THE CHURCH IN THIS CITY                                 

         Chapter 9       AN ESSENTIAL LESSON

                And lo, I am with you always, to the close of  the age.

             As we find ourselves involved with the drawing together of the

         church in our city we share with brothers and sisters a brighter hope

         than we have ever known. Our Lord is gathering, cleansing, healing,

         and purifying his church before our eyes. The bride is being made

         ready for her husband. The banquet hour is near. But even while

         this hope burns brightly, another kind of hope seeks to mix itself

         with the glory in our hearts. Our vanity goes to work, with some

         help of the Father of Lies, and we begin to build a vision in our

         minds of great things we will accomplish for the Lord.

         A Mixed Vision

             Perhaps the numbers in our fellowship are increasing. So we

         joyfully start setting our sights on even greater numbers. Subtly

         numbers become extremely important to us. Brothers and sisters in

         other parts of town are impressed with the ministry that is being

         exercised by our assembly. Subtly we begin considering ways in which

         we can package and sell our ministry in far-flung places. We pray

         for a man in a convalescent home. To our amazement he gets up and

         starts walking around for the first time in years. Immediately we’re

         planning ways to turn the whole convalescent home into a miracle re-

         vival center. Before we know it we have a vision of the kingdom

         which is not God-given. God is not the center of it. We are.....

         Our hearts are not in the Lord anymore, but in our plan, our project.     

                  .

             Then the Lord, in his mercy, comes and touches our ambitious

         kingdom and, like that fig tree with leaves but no fruit, it withers.

         We get up one morning and go to the window of our palace to look out

         over our expanding kingdom, and it’s gone. Nothing left but ashes.

         And just that suddenly our faith is gone too. “Where is God? Why

         did he let this happen? All the work I did for him has gone down the

         drain!”......For him?

             Instead of faith there is nothing in our hearts but depression.

         The thing we were living for is in ashes. What’s the use of going on?

         But is the Lord in ashes? Has God’s kingdom fallen apart? God’s

         plans aren’t in ruins. Just our plans. And praise God they are. Be-

         cause we had made an idol out of them.

   It’ not that God is against our working and building and doing things,

as if God wanted us to do nothing but sit around and meditate all day

long and never take any initiative, never be aggressive. Not at all. There

are those who seem to take pride in the fact that they are slobs. They

are forever daydreaming and call it “waiting on the Lord.” The Lord is

going to say to these people, “Show me what you did with your talent."

And some of them won’t even be able to pull their minds together enough

to remember where they buried it.

 

Of course God wants us to work, build, go out looking for the lost sheep,

heal the sick, and cast out demons.

“Go into the highways and hedges and compel them to come

in that the Master’s house may be filled.”

    As long as we make sure that we don’t let any of these things subtly steal

our hearts away from Jesus. if these things become my satisfaction instead

of Jesus himself, if I start rejoicing that spirits are subject to me instead of

the fact that my name is written in heaven, and I be­long to God, then God’ s

power is no longer safe in my hands.

Reality

We need to learn---and no matter how talented or successful we may think

we are, we are of little use to God until we do learn---that Jesus is all we

have;  that Jesus is all we need;  that Jesus alone is our satisfaction.

We need to learn that Jesus is all we have.  Thank God for the building

where our assembly comes together. But that building could be gone by next

week. Thank God for our husbands, wives, children, brothers and sisters. 

But one day they will be taken from us, or we from them. Thank God for our

skills, our jobs, our houses and cars. But these things are all temporary.

When our Lord was ministering, he had dis­ciples, a faithful mother, popularity.

But Jesus knew that these things gave him no security. Soon they would be

gone and he would be left alone.

“The hour is coming, indeed it has come when you will be

scattered every man to his home, and will leave me alone;

yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me.”

T    he Father was all he had, and he knew it and rejoiced. Knowing that the Father

was all he had, Jesus was free. He didn’t have to soften his message to keep

his disciples from leaving.

 

    When Joshua looked across the Jordan to the land that still had to be conquered

and occupied, he was nervous. Moses was, gone. The people were like sheep.

Joshua felt quite alone, until the Lord spoke to him.

“Have I not commanded you, be strong and of good courage;

be not frightened, neither be dismayed, for the Lord your God

is with you wherever you go?”

                        -        ....“I am with you what else do you need?”

    No prophet was ever exposed to more ridicule, hate, danger, and isolation than

Jeremiah. And Jeremiah had no wife to talk to while she cooked his supper

or rubbed his back. But Jeremiah was refreshed again and again by one

companion no one could take from him,... “the word of the Lord.” Again and

again we read how “the word of the Lord” came to Jeremiah.  Seldom was

that word easy.  But always it was life. Jeremiah had a scribe, Baruch,

who wrote the prophecies down.  Baruch was becoming depressed over how

badly things were going.

