Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Hebrews 10:23-25.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
How good, how pleasant it is where brethren dwell as one! It is the anointing flowing as the hearts unite with and in Me. Gather the whole world in My love, the love that opened My heart to send out My Son as a gift to the whole world, My love become flesh to dwell among you to gather you all as a shepherd gathers and cares for his flock.
Like a shepherd He will tend His flock, In His arm He will gather the lambs and carry them in His bosom; He will gently lead the nursing ewes. Isaiah 40:11.
Where two or three are gathered in My Name there I am in their midst to work wonders when your join in agreement in prayer.
“Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.” Matthew 18:19-20.
I give you who are My family of faith the opportunity to assemble together as the body of Christ and to encourage one another and spur one another on to victory. When you gather in My Name and unite in prayer you can shake the world.
And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness. Acts 4:31.
And when Peter was put in prison for preaching the good news and Herod was about to have him put to death the church united in prayer and I sent My angel and let Peter out of prison. United prayer from the Body of Christ sets off works of power.
For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. Ephesians 2:18-22.
My Church is the called out ones, it is the Body of Christ, it is the Bride of Christ, it is the gathered ones, and it is My Kingdom.
As you come to Him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to Him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 2:4-5.
Jesus is the head over all things, the Church is His Body. The Body of Christ is the Church of the Lord. The Church is the Body of Christ. The Church is where the Lamb is.
It is the believers gathered together hearing and sharing My Word, as My Spirit flows and bestows gifts, grace endowments, for the benefit of all. Prophecies come forth as well as words of wisdom, knowledge, and tongues with interpretation of tongues. Each has a part in this unity of diversity where there is love for one another in operation and manifestation.
Citizens of the Kingdom called together. A gathering or a calling together. A gathering place filled with Gospel of Grace.
I told Moses to build the tabernacle, the dwelling place, in the wilderness as a place where I would dwell among the Israelites. A place where Moses could speak to Me and consult Me for the people. A place where I could rest and put My Name and be there with My people. A place where I could bless them, enjoy them, teach them and heal them.
And I gave Moses the feast days, the appointed times, when holy assemblies were held and all were called to come and gather in My Name to rejoice in the good things of the harvest and to join the Levite singers and musicians in worship until My glory filled the place. No work was to be done but only sweet days of refreshing rejuvenation in My presence. And the most joyous feast was Tabernacles, when each family built their own temporary dwelling around My temple and feasted and enjoyed the public reading of My Word with teachers and scribes to explain.
When you gather in Me, I am there dwelling with you in your journey together to the promised land.
Later, when My people settled in the Promised Land, Solomon built a House for Me and it became My dwelling place among men. To offer sacrifice and consult the Lord, people came to the Temple (you translate it “Temple” but in Hebrew it is the house of YHWH, the House of the LORD) in Jerusalem.
During the age of the Law, I did not dwell in the spirits of men and women because their spirits were dead to Me due to Adam’s rejection of My jurisdiction, My Kingdom, and his transfer to the kingdom of darkness under the devil. To dwell among them I had to be in a place such as the Dwelling in the desert and later the Temple in Jerusalem.
Now it is very different. You are a new creation in Christ and your spirits are alive again, reborn, recreated in My Image and My Spirit dwells in each newborn Christian. I no longer need a separate tabernacle, dwelling place, temple among you so that I can dwell with you, I dwell in each one of you so that you are My tabernacle, My dwelling place, My temple. Are you not aware that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit? So now what I would like to call the buildings you call churches, for actually the Church is the Body of Christ and each of you is a member of that Body, so My people are the Church and the buildings are the gathering places for the Church. The gathering places for the harvest of those who believe.
I want you to call what you now call “churches” “gathering places.” Yes, call them “gathering places.” You are the Church, the Body of Christ, My temples. You are assemblies on earth of the heavenly Mt. Zion, the Church of the firstborn in Heaven. Holy convocations.
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel. Hebrews 12:22-24.
