Difficulties Getting to Times the Saints Are Together

1/2/2001

My husband and I are reading “Meetings In His Kingdom.” In that book towards the end of chapter 8, you seem to be saying that if someone calls a meeting and you don’t go, then maybe you’re not spiritual or good enough. How does that apply to someone who is supposed to be at work whenever the meeting is called, or has a sick child, or has a child in a band concert at that same time, etc.? Are you saying that the family should drop everything whenever there is a meeting called by the church? Could you clarify that thought? Thanks.

Hi : ) Only have a second here, but let me say a couple of things briefly. First of all, if a person is TRULY “seeking first the Kingdom” (rather than a middle-class lifestyle that conforms to the patterns of the world), then being “somewhere else” isn’t a problem and folks will certainly be praying for them! MOST things that we want to or “need” to “do” are temporal and CAN WAIT, be postponed or canceled or forgotten. SOME things need to be followed through on, for Jesus’ sake, and that’s surely NO PROBLEM. The beauty of the Church being the Church is that someone with an odd-shift job really WILL get SO many more Opportunities to be with the Saints in small and large gatherings of His People BECAUSE there’s nothing on the calendar and things are incredibly flexible and creative. And because family and FAMILY are totally intermingled (as opposed to false christianity where there truly is no visible functional REALITY of a “hundred mothers, and a hundred brothers, and a hundred sisters, with lands and possessions,” but only Scriptures about it that are discussed, perhaps), when a child is sick or even chronically ill, EVERYONE is pulling together to lessen any burden that one person might be bearing in a less Biblical environment.

SO, if it really (REALLY, not just words) is a person’s HEART, SOUL, MIND AND STRENGTH to be with Jesus and His Bride AS A WAY OF LIFE (not an American or Australian or Brazilian “add on” to what they REALLY live for, as proven by their time usage, and their checkbook stubs), then “LOVE WILL FIND A WAY!” They will be constantly desirous of, and therefore able, to be very often “gathering together, so much the more as the Day (of the Lord) approaches!” Situation by situation will vary, of course, just as every day is different, even in a heathen family lifestyle.

OF COURSE things can happen, and there is an ebb and flow to daily life, and a thousand Opportunities are not all possible... but,

1) What are the PATTERNS that might be observed about a person’s involvement and commitment to People and Life and Reality? Are they “picking and choosing” and MOST interested, obviously, in their own personal “us four and no more” lifestyles, in spite of all that Jesus and Paul had to say about that? What are the PATTERNS? And,

2) Where is their HEART? Is it REALLY “live and move and have our being” in the full expression of the Life of Christ in the world, “now, through the Church” the “pillar and foundation of Truth,” living a visible Life of “contending as One man for the Faith” “that cannot be hidden”? Or is it a token thing to “attend” while we maintain our own identities (as potatoes in a bowl, rather than mashed potatoes in the bowl, 1Cor. 12, etc., etc., etc.)?

If the patterns and the hearts are fully on Jesus and His Ways, then ANYTHING is possible! That is the immense pleasure and power of a Kingdom that is “neither here nor there” and not found on a time slot on the calendar, but rather in intertwined (“joined and knit together by every supporting ligament”) RELATIONSHIPS! Kinda like the “shadow” that even the pagans understand of a biological family’s flexible life together. But, our lives and relationships and loyalties and time are meant to be expressed incredibly deeply and daily (Heb. 3:12-14; Gal. 6:2; etc., etc.) in the SECOND BIRTH FAMILY, now of HIS Bloodline!

This is NOT just theory! It is TRULY a privilege, and a joy, and a thrill, and a CROSS... to live His way. And, by the way, we’ve got (who knows, maybe) 150 or more of the most amazingly well-taught and trained and creative and talented (music, sports, you name it!) and FUN children you’ll ever find on the planet! They’ve lost NOTHING to giving up the “conforming to the patterns of the world” lifestyles that we’ve all been told is the ONLY way we can or should live, according to the world and much of the “church world.”

God’s ways: “as we rise up, as we sit down, as we walk along the way” are PHENOMENAL! No regrets.

Hope that helps clear it up. Books only touch on small parts of things here and there, and can never really tell the Story, can they? Sorry about that.

In His Love,