30. As Light Together
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Fire fills every part of God’s picture. In fact, I am gaining a growing understanding and appreciation for all that God means by FIRE. – And He means a whole lot.
The God who answers by fire. – You asked God, and He answered you, and He answered you as FIRE.
Fire is not the difficult things; Fire is God in the midst of the difficult things. All humans go through great difficulty and the story of each one’s life is a story of sorrow. But Fire is God with us inside that difficulty, the tangible and determined presence of our Father.
Fire. Here is our picture again [The diagram of the circular Holy of Holies with the Ark in the center]. Remember that the pillar of fire is larger at the top.
Fire upon Mercy, fire in the coals of incense, fire as the burning of oil, fire in the baking of bread. And the shared Hheart of the Ark is the center of all this FIRE.
God Coming Through. Fire is God coming through. That’s why we need Jesus. – You do not touch electricity without the right buffer in-between. Jesus makes God-Fire into our own shared energeia.
Because we laid out the context of committed Christ Community in the last lesson, we can now spend more time placing light and then bread into the same context.
The coals of fire upon the Golden Altar represent the role of firstfruits inside each local gathering, as we just discovered. But the fire of the lampstand is the light and warmth of God’s precious people, the place of belonging.
Shining a Light. Before exploring the meaning of seven lamps of fire, burning olive oil, inside the fellowship of Church, I want to shed a bit of light on my conclusion at the end of the last lesson, that I choose to be life poured out.
In the move fellowship, this was known as a “way of dying,” as in, “Christ was born to die.” That’s why it never bore wholesome fruit, even in those whose lives were always poured out for others.
In complete contrast, this is a WAY OF LIVING, for Christ was “born” in us to live inside our hearts and to be life inside His Church. It is a way of living inside of and out from Father’s Heart.
Life Always Increases. Those who are always “dying,” even for the sake of others, can never find completion, for death is never satisfied; it always cries for more. And Father with us, the true goal of the heart of every believer, remains always on the other side of death, just beyond their reach.
In complete contrast, the one who is living life poured out, knowing Father with me, is always flooding over with life, for no matter how much they give to others, increase is always arising inside of them.
The one “dying” is always concerned about “self”; the one living knows self only inside of Father’s Heart.
Light and Warmth. What does it mean, then, that believers are light and warmth together? This is the fire of the Spirit, the fire of the anointing oil.
And I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me and having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands and inside of the midst of the lampstands, one like the Son of Man. – The seven lampstands are the seven churches (Revelation 1:12-13 & 20).
According to the Energeia [the Son of Man] inside the sharing from every part, causes growth of the body into the construction of itself inside of love (Ephesians 4:16).
The Light of the Spirit. “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). We are, literally, Christ Jesus together, for He IS the very reality of our sharing together.
We all, then, having been unveiled in face, are reflecting the glory of the Lord [to one another] as a mirror and are being transformed into the same image from glory into glory, just exactly as from the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:18-19).
This is the light of the Spirit among us. We find what we seek; we reap what we sow; we become what we see.
The Light of Seeing. Let’s fit one more verse in here. – Such that the fellowship and sharing of your faith might be energeoing by the acknowledgment of every good thing that is inside of us, inside of Christ (Philemon 1:6).
This is the same sharing and energeoing of Ephesians 4:16, that quality that makes us one body together, meaning Father seen and known through us.
In this context, then, the “acknowledgment” is the light of seeing, the light and warmth of the lampstand. The acknowledgment is the planting of seed, the becoming of what we see in one another.
The Warmth of Belonging. Then consider all the joining and fitting together taking place inside our local fellowship together. This also is the function of that fire of the Holy Spirit represented by the lampstand.
It is as we see that our every interaction is the Lord Jesus, regardless, as we see how much we belong, so we live inside the gentle warmth of that fire.
This is my place; I belong here. I am needed here; I am wanted here. My greatest joy of expressing myself as who and what God created me to be fits right here in our gathering together. I belong.
Inside the Local Church. Let’s bring all this, now, into our local gathering of fifty to seventy-five people. What is this incredible light inside of the local Church? And what is a Church that sees in this way?
