Dear ones, this Message Seven is like a trip down memory lane! In this message, TAS speaks so much of what captured me to “the Lord’s Recovery” in the first place. I really appreciate TAS’s burden to return to the most fundamental matter in our Christian life, both individually and corporately – Christ Himself. Christ, the One growing in us and forming Himself in us. Christ, the One real and present in our midst whenever we gather together into His Name. Christ, our All in All!
TAS has a lot to say about the Church being the corporate Christ. TAS’s large heart is on display here: all those who have Christ dwelling within them belong to the church. The indwelling of Christ is what is first and foremost - not doctrine, or practice, or any other thing.
It saddens me more and more that the LC became a one-man show, when other ministers of Christ like TAS clearly had an overflowing abundance of Christ-centered revelation to share.
Excerpts from message seven:
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“If I were to ask you to write down on one sheet of paper the answer to this question, "What is the Church?" I wonder what I should get. I am sure somebody will give me a wonderful system of Church truth. A wonderful order of Church practice. The answer is simple. The Church is Jesus Christ, nothing less than that, nothing more than that. If Christ is in a number of people, it is He Who forms the Church. It is Christ in us that makes the Church, not first our doctrine, not first our practice, not first the way we carry on when we come together: but first of all the Presence of the Lord. The Presence of the Lord in those who are gathered together, that makes the Church . . . The Church takes its character from Christ. CHRIST CORPORATE IS THE CHURCH. You have got to prove that Christ is not in me, in order to say that I am not in the Church. And you have no right to say to anybody who has Christ dwelling within, that they do not belong to the Church.”
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