What is “The Real Thing”?
Regarding the walking out of biblical discipleship, I mention “the real thing” a few times on my homepage, Discipleship or Apostasy, and I give a few general ideas about what it involves.
In this post, I want to relate a story, from my time in the Republic of Georgia (former Soviet Union), to give one of many actual examples showing what the Lord can and will do among His people who seek to walk with Him, rather than just attend meetings.
I had a home-fellowship group of around forty people. Out of the forty, there were about 6-7 who were interested in pursuing true discipleship. After our Sunday meetings (I was still into the “Church” mentality) I would go out, at times, with between one and three of these believers. We simply were making ourselves available to the Lord, and we saw Him move in obvious ways on many occasions.
One Sunday, three of my friends and I prayed after the fellowship, asking the Lord what He wanted us to do. After we prayed, one of them said, “Why don’t we go over to the Adjara Hotel?” We all agreed.
There were two major hotels in the capital, Tbilisi, at that time, and they were currently housing only refugees from the western part of the country. There was civil unrest in the country, and things were pretty messy. I won’t go into detail about that here.
We went over to the hotel and met a man outside. We engaged with him about the things of the Lord for around thirty minutes, when he suddenly said he had to go. We tried keeping him with us, to no avail; he was gone.
Perplexed by the man’s quick departure, we decided to go into the lobby where we got on an elevator with around seven other people. The elevator stopped on the fifth floor where an older woman got off. My friend, Nana, whispered, “Let’s follow her.” The four of us did.
The woman entered a room and Nana suggested we knock on the door and introduce me as an American now living and working in Georgia. Georgians being very hospitable people, this was not as weird as it sounds.
The woman, Lena, invited us in where there were four other members of her family. We talked for a while and she described some of the horrors of what had happened in western Georgia, forcing the family, along with many other families, to leave. It was a very sad, and gruesome story.
We asked if we could share about Jesus, and what He had done in our lives. The family agreed and listened attentively. As we spoke and shared with them, I could see a light coming on in Lena’s eyes.
When we were finished, Lena asked if she could tell us something, and we agreed, eager to hear what she had to say. The basic thrust of what she shared follows:
“I have been meeting with Jehovah’s Witnesses for the last six months. Recently, they began pressing me for a decision, saying it was time for me to make a commitment.
“I realized they were right. They have been kind to me, and what they have been telling me sounds good; so I’ve prayed recently, asking God to show me whether they were the true and right people to join, or not. If they are right, I wanted to join them. If not, I needed God to show me the truth.”
She paused for a moment, then looked slowly around at the four of us who had come to her room.
Then she said, “And God sent you to me.”
It was an awesome, spine-chilling moment, as we all realized that God had brought us to that hotel, and gotten us into that lobby at the precise moment we needed to be there to get on the elevator with Lena… by causing the man we had been talking with outside to want to suddenly take off. God had spoken to Nana, and given her boldness. It was clearly a “divine appointment”.
Lena joined our home-fellowship group after that, and never in my life, before or since, have I seen someone with such a hunger for the Lord, or such a desire to know and please Him.
Lena died not too long afterward.
Look what the Lord was able to do with four simple people wanting to follow Him, and making themselves available. This kind of experience is simply part of what I now call, “the real thing”.
Oh, Gene, what an awesome sharing! My eyes filled with tears as I read. Oh sweet Lord Jesus, You know everything and will reveal Yourself at the right time every time.
I want to leap out of my skin when I read these things. How can we ever again be satisfied with a milked-down, watery, pathetic, crossless, non-Sovereign, Christ?
Gene, please share more of God in this way as He leads you – we need to hear this – all who read and comment here. All of us have at least one thing that God has done when you know it could not have been done by any other means.
Praise Him!
Gene, Just wondering—-Did an “organized” church support you and your family when you spent the “two best years of your life” in Georgia. Why leave? I know many true Christians who love the Lord and seek His will in thier lives while giving of themselves and attend an ‘organized” church regularly.Think about what M. Patterson and Fleethewrath share with you. I think God is speaking through them.
Lee,
Yes, an organized church DID send us; a church in which I experienced very little genuine fellowship or common vision before, during or after my time in The Republic of Georgia. This is not an uncommon scenario with missionaries and their Churches.
