₦airaland Forum

/Adam's one sin brings condemnation
for everyone, but Christ's one act
of righteousness brings a right
relationship with God and new life for
everyone. (Romans 5:18 NLT)/
The whole subject of spiritual power is
most important. So many
Christians find themselves involved in
a continual struggle to live up
to what they know to be God's
standard. For them Christianity is a
manner of life composed of various
rules and regulations. They know
what ought to be and what ought not
to be, and they therefore struggle
to attain to this level of living. Their
consciences play a large part
in this constant effort, and for this
reason they suffer many fears
and fail to experience the promised
joys. Life for them has become a
strenuous business, fraught with
much disappointment and many
failures. They may from time to time
have a sense of attainment and
success, with much resultant gladness,
but with the fluctuating
emotions of the soul, things seem to
collapse and go all wrong. So it
is that people find the Christian life
burdensome; they long to know
real victory, true deliverance and the
joy of the Lord, whereas they
experience the ups and downs of a
constant struggle. The Christian
life depicted in the New Testament
seems so different from their
actual experience that the devil is
never slow to pounce in with his
suggestions that a life of constant
victory is quite impossible, so
that all their hopes are but unreal
dreams. Satan wants God's people
to despair of knowing His power.
But there is an altogether different life,
different because it is
based on the entering into something
already completed in Christ; not
something to be attained to but rather
that which has already been
accomplished. It is not a standard to
be lived up to, but a Person to
be lived with. It is impossible to
measure the vast difference between
these two kinds of life. The former is
one of self effort and defeat,
while the other consists in enjoying
the reality of Christ the power
of God.

I nominate.
Alwaystrue. And Pastor Olu.

Goshen360: I nominate:
1. ichuka
2. PastorOluT

Bro Ha! Very bad timing,
I no even dey land for some time now.will definitely contribute.

If He's not God then Salvation/Christainity is a big SCAM!!

Candour: My bro, how we go do? You sef no gree tire na job is very great. We give all praises to God. Trust you're doing great too?
Cheers

Hmm,longtime.
presumed u no dey
offshore too?

/The Most High does not live in
houses made by men. (Acts 7:48 NIV)/
Christianity has become a
tremendous buildup of things which
were not
at the beginning. The Christianity
which we know today is a very
complicated thing. The hands of men
have come upon the things of God,
and men have tried to build this great
thing according to their own
judgment. And so we have all the
confusion, all the divisions, and all
the complications. It is really hard
going in Christianity.
Christianity has become its own great
hindrance.... You will go about
this country, you will go about this
city, and you will see these
great religious buildings with a cross
at the top. And when people
enter those buildings, they bow
themselves; they look very reverent.
And they think that this is a sacred
building. If you interfere with
anything there, it is called sacrilege. To
God that is all nonsense.
It does not mean anything at all. The
only thing that matters to God
is not the wonderful building and all
the wonderful things inside the
building, and not even the cross on
the top. The one thing that
matters to God is whether He is there.
Is God Himself present in this
place?
But what about ourselves, we hear
Christians who come into a meeting
like this speaking about coming into
the house of God. Perhaps they
say when they are going to this
meeting place, "I am going to the
house of God." And when they pray,
they say, "We are very glad to be
in the house of God this morning; it is
a good thing to be in the
Lord's house." What makes any place
the house of God? What makes this
place sacred? If it is sacred at all, what
makes it sacred? It is not
the building, this is not a sacred
building. It is not a congregation
gathered here. The only thing that
makes it sacred is that the Lord is
present. The Lord is not interested in
our places or in our
congregations; He is only concerned
that He may find a place for
Himself where He may be present in
pleasure. I wonder where the
tabernacle in the wilderness is now? I
expect it is buried
somewhere
deep under the earth. I wonder where
the great temple of Solomon is
now?! I think you would be wasting
your time to try and find it. You
see, God had buried those things....
Everything that is not of Christ
is going to be dissolved. Make no
mistake. This whole structure of
Christianity is going to be tested
according to Christ. Christianity
is just going to be tested as to how far
it was the work of the Holy
Spirit of God according to Christ.

