What does it mean to be the Lord’s recovery? It begins with an understanding that there is something humanity has lost. As the church, we hold today not only an understanding of the problem, but also the answer: we are the entrance into the recovery of humanity back to its original purpose. The church is fighting to live out a real and divine marital life together, an abode for God and man on the earth. The whole world has given away that integrity of our human purpose in exchange for the easy comfort and convenience of an independent life. But who will fight for this now strange idea — God’s plan — of God and man forever living together as one (Gen. 2:24; 1 Cor. 6:17)? Where are those who see the vision and seek to please the Lord according to what He is looking for?
This divine marriage requires an incredibly high standard of us to say no to the world, defeat the flesh, and allow this divinity to be expressed perfectly through our humanity. But most believers make a fatal error: they treat this privilege to live in the new creation (Gal. 6:15-16) as just another difficult demand, another heavy burden to carry. Just as the Israelites turned the Ten Commandments, statutes, and ordinances into an impossible law to keep, we do the same to the Lord’s words: we try painfully to deny ourselves, bear our cross, and lose our soul-life (Matt. 16:24-25). His yoke that should be easy and light becomes an unbearable weight (11:29-30). What may have begun as a sweet relationship of love sadly turns into a dry religion of moral duty.
Thankfully, this wonderful, living Person — Christ, the Son of God — has come to rescue us out of this evil religious age (Gal. 1:4)! Why have we been so foolish to remove ourselves from Him, perverting the true gospel (v. 7)? He is a Person — our Savior, our Lord, our Beloved, our Life. And a person is much more than a list of “dos” or “don’ts” — you cannot “keep” life the way you “keep” rules or laws. The way to be recovered is simply to be in this relationship. When we are in love to the point that in everything we consider this Person, then our yoke is easy and our burden is light. And when we mind this high and powerful Life in us — the Spirit in our spirit — then spontaneously an equally high and powerful living will flow out (5:22). This living is nothing but what He purposed for us from the very beginning: a human life exercised in joy, overcoming, and reigning on the earth.
The true recovery is that He is real to us — not in doctrine nor format, religious rituals nor moral duties, but in reality. The church life is a marriage life, a mingled living of God and man. And so our consecrated living together is not some calculated risk-benefit analysis of what might make us happy or a trial-and-error approach to finding a good church. It is simply a marriage, where there are no calculations or unnecessary opinions — just powerful, sometimes inexplicable and even illogical love between God and His people. If there are those still willing to fight for it, come with us! Come with us out of the degraded value of the world to become an enterable and open display of Christ and His corporate Bride, a true living and walking by the Spirit (v. 16)!
(Above are notes of fellowship taken from a gathering on 12/22/2024, not reviewed by the speaker.)