4 The Jesus Way

4.1. His Dance: The Ecosystem

Jesus was clear in both example and teaching, as were His chosen apprentices: “I will Build My Ecosystem, THE Dance,” not an atten-‘dance’ System.

There is no way to be honest and ignore the current and historic cringe fruit of centuries of attendance-clergy-leaven—the devolution of that which Jesus brought us from Heaven.

4.2. Plain Humans, Until We’re Not

I know, I know. We are all “just plain humans.” What else does He have but just lil ole us? But, that’s the gas! His Plan that “astounds even the angels!” And, yes, angels are real too. Valid.

We have our depression, fears, pride from insecurity, our unfortunate dog water language, immodesty, bad (unChristlike) habits, our defensiveness and our vanity.

We are bundled still with pride from delusion, yet-difficult vices, hyper-religious brains, hyper-legalistic brains, hyper-imaginative brains.

We have all our learned nonsense and inherited DNA damage. But He wants to be our friend, help us to laugh at ourselves, and make us into His Image—into “the family likeness of His Son, Jesus.”

He washes us clean so that by His Spirit and His Zoe Life we can live as He lived and become more and more like Him in heart, mind and character. He didn’t come just to save us. He came to change us, SO THAT we can complete His Purpose of “setting captives free” by His Body, His People, His Priesthood of all believers, by His Spirit.

He came to show us how to live by His Supernatural Heavenly source, instead of just be a mere mortal, natural man. But that CANNOT happen in a holy day attendance system. He Designed us for daily Ecosystem. We CANNOT change fast enough or with Truth on our own or at a meeting or bible study. He Designed us for Ecosystem. “One hundred mothers, brothers, sisters, lands, possessions and Zoe Life.”

Fire, yeah? Yeah. You know it.

4.3. His Holy Spirit Rainforest

He’s taking all of us and teaching us how to open our hands and trust quietly, and together.

So please, get out of the movement mentality. Get out of the “hide in the ritual” emotional and intellectual laziness. Don’t settle for the cool word studies in the Greek. Stop grabbing lingo and inserting it into a System that Biblically shouldn’t exist. You, and your children and all who are far off... deserve Better, deserve all of Him. His Design is His Ecosystem of Life.

The System can be a bit helpful, sometimes, like a great accidental golf shot with a terrible swing. It’s not true feedback, though. Don’t be satisfied. Wait till you see how ugly your “swing” video is from an outside perspective. “Real versus Feel” is an actual slogan.

Accidental successes are God’s Grace, not God’s Plan for His Church and the World. “All creation groans for bible studies and worship bands for three services on Sunday and 90% world-living people who are nothing like the Son in their real life”? That is NOT His Plan, though He is kind and generous.

Giving us what we want, as He gave Saul to Israel, because they wanted to be like the other world religions, doesn’t mean God is a fan of our ideas—or that there won’t be consequences. GOD wants an Ecosystem to grow up His People to their full potential. His Intent, His Design is to get us into the “Stature of Christ,” His Son, to bear HIS fruit naturally without programs and speeches and holy days! Those are not His Design.

So, are ritual and systems and hype-services and attendance all bad? “Certainly not!” Sincere individuals in the System are often “preserved in formaldehyde” or “pickled” and protected by cultivating their own relationship with God. They certainly get some Treasure in a “service/mass” or “Bible Study.” Maybe they deeply need or appreciate the timely Truth they hear, and cry during “worship” because of recent failure or tragedy. Perhaps they apply the moments they met God in real life, on their own.

But, that is not God’s Plan. There should be and can be TWENTY of those Opportunities every week of their life, undiluted by a thousand worldly killers.

As with life in the rainforest ecosystem, if we are in a Jesus Ecosystem, we are always “conscious of God” and in the middle of His growing Life, “called alongside one another daily for admonishing and encouraging,” “iron sharpening iron,” “faithful are the wounds of a friend.” “From one degree of Glory to another.”

4.4 If Jesus Gags, We Must Gag

What makes Jesus sick to His stomach? Even in the good moments of the Attendance/Clergy System, there is “leaven in the batch,” as the Bible calls it. The “lukewarm” is a mixture of a little hot and a little cold. Jesus said He will vomit lukewarm mixture out. Now, why is that? “Isn’t that extra big yikes overreaction, Jesus?”

