As the days dwindle down to a precious few, and now just hours before a unique and problematic surgery, I find myself recalculating the days of my life. Currently they are days so full that, so far from the learning curve going flat, they seem to be moving vertical. In physics and engineering, as well as history and life, some call this an “exponential curve.” (See Matthew 24 for one example of this)
As I have already noted elsewhere, the day Jesus died, He had the best view on the hill. One of the things He saw from His vantage point was a preview of how life would be when He returned by to fill the lives of His followers with His spirit. How must it have seemed to anyone who heard Jesus say to Mary, “Behold your son,” (referring to John standing next to her) and then to John, “Behold your mother”?
Perhaps they were the only ones to hear this. In any case, John took her home after that to live with him. As likely as not, this was a “new creation reality” that the disciples were not yet ready to hear about at the Last Supper. In fact, most disciples in our own day are still not able to comprehend such things. For me, however, this is at the heart of the message that I have heard from the beginning. And the resistance to this message is right out of the pits of hell. At the very least, it is the result of the priorities of “flesh.”
There is so much that needs to be said about this, and perhaps it had to wait for a day and time when I no longer had anything to lose.
One of the points to be made is the part about having this mind in us that doesn’t think equality with God as a thing to be grasped, but humbly lets go of what one feels they have a right to cling to. This must certainly apply to married couples as well.
Do we have certain rights in connection with our spouses’ body belonging to us? Yes, but not so far as clinging to one another in such a way that they are no longer controlled by Christ. Except for covering the expediency of our problem of burning, we must release one another to belong to The Lord, and those relationships He gives us as well. Given the need to take care of our own in the economy of the old creation, that is the extent of it.
Where personal and conversational time with these others who are ours in Spiritual relationship, these are privileged conversations subject to the parties of those conversations. That this is a matter of course where paid pastoral ministry is concerned, but seen as unacceptable where the more authentic and spiritual pastoral ministry is concerned, should not be. It fosters the artificial at the expense of the authentic. We should not have to become merchants to function in The Body of Christ. This too is counterfeit.
The sum total of this message is that God’s expression in the earth is His Church. Anything else is a cheap imitation of the intention of Jesus. Relationships from God are not something for us to do, but rather something for us to see and experience by revelation. Clearly at this time and condition of my life, I have no thought or intention of leading disciples away after myself. My heart is simply that those with ears to hear, and eyes to see, come into an awareness of their inheritance in Christ in this present age.
I have spiritual brothers, sisters, sons and daughters around the world. My spiritual fathers have already gone on to be with the Lord. In these final days I have been immersed in God’s love lavished on me by my wife, Carleen, and a couple of spiritual daughters. My heart is full to bursting. It wants to cry out that the hour is late and the day far spent, for those who name the name of Christ to get the point of why Jesus came.
The ongoing preoccupation with the flesh is anything but what Jesus prayed for, “on earth as it is in heaven.” May God help us to get over ourselves, so that we can start experiencing the authentic, relational life of oneness that He intended to be the light of the world.
Love!
- By Jay Ferris, originally posted March 2013.
Loving Like God 