Ephesians 5:1-21

Back in 1999 I wrote:

“During our time away, Carleen and I also stopped by a bookstore.  The sign out front read, “Giant Book Sale.”  While browsing inside, I came across a little illustrated book, a sort of commentary on the book of Revelation. It seemed to suggest that “the woman” has been removed from the scene while the dragon, through man, the wrong man, runs roughshod over everything for 1,260 days, whatever that means.  It is clear, however, that this is not the reign of the right man, but the wrong man.  In any case, by the time we get to the end of Chapter 13, there are two males and one female. Ultimately the “man child”  will rule, but for the present, it appears that the crowns are on the beast, an unredeemed, and un-redeeming man.

The church for now is more an auditorium for male ego gratification than it is a sanctuary in time and space for divine relationship. Or, in the words of Liza Doolittle, “Words, words, words, we get words all day through, first from them now from you, is that all you blighters can do?”  Seventeen hundred years of show business ought to be enough.  When Jesus demonstrated what it was to be a servant, it wasn’t by preaching at His disciples.  Male preaching for the most part has preempted the time during which the church is gathered, and might otherwise be getting to know itself, and the Christ who is her source, and life. To be truly cleansing, ‘… the washing of water by the word’ needs to be interactive, it needs to be conversational.  ‘What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has…’

Males want to do things, their own things.  Females want to be related, ‘Your desire will be for your husband…’  To see the church from God’s perspective, we must first see a woman.  When we look at the church as it is in the present, about all we can see is a man, and he doesn’t look much like Jesus, not even Jesus in the flesh. The Book of Revelation, not only reveals, Jesus, but in some sense, indicates what it’s going to take to get the wrong man off the throne, ‘… the removal of what can be shaken” .  See “Wonder Woman” e-reader.

I hope that sets the context for the redemption that is on my heart where these present “levels” are concerned, levels of relational intimacy.

Time is more precious, the less of it we have.  “Redeeming the time for the days are evil.” From a Biblical perspective, the closer we get to the end of time the more evil the days become, and fortunately the less days there are for the increasing evil.

What I want to address here is the increasing urgency to stop wasting our time on words and relationships that don’t edify.  Jesus Christ has a lot He wants to say to us yet, and he wants to use our mouths to say it.  My heart here is not really to try to tell people what to say, but only the need for the quality of relationship, and level of intimacy required for these things to be talked about between the saints.

Perhaps enough said for now where the importance of redeeming the time is concerned.

Love!

For more reading, see previous intimacy level post, “Ambassadors of Light”