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Can Two Walk Together?

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Ephesians 1:16-19 I do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers.17 [For I always pray to] the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, that He may grant you a spirit of wisdom and revelation [of insight into mysteries and secrets] in the [deep and intimate] knowledge of Him,18 By having the eyes of your heart flooded with light, so that you can know and understand the hope to which He has called you, and how rich is His glorious inheritance in the saints (His set-apart ones),19 And [so that you can know and understand] what is the immeasurable and unlimited and surpassing greatness of His power in and for us who believe, as demonstrated in the working of His mighty strength,…

Several things are mentioned in this prayer of the Apostle Paul. He prayed they would be given wisdom and revelation to grasp, experience and understand: 1) intimate knowledge of God; (2) the eyes of their heart flooded with light to know and understand; (3) know and understand Hope; (4) know and understand their calling; (4) know and understand their inheritance; (5) and to know and understand His Power that was in them.

I could take a long time to unpack each of these for you but let me make this concise by stating Paul is not seeking to be poetic, allegorical or metaphorical in his prayers. (He’s praying to the Father. Why would that need to be symbolic?) These are experiential realities available to all followers of Jesus. You may ask, Then why aren’t we experiencing these realities? A.W. Tozer answers this question: “Many people in the churches who profess that they have an interest in the subject of how to cultivate the Spirit’s companionship are not really willing to give up all to obtain all. They are not willing to turn completely toward God and walk with Him. You may remember that John Bunyan, in his great allegorical writings, often mentioned Mr. Facing Bothways, and we ought to know as well as he did that there are a great many Christians who try to accomplish the difficult task of facing in both directions at the same time. They do want Christ, but they also want some of the world. They allow the Lord to disturb their way, but they also disturb the Lord’s way. There is no use talking about being filled with the Spirit and walking in the Spirit, unless we are willing to give up all to obtain all! Now, this old question in the text, “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” is a rhetorical question, equivalent to a positive declaration that two cannot walk together except they be agreed, and the affirmation that if the two walk together, they must in some sense be one. These two, in order to walk together, must agree that they want to walk together, and they must agree that it is to their advantage to have this companionship together. I think you will see that it adds up to this: For two to walk together voluntarily, they must in some sense be one. They must be unified on the important issues of their walk and companionship and direction if they are going to be committed to traveling together.”

A.W. Tozer summarizes the condition of the average Christian answering why the prayers of Paul are not a manifest reality in their Christian experience. What’s extremely sad is that those who have sought to walk in two directions at once have become the theologians, seminary professors, and shepherds of the Lord’s sheep leading them into their own dark, and cold hearted experience of information gathering without experiential reality. Thus, the average church goer has become an information gatherer in part, or in some cases, and information hoarder. Therefore, to borrow from A.W. Tozer and the prophet Amos, Have you agreed to walk with Jesus? Are you seeking His companionship? Are you willing to pay whatever price to be one? Another simpler way to express the question would be to simply ask, Are you committed to going in Jesus’ direction? That will always require an adjustment to be made on your part. When that occurs Paul’s prayers from 2000 years ago will begin manifesting into a reality that you could never imagine.

Raised From Rote, Rut, and Rot

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The gift of eternal life is as multi-faceted as Jesus containing qualities that are eternal and multidimensional. Consider Paul’s words in Eph. 3:14-21 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,  that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,  to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. This passage translated in the New King James version demonstrates the multi-dimensional levels of God’s Love and eternal life found in Jesus Christ. What’s really interesting is to read the same passage in a translation of the Bible that brings out the original language nuances not found in our thought by thought translations. Here’s Pauls words again: For this reason seeing the greatness of this plan by which you are built together in Christ], I bow my knees before the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,  for Whom every family in heaven and on earth is named [that Father from Whom all fatherhood takes its title and derives its name] May He grant you out of the rich treasury of His glory to be strengthened and reinforced with mighty power in the inner man by the [Holy] Spirit [Himself indwelling your innermost being and personality].  May Christ through your faith [actually] dwell (settle down, abide, make His permanent home) in your hearts! May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love, that you may have the power and be strong to apprehend and grasp with all the saints [God’s devoted people, the experience of that love] what is the breadth and length and height and depth [of it]; [That you may really come] to know [practically, through experience for yourselves] the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge [without experience]; that you may be filled [through all your being] unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and  become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]! Now to Him Who, by (in consequence of) the [action of His] power that is at work within us, is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think [infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams]— To Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen (so be it). Can you hear the richness of these words? the Amplified Classic translation breathes life into the words calling to our dry bones to come together, standing up to become the army of Jesus’ Kingdom.

Our eternal life has the power to release in us the very power that raised Jesus from the dead. The very same power that was released when creation was set in motion by the Word of God. You are a new creation and have been born-again to experience God’s Promise of making all things new. The multi-layered, multi-faceted, multi dimensional aspect of our salvation contains more than a two dimensional quality to it. Modern Christianity has dumbed it down placing 2 -3 dimensional caps on how God’s Spirit can express Himself. (And when I say modern Christianity I am referring to the Christianity which slowly began to take the place of Biblical Christianity when the Emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion of Rome in 320 AD.) Unfortunately for us the legacy left behind has caused us to crawl out from the rubble in the cemetery many call church or Christianity. 1700 years of religion without relationship has left us with nothing more than rote, ruts, and rot. Routine has become “lord” in the life of the church. A.W. Tozer has said, “That would be perfectly alright and proper for a cemetery. Nobody expects a cemetery to do anything but conform. The greatest conformists in the world day are those who sleep out in the community cemetery. They do not bother anyone. They just lie there, and it is perfectly alright for them to do so. You can predict what everyone will do in a cemetery from the deceased right down to the people who attend a funeral there. Everyone and everything in a cemetery has accepted the routine. Nobody expects anything out of those buried in the cemetery. But the church is not a cemetery and we should expect much from it, because what has been should not be lord to tell us what is, and what is should not be ruler to tell us what will be. God’s people are supposed to grow.”

When Scripture is read afresh we see that Jesus’ version of eternal life called for the very Kingdom of God to be released in our hearts. Luke 17:21 says it’s so. Jesus said the Kingdom wasn’t out there but in here (I’m pointing at my heart and yours). For the church to glumly pray, “Thy Kingdom come,” Sunday after Sunday like a funeral dirge has wrung the vitality out of our Lord’s declaration of war on death. Paul said that the Kingdom wasn’t a matter of talk but of explosive, dynamite power. What’s happened to the power of our salvation?

This morning I was meditating in the Word using some discipleship material called “The Disciples Prayer Life.” He posed a question regarding the Disciples Prayer in Matthew 6 asking “what kind of things are disciples to ask for?” When I read this I thought of another principle T.W. Hunt, it’s author, teaches: “Why should God answer this prayer?” Why indeed? Why should God answer the prayer if we are not willing to cooperate in the process of His grace, and Spirit exploding like dynamite in our spirits? Why should the Father trust us with the atmosphere of Heaven – His Kingdom – on earth, bringing dead things back to life; causing blind eyes to see and deaf ears to hear? Why, when we keep closing our eyes and ears to the call of His Spirit and Word?

Ultimately we are back to A.W. Tozer’s thoughts: Have we allowed the lord of routine to bury us in the cemetery of rote, rut, and rot? Don’t you think it’s time to begin praying and believing for a resurrection?