Colin Brown: "Rebooting" the Church: Changing Times and Changing Seasons

We are at the threshold of 2014, and as we enter into the New Year and thereafter, we are coming upon the "rebooting" of the Church: The changing of the times and changing of the seasons (see Daniel 2:21-22)
There is an intense yet glorious transition we are at, just as there is at the time of the birth of a child. We are at a "new" Jordan River, where our life is laid down that Another's is raised up – the life of Jesus!
Let me assure you that the Lord is preparing His way in His people in order that they prepare His way for others. The spirit and power of Elijah is coming upon and in the Church. "Make straight the way for the Lord" (John 1:23).
The Spirit and humility of the Messiah, our Lord Jesus, in the Jordan, is at hand to totally renew, reawaken, and revive the members of His Body.
The sheer weight of the glory of the Lord being revealed (see Isaiah 60:1-3) will totally replace the Church's lens through which we have so long seen Church (in how we view it).
A Kingdom lens will become our new primary lens. Our focus and ways will be that of a Kingdom that cannot be shaken, through seeing and being a city of living stones that God is building.
The year 2014 will be extraordinary in the greater clarity with which we will see. It is already coming upon us! Just as the light of the dawning of a new day precedes the source of its light, giving us the ability to see what we had not seen near so well previously.
A radical "new Church" is at hand, surpassing the welcome impact of that previous movement, through men and women of God (younger and older) with a heart such as pastor Chuck Smith's. A new, real, and bold Church is being raised up. These "foolish...weak...lowly...and the despised" (1 Corinthians 1:27-28) will walk in authenticity, simplicity, power, wisdom, and peace, seeing Jesus change lives, as He did their own, in a way that nothing else does and no one else can.
The love, freedom, and grace that they will display, which they have in Jesus, will re-landscape the form of the former things that have been without the power to bring change. The Word will become flesh in the Body again, even among those the Church has not previously received as "one of the least of these brothers and sisters of Mine" (Matthew 25:40, 45). The Lord Jesus will be seen and known to be truly alive, truly Lord, and truly good in and through His people, and those who don't know Him will see Him as He is, in His people.
This "rebooting" will usher in numerous and countless new wineskin Believers, prodigals, and sons and daughters who have deeply longed to be able to be at home in who they are, and as they see, with the grace with which they are given.
The reality of the "living stones [who] are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 2:5) is coming of age through all those walking in the reality of dwelling "in Christ." A worldwide fellowship of Believers dwelling in the shelter of the Most High and resting in the shadow of the Almighty (see Psalm 91) is emerging.
Colin Brown
Grace Church | Iron Sharpens Iron | Kingdom's Call
Email: ctmbrown@bigpond.com
Website: outsidethecamp.com.au