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Subscribe Every week we send out our "Parousia Weekly E-Letter." These letters are intended to keep you updated regarding our various on-going ministry activities, to provide you with insights for what it means to be a counter-cultural witness to a Post-Christian culture, and articles designed to encourage you to become the Church that meets in your house. To subscribe you can click on the RSS button below, or the one above on the right side of the URL Address. Save the bookmark to your toolbar and each week's e-letter will be listed as the first item in the list.
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Parousia Weekly Update Letter For The Week of August 29, 2007
"When a prophet is accepted and deified, his message is lost. The prophet is only useful so long as he is stoned as a public nuisance calling us to repentance, disturbing our comfortable routines, breaking our respectable idols, shattering our sacred conventions" (A. G. Gardiner as quoted by Arthur Wallis, "In The Day of Thy Power").
In This Issue:
The Fear of The Lord - Part 1 (2 Chronicles 26)
Parousia Cyber Cafe Blog Now Available
Hearing The Voice of God - Gathering Postponed
"A Gathering Of Angels . . . And A Time To Dance" (NOTE: Summer Schedule)
Just For Fun!
Dear Friends,
Hope your summer is going well! This week's letter is near and dear to me as I believe it represents where God wants to take the simple church/house church movement. Read on.
Blessings,
Maurice
The Fear of The Lord - Part 1
Editor’s Note: Those of you who have regularly endured these e-letters will be aware of the profound experience which I related in my May 2, 2007 newsletter (which you can find in our newsletter archives on our website). Since that "encounter" I have wrestled with how to adequately relate to you and to others the nature and the importance of the three words or "planks" which emerged from that experience (holiness/fear of the Lord, repentance & intimacy). This week’s newsletter is another attempt on my part to further explore one of those planks, namely, holiness or "the fear of the Lord". Time (and your responses) will tell whether or not I’ve been successful. What Tozer Knew And Uzziah Forgot King Uzziah of Judah had a problem that A.W. Tozer understood. It is a problem shared by the church in our time, including those of us in the simple church/ house church movement. And therein lies our story. In order to tell this story and properly frame it for our discussion, I want to share an extended passage from one of my favorite authors, A.W. Tozer. Recently, while rummaging through boxes of books left unpacked from our recent move, I came across his book, "Knowledge of the Holy". I hadn’t read it in years, but I felt impressed to set it aside for reading during my devotions. That decision resulted in this newsletter. The first chapter of this small but powerful volume is entitled, "Why We Must Think Rightly About God." What follows is my redacted version for this newsletter. If you want to read an unedited version you can find it at this link: http://www.heavendwellers.com/hdt_chapter_1_koh.htm. Here is what Tozer wrote: "What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God. For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. This is true not only of the individual Christian, but of the company of Christians that composes the Church. Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God, just as her most significant message is what she says about Him or leaves unsaid, for her silence is often more eloquent than her speech. She can never escape the self-disclosure of her witness concerning God . . . . A right conception of God is basic not only to systematic theology but to practical Christian living as well. It is to worship what the foundation is to the temple; where it is inadequate or out of plumb the whole structure must sooner or later collapse. I believe there is scarcely an error in doctrine or a failure in applying Christian ethics that cannot be traced finally to imperfect and ignoble thoughts about God . . . . It is my opinion that the Christian conception of God current in these middle years of the twentieth century is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God and actually to constitute for professed believers something amounting to a moral calamity . . . . All the problems of heaven and earth, though they were to confront us together and at once, would be nothing compared with the overwhelming problem of God: That He is; what He is like; and what we as moral beings must do about Him . . . . The man who comes to a right belief about God is relieved of ten thousand temporal problems, for he sees at once that these have to do with matters which at the most cannot concern him for very long; but even if the multiple burdens of time may be lifted from him, the one mighty single burden of eternity begins to press down upon him with a weight more crushing than all the woes of the world piled one upon another. That mighty burden is his obligation to God . . . . The gospel can lift this destroying burden from the mind, give beauty for ashes, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. But unless the weight of the burden is felt the gospel can mean nothing to the man; and until he sees a vision of God high and lifted up, there will be no woe and no burden. Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them. Among the sins to which the human heart is prone, hardly any other is more hateful to God than idolatry, for idolatry is at bottom a libel on His character. The idolatrous heart assumes that God is other than He is - in itself a monstrous sin - and substitutes for the true God one made after its own likeness . . . . Let us beware lest we in our pride accept the erroneous notion that idolatry consists only in kneeling before visible objects of adoration, and that civilized peoples are therefore free from it. The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him. It begins in the mind and may be present where no overt act of worship has taken place . . . . Wrong ideas about God are not only the fountain from which the polluted waters of idolatry flow; they are themselves idolatrous. The idolater simply imagines things about God and acts as if they were true . . . . Perverted notions about God soon rot the religion in which they appear. The long career of Israel demonstrates this clearly enough, and the history of the Church confirms it. So necessary to the Church is a lofty concept of God that when that concept in any measure declines, the Church with her worship and her moral standards declines along with it. The first step down for any church is taken when it surrenders its high opinion of God . . . . Before the Christian Church goes into eclipse anywhere there must first be a corrupting of her simple basic theology. She simply gets a wrong answer to the question, "What is God like?" and goes on from there. Though she may continue to cling to a sound nominal creed, her practical working creed has become false. The masses of her adherents come to believe that God is different from what He actually is; and that is heresy of the most insidious and deadly kind . . . . The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him - and of her. In all her prayers and labors this should have first place. We do the greatest service to the next generation of Christians by passing on to them undimmed and undiminished that noble concept of God which we received from our Hebrew and Christian fathers of generations past. This will prove of greater value to them than anything that art or science can devise." How Uzziah Thought Wrongly About God The story of King Uzziah’s life is found in the book of 2 Chronicles, Chapter 26. What follows is not a detailed exposition of this chapter. Rather, the following represents my observations in light of the topic of the fear of God and thinking right thoughts about Him. "Uzziah was sixteen years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem; and his mother,s name was Jechiliah of Jerusalem. And he did right in the sight of the Lord according to all that his father Amaziah had done. And he continued to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding through the vision of God; and as long as he sought the Lord, God prospered him." (26:3-5) Observation # 1: God genuinely prospers those who seek Him. The challenge here is that God gets to define what "prosper" means". Success is always on His terms, not ours. The roots of Uzziah’s eventual downfall are found in his success. I have met very few people who learned important spiritual lessons from their success. When people are successful they usually don’t’ ask God "Why did this happen to me?" Most important life lessons are learned from our failures, because failure has a tendency to drive us to our knees in search of both answers and mercy. Don’t misunderstand me at this point. Success is a wonderful blessing, but it is a poor teacher. And one of the ways we begin thinking wrong thoughts about God is by misinterpreting our own success. "Moreover, Uzziah prepared for all the army shields, spears, helmets, body armor, bows and sling stones. And in Jerusalem he made engines of war invented by skillful men to be on the towers and on the corners, for the purpose of shooting arrows and great stones. Hence his fame spread afar, for he was marvelously helped until he was strong." (26:14-15) Observation # 2: God loves to help the weak who seek Him, until they become strong. If you’re feeling weak right now, there’s good news: God loves to help the weak. But if you’re feeling strong, I’ve got some bad news. God may not be in it. One of the ways we begin thinking wrong thoughts about God is by listening to and believing our own publicity. Our "fame" goes to our head and we begin thinking less about God’s greatness and more about our own blessing. We still do lip service to God as the source of our blessing, but it is a hollow refrain. The awful reality is that we have come to think too much of ourselves and our "gifts" while thinking too little about God and His holiness. "But when he became strong, his heart was so proud that he acted corruptly, and he was unfaithful to the Lord his God, for he entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense" (26:16) Observation # 3: Pride will turn your greatest strength into your greatest weakness, and your greatest blessing into your greatest curse. By now it was obvious that Uzziah was both strong and blessed. And that was the beginning of wrong thinking about God. Strength and blessing can do strange things to people. Together they become fertilizer for the weeds of pride. Uzziah had been so successful as King, his pride told him there was no reason why he couldn’t be a great priest too! Uzziah made a mistake that is common among gifted people: He confused God’s blessing with God’s approval. And one of the ways we begin thinking wrong thoughts about God is by confusing His gifts and blessings in our lives with His approval of our beliefs, our opinions and our lifestyles. "Then Azariah the priest entered after him and with him eighty priests of the Lord, valiant men. And they opposed Uzziah the king and said to him, ‘It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord, but for the priests, the sons of Aaron who are consecrated to burn incense. Get out of the sanctuary, for you have been unfaithful, and will have no honor from the Lord God.’ But Uzziah, with a censer in his hand for burning incense, was enraged; and while he was enraged with the priests, the leprosy broke out on his forehead before the priests in the house of the Lord, beside the altar of incense." (26:17-19) Observation # 4: Pride causes us to forget who God is, who we are in relation to Him, and what He has called us to do. Uzziah was called to be King; He wasn’t called to be a priest. Strength and blessing combined with pride to create wrong thoughts about God. Strength and blessing combined with pride to cause Uzziah to forget who he was, who God was, and what he had been called to do. Wrong thoughts about God will result in a wrong understanding of who we are in relation to Him. When we forget God’s place, we quickly become confused about our own place. "And Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked at him, and behold, he was leprous on his forehead; and they hurried him out of there, and he himself also hastened to get out because the Lord had smitten him. And King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death; and he lived in a separate house, being a leper, for he was cut off from the house of the Lord. And Jotham his son was over the king,s house judging the people of the land." (26:20-21) Observation # 5: King Uzziah received a rude awakening and a costly lesson regarding the fear of the Lord. The text tells us that Uzziah "hastened to get out because the Lord had smitten him." My impression is that Uzziah was smitten not only with leprosy, but with fear - the fear of God which results from a personal confrontation with His Holiness. The fear of God reminds us of who God is - a holy God who is not to be trifled with - and who we are in relation to Him - servants called to holiness and obedience. The fear of God breaks our pride and places us in right relationship to God and to the world around us. The fear of God restores God to His proper place, restores us to our proper place and causes us to once again think rightly about ourselves, about God, and about His purposes in the world. All of this happened to King Uzziah in a moment of time. And it cost him dearly, "And King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death; and he lived in a separate house, being a leper, for he was cut off from the house of the Lord." Tozer, Uzziah and House Church O.K., time to stop circling the airport and land this thing. Tozer was right, of course. The most important thing about any man or woman is what he or she thinks about God, because "We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God." It was true of Uzziah, and it is true of us as well. This leads me to conclude that, like Uzziah, every one of us needs to know four things: 1) We need to know God for Who He is, not for who we imagine Him to be; 2) We need to know who we are in relation to this God; 3) We need to know what He has done for us; 4) We need to know what He is calling us to do. These four issues are at the heart of the Church in every generation, including ours and including simple church or house church. The answers to these four issues will determine the DNA of the simple church/house church movement for the next generation, so they are of more than mere passing interest. This helps me understand why God chose the "Express Delivery" method of communicating this message to us (again, see my May 2, 2007 newsletter in our website archives) and why He "interrupted" my vacation to re-emphasize it’s importance (see last week’s newsletter). The River of God’s Spirit, the River of Exekiel 47, is preparing to flow in power and blessing the likes of which this generation has not seen before. And the "three planks" of the channel He is preparing consist of Holiness/Fear of God, Repentance and Intimacy. Are you and your simple house church part of His channel? Are you seeking Him for how He wants you to build with these three planks? He is preparing to bring His "available church" into an Isaiah 6 encounter with Himself that will shape the DNA of the simple church/house church movement for a generation. Are you "available" to hear what it is He wants to say? Finally, what does Uzziah’s experience have to do with Isaiah’s experience? It was the life and lessons of Uzziah that formed the backdrop for what God was going to reveal to Isaiah. How do we know? Because Isaiah tells us so: "In the year of King Uzziah,s death, I saw the Lord . . .". Sometimes God uses the experience of others to open our eyes so that we can see. Next week: The Fear of The Lord - Part 2 (Isaiah 6:1-6)
Parousia Cyber Café Blog Now Available
As many of you already know, we have been slowly adding new elements to our website (www.parousianetwork.org). The newest addition is our Café Blog. It is now available from the menu on our home page or via the following link: http://parousianetworkcybercafe.blogspot.com/ You can "subscribe" to the blog via an rss subscription feed on the blog. Simply click on the subscription feed icon in the URL address bar and add us to your tool bar (RSS feeds require Explorer 7.0 or higher, or Mozilla Firefox. Personally, I like Mozilla). I would invite you to visit the blog and interact with the newsletters. It's easy to do. Just click and long on! http://parousianetworkcybercafe.blogspot.com/
Rodrick Gilbert Equipping Gathering Rodrick Gilbert is a house church planter who has successfully trained thousands of leaders to saturate North India, including among Islamic communities. His movement has seen over 50,000 baptized in 15 years. Dan Grether of Free Indeed ministries is working on bringing Rodrick to Spokane in mid-into Spokane. Here is what Dan just sent me: "He (Rodrick)would like to do two two-day seminars, one for Master Trainers, one for their Church Planters, Sept. 12-15. I've started putting word out and asked for RSVPs on interest/attendance so that we can gage space needed etc. I am anticipating roughly 9-5 each day. Maybe an optional dinner, Q and A afterwards for those able, about 5-7". If you would like to know more, shoot Dan an e-mail to: dgrether@fimi.org
"A Gathering Of Angels . . . And A Time To Dance" (Change of Venu for Next Three Weeks)
Due to scheduling conflicts, etc., etc,. we are moving our Friday evening gathering from the home of the Shipley's to our apartment for the next three weeks. Directions are on the website (www.parousianetwork.org). Our next gathering is scheduled for this FRIDAY evening the 24th of August at 7:00 PM. Check the website before coming!
© 2007 THE PAROUSIA NETWORK of
House and Cell Churches (www.parousianetwork.org)
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