What Lockdown is For the Church

A lot of believers online are trying to sound confident about the development of cured Covid cases, and I celebrate with them. In fact, lockdown policies would be moderated in some parts. This is welcome news. There's an increase in the number of patients surviving. Who wouldn't want to see Covid finally gone? But there are whispers about a second wave. [Picture by Nuno Alberto, Unsplash].

I believe God showed me a mental vision of how the church is now being pushed to a corner and gradually given no other option but to seek refuge in God's supernatural ways and power to solve the Covid crisis. Believe it or not, the ending of Covid is in the hands of the church--it depends on whether church would succumb to God's power or rely on what man could do.

What Jesus Would Do

I mean, even church today relies on the government for protection against Covid 19. Just imagine Christ seeking medical protection and food supplies or ayuda from Pilate's government because he and his disciples might catch the virus or starve to death. I can't think of Jesus this way. Simply inconceivable. From what we gather in the Gospel, Jesus would've provided the surefire solution to the crisis.

Church has to step out in faith. I don't mean defy government directives to stay indoors and avoid any mass gathering or physical contact with other people. We should stay indoors. But church has to step out of its long reliance on earthly systems and what man can do (get out of the Babylon system) and plunge headlong to the supernatural power of God--start living and doing ministry as Jesus did.

Imagine church pastors and members praying for Covid patients on the phone or on live video and healing them instantly! Imagine church multiplying food supply supernaturally in their barangays, especially for the poor. Government probably will change its mind about seeing church as a "non essential" and ask pastors to lead the frontlines in the streets. Imagine pastors with quarantine passes merely touching hospital buildings (they don't need to go in) and immediately all the patients (even the intubated and seriously critical) are made whole. I believe with all my heart this is possible and it's God's will. But we need the right prayer.

What Kind of Prayer?

The first step is to seek God's face, not anything else. SEEK GOD'S FACE. This is what lockdown is all about. God didn't allow it as a coincidence. God designed it particularly for the church--keep it indoors in small groups and unable to do anything but seek His face. So, what does church pray for today? To see his face? Or is it to seek for protection from Covid? More food supplies? More channels to preach God's Word? More access to live-streaming and online worship? More views and likes for their FB live worship and preaching?

Preaching and worship are good, but what we need first is to seek God's face--and I wonder if church realizes what this is about. Because it's simply that--seek God's face. Literally. No need to interpret or complicate or doctor it with man's theology or philosophy or denominational doctrines which are plain useless in God's Kingdom. Church can never defeat the devil except by God's spoken Word and supernatural power alone.

And there's no way to get God's spoken Word (Word that gives Life, John 6.63) except through the supernatural guidance and teaching of the Holy Spirit.

The words I have spoken to you--they are full of the Spirit and life.

Seeking God's Face

It's in the popular passage in 2 Chronicles 7. If God's people (that includes gentile believers) humble themselves and pray and seek his face and repent from wicked ways. It's God's reply to Solomon's prayer specifically about Israel facing a crisis, like a serious natural calamity (like Covid, though they say it was artificially produced in a lab, but it's still covered by God's power because nothing is impossible to Him). And true believers in Christ are now part of Israel. There's no more difference between them and Jewish believers. So we can claim the promise here.

The promise is that God will hear from heaven, forgive our sins and heal our land. But we have to seriously seek his face first. But if you don't believe in the supernatural, you'd say this isn't literal. This is the disease in church today, one of the "wicked ways" it needs to repent from. Because of its garbage philosophies and human theology which are all earthly, it cannot believe the supernatural anymore. And this is serious. In Revelation, God wants the end-times church "to do the things you did at first."

Anything done for God not in God's ways is wickedness. God wants his people to do everything "in all his ways," found in his Word. He said "all" and means "all." This is why Jesus said, "the Son can do nothing" except what he sees the Father doing [John 5.19].

“Now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways..." [Deuteronomy 10].

Walking "in all his ways" is a vital component of "to fear the Lord your God." And the modern church has been ignoring the ways of God and even mocks them when somebody like me gets dead serious about doing things in God's ways alone. I've been mocked a lot of times. but I insist because I have seen and tasted that the Lord is good, and how he does things is what really works

Can You See God's Face?

God wouldn't tell us to seek his face if it's not possible. He's not a liar. Physically this isn't possible, so God takes us to the spiritual realms where seeing his face is possible through visions. This was how Moses and the elders of Israel saw God and didn't die.

Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as bright blue as the sky. But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.

Ezekiel and John saw that same vision of God and survived. We can also seek God's face this way and get fresh Word straight from his mouth to guide us with. This is what God wants when severe calamities happen and no answer seems possible anywhere--and God seems to be silent and not answering our prayers. Don't seek for blessings or even aids for ministry so we can go on preaching online even during lockdown.

Seek his face! Not doing so is wickedness.

But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has counseled rebellion against the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, to seduce you from the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from among you. [Deuteronomy 13]

Not doing things in God's ways alone is an "evil" we have to purge among us. It is rebellion against God because it "seduces" believers away from God's command and makes them do (and rely on) nothing but their own efforts, understanding and resources when doing "ministry" for God. Seeking God's face is seeking his ways--his supernatural ways.

Show Me Your Glory

Moses knew so well what I'm saying here. After God gave him a lot of good promises and assured him that his angel would go before them to conquer Canaan, Moses was not satisfied. Even if had seen God's presence a lot of times on top of Sinai, he still wasn't satisfied. Material blessings, property (real estate in Canaan with ready-to-occupy dwellings and wells were nothing to him), and "some" first-hand experience of God's supernatural power didn't suffice. He wanted to see God's face.

He was a face seeker. Are we? Or do we just seek his blessings on our ministries?

God had just told Moses: “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.” Moses had asked God to go with them to Canaan. Answered prayer. But answered prayers like that for ministry didn't really excite Moses. This was what made him excited.

Then Moses said, "Now show me your glory."

Moses was a desperate, avid seeker of God's face. He didn't care about the promised land being fulfilled if God wouldn't go with them there. Material blessings and ministry achievements were zero to Moses if he didn't see God's face. The church should have his heart. This is precisely what God wants the church to do in this lockdown season. This is Jesus' heart.

I live because of the Father. [John 6.57]

Isaiah caught it vividly here:

He grew up before him like a tender shoot, [53.2]

Jesus grew up always before the Father. Always seeing his face. Spending much quality time to enjoy his presence. No wonder God said of him, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." This tells me how Jesus was already like that even before he was sent to earth to die for our sins. And his life teaches us the principle that you cannot really preach about God without seeing his face. Seeking God's face is what really counts.

No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known. [John 1.18]

GOD's Flesh E-Book 

The first edition was really radical and sold to select buyers but the original copy got lost. So God urged me to write a second edition, and I'm simply overwhelmed how it's triply radical than the first. You want to buy a PDF copy for only P800? Email me at godsfleshblog@gmail.com and indicate your intention.