Response to Rhonda Hughey Meeting Thursday 28th October, 2004
1. How the Streams will Come Together in the Pleasure of God
The theme of streams has been a prominent one leading up to this consultation e.g. Peter B used Ps 46.
This is what I believe God is saying as to how the streams will converge.
Text: 2 Cor 6:14-7:1
God will indwell the church and city of Perth as a pleased Father when, and only when, there is a holy separation from the world and from those elements of the world that have permeated the church.
This will involve a “cauldron” prayer meeting. The cauldron is a very hot pot whose heat, the holiness of God, will break open the hearts of those who participate so that the streams of living water that God has put in each person/movement/network can flow and mingle together as one. This flow, as in Ezekiel’s vision and Jesus’ prophecy (John 7:37- 39) begins in the temple of the human heart but flows out into the world. Without the heat and pressure of the cauldron the streams will never unite as one.
For there to be a cauldron people must be willing to come aside (not abandon) from their particular commitments to pray e.g. WIN, YWAM, ONE HEART, Solomon’s Porch and pray together in a sustained manner. Only in this way will it be meaningful to say that the church of Perth is praying.
2. The Manifold Wisdom of God and Victory for Jesus in Perth
This concerns authority in spiritual warfare, as expressed by Paul in Eph 3:10. This “wisdom of God in its rich variety” already exists inside of the church in this city, but it needs to come together into a oneness. There is a divine deposit of the wisdom that is Christ (Col 2:3) in all the elements and spheres of the body of Christ: the indigenous people have a distinct wisdom, the youth another, ethnic persons, women, men, pastors, business people, academics….each has a portion of the fullness that is Jesus. (The church is “his body, the fullness of him who fills all things in every way” Eph 1:22.)
No one network has the wisdom that is needed to reach and transform the city for Jesus. Together, this wisdom will be released and imparted and the kingdom of God will come with power into every dimension of life and culture in the city of Perth and into the wider world. What will happen as this “manifold wisdom” is revealed, is that the lost, in Paul’s terms, the gentiles, will see for themselves the truth “Christ in you (plural) the hope of glory” (Col 1:27). In sensing, seeing and wanting this revealed (through the church) glorious future hope, Christ himself, vast numbers will turn and be saved.
3. The Manifest Presence of God
A common term for the “presence of God” in the New Testament, and Old, is the literal expression “face of God”. This can be used either of blessing (Acts 3:19) or of judgement (Rev 6:16). In other words, within the framework of the New Testament, the presence of God can bring either blessing or destruction (to sin). Since Jesus always abides in the individual believer and the church as in a temple (1 Cor 3:16;6:19), it must be the case that the presence of God is always being manifested. To spiritual discernment, the presence of God is being manifested in the Western church in the present time, not as blessing but as discipline and judgement- people are divorcing, dying unhealed, churches are splitting, ministers are burning out, sexual immorality etc. Paul interpreted the situation of sickness and death in the Corinthian church as the activity of the very present and judging Christ (1 Cor 11:27-34). Similarly, the killing of Ananias and Sapphira was a very visible manifestation of God.
Most of the church lacks the stomach to see Jesus is walking in our midst, as he does to all 7 churches in Revelation 2- 3, but in the manner of judgment. God is beginning to reveal this truth so that we may turn away from the horror of judgment and receive his full blessing (Ps 133 etc.)