own body. The moment man applies his hand and his power to the building up of the body it immediately becomes distorted from what the mind of Christ is. This is where divisions of every kind creep in and begin to distort the perfect will of the Father.

The Ekklesia isn’t the Kingdom itself, but operates within the Kingdom as a whole. The Ekklesia is a part of the Kingdom universal. WE have been set in place here on this earth to rule and reign with the dominion of a commonwealth of the Kingdom.

I guess now to what the Ekklesia IS. It is the perfect will of the King. I love the statement, “The Church isn’t merely some wish, but is the will of God.” I believe WE have a tendency to run the Ekklesia as though it is what God hopes will happen and we are just all out here ‘giving it our best effort’. Now God allows us to operate this way. He permits us to live life this way. We have a choice everyday as to whether we will obey and surrender fully to His will or our own will. What WE have a tendency to forget sometimes is that self-will is what caused Satan to lose his place in the Kingdom of Heaven. It’s that same spirit that is loose and flowing freely today. The spirit of self-serving. What is good for me and mine.

Once again WE forget that the Ekklesia was in the mind of God before the world was formed. WE forget that the Ekklesia was/is/will always be, the mystery of the God. He purposed BEFORE the foundation and FROM the foundation of the world that ALL things were to come up under the authority/headship of Christ. (Eph 1:4-10)

So, what BE the Ekkelsia? The word refers to the Church as the ‘body’ of Christ. (Col 1:18) What is a body’s function? Its function is to play out in the tangible realm what occurs in the mind. So literally WE are to play out what is in the mind of Christ. What is in the mind of Christ? Only the things that He has seen the Father do and heard the Father say. (He does nothing of His own free will.

So WE are the expression of the will of the King that comes to us through the mind of Christ and powered/directed by the Holy Spirit. 

Hey there everyone! I hope everyone is doing well. I recently had a letter forwarded to me that was written by the the father of a friend of mine and my wife's. It seemed to fit right in with the theme that I have been thinking about. This letter is a little lengthy, but well worth the read. So sit back and start reading, and when you're done let me know what you think. Talk to ya later!

JR

I write this article with trepidation that it might be misunderstood and appear as trying to correct The Body of Christ. For that very reason I have maintained a public silence since coming to the understanding that I personally had been guilty of falling victim to the sin of measuring success of a church along side success of the world. For the past six years I have confined instruction on this subject within the walls of the local church that I pastor. I would also not allow myself to use friendships and associations as a forum to preach to others what I knew for certain Our Lord had been showing me. I am convinced that even the purest of hearts would have misjudged my intentions. At the same time, however, I had become consumed with a Divinely orchestrated paradigm shift concerning the growth, development, and mission of the Christian Church. I don’t do well with balancing passion and sensitivity, so rather than be a thorn in the side of others, I chose to disengage from activities in the Youngstown Christian Community until such a time as this. I ask that you indulge me the reading of the following article.  I hope it explains my absence.

 I attended my first church growth conference in 1991. It would be my first of many over the next 10 years. It never occurred to me that God wanted anything less for the local church than a continual numerical increase in people.  Other pastors, I reasoned, must believe the same thing. Rarely do two pastors meet for only a few moments before one will ask the other something like this, “how many are you running, brother?”  It was common to refer to additional people coming to church as a way in which God was blessing the church. If God blessed churches with numbers of people, then the church holding the conference was indeed being blessed. At that point in time it was one of the fastest growing churches in America. If I were going to learn, why not learn from the best of the blessed.

 I carefully put into practice the church growth principles that I learned over those ten years. While there are too many to list in a brief letter, I will mention three that had a particular impact on myself, and our church. It is important to note that one or more of these three principles will always be found interwoven into the modern counterfeit gospel of which Paul cautions Timothy. “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desire.” (2 Timothy 4:2-4, NASB):

1) Bigger is always better. The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of growth. He is about addition and multiplication. Subtraction is not of God.

2) Make everyone feel like they own a little piece of the pie. Encourage people to find needs within the church, and fill those needs with their own gifts, abilities, time, and financial resources. When people take ownership of their church they are more apt to be involved.

3) Use the pulpit as a tool of relevant preaching. In this respect, relevant has come to mean, making the Gospel message a constant source of motivation in someone’s secular life; i.e.: family, job, finances, physical & emotional well - being.

 The deceiving elements found in the three mentioned growth principles may not be readily apparent. However, closer observation will reveal that they appeal to the sinful nature of both the preacher and the people. Therein lies the deception, as all three satisfy our desire for prestige, lust for power, and greed for money. They form the basis of the counterfeit gospel by subtly changing the message from God focused to people centered.

 The church that I pastored, although larger than most, never rose to the status of a mega church. The problem never was the actual size; it was the condition of my heart. Bigger is what I was striving for. Whether a church has 30 members or 30,000 members, as long as we believe that bigger is better, as long as we judge our performance by any form of physical growth, as long as we consciously or unconsciously strive toward that intent, we become victimized by the spirit of worldly success, which in turn leads to false teaching.

