Religion or Relationship 4: The "Crucified One"

I write this evening with such a heavy heart and spirit about the condition of the Lord’s church here in the and in many nations. As I write this blog, I accuse no one or try to sound critical or judgmental, but I weep tonight over “OUR” true condition.

I am writing this to all our Brothers and Sisters in the nations that are reading this, and I am asking for you to pray for us, your family here in the USA. Many of us have lost our way to the true light of Jesus Christ as He really is.

I implore my Christian family throughout the world to pray for us Christians here in the USA. God has been bringing together men and women of God who share this same heart wrenching feeling like Nehemiah did when he heard the report about Jerusalem in His day. My dear friend and Brother Pastor Jackson from Arizona preached a message about this, and gave us a word concerning our work like Nehemiah and the condition of God’s people in our nation.

Dear Christian Leader, Pastor, Prophet, Apostle, Evangelist and Teacher what have we done to this beautiful church that was supposed to be filled with the Glory of God? Tonight I could write about the restoration movements since the dark ages until now. I could write about the restoration of the Prophets and the Apostles, or even the Omega Generation. Yet I fear, what we are looking for today is another “revival” or another “move of God,” greater than the last one.

I am afraid we in the American Spirit Filled churches are looking for another “rush” of the Holy Spirit instead of preparing to come into the time of Christ’s rule in His Millennial Kingdom. I ask myself “what are we doing with the time we have?”

Are we redeeming it for the Lord? I ask myself am I just a convert or am I true disciple and follower of Christ? Can I say with the Apostle Paul in living reality, “I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, but not I, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loves me and gave himself for me.”

I wish you could see the tears in my eyes as I write this tonight of the sorrow that is welling up inside of me for our true condition. One of my favorite movies is “The Robe.” The movie is about the centurion who crucified Christ, and His conversion to true Christianity. I weep every time I see that movie at His true and unconditional salvation, and his willingness to die for the one he crucified. What an example of being a true disciple, but the revelation in this movie I want to bring forward is this: After His death the Romans refers to Jesus as the “Crucified One.”

I can’t even write this because I am overwhelmed by the Spirit of God. They called him the “Crucified One.” The Romans didn’t call him the “King of the Jews,” but the "Crucified One." The question we must ask dear Pastors and leaders of this nation is if our name is called Christians, DO WE RESEMBLE THE CRUCIFIED ONE?

The Apostle Paul said, “We are to die daily, and put this flesh to the death of the cross.” The Bible tells us “we have been purchased with a price, we are “NOT OUR OWN.” Yet do our lives reflect the “Crucified One?” Can the world and the people around us tell we have been purchased with a price? Can they really tell, “we are not our own?” I pass judgment on no one, I may be writing this just for me tonight. But could we be identified in substance and reality with the “Crucified One?”

Do our gatherings, our Sunday meetings reflect the “image of the Crucified One?” Pastors in America or in the nations, what will your message be to God’s people in the morning? Will it be about how God will bless you, provide for you, or how you must reach the lost at any cost? Will it be about all we are doing this week building out church vision?

Will we have 10 minutes of announcements to show how hard we are working for God? Will we have a message written to fit into the time frame the people want? Will be keep the number of songs to 7? Will we keep our service schedule and agenda no matter what, or will the presence of God be welcome to come and do as He pleases?

Dear men and women of God, are your people God entrusted to you growing in the true knowledge of God? Can they hear the voice of God themselves? Are they like Paul said to the Hebrews, “by this time you ought to be teachers, but you are mere babes, still needing the milk of the word to grow by.”

Do the people you pastor work for God as an employer and they are the employee waiting for the pay check to come? Or have you taught them the true cost of following Christ? Have we demonstrated to them what it means that “no greater love than this that a man lay down His life for his friends?

What does the church you Pastor look like from God’s perspective? What does your ministry look like from God’s perspective? Is what we are doing “for” God more important than “being with” God and knowing His heartbeat?” Dear Minister of the Gospel would we even ask? Just in a slight chance, could this blog be a word of the Lord to each of us in the USA? How about us fellow believers? Does this word apply to our lives as well?

The church in Laodicea boasted that “they were rich and in need of nothing.” I can not see a truer indictment against the church in America than found in that statement. A statement we here in America boast everyday, because of our “knowledge of God?” In all our meetings and conferences, books we write to sell, and all we do for God don’t they declare in our own minds, "we are rich and in need of nothing?

Dear one, I am trembling tonight as I write this, but would Jesus say to us, “but I say you are poor, blind, pitiable and naked I exhort you to buy gold tried by the fire and eye salve for your eyes so you may see, and white raiment to cover your nudity?”

