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 IN BETWEEN...THE SAME

A dear brother in Christ said this morning, “We are in the ‘in-between.’” We are in between the first coming of Jesus Christ and His second coming. On this Feast of the Transfiguration, we need to be reminded that the glory of the Lord is still meant to break through, continuing the work of the Lord in the here-and-now.

Remember that Jesus said that the things He was doing, His disciples, His followers, His church would continue to do. He said that even greater works were to be done through us. Signs and wonders have not ceased to be manifested through His followers. That is because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. The Holy Spirit continues to do through the followers of Jesus Christ what He did through Jesus Christ’s ministry on earth. Remember, the church is the Body of Christ, and one should expect that He will continue to live through the church what He lived out through Jesus during His Incarnational, earthly ministry. If we are truly His Body here on earth, then we are meant to look like Him, live like Him and do the Father’s will as He did in the Holy Spirit’s power.

Signs and wonder break through to demonstrate that the Lord Jesus is STILL here doing the work of the Father through His followers. The Lord intends to undo the sad reality that we have chosen to “domesticate” Christianity into something that can be humanly orchestrated and controlled. But God cannot be and will not be circumscribed by human expectation nor by human experience. I recall that, “What eye has not seen, nor ear heard, the things that God has prepared for those who love Him…but these things are being revealed to us by the Holy Spirit.”

God cannot be “domesticated” by anyone, no matter how one might try and “keep the lid” on things so they can be “controlled.” We have lost sight of the eternal majesty and power of the Triune God Who made Mount Sinai shake and the people of Israel quake at the sight. God has not changed, and the needs of humanity have not changed. When the Apostles preached Jesus Christ and Him crucified, they did so from the Word of God already written: the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. God confirmed that what they were proclaiming was indeed the Truth with signs and wonders. You can verify what I have said by reading the following: 1 Corinthians 2:1-5; 1 Thessalonians 1:5-6; Acts 8:4-8; Acts 11:15-17; Acts 14:1-4, 8-10; Acts 15:8-12; Acts 28:1-10; Romans 15:16-19; Ephesians 3:20-21. The world still needs the witness of God demonstrating and confirming His Word in power.

Think about it, the book in the New Testament that follows the Gospel of John is not called “The Intentions of the Apostles”, but “The Acts of the Apostles.” You see the same working of the Holy Spirit through the early church and beyond to this very day that Jesus Christ demonstrated. This is not meant to be the exception, not an oddity, for a disciple is meant to say what his Rabbi says and to do what his Rabbi does. We are to speak what Jesus says and to do what He does by the Holy Spirit’s power. The will of God is done in the power of God, or it is not done at all. Jesus Christ intends, and it is His will to live out through His followers the same Kingdom proclamation and the same Kingdom works.




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