Rebuilding the Ruined Assembly (Edited by ChatGPT)

  

How do you build a strategy to do something? You need to know, first and foremost, what is your ideal situation and what you are planning to build at last — or simply your mission and goals, plus how they add up to your ideal situation. Most of the problems and divisions in the assembly of the Lord, and among those who think themselves “Christian” though they follow doctrines of demons, are because they are not aiming at the right goal.

 

We could list all the evil goals of humanity, which could take different dimensions, including racial and ethnic goals; patriotic goals; cultural, traditional, and social goals; materialistic goals; dominance goals; and so on. But it is wise, for now, to focus on the right goal. If we know where we are going, we could avoid most of the doctrines of demons that come in all forms and names: word of faith, prosperity gospel, ethnic and patriotic religion, all dead religions (be it Catholicism, Orthodoxy, New Thought, New Age, progressive “Christianity,” and so on), all dominance theologies (civilization — Western or otherwise — cults and NAR), and so on.

 

Our destination is to build every faithful in the image of Jesus and to make sure the assembly is made in the image of Jesus. When people see us, they have to see Jesus in us. That is our goal, and our society should look like Jesus. The body has to look like the head. When Jesus presents the assembly in front of God, being blameless and without blemish, He is presenting Himself after making the assembly in His perfect image. That is our goal — to be made in the image of Jesus. While our sins are covered by grace, we grow through the work of the Holy Spirit into the image of Jesus, and this is not only as individuals but mainly as the global assembly of the Lord, the invisible assembly. This is not to do what we like and then declare it to have the image of Jesus with our autopen of hypocrisy, but to grow into the image of Jesus in reality.

 

Second, we need to know from where we start. Many faithful sometimes are clear on the objective, though most faithful are clueless or self-deceiving on this issue, but they have a distorted appraisal of their current situation, and what they plan to do as a result is to repeat the past. It is stupidity to do the same thing repeatedly and expect different results, but are not many faithful often very naïve? If you build the structure of a dying religious culture of other nations (the West) in new locations that are willing to accept God, the cycle of success followed by decline will repeat, as it happened in the Far East, because they are made in the image of the dying religion of the West. The cancer that killed faith in the West will also kill it in any location, despite its initial success.

 

So let us evaluate our starting point. What are our strengths? What are our weaknesses? What opportunities do we have, and what challenges do we face? These need to be appraised. In comparison to the perfect assembly that looks like Jesus, what gaps do we have? We are lost, and we are at the point where the living do not know the difference between the living and the dead. In simple words, we are almost dead. This is our weakness. We are so lost that if we see the devil, we cannot identify him as the devil. This is a simple summary of how lost we are. Leading “evangelicals” are openly teaching words of the devil, and people do not know it is the devil talking. The reason we do not know the devil is because we are far from God and the Word of God, but we are very close to the earth and to the devil — closer than we are to God. This death is culminating in the acknowledgment of dead religions as living religions. When we see ourselves, we see ourselves among the dead, as one of them. This is because we are almost dead. This is a simple summary of who we are at this stage.

 

What is our strength? God is our strength. No matter how lost and worthless we are, God is still our muscle, and with Him nothing is impossible if we obey Him rather than trying to lead Him to approve our abominations. The problem is that God is not in control. If God were in control, the fruit would be heavenly, just like Jesus. But look around — what we see is shame. Dear ones, where is Jesus? You can list this and that, but where is Jesus? Unless people see Jesus in your life, either you are an ever-infant, disobedient child, or you are not born again at all. That is why the Holy Spirit needs to take the leading role. God has to lead us, but in reality we lead and stamp our leadership with the seal of the name of God. God is our autopen — He simply approves our abominations, and this is our faith nowadays.

 

The challenge we face is that God is withdrawing and the devil is taking over the world. As the Heavenly Father leaves people in the hands of the devil, rebellion is increasing and love is fading away. With ever-increasing demonic influence, the sinful nature of humanity is being expressed in its worst form. Sin and rebellion increase because God is reducing His restraint and letting people fall into the hands of dark forces. Besides this, the success of science and technology is pushing people away from faith.

 

The opportunity we have is that the world is becoming one village. Now we do not have to travel long distances by backward means of transportation to preach the gospel; in many cases, we can do it from the comfort of our homes. Even if we have to go to remote locations, the situation is much easier nowadays. Besides, it is almost harvest time, and if you have the right eyes — biblical eyes — the fruit of the devil and the fruit of Jesus are not hard to identify. The fruit is ready for harvest, and Jesus is nowhere to be seen in most of it. It is clear by now that the seed is the problem. The opportunity is that the nature of all seeds is no longer confusing in this time, and the solution is the right seed — Jesus.

 

So in this age, taking our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges into account, and identifying our disgraceful current state while knowing our destiny — to build faithful people and an assembly that looks like Jesus — what is the strategy that can take us from disgrace to the glory God saw for us in Jesus? The road to heaven is Jesus. Our wisdom and strategy is Jesus. We have to follow the commandments of the Lord and walk in His footsteps. We have to return to the Word of God and understand it in a way that affirms Jesus, not our personal preferences and cultural biases.