Somewhere along the line, I had lost sight of God’s original intent for the church. Growth had become focused on numbers and ways to increase those numbers. Sadly, I had been deceived into settling on ways that seems right to man. I no longer believed that simply lifting up Jesus would draw all men to Him. In order to expedite success and draw people to church, I tried to determine and meet the physical and emotional needs of sinners. Trying to accommodate the sin nature of people always results in ignoring the sins of people. True, Biblical repentance is no longer preached in the modern, success-oriented church.  The proclamation of the Word of God has been reduced to motivational and sensational public speaking. The sharp sword of God’s Word has been exchanged for inspirational speeches.  Captivating orators spew messages that leave their listeners emotionally charged, feeling good about themselves, and most importantly, wanting to come back next week.

 These systems of so-called church growth and development, are motivated by selfish and worldly desires to succeed. They have led to the preaching of another gospel, lifting up another Jesus, and resulting in another church.

 Six years ago, The Holy Spirit of God used the Word of God to reveal the sin of our church in general, and my sin in particular. God began to bring us to our knees through the means of a financial crisis, followed by the loss of several key people who had the means to solve the financial problem. We had been deceived into believing that success in the Church is the same as success in the world. As a result, mega crowds, thunderous worship, numerous services, many ministries, multiple programs, non-stop activity, large budgets, and a sprawling campus had replaced true revival, and other legitimate moves of God. We had been lulled to sleep, but God was awakening our hearts. To make a real long story short, we were called to repentance. Repentance is not just an acknowledgement of sin, but also a complete change of mind, evidenced by a change of behavior.

 At that time we were performing mega dramas that attracted thousands of people from the tri-county and several states. We also had numerous social service programs and outreach ministries. These activities involved hundreds of workers who reached out to thousands of people. To demonstrate true repentance, we stopped all activity with the exception of Bible studies and prayer meetings. Our pastoral staff volunteered significant reductions in salaries and benefits. I went before the church and confessed the sin of pride and following after the world’s formula for success. During this cleansing process we continued to lose people to other churches. I cannot stand in judgment of anyone who left. Their decisions were personal between themselves and God. I do know that many left because they did not agree that we should have taken such radical steps. They questioned if we were not, in effect, dooming ourselves to failure. The answer of course, is that failure, like success, should not be measured by the standards of the world. We have come to understand that in the things of the Kingdom of God, it is not about success or failure; but faithfulness to the Word of God.

 The same call of repentance that God directed toward our church is similarly being directed toward each modern local church that has fallen victim to seeking after success as defined by the world.

 God is calling His unfaithful Bride to repentance. We are, at one and the same time, the Church of Ephesus, who lost its first love; the Church of Pergamum, who embraced false teaching; the Church of Thyatira, who failed to judge sin in it’s midst; the Church of Sardis, who was invaded by a spirit of slumber and complacency, and the Church of Laodicia, who settled for spiritual mediocrity. “He who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the Churches.”

 In the years following our step of obedience, we have experienced, and continue to experience, a spiritual growth that is new and refreshing. We have eliminated any self- effort or promotion to bring new people to the church. We have stopped trying to be successful, and are simply trusting that if the Name of Jesus be lifted up, He will draw all people to Himself.

 Rev. Fred A Mayhew, Pastor, Founder, 1984-present,

Trinity Fellowship Church

Okay, so I can't seem to move myself away from this topic. I have had this on my brain for some time and the more I try to ignore it the more it becomes apparent to me that I only have but a clue as to who I really am. Now that I am older and having to deal with things on my own, it has quickly become apparent to me that if you are going to succeed (not according to the worlds standards) you must have a grip on reality and have a firm understanding of who you are. Actually, not who YOU are, but who you are IN CHRIST. This is a lot easier said than done. 

Since this topic is not one easily conquered over night lets take some time just exploring the topic. I would love to get your take on what each of you think "Christ" is and what you or the church in general should look like "IN CHRIST."

God Bless and happy blogging!

JR

I have been mulling this topic over in my head for the last few days, contemplating on whether or not to challenge you all with this yet. Well, I guess the time is just as good as any. Let me hear your thoughts and opinions. I want to know what you think it means and what you think God meant and currently intends for it to look like.

Happy Bloggin',

Jay

Let's Get Started

What can I say.... My world of understanding and concepts of the Word and Christ are being turned up-side-down. I have no clue just how long it will take us to talk, write, or walk through this book, but the challenge is well worth it. 

Let's take this opportunity to sharpen one another and gain wisdom and insight as to what the Father would show us from His word.

Peace,

Jay

Somethings coming!

Just hold your horses...I'll think of something to post here. But, until that time comes just stare at my picture to the left.

Peace- Jay