A Work of God

This story is just a snapshot of this generation's heart cry for an authentic witness of true love that can only come from Christ. [Below is an excerpt from upcoming book, One] Haggai 1:2-4 “2 Thus speaks the Lord of hosts, saying: ‘This people says, “The time has not come, the time that the Lord’s house should be built.” 3 Then the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet, saying, 4 “Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?" Jesus said that His house is a house of prayer for all people, but the majority of congregations are so busy with their own ministry visions (ie; paneled houses) that they have grossly neglected coming together to build a habitation for God in the spirit. Excuse after excuse is made as to why God’s house cannot be built at this time while we prioritize propping up our own programs. How quickly we forget the great deliverance that God has wrought and return to Church as usual with our modern day traditions, that have effectively held us back from obeying the mandate to rebuild His house. This has caused us to isolate and divide from one another into a multitude of factions, thus hurting our witness and hindering the blessing of God. This scripture implies that God’s house is to be restored before any other project or pursuit is considered. To be even more clear, God’s house is not your individual congregation or ministry alone, it is God’s global remnant working together per city and region to rebuild the temple of God in the Spirit. Every time Israel had a renewal or revival leading up to the time of Jesus it was always connected to reinstituting the Davidic order of worship that was implemented in the tabernacle. From Jehosphat to the time of Ezra and Nehemiah when this Davidic order of worship was implemented the children of Israel were blessed and restored. In the Church age we also see a similar pattern. From Pentecost and the disciples tarrying in Jerusalem, to the 100 year prayer chain of the Moravians, to the Azusa street revival this practice of night and day thanksgiving, praise and worship has always preceded and fueled the greatest awakenings and evangelistic sendings of all Church history. Seeing that we as the Church are now the tabernacle of the Lord, would it not be much more Biblical for us to implement this model (David’s tabernacle) within our city-wide churches than what is currently being modeled? Most local churches only meet once a week for an hour or two max with only a few of the faithful congregants to pray or practice worship. What is being prophesied in Amos 9:11 is that the Church across the whole world would be offering up a continual sacrifice of praise, with prayers and thanksgiving 24/7. We are setting the bar too low with our current parameters and standards when biblically, Old and New Testament, God has commanded that His priests worship perpetually and extravagantly as the highest priority of their service. God’s house of prayer is not a place where only leaders get the opportunity to have the floor or where we merely pray through our prayer agendas, even if they are for good causes. “However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says.” (Acts 7:48) God’s house is wherever His people are joined together and are all welcomed to participate in seeking His face and following the unction of His Spirit just as Jesus said in John 10:27, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” God’s house is where we put on the mind of Christ, usher in the presence of God and vocally petition for His desires and will to be manifested on earth as it is in heaven. As each member of this house speaks their part of God’s mind they agree with one another in the mind of Christ, “Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” (1 Corinthians 1:10) “Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven.” (Matthew 18:19) Therefore, unity occurs and is maintained as we drop what we think we want or ought to do, and selflessly yield to the Holy Spirit and the written Word as He assembles us together as living stones in His temple. God gave His glory to the saints in order for us to be united as His holy temple and emanate His glory with power to the world around us, as Jesus says in John 17:22-23, “And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.” We as a community of believers are to become a habitation of His presence, where we gather, learn of, receive and reciprocate God’s love to Him and one another. When Jesus came into the temple (the same temple in Haggai, that is now an illustration of the body of Christ), He said to the Jews, “it is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’” (Matthew 21:13) The religious leaders of Jesus’s time had focused on prospering themselves and the Jewish nation through the traditions of man and monetary means, yet by doing so they exploited God’s own house and missed their day of visitation. Even now, as a byproduct of the passing down of unbiblical traditions, well meaning pastors and teachers are unintentionally doing the very same thing within the Church thus robbing the flock of the glorious inheritance in the saints, and hindering them from entering into the place of continual communion with God. This current structure of most of the “church” has become a form of godliness that denies the power thereof. Jesus did not call His house a house of teaching or a house of preaching or even a house of prophesying, He called it a house of prayer. God is love and both desires, and is worthy of all of our love in return as the Lord said, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31) It is in the place of Spirit led, faith filled, fervent prayer that we are able to both receive and reciprocate His love, fulfilling the first and greatest commandment. This is why prayer is the pinnacle purpose, function and power of the Church. The purpose of our teaching, preaching and prophesying are then to lead us into a place of greater direction, faith and intimacy with God in our prayers so that we may be sent out to work His will in power. Thus, the ultimacy of our assembling together as the house of prayer is eternal communion with the living God through His Spirit, and it is by virtue of this communion with God that we are able to also love one another as Christ loved us, fulfilling the second greatest commandment. As it is written, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35) This glorious unity in God’s love is the witness that the whole world is groaning and travailing over, to see, and experience so that all would know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.