Kingdom Authority Works By Honor

Posted on February 15, 2020 by LovingLikeGod.com

In our last post we spoke about the priority of being over doing. In this post we want to explore the difference between the authority of doing and the authority of being.

I’ll begin by “cutting to the chase:” Authority of being works by honor. Authority of doing works by imposition. One is passive, and the other is proactive.

Jesus said in the kingdom we don’t rule as the Gentiles do:

“Jesus said to them, ‘The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves,” Luke 22:24-27.

In short, there is a difference as to how authority works. Authority of being is authority for living more than doing. It is perhaps best seen in families or households where the first commandment with promise rules the day, “Honor your father and mother that it may go well with you and your days be long upon the land.”

Honor releases the best that is in a person.  The commandment with promise has an even broader application than just between parents and children. The following video clip provides a graphic demonstration of how it works:

 

The drop of water represents the best that is in another person.  Just as with the bead of water which is contained by the surface tension of the water, when we touch another person with honor, their tension is released and their content flows in the direction from which the touch has come.  When we touch another person with honor, we release the best that is in them to flow in our direction.

“Jesus left there and went to his home town, [Please note that Jesus had a “home town”] accompanied by his disciples. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. ‘Where did this man get these things?’ they asked. ‘What’s this wisdom that has been given to him, that he even does miracles! Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James and Joses, Judas, and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?’  And they took offense at him. 

Jesus said to them, “Only in his home town, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor.” [Matthew has it this way:”But Jesus said to them, ‘Only in his home town and in his own house is a prophet without honor.’]  And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.” He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.” – Mark 6:1-5 

While Matthew attributes his unwillingness to do miracles in this context to their lack of faith, the greater context of both Mark and Matthew is lack of honor.

The Kingdom of God is best seen in how we relate to one another – how we are with one another. The kingdom of God does not look like a lecture hall so much as an intimate conversation among those who love each other.  It is in the context of speaking the truth in love to one another that we grow up into Him Who is the Head, even Christ. This conversation can be as numerically small as two people, where Christ, (the best within us) is in the midst or a gathering of many people. In either case, it is the honoring of one another that releases the best that is in the midst of them.

Kingdom authority operates in such a way as to release that conversation, and not to replace it with a lecture by doing all the talking or imposing its will or perspective on the gathering or the other person. For this to happen, however, those involved, those gathered, whether two or many need to be sensitive to or discerning of the authority that is present in their midst for such a conversation to take place.  A conversation full of people who are preoccupied with their own agendas never gets off the ground.

As an illustration of how this works, lets take a look at 1 Corinthians 16:15, 16: “You know that the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia, and they have devoted themselves to the service of the Lord’s people. I urge you, brothers and sisters, to submit to such people and to everyone who joins in the work and labors at it.”   Authority in the Kingdom of God is not about over doing, but over seeing.

Please note that this is not an admonishment to the household to Stephanas to Lord it over the saints at Corinth who are younger in the Lord than they are. Rather it places the responsibility on those who are younger in the faith to honor or submit to those who are senior in time, experience and service. It is this recognition, submission, and honor that releases the authority of the kingdom to the benefit of the saints in a place. In this context it is not about titles, like elder or overseer, it is about the facts of life inherent in seniority in time and place.

This operative principle of Kingdom authority works, not only in this larger sense, but also in the much smaller sense of the truth, (The TRUTH) present in a very small conversation. Each of us who are a party to a conversation brings something of Christ to that conversation, and can learn this Christ Who is in the others present, from the least to the greatest, each one has something to contribute of Him, Who is the Head. Each one of us has a responsibility to discern, and submit to the others present in the conversation. Otherwise the result is simply a conversation that is usurped by a lecture, a lecture coming from the one who is least sensitive to the presence of Christ in the midst, and so steps in by placing himself or herself in that place of preeminence – that place that belongs only to Him.

This kind of over doing authority has been the rule in what’s been calling itself “church” for thousands of years by now, beginning, at least with the “leadership” or authority of Diotrephes, in 3rd, (4th) John.

The most sure and certain way to spoil a small group or any conversation, for that matter, is to talk too much. This is a life killer, just like one who takes the Lord’s supper without discerning the body of Christ present at the table. This not only results in meetings that do more harm than good, but also in judgment, 1st Corinthians 11:17-34. For present purposes, let’s just call it “conversational gluttony,” even pollution.

As lovers, even lovers in training we are sensitive to what’s in the hearts of those around us. Love listens!

Love!

By Jay Ferris, Originally posted Sept. 24, 2012

Posted in J.Ferris: New Releases | 2 Comments

Revisiting Cana Afresh

Posted on February 9, 2020 by LovingLikeGod.com


“On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.

When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, ‘They have no more wine.’
‘Woman, why do you involve me?’ Jesus replied. ‘My hour has not yet come.’His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’

Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.