When the LORD has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and purged the bloodshed of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning, then the LORD will create over the whole area of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, even smoke, and the brightness of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory will be a canopy. There will be a shelter to give shade from the heat by day, and refuge and protection from the storm and the rain. Isaiah 4:4-6.
Gathering places. I want them everywhere. From your homes to huge stadiums. From huts to palaces. From storefronts to beautiful and grand buildings covered in splendor with huge gardens and grounds. And even gatherings online, such as Zoom, that gather people from the nations together in one heart of prayer and praise.
To Philemon our dear friend and fellow worker, to Apphia our sister, to Archippus our fellow soldier and to the church that meets in your home: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Philemon 1:1-3.
Gathering places. Places where the endtime harvests can gather to learn My Words, My Ways and see My Glory. Places where I can move in the Spirit and miracles happen. Places where all come to be filled with the Spirit and to prophesy. Places where the songs of Heaven are sung on earth. Places where all are healed and made whole. Places where people are encouraged, edified, and exhorted.
Places where the Church can gather in unity. For in unity there is strength, there is power. The jaws of hell cannot prevail against My Church. My Church should be the Light of the world. There should be no division in My Church for it is the Body of Christ. A body has to work in unison to be healthy.
Gathering places. The glorious Church. Gather to pray, to agree, to move the nations, to change the world!
Build up My Church. Each one is a living stone being built into a spiritual house for a holy priesthood. You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and My people, a people set apart. My called out ones, you are in the world but not of the world.
Gathering places. Wonderful places filled with My Light and My Glory. United believers, a caring community, a family of My own that is a light to the world, a place where all will know you are My followers by your love for one another. That is what your Sunday services should be. And why not make it every day?
Remember the early Christian community? They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising Me and enjoying the favor of all the people. And I added to their number daily those who were being saved. Acts 2:42-47.
Make Me a gathering place, a place to share My Glory! Make Me a gathering place, a place to share My story! Make Me a gathering place, a place where I can bless, make Me a gathering place, and there My love confess. Fill up the world with gathering places. Why not make everywhere you are a gathering place where I can bless? Even your workplace, even the grocery store, even when you are alone in your bedroom, call in the angels and all the heavenly cloud of witnesses on Mt. Zion.
That is what I told Adam and Eve to do, to fill the earth and subdue it, to spread the Garden everywhere.
Edify everyone you meet with My Word, that is build them up and make their life better. Gather them in to hear My Word. Build My Church. Never try to do your life of faith alone, separated from other believers. It is not good for man to be alone. You need faith friends to build you up in Christ.
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Hebrews 10:23-25.
And you need mentors and teachers that you and other believers assemble with to learn and gow in My Word and My grace, to be built up into completeness in Christ. Do not be a lone believer who cannot take instruction. You need a pastor.
And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. Ephesians 4:11-16.
Shine on the world like bright stars, you are offering it the Word of Life.
My Son prayed for this to Me the night before He died for you, He prayed, “I do not ask on behalf of these alone (His disciples at the Last Supper), but for those also who believe in Me through their world; that they may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that you sent Me and loved them, even as You have loved Me.” John 17:20-23.
There are wonderful things that happen when believers join together with Me as one. It becomes an assembly of Heaven on earth. And I write it all down in My book of remembrance.
Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another, and the LORD gave attention and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the LORD and who esteem His name. “They will be Mine,” says the LORD of hosts, “on the day that I prepare My own possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.” So you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him. Malachi 3:16-18.
And everyone has a Word to share when you are gathered in My Name for My Spirit is speaking in each one and all.
Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father. Colossians 3:14-17.
I love you. You have an opportunity to invite others to join with you in prayer and praise, in prophecy and witnessing, in sharing My Word and breaking the bread and drinking the cup of communion, the Covenant meal. Make Me a gathering place and I will fill it with My glory. Where two or three are gathered in My Name there I am in the midst of you. Never underestimate the power in the assembly of the faithful, of the household of faith, My family to whom I give My Name.
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom the whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. Ephesians 3:14-21.