Lifebyte 2. Will He Find Faith?

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Dear Friends,
A while back our friend Tom Woodruff and I were talking about the video training series we've been working on, Jesus In Your Home. Tom encouraged us to emphasize an important point: the loneliness of following Jesus wholeheartedly.
As soon as the words came out of his mouth our spirits knew that we must let people know. So many people are having a difficult time struggling with the season of loneliness the Holy Spirit leads them into.

It isn't as if people flee religious establishments after they begin to read our work on the foundations of the early Church. But something wonderful happens deep within themselves. There's a growing earnestness to be conformed to the character of Jesus. To fulfill His purposes becomes so vital to their lives.

Referring to the Restoration Diagram below, a re-prioritization of their lives is occurring. Their spiritual walk once relied heavily on scheduled religious programs. In Nicolaitanism this would have the same priority as ring #4. Now their religious practice has been replaced by a TRUST-based faith of obedience and love. Their lives have become very personal — between God and themselves, and those in their own household.

People who are bent on pursuing the relational priorities found among the earliest followers of Jesus soon find themselves increasingly conscious of sin in their lives. They marvel at how much they had tolerated as they joined the crowds who sat in pews next to them. Now they are becoming isolated from so much of the programmed activity that their religious lives once depended on.

ResMinDia

Again, it just happens because of the growing intent to be intimate with God. What they are embracing in their re-prioritized relationships is really a time for the Spirit to do what He does so well. He enables us to live in UNION with our Lord. He brings our marriages into UNION with each other. He helps parents fulfill ALL of their biblical responsibilities to their children. (NO MORE OUTSOURCING!)

Sue and I realize what 11 years of living out what we've written has cost us in relationships. Not only is there a loss of "Christian friends" as we sought to follow Jesus wholly, but even demonic opposition increased. These words certainly have taken on greater meaning, “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22b). Yet, we see the demonic opposition as our Lord's means to cause us to turn to Him and grow in our dependency on Him. It's our Father's way to rid us of dependency on religious forms and crowds, and to truly become His dependent children who wait on Him.

We know that many of you think you are all alone in your walk with Jesus. But as you read the Scriptures, note how many of God's people experienced lonely seasons. Even Jesus after His immersion was led away by the Holy Spirit for 40 days of solitude and preparation. Isolation is God's method of preparing us as well. Do you remember when Elijah found himself alone and he moaned to God? “Lord, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me."

How did our Lord respond to the prophet? “‘I have reserved for Myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’ So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace" (Romans 11:2-5).

Sue and I know of many who have sought to follow Jesus wholeheartedly and are going through the same experiences. Your time away with our Lord Jesus is His way to help you grow in the trust in Him that displays itself in love: "For in Christ Jesus....the only thing that counts is trust expressing itself through love" (Galatians 5:6). We encourage you to put aside self-pity and despair, and cooperate with His goal for you. We've found that it's best done on our knees!
One thing everyone who is bent on living in a re-prioritized life discovers: It's far easier for people to be comfortable by considering themselves "Christian" and sitting in pews when they're never confronted about the unrighteousness in their lives and homes.

This realization often brings the greatest pain for the Jesus-followers who are being isolated by the Holy Spirit. You find yourself frustrated in not being able to get across to them the new path you've chosen as you've responded to His purifying call. We encourage you to not try to end this purifying season too early. Don't do anything until God releases you from your isolation.

We've been sharing an anecdote with several people lately who have been speaking up too early to others about what our Lord has been revealing to them. It is the story of the man who stretched a tightrope across Niagara Falls. The crowds cheered him as he walked steadily across the wire pushing a wheelbarrow. He accomplished this successfully many times. Then he asked if anyone wanted to get in the wheelbarrow for the trip back across the falls. Silence ensued. No one got in.