It’s obviously not an overreaction by Jesus, because He isn’t like that. If it shocks us, we should find out why, because He’s right and we’re wayyyy less right.

Let’s say it: we are wrong if we think He is.

His gag response to a “congregation” with “a little hot and a little cold” is because HE KNOWS what will happen... “A little leaven,” “a little poison,” spreads and damages everyone, whether they want to be affected, or not. It kills young people, whether we realize it, or can put our finger on “how”! Jesus taught this and He Sees it so clearly, even if we don’t see it or agree.

We think, arrogantly, we can “eat the meat and spit out the bones.” NO, YOU CAN’T. God said, “Get the leaven out of the batch.” God said, stone the rebel “Achan” (from the town of Ai, the other Ai), who hid sin in his tent, in Joshua 7, or he will damage EVERYONE. “One hidden act can lead to God’s judgment and eventually system-wide failure.” God said, “Get him out, or you will all pay for it!”

God says the same today, about hidden, compromised, uncommitted lives amongst us, with whom we have continued relationship.

For those who are truly washed in Jesus’ Blood (because they truly surrendered their lives to Him), weakness and failure are not leaven any longer. Weakness and immaturity are not leaven. Hating Light, exposure, and change is leaven. The “verdict” as Jesus called it, is “loving the light.” That’s the test. Not performance or perfection. Hidden sin, darkness-loving, compromising, partially committed... Was Jesus “unfair” to the rich young ruler and others? No way. Simply put, our standard of “well-meaning” and “nice person” are NOT God’s standard. And, we would be playing god to misrepresent Him, whether we “get it” or not.

Lukewarmness in the “Church” diminishes all the good people by orders of magnitude in the potential outcome of their lives. Who they “might have turned out to be” is destroyed, Jesus said, by even one lone Achan who changed the Standard from what God said. False pity, Saul-sacrifice excuses. “God will understand my situation”—don’t go there.

God didn’t strike Achan dead. Or Ananias and Sapphira, per se. God had His People deal with it. And the same is true today. In the Ecosystem of “daily in public places and different homes” we “admonish, encourage, talk and apply Jesus’ truths to one another daily in the midst of fun great productive creative living and families and careers—so that none are hardened by sin and deceived. Lives are Changed by His daring Design—that can never be changed otherwise.

Even language and attitude can be leaven. Paul said, “Warn a divisive, combative, treacherous person once, a second time, and then have nothing to do with them.” There are many such examples. 1 Cor. 5, 2 Cor. 2, and 2 Cor. 7 are all about the same person in Corinth, who, after being dealt with as leaven as God commanded, turned it around and his soul was saved! So, why not try? God commanded it, in HIS Ecosystem. Pruning is for the Good, not some ugly command by an uncaring God. Live it. Dare. And all the rest of us learn from the clarity.

We are not innocent if we build unbiblically in a System. There is NO way to know if there is leaven or weakness or posing in an attendance-based clergy-based system. Often there is even lack of conversion on the part of some cultural “attenders.” This poor quality of life in the things we call “churches” is robbing everyone, from the children to the oldest so-called “members.”

And, in that case, we are immensely diminished before we start. NO one will reach even half of their potential to be like Jesus, in the System that defies Hebrews 3:12-14. “Not knowing” about internal worldliness or neglect because it was hidden by those who had a reason to hide it is not an excuse to protect lukewarmness. The System hides sin and unconversion, stunts growth, and kills young people and marriages.

Because we have adopted and adapted to the culture and the world religious system in “attendance-based” religion instead of “DAILY in public places and from house to house, with no program or attendance or assigned leader except Jesus,” we will continue to lose the 70-90% of young people and 50% of marriages. (Barna, Lifeway, Graham, Promise Keepers, etc.)

4.5. Moving Forward

Never be, though, the angry young woman or angry young man. Just be God’s man or God’s woman, or God’s young maturing warrior. Peacefully, humbly.

You want to “turn over tables” really? Like the Carpenter Jesus, we all know that buying and selling books and music, and indulgences, is cringe, and rage bait in the Heavenlies. We already KNOW Jesus, John, Paul, Peter would never have SOLD their book, music or teaching, taken “love offerings,” or signed autographs. Got it.

But be patient. Let “zeal for the Father’s house” consume you. Not your ego or fear or impatience or rep or brand.

