In This Together
He told them, “You don’t get to know the time. Timing is the Father’s business. What you’ll get is the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world.” These were his last words. As they watched, he was taken up and disappeared in a cloud. They stood there, staring into the empty sky. Suddenly two men appeared-in white robes! They said, “You Galileans!-why do you just stand here looking up at an empty sky? This very Jesus who was taken up from among you to heaven will come as certainly-and mysteriously-as he left.”…They agreed they were in this for good, completely together in prayer, the women included. Also Jesus’ mother, Mary, and his brothers. (Acts 1:7-11,14 MSG)
I was listening to the President of the International Foursquare Church, Glenn Burris, last night, as he was speaking at the Northwest District Foursquare Fall Conference. He talked about how the church has traditionally focused all its attention on the birth, crucifixion, resurrection of Jesus, and outpouring of The Holy Spirit and understandably so. In doing so though we have missed the massive importance of the Ascension. He said that at that moment our relationship with each other as fellow believes changed dramatically. Up until that point the disciples ran everything through Jesus and there was a great and natural dependence upon Him. Now though it was shifting from a vertical to a horizontal dependence. With the Spirit of Jesus inside of us we now had to figure it out together. In fact the phrase used in Acts depicts this reality as they figured out how to follow Jesus together: “It seemed good to us and the Holy Spirit…”. President Burris was making the point that we don’t have the luxury of “going it alone”. We need to work it out with each other. As a denomination, down to the districts, all the down to the local church, there is a much needed return to this horizontal dependence of following the Lord together.
I witnessed the power of this first hand yesterday at our Seattle Team lunch. We had about half of the churches represented at the lunch and many had brought their staff. It was a wonderful time of food and conversation. Pastor Doug Heck shared of the rest that comes when you recognize your sonship in Christ. Then we gathered around the new pastors of Living Way, the Martins (whose first Sunday is the 16th) and the Moore’s who are the official Senior Pastors of the new church plant New Hope North City. As we gathered around and prayed and prophesied and laid hands on them I can’t help but think it was something like this for the early church. It felt like we returning to something that we should be doing a whole lot more often. Then the Lord showed me a picture of a wrecking ball tearing down a giant wall with one hit. The scripture says there is a commanded blessing when we dwell together in unity. The truth of it is that together we will be able to take down the barriers that when faced alone feel insurmountable. Whether it’s the fact that New Hope North City just found out the location they meet on is about to be sold or it’s the need for a major overhaul on the property of Living Way neither of these churches need to face it alone.
I just hear You saying to me this morning, “Why are still staring up into the sky? The direction is all around in the relationships of those I have called You to serve with”. Lord, help us to realize that this horizontal dependence doesn’t require that we all see eye-to-eye on everything but that we see heart-to-heart because You own our hearts and have called us to figure this out together.
