This will be a year of gathering together for the mobilization of the army of God. Many Christians who have slipped away from fellowship in the body of Christ will be gathered back into fellowship. Many churches will be joined to larger movements, which will help give them more definition, focus, and a greater sense of their purpose. Many movements will join with other movements, and even denominations will begin to develop relationships with other denominations.
This great gathering together is from the Lord. Isolation or loneliness was the first thing the Lord said was not good. Mankind was created with the need of community, and we will have a void in our lives if we are not a vital part of a community. The body of Christ, as it was designed to be and as it will be, is the ultimate community. There is nothing else like it in all of creation, and as it emerges in its ultimate form, it will be the desire of every human being to be a part of such a fellowship.
None of us will ever know complete peace or fulfillment until we are in the place we were called to be in the Lord’s body, His church. This is because we cannot be properly joined to the Head, Jesus, without also being properly joined to His body. Just as the Apostle John wrote in I John 4:20-21, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.”
Like it or not, without all of the frustrations and irritations that come with the true commitment to a local body of believers, there is a serious limit on our spiritual maturity. We would like for the church to mature and get over all of its problems before we join it, but then we would miss out on what we need for our maturity and growth. If we are waiting for the church to mature before we join it, by the time it gets to the place where it would be acceptable to us, it will be so far down the road that we will never catch up to it.
A vital, local church life is essential for true spiritual maturity. We can grow in knowledge without it; we can still have spiritual experiences and even operate in the gifts of the Spirit, but we will be limited in our true maturity in Christ, and the authority we can be trusted with. In the times to come, even survival itself will be dependent on our being a vital part of the body of Christ, just as we are warned in I Corinthians 11:23-29:
and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”
In the same way He took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.
Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.
But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not judge the body rightly.
The way we partake of communion in an unworthy manner is to partake of the history which has been the tendency to substitute rituals for the realities they represent. By this, one drinks “judgment to himself, if he does not judge the body rightly.” To “judge the body rightly” is to discern the body and our part in it.
If you were to cut off any part of the body, it would get weak and sick, and then die fast if it was not quickly reattached. This, too, is true of Christians when they leave the body. They may temporarily feel relief when they leave because they no longer have certain pressures and trials, but those are the pressures and trials that are intended to fashion them into the useful vessels that they are called to be.
In the times we are entering, it will become increasingly costly not to be in our proper places in the Lord’s body. Then it will become a matter of life and death. In all ways, there is no safer place to be on this earth than in the Lord’s will, and it will become increasingly dangerous not to be in it.
On the other hand, for those who are in His will, in their place in His body, there will be ever increasing joy, peace, and fulfillment. Truly, the greatest times of all to be alive and in Christ are the times we have been chosen to live in. The bride of Christ will become all that she is called to be, like nothing the earth has ever seen before. Even the first century church was but a seed of what the church will be at the harvest, the end of the age, when all things come to their full maturity.
Mobilizing is but the first stage of the development of an army. Once mobilized, it must be trained, equipped, and then deployed to engage the enemy. This is a year for mobilization and the beginning of training. To mobilize, you must hear the trumpet call. If you are hearing it, get in your place.
How will you know your place if you are not in it? Use the “key to the kingdom.” The key to the kingdom is what we use to unlock the door to the kingdom. The key to the kingdom is to seek the kingdom first in all major decisions that we make.
Many Christians do not feel that there is a church near them that they fit into because there isn’t, and there isn’t because they are in the wrong place. They are in the wrong place because they made the decision about where they would live based on the best job opportunity, geography they liked, or so they could be close to friends or relatives, instead of making the decision based on where they are supposed to be in the Lord’s body. If we would make these decisions based on seeking the kingdom first and His righteousness, which means what is right in His sight, then He promises that everything else will be added to us. However, if we do not seek the kingdom first, then we can count on there being -constant discord.
You can be in the wrong place and have a great job, make a lot of money, accumulate many possessions, and be empty and not have peace in your life. Even if we have been out of the will of God for a long time, we can take the key to the kingdom and right now open the door to the kingdom and enter it. It may mean leaving where you are, changing jobs, even for a lower salary, but that should not be what matters the most to us. Rather, what matters most should be doing the Lord’s will. What we make does not really matter when He promises to add everything else that we need. The important and crucial thing is that we get in His will.