The great burden of this particular series is for people to realize that the judgment of God is spiritual and what must be done in order to return to God. We cannot be satisfied in doing our religious duties and practices. We must not be satisfied in simply doing the externals of religion. We must begin to seek the face of the Lord in spirit, truth, and love or the judgment will continue. The church will never do anything of spiritual significance apart from seeking the face of the Lord out of true love for Him. It has been said that at times younger children will unwrap a present and play with the box rather than appreciate the present. The professing church appears to be doing the same thing. It is playing with music, preaching, teaching, prayer, Bible study and so on (the box and the wrapping) rather than seeking the face of the living God. Music is not to be appreciated as music alone, it is to be used to worship the living God or we are satisfied with the box. Preaching is to be a means to seek the face of God or we are satisfied with the box. Bible study and prayer are means to seeking God, and yet if we develop religious duties around them rather than using them as means of seeking God we are playing with the box.
The issue of a seeking church is a church that is seeking God from the heart. A church that is seeking God is seeking the face of God in truth from the depths of the heart. Seeking God is not the activity or activities in and of themselves; those are simply the boxes (so to speak). We must pray for the Lord to take our hearts from the boxes in order to seek Him by means of the box. The Pharisees were satisfied with the externals of religion. We like to think we are not and so we say and write words that condemn the Pharisees for what they did. Yet how many people in the churches are truly seeking God from the desires and longings of their hearts? How many churches have prayer meetings where God Himself is the true object of desire? How many churches have prayer meetings where no one is prayed for but God Himself is sought and anything that is prayed for is a means of seeking God Himself? When we pray for others without a primary love for God we are seeking something other than God. We are to love Him with all of our beings. The greatest thing that we can pray for another, after all, is for them to know God day in and day out which is eternal life.
The evangelism and discipleship of the churches must be to make true seekers and lovers of God. We must not be satisfied with external morality and an easy religious life. We must not be satisfied that people say prayers and walk aisles, but instead we must seek God and do what we do in such a way to see hearts changed. If a church is going to seek the face of God in its meetings, then the individuals that the church consists of must be seeking the Lord in that way. After all, the church is the body of Christ. What does the life of Christ in His body do? That life of Christ will always seek the face of the Father and to seek to please Him in all it does. We must know that what Christ did on earth He will work to fulfill in the hearts of His people. All that He did was to please the Father and to seek His will. What He will do in our hearts as our life is to seek to please the Father and seek His will. The same Christ who was sweating blood in His prayer to the Father and said “not My will, but Yours be done” is the Christ that will not rest satisfied until His people are seeking the will of His Father to be done on earth as it is in heaven. He is the Lord of the heart and His kingdom reigns to the degree that it reigns in the hearts of His people.
For a church to function as a body of Christ seeking the Father through and by the life of Christ, that will require a people to have hearts that love God. The goal of evangelism and discipleship is not to have people pray a prayer and profess to be delivered from hell; it is to have a people united to Christ with the same heart of Christ. It is to have the people be saved from the power of sin on this earth so that the living God will dwell in their souls. The blood of Christ does not deliver from hell alone, but it cleanses the soul so that the living God may dwell in that soul as His holy temple. The church must learn to pray for the glory of God to dwell in the souls of the people and to pray for others in that manner and with that goal. That is, after all, how Paul prayed (Ephesians 3:14-21).
What we must begin to see with renewed eyes is that the church is not just a group of people that meet together to perform religious things together. It must meet together as a body of Christ to do what its Head directs it to do. It must meet together as a bride in order to love and please its Husband. The church is not just an organization, it is the very dwelling place of the living God and it is from His dwelling place that His glory will shine. The tabernacle in the Old Testament was where the glory of God dwelt. The tabernacle in the book of John we the physical body of Jesus Christ because that is where the glory dwelt. The tabernacle or temple after Christ is the Church because the true Church is the body of Christ. Its purposes all relate to being an instrument in shining out God’s glory.
All of these things are related to the peg analogy from the past few newsletters. Each local church has to revisit what it means to be a church. The present belief of what a church is may be pegs in the upper levels, but the beliefs of what a church is must be at the deepest roots. Local churches must wake up to what a church is. The following two verses show this: “He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything” (Colossians 1:18). “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions” (Colossians 1:24). What does Christ think of a local church that gets involved in activities without having Him as its first love and having first place in everything? What He said to the Pharisees in Matthew 7 is a clue: 22 “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ 23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.'”
Here we have a picture of busy people who were busy in their religion on judgment day. These were not just the nominal believers as we call them. These were not just those that attended once a month or most of the time except when they were busy with other things. These were people who had their theology correct (called Jesus “Lord”) and went about preaching or proclaiming the name of Christ. These were also those that not only cast out demons and did miracles, but they did them in the name of Jesus. Yet they were sent away because they practiced lawlessness. This text should send chills down our spines as well. Here were orthodox people doing outwardly great things and even doing them in the name of Christ. Yet they were told that Christ never knew them. They were told to depart because they practiced lawlessness.
Let us imagine a local church that can be described by Matthew 7:22-23 and is busy about getting people busy. That is a church growth technique in our day. The things these people were doing are done in the name of the Lord. The things these people are doing are thought to be great. The things that people are doing orthodox and perhaps even miraculous. Can there be local churches that have great evangelistic practices that Christ would call lawlessness on judgment day? Can there be local churches that have discipleship programs that are seen by Christ as lawlessness now and will on judgment day? Are there local churches with great and thriving music programs that Christ sees now as and will term then as lawlessness on judgment day? Are there local churches that are having large numbers come through its doors for things that Christ sees as practices of lawlessness? Could it be that people will flock to conservative churches to have their ears tickled with conservative morality that is lawlessness because it is morality apart from love for Christ? The Pharisees were also conservative in their morality. Could it be that people flock to hear certain people preach because they like to have their ears tickled with a theology that they agree with? The Pharisees were conservative with their theology too. What does the Word of God teach us is the ultimate lawlessness? It is violating the Great Commandment of loving God with all of our beings. Conservative theology and morality do not guarantee a judgment where Christ will declare all as well done. Those are also things that can be declared as lawlessness.
If we reflect back on the wooden peg analogy we can see that the people in Matthew 7 had their religious beliefs and practices built into what they were. However, what they did not have was Christ as their very foundation and life. Each church must know that there is no other foundation other than Christ and that there is no life other than Christ. The church must begin to look and examine itself to see if what it is doing goes to the deepest supports in all it is doing. We can do many things to please people and keep people coming in the door, but if in bringing them in we are, so to speak, driving God out the door what we are doing is lawlessness. We must be preaching, teaching, and evangelizing in a way that God will use to convert people. All of this is pictured by the deepest levels of the wooden peg analogy. We must not be satisfied with our own professed belief or the professed belief of others. Many profess belief but are not converted in truth. A professed belief may be just one of many beliefs that a person has. A saving faith is a faith that is the deepest conviction of the soul and comes from being united to Jesus Christ. If we are to be faithful people and faithful churches, we must learn to get to the deepest issues of the heart. Until Christ has converted the deepest issues of the heart, people do not truly believe and are not truly converted. Until Christ has converted the deepest issues of the heart, all that we do is lawlessness because He is not dwelling there and His Spirit is not working in us the fruit of love. We can know the facts that God opposes the proud, but until we are deeply humbled we will not understand that He opposes the most we can do and the very best we can do in His name apart from true love. We must be converted in the deepest recesses and parts of our hearts.
God Loves... Himself 
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