As I continue to drink from the well of understanding of what it means to embrace union with the crucified Christ, I have begun to experience new revelations. Presently being formed in hidden places of darkness, is a people who resemble and carry certain qualities of the Jesus People Movement. But what I am seeing is the emphasis is on a “People Moving and Acting Like Jesus.”
The book of Acts came from a “people who moved in ways of Jesus:”
“And requested letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any there of the Way, either men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem” (Acts 9:2).
These “Jesus People” are being awakened to the revelation of the cross-shaped life and Jesus in His last breath has “exhaled” from the cross, and they have “inhaled” the power of His life (this is in visionary language). They have come into a realization that the power of His Resurrection is to embrace the fellowship of His suffering (Phil. 3:10-11).
They are awakening to the reality that Christ’s death has made His church sacred space holy and set apart—in the world but not of this world—just as Jesus was, because they are learning to move like Him (John 17:14). They are catching the truth that His church is meant to be the embodiment and answer to “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:9-13).
They have come to manifest the power of the lion through union with the suffering of the lamb. It is a “people” who have been empowered to move like Christ as a suffering servant (Isa. 53) so “death works in them, so life can work in others” through the revelation of His body always carrying the death of the Lord Jesus (2 Cor. 4:10-12).
The mark of a Jesus People is the foundation of a crucified life that releases the government of heaven. God’s people are being formed as former foundations are being uprooted, torn down and replanted, as well as rebuilt. Over this people, I keep seeing and hearing these words from Revelation 5:5-6:
“Then one of the elders said to me, ‘Do not weep. Look! The Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals.’ I saw a Lamb in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, standing as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth.”
In this episode of Keys to Walking in Kingdom Culture on the Charisma Podcast Network, the “breath” exhaled by Jesus on the cross and these Jesus people “inhaling” His life, magnifies this part of Revelation: “having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth.” In the midst of darkness, there is a Jesus People being formed to move as Jesus moved. They are embracing a humility and submission to the Father that will manifest a level of glory corporately that cannot be contained in anything built by man’s hands. {eoa}
Purchase Wayland Henderson’s latest book on discipleship: Walking with God; Repairing the Breach and Restoring the Ancient Path of Discipleship.