The Lord's dealings with me...and what to do?

[carlos123]

This morning as I was praying over some things that had me REALLY discouraged the Lord seemed to move me in the direction of sharing about His dealings with me more openly on this forum out of a desire that He might be in a better position to speak to me through some of you that might not only have relationship with Him but also that might be willing to speak into my life whatever thoughts the Lord might lay on your heart for me.

Such a thing is in line with the things that are on my heart and I must take whatever baby steps I can in becoming more vulnerable and connecting with Christians at the heart level wherever I have opportunity to do so.

So I am going to share some of my heart overall with you all in the hopes that the Lord might be able to more readily speak into my life through others here and that He might also glorify Himself in how He has been dealing with me.

I am not quite sure how to begin this. This post may get quite long but here goes...

Let me set the background for what I say later on by describing something of what the Lord did in and through my life about 15 years ago. The church that I had been going to, the Tabernacle Church of Melbourne, Florida had started to meet every single day of the week. Literally. A church meeting every night with singing and worship, perhaps teaching, and seeking the Lord together as a Body. I had been going to that for a while and had been orienting my life around being able to go as much as I could. I was hungry for God and wanted more of Him.

One day as I was turning into the driveway of the apartment complex I lived at the Lord spoke to me in my spirit quite clearly and definitively. That I was to go next door to a Christian couple that had moved in and broach the possibility with them of starting to eat some meals together. As they did in the New Testament. I didn't like the idea of doing that as I thought that such was a bit presumptious and somewhat silly (I did not know them very well) but I did it anyway.

To make a very long story short we not only started eating together but we began to pray together, play together, even work together (me and the husband at least). Some others began to join us and a Christian fellowship formed.

It was without a doubt the sweetest time of fellowship I had ever had in my life. I had NEVER experienced this kind of fellowship before as I was primarily used to the go on Sunday's, eat a doughnut afterwards, and then separate for the rest of the week type of fellowship. Not entirely mind you as I had been in a church before where EVERY member was committed to going into all the world to reach out with the Gospel but it had been a long time since I had been in that church. But what I had never experienced before was the DEEP involvement in each other's lives that occurred.

We cried, we laughed, we danced before the Lord together. We gave up inhibition and became as one.

ALL week long!

Visions became commonplace. Words from the Lord. My time with the Lord in private EXPLODED like you would not believe. I am talking about experiencing the living God in ways that were literally miraculous! Some of you might think that some of what I experienced was nuts and from a wordly standpoint you would be right but NONE of my experiences were not in line with the kinds of things that happened in Acts. NONE of it was unscriptural in the least.

I share that to say this. God BECAME real to me and to those that I was with. As He was meant to be!

None of the churchy baloney that usually passes for Church! I am talking about the living God walking among us and manifesting Himself in and through us. I walked around in fear and trembling at the presence of the Living God. That's how real it was.

Unfortunately my own immaturity caused this move of God to falter and fail!

I got it into my heart that the Lord wanted us to go witnessing door to door. And I began to push this. Big time. To such a degree that it became an absolute must that we do that RIGHT NOW! Subtly implying by how I said things that if anyone did not want to do this that they were resistant to God Himself. I gave no room for the Holy Spirit to work and draw others to seeing the same thing. I began to Lord it over others.

At one time I completely lost it and started screaming at others. Ranting and beating them down with my words.

The life of God was snuffed out! By me!

There was of course a lot more to what happened than what I say above but that was the gist of it.

I came to realize the error of my ways but by then it was too late. Trust had been broken. The move of God died.

And never rose again to this day with respect to the kind of fellowship that I have had since then.

If what I have said so far interests anyone such that anyone would like me to continue let me know and I will go on. I want to share more but I also want to take a break from typing for a bit.

Carlos

[gdemoss]

Experience is one of our best teachers.

Tribulation brings patience

Patience brings experience

Experience brings hope

And Hope makes not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

The melt down of your experience being allowed by God has brought tribulation into your lives. Did the tribulation bring patience? Did some part of the process not manifest itself but take a side road?

The end result when this comes full circle should be the love of God being shed abroad in your hearts through his Holy Spirit. And a closer yet more distinct relationship between you and the Lord, relying upon his leading more and more before you work to move people into action through any means other than love.

You seem to have been given a certain amount of humility from the experience.

In the Name of our Lord,

Gary

[carlos123]

You seem to have been given a certain amount of humility from the experience.