Jesus said to the servants, ‘Fill the jars with water’; so they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, ‘Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.’ They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, ‘Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.’

What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.” John 2:1-11 NIV

The first and the last – the Alpha and Omega of The Great Mystery – Christ and His Church.

“These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning!” Acts 2:15

The day of Pentecost began with what would be the ongoing consummation of a wedding feast that continues to this day. Just as in Cana, there was plenty of wine, enough so that uninvited onlookers thought them drunk. On that day a wine became available, a wine of more abundant life that no one had ever seen, tasted or experienced before. It was a wine that had never before been served because “… Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.” John 7:39b

This wedding, this consummation, this wine, not only gets better with the unfolding of human history, but it gets better over the consummated lifetime of each saint. And that is what we who know Jesus are.

As an old saint, I can testify that the wine at the end is even better than what was served at the first. And let there be no question about the ongoing consummation – without the Galilean wedding, the new birth would be illegitimate.

Love!

Posted in Lisa Weger: Book Repost | 2 Comments

“I Write Unto You Fathers…”

Posted on January 26, 2020 by LovingLikeGod.com

I write unto you fathers...Jesus had said: “Call no man father,”  yet it wasn’t long before the “disciple Jesus loved” wrote to fathers. (1 John 2:13)

What’s wrong with this picture? Assuming that the Same Spirit inspired both communications, there must be something beneath the surface that we need to better understand. (Perhaps it turns out to be “above the surface.”)

They both must be understood by the Spirit, and cannot be properly understood in the flesh. John was clearly writing to fathers in The Spirit, because they “knew Him that is from the beginning.”

Let’s take a look at John’s context:

“I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father.”

Clearly, all those to whom John is writing know the Father on some level. “Father” is a word that has meaning only in the context of relationship, and it derives more from having children than it does from having a father. So these are fathers in a spiritual sense, and in a spiritual relational context. That is, these are those who have spiritual children in some way or other.

So then, what could Jesus possibly have meant when he said “Call no man father”? My own understanding of this has had a great deal of help from two sources: (#1) the way life is. (i.e. The way God does old creation life which foreshadows the way He does the more abundant life that Jesus came to bring us) and then, (#2) is in one of Paul’s prayers:

“For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named:  That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened by his Spirit with might unto the inward man:  That Christ may dwell by faith in your hearts: that, being rooted and founded in charity,  You may be able to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, To know also the charity of Christ, which surpasseth all knowledge: that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God.” – Ephesians 3:14-19

I have chosen the Douay Version here because it puts the focus where it belongs. It more accurately translates the original, which is most often translated “family,” but is more accurately translated “fatherhood.” For today’s readers, that communicates a little better, than “paternity.” That said, I’ll put it in my understanding of its plain meaning:

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth derives its name.”

In heaven we all have one Father. Down here in the “hoods” we have multiple fatherhoods, they get their meaning from our Father which art it in Heaven. These “fatherhoods” are not only recognized in heaven, but are sanctioned by our defining Heavenly Father.

Here is another piece of evidence of the legitimacy of fatherhoods, even spiritual fatherhoods here on earth, albeit in the spirit:

“See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.” Malachi 4:5, 6

This was never meant to be God’s “plan b” for earthly fathers. No, this was meant to be the beginning of whole new fatherhoods. This was God’s promise of putting in place in the new creation what had been lost to the old creation. Here is the primary focus of its fulfillment: “And again, ‘I will put my trust in him.’ And again he says, ‘Here am I, and the children God has given me.” Hebrews 2:13

It gets better: “Here am I, and the children the LORD has given me. We are signs and symbols in Israel from the LORD Almighty, who dwells on Mount Zion.” Isaiah 8:18 (In other words, this is another one of those “this is thats.”)

This was not only fulfilled in Jesus, but it continues to be fulfilled in us who believe – this is our inheritance in The Lord. What Jesus wanted to be clear about is that this was not about earthly fathers, but about our heavenly father hooded in earthly fathers, and legitimate only so long as it was rooted in and reflecting God the father – many hoods – one Father. Jesus didn’t want us taken in by religious pretenders to fatherhood.

In this light and Spirit we can identify and honor God the Father in His earthly representatives. This has mostly to do with our need for a second or even third witness to our heavenly validation in Christ.

At 73 my Spiritual fathers have all gone on to be with the Lord, their validating work done in my own spiritual life. Soon I will be joining them. (I’m already living in Biblical over time, which is to say, beyond “threescore years and ten.”) Meanwhile the validating witness goes on in my own life for those that God has given me in Himself. We are for signs and symbols – in short we are witnesses.

Love!

By Jay Ferris, First posted April, 2012

Posted in J.Ferris: Reposts with Notes | Leave a comment