The Family Of God - Beauty For Ashes, by George Warnock

A few excerpts from George Warnock’s Beauty For Ashes, The Family of God, that really spoke to my heart this morning…


How dare we dilute the Truth concerning the Body of Christ to the level of human emotion, and settle for this sentimental idea of everybody getting together, patting one another on the back, and learning to love them and get along!

Only by the Spirit of God are we going to see in some faint measure the burden of God's heart for His people, and the yearning that overwhelmed the heart of the apostle, as he contemplated the glory that God had in store for His family. And how clearly he revealed to us the step-by-step process that God would lead His family in, that they might explore and appropriate and be lost in this boundless realm of Divine LOVE! Oceans and fathomless depths of LOVE! Heights and depths of LOVE beyond all human ability to understand and comprehend! And the revelation of it all is couched in deep yearnings from the heart of God, and from the heart of the apostle, in a prayer that is born of the Spirit. For only God could enable a man to pray this way... that His Family on earth might be able to "apprehend" this glorious revelation and experience; for the word is much stronger than "comprehend." It means to RECEIVE and to RECEIVE FULLY the revelation of it until we are FILLED UNTO ALL THE FULLNESS OF God... until in and through God's precious Family in the earth we might see, and the world might see, the full expression, the completion, the full display of the LOVE OF GOD.

Keep The Vision High!

Keep the Vision high; and as you do, do not yield to the temptation that it just must mean less than God says, otherwise we could never attain to it. For we are not talking about human achievement. something you just try to do... we are talking about Divine enablement... And still more, we are talking about New Creation life and what God is able and willing to do with earthen vessels. We are talking about the might of the Potter, and the futility of the clay. You have a part, I know. But your part and mine is to be the CLAY in the hands of the POTTER. Your part and mine is to let Him mould, and form, and plan... as we simply yield, and let, and allow, and permit, and seek Him, and yearn after Him until He does it!

And God forbid that the pressing needs of mankind should deter us from the pathway we pursue, as we follow this Light; for may we recognize that this, and this alone, is God's provision for every human need. And furthermore, as we walk in this pathway, and as we embrace this Vision, let us be assured that the needs of men are being met along the way according to the degree in which we are being conformed to the image of Christ, and not according to the degree in which we are conformed to the programs and the outreaches of religious zeal and enthusiasm. For it is only in the pursuit of the calling that God sets before us that we will become those channels of His grace and blessing that He desires us to be.

We are coming into a new phase of life and ministry in the Church of Jesus Christ, wherein the Holy Spirit will be recognized by the people of God and by the ministry as the Lord of the Church in the midst of His people. Christ at God's right hand is the Lord of the Church; and the Holy Spirit living and abiding in His Church, is the LORD IN THE MIDST OF HIS PEOPLE. And He will yet exercise that Lordship in our midst.

Of course, this is the Holy of Holies realm, and we know that all of God's people will not walk in this realm. But some will--some must enter in. The Holy Place is the realm of gift and ministry, and is essential for the nourishing of the Body of Christ. And we certainly must go THROUGH this realm to enter into the HOLIEST of all. There is no back door to the HOLIEST OF ALL!

Beloved, there is coming forth a revelation of Christ in the midst of His people that we can only faintly visualize at this moment. The world will not see this "revelation of Christ." It is an unveiling of Christ in the midst of His brethren... brethren who have come to devastation, to perplexity, to bewilderment, to frustration... and because of all this, to genuine heart-felt repentance and brokenness of heart.

I am confident that this is what God is looking for in this hour... and I know it will not come until the people of God become disillusioned with the emptiness and the futility of religious entertainment... the snappy music... the giddy laughter and the empty joy of a religious show that has ruled Christ out of their midst, and they know it not. Laughter and joy has become the trademark in our churches, as it is in the theaters. If a minister knows how to make people laugh, he has it made. If he can't, he is considered to be dull and boring. Let me tell you, the commitment of PRAISE is going to produce weeping and brokenness of heart in the people of God. The people of God have become estranged from their Lord. But the captivity of Babylon, and the famine that is coming, is going to change all that:

"In those days, and in that time, saith the LORD, the children Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, going and weeping: they shall go, and seek the LORD their God. They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward, saying, Come, and let us join ourselves to the LORD in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten" (Jer. 50:4, 5).

What about returning to Zion with singing and everlasting joy upon their heads? Yes, that's coming too. But first the people of God must "ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward." They must be committed to "join themselves to the LORD in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten."

Do we wonder why it seems so difficult to minister real repentance to the people of God? Many are crying, "Repent! Repent!" And this we must do. But beloved it is going to take a prophetic anointing such as Joseph had, and such as John the Baptist had, if the hearts of God's erring ones are going to be unveiled. And it is going to take the Lordship of God's Spirit in our midst, if the cleansing Stream of repentance is going to be released.

How shall we minister repentance, and brokenness of heart to others, if we have not experienced it in our own lives? How helpless we are, Lord, unless you continue to search us out, and gaze upon us with those penetrating, searching eyes of your Spirit! Look upon us, we pray, as You looked at Peter, as You looked at Moses, as You looked at John on Patmos, as You looked at Isaiah, as You looked at Saul of Tarsus... that we too might know the transforming work of the Spirit of God in our lives!