Resonance

Tag: corporate altar

  • Perceiving the Progress of the Body of Christ

    On average, humans are quick to spot existing problems due to the fallen nature. However, we are never quick to see solutions in motion, especially when it’s a slow long-term one. Most good outcomes are only realized in retrospect. That notwithstanding, let me show you commendable long-term solutions in the Body of Christ today.

    Corporate Fasting

    For many recent years, as though it was communicated to everybody, every charismatic church fasts in January. This synchronous spiritual sacrifice must be noticed while we are at it, not when it is no more. “We used to” is the language of losers. Let’s recognize the power of what we are doing now. The first test of the 1st & 2nd Adam was food. Isn’t it amazing that at the gate of the year, we are fasting as a corporate group? Whether a 3, 7, 14, 21, 40 or even 90-day fast, there is a week in January where literally every church is fasting. How powerful & profound!

    There are certain aspects that can only be effected at the corporate level. Even the prayer for the revival of nations does not take an individual as we think. What it takes the cumulative effect of several individuals across different generations to do, the corporate group of one generation can do. Now is not the time to fast for personal needs and breakthroughs. What God always does is bigger than the individuals involved. It took a long time for the shift to move from individuals to the ekklesia. Make sure that your prayers include praying for all the saints everywhere.

    Rise of Teaching Priests & Apostolic Christianity

    When Christianity begun to take root in Africa, there were a lot of syncretized doctrines. We mixed spiritism with the spiritual, and the end result was laughable. The earliest indigenous prophets were no different from native doctors, and soon, we couldn’t tell the difference as a body. Prophets could mount pulpits without a Bible and prophesy from beginning to the end because there was zero demand on them to preach the Word. This created a breeding ground for funny deceptions and lies due to a lack of firm foundation. Some believed sleeping with anointed men of God makes them anointed. Others believed Jesus was no different from one of the gods in their clan, and so on.

    This problem have arisen in Europe & the Americas before, and how God solves it is by raising Prophetic Teachers & Teaching Prophets. Every prophetic ministry had teachings & every teaching ministry had the prophetic. This brings balance to the effective working together of the Word and the Spirit. In fact, anyone found lacking in either was eventually rooted out by God. Today, many will not believe but this is the best time in church history where both the Spirit and the Word have been highlighted without choosing one over the other as if they were opposites.

    Unity of the Brethren

    The Moses generation saw many lone rangers. They were so powerful and lofty in the Spirit that they became like God to their congregation. However, when such men fell or died, nobody had the rank to intercede for them or take up their mantle respectively. Joshua had Caleb, someone he can call brother. Today, our fathers have fathers. Our fathers also have others they can call brothers and sisters. From Moses to Joshua and Caleb and then to the entire tribe of Judah, we have become more united than before. Diversity is not the opposite of unity. Whatever we thought was contradictory was actually complementary.

    At first, we used to see fights among each other because of the contradictions of our callings. The Holiness movement fought the Prosperity movement. The wisdom people fought the power people and vice versa. Now we realize we need each other because one person cannot carry it all. Our fellowship is not only with God; our fellowship is also with one another. We are family, related by the blood of Jesus & the Spirit that dwells in us individually and corporately. People listen to their pastors and listen to other pastors without necessarily joining the other pastor’s congregation. This has reduced the monopoly of pastors to lead their entire congregation astray when they themselves go astray. God has people even though there are more people who aren’t fully living up to the destiny upon their life. That notwithstanding, there is unity among the brethren.

    Signs and wonders of past times and ones that have never happened before are happening today. It hasn’t always been like that. Young people are carrying ancient mantles, apostles (sent ones) are many in the marketplace, even entire cabinets of Spirit-filled Christians is becoming the norm. Transformation is happening among individuals, the corporate group and eventually, nations. Recognize the times you’re living in. These are the last days, the amalgamation of it all. If the Bible was written in our time, you’ll be shocked at how many of these wonderful things will be documented. It’s time to rise and walk on the path of our destiny. The church is marching on from glory to glory. You were born for such a time as this. If you’re slothful, you’ll miss your slot.