Too many of you men are trying to represent the Restoration teachings to others, but you are fruitless in your endeavor. As a matter-of-fact, you are turning off people needlessly. You are like the person standing in the crowd watching the man on the tight rope. You're encouraging everyone else to get in the wheelbarrow, but you haven't gone across yourself. We encourage you to be quiet and focus on what our Lord wants to change in you and your family.
NO ONE has ever changed Nicolaitan systems from within. How do you think Christianity has ended up with 22,000 different and competing Nicolaitan religious systems? No matter what you say or criticize, you have to realize that you look just like the rest of the crowd when you're a part of it. The most you can do is get them to move around on the same religious shore line. Anchor this thought: You need to make it to the other shore before you open your mouth.

The 'Mike and Sue' of 11 years ago could never have imagined how much our lives have changed by the Holy Spirit. And out of the changes the Holy Spirit has made, we speak. Near the end of this letter we'll share a few things that God is doing to change the lives of those He's stirring to press on. But we want to encourage you to re-read an e-newsletter we wrote several years ago about your life pilgrimage entitled, "Crossing the Jordan". It will help clarify some of the issues you may be facing.

A few days after we finished writing the Hebraic article God gave us, "I Hate Nicolaitanism", He showed us a visualization of what we'd just accomplished in sending that letter. We were watching a movie classic, "The Red Badge of Courage." It takes place during the Civil War.

There is a scene during a battle in which a once-cowardly Private picks up the battle standard as all his forces are fleeing in retreat. He jams the standard into the ground and takes his stand. Soon others stop retreating and take their stand with him. And then a wonderful thing happens! The former retreaters attack and the battle is won!

This is slowly happening as our Lord restores the Hebraic foundations. We are only at the point at which the Hebraic standard has been put in the ground, and a few have stopped hiding inside Nicolaitanism. But it isn't time to "attack".
Too many of you men have enjoyed your prestige and position in Nicolaitanism. Sadly, like so many we've encountered over the years, you see your "Christianity" as a cause to be won. But you love no one in your heart except yourself. Your motivation is to win spiritual arguments, not to love as Jesus does.

You're on a deceived ego trip. Many of you leave your wife with deep feelings of loneliness even in your own home. To those who live what we share and have crossed 'Niagara Falls', you appear as a hardened and mocking fool in your pursuit for recognition. And those who stand on the shore with you see the same vain pursuit.

Men, get yourself and your family across the spiritual Niagara Falls that our Lord is leading you to. Quit your endless analysis, and take action! As long as you speak from the same shoreline as the others in your Nicolaitan system, you come across as a hypocrite.

GOD IS GOOD!
Those of you who have been with Sue and me over the years may remember that from the beginning, our goal for the Lord has been to bless as many as we can with as few as possible ever knowing the two of us exist. Sue and I are much more eager to meet in heaven the people we've helped rather than here on earth! We don't need crowds to affirm the work our Father has given us. We know WHO recruited us to share the Hebraic Foundations, and it’s our joy to serve His purposes.

We write from a bedroom office in a 1978 mobile home in a senior mobile home park. [We see this park as our "Jerusalem" to take for Jesus. Our neighbors and their eternal destination mean much to us! We walk through the park daily interceding for them.]

There is no organization behind Restoration Ministries International. We're just an affiliation of people who want to follow Jesus the way He's shown us. Each believes in what He's given us to write. They do what they can to get the message of Restoration out through the way they live their lives. And we thank God that He forbade us in the beginning from ever letting an organization form!

Please, rejoice with us over what He has been doing:
1. Restoring the Early Church has now been translated into German and will soon be published.
2. Demolishing Strongholds is now being translated into Russian. Also, the California Prison System has been purchasing copies in Spanish to use with the inmates. It's also being used in the Georgia and Florida prison systems!
3. From correspondence we've received, people we've never met are carrying the Hebraic message throughout Africa, India, China, New Zealand, Europe.....
4. Thousands of people have downloaded this material from all over the world. And we've never met! We rejoice that as we write and share from our home, our God does the distribution. And what our Lord does, He does marvelously!
We want to encourage you. You aren't as isolated as you may think, either! "The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever" (1 John 2:17).

Walking with you into eternity,
Mike & Sue Dowgiewicz