Kingdom Instruction

I was sitting before the Lord and this is what he dropped on me ...

Kingdom Community

(Me) Lord I am grateful for the year we’ve had – for your great faithfulness, your forgiveness and mercy – your revelation and anointing and for your opportunities.

(God) “Those are like a song to me. They gladden my heart and cause my face to turn to you.

You live in an ungrateful nation, among an ungrateful people; those who believe that everything they have and have received has been because of the cunning and the power of their own hand, or is the product of their own creative mind. They do not even choose to consider that there may be a more powerful beneficent force at work. Much of what they have is because of the prayers and deeds of the righteous; and they abhor them; fight against them and the very thing that has brought the blessings they strive so hard to hold on to.

... Come out from them. Do not entangle yourself in the affairs of the nation. Do not let it take you down with it. Am I going to punish the righteous with the evil? No, but I am judging the world within them. Come out from among them that you be not judged as well. You are going to see evil on a scale you have never witnessed before - and all in the name of ... and you will see it with significant local manifestations. Understand, that I have promised those in the kingdom food/drink/shelter (Matt 6). When you try to hang on to more than that, evil is birthed. My provision is promised for those in the kingdom - and to those pursuing the kingdom. No one else. The kingdom is based on love - its currency is love - it does not envy or strive. It does not do evil in any form to another, even if self preservation it as stake - because relationship is at its core. Love does not exist outside of relationship. I repeat, Love does not exist "outside" of relationship. One cannot simply be acquainted with people and have relationship. One cannot simply be friends with others and walk in relationship. Although this is often considered a level of relationship, there is no such thing in the Kingdom. Acquaintances and friends (as you know it) are terms of the world, not Kingdom concepts.”

(Me) But the Word says, "greater love has no man that to lay down his life for his friends" and, "no longer do I call you servants, but I call you friends." So what's up with that?

(God) “You have to understand that 1st Century Judaic culture and its precepts have been completely lost to the Western Church, and certainly to the North American church. Kingdom relationship cannot be understood or experienced outside of it. And that's the root of the problem. Friendship in American is strictly conditional. Such was not the case in 1 BC, nor 1 AD. The word "friend" carried with it a decidedly different connotation than it does today. Remember, the entire society was agrarian. As a result, everything was based on trade, or barter. You raised something, harvested it and lived off of it, but you kept some back and traded it for something somebody else grew or made that you needed. Everything was based on trade - face-to-face. No stores manned by hordes of nameless clerks. No faceless internet transactions. No impersonal text messaging. No Twitter. The fundamental element underlying all trade in that society was trust. That trust was built on mutual respect of the individual and similar values.

Trust and local first-hand knowledge of the one you traded with every day, year after year, was an integral part of every day life. You couldn't live without it. Yes, you occasionally bartered with people you didn't associate with everyday, but you saw them often enough to be very familiar with them, and consequently the foundational elements were there to build a level of trust if you so desired. Since that’s the way all of society worked, you were generally open on some level. But your friends were the ones you trusted implicitly because you lived with them; laughed with them, cried with them, worshipped with them, they celebrated births with you, and they mourned with you and helped bury your dead. When calamity struck, it struck all of you. When plenty came, it overtook all of you. Everyone shared in both the good times and the bad. When someone got ill or injured, the whole community pitched in and helped to take car of him/her. It was the way everyone lived life - in community - always a part of each other's lives. It is what gave meaning to everything.

Children were raised by an entire village - their weddings were likewise celebrated. So was the birth of their children and the death of their grand parents. It was a perfect picture of Kingdom life. Friendship was based on living all of life - an entire life with someone (or lots of them). Almost like covenant. The Kingdom viewpoint is that friends and family are treated the same.

That's what's wrong with church life. You have treated family like 20th century American friends, and you have treated friends as acquaintances. That's really why church sucks!!! People are irritated with it because they think it is supposed to be the seat of spiritual power in this world, (and it is) . But Kingdom power does not operate on a continuous basis outside of real relationship. People always want to see the power, but are afraid of relationship. Why would I give you power, when you would not invest in relationship? Especially, when it is relationship that will keep power from corrupting and killing you and everyone around you? Not gonna’ happen!”

Hope this speaks to you. It spoke to me. I sat around a Thanksgiving dinner table with folks I've been acquainted with for several years now. The host family sees those assembled often. But I only see them a couple of times a year. We shared what we were thankful for since we had last gotten together. And that was good, but the fact that there was no real relationship among us was a little sad. I enjoyed the time, but walked away wanting more.

Some time ago I had opportunity to travel to Nashville, TN and participate with some friends in a roundtable Q&A with a woman who does DID and SRA therapy in ______. Two years ago the Lord asked her if she would only take those that He wanted her to see. She said yes, and it resulted in her only seeing about 4 people a year. She has them move in with her and she works with them 25 hours a week. In this environment, she able to fully integrate and de-program an SRA victim in six (6) months, which in other more traditional environments might take 5 to 10 years, if ever. After two years, she believes that the real transformation occurs in the community they share; living together; eating together; going to movies together; etc.; where real life skills are imparted and goofy thinking is challenged and corrected. Her conclusion was that this was the new paradigm of DID/SRA (the intentionally broken) ministry for the church … in community.