Yes...humility for one for sure Gary. But so much more than that too.

All desire for fame in Christian circles has been stripped away. I used to long to stand before great crowds of Christians and share the Word like Whitfield and others. I no longer have any desire for that at all. In fact I have come to realize that standing for the things of God will in all likelihood bring down the persecution of the religious on my head more often than not just as happened with Jesus. To be famous in Christian circles, I mean famous before God in His Body is not about fame. It is about suffering.

God has humbled me a great deal. I have been homeless and still am (though I live very well for a some "homeless" dude). In the eyes of the world I am a complete failure.

But despite all the life of God still breathes in me and brings life where one would expect only death, depression, and despair.

And yes...my relationship with the Lord today is such that I would not want to go back and lose what I have gained in that relationship with Him. I stand on God today and am not swayed by this or that Christian man or leader to veer away from what pleases God above all else.

But...there is something else to all this than what I am presently living. I do not feel that I have entered into the fullness of God's will for me. He may well have been working on my heart all these years but there is more that I have yet to do for the Kingdom of God than what I am presently living.

That something more is in line with what I once experienced in that small fellowship I think.

You see the kind of Christianity that the Lord birthed in the times of the New Testament is nowhere in sight. At least around me in North America.

Where we as Christians are given to each other in love. Where we consider none of our possessions our own and where we have surrendered all to follow in Jesus's footsteps together. As one Body.

There is so much baloney in the Christian world of today (baloney is absolutely too mild of a word but I am afraid this forum would likely not allow me to use a word that would more appropriately describe and express what I see in Christianity today...though the Lord would have no problem with using such a word).

I want to live among brothers and sisters in Christ who are sold out for God. Who are willing to do whatever God wills for us to do. Who would as soon die for me as I would die for them. Where we would be vulnerable to each other. Involved in each other's lives. Knowing each other as members of His Body where our knowledge of each other would be on the level of how God knows us. Not entirely mind you in the sense that God sees all and knows all but rather in the sense that our Body is His Body. Where members of the Body would know each other as members of the same Body. Where they would speak into each other's lives and give of themselves to each other without holding back.

What I am describing happened at the beginning of the church I think and I tasted of it in the small fellowship that I described. But for however long it lasted then it has all but disappeared today.

I don't know why accept that we of today do not really surrender our all to Jesus by surrendering ourselves to each other as an expression of our surrender to Him.

You see if our Body really is His Body then surrendering to Him means surrendering to His Presence within us all.

If our Body really is His Body than confessing to Him means having a willingness to confess to each other.

Having a desire to be with Him means having a desire to be with each other.

In every way that I can think of our feelings and perspective toward the Lord should express themselves in our feelings and desire for involvement in each other's lives.

But we don't operate that way. We remain isolated from each other in the world of our own hearts. Encased in protective shells like turtles that are afraid to come out.

To be vulnerable to God is to make ourselves vulnerable to each other.

For in all these things if Jesus Christ, the Living God, truly is present in us as His Body...then to touch each other where we really live in the innermost recesses of our heart is to touch God through each other.

I am not talking about some mystical cultic thing. I am talking about taking the truths that we know about being new creatures in Christ, about Him being one with us, desiring us to be one with one another, and living them out. Having faith in God by stepping out to have faith in the Presence of God within His Body.

Giving our all to each other in love.

That He might be glorified as the Living God in our midst. That people might truly come to touch Him through our lives. As He lives in and through us once again.

That simply doesn't happen by going to a church building on Sunday mornings and having some doughnut fellowship afterwards. Many will resist what I am saying, not because it isn't biblical but rather because it involves dying to self that He might live through us again.

Thing is that I don't know what to do about all this. I know a lot. I simply do not fit into traditional church circles. From women being silent in church, the free operation of the gifts of the Spirit through the Body, to being a disciple and following Jesus as our Lord and everything else....what God lays on my heart as His view on things simply does not fit in with traditional church these days.

New wine must be put into new wineskins.

But I am simply one man. I would like to perhaps start open air preaching some of these things (I have done that before) but I don't want to do it alone.

So here I am. A homeless dude living in a tent. Having nothing by this world's standards. No house. No car. No insurance of any kind. Hardly any money in the bank (nothing new there). But the one thing I do have is God!

Yet I don't know what to do with myself.

