The Church has left the building

That was the title of the message on Sunday by Dennis Peacocke

I have so much fluttering around in my head and it feels dis jointed at times just blurting parts of it out. Messages that I hear that are so awesome I just want to share them but cannot articulate them as well as the original speaker or message.

So I can take notes of things that spoke to me.

Lessons and things to study, a recurring theme this week, in 4 messages I have heard from all different people, have to do with SUFFERING and TRIALS.

When we first give our life to Christ and our born again, we are often naive in how that works. We are filled with Joy and Hope. Wonderful awesome traits of the Lord!

We seem to think life is going to be great and trial free and happy. I remember when I got married and thought all would be well because we had JESUS and were in the church. WRONG!!!

Many people say Christ, Church, Religion is a crutch, and Christ came to knock out all of our crutches.

We go through Death of someone we love, we see good people die, we see unfair things, we have been wronged by a fellow christian or the church. Yeah thats where it HURTS. Thats where we go WHY???? God WHY?????

I was watching John Paul Jacksons episode on “The 3 Dark Nights” its excellent by the way, I love his show, its a lot to take in often. I have to rewatch episodes, and I find it easier at times to watch it in segments and walk away, take notes then come back. Sometimes replaying. Him talking about the “Dark Night of the Soul” and it dealing with…

First OUR FLESH, meaning the part of us the blames others, blame shifting, holding onto the crutches in our life, its how we remain wandering around in the wilderness when we are in this place

Second – OUR SOUL, this is where our emotions, thoughts, mind and the will fit. The Bible says “John 12:25 He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” broken down the word in Greek the word Life was translated out of the word SOUL.

Third – OUR SPIRIT – When we reach this place we will not be saying things like “Look what I did!” instead it will be “Look at what GOD did” and we have come to the end of ourselves.

But how do we get to this place? Through “Dark nights” times of great trial and suffering. Times where things make no sense, where we are crying out, where we have tried to do everything we can about an issue, problem, trial and nothing we do is working. We are at a loss, we question God, we may have doubts, anger and pain towards God. Where are you? Why is this happening?

It is then that we relinquish control, and say “God this is bigger then I am, I cannot handle or deal with this, I cannot control it, I give it to YOU, its in YOUR hands”

I have been there with a divorce and court for 3 yrs, I have been there with a wayward child who no matter what I have tried to do, help given, money spent, intervention, it continues. Its where I have to say “God, this is yours, I cant fix this, I put it in your hands” where it really belonged in the first place.

Now what does all of that pain do exactly? It creates spiritual muscles, its like lifthing weights as we are going through them. All that training is NOT to hurt me, but to help me.

“No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” Hebrews 12:11

Discipline isnt even all about doing “exercises” either, true discipline is REMOVING THAT WHICH DOESNT BELONG IN OUR LIFE

Think about that one? Thats an OUCH statement, we look at all thing things and say “I need to start doing this and that” but we do we need to REMOVE in our lives to make that happen? I mean if we take things away from our lives that are not good for us, wont the other things become in the light and what we WILL be doing?

This was also posted today by a friend online

“We must realize that everything that comes upon us is for our edification one way or another. God tears us down through all kinds of sufferings. The tearing down can be quite painful. But after we pass through these trials, something will be constituted into us. In other words, when trials arise, it may appear that we are failing, but His grace will always carry us through. In the process of overcoming our trials, something is wrought into us.”
(Collected Works of Watchman Nee, Set Three, Vol. 50, p. 718)

It just keeps confirming the messages I have been hearing.

Watch this episode of Dreams and Mysteries, tell me what you think? Like I said, I had to sit down in different times to watch it in pieces to just digest it and dwell upon it. It really spoke to me deeply.