Fire On Your Head

The Foundation Stone

I deeply treasure the terms apostolic and prophetic. They are dear to me. I desire to know, understand, and operate in the fullness of their meaning, as Jesus intended, when He gave them as gifts to us, His church. Only when these gifts are in their proper place in the church, is there a correct foundation laid for the building up of the Body of Christ to attain to that fullness. After the completion of the Prophetic Essence study, I knew it would not be complete without a study of the apostolic; therefore here a some introductory thoughts on the matter.

The church must have the actual five-fold gifts in place for the church to be solidified. A church that illuminates all the fullness of Christ will shake the heavens and the earth. It will be the exacting image of God in the heavens and in the earth. It will set the stage for the completion of the ages. It will usher in the last days. It will beat testimony that will lead to the salvation of Israel.

God has given me over to this. I am jealous for the apostolic and the prophetic and hate to see them misused and misrepresented. Therefore, in these studies, I am making a statement that I hope is correct in the shinning of truth on the essence of the apostolic, and the fullness of Christ, to the degree of revelation and teaching that I have been granted. There is so much to discuss pertaining to these issues. I am not claiming this complete, nor do I venture into vast subjects that other teachers have already examined. However it is in my heart to express the insight that I do have. (The influences of Robert Gladstone at FIRE School of Ministry and all his studies on the authentic church as combined and exemplified with a truly essential prophetic voice in Arthur Katz, and one simple yet complex earth shattering message from him, have steered me by the Spirit into this direction, and of whom a great deal of inspiration of these studies have come.)

I have been undone for anything or type of subversion of the church that does not have at the core of its being the pursuit of the real, absolute, authentic, apostolic call of the fullness of Christ. I am possessed with this; I will give my life to this; and I will settle for nothing less than true apostolic essence.

The substance of this study is a series of studies that I have conducted, researched, preached, and refined over the last six years. It will essentially paint a picture (not a complete masterpiece, but a portion) of a church that seeks, begins to function in, and moves towards, the fullness of Christ. All that I study, share, write, and preach seem to filter back to this core teaching and verses. I am both excited and guarded in sharing it because I am jealous for the truth and hate perversion. I do not know it all, but I do seek the truth of the plumb line that stretches throughout all of Scripture.

Lord your will be done. Guide my hand in the unleashing of that which You have placed in my heart, Take away my own thoughts and celebrate yours. May this help all of us to become more like You. To be part of, and individually a body that understands, pursues, begins to walk in, and reaches the fullness of Christ, in Jesus name, Amen.

Building the House of God

The church is a body, not a building. God is building a people, not a palace. The house is not the structure; it is the people who reside together, and the family that makes up its constitution. So, in reference to the building up of the house of God, it is the local and worldwide body of believers who are of the significance.

Ephesians 2:18-22

“For through Him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you are also being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”

This passage describes the foundation and building up of the church into a temple of God. The building must have the proper starting point-”corner stone; ” the proper foundation-”apostles and prophets,” for it to grow into the temple, the dwelling place of God. The procedure for this is found in Ephesians 4:11-13, the equipping of ministry into maturity, which results in completeness and fullness. A church that is the actual house of God, the temple of His presence, and a people in whom the living God dwells, will be a true representation of His image to the earth. Thus, the challenge is seeing a church built in this apostolic essence; a church that God would actually inhabit. He does dwell in each of us at various levels of fullness, but we must join in the unity of the Spirit (v 4:3) as on people (John 17:21) full of God-Jesus in the earth in us.

The Foundation Stone

Jesus is the foundation stone. He is the revelation of God to mankind. Everything in the church is built on Him, for Him and through Him. He is the foundation for all creation (Jn 1:1-5). He is the spoken Word of God, who became flesh, and walked with us to show us the way to God, the way to live in the Spirit, and the way to fellowship as a body of those who believe in Him (Jn 1:14; 14:6; 17). He came to redeem all creation from the bonds of death (Rom 8:19-21) and restore their relationship with God. He chose to have a body of people in the earth-His church- to be His ambassadors (2 Cor 5:20), and preach the good news that He is Lord to all men everywhere (Mt 28:18-20). Now there must be a proper foundation in place for the rest of the building to be built upon, and function properly.

Matthew 16:13-23

Jesus asked His disciples who people said that He was (13-16). The response by the disciple was a natural one. They knew He was supernatural so they compared Him to other supernatural men. This sounds good, but their vision was still on men and not on God. They needed to lift their vision higher, so Jesus asked them the question again; “But who so you say that I am?”

Peter had his vision on God. He was not comparing Jesus to other men. Jesus was more than a man. He was God manifested in their midst, yet it still required the unveiling of a mystery to see this. Jesus was revealing in such a way to show that the unveiling of the mysteries of the kingdom come from God, and not from man. The vision must not be surface level, and must be a heavenly eternal vision. This is where, at this time, Peter had his sights. Therefore he could make the proclamation that this Man was the “Christ, the Son of the living God.” This is the same as saying; “Here is God!” This is monumentous, this is perplexing, this is a clarion call sounding throughout the earth: creation acknowledging and returning in faith and revelation to His creator. Here is the announcement to the heavens and the earth, the creation and the universe HERE IS GOD! (This revelation should be present within us everywhere we go, if indeed we are the church.)

