Movement...

movement

God’s grace provides everything that each believer in Christ needs for both

time and eternity. We will learn the truths of God’s word so as to understand

His perspectives, His principles, His precepts, His promises, and His

purposes. We will respond to God’s revealed truth by faith in Jesus Christ.

Our calling is to move others from ignorance and unbelief. We are to help

others come to the knowledge of God’s word and faith in His word that they

may become absolutely essential to God’s purposes. This, that they may

involve themselves in a unique relationship with a Person – Jesus Christ. A

relationship wherein we are unconditionally loved. Chosen in Christ.

Accepted in Christ. Redeemed through his blood. Forgiven all trespasses.

Sealed by the Holy Spirit. Eternally secured by God in Christ. And these are

only a partial blessing to be received. So great salvation. We must

consistently read and hear and study the scriptures. It is incredibly important

and urgent that we understand and grasp the truth of God’s written

revelation. We must allow the Spirit of truth the freedom to impress upon us

the Person and the truths of Christ. We must not fail to enter into the faith-

rest of Jesus our God.

God’s people are a movement. A movement begins with values. Decisions

and actions align with these values. A movement has a purpose to be

achieved. An organization simply implies that all involved will stick around. A

movement can produce a change for everyone, whereas an organization

measures what it can do for itself. In a movement, accountability is to a cause

greater than any one individual. When it comes to making tough decisions,

the cause is the top priority. In an organization accountability is first to the

organization; when leaders face tough decisions, their top priority is

organizational sustainability. “Movement” means “to create action,” to go

from one place to another. Sustaining a movement is about sustaining action.

“Organization” means “the act or process of putting the different parts of

something in a certain order so that they can be found or used easily.”

Sustaining an organization is about sustaining order. In a movement,

leadership emerges from within. Anyone can join, simply by committing to

take action on behalf of the cause. Once “inside,” becoming a leader is self-

determined by each individual taking action and contributing. Organizations

often look “outside” for leaders. People can join an organization only in formal

roles; board member, staff, volunteer, intern. Individuals themselves do not

control whether they rise through the ranks; those with formal decision-

making authority make that call. A movement are individuals deeply engaged

to bring others into the fold. Organizations tend to have fixed, charted

positions. Ultimately, the movement is the leader - people working on behalf

of a movement are trustful of other individuals within the movement and to a

cause larger than those individuals. Leadership cultivates loyalty to the

organization.

The judgment that precedes the glorious return of the King of kings has

its movement with its message, Revelation 14:6-12, and the help of the gift

of prophecy, manifested in the testimony of Jesus. It will proclaim a present

truth to warn and prepare the world of the second coming.

God’s purpose for His election has precedence over every role we pursue.

His calling is to compel us to decisively and persuasively dispense the

crucially demanding essentials imperative to warn the world of the pressing

seriousness of the situations to be soon confronted. For that, we must

consider God’s intimacy. God moves within Godself, and outside of Godself,

to move His people toward each other in His created order that in our human

personhood we go out of ourselves and enter into personal relations through

the Holy Spirit as His communicative agency. We are asked to move outside

our circles. That the message of the gospel is newly centered in every

culture. Our election is an attribute of God derived from the very nature of

God and framed within the context of the doctrine of the Godhead. The

purpose is seen as a movement from God to the world, and His election is

viewed as an instrument of that purpose. God is continually moving toward

the world and His creation to bring His adherents to a transportable and

translatable faith as it continually transcends borders of all kinds over time.

God’s divine presence is presenting itself. The divine is welling up and

showing through. Without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us,

and molds us wherein we are in truth a holy place. We are called to look

clearly and directly at the reality that is before us, directly in front of us. Every

conceivable situation that we could ever think of exists now as a fact in God’s

plan but cannot be made visible to us until we occupy it, for we are God’s

operant power in the last day. In His movement He chose us.

Our lives revolve around the necessity for an intense personal relationship

with that Jesus and we act as if divine intervention guides our every

movement and can be counted on to resolve every challenge. Our God is

mysterious: a deity who cannot be manipulated and yet throughout time is

intimately touched by humans. The incarnation embodies this movement of

God with his people; it does so richly and profoundly. The bible gives

evidence that God is concerned with the divine-human relationship. Because

God’s presence is inherently valued, the people of God consider the

interpersonal implications of divine accessibility and absence. God, through

His dwelling presence relates to specific people and how these people relate

to the community. We are to come to a higher understanding of what the

presence of God means. How could a glorious and all-powerful holy being

from the highest, live in close proximity to a human community without that

community being utterly devastated by the Divine Presence? The first

movement was the glory of the LORD filling the tabernacle. God’s presence

entered the space prepared for him, eternally puncturing the community with

Himself. We see that this sanctuary was not merely a symbol of God’s

presence; it was a real conveyance for His immanence. This is the

movement

transcendent God dwelling in the everyday movement with those He has

chosen. God cannot be restricted to a specific space. His choosing to dwell

among His people in the spiritual manifestation of a cloud by day, pillar of fire