Don’t compromise, but do be kind. While we need to move on and do the Right things for Jesus, and for the future of everyone, that doesn’t mean bringing anyone else down on the way.

We need to quit taking ourselves so seriously, and the try-hard princess stuff.

4.6. Growing in Jesus’ Character

Yes, we are human. If we’re Delivered and Washed by abandonment to Jesus the King, and therefore have His Spirit in us now, we are no longer just mammal DNA. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have a lot of changing to do, still.

And now, when your insides are screaming or crying, when you’re coming apart in whatever kind of pain you experience… you can call on the Name of the Lord, and still put Jesus and others first. You don’t have to be a brat or fall apart anymore. Grow.

In an Ecosystem we all help each other BE, not just think we “know” some stuff. “Knowing stuff” in the head but not pursuing Life... is the wrong Tree in the Garden. Knowing is very different from Becoming.

Jesus showed us how to respond under pressure while “among us.” He showed us how to look into the eyes of those around us and feel their obstacles. Submitting to His love and life and Spirit minute-by-minute, we will be that kind of People, a Royal Priesthood, also.

4.7. The Only Acceptable Outcome

Being a “man OF God” or “woman OF God” is the only possible acceptable outcome for your life and our generation.

This book is about, in both a symbolic and an experiential way, a return to the Garden of Eden, doing it right this time, in Jesus.

We now have another opportunity to choose the Tree of Life—to walk in our intended home, the “Garden of Eden,” in deep relationship and fellowship with Him and each other.

We need to be done with the Tree of Knowledge, the Tree of self-justification, pride, ambition, brainy religion, emotional religion, lust, greed, and lack of accountability.

How do we Get to where Jesus came to bring us?

We are about to talk about that!

4.8. There Is More

There is MORE! (For those still wondering...)
No? You don’t think so?
Are you saying there is NOT more?

“All is well, as is.” Are you really going on record with that testimony? You say, “All is exactly how Jesus Intends the church to Be, fundamentally and practically,” and you insist this, with perhaps some level of indignation and protection mechanism?

Are you upset that anyone would suggest that fundamentally GOD WANTS MORE THAN THIS, and Jesus has a Way that has barely even been explored?

“But otherwise, we’ve got it all right, so y’all shut up and sit down and blend in, or you’ll get the boot at a secret meeting with the clergy boss man, or his assistant titled guy so Boss man doesn’t get his hands dirty.” Of course, this is labeled as for the greater good, and insidious rumors are hinted at, so “You don’t need to know why they aren’t ‘attending’ anymore.”

They questioned whether Jesus has MORE for us, and you were insulted and felt threatened, so they secretly got “the left foot of fellowship.”

“All is fine, as is.” Good grief. Surely, you’re not going to pick THAT hill to die on.

But together we ain’t living it much at all, generally speaking of the centuries and nations of the earth. Why not? We should talk.

Attending on a Sunday, while mixing leaven, light and darkness and gray, hot and cold and lukewarm, into the pews or folding chairs, is forbidden by Jesus Himself. Just because we don’t know what to do about it, or can’t see it because we have an “attendance/clergy” blindfold on, doesn’t mean we get to ignore His Commands.

We love our “Science” in the West, so here is some o’ dat for you.

If Jesus said, “Get the Leaven out of the batch” and is sickened by a “church” with hot and cold lives mixed together (lukewarm), and you can’t get leaven or cold or lukewarm out on a Sunday morning, then the paradigm, the System is NOT what Jesus brought to earth in the first place. If you can’t obey a command to “remove the leaven” without the Gestapo “guessing,” and non-redemptive legalism and rules and bias taking over, then we built it wrong in the first place! Coups and chaos, powerplays and pesos. Really? We KNOW we can’t go there.

We also know we can’t disobey Jesus about solving the “Achan” hidden problems either. We cannot ignore it without huge consequences from God, and with our children and our Testimony to the atheists and our young, and the “religions” of the world that aren’t Jesus.

So! Reevaluate System versus Ecosystem and quit defending the “little bit of Good” that the System does. OF COURSE it does. But the good hearts will be forever stunted, like a baby wrapped in a blanket and fed cotton candy until it’s twenty years old, never allowed out of the crib. And the posers and fakers and the ignorantly unsaved will never have a chance to be convicted by practical examples over time in their lives—in their homes and workplaces, with their tempers or their eyes or their mouths or their greed or pride. NO ONE SEES THAT on Sundays. And no one is a Priest except the paid guy running the show. So, it won’t change, probably, or much.