Do you realize what it took for Peter to speak that out (17)? What it took for Peter to confess that? Peter who was a Jew in a nation where all men where looking for this? This was risky; to look at this man, Jesus, as the Son of God. Yet all the others missed it. God was staring them in the face, but because they were looking at the appearance of a man, they missed the revelation needed to understand that this was the appearance of God.

Thus you have the revelation of two paradigms: The vision of God and the vision of man. This is the core of the issue in determining that which it in is initiation is defined as; the way or God or the way of man. This is precisely why Jesus came, to save us from our own way and to show us His. Ours is the influenced by the devil and it is the way to death. His way is influenced by the Holy Spirit, and is the way to life. The very first thing to understand in the church is that Jesus is Lord, and from this revelation, we must build the church in the Spirit, by further revelation from Him, and not try to build it ourselves.

Jesus recognizes that Peter had a revelation of Him from the Father (18). He tells Peter-small rock-that on this large rock-revelation-He will build His church. All that the church does should be built upon this stone, this rock of revelation, Jesus the very Word of God. This is, in a sense, the birth of the church. And as we will see later, the church is over all dominion in the earth (19), because she is seated right next to Jesus in the heavenly places (Eph 2:6). The church has the keys to the highest supernatural power and can mover both heaven and earth, natural and spiritual.

Jesus has laid the foundation and now He begins to build on it (21). He starts to reveal more of who He is and the purposes of God. This includes His suffering, death and resurrection. He must suffer death from man, so that man can be redeemed from suffering death from Him. He just showed that the way of man is not of God. He came from God to man as a man, to save them from the ways of man and restore them through this revelation to the ways of God. His death by men will put their ways to death, when in Him, they acknowledge that the way they have been living is evil and that they must repent and live according to His ways. So when we believe we shift from living in the paradigm of men into living in the paradigm of God.

He must die and rise again, and the revealing of this is the next stone of revelation that is now being laid by Jesus for the church to be built up properly. (The rejection of these two foundational truths is the basis for which most cults and false religions stand.) Jesus is Lord, and His dying for us, rising again and ascending to the Father is the very heart of the matter for all that we believe as Christians.

Now Peter has a paradigm shift (22-23). His vision was on God for the first revelation. And now for the second, we find that Peter’s vision was on man. Peter did not understand that Jesus was building upon the first revelation. Sometimes we get one revelation just to set us up for another, in order to understand both. The danger lies in camping out on the first and missing the second. Peter took his eyes off the fact that God was speaking with Him and revealing something new to Him, and saw with the eyes of men. This is why Peter was rebuked so harshly by Jesus. The devil’s aim is to get us to follow our own appetites, what is appealing to the flesh, just as he did with Eve (Gen 3:6). Death, there is nothing the flesh hates more than death. It would rather your spirit die than it, just so it can survive a little bit longer. Jesus recognized satan as influencing Peter, so he rebuked him saying;

“Get behind me satan, you are a stumbling block to me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interest, but man’s.”

Looking at man’s interest instead of God’s is demonic and satanic. This will not build up, but it will tear down. If we try to add to what God is building with our flesh, then it will be a destructive stumbling block that tears away at the building of God. It does not belong. Revelation is sent of God. Apostolic means “sent ones.” God sends us the plans of His building, as Jesus was doing here, through revelation of the Spirit and the Word.

Matthew 16:24-27

In order to build up the body, we must continue in this, keep our visions on God, and deny the flesh. Our flesh is in tune with the ways of man, which is why we must make our flesh submit. After Jesus rebukes Peter, He then goes on to teach his disciples how to avoid this while at the same time He adding further revelation to the plan of God. Jesus is denying the flesh and so must the disciples if they are to be like Him. They must get their eyes of the temporal (26) and focus on the eternal. This will keep the building strong and free of stumbling blocks. We are not building man’s house, we are building God’s. The church should reflect the image of God and not the image of man. What are you building?

The Kingdom

Jesus preached repent or change the way you think and live (GR def.), the Kingdom of heaven is at hand. Jesus was of course preaching proclaiming this news to His Jewish brothers. In their mindsets and understanding of the theme of the kingdom of which He was proclaiming. I think of the references to the kingdom in Daniel.

In Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the statue we find an illustration of all of the kingdom’s of all time. I am not going to take a stance on the metaphoric meanings here, just some quick gleanings. There is a list of all of these kingdoms and their rule and power, then all of the sudden out of now where you see a rock cut out without human hands strike the statue and crush it so that it is scattered by the wind.This stone became a mountain that fills the whole earth. ref. Dan 2:31-31; 44-45.

So this kingdom is set up by God and not human hands and it destroys all of the other kingdoms and fills the earth. Jesus was proclaiming that this kingdom was at hand which is why it was so powerful. “At hand” the Interlinear says “has drawn near.” The kingdom which would fill the earth. (This is not a strictly eschatological statement. Prophecy is like a stone that bounces across a lake that has several fulfillments before splashing onto its final unveiling or apocalypse. Ref. John the Baptist was the Elijah to come and after making that statement, Jesus again said that Elijah would come.) We see now that Jesus by preaching the kingdom is at hand is also now demonstrating it because He is fulfilling the revelation of the dream.

