Comment from W.E. Smith
Time: November 24, 2009, 7:38 am

Thank you Bob for sharing this. I, like most who view this will perhaps start giggling, until we reflect on just how sad things have become for those saved at such a supreme cost to our Lord and our Heavenly Father.

In short, the Creator never made us or “hard-wired” us if you like, with the intent that we would relate to Him through any other medium or intermediary. This is why the tragic yet predictable failure over time of all institutions and man-dependent systems. We are each members of His Body and connected to Him directly and intimately through the Body, not through other members of the Body. This is great mystery, as Paul pointed out, but once we grasp this, it is as simple and natural as anything else the Lord has wrought in His creation. Our lives flow from Him and nothing else. For the life and dynamic of the Body to function as intended, with all members edifying each other, then each has to be pesonally and intimately attached to He who is our life and light. This is what the Bible calls abiding in Him, and it is an all or nothing thing - we cannot fully abide in Him if we are abiding (deriving life and wisdom and power to live as intended by our Father in Heaven) in something or someone else.

As I see it this unnatural abiding of believers in man-made and man-led institutions is more a symptom of the real problem than the problem itself; which is a failure on our part to realize God’s ultimate blessing and purpose for the Christian life. This too is something Paul refers to as a mystery, which is Christ in you; the hope of Glory!

It is ironic and tragic actually how nicolaitinism (sp) actually does the opposite of what it purports to achieve - it keeps God-hungry believers from the object of their desire. It holds out some high and wonderful promise of the deeper, blessed life, yet it it then keeps them from attaining it through all manner of formalism, ritualism, routine, and an assortment of artificial religious activities and imperatives that can never live up to the lofty ideals they offer. Our Lord reserved some of His most fiercest rebuke for just such systems, and those who advance and perpetuate them “in His Name”. For He alone is the Way to the heart of our Father in Heaven. He alone is the Truth that fosters the blessed life in the Spirit! He alone represents the Life that is most precious to the Lord of All Life! Yet if He is in any of these so-called “churches” then surely it is a two-dimensional cardboard cut out over there in the corner; a mere representation, not the Real Thing that Paul writes about as our very life!

Oh brethren, dear saints, most beloved of our Father and Lord, He is all you ever need, for He is the fullness sent down from the Father. He alone is the Sum of all Righteousness and Power and Wisdom! It is not membership you need, but rather the life of the Lord Jesus Christ expressed in you constantly. The Word tells us that it is His Life which represents the Light in us. Everything else is a babel of confusion, an empty promise, certain to lead to frustration and failure. It will keep you at arms-length and heart-length from the One you love, which is why you feel empty and hollow inside. That space was put there and reserved for Himself; only He can fill it - this is what it means to abide in Him and for Him to abide in us! Oh praise God for the wonderful simplicity of His ways that even we as little children can experience the high and holy things!

Thank you for sharing this Bob. May ourBblessed Lord be a blessing to all of your readers.