And the atheist and teen and Hindu will go on feeling justified and bored by the System that breeds hypocrisy and attempts to blow it away by turning up the worship music on Sunday.

Wrong paradigm. The System is not what Jesus brought from Heaven. No way. Don’t die on that hill. Have some courage. And intellectual and spiritual honesty. The Ecosystem that solves the paradigm problem and allows the puzzle to fit together is a Priesthood of Believers, and many fluid, organic Gifts, inside of daily Heb.3:12-14 Ecosystem Life.

Don’t suggest this is what we see around us today. It’s not. You know it, and any honest observer time-traveler from Acts 2 and the first century would believe today to be a mere shell of the JESUS-LIFE they witnessed when the apprentices Jesus trained in person were doing what He did, and teaching what He lived and taught. He left His Spirit in His Body, to be HIM until He returns. Read Acts 2:36-47 again and see what Jesus living inside of His Body really looks like.

4.9. The World Must See Jesus In Us! Not “For” Him. HIM!

Even in our culture it can be incredible, rich Together-Life, “in the world, but not of the world.” There are those of us who have been living Ecosystem, the “time-traveler” would agree, since 1985-ish, 40 years plus. No clergy or appointed or expected automatic “leader,” but a kingdom of priests. No ceremony or religious building or scheduled anything, but daily Life in a fluid, unpredictable, no-rules-or-controls way.

A no-program Life, with “ever-increasing Glory.” Children and grandchildren, too, now, and virtually no “sowing wild oats” (though humans are tempted of course, both young or old). THAT “young people HAVE to defile themselves and rebel against God who made them” is an excuse, made by those in the System who CAN’T show the young people a daily Jesus.

1 Cor. 14, “When Revelation comes to the second, let the first one sit down.” When God wants to throw in a “Yeah but” or a “True, but what about” and a “That made me think of this Scripture and a thing that happened to me yesterday,” LET THE FIRST ONE SIT DOWN! That Priesthood of all Saved is where Jesus’ Spirit is free to raise up or sit down and present us with creative Opportunities to See and Grow, a hundred times a day between all the Priesthood of Followers of Jesus. And if the “next one to speak” is a fraud as seen in his daily life in the daily Ecosystem where he is not absent or invisible, someone will likely pull him aside and say, “Are you SURE, with your life as it currently is, that you should be grabbing the microphone and pontificating, bro?”

We are still learning and growing more every year. And we always will be. The “Full measure of the stature of Christ” is an infinitely powerful and rich journey with no end. ZOE. But the Plan is the ECOSYSTEM, or it is a self-defeating feel-good System, meant to placate or promote someone or something.

Jesus is AMAZING. Humans historically are not amazing. And yet, His Body was Designed to look like Him, “the family likeness” in both Salvation status and in Life Together.

None of us are all that yet, but we are meant, as we Grow in awe of Him and “walk in the Light” in our daily Life Together, to “shine like stars in the universe.”

Just sayin’.

Pounding and carving the puzzle pieces of verse-plucking Scripture to a desired “shape” to fit into the “picture” we want to create isn’t honest. That’s an L. Ignoring the Real picture of the Life of Jesus and that Life poured out over sixty years of Writing in the New Testament, to create the picture we want to end up with… is not honest.

What if I had puzzle pieces to make a photo of the only racehorse that had won all the big races in the world (the Kentucky Derby, the Triple Crown, the Mongol Derby, and the UAE Derby), but I wanted the puzzle to end up being a picture of a Ford Pickup Truck? Is it really honest to cut up and pound the pieces to make the picture I want? It can’t work anyway!

Remember “The Emperor Has No Clothes” parable?

Unless we are trying really hard to be dishonest, because we have the agenda of a desired outcome, the Picture needs to be ONLY what the Designer intended. And we get to look at “the picture on the puzzle box”: Acts 2:36-47. And there are fifty-nine “One-another” verses, and much more. We get to see what Jesus’ Life in His current Body is supposed to Be, unless we have on the wrong glasses prescription and the “coke bottle lenses” have confused us and thrown us off balance.