"What is the way forward?" Over the last few years, I have heard that question asked many times. Some "ask" it in an attempt to avoid dealing with the spiritual reality of what God is doing in HIS Church and some ask it in all honesty because they have a certain sense that life in the Body of Christ is not going to be "business as usual" any more. They really do want to know because it is a question in their hearts.
That is a valid consideration when considering that what God may very well be doing in our midst is stripping down to it's bare essentials what we are accustomed to "knowing as church" but the real question is "What is God saying?"
We are living in a "day of preparation" for a move of God where Jesus takes His rightful place of exclusive preeminence in His Body, the Church (not an organization but the assembly of the saints on earth). We want to know the way forward but God want's us to prepare for the journey by stripping us down to the bare essentials that we will be able to carry with us on this path. He isn't, in many respects, giving us much information on where we are heading much like the children of Israel we only told that they were heading towards the promised land without a map of where they were physically going.
Surely the Israelites wondered about the same question "What is the way forward" but what God gave them instead of a road map was a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day to guide them in the way to where He was taking them. (being representative of Christ)
We want to know by our natures all the details before we embark on such a journey.
Jesus, when some asked Him where He lived, didn't give the men the address of where He was living. He merely responded to them, "Come and see." That set a right relationship between He and those men in that the only way they would find out where He was living was to "follow Him."
All over the scripture it is plain as day and so simple that a child can apprehend. "Follow Me."
Christ is the road map for us and has always been but we, in our insistence of being in control and our rebellion against that dependency upon the preeminence of Christ have always sought to know more than we needed to know in any particular day so we built roads to where we "thought" Christ should be heading rather than being satisfied with His daily directions and provision via the Holy Spirit.
Christ is our ONLY reality in this journey and there is no doubt that He is stripping down what is known as His Church to it's bare essentials leaving us with only one option. "To let Him lead us."
The reality of the answer to the question is "Today, if you hear my voice, follow Me..."
In many respects we have "been going around this mountain long enough." What is that mountain? The same thing it was to the Israelites that had been going around that mountain in the wilderness for so many years that they just -presumed- that they would do the same thing the next day as well.
It is would be fruitless to know the details of the way forward if we have not heard deep in our hearts the reality of the fact that we will be leaving what we are comfortable with behind.
When that reality hits the depth of our hearts, that there will be no turning back without God's displeasure and no other way forward apart from Christ, that reality will drive us into deeper communion with Christ than we have ever been in.
That is the way forward.
