Understanding the Fruit of Alignment
While we look back at more than 350,000 receiving personal restoration and healing ministry, we also understand that healing a kingdom ministry requires more than the individual healing of its constituent parts.
Ruthanne and I once invested in a costly appliance. It had tremendous functionality, with bells and whistles designed to make our lives more efficient. We paid more to get more efficiency and shelf life.
We were pretty disappointed with the outcome because the appliance didn’t work as advertised.
When the “get this thing fixed” phone call produced a repairman, I was ready for the “just take the thing back and run over it with a Sherman tank” approach. But, instead, the patient repairman calmly pointed out that the appliance was excellent, with no flaws, and capable of doing everything as advertised.
But the initial installation had been faulty.
We often take the approach that preparation is all we need. Installation can put us into our ultimate function or make us look like the little engine that couldn’t.
The Conductor of the Concert
Bringing together an orchestra of amazingly talented, capable professional musicians would produce the ultimate sound–we think. But, unfortunately, it very often does not.
A master conductor does not produce a sound. He doesn’t attempt to control each instrument or musician to force a sound he wants. A master conductor positions every musician and instrument’s master sound so that the whole becomes one sound.
While the extremely few people who even understand or discern the difference can explain this better than we can, the audience subconsciously responds to the sound a master conductor gets from the same musicians a mediocre or self-absorbed conductor aborts.
A master conductor brings each to ultimate while bringing the whole to ultimate. He inspires the best available toward a unified interpretation of the composer’s genius. When genius meets genius, the world stands still to capture the moment.
We weep when we hear this sound.
We tend to see the orchestra as a collection of capable professionals interested in musical precision when the conductor sees them as people of passion. Precision can put you to sleep while passion leaves you breathless with wonder. The “magic” of the performance remains a matter of installing people to release passion.
The Present Condition of Kingdom
I’ve just illustrated what Holy Spirit reveals through Paul in Ephesians.
- The building functional by completed construction to blueprint and battle plan integrity.
- The body functional by prepared and positioned for operational integrity.
- The bride functional by maturity with the Groom to represent the fullness of God’s image on Earth.
At any point, we can mature people to ultimate while installing them to dysfunction. But, unfortunately, the original installation sometimes negates the construction, preparation, and maturation.
You may have a conductor so self-absorbed that he wants all the applause, so you get some really talented people contributing to a sterile performance of precision. This ridiculous limitation is often called “excellence.” So is a well-done funeral.
You can put people into positions because their last names match the family that owns the ministry and get precise puddles of rain-produced runoff. The reason the person is positioned should have nothing to do with that–which means we often do have people with the same family name in leadership but not entitled to a position for which they are not called, gifted, prepared, or functional.
If God includes family members in ministry, obey God but do not cut corners in processing the living stones, body members, and matured bride adornment.
We do not determine the blueprints or battleplans. Instead, we are all part of the proper architectural construction that finishes an ekklesia. We are all part of a preparation and positioning process that provides the Head with a mature, functional body. We are all part of a Bride with more to her repertoire than bedroom performances.
At present, I would suggest that a vast majority of the Remnants have hammered people into a structure that cannot release the ultimate of God’s designs for their contributions to the kingdom.
The moment we move toward correcting this poor installation, the people will begin to respond with passion more than precision, full function more than the appearance of belonging, and the full representation of God’s image of man dominating His Creation.
We are married to Christ for this reason. First, God brought the female He separated back to the male to complete God’s image in man. Now, when the ekklesia marries Christ, He guarantees that the image of God reaches its ultimate in the multiply, replenish, take dominion mandate.
We are prepared and positioned–appropriately aligned with leaders and to all others–for operational integrity as a body. The Head does not expect us to crawl like a baby when He says, “Run!”
We are all living stones in construction. Picture the Chief Cornerstone as a beginning and completion aspect of the finished edifice. When completed, Jesus is a Living Stone set into place that spreads through the building with spiritual power, life, wisdom, and functionality. The ekklesia cannot come alive like that until it is completed.
We have devoted a lot of time to individual citizens, and we are reaping a “what’s in this for me?” consumerism. We taught sonship as entitlement and acted shocked when prodigals wasted the inheritance they were unprepared to invest in whores and strangers instead of a wife with children and a father expanding the estate.
Our mini-movements are one-note Johnny compared to the orchestration available in the kingdom movement. No matter how much we say, “Wow!” about our ultimate levels of individual precision, we fail when we do not produce the orchestrated fullness of the Father’s symphony score.
There are no rock stars in an orchestra, but we continue to put the boy-girl band hipsters into positions they seldom have the wisdom to maintain. Submission to the conductor should release passion as a basis for precision. Looking for a place to solo while counting time while the others play must die–better to include a bit of imprecision with passion than dead-letter sterility.
The Only Strategy for this Installation
The Bible provides one strategy for installing living stones, body parts, and covenantal representation. Nothing the King designed passed away with “when that which is perfect comes” doctrinal idolatry. The very Bible that they say told Jesus to mind His own business while we run the show tells us about ultimate tells us how to install it.
We can never install the ultimate or that “when which is perfect arrives”–which has nothing to do with doing away with grace capacities or kingdom leadership dynamics–when we believe what the Bible tells about kingdom leadership strategy no longer applies.
We cannot orchestrate the tension between individual ultimate and corporate ultimate into a symphonic harmony without the five aspects of the leadership of the King functional from the ground up. So we will always end up with something that cannot function at fullness without the King’s strategies.
