Jesus Lost

One of the greatest moves of the Holy Spirit since the Day of Pentecost is coming to Christ's Church. Every believer who looks eagerly for the perfection of Christ's Bride should closely examine the themes of Jesus Lost in the Church. They Provide a glimpse of the foundational themes in this great move of the Spirit.

Jesus Lost in the Church

The In-Christ Revolution

The Ignorance of the Gospel

The Gospel of the New Creation Race

God's Intent and Paul's Revelation of That Intent

Our Glorious Teacher, the Holy Spirit

Is the Christ-Life the Only Christian Life?

The Benefits of Understanding Spiritual Pre-Existence

New Testament Ethics and the Christ-Life

The Radical Basis of Christian Fellowship

The Faith of the Son of God

Living as Knowers

The Transforming Power of Christ

After Christ ascended back to heaven, the gospel to the Church was quickly perverted. Paul, in Galatians 1, warns of another gospel which had surfaced in his day. It is said that this was approximately A.D.55, just a short 20 to 25 years after the resurrection of Jesus. Virtually the entire Epistle to the Galatians deals with the distortion that had taken place so quickly in what Paul was destined to call my gospel of Jesus Christ. In Galatians 1, the Apostle makes no pretence as to what the gospel is. To him, the gospel, the certified gospel, was the revelation of Jesus Christ (Galatians 1:16). What had happened, in even so short a period of time from the vibrant ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, was that Christ had gotten lost by His followers. He actually had gotten lost in the Church, to the Church. That is, Christ had gotten lost to His body, the Church, because it had become taken up with church work, church missions, and church propaganda. Because of this, Paul spent most of his time in each of his Epistles stressing the importance of the Person of Christ over and above even the works of Christ. It is sad, but most all human beings today who have come in contact with Christ have befallen the same dilemma. The tendency is that what Jesus does is so terrific, powerful, and unusual that they get lost in this rather than coming to know who He is. It is only by knowing Him that they have life, not just in what He does.

However, as it was in the days of Paul, so it has continued through history, and is most notable in our day. Jesus Christ as the life of the believer is generally lost as the great theme and purpose of God in dealing with human beings. The end result is that in our day it is hard to find the true gospel because Christianity is faced with a virtual legion of different gospels. Yet, all these gospels are tied in some way to religion and churchianity. Every newcomer to Christianity, even when genuinely drawn by the Spirit and born again, must begin the arduous task of searching for the real Jesus, who is lost in the Church. Never before in the history of religion - which I see as man's attempt to please God by his own self-effort -have there been so many voices defending their own aspect of churchianity. Consequently, there are many gospels being advocated today. All these gospels in some way look and sound like the real thing, but they all are carrying out someone's personal interpretation and desires, ignoring Christ as all and in all believers.

I am writing this book as a confirmed, unapologetic advocate and participant in the life of Christ as God's ultimate intention for every human being. All the background of my theology is died-in-the-wool evangelical and fundamental, for whatever these terms mean. But I now see that without the Holy Spirit teaching us revelation knowledge, neither I nor any other believer will become what God's intention is.

The Scriptures plainly teach that it is God's intention that man can no longer please God by living his own life, but it is in the living of the Christ-life that man is pleasing to God. My prayer for every reader of this book is, as Paul's was in Ephesians 1:17: ...praying for you that you may have "the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him." Thus, the true gospel is the revelation of Jesus Christ as the life in every born-again human being. Anything less than this is not in God's intention, and anything more than this is solely human works and human wisdom.

If in reading you come to see Christ as your life, I believe you are on the journey of God's intention for your life. As you follow that journey, you will in time arrive at the ultimate destination for Christians, and that is, knowing your only life is Christ (Galatians 2:20).

Jesus Lost in the Church

By Warren Litzman

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