Not Now that He's Preparing the Bride for Himself!

Do you want to deepen the intimacy of your relationship with God?

Really? If you do, you're part of the current move of God in this Day. Here's one way you can deepen your intimacy with the Bridegroom.

When God moves in new ways, He requires things that He didn't in earlier moves. For example: In the '60's, ministers didn't have to be filled with the Spirit to minister (they largely didn't even know about it!)

But after Jesus poured His Spirit out -- even into the mainline denominations -- effective ministers learned the hard way that they could no longer get away with ministering in their flesh -- God no longer honored their old, ministry formulas.

Certainly, many ministers never came into that Move of the Holy Spirit at all. They were "ministers", "pastors", "professional clergy" -- but not "effective ministers". An "effective minister" is one who has an effect in the building up of the Kingdom of God!

Most religious leaders then, like those in Jesus' day, looked at the Moving of the Holy Spirit in revival and said, "We're not interested -- the old is so much better." In Jesus' parable of the wineskins, He said that the spiritual leaders of His day rejected the new Move of God with that same, "The old is better" lie.

In recent years, God has upped the ante. He's already drawn thousands of people and ministers out of "old wineskins" and released a new Flow of His Spirit in them. But God's setting aside even more traditions today than He already has. In the past decades, He seemed to honor some familiar ministry formulas, but now He's honoring those who minister instead out of intimacy with Him and not "proven formulas".

Here's one of those old formulas: One minister supposed to "mentor" me years ago, collected offerings for several years to build a huge sanctuary out in the back of the church property. Even though his sanctuary on Sunday morning had never, ever been filled more than two-thirds capacity, he explained that if he builds a bigger auditorium, it will automatically be two-thirds filled.

OK. Old traditions, old formulas... lots of stuff is getting tossed in the face of God's new Move.

Here's another one that's getting tossed. I'll tell you what it is, then I'll tell you why it's getting tossed:

The idea that ministers who are married can minister, spiritually apart from their spouses is no longer acceptable to God. In the past, ministers have been able to stretch, strain and shrug away a lack of "romance" with their spouses and still minister effectively in the Kingdom.

But not any more. That's coming to an end. Why?

Because in these days, Jesus is pressing in to prepare His Bride.

The fundamental VISIBLE manifestation of the INVISIBLE romance of Jesus for His Bride is the romance of His people in their marriages.

Check out Paul's teaching on this relationship in Ephesians 5. In these verses, Paul explains how husbands and wives are supposed to relate together. He uses Jesus' love for HIS Bride (the Church) to explain exactly how a husband is to love HIS bride.

As you read the passage, notice how the pattern Jesus sets is interwoven with how earthly husbands are to care for their wives. This is carried through all the way to the end of the passage where we find these words, taken from the First Wedding:

"For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh." (verse 31)

Read it carefully because here's the kicker: exactly who is Paul referring to here in verse 31? Husbands and wives? Nope. Next verse, "This is a profound mystery -- but I am talking about Christ and the Church."

In this passage, Paul parallels our earthly, marital relationships with that of Jesus and His Bride -- even to the "leave and cleave" formula for marriage. Now, tie this in with the principle in 1 John 4 of the visible and the invisible:

"If someone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen." (verse 20)

There's a spiritual principle here: We can gauge how well we're doing in our invisible relationship to God by looking at how well we're doing in our visible relationships to our brothers and sisters. That principle applies as well here in the Ephesians passage -- we are to love our spouses as Jesus loves His Bride.

Here's the mind-blowing question -- the question that's really going to raise the hackles of ministers everywhere:

How strong and healthy is your relationship with your spouse? How's the intimacy between you and your spouse?

That's how well your true intimacy between God and you is doing.

The quality of our intimacy with God will determine the quality of our ministries. We can NOT effectively minister out of principle; we can NOT effectively minister out of formula.We can only minister effectively out of intimacy with God.

And the old formula which allows ministers to drift spiritually apart from their visible spouses and yet somehow keep ministering through our invisible Spouse doesn't work any longer. The reason it's no longer acceptable? Because in these days, Jesus is preparing His Bride -- He's calling to His Bride to prepare herself for the Wedding.

In other words: part of the main thrust of Jesus today is raising up His Bride. We can NOT be a part of this move if we despise or ignore our spousal relationships!

Let's go one step farther:

The relationship we have with our spouses IS the relationship we have with the Bridegroom! The relationship is one and the same -- just taken in two different dimensions. Intimacy in the horizontal is called "marriage". Intimacy in the vertical is called "the Bride and Christ".

One closing point -- possibly the VERY MOST IMPORTANT POINT:Do you want to improve the intimacy of your relationship with God? Then determine to improve the intimacy of your relationship with your spouse!

If that's what you want, then INVEST in romance with your spouse! PURSUE love with your spouse and you'll CATCH GOD in the process! You don't even have to "think religious thoughts" like, "I'm taking my spouse on a date tonight, a time of sweet intimacy, because I'm pursuing God." Dump the religiosity. Just pursue your spouse with your whole heart, mind and soul and you'll find God, because in the Age of Christ and the Bride, intimacy works on both levels simultaneously.