/Shun (keep clear away from, avoid by
flight if need be) any sort of
idolatry (of loving or venerating
anything more than God). (1
Corinthians 10:14 AMP)/
There are many things which are not
only harmless but good in
themselves, which have, nevertheless,
been allowed to take the place
of the Lord Himself, and good things
can therefore embody the
principle of idolatry in the one in
whom the devotion is found. Touch
some Christians, or Christian
institutions, and let the touch be even
in relation to something more of the
Lord Himself, and you will find
an uprising of jealous regard for the
institution which utterly blinds
to that possibility of an extra measure
of the Lord Himself. You can
be so devoted to a denomination, a
missionary society, a piece of
Christian work, that there is no room
for any extra measure of the
Lord. The thing itself has become the
end, the object for which you
live, and when the Lord wants to get
you moved on into something more
of Himself, the obstacle is that good
Christian work, association,
institution, tradition, connection. Yes,
and that is idolatry in
principle, and we see from history
how the Lord again and again has
had to smite with smashing blows
things which in themselves were good,
in order to save His people unto
Himself personally....
What is He after? It is Himself which
He is seeking to establish as
the object of man's life, and not the
things that have relation to
Himself: and I say again, you meet
something intensely fierce if you
touch a thing, even though you are
touching it maybe with a view to
getting people to move on with the
Lord Himself. To put that in the
other way, if your appeal for moving
on with the Lord seems to people
to involve their having to move away
from this or that or some other
thing, then there is warfare; which
shows that Satan in his eternal
campaign of idolatry, has got a footing
amongst Christians in relation
to things which take the place of the
Lord Himself, good things though
they be in themselves; and you find, if
you are spiritually sensitive,
that you are not just encountering the
established institutions, but
you are encountering a terrific spiritual
force. Is that true? It is
true. Had I never come up against it,
never would I have believed the
terrific force there is lying behind
Christian institutions if your
ministry touches them. You meet
something which turns upon you, and
it
is not just the thing or the people. It is
something that threatens
your very life, to slay, and this in
principle and essence, beloved,
is idolatry; because its ultimate effect
is that even the Lord cannot
have what His heart is set upon and
get His people spiritually where
He wants them, because they are so
bound up with His things. They are
not able to discriminate between His
things and Himself.......

/I do believe, but help me overcome
my unbelief! (Mark 9:24 NLT)/
Here is something that you and I must
dwell upon. Personally, I am
constantly brought to this: I have not
yet learnt thoroughly to
believe what I believe in! I believe in
the finished work of Christ,
yet sometimes I am just as miserable
about myself as any man could be.
I am often almost at the point of
giving up because of what a wretched
kind of thing I am. If there is anything
in this world that would
cause me to give up the Christian
ministry, it is myself. Do you
understand what I mean? Oh, how we
are discouraged by what we find in
ourselves! And so, we don't believe
what we believe in. We believe in
the finished work of Christ, and that
God puts all that finished work
to our account. God does not see us
in ourselves - He sees us in
Christ. He does not see us, He sees
Christ in us. We don't believe
that! If we really did we would be
delivered from ourselves and would
indeed be triumphant Christians.
Of course, that does not mean that we
can just behave anyhow. We may
speak and act wrongly, but for every
Christian there is a refuge - a
mercy seat. It has not to be made; it is
there with the precious
Blood. That has not to be shed; it is
shed. There is a High Priest
making intercession for us. There is
everything that we need. The work
is finished, completed. Oh, we
Christians must believe our beliefs! We
must take hold, with both hands, of
the things which are of our
Christian faith.

christemmbassey: @Dboy, tithe in christianity is not a coerced giving/collection, its more sinister than that, its daylight ARMED ROBBERY.. Its the bigest, most longest and wicked FRAUD in human history. Why must u b diplomatic in truth v falshood situation? Tithe remain d Oga @ d top of all false doctrines, some in this forum av even called Christ a pharisee and a tithe collector just to sustain/defend this their agelongest scam. Bros its either u support this fraud or not, there's no middle ground with this profanity called tithe. Stay blessed.

Lol
Bro easy oo.

/I am able to do nothing from Myself.
(John 5:30 AMP)/
You get to the heart of everything in
the case of the Lord Jesus when
you recognize that the one question
which constituted the testing
ground of His life was: "Will this Man
act alone, speak alone, choose
alone, decide alone, move alone?" And
His answer was always, "Not out
from Myself!" "The Son can do
nothing out from Himself." "The
words
that I speak unto you I speak not out
from Myself." Every kind of
appeal was made to Him to persuade
Him on the impulse of the moment,
or in response to an entreaty that
seemed to promise success, or by an
argument that appeared to be the
truest wisdom, to move, act, speak,
do something as out from Himself....
At times the suggestion would be
influenced by necessity of
circumstances, at times by the
promise of effectiveness in His
service, or again by representation of
the utter un-wisdom of the line
that He was taking, as when His own
brethren, who did not believe in
Him, chided Him for delay, saying, "Go
up to Jerusalem and show
yourself!" To them He said, "I go not
yet up to this feast!" And then,
so quickly after, when His brethren
were gone up He went up also. But
He would not go up at the persuasion
of popular reason; He would not
do this merely because it was the
thing which everybody else was
doing, or because it was urged upon
Him that, since everybody was
going to the feast, He ought to go too.
That ninety-nine people do a
thing is no argument for the
hundredth to do it. We are not to be
led
by the appeals that decide the actions
of the many - "It is the
popular thing! Everybody else is doing
it! It is the recognized thing
to do!" No! Does my Father want me
to do this thing? That is the
question that must ever rule our
steps. In the case of the Lord Jesus
there was all the time an
underworking to get Him to adopt the
contrary course, to act without inquiry
of His Father, without direct
leading from His Father; to act in His
individual capacity as though
He were His own Master, as though
He had not to
make appeal elsewhere.
In Him there was none of that which
was personal, independent. We are
not speaking merely of such things as
are sinfully personal,
positively personal, but simply of
independent action, action taken
for the best ends, for a good motive,
with quite a proper intention.
Yes, all this may be done, but apart
from the positive word from the
Father. That creates an independent
thought, however good may be the
motive.