I don’t say that absolutely nothing of value goes on in Churches, or that there are not sincere believers there, giving of themselves.
My whole point, Lee, is: Why SETTLE for a way of being the Body of Christ that is so obviously off the mark of God’s true calling and intentions?
If we will simply LOOK at the word of God, the history of the Church and some simple REALITIES, we can’t escape the conclusion that THIS (the Church as we know it) isn’t IT.
Why must we run and hide from that obvious conclusion? Why the need to prop up, defend and justify our sacred practices and ways that just don’t line up with God’s thought? Just wonderin’.
Perhaps you believe that the Churches ARE on- target with God’s purposes and pattern, or that there ARE problems but they can be addressed and fixed. If so, we probably don’t have much to discuss, because I am long past thinking that.
By the way, fleethewrath and I have personal communications and we are a lot closer in thought and perspective than it may appear here.
I appreciate your input and I’ve seriously wrestled with the issues. I don’t take lightly what I say and do.
Whether we agree or disagree, you are welcome here and I value you as a fellow-believer.
I just want to share a little about a ministry that has been birthed out of an online ministry I’ve run for a number of years, called United in Jesus.
I am still very much part of the institution known as the Church, and have held a role within the worship ministry for some time now. However I must admit that most of my time is spent battling against the system, and doing my best to open believers eyes to the fact that the true Body of Christ goes so much further than the confines of their own church fellowship.
As a result, there are quite a number of us who now meet regularly within the neighbourhood where I live. It is a place where there is in fact no recognised church within the community, and ironically those of us who meet are the only recognised Body locally.
Everything we do is unsupported by any other church or organization. We hold a monthly celebration meeting on a Friday night to openly worship the Lord, and pray fervently for the needs of the community, and also one another’s needs. We regularly have groups walking around the neighbourhood, praying for it’s residents, schools, trouble spots etc., and have started openly engaging other residents regularly. We have also begun to arrange simple events etc., that openly bless those in the community, totally of our own back and without any outside support.
The thing I’d like to make clear however is that, in the few months we’ve started this thing up, I have personally witnessed believers who have been idle for so long, suddenly become filled with a sense of purpose as they have begun to follow the leading of the Spirit of God. I have stood on the still wet blood of the victim of a stabbing at our local shops, alongside some others and cried out for the forgiveness of God to be poured out, and the viciousness of this community to be stilled. And I have witnessed a transformation of those pretending to praise and worship God on a regular Sunday morning, to people who quite literally rejoice with all their heart and soul, with such reverencial fear on display it has amazed me.
In all of this marvellous blessing however, which is so obviously from God, the various churches we “belong” to still just treat the whole thing as a passing fad!
The one thing that has become more obvious than anything else however is this:
Our attitude is that of having a burning desire to take this precious thing we know of as the Gospel out to a community that is in desperate need to feel its touch, at whatever personal cost, and with virtually no recognition. However the attitude of our churches still remains that of having a burning desire to get whoever they can into their congregation.
If a day comes to pass when the church I “belong” to closes, because all of the congregation are too busy living out a life of faith in the community they live, transforming lives with the Gospel truth; then I shall praise God with all of my heart and live to be a very, very happy man!
John,
Kinda sounds to me like the Lord has some of “the real thing” going on over there, in ENGLAND, of all places. How wacky is that?
Thanks for sharing that, John. Major blessing to hear and to know.
I sense, hope and pray that the Lord would move in your midst in even greater love and power, as you make yourselves available to Him as instruments of righteousness; remaining content in anonymity and being viewed as a passing fad.
May our Lord be lifted up and glorified!
Gene –
Thanks again for a great post. Your readings always give me such encouragement – I can only pray and hope that God will some day give me such a boldness in presenting Him.
Sherry,
Do be encouraged, sister.
I believe the Lord will be moving and working through many in these last days, including you, to “present” Himself to a lost and dying world; and when I say “present”, I mean much more than spoken words or words on a Blog page.
Rest in Him. He will bring it to pass.
Hi mate, great testimony. Isn’t it amazing what God is able to do if we are simply willing to step out. We just don’t know what is happening in the lives of others do we, and that’s what makes testimonies like this so encouraging.
I pray whether we are in a church or not, that small groups of passionate believers will rise up and go out in faith and obediance.
Blessings,
Tim