²⁰ And are built upon the foundation of the ⁱapostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; ²¹ In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: ²² In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

 The Holy Bible: King James Version. (2009). (Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version., Eph 2:20–22). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

This Scripture is taken from Ephesians 2:20 and in part explains the purpose of God for His Church, because the Church is the key determining collective besides the remnant of Israel to determine the End Time agenda. The stature of the Church in Christ in it becoming the Bride and ready to unify to Her lover is one of the key factor in the kairos time of Jesus’ appearing. In fact when you take Matthew 25 in context with the way illuminated by the virgins we do not see evidence for a rapture. Not the rapture which many have interpreted to be a sign of Jesus’ coming. Our traditional interpretation seems to be a mixture of tradition and supposition. In this series we must decipher in the Scriptures to get what must take place for Jesus to appear and wrap up the age. In this way we offload a lot of tradition we have accumulated.

Grows together unto a holy temple in the Lord

This holy temple is built upon our corporate growth which Ephesians 4:11-15 speaks

Our growth is dependent of the image we are growing into, the Body of Christ being the image of Him who created her. That image being Christ Himself. The symbols presented for the Church, being the Body, represents the extension of Christ’s being in the earth in each generation. The Bride represents the eternal union she will have with Christ in eternity. In each symbol, in each reality we speak in metaphors we are describing the kind of relationship we are TO Him. Then in the verse we have quoted above, I believe it speaks to God’s purpose for the last 2000 years until Jesus appears. It speaks to a collective growth to be a temple. The sense being a temple being the place dedicated to execute service to God to receive His approval and to worship Him and interact with Him. It is a place He puts His name, and from that place He answers prayer in favour of the nations. The Scripture coming to mind that Jesus quoted as He expelled the moneychangers “My house shall be called a House of Prayer for all nations” being Jesus’ own description of His temple to His purpose. If what He said there is any indication is that the Church is the Temple as a House of Prayer for all nations, where collective prayer is blessed, and heard by God. In 2 Chronicles 7 we see an indication of what God has done, and wants to do again, compare the manifestations here in the passage with those in Acts 2, they appear. God desires to bring His fire down, and fill His Temple with His Glory. In any given generation.

This is conditional in the word “together”, because it denotes a unity which Ephesians 4 goes to stress. When you consider that today there are 44 thousand denominations, we are far from unity. Yes, 44000 denominations! What an indictment to our lack of the spirit of unity. Unity is a spirit, and when we quench the Holy Spirit we come into a place where that unity no longer connects us together. Then divisions appear, and this has happened with the guise of new “revelations” and “interpretations”. I sense unless the spirit of unity is restored in the Body there will be no growing together unto the Temple of God. This is a crucial process so that Jesus can return and wrap up this creation and bring in a New Heaven and New Earth.

Builds together unto a habitation of the Lord in the Spirit

We need to transition so that the Church can be a place where God can live and move and Have His Being

We majored on visitations, they came and went. The state of nations, regions and cities after the revival ended was worse before the revival came. The reason they came and went is the momentum built up of prayer, and seeking God, then a momentum is built up and then the spiritual investment declines as we depend upon the momentum built up spiritually. The Lord began to map out with me one day meditating on this fact, that He always desired to transition us away from visitation to habitation , and from this habitation come manifestation. In fact in many ministries I have come to know, the difficulties we all experience, the temptations, the sins, we all are ignorant that God wants to wean us from seeking His visitation, because when He visits He is not a permanent resident, He is a visitor. We desire Him to be a permanent resident of our habitation in Him. For that to happen we must keep up our devotion to Him. This word is hardly understood today. In fact when we speak about ministry, we focus on our serving others, like preaching, being in a worship ministry, discipling others, having a role. With the concept of devotion we see this from a different place, we see it from a place of our ministering to the Lord, like Mary washing the feet of Jesus, ministering to Him, blessing Him, loving Him. We have become so self centered sometimes that we focus on our needs. Jesus desires our fellowship. He is not there to fulfil our needs. Our vision is not about what we are to achieve, but what He is about to do. If we turn into God’s House, we become immersed in His activities. That way we can manifest His will in our generation. So in the measure the Church becomes His Habitation from the realm of the Spirit we will see a new realm and evidence of Jesus coming to earth. It is conditional and crucial on the Church to occupy this truth. In the last section we saw UNITY, in this section we see LOVE. These are two things we need to grow into and walk out.

As the Church focusses on Christ and grow into His Stature so it will interact with her end time role as Christ manifests the fullness of Kingdom

The principle of fullness and vision are crucial to fulfil the conditions for Jesus to return

Ephesians 4:11-15 speaks of fulness, stature, faith, knowledge of the Son of God. We need to see Jesus as He is now, not focus our Word-view merely what Jesus was in the Gospels. We need to understand what the writer to the Hebrews speaks what Jesus is doing now. He is exercising a High Priestly ministry before the Father. Yet in Revelation when John comes face to face with Him, and journeys with His angel through Heaven so the Church must come face to face with this end time King and Lord. Our end times theology has focussed upon what the antichrist will do, the Beast and the False prophet, yet we do not place Jesus as John does in Revelation. He places Him first, and what happens from the Throne. This is the encounter we need as a Church. That way we will see that our role with Christ is crucial for the wrapping up of this heaven and earth. There are 3 steps to Jesus’ return, in that He will come TO us so He can come FOR us, then we shall come WITH Him to reign with Him over all. This interaction is crucial for our end times contextual study make sense. God will not do anything dislocated from His two covenant peoples. In Zechariah 4 we see who they are. They are contributing to the Foundation we see there, then they manifest as “sons of oil” being they have a descendence from the anointing they represent. They are foundational for the things God will do in the earth which will become brought to fulness in them being the 2 witnesses of Revelation 11.

The end times are all about fulness, because the fulness of our love for Christ, our witness for Him brings Him manifest. This word “pleroma”, Greek for fulness is crucial for the things and the shifts God brings in when He changes things upon the earth. A weak prayerless Church opens the door for all types of wickedness. A strong Church resists wickedness and brings confrontation. In the Hebrides Revival, the presence of God was so strong that people let go of their addictions, confessed their crimes, and devoted their days and work to God. The prisons, pubs closed and became places of prayer. This is evidence of the vital role the Church plays. The Key here in this section is KNOWLEDGE.

Concluding words

The Church must transition from immaturity to maturity, from weakness to strength, from self centredness to Christ centredness.

The word that needs to be remembered from this message is TRANSITION. As the Church transitions, the Lord comes near. It is conditional. Let us pray that we come into UNITY, LOVE and KNOWLEDGE. This transition will enable the Church to call for the Lord to come, when in Revelation 22:16, the Spirit and the Bride cry out “come”. This cry is one that knows what it is crying for, because in the same Spirit the Church has interacted with Jesus, but now calls out for His fulness. May He come quickly.

Shalom.