The Great Call

Part Five

” And the Spirit and the bride say, Come.
And let him that heareth say, Come”
Revelation 22:17

Amidst the current noise and clamor of the secular and religious worlds, there is a fear-mongering that affects the hearts of many. There is a growing distrust, rancor, and animosity within the whole spectrum of society. The internet has given the opportunity to anyone and everyone to voice their conflicting views and to further inflame the anger and malice. What is truly disturbing is to see the same things among those who name the name of Christ.

The above verse says those who are of the Bride, and those who hear in the Spirit, cannot help but put forward the Call to draw nearer to the One for whom all creation is longing. The Holy Spirit has one desire: to communicate to all who will hear, the crucified and resurrected one. Anything else is more data that just adds to the noise and confusion.

Those who hear deep within their hearts the cry of the Spirit to make Him known can only echo to all the world around them the divine invitation: “Come”. There is an overriding passion to make Him known, to bring others to the person of Jesus Christ! The closed and isolated sects within the Christian landscape who do not feel the necessity to reach out into the lives around them are not hearing the call and the voice of the Spirit. Too many of the invitations sent out by churches are to join them, or an event or program, rather than an invitation to come, taste, and see that the Lord is good! The Great Call of God to “make” disciples unto Jesus becomes perverted when men and women seek to “have” disciples unto themselves. The difference between these two agendas is the difference between heaven and hell.

When asked who he was, John the Baptist declared: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness”. He understood this singular and passionate purpose to which he had been called. So should be the echo in our own hearts. The foundational truth of all ministry is: “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you”. Those who hear little, feel little and see little have little to share. Those who hear cannot help but declare to others, “come”.

There is a pulse reverberating within the hearts of those who hear the unction and cry of the Spirit of God. Both the wheat and the tares are coming to the harvest and the true nature of each is becoming evident. There is a nation arising from every tongue and ethnos which transcends the divisive names of denominations, the elitism of closed and isolated fellowships, or the misguided devotion of those who meet in the name of a teacher, a prophet, or any other man. This joining of the Body of Christ is based only on a pure and singular relationship with Him who is the Head. The “Valley of Dry Bones” (Ezk.37) is being fulfilled as “bone to HIS bone” are being drawn by His Spirit into a oneness in Christ alone.

Jesus prayed for this “oneness”. He gave His Life for it, and it must come to pass here on the earth.

“…that they also may be one in us:
that the world may believe…”
John 17:21

This Oneness is a unity born of His Spirit; as Paul declared in his epistle, “The Unity OF the Spirit”. There must be those who live and dwell in the Spirit to know of this UNITY. This unity is not for the casual, for those who confess something to ease and validate their relationship to God’s saving grace (even though this aspect of salvation is true). But this unity for which the Son prayed, and for which the Holy Spirit has been sent into the earth to ensure its fulfillment, will only be known by those who can truly say: “for to me to live is Christ”. This alone is their summation of life. Nothing else holds their attention or interest; neither the political concerns of this world, teetering on the edge of destruction, nor of the religious world with its attempt at a compromise to make Christ more palatable to the culture and wisdom of the age. Just as the religious order of the Jewish leadership hated and yet conspired with the Roman government in its need to facilitate His crucifixion to save itself, so once again there will be a portion of the “church” of this day that will become instrumental in the persecution of the true Church!

“Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?”
Matthew 21:42

Religious builders will always in the end reject the “cornerstone” of God’s purpose, for it is the nature of man to control and build things unto themselves. Like Cain, they build cities and name them after themselves and their work. Fallen man needs an identity, a name to rally around and to be a part of.

“And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth”
Genesis 11:4

This fallen nature also infiltrates the people of God. They need a name to build around, to differentiate them from others so those in leadership may hold places of pre-eminence and power. Everything man builds must have a leader but within the Body of Christ, He alone is the Head. His Life is the Life that holds and fuses together the vast variety of His expressions in ONE SPIRIT. Those who are OF HIM know and feel this growing dynamic. Those who rest in confessions and in the organizations of men, though beloved of Him, will never touch the Unity of The Son.

It is the Bride and those who hear with every fiber of their being who declare… COME! They have nothing to do with division, they do not draw others to a sect, a denomination, or to themselves. True ministers live to see all things brought under the feet of Jesus.

“Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.”
1 Corinthians 1:10

What was the atmosphere of the Church at Corinth?

11 For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you.

12 Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.

13 Is Christ divided?

Paul says later “Are ye not carnal?”

Those who are of the Spirit recognize others who are of the Spirit because they instantly bear the witness of God and feel the love of God. This joining is not done by human hands. It is the Divine Nature of God within which binds the deep in one to the deep of another, a joining of life to life. There is no sound of a hammer, the striving of men, the hashing out of doctrinal persuasion. Read prayerfully the wisdom of God in Romans 14 to understand the enormity of the love and the forbearance of The Life. The scriptures make no room for division, unforgiveness, and strife. The binding agent of His Kingdom is not compromise, but love and truth.

“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”
1 John 1:7

The scripture does not declare that if we talk of the light, if we teach many great things, or even if we by the gifts of the Spirit perform great works, we will have fellowship by which the power of God is released in our midst. We must WALK in the Light. If we abide in the LIGHT, and if our conduct is ruled by the Light and Life of Christ, THEN we have fellowship with one another.

Carefully read the context of what Jesus is saying. May He free us from the subverted gospel of words and bring us to the necessity of His Life as the ONLY means of our fellowship in Christ!

20 “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
28 And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine”
Matthew 7:20-28 (let the context of His words speak to our hearts)

This doctrine will always astonish the adherents, the casual believer, and the carnal ones of the church today.

The lives which will stand in the unprecedented storm which is about to break will not be those who hear His words only, but those who DO them. Those who DO His commandments are those who love Him. These are not the words of men but the declaration of Christ Himself.

“He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”
John 14:21

“He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.”
John 14:24

See: The Great Call
See: The Great Call – Part Two
See: The Great Call – Part Three
See: The Great Call – Part Four

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“That ye would walk worthy of God,
who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory”
2 Thessalonians 2:21

Brian Troxel