We know that Jesus is the chief corner stone, rejected of men, and the kingdom that he is now building in the earth is not of man’s origins but God’s. He is the stone that strikes the statue, the evil empire, and His kingdom is the one that is now filling the earth. (Eph 1:19-23)

Jesus was also speaking to His disciples when proclaiming these things. He taught them to pray “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…” Is there sickness, sin and death in heaven? Absolutely not. On earth as it is in heaven. Jesus brought the realities of heaven to earth when He preached, healed the sick, raised the dead… He was demonstrating the kingdom and pushing back the powers of darkness at the same time. The same way David’s stone defeated Goliath. The disciples were witnesses of these things, for Jesus was training them to go and do likewise. Luke 9:2; Mt 10:7-8 They were sent out to do and say the same things. They are apart of His kingdom, demonstrating the power of heaven here on the earth, just as they were instructed to pray for.

After Jesus ascended His disciples went out everywhere preaching the Gospel. Signs and wonders and salvations and new church plants were all fruits of their ministries and a demonstration of the kingdom of heaven filling the earth.

Everywhere we go we bring the kingdom. We go to the grocery store and see someone sick, we have an opportunity to show them how much Jesus loves them by healing their sickness. The kingdom is in us. The more we preach the more His kingdom fills the earth. The more we love people… The more we share and discuss the things of God on forums such as these, the more mature we become and the more the kingdom is advanced.

Yes there is an ultimate fulfillment. Our goal as a church, a fellowship of believers should be to walk in all the fullness of Christ (Eph 4:11-13). There will be a ministry suitable to the fullness of the times where all things are summed up in Christ (Eph 1:10) and I believe that the closer we get to the fullness, it will usher in the fulfillment of the age, and the final fulfillment of the kingdom. Jesus is alive in you and He wants that life to come up out of you and touch the nations.

New Apostolic Age

Hebrews 9:11

“But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say not of this creation.”

Christ entered the eternal tabernacle as the eternal sacrifice. In the tabernacle was the Holy Place. It was the place where the presence of God resided. This is a shadow of that which was in eternity, in heaven. This is the tabernacle which Jesus entered. The heavenly Holy Place is God Himself. This tabernacle is of eternity and not the earthly, it is not made with human hands. In essence it is in origin of God.

Apostle means “sent one.” Things that have their origin in God are obviously of God. Whatever proceeds forth of God, is of God. Whatever is sent of God, is of God. If it has its origin from above it is from God, if it does not it is of man, being influenced by satan (Matthew 16:23). It is not of man’s hands but of God’s hands.

God Himself carved out men, a people for Himself. They are the stone cut out, like their elder brother Jesus, that fills the earth with His Kingdom (Daniel 2:44-45). Creation will culminate with a people who are apostolic, sent of God, who have their origin, calling, and motivation in Him, and Him alone. They will change and challenge the earth to such a degree that the fullness of time will manifest.

The arsenal of men will not work (1 Samuel 38-39); only the secrets of God will reveal the way to each man’s heart and slay the giants of their generation (1 Sam 17:40; 49). This will not be cut out by the education of men (1 Corinthians 1-5), but in the river of th presence of God.

Hebrews 9:11-14

The writer here is showing that the old covenant was a temporal shadow of the eternal. Now the Eternal One (Jesus) has come, and offered the eternal sacrifice (Himself), fulfilling the old and beginning the new. This is the inauguration of a new era. The temporal being filled and fulfilled by the eternal. Apostolic.

The kingdom of Heaven has come to the earth through Jesus. He broke the eternal veil between God and man, with His eternal sacrifice; without which we would spend eternity with out God. He is the gateway through which we all must pass into eternity (i.e. eternal life and salvation). Likewise our relationship with Him allows eternity to flow through us to the world. The eternal, sent of God to overtake all the earthly kingdoms and establish His rule. This is our call, apostles of the kingdom; building, establishing and equipping that which is born in the heart of God and to make His will a reality in the now, here, in our day to day existence and being.

The writer is stressing here something that the Hebraic reader would have either accepted or vehemantly rejected; that this Jesus is the fulfillment of the entire nation of Israel’s existence. And that nation, while it remains unique as the people through which He came, now must embrace the sending out of that which God has intended.

The last days are (and could be transliterated as) a new Jesus age. And just as Jesus was sent of the Father (John 17:18) so He is sending us to magnify what He did for all, and marry the heart of man to the heart of God, the spirit of man to the Spirit of God. This is a new apostolic age whence the will of God will shine forth through a people that are sent from Him. The find their dwelling in Him and He in them, and through that relationship, the world will be won!

This will be somewhat of a picture of what the apostolic church will look like. This is not a dogma on the office of an apostle, but a prophetic glimpse of a time when the reality of the apostolic actually is a reality in the earth. And I pray that this word which I feel the Lord has given is and apostolic statement the permeates truth and life, in Jesus name.