Washing Machine

The gathering together with other believers is the washing machine that will make the church pure and spotless because it agitates. Jesus addresses the end time Bride as 7 churches. We see from His warning to Pergamos, Thyatira, and Sardis specifically that we are held accountable together and individually.

This is because God desires a family. If I am tired of the family now and finding ways to do God alone, then what will I do when the family is driven together by more intense judgment?

If I can't deal with the offenses of the family of God, what am I going to do as the world inherits the hatred of the offended church in the increasing falling away?

It will never get easier than now to begin the conversation with Jesus about my own shortcomings in dealing with those closest to me so I can get ready to help those closet to me deal rightly with the Bride and the world. I get rid of the log so I can be helpful with the specs.

Jeremiah 12:1Righteous are You, O LORD, when I plead with You;

Yet let me talk with You about Your judgments.

Why does the way of the wicked prosper?

Why are those happy who deal so treacherously?

2You have planted them, yes, they have taken root;

They grow, yes, they bear fruit.

You are near in their mouth

But far from their mind.

3But You, O LORD, know me;

You have seen me,

And You have tested my heart toward You.

Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter,

And prepare them for the day of slaughter.

4How long will the land mourn,

And the herbs of every field wither?

The beasts and birds are consumed,

For the wickedness of those who dwell there,

Because they said, “He will not see our final end.”

5“If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you,

Then how can you contend with horses?

And if in the land of peace,

In which you trusted, they wearied you,

Then how will you do in the floodplain of the Jordan?

6For even your brothers, the house of your father,

Even they have dealt treacherously with you;

Yes, they have called a multitude after you.

Do not believe them,

Even though they speak smooth words to you.

Judgment starts in the Lord's house. We need to start there, too...same judgment and same love. Truth in love. The local church is the location of the true apostolic function, because it is clearly the most difficult place to function, the least glamorous, and the most like Jesus. Antichrist wants a global platform to gain local control. Jesus Christ wants His kingdom to come inside out.

Ephesians 4:10He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)

11And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers,

12for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ,

13till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;

14that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting,

15but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—

16from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.