by Brett Jacobsen

Defining spirituality

Many people think that in order to be spiritual you need to be somewhat fruity, having a strange eerie manner about you. Others believe in a more relaxed down to earth lifestyle which sometimes leans towards carnal worldly living.

Jesus was the most highly spiritual being the planet has ever seen. He regularly defied natural laws by the supernatural power He had flowing from His life. Although He was a very spiritual individual, often spending whole nights in prayer and working many miracles, in a lot of respects He was a fairly normal guy. He wasn’t born into royalty or a revered religious family, He didn’t have political persuasion, and to those close to His life He didn’t seem to look too different.

The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.42 And they said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that he says, I came down from heaven? John 6:41-42

He obviously wasn’t levitating or leaking fire from His hands or anything too abnormal or they wouldn’t have asked “how is it then that he says, I came down from heaven?”

Remember what Isaiah prophesied about Him that He would have “no form or comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.” Is 53:2 That sounds pretty normal to me.

In fact in the gospel accounts we see Jesus as a normal human being who ate food, slept, had friends, joked around, wept, got angry and showed many other signs of being a normal person yet He flowed in continued relationship with His Father and consequently broke free from natural limitations, manifesting real spirituality.

Jesus said that we would do “greater works”, John 14:12, than Him when He went to His Father but we will not step up to that calling if we look at His earthly ministry as some super spiritual tip toe through the tulips.

Spiritual circuses

Although Jesus was often found in the temple He was not there to “have church” as some would have us believe. Take a wander through the gospels and you will conclude that Jesus’ temple outings were mainly for the purposes of:

• Teaching people who were under the corrupt religious system how to step out and into the kingdom of God.
• Exposing corrupt leaders while showing them how to repent and imbibe His servants heart.
• Prophesying the destruction of the temple and its systems.
• Being in the most public place so as to be led by the Spirit and manifest miracles and spiritual authourity.

Jesus actually did most of His business outside of religious buildings. He was regularly found teaching and ministering spiritual life on mountains, in deserts, peoples’ homes, in fishing boats, walking on the sea, at funeral processions, in gardens and many other non religious places. Basically, Jesus “came to seek and save that which was lost” and the last time I looked there are more lost people in houses and work places, parks and beaches, shopping malls and homeless shelters than in religious buildings, or perhaps not?

Sadly, unlike much of the early church, the modern church, especially in the west, has not followed Jesus’ example but has opted for a series of safe withdrawn meetings which are largely separated from society.

We heap the saints together for spiritual performances in an effort to mimic the world. The crowd watches on as the circus team performs their spiritual acts. Truth is that not only do these unbiblical meetings include a small amount of participants but they also severely retard the majority of believers from living a daily spiritual life. With a spectator vibe and a strong focus on stage dwelling entertainers it is almost impossible to not turn into a pew sitting pod.

Do we really believe that the world is looking for a three ring circus to entertain them? Even worse, have the saints had such a shallow conversion that they need something extra to make God a little more exciting?

Going to church or being it

Jesus said “go into all the world” Mark 16:15 and we have turned the focus from a high level of spirituality with an outward focus, to a go to church mentality.

Let’s not forget that the word church comes from the Greek word ekklesia which means “called out ones”. It is not referring to an organization nor events or meetings, it is however speaking of the called out believers who exist throughout society.

These believers are called out of their dark spiritual void to live life in the Spirit during their every day life. They are called to be the church not to go there.

Spiritual or Spare rituals

There are a number of vital elements to the Christian walk, all of which are high in real, lasting, fruitful spirituality if they are applied in the right context.

It is all too common for these practices to turn from being beneficial, producing potent spirituality to a bunch of spare rituals that “having a form (appearance) of godliness, but denying the power thereof” 2 Tim 3:5

Nothing that is given to us by God’s grace should be treated like some form of spiritual toy, used in short sporadic stints in the confines of the play room only to be packed away in a box until next scheduled play group. God gives gifts to His body but they are by no means toys.

Below are a few examples of how God intended these highly spiritual elements to be integrated and interwoven throughout every day life.

The love feast

Thanks to some big mistakes throughout the church age and our gutless fear of change we have the larger part of modern day Christianity huddling together, far removed from actual life, performing professional meetings which look nothing like the Biblical patterns for “assembling ourselves together” Heb 10:25.

By far the most common form of assembling together in the New Testament was meeting in someone’s home over a meal. When Jesus broke bread and passed around the cup at the last supper He said “do this in remembrance of me”. The early church took this seriously “breaking bread from house to house,” Acts 2:46 remembering the covenant they had with God through Christ. The idea was to take one of the most normal every day functions of life, eating, and bring a God focus to it, thus weaving spirituality through every day life. The believers would bring prayer, worship, spiritual gifts, teaching and dialogue in the Word, among other things, to the table and share a life of encouragement and accountability with one another.

What we have turned into a five minute remembrance ritual, tucked away in a holy hall was actually a real meal in real homes that caused normal people to live consistent spiritual lives out in the real world.

Living the living Word

The modern church has no shortage of famous, entertaining preachers and teachers to spoon feed the multitudes with the latest motivational word from the Bible. The professional clergy we’ve inherited from the traditions of man, which “make the word of God of no effect” can sometimes do more harm than good, as babies never mature unless they begin to learn how to feed themselves.