by night, with His glory filling the sanctuary is God on the move. There is

movement with the God of heaven that signals the comings and goings of

His people Israel. God calls for us to be in movement with Him. Where God

dwells is a sacred place. To continue to host God, His true believers are a

living temple of the living God. This is that continual movement whereby

Christ by his Spirit dwells in all true believers. This truth reaches beyond the

individual. The community is called to be holy. God needs a people. He has

called a people. Truth inspires the believers to declare the wonders of God

in the languages of the world, filling them so they can proclaim the gospel

boldly in the face of opposition. Our witness is unique. As far as there are

people, that’s how far Jesus’ servants are to go. We are called to go to the

ends of the inhabited world - every place and every people. Jesus turned

shattered disciples into a movement of God. He did it for them, and he can

do it for us. His mission begins and ends, not with our knowledge and

resources but by returning to the life and ministry of Jesus. That’s what we’re

trusting him to do. At the very center of our mission is the witness to the life,

death, and victory of Jesus, calling everyone to turn and believe in him and

leading to the formation of communities of believers in every place. Every

obstacle will be overcome, not by the believer’s might and intelligence but by

God who intervenes on our behalf. All he wants from us is faith expressed in

obedience. Prayer will be evident in every decisive moment of the

advancement of God’s last day movement. The Spirit empowers God’s

people to cross the boundaries of culture, language, and race with the

message of salvation. God scattered His people in circles of cross-cultural

engagement and is moving today to realign them with His purposes. The

sound of worship draws a crowd. God is gathering and restoring his people.

God intends to form one people from every tribe and language under the rule

of His Son. The movement of God cannot be copied, bottled, or franchised.

It cannot be explained by natural causes. There is only one foundation of

this movement of God: the life, death, and victory of Jesus; and the

energizing power of the Spirit propelling God’s people to the ends of the

earth. The Spirit serves the expansion of the Word. It is the Word, not the

Spirit, that grows. Out of the nations of the world, the Holy Spirit creates the

people of God - united in their faith in Jesus as Savior and King.

True faith consists in believing God’s Word. We must be humble. We must

initiate from this moment the greatest movement ever on earth. Somebody

must begin, and begin now. Even under persecution somebody must begin.

Someone must give himself up for the purpose of God. Our movement must

be toward a higher spiritual attitude. Spiritual movement is a committed

group of faithful believers, empowered by the Spirit of God, embracing a

common purpose and principles and actively involved in helping to fulfill the

Great Commission. They are bound together by common devotion to Christ

and His cause. Such a movement is characterized by dependence on the

Holy Spirit and the Word, mutual love and fellowship, bold sharing of the

gospel, changed lives, fervent prayer, the development of Christ-like

leadership, spiritual multiplication, opposition from others and a sense of awe

at the mighty power of God at work in their midst. Watchfulness and vigilance

toward perseverance in the little time we have left. Watchfulness as being

ready to greet the coming Lord. Watchfulness is a characteristic of the

spirituality of a believer who living in hope, awaits the return of Jesus; this

implies the necessity of renouncing pleasures and earthly goods and

echoing the truth of the gospel admonitions to stay awake. Spiritual

awakedness consists in receiving and accepting what is most important from

all reality and seeing everything in the perspective of finality, the fundamental

truth. God’s revealed truth in scripture is rooted in the eternal, all-powerful,

and unalterable character of God. Therefore His promises cannot fail. The

Holy Spirit moves God’s people into truth. This movement commands that

God’s people know the truth. Handle the truth accurately, and avoid doctrinal

untruths. Christ’s followers do the truth and abide in the truth. The last day

undertaking of God people will measure their inseparableness from truth. We

are to be a source of truth. We are to be a reference point for truth in concert

with His revealed Word. What is the sign of Christ in us...when God’s truth is

at the heart of the spiritual life. Grace is divine influence and truth is reality.

And both comes through Jesus Christ. These are to characterize God’s

people. Because God gifted us with truth in Christ and we observe the law

of God because it is right, we prioritize right over compassion. Grace, on the

other hand, was introduced with the incarnation when God showed up in

Jesus to be the very penalty the law demanded. Notice when John wrote he

paired up grace with truth. John was attuned to truth. And he proclaimed truth

as a person. How is this a movement in the final days for God’s people?

write

Truth is embraced and experienced as grace embodies us. This is relational

rather than propositional. This is not a book. It is the Person that moves us

to a right relationship with God. We stand for, and we stand with the truth.

Amazing how grace and truth are expressed through love. Wherein is grace?

