Last year I was given a dream in which I saw a cloud of death sweeping the earth. To escape this cloud, I had to enter a house, which I knew was the house of the Lord. When I got to the door, even though I knew I had the key to the house, I could not find it quickly enough, and the dream ended with me frozen in panic. This dream, along with other words and visions that I received from the Lord, gave me an urgency to encourage all believers to find their place in His house, the church, without delay. Therefore, I cannot apologize if this message seems to be sown somewhere in all of my writings. It is a burden from the Lord that I carry which I know will be life and death for many.
This message, not being in your proper place in the body of Christ, is also stated boldly in the New Testament, such as in I Corinthians 11:25-30:
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.
Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.
But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not judge the body rightly.
For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep.
Paul is talking about the ritual we call communion. The Greek word that is translated "communion" (see I Corinthians 10:16 NKJV) earlier in this chapter and in other places in the New Testament is koinonia, which means far more than just slapping each other on the back and asking how it's going at a meeting once a week. It implies a deep bonding of being joined in a vital life relationship, such as organs in a body which are unique and different, but cannot survive without each other. In fact, the original English word for communion was the result of the words "common" and "union" being merged to form one word, "communion."
In the text above, we are warned that if we partake of the ritual of communion in "an unworthy manner," the consequences are so severe that "for this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep." This is the primary reason why there is so much weakness, sickness, and premature death in the body of Christ today. To partake of the ritual in "an unworthy manner," is to take it without having real communion with the Lord and His body, supposing that performing the ritual is itself the fulfillment of our obligation.
The attempt to substitute rituals for the realities they represent has been one of the primary strongholds that exalts itself against the true knowledge of God throughout Christian history. Rituals are important as reminders of our obligations, but they were never intended to be substitutes for them. This is a most basic form of the antichrist spirit, which is not just that which is opposed to Christ, but is trying to become a substitute for Christ.
If any member of your body gets cut off from the rest of the body, it will become weak and sick, and die very fast. It is the same with members of the Lord's body that lose their vital connection to the rest of the body. Many have been deceived into thinking that they can be joined to the Head without also being joined to His body, but both the Scriptures and reason refute this. One cannot be properly joined to the Head without also being properly joined to the body, as we are told in I John 1:6-7:
but if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
The word that is translated "fellowship" is the same Greek word koinonia. Without koinonia, we cannot fully abide in the light or in the Lord. This is clearly stated in the text above. If you cannot see it, I would keep reading this verse until you do. It is of the most critical importance. We do not want to just understand that this is required, but we need to go out and pursue it, being willing to lay down our lives for the ones that the Lord laid down His life for.
In the dream mentioned in the first paragraph, I had a key for getting into the Lord's house, but could not find it. Next week I will discuss this key and how it relates to us finding our place in the body of Christ.