We have created a mass of immaturity by neglecting our job as “equippers of the saints for the work of the ministry” Eph 4:12. The main function of an Ephesians four eleven teacher is not to teach Christians the latest revelation God showed them. They are to teach and equip the saints how to understand and get revelation from the Word themselves, in order to disciple their brothers and sisters in Christ and to teach the world about Jesus.

Monologue meetings (one way conversation) are highly ineffective and produce very little lasting fruit and yet they seem to be the main focus of modern Christianity. It is when all the saints become involved; dialoguing in the Word that real fruit grows and remains.

There is a lifestyle that God commanded His Old covenant church to live by that we would do well to apply to our own lives.

these words, which I command you this day, shall be in your heart: 7 And you shall teach them diligently unto your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.8  And you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.9  And you shall write them upon the posts of your house, and on your gates. Deut 6:6-9

This lifestyle of sound fanaticism in the Word is not for an elite group of preachers or leaders but rather for all of God’s people. Every human heart was created to receive God’s Word and produce a grand harvest of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom needs more normal people filled with the extraordinary Word, living a supernatural life.

Evangelism and discipleship

Just take your friend to church and let the special evangelist introduce them to Jesus with their five minute Amway type spiel, then allow the government certified “follow up team” to walk them through the complexity of life in Christ with a five week course while you go and do what you are called to do.

Sounds a bit silly doesn’t it?

Jesus called His disciples to go into all the world and preach the gospel and make disciples. Just like the five fold teacher so is the evangelist an equipper of the saints so that they can do the work of the ministry. This is another spiritual task for every believer that we have locked away behind closed doors out of the grasp of the majority of the human race.

If we are going to see most of the world come to Jesus then we will need all hands on deck not just a few professional preachers. We will also have to switch our evangelism venue from non biblical happy houses (churches) to the “highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled” Luke 14:23.

The person best qualified to show someone how to be in Christ throughout life, at work or school, in relationships, whilst dealing with money, people and other circumstances is you. The best place for this to take place is in our homes or theirs, at the beach, at work, school etc.

Christ in you, the hope of glory: 28 Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: Col 1:27b-28

As we can see from this verse, the goal is to present EVERY MAN complete in Christ Jesus. Every man is referring to everyone on the planet not just the frozen chosen sitting in the Sunday steeples. The means of presenting all these people complete before God is preaching, warning and teaching them in Christ. Again this is not the job of the clergy but ours.

Prayer and worship

There are defiantly some forms and levels of prayer and worship that should remain behind closed doors, just like some levels of intimacy between a husband and wife should not be public.

However, this is another area that has been hidden away from the multitude of lost souls that, for the most part, are craving answers and something real.

We that are “the light of the world” ought to be shining forth the spiritual light and life of God all the time wherever we are.

Our Greek thinking has caused us to have our spiritual times and then sink back into our everyday carnal lives. We attend worship services and prayer meetings which are designed to instill holy habits of prayer and worship for our twenty four seven existence, but we step out of our spiritual superman suit back into our inferior Clark Kent clothes all too easily.

The Psalmist encouraged the people of God to live a praising and prayerful life among the people of the world.

O give thanks unto the LORD; call upon his name: make known his deeds among the people. 2 Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him: talk ye of all his wondrous works. 3 Glory ye in his holy name: let the heart of them rejoice that seek the LORD. 4 Seek the LORD, and his strength: seek his face evermore. Ps 105:1-4

The world is running off to get their palms and tarots read because the saints aren’t finding their existence in divine fellowship during everyday life through the vehicle of consistent perpetual prayer and worship. Remember that God created the planet in order to have real relationship with the ones that He created in “His own likeness”. It is stranger to not pray in continual fellowship with Almighty God than it is to spend all day every day in Him.

Schizophrenianity

One of the rotten fruits of our spiritual hideaways is what I call schizophrenianity. We have produced multitudes of double agents, living undercover lives, only revealing their true (or not so) identity while safe at Control headquarters.

Sunday Christianity is at an all time high as the result of propaganda from the pulpits pushing church attendance ahead of a life of holiness and tithing before surrender of ones whole self.

Is it possible that our cheapened version of Christianity has not only rendered the church highly ineffective but has also produced a people that don’t know who they are most of the time?

James spoke of these people saying “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways” Jas 1:8 and “let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord” Jas 1:7.

He went on to paint a picture of what Gods children look like when they hear the Word, perhaps from the weekly sermon, but don’t live out the Word through daily living.

But be doers (performers) of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.23  For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass (mirror):24  For he beholds himself, and goes his way, and straightway forgets what manner of man he was.25  But whoso looks into the perfect law of liberty, and continues (remain, abide, be permanent) therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. Jas 1:22-25   

God requires us not to just hear the Word here and there but to live in it as it lives in us, to continue looking into the perfect law of liberty, which is not the written (logos) word but the living Word in our hearts (Jer 31:33-34, Jas 1:21).

God calls normal people to normal places to live a normal life infused with high levels of spirituality and supernatural behaviour.

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 14th, 2005 at 6:08 pm and is filed under Biblical Leadership, Brett Jacobsen's teachings, Church Structure, Evangelism / Discipleship, House to house community, Living Christianity, Prayer / Worship, Reformation/ Revival. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.