 

Take the Western gibberish cult that focuses on rebuilding its past and on affirming the sins of its fathers. Can this nonsense take us to Jesus? No. It may take us back to a time when some “Christian” ethnic groups were dominant over others, but not to Jesus. It is self-worship, and that is why they do not care about purity of the faith more than regaining what they lost: money, power, and respect.

 

To understand their problem, let us understand some facts. Initially, the seed of the Lord, planted by the Lord in Israel, was small like a mustard seed, but by the hand of the Heavenly Father it grew into a larger tree. When the right seed is planted, what will grow is known, and growth is a process. When the hegemony of Rome rose, its end was determined by its seed, and death is also a process. It had a devilish seed that corrupted the faith, and its fruit was seen. Can you stop the initial growth of the faith at a single point, apart from its process over time, or the death of Rome apart from its final corruption? Can you say, “I want the Rome of the sixth century as it was”?

 

Dear ones, the tree will grow because it is its nature. By the same fact, the fall and decay of faith in the West is a seed problem, and its end is also a seed problem. After the Reformation, the seed grew toward the earth more than toward Jesus, and they harvested death from it. Now they want to return to an age when they were powerful, but in reality they will never return to it — they will only speed up the death of faith. They want the seed of the devil mixed with Jesus before the devil’s takeover happens. This is wishful thinking and truly stupid. If you want a pure society, plant the pure Word of God and live by it. The perfect Word of God is Jesus, so grow toward Jesus.

 

What about black or brown ethnic political religion? God has one agenda, and it is not communism, socialism, capitalism, nationalism, liberation, equality, justice, and so on, but to make us in the image of Jesus. God wants our death and crucifixion on the cross so He can remake us in the image of Jesus. It is not about us, but about Jesus. Yes, with Jesus, with new birth and growth into the image of Jesus, there are benefits, because heaven is on your side, Jesus is on your side, and God is on your side. Whatever you need on this earth — liberation, equality, justice, dignity, national pride, and so on — will follow as God sees fit.

 

God may keep you in slavery for ten generations and free you afterward, and that will still be the best path, because God knows better. God may keep generations in poverty and bless them later. Life with God is better, even if it leads to the cross. You will not win the world by running after the world, but by running after God, and your earthly reward may be for future generations, not for you. Things will happen as God wills.

 

But foolish black and brown people also make God in their own image. The purpose of God becomes to affirm their biases and promote their ambitions. This is another form of self-worship, another idol. If God wills it, He will send your children into Egypt so they multiply there, and then He will bring them out with a mighty hand. If God wills it, He can send you into Babylonian captivity and command you to submit. Our Bible is not a Bible of liberation, equality, or freedom, but the Bible of God, revealing the image of Jesus as the name of God.

 

What about prosperity gospel, word of faith, New Thought, progressive sin (“Christianity”), Anglican sin, and dead religions — Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jewish cults, Islam, and so on — can they take us to Jesus and make us in the image of Jesus?

 

In simple words, our temple of Jerusalem is in ruins. The temple of the Lord — the Holy Spirit — is in ruins. We are so dead that when we see the dead, we do not see much difference between them and us. We see Catholics and Orthodox, and we see more that unites us than divides us, because we are dying, if not already dead. We see the devil preaching openly, and we do not recognize him as the devil. Given this, how much do we truly know God and the Word of God? That is why the temple must be rebuilt, and it will be rebuilt not by might or human knowledge, but by the Spirit of God. The right strategy is returning Jesus to the assembly so we can be remade in His image for His glory and the salvation of the lost.

 

By accepting Jesus as Lord and declaring that He rose from the dead, we have to be born again by the Holy Spirit after we are washed by water baptism. Now, as individuals and as an assembly, we need to grow into His identity and nature. Our ultimate end is to think, live, speak, and die like Jesus so we can stand on His right side with Him forever.

 

This means we have to love God with all that we are and all that we have. Look at Jesus and how He loved the Father. We need to grow toward that identity — the identity of Jesus. Jesus never did what pleased Him, but what pleased the Father. In reality, we do what we like and prefer, and then we declare that God, the autopen, affirms it. This is why almost all sin in the history of humanity is declared to be the will of God. If we are born again and obedient to God — which almost none of us are — we will know His will. The problem is that we are busy with our will while claiming to know the will of God.

 

We need to love fellow faithful and even our neighbors as ourselves, but we know what we look like. When people support political movements, liberation movements, and so on, they show respect and tolerance to one another because they need each other. But in the assembly, faithful behave differently, because faith has become religious routine rather than living faith. We are dying rather than growing into the image of Jesus, and this is reflected in the slow death of love. If we were occupied with the work of the Holy Spirit and growing into the image of Jesus, that identity would show itself. But why is the devil coming out of us, and why are throne and trestle taking over the assembly? This reflects what we are becoming.

 

Next, we need to love our enemies. We need to pray for those who hate us, feed those who starve us, and love our enemies unconditionally. In the Old Testament it is written that the faithful should help their enemies in times of need, with the purpose of replacing hatred with love through good deeds. In the New Testament we are commanded to love our enemies and care for those who hate and persecute us. Yet we are something else entirely. We cannot even love our friends and families. How far do we need to go before we admit there is a seed problem in us? And do we really think God is leading us? The receipt we have does not justify our claim.