I know this is an offensive word to us in America specially God’s leadership in this nation, because we can boast of so much and yet miss the whole picture. I weep tonight to see that the “best of all our works," and efforts as the church in America, our nations is falling more and more away from the ONE TRUE AND LIVING GOD.

The truth is that it is my fault and all of us in this nation. We have lost our first love and more. We lost the WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE! Our light in this nation is being buried more and more by our compromise and sin with the world in our own temple of God, and in the whole body of Christ as well. We just don’t see it yet, or perhaps we don't want to see it?

We think the life we are living for Christ is normal and right. This is the Gospel that was handed down to us by our fathers. We have no idea how far we strayed from belonging to the "Crucified One." We talk about signs, wonders and miracles following us, but at the present moment there is no power in our life to raise the dead, heal the sick or mountain moving faith to speak to a rock and water to come out, or can we even walk on water like Peter did?

We boast we are strong, rich and powerful, but the truth is we are poor, blind, pitiable and naked. It is so easy in our nation as a Christian to “get lost” in “everyday life.” The bible is true concerning our nation. “The cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, has CHOKED THE VERY WORD OF GOD out of us."

It is true for the church in America as found in Luke chapter 14: The Lord has called to us, “Behold, all things are now ready come to my feast." Yet the call to “come to Him” is falling on many deaf ears because of our love affair with the world and all it offers us. In Luke 14, the invited guest all made excuses of why “they could not come to the feast." They said, "I have to wait for my husband to come first. I have little league practice and have to take my son. Can I come later after I take care of my own life, I have to cut the grass?"

In this parable each one said to Jesus, “I can’t come now because, I have a wife, a job, a home, please have me excused. They refused to come when the time came for all things have been made ready. Are we doing the same thing now in our time of His divine calling and coming?

Jesus is standing on the outside of the church in Rev. Chapter 3 knocking at our door for intimacy with us, and desiring for us to sup with Him and His with us. Are we hearing His knock, and will we let Him in to our lives as the “Crucified one?”

In the classic Christian movie, “The Robe”, when Marcellus, the centurion receives forgiveness for crucifying Jesus, he says to Peter, “this day I enlist in His service. I pledge my life, my allegiance, my name, my fortune to His service so help me God as a Roman.” The rest of the movie is about his whole life being dedicated to Christ alone.

He loses his family as they reject him for following Christ. He loses His position in the army of the Emperor. He becomes an out law to everything His life was. His "new life in Christ" could now be seen as being identified as belonging to the “Crucified One, can ours here in America?” He eventually loses his life in the movie for his love of Jesus, and his unwillingness to deny Christ to save his life. He was like His master, the "Crucified One."

I know my family of believers here in the USA; this is so hard to swallow for us. It is for me as I am reflecting on my life, my commitment to Christ as well. Is my walk with Him, safe, soft and secure and neat, as in need of nothing? Do you know that Jesus said, “If you love your Father, Mother, Sister or Brother more than me, you can not be my disciple?”

Beloved Reader, why have we fallen for the “safe, secure and neat Gospel of blessing” over the true spiritual life of being and belonging to the “Crucified One?” Have we accepted that the Christianity as we understand it to be today is right because it was handed down to us that way? Have we believed “another gospel message?” I am afraid we truly have in this nation! These are questions we must ask of ourselves if we are going to be prepared to rule and reign with Him for a thousand years.

I am afraid we are not even close to being ready for that day, yet the day is coming more swiftly upon us than we could ever know. Jesus warned us not to “let this day come upon us as a thief and unawares.” Yet, I weep tonight because it is going to come upon the majority of believers in this nation that way without a “real and deep change of heart” where the Holy Spirit can bring true and lasting repentance birthed in genuine Godly sorrow. Without true and genuine repentance, I fear we will end up spewed out of the mouth of God as a Luke warm church.

Maybe I am just lost or you can call me crazy if you like, beloved ones of the Lord for writing to you this way. But I have read recently some of the prophetic website and all the prophecies about all the “wonderful things God is about to do for us.”

They speak of "new anointings" and "more blessings and power" to the church that is filled with every type of sin from the spirit of the world. James writes that we are "having an illicit love affair with the world and being "unfaithful wives" to God. James tells us, "that to be a friend of this world is to be an enemy of God."

What are we doing Ministers off the Gospel? Why are we bringing more and more of the things of the world into our churches and meetings to save the lost rather than preach about the "Crucified One" and the price of following Him?

The present day "named" prophets declare there is nothing wrong with us and God is going to bless us. Revival is coming, outpouring is coming, glory is coming. Even the “leaders of repute” and recognized in the Body of Christ as the "big boys and girls of ministry" are not calling us the church back to repentance in the power of conviction and real change. How can I say that? Where is the change of true repentance in our nation? Are we better today or worse?

