I have been using a meal supplement called Ka’chava the last few days and it really tastes good and has lots of great ingredients, so I am hoping it helps me lose weight and become more healthy. The thing about a powder drink is you have to mix it with water (in my case) and make it one as a solution. The powder changes into liquid and the water changes into a shake and has characteristics of the powder including color and taste. If you blend it good enough the whole thing works perfectly and the taste and consistency is great. If you don’t, you taste the powder that has not become liquid and that is a bummer. The two “have” to become blended into one drink to accomplish the best result. If I taste the powder after shaking the two in the blender bottle, then I shake it some more until it becomes liquid. The liquid without the powder is just liquid without the ingredients of the powder. The powder without the liquid is dry and might even choke you a little if you try it without blending. To do all of this I have a cup called a Blender Bottle and there is a metal whisk on the inside and it’s purpose is to be a reactionary agent in helping the blending take place. Without the whisk the attempt would be futile at best.
In Ephesians 2 Paul writes to the church and at the end of Chapter two says a lot about who is the blender and who is the ingredient. In verse 20 Paul writes 20 Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself. Jesus is the blender and His blood is the reactionary agent to make it all happen. His blood makes all of us right with Him and also makes us a member of God’s forever family and then He blends us into a unified group of people with Him being our foundation. This process is vital to all if we ever hope to accomplish what Jesus calls the “church.” Look at what Paul says in verse 21 We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord. The key word is “careful.” This process takes much care because Jesus is doing this blending with fallen people who don’t quite understand all the ramafications of this blending. For us, it is a full surrender of our ourselves into the blend and if we don’t we are those powder chunks that don’t yield to the whisk of God to help us totally fall into the mix. So God shakes us up some more until we realize that He wants “all” not just some of our life.
The term”all in” comes into focus more as we realize God is carefully shaking our world to unify us with others who are also blood-bought and thus the strong, world-changing unity of the church becomes a reality and the world is never the same. Luke 9:23 begins to make more and more sense when we realize that Jesus asks for us to be “all in” in this blending process. Luke 9:23 Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me. That crowd Jesus was telling this too had to have a point of surrender and drop it all and follow Him. And some did follow Him in that way and that example of letting Jesus totally change your life and your perspective on life is still happening today to all who will surrender to His blending process. Those who follow Jesus have carefully been made a temple for the Lord! Yes, a place where His Holy Spirit will dwell and give us the citizenship in the community of believers. In that community there is spirit of selflessness, love, happiness, joy, thankfulness, servanthood, and many other parts of the whole mix. If we were more of “the church” as Jesus carefully mixed us all together and less of just individual believers the hatred and evil of today would not be able to accomplish all it is accomplishing in our present day world.
Of course, satan has a horse in this race and that horse runs a race of hatred and pain and His plan is to stop the process of the church unified and cause more hurt and hatred. Jesus spoke about the plans of satan and in John 10 He says 10 The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. You don’t have to look very far into the images we are seeing in media today to see that those three are happening before our very eyes.
So what do we do? Turn to Jesus and nothing else!!! You might say, David “nothing else?” Yes. Nothing and no one else!! Only Jesus!! Because in the last part of verse 10 Jesus says this to those in the crowd and to us as well, where He says My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life. Some will never “get it” but it doesn’t mean “it” isn’t there. Salvation is still very real and still very life changing, even though they may not understand it the Holy Spirit will draw them if we just present the truth through our words, and yes, through our daily walk. You may wonder why Jesus spoke in parables at times when sharing this truth. Look at Matthew 13:13 and you will see why. Matthew 13:13 That is why I use these parables, For they look, but they don’t really see. They hear, but they don’t really listen or understand. Satan wants to make sure the effort of telling others about Jesus doesn’t happen and if we have a disunity in “the church” then he will be able to accomplish his goal of making sure we don’t have fully blended and unified hearts. Paul wrote to the church at Corinth about this very thing in 2 Corinthians 4:4 Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.
Now it make sense why Jesus carefully joined us together as a group of believers and called us “the church.” We are super powerful together, but very weak when we are not unified, and our unification is accomplished around the cross of Jesus Christ and Him alone. You see “Together We Are One!” Apart we are just one, meaning individuals. I love my fully blended Ka’Chava meal shake and it accomplishes just what I need, but sometimes it takes a little extra shaking to make it happen. Perhaps God is doing a little extra shaking to get His church to be all he intended for it to be. I believe He is doing that very thing so I need to perk up my ears to listen to what God is trying to tell me! Are you listening? You should!!
The Pilgrimage continues…..
David Warren
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