 

So we have to go to Jesus — but how? Imagine going to Rome, and Rome now exists in different forms and shapes, and you declare to all of Rome, who follow the death spirit of Rome, that they need structural reform. What do you expect will happen? As a student of institutions, I do not focus on the emotional or rhetorical response of Rome. What happens is anti-thesis against the thesis being proposed.

 

The established institutional system and power structure resist change. The problem is that there is no synthesis in this issue. There is no middle ground, because the thesis is that lack of purity is the source of the problem, and compromise is the problem, because compromise will not lead to pure faith. When the thesis is not money, power, or respect, but a call to return to Jesus, and resistance immediately follows, it becomes clear that what is being addressed is the devil’s stronghold. This smells like death to all rebellion.

 

In this setting, being under their control fetters any meaningful work. The right approach is that the work must be done independently, and the right fruit must be produced. Influence must move from outside to inside. If we claim that Jesus is nowhere to be seen, then we must produce people whose lives, words, and even deaths smell like Jesus. God has no problem defeating Egypt — the religion outside — but removing Egypt from inside us. God has no problem defeating the world or the devil; His struggle is defeating the world and the devil within us. Saying “show us Jesus” will take us nowhere, but showing Jesus in our lives is a reliable witness to our testimony about God.

 

To show Jesus in our lives and in the life of the assembly, we need the Word of God so we can know the Holy Spirit apart from dark spirits. God Himself — the Holy Spirit — must grow us into the image of Jesus. That is why, while reading the Bible seriously to know God and His will apart from the devil and his will, what we seek is not lost assemblies to teach us their abominations — though they may be useful for initial growth and foundation — but the Spirit of God, who will grow us into the image of Jesus. The miracle we seek should not be external miracles that our corrupted personalities cannot sustain, but transformation into the image of Jesus, which makes obedience normal and miracles natural. First we must cleanse our own eyes and lift them toward heaven, so that we can help others cleanse theirs and pull them up with us.

 

What is needed is the right assembly, completely grounded in biblical accuracy and completely led by the Holy Spirit, to produce the image of Jesus at both personal and assembly levels. This must be built from the bottom up. It is not based on tradition, but on Scripture, biblical principles, and the work of the Holy Spirit. The name of the Lord Jesus Christ must shine brightly as the faithful fade into the background. This is to show lost sheep that there is a better way — the way of the Lord — and to be the smell of hell to those destined for hellfire.

 

But can a man or a group of people do this? No. Even with good intentions and the right goal, you will add your own errors and create your own abominations, often worse than what you oppose. You may have the Bible and the Word of God, but in making decisions the enemy can deceive you through appearances. How will you recognize them unless God leads? That is why, in addition to the Word of God, you must consult God continually. The Bible alone is not enough, because the fullness of the Word of God is in Jesus. Unless Jesus leads you continuously, you will not always be accurate. You must not judge only by what you hear or see, but by the heart of God. For this, God may lead through His Word, dreams, voice, visions, and so on.

 

That is why only God — only the Heavenly Father, only Jesus, and only the Holy Spirit — can create an assembly that reflects the perfection of Jesus. What we eagerly wait for is the Holy Spirit, who transforms us into the image of Jesus and leads us on the road called Jesus. Until then, we praise God and study His Word seriously, because otherwise we cannot discern truth from deception. This ruined assembly of the Lord must be rebuilt, but only by the Spirit of God. What we eagerly await is the Holy Spirit, who will remake us into the image of Jesus.

 

For decades there has been prophecy in the Horn of Africa, spoken in villages and towns, that the Word of God will go out from the Horn to the world. People eagerly wait for a greater outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Everyone waits for it, but few ask what it is meant to produce. What will happen afterward is unclear. What kind of faithful will emerge?

 

Some plan to export word of faith, prosperity gospel, and other Western theologies to the world. The West already does this better, and we know its fruit — it is the devil. What they really want is to become men and women of God with global influence and national pride. It is about them and their nation. That is why some even imagine Orthodox alliances — for national pride. It is foolish, but nothing seems too foolish for people to imagine. If you give more power to the devil, you magnify the devil, not Jesus. Even if more nominal faithful appear, Jesus will not be seen. If leaders do not look like Jesus, how will more Holy Spirit power produce followers who look like Jesus?

 

If, however, the power of God fades us away and makes Jesus shine through us, that is what the world needs. The power of the Holy Spirit and the miracles of God testify that Jesus is taking over our lives as we disappear. It will not be about us, our theology, ideology, politics, or ambition. The greatest miracle we need is not the blind seeing or the dead rising, but we — the refuse of life — being remade into the image of Jesus for the glory of God and the salvation of all. When Jesus is in charge, miracles produce the right fruit. When we are in charge, they do not.

 

When everything is brought together, the path is Jesus, the door is Jesus, and salvation is through Jesus alone. Let us fade away so that Jesus may take over our lives.

 

Amen.