The only message I hear is that we “must do more” or “work harder” or something along those lines. Where are the message of the Holiness of God and the true fear of the Lord in our churches?” One of the leaders of the largest church in the USA when asked about preaching about sin said, “I don’t have to, I have to teach the people to be happy and live a good life.”

We have abandoned Him, His Glory, His holiness and exchanged it for “working for God.” Beloved reader this is killing us and every new believer that joins our churches! We are teaching the new believers first, God wants to bless them and prosper them. We are teaching them the most important part of being a Christian is “working” for Him. We teach them to have a “job” for God is more important and should be first instead of a "deep abiding fellowship with Him in the Holy Spirit." We teach them to be faithful to clean the toilets and they will get power and position in the church!

Our present church system teaches them that this beautiful life in Christ is about building our church vision, or our own vision for God as: “We are going to take our city for God.” We are going to lead 1,000,000 souls for Christ. Yet “our vineyard we have not kept" as in the Song of Solomon Chapter 1.

I am so afraid that we have become so deceived at what Christ ask for us to do in the great commission by just winning the lost at any cost, instead of making true disciples who will follow Him in the nations. A disciple is to be exactly like His Master, but we preach the church instead of the "Crucified One." We have brought the great commission into our “own idea and understanding’ of what that means, that we lost the Christ, the “Crucified One” of the Great Commission. We have lost the Crucified One in our own hearts,JESUS, whom we are proclaiming. Where is that Crucified One in us? Are we known as the “Crucified Ones?”

Brother Henry, Jesus is raised from the dead; shouldn’t we consider us being the resurrected ones in stead of the Crucified Ones? That is a good question. Beloved, you can’t speak of resurrection until you are dead. So if you don’t identify with His DEATH FIRST, you can’t identify with his Resurrected life in power, dominion and authority either.

No I am afraid we are called by the world, “religious, fanatics, hypocrites” at this present hour. We are despised not for “truly following Christ,” but because of our hypocrisy, competition, strife and division amongst us, and living unholy lives not led by the Spirit of God.

Beloved, I can identify with Nehemiah when he wept and pleaded to the Lord about the condition of Jerusalem. We the “new Jerusalem being made” are not in much better shape in our time of restoration at this present moment. Our personal walls are burned down, our doorways unhinged. Our homes are scattered by the love of the world and compromise. Our temple has been destroyed and torn down so we are not even aware that we are the Temple of the Living God. Prayer has been removed from our temple and replaced by entertainment that has made us prisoners.

Shall I go on beloved? Do we have a “religion” that has a “form of Godliness” but deny the power of the “CRUCIFIED ONE?” Do we truly have his nature, character and purpose of Christ in us

Beloved family in the other nations, I pray this has not happened to you. I pray that we are not bringing our “American brand” of Gospel to you where you begin to measure your life by your “accomplishments for God,” or your “prosperity in God.” I pray that you have not lost the power of the "Crucified One,” helping you pick up your cross and follow Him as we have not done in our nation.

Please families of God in the nations, pray for America. Please beloved ones in America, could you be honest Pastor, Leader or every day saint of God? Where is the likeness of the "Crucified One" in our life? Are we a reflection of that beauty of a “crucified life,” and say like Paul, "but nevertheless I live, but not I, but Christ lives in me?"

If this blog is reaching your spirit, please pray this prayer with me for our nation and His church in America. This is our time to confess our sin and become broken and humble before the Lord. It is time for the church in America to obey the instructions of 2nd Chronicles 7:14 together! Let us start today here in America, and may our international family please stand in the gap with us and pray this simple prayer:

Dear Heavenly Father, today I am looking right into the face of Jesus who loved me enough to die for me and take my place and punishment. When I reflect on my life have I made excuses to your call? I have said, I have a wife, a job, a house, please excuse me in answering your call to live a true life in you. I have been like the foolish virgins resting in the fact I said a sinner’s prayer and you saved me, but I have done nothing with my life of growing to know you and follow you, or I did it on my terms.

I too have said with our nation. I am wealthy and need of nothing but I did not recognize my true state before you. Please Jesus hear my cry. I don’t want to say I am sorry, I need you Holy Spirit to bring true and lasting conviction of mine and our sin with Godly sorrow so I can turn back to you where I belong. May the words in 2nd Chronicles 7:14 burn in me until you forgive our sins and heal our land.

Please Holy Spirit come and take your place to bring conviction of sin, righteousness and judgment to my life. Lead me out of the pit of this “religious Christianity” and bring me to the place of the Centurion. I pledge my life, my honor, my fame and fortune at your feet and truly enlist in your service." Thank you Jesus for hearing me and answering my prayer today.

Your bond servant____________________