God has initiated a recovery movement to re-establish God’s eternal purpose. That’s right out of Ephesians 3:11. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose. God wants to move His people past the initial stages of our relationship with Him, or past “Christianity,” because of all that word has come to mean, and into the knowledge of God. There is nothing wrong with God’s beginning, but God’s end goal and His beginning are two different things. Not two different persons, but two different places within the person of Christ. There is a need for recovery in the whole of the body of Christ. There are things concerning God’s eternal plan and purpose that have become lost especially among those who believe in having a born again experience but have made it primarily about salvation versus the eternal plan of God. I have said this many times: salvation was not in the eternal purpose of God. It had nothing to do with it. It was added of necessity due to man’s fall.
The church has again eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If Satan can’t stop us from salvation, he would stop us at salvation. He would prevent us from moving past the outer court. The brazen altar at the entrance of the outer court is salvation. It was there that they would present their offerings for their sins. That is the beginning, but God’s purpose for us is not at the brazen altar. It is in the Holy of Holies with Christ alone in a hidden life within, a hidden eternal kingdom that is not of this world and cannot be seen by natural eyes at all. You can see the fruit of that kingdom, but you can’t see the kingdom because it is a person named Christ living within us, the king of an internal kingdom.
There are stages to a recovery movement. It is not random. God is too specific for it to be random. And there are steps as to how God recovers. God’s first step is a controversy with his leaders, my friends. I guarantee it. He will strike there hardest and first by necessity. He warns us that few should desire to be teachers knowing that their judgment will be more severe (James 3:1). There is some really strong language in the scriptures concerning leading. If the blind lead the blind, we all wind up in the ditch. That is pretty much what is going on in the body of Christ. That is not meant to be critical. It’s just meant to be real.
God has initiated a recovery movement. The Spirit of God is the one who initiated it. It comes upon us, and we either receive it or reject it and continue to go our own merry way of Christendom, doing what pays the bills and so becoming a bunch of hirelings for money’s sake. God forbid.
The eternal kingdom of God is what He is after, and we are invited into that. I want to encourage all of us: don’t stop. No matter how painful it is, no matter how lonely it is, no matter how battle-filled, conflict-ridden it is, don’t stop. As long as you can stay alive in the life of Christ, put one foot in front of the other and go on. Go on in your troubles and your heartaches. The battles will pass. So will the good times, they’ll pass too. The only safe thing is inward. The only safe thing in this life is Christ—Christ in you.