There was much more togetherness in the worship services in my Blueberry Community experience, than there had been in any previous community.
This togetherness, as I have shared in Prepare a Path, included asking forgiveness together, giving thanks together, praying for one another all together, and a much greater feeling of family than elsewhere.
Pure Light. But those were just a taste of the real. In fact my only real experience of this light in the Holy Place as the Church, coming out from the Covenant of Fire, was the time when the young people gathered in the greenhouse and shared how much each one meant to them.
If this practice, of acknowledging the good things of Christ in one another, had been the definition and practice of our entire life together, I would never have left move community.
There is no mixed word. That’s what pure light means. The moment you sow just a tiny bit of “sin in the flesh” into seeing and calling one another, the light of the Spirit vanishes and only gnawing on flesh in the darkness can remain.
Be Real. Let’s look, now, at the practical meaning of a local Church, walking as light together. The first thing it means is being honest and real – of ourselves, we can do nothing.
Nothing can be hidden, the light of Christ shines upon everything; His energeoing Word penetrates through all. God made us to be human just as we are; when we accept each other’s humanity in all our ups and downs, ins and outs, then we are free to be real and to enjoy one another.
Because we see each other for real, both as bumbling humans and as Christ revealed, no momentary difficulty can bother us, for we call it all by Father.
Light Dispels Nonsense. Truly, getting to know one another, heart with heart, is the most valuable thing we possess.
You see, fakery and pretending, trickery and manipulation, these things are the anti-thesis, the great enemies of knowing one another as the fullness of Christ. Light, then, dispels all that nonsense. We see one another for real, and we receive one another as we are.
There is nothing that needs to be hidden. Nonetheless, inside the warmth of this light, we hold one another in such high regard that the thought of disrespecting one another’s privacy or person is abhorrent to us.
A Statement of Value. Light, then, is a statement of value. The strength of gold is found to a large degree in its reflection of light. The value of the diamond is entirely its wondrous display of light.
When we see one another as the Lord Jesus Himself, then our care and regard for one another knows no bounds.
Then the diamond also shows us our place of belonging, for the diamond displays all the beauty and color found inside of light by the joining together of all its facets. In the same way, as each one of us reflects the light of the Spirit from our faces, so Jesus is made visible to all.
Opening Our Eyes. On our way into the Holiest, the Lampstand represented the demonstration of the Spirit in the gathering of the Church, showing the Church what heaven is all about.
This same quality continues, here, but in gentle peace as all fullness. In other words, being part of heaven is simply how we see one another.
Thus we now know that seeing does not come by turning on the light. Seeing comes by opening our eyes, the eyes of our shared Spirit together, so we can see what has always been the only thing true. Light has always been upon our faces, but now we are willing to see it and to call it to be so.
Reminding One Another. When Jesus said, “Remember Me,” that is, “Bring Me into your mind,” He was speaking of the sharing together inside of Church.
This, then, is the most wonderful quality of Church in every gathering together, that we remind one another of Jesus, that we look like Him to one another, that we affirm and acknowledge the good things that are Jesus inside of one another and coming always to each from each.
Yet this is our humanity we are seeing, each other’s human face. We do not look for “glowing,” or any outward difference. We look to open our eyes, to see one another as we are, the very revelation of God.
It Is Still His Face. The light of Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration was not a physical emanation, but a quality of Spirit seeing. The difference is in the eyes.
When we see one another cast down and discouraged, we still see the face of Jesus. When we see sorrow and grief, it is the face of Jesus. When we see confusion and forgetfulness upon anyone who belongs to Jesus, it is still His face. Even when we are angry and contending with one another, we stop and remind one another that we are His face.
And by seeing His face in one another, we are transformed.
The Face of Jesus. It is this gentle kindness and high regard for one another that others see that is the brightest LIGHT of God shining in the universe.
For the God who said, “Out of darkness light shall shine,” this same God shines inside our hearts towards the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God as the face and presence of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6).
Paul calls the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Unveiling, the Spirit that causes us to see and to know the mighty entrance of God into each one. By this same Spirit of Light and Belonging, then, we see God revealed, the very face of Jesus Christ as our every interaction together.