Union, Not Performance: What I’m Learning All Over Again
By Leah Ramirez
Company 318 | April 2025
If I’m honest, this has been one of the most disorienting seasons of my life. I’ve been in ministry for almost three decades. I know how to lead a prayer meeting. I know how to preach a sermon. I know how to build a gathering. But something has shifted. In the wake of trusted movements faltering and public failures from leaders we looked up to, I couldn’t help but ask myself: Do I really know the God I preach about?
What is the Good News, really? That’s the question I keep asking myself. It’s a little humiliating to admit—after all, I’ve been a Bible teacher for years. But maybe this is the most honest work I’ve ever done.
We know how to host conferences. We know how to cry out for revival. But have we encountered the Christ who came not just to save us from hell but to bring us into union, into abundant life? Have we traded encounter for performance?
I’m sick of the game. I’m done pretending. What if what we called "life" was really just another set of rules, another ladder to nowhere? What if Jesus came to give us something far better?
And so, in this time of dismantling, I’m finding something surprising: joy. Hope. A new love for Jesus is growing in me as I stare at the cross again, not as a symbol, but as the place where my old self died and my new life began.
Recently I went to see The Chosen — Part 2 of the Last Supper — and something in me cracked open again. I wept as Jesus stood in front of the religious leaders, not with contempt, but with grief and authority, proclaiming:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.” — Matthew 23:15
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.” — Matthew 23:13
He said it because He loved them. He said it because He loved the ones they were misleading. And He loves us too.
I felt the Lord whisper: “It’s time to come in.”
It’s time to learn what it means to sit with Him. To know Him. To live from the place of union, not performance. To stop trying to force fruit and simply abide.
This past Sunday, I preached at our newly forming church, The Gathering, in Colorado Springs. We looked again at Jesus—fully God, fully man. Not just our substitute, but our inclusion. Not just saving us from something, but restoring us to Someone.
Chris Berglund had just preached the week before on the three "appearings" of Christ from Hebrews 9. We revisited that teaching, tracing the now-appearing of union (v.24), the once-for-all liberation from sin (v.26), and the ongoing unveiling of Christ in us (v.28).
And we asked together: Do we see the face of God in Jesus? And when we look at Him, do we remember who we are?
I believe the church, especially in this hour, is being invited to recalibrate. Not around platforms, not around movements, but around Jesus. Around the Person of Christ and the finished work of the cross.
We must return. Not just to theology, but to the One theology is meant to lead us into. We must let the veil lift and see: Jesus is the face of God, and we are included in Him.
Company 318 exists for this very purpose. It’s not just about revival events or prayer gatherings—though we will have those. It’s about forming lives that live from union. It’s about building communities where the Gospel is not just preached but embodied.
So I want to invite you: join me on the journey. Ask the hard questions. Peer into the mystery of Jesus again. Let Him undo what needs to be undone. Let Him rebuild what religion could never build.
He didn’t just stand in for us. He brought us into Himself.
Let’s go all the way in.
Resources:
Listen to Sunday’s teaching (Audio Only): Listen HERE
Download the reworked Prayer Altar Guide: Get Connected HERE
Visit us at: the-gathering.us
Join the movement at Company 318: company318.com
Reflection Questions:
What does it mean to you that Christ brought you into Himself?
Have you ever felt disillusioned with ministry or church culture? What drew you to Jesus again?
How do you see union with Christ reshaping the way you live, love, and lead?
Let's stay on the journey together.
In union, Leah