Coming on these forums is all well and good but as I have said before hardly anyone ever changes their mind about anything in these forum discussions. There are to be sure a few very notable exceptions praise the Lord but those are very rare. More importantly such changes do not happen within the context of committed and loving relationship between me and those who change their thinking or their behaviour. That's a problem and far less than what God would want.

I need others to speak into my life and to know my life in real life. Just as God wants to speak into mine through others who really know me.

That's not happening much if at all.

Don't get me wrong. The Lord uses me in some people's lives. And God uses others in my life too. In real life. But it's not in the context of the kind of fellowship that God wants us as Christians to have. It's nowhere close.

That kind of fellowship is what is on my heart but I have no clue where to go with this or what to do with it.

I have ventured to start talking about some of these things in regular Christian churches and it's like people are so caught up in the ways things are done now and are generally so content in how things are that they have no taste for anything that might rock the boat.

If anyone has any thoughts by all means please share them.

Carlos

[Sian12]

I think we - if we want the kind of New Testament Christian experience you spoke of - need to pray for another renewal of the Spirit across our country and in the world. There was such a renewal in the 1960s and 70s (and at different times before then also) but there were Christian communities then, in An Arbor, Michigan, and South Bend, Indiana, to name a couple. Maybe it's time for another renewal...

Bless you, Carlos, you've grown and learned amazing things! And you are right that miracles do happen when we give ourselves to Him completely!

[nebula]

I too am discouraged with "Churchianity", and long for a true fellowship of believers.

[gdemoss]

Yes Carlos, you get it. The church has failed to be the church. Don't despair. It is written that it would be this way. Instead take heart in what God has said he will do. He is going to send chastening through out the whole church body worldwide. Then following this period of chastening he is going to send Jesus back to lead the remaining remnant into the kingdom.

What we are to do until then is to live out the Christian life as it was meant to be within the erring church. God separated me from my church by showing me the error that was within the walls of it. He then spent a year teaching me the truth. He held back certain things from me until the end of this phase of my development. Upon the end of the year he opened up my eyes and showed me his church. Catholics and protestants alike. He said unto me that "this is my church. It is a real mess. I have sent warning to them all. They have disregarded my message in favor of their own. I answer them as the idols that are in their heart in their Sunday messages. I am treating them no different than I did erring Israel when they forgot about me and began worshiping a false image of me. I am going to give them the same end."

God has instructed me to go back to my church which is a fundamentalist baptist church and live the Christian life as he has taught it to me in scripture. I am not to debate doctrine or their errors as they cannot see the truth. Instead I am to love God with all my heart, mind, soul and body while loving my neighbor as myself around them. I am to love them as Christ loved us. He taught me that if I can provoke them unto good works (obedience) then he will teach them truth but as long as they remain disobedient he will not reveal the truth unto them but allow them to lead themselves into captivity like Israel did.

Carlos, your not homeless. You just need to understand where your home is. My home is your home. If you would like to come stay some time just let me know. We can have good Christian fellowship as it is meant to be but there is much work to be done and we don't have a lot of time to spend chit chatting around the kings table. The harvest is ripe and we need to be out in the fields working for our Father.

Your Brother in Christ our Lord and Savior,

Gary

[LOVE SONGS]

(Quote)

I got it into my heart that the Lord wanted us to go witnessing door to door. And I began to push this. Big time. To such a degree that it became an absolute must that we do that RIGHT NOW! Subtly implying by how I said things that if anyone did not want to do this that they were resistant to God Himself. I gave no room for the Holy Spirit to work and draw others to seeing the same thing. I began to Lord it over others.

carlos... we as Christians all have our own personal walk with God. We will have that spiritual growth until the day we leave this Earth.

We are all not on the same spiritual level, with God.

So, what you were experiancing about going out witnessing... knocking on doors was ,in you. The reason you all split was because, the

others didn't reach that level yet.

Knocking on doors is fine...I have nothing against that.

But, we all as Christians are to be represenitives of Jesus Christ . We can do it by, speaking , ministering to the hurting, ...in other words, reaching out to

others on a one to one bases . It doesn't have to be made... to go out knocking on doors.

We are to be the voice of God...His hands and feet....where ever we go.

Since each of His children ...is His temple....I once heard it like this...we are all little Jesus' walking here on earth.

People are willing to hear about the Lord and some are not. Witnessing for the Lord should never be forced , if they are not open to hear about the Lord. Just let it be.