And in the intimacy of Christ and His Bride, we'll be empowered for ministry like never before. Christ will be glorified and we'll have a whole lot of fun along the way!

Emil & Michele Swift
Em&M Ministries

The Coming Kingdom Belongs to Risk-Takers

Many Voices in the Body of Christ today consider the next, great season of change is already begun. Here's a quick note to alert KingdomScribes to keep their heads up to these transformations in the Church.

Let's look at yesterday's world and today's world. In yesterday's world, mainstream churches (Evangelicals, Pentecostals, etc.) dominated the overall ministry of the church. Then, in the '60s, the true "ministry" of the Church increasingly came from what (for lack of any better term) were called, "para-church ministries". These were organizations that were more-or-less tied to mainstream churches, but were run mostly by laity -- not professional clergy.

Back then, many professional clergy warned that allowing effective ministry to be "divorced" from local church control could result in ministries having no accountability. What para-church ministries actually did (apart from some notably bad examples) was set up oversight organizations (financial and otherwise) and thus became accountable to their peers.

In the '70s, the Charismatic movement and Jesus People revival drew tens of thousands of people out of mainstream churches. Many began to fellowship primarily in para-church organizations while others made their ways into newly started independent fellowships.

In a sense -- if you likened the mainstream churches to wineskins -- one could say these "skins" were leaking badly. But today, the spiritual situation isn't becoming easier on mainstream churches; the Spirit of God is initiating Change in the Church faster than old "skins" can adapt. The transformations sweeping through multiple thousands of Believers today are leading individual Christians into lifestyles of intimacy with God and unity with other Believers that leave traditional boundaries and barriers in the dust. God is "networking" the lives of hundreds of thousands of independent Believers in the Spirit -- and electronically as well -- in the blogs, websites and e-mails of millions of interconnected Believers. Their Passion is a spirit-empowered torrent, flooding out past traditional boundaries of denomination, ethnicity, culture and region.

There's a Move of the Spirit that's emerging -- like a progressively rendered image that will soon "snap into focus". As we begin to commune with Brothers and Sisters across all boundaries, we'll increasinly hear the Voice of God as He speaks out of Uganda, out of New York, out of Bad Ridge (KY), out of China -- one nation and tribe in Christ, a Kingdom rising as does the Sun from dawn till noon day.

This Move of the Spirit will not appear in its mature form from any mainstream venue. The large church organizations will continue to struggle with how to direct, control or even capitalize on this next generation of ministry. But the current Move of the Holy Spirit -- as Jesus warned two millennia ago -- is unavoidably disruptive. It will not fit within existing religious systems (whether systems of organization, doctrine or methodology.) This growing Kingdom will belong to young Believers who have nothing to lose -- no "skins" to protect. And this Kingdom will belong to risk-takers, drawn from amongst the mainstream churches, a new generation of youth who are more willing to live for the future than for the past.

Emil & Michele Swift
Em&M Ministries
www.KingdomScribes.InJesus.com

Schindler's List, Take Two

We sent out a newsletter (posted over on our InJesus site) about the significance of Terri's murder, here in America. We do not feel the importance of this event can be exaggerated. Especially because of a Word given to us two years ago by Don Pirocek, details below. If you did not receive the "Schindler's List, Take Two" but do want to read it, just go to our newsgroup and scroll to the lower part of the home page to find the newsletter,

Schindler's List, Take Two.

Here's the closing comments from that posting:

Terri Schindler could easily be the first martyr to a new holocaust. Oh --don't you realize, the common people in Germany pooh-poohed the warnings about Hitler's Culture of Death? What "holocaust"?

But American society has continued to expand the group of people who can be legally killed --simply due to some social "inconvenience" and as long as a judge can be found, who's willing to believe such people should die.

The Netherlands became the first nation to legalize euthanasia --the first nation, since Nazi Germany! One Dutch official (a defender of euthanasia) admitted that since 1990, thousands of persons --most of them elderly and without their consent or even the knowledge of their families --have been killed.

As our Chief Executive said, as a nation of freedom and a refuge for the oppressed, if we are going to err, let us err on the side of life.

A Note for Our Regulars: Two years ago, a prophet from Spokane (Don Pirocek) who did not know us at all, prophesied a number of things very accurately. One thing he said that made no sense to me at all, though, may become meaningful in upcoming years: He said we would be used by God to minister to "Holocaust people". "Holocaust"? Jews from WWII Germany? Something to Israel? But today, I wonder if the Lord isn't raising up intercessors, church leaders and Kingdom Saints and Scribes to prevent the uprising of another, world-wide "holocaust" -- an international Culture of Death for the weak and unprotected in our society?

Can't happen here in America?

Well -- neither can legalized murder -- until today.

Emil & Michele
Em&M Ministries
www.KingdomScribes.InJesus.com