In the sacrifice of Jesus. Wherein is truth? In the life of Christ. Both are joined

in the sacrificial love of God. This is the purpose of God’s calling. Cultural

chaos is deadening spiritual growth. Our calling for these last days is to

demonstrate the grace of Jesus in love, which leads to a truth of Jesus that

liberates. Please understand the purpose of this calling in the last days. Do

we just love people as they are without speaking scriptural truth to their

situation? Absolutely not. Some might think it compassionate, but ultimately

it is cruel. We love people as they are before speaking scriptural truth to their

situation. We earn the right to speak truth by embodying truth through our

love for them. This is what God means when He says “His word above His

name”. The principles of truth in the Person of Truth shared in the truth that

God so loved the world. By the love of God, the truth of Jesus is that grace

that moves man back to God. But know that God initiated this in His plan of

redemption. This is why God gave to every person the measure of faith. Faith

had to act to receive grace. Grace always comes first. Grace comes before

faith. God initiated the plan to redeem us and we simply respond to a

completed plan. Grace, God’s plan, flowed down first. We cannot receive

from God without faith, but we will never walk by faith until we understand

grace. WE ORIGINATE NOTHING! We do not need to struggle to get God

to move. We simply need to respond to the move He already made. The

Word of His grace tells us all that He already did - and now, brethren, I

commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build

you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.

grace

Let look closer at His grace as it moves us in our purpose as God’s last day

election. Please, please hear the form and the fashion of grace by faith, not

just that measure, but the faith of Jesus. This faith fills us with such wisdom

that we hear with a divine mind. We say faith moves God’s hand, but we

must understand God already moved first in grace before we could add to or

mess up His move. Before ever we were born. Before ever we did and good

or evil. Reason and think about all the past tense facts of God’s Word that

show us God moved first. The word of God, His truth, tells us we are already

blessed, chosen, predestinated, accepted, and redeemed. That finished

work is expressed in facts that have happened in God’s determination. Those

facts reveal our true spiritual position in Christ. God moved in grace first and

now we move in faith as a response. If we could only see the fulness of the

purpose God called us to. We must remember the purpose of, and the

bigness of the everlasting gospel message.

The gospel robs us of our self-righteousness, exhorts us to run to

Christ for salvation and new life, and with much compassion the gospel asks

that our enemies may also be saved in this way. Our enemies become our

friends so we can go share the gospel with our enemies, all to the glory of

the God who is now our Father. Our movement is to be shown that the

purpose of God stands. God made provision for all who desires to be saved

can be saved. Those we carry this truth to are known of God. God is

concerned with people and how they live. After all, how we live reflects our

character. The heart of humanity has always been of primary concern to the

Creator because God created man in His image. What God is - and what He

teaches in scripture - defines what is right. God is faithful to His promises,

and He is concerned about living up to His promises to people. We must

reach those who are prone to forgetfulness. Who do not know or forget who

they are in Christ. We must never forget to treat others with the grace and

mercy God shows us because we forget they are made in the image of God

and are either our brothers, our sisters in Christ, or they are in need of grace

so they may become our brother or our sister in Christ. We are not to forget

that in Christ we are forgiven and free, we are to cease from sin. We are to

know that in Christ, God sees Him, not us, so we need not shelter in despair,

but instead worship openly our Redeemer. This all says that God’s people

cannot mature in character without sharing what we know, what we have of

God’s love with others.

Knowing the love of God leads to the fullness of God. As the Spirit

strengthens us by God’s grace to live for God’s glory, and as Jesus dwells

more richly, God consistently reminds us of His love for us and all that He

has done for us. Sharing the gospel fuels our love for others. We turn from

ourselves. By God’s grace we turn from sin. The reality of truth in the hope

of being purposed by election is the faith that fuels grace. Truth is humility.

And the depth of God’s love is the mystery that makes all the difference. The

mystery is that we know how God loves us...He gave His son. But we don’t

know Him. Knowing Him makes all the difference in both our grasp of His

love and in the way His love can change us. Yet, too many of us fall short of

acquainting ourselves with what lies within the pages of the bible that reveals

God’s love. To really love someone is to know their character. So, it is the

same with God. To know His love, we need to have a relationship with Him.

And in order to have a right relationship we need to know everything we can

about Him. We need to know the character of God beyond the wonder of His

marvelousness. How can we not wonder at the One who loved enough to

walk with eyes wide open into horrific suffering and death so that we could

live free with hope knowing our eternal place in Heaven? He is the One who

gives us wisdom. If we started with the word “In” and concluded with the word

“Amen”, taking a lifetime with every word between, our thirst would not be

quenched to grasp the unconditional love of God. But as we recognize the

depth and breadth of God’s character, we know His is a love that we could

not have an eternity without. The character of God wants us to be personally

involved with His plan and purpose. Begin with this aspect of God’s

character; He is more intent on creating and saving life than destroying it.

God engaged His immense power and wisdom to create the world in which

He intended to work out His purposes. God’s grand purpose for the world to

come, then, is in the process of coming into being in the present through the

redeeming and restoring work of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In Christ, and

by the transformative power of the Holy Spirit, God is at work preparing a

people to populate His new world. His purpose is to conform them to the

image of Christ. This means that God’s purpose for each one of us is to be

transformed in our character, such that we more fully reflect the character of

our God. We are given at least one special enablement by the Holy Spirit.

God is building our characters. God wants our attributes to match His as we

represent Him on earth. He is far more concerned about our thoughts and

ideals being under His will and contributing to our character than our gifting.

Good character will allow a greater dimension of our gift to flow. God will not

release the fullness of gifting into a person who doesn’t have the character

to carry it. God wants to move us into a place of maturity and integrity so He

can entrust us with the greater depth of Him as we move forward. Please

make no mistake; this movement will be a process!

movement