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“The outpouring of the Spirit brings with it the sense of the future, and a church without a future is a depleted entity. A church that does not anticipate the consummation of the age has lost its identity as the church. Therefore, when we do not have that future because we do not have the Spirit, we stagnate at the level of conventional and predictable church life, nothing more than a succession of Sunday services. The evidence of that can be most pointedly seen in our children who are bored with church life, and we often have to drag them by the scruff of the neck to our functions. They would not be sitting in our congregations waiting for the thing to end, nor would they be drawn off and attracted to other questionable amusements, if we were living in the context of an end. The general character of our meetings is a terrible indictment against us because we have not raised up for our own children a standard and quality of life that compels their attention and their participation. We have not persuaded our children that what we are about is earnest and authentic. Though they may not articulate it, we are to them no more than some kind of adult Sunday culture.” “We must see the connection between community and the Kingdom, because Church, as it is presently constituted, with a mere schedule of services, has not the framework to present an opportunity to men by which their character can be attended and be brought to the God-likeness that God intends. Merely seeing each other Sunday by Sunday, being physically present in pews, does not provide the opportunity for the redemptive working of God in the Church, for the shaping of character and life by which we can live in the spirit of humility, truth, meekness, love, peace, obedience, and have a conscience that is without offense both to God and to men. The Church needs to be a demonstration, the thing in itself, an expression already of the Kingdom come. ‘The Kingdom come’ is not just for some future millennia, there is a way we can live in its reality now. It is remarkable that when you begin to pursue this subject, you see how little the Church believes that God intended the Sermon on the Mount for now. We seem to think that God does not really intend that we should turn the other cheek, walk an extra mile, or love our enemies. It was relegated to some future millennial time, when the Church itself would be absent from the earth, and the Jews that remained would somehow fulfill the requirements of the Sermon on the Mount, when the Holy Spirit would be taken from the earth. It is insanity. It is cowardice. It is apostasy. It is heresy. God intended the fulfillment of these things now, through the Body of Christ, which is a covenanted community of God. This is more than the issue of doctrine or atonement. This is more than soul winning. This is more than proper orthodoxy. This is more than a Pentecostal distinctive. This is more than salvation as a private experience. This is corporate reality, something demonstrated by the Church in its corporateness in such a way as we can say to an unbelieving world, ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.’” If there is something flaky about our apostles and prophets, then what will the superstructure be if it is based on that foundation? The Church 2day moves largely as the world; as if no practical input by God into their daily lives is expected by virtue of their believing. When you can praise God in the midst of adversity and suffering, you have the most powerful release from the powers of darkness. There is always a period of obscurity before God brings forth out of that darkness and isolation His Josephs for the age. In an age where the word ‘apostolic’ is grossly overused, the Lord is calling for a people willing to live in a truly apostolic way. A church with apostolic foundations is that body of people whose central impulse is one thing only- a radical jealousy for the glory of God. A church that does not anticipate the consummation of the age has lost its identity as the church. I wonder how many of us are wearing porcelain faces, living out a Christian life from a self-assumed notion of how we ought to appear. The presence of religious manipulation in modern ministry reflects the absence of reality in the lives of God's people. Our Christianity is degenerating into a middle class culture, a comfortable nostalgia, in the avoidance of the Cross of Christ Jesus. We can give an appearance of comeliness & well-being, but God seeks a consistency in our life that we shall not attain to without the Cross. There's a terrible disparity to things we profess as believers, & what is the actual content of our lives. We have shrunk from the Cross. We're coming to a conclusion of the age, and we shall be increasingly despised for constituting a threat to the status quo of the nations There's something about the nature of suffering that has the greatest capacity to reveal truth. To whatever degree our image of God is distorted, so are we also. The character and authority of true “sons” is predicated, as it must be, upon the power of the resurrection life. Ministry of the kind that is penetrating & that affects time & eternity must grow out of His life & the life comes out of relationships. God does not want the faith of men to be established on eloquence, but on the basis of the power of God. The preaching that is power comes when a man abandons himself, and will not lean on his own expertise or ability. The veil needs to come off of the Church's eyes before it will come off of Israel's. We have not adequately seen His eternal purposes. We've missed the mystery of Israel to the degree that we've missed the mystery of God. We don't understand the One who chooses whom He will. The ultimate test of whether we are indeed the people of God is our ability not only to love the unlovely, but to love our enemies. Unless we are authentically rooted and grounded in God, we will fail to be to the Jew what we ought to be in the days that lie ahead. It's a real test for us, whether we will love what He loves and hate what He hates, especially in reference to His purposes for Israel. The Church has suffered significantly by a tendency to dismiss the literal nature of statements made about Israel in the holy Scriptures. The issue of Israel is the issue of the Church more than you could possibly imagine. "We need to recognize that our salvation, the finality and the fullness of it, is near." -Art Katz "How can we lose? Whether we are imprisoned, beheaded, tortured or persecuted, we receive a greater eternal glory & joy." -Art Katz Righteousness is not something learned by discipline. Righteousness is very God. Until you've cried out about being a man- not merely about your sinfulness but about your being dust- you've not yet cried out.

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