  • Understanding the Body of Christ

    I’m so glad that the diction around the priesthood is being claimed back by the church in recent decades. Words like altars, priesthood, shrine and sacrifice are not new to the traditional African man. The diction itself is not evil and has made its way back into the Christian vocabulary. It’s the practice of it that we must make sure to clearly distinguish. First of all, we are a royal priesthood, we have an altar, and we are beseeched to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice. These words are literally in the New Testament. Mind you, even in the Old Testament, God desired a kingdom of priests. That’s exactly what He got in the New Covenant as Christ made us kings and priests unto God. It may sound occultic to present yourself as a living sacrifice, but always remember that the enemy counterfeits. If there is a counterfeit, there is an original.

    Personal Altar & Corporate Altar

    A personal altar is for one person. Any other altar for two or more people is a corporate altar. Such altars include family altars, national altars, etc. Can one person have more than one personal altar? Abraham raised 4 personal altars. Job had a family altar. David raised a national altar to stop the plague. An altar is simply an embassy that gives spirits the visa to operate in our human world. As long as it gives spirits the legal rights to operate within a certain territory and intervene in the physical realm, it’s an altar.

    That being said, the biggest and most powerful altar is the Cross. Ephesians 1:7 in The Message translation states: “Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we’re a free people—free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds“. By this altar, we receive power to become the children of God. By this altar, we are born again, born of God and a new creation. It is the brazen altar in the Tabernacle of Moses because it satisfies the wrath of God, offers a more pleasing sacrifice and enables one to come boldly before God.

    God in the Midst of His People

    For an individual in Christ, one has God with you, God inside you and God upon you. These are different expressions. However, as a community (2 or more persons), we have God in the midst of us. This arrangement is only available where two or three gather in God’s Name. Individually, my body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit. Corporately, we all come together to form the temple in which God dwells. Ephesians 2:22: “In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. Matthew 18:20 says, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them”.

    This arrangement is one of the many things the finished works of Christ secured for us. We are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession. Do you realise our priesthood here is not just personal but corporate, captured in the context of people and nation? The inheritance we have access to in Christ is not only personal but corporate. He has “qualified you to share in the inheritance of His Holy people in the Kingdom of Light” (Colossians 1:12). We are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. God was not only looking for an individual. He was looking to make us part of His family. We altogether are the bride of Christ.

    The Need for Koinonia Among the Brethren

    Any Christian that isolates oneself will not make it to the end. If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. Please share this with your friends who believe in Christ but prefer not to be part of a church. If you want to pray for 40 days, pray alone. If you want to pray for 40 years, pray with the brethren. “I can pray and worship God in my room”. You won’t even do that for more than a year and you’ll stop.

    Even with keeping our consistency with our personal altars, it is necessary that someone close to you knows. Have time to pray with the brethren and have time to pray alone. Could you let someone else know that you have a scheduled time you pray alone, preferably your spouse? So that on the days when you find it hard, accountability will make sure you don’t quit.

    Baptism

    That is the literal idea behind Christ building His church. As He is building you and building me, He is building a corporate body. That’s why we are called brothers and sisters. We are a family. There is one baptism, one faith, one body, one Lord, one hope of our calling. Just as we are one Spirit with God, we are one Body. Just as the Father and Son are One, Christ’s finished work makes us one with each other. “Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, so that they may be one just as We are.”

    Baptism is not only a matter of repentance, cleansing and washing away. It is also a symbol of death and resurrection. Even more so, it is the technology by which Christ incorporated us into His death and resurrection. It gets better; it’s this same technology that makes us the Body of Christ. There is one baptism, not three. Just as there is one God, not three. Baptism is one of the finished works of Christ. Christ is the Head of the Body and we are the parts. He is the Vine, and we are the branches. We individually come together to form the corporate group and corporately, we come together to form one individual; the Bride of Christ.