Be that light ...that candle to the hurting and lost. Jesus came to serve, He said. So , we are to follow His ways. Serve God and serve others.

Serving others means ...putting others before yourself. That can be done even in our immediate family. Not necessarily to strangers.

Speak in the area where you are...about the Lord. I am sure that you do.

You are honoring God when you speak about Him.

When you lift HIM up... He will lift YOU up, out of your troubles !

Ps. 34

If you are able to work and want a paying job...help the Lord out and go seek, for a job.

Seek and you shall find ...that is His word.

I too, have been homeless a few times in my life.

At the age of 60 and a heart patient.

After a divorce , I had to leave my house. Had no where to go.

A wonderful woman, Pastor and her husband ...allowed me to live in the

bible study room ...in the church. It had a small twin bed and small restroom, with no ...tub.

Next door to the church, a neighbor, (christian) woman,and her husband, allowed me to take a bath daily at their house .

I still was able to keep my job ...save money, til I had enough for rent and deposit.

God does provide for us, and sometimes ...it will be even through others .

[carlos123]

Thanks so much for the encouraging thoughts you all. I think the most encouraging thing for me personally is to see that I am not alone in wanting more of what the Lord wants fellowship to be and which He intends for us to have.

I just wish that some of you lived closer to where I am (San Diego) so that we might get together and talk about these things in person. For then the Lord might do something in knitting our hearts together to trust Him to move through us in ways that are rarely seen in our day.

Gary I want to particularly respond to some of what you said in the rest of this response.

What we are to do until then is to live out the Christian life as it was meant to be within the erring church. ... God has instructed me to go back to my church which is a fundamentalist baptist church and live the Christian life as he has taught it to me in scripture. I am not to debate doctrine or their errors as they cannot see the truth. Instead I am to love God with all my heart, mind, soul and body while loving my neighbor as myself around them. I am to love them as Christ loved us.

I can understand the Lord wanting you to do that Gary but in my experience such is a very, very difficult thing to do.

As an example we are to both obey and teach others around us to obey what God teaches us. We are to encourage them to be all that God would have them be. Let's take the free operation of the gifts of the Spirit as described in 1 Cor 14 and as I previously expounded on in a thread on this forum. There may be slightly different plausible interpretations of certain particulars of that chapter but overall I think it is absolutely clear that God wants to be spontaneous within His Body. To express Himself through various members whenever He wants to do so for the edification of the Body and to allow members of the Body to see His living Presence among us.

Through whoever is prompted in the Spirit to speak out (with certain limitations as indicated in the chapter).

That is simply not allowed in most all modern day churches. Simply not allowed. No way. No how.

So here I am, if I am to work within the existing church that is, trying to mind my own business, not causing strife to whatever degree I can promote peace, loving others etc. but also obligated before God to both do and teach others to do whatever He commands.

How do I keep my mouth shut when God is prompting me to speak under the freedom of His Spirit? How do I encourage other believers to launch out in faith to do the same thing and to learn through practice how to both discern the leading of the Spirit to speak out and to speak out that which God wants to say?

The short of it is that I can't. I do not have permission to do so (at least in whatever church I have ever been in). I must get permission to say one solitary thing to the Body at all and usually that permission is not given unless I am in ministry or have been around for a relatively long time. It is not only unscriptural to have to get permission but downright stifling of the work of His Spirit within the Body.

It would be like coming here and having to get permission to start any thread and say anything at all to anyone else here. Utterly stifling. Like putting people in a straight jacket of man's doing and not God's.

As a result Christians remain immature in the practice of their gifts. Only a certain few are allowed to grow in the practice of their gifts and the church as a whole remains a spectator event where the many watch the few do the work of God through the gifts of the Spirit.

We put a straight jacket on God Himself in that He is not free to express Himself through whomever has a willing heart to let Him do so.

And we remain doubly immature not only in not being allowed to practice the operation of the gifts but also in not being allowed to judge whatever expression happens.

What is supposed to happen is that we are to be free to express AND free to judge (or express an opinion as to whether something shared is truly of God or not). Publicly.

Subject only to the limitations placed on us through the Word.

But churches won't have that. Absolutely will not allow that.

Take church discipline. A necessary and beneficial thing to the health of the Body. Let's say that I am involved in a church. Minding my own business. Loving others as Christ would want me to do. But loving others involves not only being kind and compassionate and all the other things we normally connect with love. It also involves being involved in helping one's repent from known sin or being involved in disciplining them from continued fellowship until and if they repent.

