ALON CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP

Messages

Contents:

1. View point...the cross (A.W. Tozer)

2. View point...community life (D. Ben-Avi)

3. Alon newsletter (20 year anniversary)- June 2007 (D. Ben-Avi)

1. Viewpoint: The Cross

A.W. Tozer

“The Old Cross and the New”

We who preach the Gospel must not think of ourselves as public relations agents sent to establish good will between Christ and the world. We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the press, the world of sports or modern education. We are not diplomats but prophets and our message is not a compromise, but an ultimatum.

God offers life, but not an improved old life. The life He offers is life out of death. It stands always on the far side of the cross. Whoever would possess it must pass under the rod. He must repudiate himself and concur in God’s just sentence against him…let him not seek to make terms with God, but let him bow his head before the stroke of God’s stern displeasure and acknowledge himself worthy to die.

Having done this let him gaze with simple trust upon the risen Saviour and from Him will come life and rebirth and cleansing and power. The cross that ended the earthly life of Jesus now puts an end to the sinner; and the power that raised Christ from the dead now raises him to a new life along with Christ.

2. Viewpoint: Community Life

D. Ben-Avi

“Alôn Community”

Community for community’s sake will not bring life; when people come to live together in the name of Christ they must be working for a common cause, the goal must be beyond themselves. There is a cost in living together that must be paid - the loss of personal ambition and the drive for selfish goals. The cross is costly to the flesh of man, but it is the cross of Christ that provides the answer to human problems.

A group of believers and followers of the Messiah Jesus that are brought together by Jesus to live and work in unity can demonstrate true Kingdom living. Christian community is a strong, corporate witness to the power of Jesus; Christian community is the ideal and unique expression of the church, apostolic and prophetic in calling to honour Jesus as the Lord of Lords.

The strength of Christian community will be in servant leadership open to God’s voice and leading, a multiple eldership that continually seeks the mind of God and works towards the establishment of God’s kingdom plan that is beyond themselves. Allowing God to create the details of His plan upon our hearts and giving us the grace to obey. Community means passing from relationships based primarily on our convenience or our needs, to relationships that are based on commitment; Passing from a position of independence and isolation into a relationship of interdependence, into a shared life and the willingness to lay down our lives for one another. Jesus calls us to take up our cross, die to ourselves and become servants…getting accustomed to a lifestyle where we serve and give rather than to take what works for our own benefit and self-gain.

Community means bringing others into fellowship with us in the Messiah. Father, Son and Holy Spirit formed a divine community before the beginning of time. The Lord Jesus would want to restore wayward and selfish men and women to that community fellowship. The apostles and those who were drawn into that fellowship have borne witness to it by the Holy Spirit and have caused us to hunger after it. Now, when we come into true fellowship with one another and with God, we find something so precious, peaceable and joyful that we want others to be drawn and to enjoy it as well.

Community is not merely an efficient lifestyle, or even just a biblical truth. But it is a way to find the love of God and the fulfillment of our own lives, as we learn to give and receive the divine nature.

Ephesians 3:17 ‘…and I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.’

Isolation and insulation allow us to ‘love’ everyone – “from a distance”. Love is enacted only when we give ourselves to another, at our cost, for their good.

John 13:35 ‘By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’

Community is not an optional extra - a form of lifestyle for those brave enough to try it - or weird enough to want it - community is an essential expression of the Gospel. Community is a clear command of scripture - a mandate from our Lord. Not every believer is called to live in a literal community; but all need to grow into a ‘community attitude and servanthood’ that will bring greater reality according to God’s Word.

It’s important to avoid approaching community as a rigid and abstract ideal. The goal and purpose must always be beyond community and towards God’s heart, and onto the practical task of loving one another.

Ephesians 5:21 ‘Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.’

In the years ahead, community is going to be seen not merely as an option for Christians, but as something at the heart of the Gospel and essential to the believer’s life.

May God give us His grace to seek true unity in the midst of an age of isolation and great deception emanating from a convenience oriented lifestyle. Many are being sold by the world and ministry in a similar package of global togetherness or unity, be it the United Nations or International Prayer Organizations etc… We need a restoration by God’s hand that will restore His authentic ways and ancient pathways.We need a new understanding of the normal (radicalness) of a lifestyle in the Messiah.

We, the body of Messiah, need desperately to come into His Sabbath rest, and not undermine His sovereignty with our schemes, escapism and ministries that crown our own achievements with such glory, yet avoiding the cross. The cross alone will bring glory to God. Today’s society and the body of Messiah have been engulfed by a lifestyle that dictates space between people. A large part of 20th century civilization was born from a very strong Greek and Roman mindset. The behavior traits this has produced are independence, ambition, self-centeredness and competitiveness. The rich Abrahamic or ‘extended family order’ and calling have been replaced by ‘nuclear families’ and society have assumed it to be normal. The former mandate that came from God has been and continues to be a clear Hebrew mindset and attitude to life.

Jeremiah 6:16 ‘This is what the Lord says:” Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls”.

The required shift is towards a “Hebrew” or Abrahamic oriented lifestyle which will embrace a shared life with a community expression and a relationship or commitment with others in taking up our responsibility as we live in our Messiah. Even a Jewish flavored or a Messianic life with laws, culture, social responsibility and loyalty have replaced a rich biblical and true Abrahamic expression. This expression will release a true testimony in the earth of God’s love.

Have we then simply become conformed to this world? Do we not need to find a better way to live by? This order of shared life was simply created by God!

Psalm 133:1 ‘How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!

2. Alon Newsletter - June 2007 (20 Year Anniversary)

D. Ben-Avi

“Alôn Community”

Click here to view our June 2007 newsletter.