Christians must escape the system of Christianity; it is useless to consecrate inside the system………… Watchman Nee
A look at issues and events going on in the world today only portends gloom, doom, and darkness. I can tell you what you see in the world today and how you react to them is solely dependent upon how you are configured internally to respond to things that must be in these days that try men’s souls.
Isaiah 60:2. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, And deep darkness the people; But the LORD will arise over you, And His glory will be seen upon you.
Darkness is the God-ordained position for the earth in this final age, this is becoming obvious to the rest of humanity as we see earthly systems being tried while humanity groans under the effect of the darkness it created by shutting itself from the Light of God.
As the world becomes enveloped in deep spiritual night. God’s people are required to develop an alternative style of life to counter the darkness that now prevails. This style of life must be systematically sought, developed, and piloted into our family and community, not in the mode of another religion but as a viable ethical system. The earth is saturated with all kinds of religions and they all seem helpless and irrelevant in the face of the present darkness, starting from the religion that wants to take people to heaven, whether heaven of streets of gold where they say they will roll around all day with nothing to do except drink milk and honey while playing harps, or to the one where one is rewarded with seven hundred virgins with sumptuous breasts (one wonders what will be women’s reward in such heaven ), the existence of such ‘hocus pocus’(mysterious nonsense) is not new in itself. Still, the danger is that these lucid fallacies are presented to the world as a credible way of life.
The good news today is that the “trumpet has sounded “and it is still sounding, and all the mystery of God as revealed through His prophets has been fulfilled (Rev10:7), we are transiting from the age of the church into the age of the kingdom, we are moving away from the era of disobedience and lawlessness to an era of order and submitted will.
We are no more deluded to believe in the’ first’ and ‘second’ coming because we know that the Son of God has been coming since Eden and He is still coming even as we speak. Light has come so we can no longer subscribe to a religion that does everything for man but reform and regenerate his nature, as citizens of God’s Kingdom we are committed to finishing all the purposes of God for our generation.
As the world faces a crisis of identity, meaning, and purpose, and ineffectual ministries and churches abounding everywhere and losing their social relevance, the question before humanity will be, what is the goal of Christianity? What has Christ got to do with the confusion and lawlessness being presented today as the Faith? The questions our generation is asking seem endless and are begging those who are the ‘custodians of truth’, those who seem to speak on God’s behalf to answer them.
I was ordained as a minister of gospel in Christ Chapel Int’ Churches Lagos Nigeria in 1989, our church then was caught up in a mighty move of the Spirit out of which most church leaders in Nigeria today were raised. Having planted two or three fellowships myself and being looked up to as a leader and mentor by pastors, I humbly confess that I am just coming close to understanding the goal of Christianity.
You would ask, in my days of ignorance as a church leader, if we did what churches do in terms of services, programs, seminars, and conventions. Yes, we did and many they were, but we were never told that Salvation is a journey; we got born again and were told to wait for the ‘rapture’ we even greet ourselves “remain rapturable”, and while waiting for the so-called ‘rapture’ we were being marooned and dazzled by the giftedness of the people who led us, thus leading to many believers in my generation being led astray by this false church systems. One of the dear saints of the Lord in his writing vividly captures the goal of Biblical Christianity and I am delighted to share this treasure with you in this article. In every journey, there is a beginning and an endpoint, the ‘Finish’ if I may say. When we come to Christ, we embark on a journey, a process. It is important for us to define the end of this journey because we cannot migrate accurately if we do not define the end. Paul wrote in his letter to the church in Rome ‘for God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that His Son would be the firstborn, with many brothers and sisters’. Romans 8:29 and he expounded more on the process for becoming like His Son in his letter to the church in Corinth when he wrote ‘But we Christians have no veil over our faces; we can be mirrors that brightly reflect the glory of the Lord. And as the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like Him’1st Corinthians 3:18 We can see from these scriptures that transformation and transition into Christ’s likeness is what the Apostles taught as the goal of ‘Christianity’ At the core of this scriptures is the demand to reproduce in men the nature of Christ, hence the term ‘as we look at Him we are transformed into who He is’.
Our journey therefore is not to a place called heaven but towards a person called Christ, this is the Finish point. We are not going to a place but migrating towards a person. Not to a street made of gold but Christ and the fullness of everything that He represents, His values and pattern of existence.
We have been taught that we are going to a place Jesus has been building for two thousand years; a total misrepresentation of the scriptures, the Hope of Christianity is not physically structured pillars and a street of gold, we cannot start in the spirit and then end with the physical. The reason why the church has been ravaged by sin and false christ today is that we do not understand the goal of Christianity, we think the church is about following a man and when these men make mistakes, we are left dysfunctional and choose not to have anything to do with the church.
‘As we look at Him we are transformed into who He is’, the reason why we are where we are today is that the church has not uncovered the dynamics of looking at Him, so we keep on looking unto our pastors, bishops, and our denomination and we are becoming like them and they also are becoming like us and this cycle of lawlessness prevails.
As the new structure of the Kingdom of God begins to express itself on the earth, we must define the goal of Christianity; the “finish” and understand that it is a point and a place where all things are resolved, where people come to greater understanding and illumination. The Finish or the Goal of Christianity is not confusion and ignorance. It is a place where all streams come together, not a place of uncertainty and identity crisis but a place of perfected identity, a place of greater authority to partner with the things of God in the renewal and the renovation of the earth.
1st John 3:2 “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”
We are moving towards the end, towards the fullness of what He represents, toward greater knowledge, unity, authority, understanding, and discernment.
When you journey accurately, you begin to manifest the character of your destination. For example, if you are traveling to the United Kingdom from Africa in the winter, you pack your luggage differently. You travel with clothes that are consistent with the weather in your destination not the prevailing weather conditions at your origin. We must be manifesting the character of our destination if we are moving toward it. With each passing day, we are becoming like Him, His principles fully expressed in us. Your proclamation means nothing if it is not joined to your process. Proclamation that is not linked to a process is empty religion. Increasingly, we must take on the nature of our destination. It is the nature that authorizes you to exist in the destination. If you say you are going to Heaven and the very fabric of your life is not heavenwards, you will never get there. Every passing moment must bring you nearer to that place.
The Finish is greater partnership, greater position in God, purer relationships, greater understanding, authority, and discernment. This is the character of the end. The Finish is not a place of confusion and broken relationships but total community.
If that is the end, then we must migrate toward that position today and manifest a greater capacity to build relationships. God is light, our Finish is light, God is truth, our Finish is truth, God is love, our Finish is perfected love, and God is participation, so we destroy exclusivity. God is wholeness, not deficiency, progress not paralysis. The Finish is dominion and rulership, so we migrate from a victim experience.
We are heading towards God. If you are holding on to offenses or suffering from a damaged mentality, or insecurity, then you are not heading toward God. The fullness of the Spirit is the manifestation of all of God’s nature in your life. Every principle, every proclamation, every value system, or belief system that does not produce in you more of the nature of Christ is inaccurate.
[DNW] DEJI EZRA-WILLIAMS © 2003