But many churches coddle sin in their midst. They accommodate it. They comfort and reassure the person sinning without expressing a clear need for them to repent.

The result?

Unholy and unrighteous conduct creeps into the church. We lose our saltiness and our lives are stained with unrepentant sin. Snuffing out the operation of the Spirit within our midst. Grieving the Spirit of the Living God. As a Body we make a choice to let sin happen and we suffer the consequences and become impotent as churches.

It would as if Joshua in the Old Testament had not dealt with sin in the camp as he did. We suffer defeat as a church. Our churches are filled with underlying strife, discord, and bad feelings as a result of not dealing with the sin that lies in our midst. And judging it as God would have us judge it.

On my part I must do what I can and I must go and exhort one's to repent. But what happens if they are not willing? What happens if the church leadership is not willing to side with God against known and unrepentant sin in our midst?

How can I continue to operate in love within a church that will not side with God against sin?

I can't.

It seems to me Gary that neither can you under the types of scenarious that I have described.

Something new is needed. The old is simply not open to the new (which is really not a new way of doing things at all but a way that goes back to the beginning of the church).

Carlos, your not homeless.

I appreciate that thought Gary. And you are right. I am not homeless in one sense. Homelessness is more than a state of being where one has no certain home. It is also a state of mind. A state of mind that I do not have.

I may be without a fixed home at this point in time but in God's eyes that is of no consequence whatever. To have a home is no better or worse than sleeping in a tent as I do now.

You just need to understand where your home is. My home is your home. If you would like to come stay some time just let me know. We can have good Christian fellowship as it is meant to be but there is much work to be done and we don't have a lot of time to spend chit chatting around the kings table. The harvest is ripe and we need to be out in the fields working for our Father.

That's very gracious of you to offer that Gary and I appreciate that. I will pray about that in case the Lord might want that but at the same time you and I think very differently on some issues and I am a bit uncomfortable wondering how that would work itself out in real life in our interactions with each other. Still God does not always have me know everything about everything before He has me get involved with someone or in doing something. I am willing. But He will have to lead.

By the way Gary which state do you live in if you don't mind sharing that publicly? I mean if you were close by me there would be no question whatever of my willingness to get together with you to talk these things out in person.

Carlos

[gdemoss]

I am in Indiana. I am open to public and private fellowship with anyone who is of the Lord. Our differences are always going to rooted in lack of knowledge on the part of one or both of us. I wouldn't have dreamed of going back to my church but God gave me new revelation that guided me back there. I trust that he is going to guide you into what to do in all things. I just give you the words he give me to give.

What you can expect if God ever brings us together in person is that I will always first and foremost seek to love God with all my heart, mind, soul and body, then my neighbor as myself. I will seek to love my brethren as Christ loved us. My quest in life is to be completely submissive to the Holy Spirit, speaking when prompted and remaining silent when prompted. Everything I do must be done out of love for God and others or it is not to be done. Period. All Christians are my family. Not all have knowledge. All need knowledge. All need love.

I know you don't understand what I have been called to do within the church I attend. You have not been instructed by God to do that which I am doing. Just as I have not been instructed to do that which God has moved you to do with the various forums. Each of us have our task at hand at any given time. God is sovereign and working all things to the counsel of his own will. I encourage you to continue trusting him and following the lead of the Holy Spirit, whose lead always involves bringing the fruits of the Spirit into the lives of others as we submit unto his teaching and leading ourselves.

Your Brother in Christ our Lord,

Gary

[Fez]

I too am discouraged with "Churchianity", and long for a true fellowship of believers.

South and I are blessed in that respect. I guess because we are a smaller church of about 100 families there is never a day that we don't meet with someone from our church, many of whom are good friends. We do a ton of stuff together, from church camps, movie evenings, breakfasts, fishing, and just hanging out. We have a bulk sms system and hardly a day goes by that we are not informed of stuff, some menial family news, to more important announcements, etc.

Just thinking about today, I met three people I can remember and just stopped to say hi and have a chat on the side of the road.

When one of us is ill, besides prayer, hardly a night will go by that food is not delivered to our home if there is no one to cook dinner, and often even when there is.

It is a true family of believers. As I said, we are blessed to have a church like it.