Early Church Formation And Your Transformation

The key to personal transformation is at the end of His. It’s the testimony after the prayer

meeting, after the supernatural encounter, and even after the thunder booms and the lightning strikes. It’s the moment after our strategies have failed. It’s even after the Father speaks and the cloud remains that one thing is clear, Christ alone!

In John 20, following the resurrection of Jesus, the disciples wrestled with an empty grave and what that would mean for their future. Jesus appeared to Mary at the tomb, but Mary didn’t immediately recognize him until He said her name, “Mary”. In the moment He said her name, her eyes were opened and she replied to Him, “Rabboni”(Teacher).

Going back to the others, she shared what she experienced at the empty tomb. The disciples

that were there behind the locked doors, fearing for their lives, encountered Jesus standing in

their midst, revealing His wounds and declared, “Peace be with you.” At that moment of

revealing His wounds, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” and

then implored them to forgive the sins of others, lest their shame and guilt remain with them.

This encounter was about their secured union with Him. When Mary encountered Jesus at the tomb, He said, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” This was meant to be the anchor for their souls. The security of identity and purpose. He didn’t want to reveal to them what was next, only what was right now!

So many times we get trapped in anxiousness about what is about to happen when the real

secret is in what is happening right now. This is why Paul admonishes that “Today” is the only

day that matters. The one you are in. This is a marking moment for them in their early days of

formation. It’s what made it possible to endure; what they didn’t realize at the time would be

ten days of waiting for the promise of the Holy Spirit. They didn’t know how the Holy Spirit

would come. They didn’t know what the encounter would be like, but they knew that He gave

them a foundation of union that would make them unshakable for what was next. I would

believe that in those ten days of waiting, there was more going on than just sitting. I believe

they were asked to move into a stillness and waiting that would ultimately infuse them with the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. I would also believe that in the waiting, it would have also be active with ten days of forgiving, ten days of praying, and ten days of wrestling within themselves with what they have just experienced for the three and a half years before. They would have remembered Him, His words, His love and His essence. There they would begin their journey to understand what it means to fix your thoughts and yet empty yourself for then new wine of His Spirit.

This wasn’t going to be like “before”, this was going to be transformational.

I could imagine that in this moment Peter, James and John would rehearse what they

experienced on the Mount of Transfiguration. They would remember through a resurrection lens all that they encountered with Him in a moment of His brilliance. Here I believe the keys are given to our transformation. First, they were invited to ascend to the mountain to pray. Then they see Jesus as He truly is, flashing, radiant, and pure light. He is the one standing between the law and the prophets. He revealed His light as the path through the clouds. When Peterassumed the strategy to build a place for the law, the prophets and grace, the Father made it clear that all that should be seen is Jesus!

This encounter would prepare them for the promise of new wine that would come to them as

wind and fire of His Spirit. No longer were they walking with Him; they were filled with Him! He flooded their soul with the same light that they saw on the mountain, and that was the

immersion that changed them in the company of the 120.

As I have said before, “it’s the soul that interprets beauty and its perspective that is key to

transformation.” These ten days were for just that. A time to prepare the new skin to receive

the new wine. To fix your thoughts, to purify your heart and empty yourselves of assumption

and expectation. We know by history that it was ten days, but they didn’t know if the waiting

would be ten days, or ten years. All they knew to do was, “wait until.”

The courage that’s required to “wait until” is necessary to receive new wine and to transform

your soul. They for the first time waited, not with expectation, but with anticipation. He

prepared them by revealing Himself to them as resurrected and said, “My Father is your

Father”. “Here is my wounds; touch them” and now receive The Holy Spirit.

As the early church was formed, they discovered that their priorities had changed too. They

shifted from wanting to overthrow kingdoms of this world to sharing the leaven of His. Acts

2:42 shares with us some of the template of their formation and for summery, I will highlight

those shared common values.

• Repent, believe, and be baptized - change your thinking and be immersed

• Devote yourself to the apostles’ doctrine - diligent and intentional

• Joined one to another by a common immersion

• Communion - simple yet supreme

• Prayer - activate the language of the Father

• Becoming signposts of Jesus - this makes the unbelieving world wonder

• Possess glad and generous hearts - the evidence of love is generosity

As I journey deeper into the wounds of Jesus, I discover where the interconnectedness of His love shows up.

I’m not saying that I’m all the way there. But I am saying that I see Him, and this is what He

looks like in the formation of the early church. I set my heart to see Jesus alone in the midst of a clouded world, and that becomes the key to our transformation.

We are the continuation of the incarnation of Christ in the earth.