 

    “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to you, 0 Baruch: You said, ‘Woe

is me! for the Lord has added sorrow to my pain; I am weary with my groaning,

and I find no rest.’ Thus shall you say to him, Thus says the Lord:  Behold,

what I have built I am breaking down, and what I have planted I am plucking

up---that is, the whole land. And do you seek great things for yourself? Seek

them not; for, behold I am bringing evil upon all flesh, says the Lord; but I will

give you your life as a prize of war in all places to which you may go.”’

“You will have your life. You will have me. What more do you want?”

       So with us, Jesus, the word of God, is all we have. God is breaking

down what he built, plucking up what he planted. Nothing is stable,

nothing certain, but the Lord Jesus himself. We have him. And though

the earth be removed and the mountains be carried into the midst of the

sea, though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains

shake with the swelling thereof, we still have Jesus, praise his name.

    We need to learn that Jesus is all you need. We say this repeatedly, but

we are not living it. If we really believed that Jesus is all we need, how free

from anxiety our lives would be! What peace would rule our hearts as we

walk through this vale of confusion. I don’t need the approval of man. 

I don’t need guarantees of tomorrow. I need him.

“If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask

whatever you will and it shall be done for you.”

    Do we really believe that we have a Lord who takes care of us as we

abide in him and do what he tells us? Do we believe that we have a

heavenly Father who gives us more than we could ask or think as we

walk with his Son? If, while I walk with Jesus, I need bread, I'll have

bread. If I need a friend, I’ll have a friend. If I need brothers and sisters,

rest, wisdom, guidance for what faces me tomorrow, I’ll have it. On the

other hand, if I have to turn away from Jesus in order to go out and obtain

that thing I think I need, I am deceived. If I have to turn from my Lord to

get it I don’t need it. Whatever I really need will surely be given to me as

I walk with my Lord and do things his way.

 

    During the last twenty years of his life, Watchman Nee was allowed almost

no contact with his wife, or with brothers and sisters in the faith. He had

hardly enough clothing or blankets to keep him alive. His health was broken.

But Nee had one companion in that prison cell who not only sustained him,

but turned his suffering into fruit for the kingdom in countless lives across

this planet:  Jesus. God knows that most of us are not yet ready to go

through what Brother Nee en­dured. But even in our minor discomfort and

isolation the same is true.

“In the world you have tribulation. But be

of good cheer, I have overcome the world”....

“and I am with you.”

    We need to learn that Jesus alone is our satisfaction. We tasted this satisfaction

at our rebirth, or the day the Spirit fell upon us, or at certain special moments

in the past. Suddenly we knew that in spite of our wretched lives and all the

confusion in and around us, everything was all right. There was that perfect

inward peace. A direct taste of God’s presence. It was almost as though that

one encounter with the Lord was enough to keep us going for forty years.

We felt as if nothing vile could ever touch us again. A thousand years would

not be enough time to praise God adequately for that moment. But after a

while the satisfaction began to fade, and we were back in the old rat race.

And we said, “Why couldn’t it last? Why couldn’t it go on forever?” And the

answer is that it can last. It is meant indeed to go on forever. But not by trying

to cling to the feelings of some blessed moments in the past. You don’t keep

joy in a marriage by endlessly looking at old movies of your honeymoon.

    So Jesus satisfied you yesterday. That satisfaction you felt yesterday won’t

satisfy you today. No matter how hard you try to re­member it, or imitate it,

or duplicate it, it’s gone where yesterday went---into oblivion. But if you will

take your eyes off yesterday’s satisfaction and look at Jesus who is alive

nd here today, he will satisfy you today. Jesus is our satisfaction as we

gather in his name, Jesus is our peace as we break bread together in

remembrance of his death. Jesus is our Joy as we step forth into each

new day he gives us. His presence with us makes the sky bluer, every

meal a royal banquet, every day a holiday.

                                       “I will not leave you desolate

                                                   I will come to you....

        Because I live

                                                  You will live also....”

He who has the Son has life, not Just bare existence, but continuous satisfaction.

May God help us to gather our hearts in from all the side roads where they have

been wandering, looking for satisfaction where there is none. May the Lord Jesus

deliver us from all distractions, that we may fix our hearts anew on him where

alone true Joy is to be found. Hourly refreshed by his peace, may we go forth

and gladly and faith­fully do his will.