Anomnity: Op everybody knows how controversial & biased you are throughout this forum.First of all I know you know muslims have done 100 times worse things to innocent people worldwide without war or conflict starting from our backward here in the nothern states & you will not post pictures to condemn it.
You are also aware that these muslim extremists use women & children as human shields in their terrorist hideouts & you just carefully ignored it.
You are also aware that Israel NEVER! EVER! I SAY EVER! target women & children as the Islamic extremists do in their massacre except of course where the terrorists willfully hide women & children as human shields in their hideout without the knowledge of Israel soldiers pilots.
You are also fully aware that the terrorists began these provocations by killing three innocent Israel youths & went ahead to fire rockets into Israel civilian areas when Israel retaliated against Hamas & not against civilians.
Your hypocrisy will expose you.

Are you okay?
Are you a Christain?
I seriously doubt it.

/The Jewish leaders began harassing
Jesus for breaking the Sabbath
rules. But Jesus replied, “My Father is
always working, and so am
I.” (John 5:16-17 NLT)/
A true knowledge of the Lord Jesus
will reverse a good many of our
ideas, and a good many of our
procedures. A true knowledge of
Christ
and union with Christ, with all that that
means, will make us go to
work in entirely the opposite way from
that in which we have been
accustomed to go. We shall come to
be governed by this one
consideration, that it is not what we
would do for the Lord, but what
the Lord would do through us, that is
alone to rule. It is a very
testing way. You can hardly believe,
unless you have been the same
way, how often and intensely and
bitterly the enemy fights and tempts
you to come down on to a lower
position, and to take up things again
for God and launch big schemes,
enter upon big undertakings, set up
some thing on the earth that can be
seen, because all those who are
governed by that standard of things
seen have said: "You see, you are
doing nothing! Show us what you are
doing! You cannot show us anything
for it all!" Satan does work on that
line. To the flesh that is not
easy. To go on with God and have
nothing to show for it, never to be
able to have the work written up in
the papers, to publish no reports,
nor statistics, and yet to know in your
heart of hearts that, although
it is hidden, something is going on,
and that you cannot do otherwise
than you are doing, is far from being a
path of ease to the flesh.
It is a testing way, but, blessed be
God, if we do endure the testing
and go on patiently with Him, in His
time, when that flesh has been
finally laid low; when the voice of
natural ambition is no longer
sounding and having influence, and
we are now utterly at the place
where if things are not going to be of
the Lord then there is not
going to be anything at all, the Lord
has a free way, and He is able
to indicate that all the time something
has been going on. He shows
how He has been at work, and how
that in
time there will be manifested
a work of God, a work that shall have
such a large percentage of
spiritual value and meaning in it that
you are very glad, after all,
that you walked with God and not with
men in the work of God.

/Those who trust in the Lord are like
Mount Zion, which cannot be
shaken but endures forever. As the
mountains surround Jerusalem, so
the Lord surrounds His people both
now and forevermore. (Psalm 125:1,2
NIV)/
Mountains? And the Lord like the
mountains? What is that? It is
fortification, it is strength, it is
protection. And what is the point
of fortification if there is nothing
against which to be fortified?
Away back in Old Testament times,
when the people came into the land,
the remarkable thing is that they
occupied the higher places more than
the lower. You will find that their
towns, cities and villages are
almost all of them upon some high
place; the reason being that their
enemies, who had chariots and
horses, had their strength on the level,
in the plain, but they could do nothing
with chariots and horses
against mountains. And therefore the
safety, security and
fortification of the Lord's people was
by being on high places.
That is a parable. If the enemy can get
you on to his level he has
beaten you. So he must pull you
down, he must get you down, he
must
get you to accept something less than
God's full place and mind for
you, and then he will undo you. That
is what he has done with the
church, speaking of the church now in
very general terms. He has
pulled it down to this world level; he
has reduced it to the level of
things here, and he has absolutely
disintegrated it, broken it up and
divided it and robbed it of its power.
The church which is revealed to
us in the New Testament is always on
high ground.... In Ephesians, it
is “in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.” It
is a great power to be
on high ground, it is a great defensive,
protective factor; the enemy
can do little with you if you keep up
there and refuse to come down.
Nehemiah found that to be so, when
they said, “Come down and let us
confer”; and he said, “I am doing a
great work so that I cannot
come down” (Neh. 6:3). It is a
principle operating....

“Once more I will shake not only the
earth but also the heavens.”
The words “once more” indicate the
removing of what can be shaken
- that is, created things - so that what
cannot be shaken may remain.
(Hebrews 12:26-27 NIV)/
The fact is that, while certain things
characterized the New Testament
churches, the New Testament /does
not /give us a complete pattern
according to which churches are to be
set up or formed! There is no
blue-print for churches in the New
Testament, and to try to form New
Testament churches is only to create
another system which may be as
legal, sectarian and dead as others.
Churches, like the Church, are
organisms which spring out of Life,
which Life itself springs out of
/the Cross of Christ wrought into the
very being of believers./
This brings us to our particular point.
What is the pressing
imperative in view of this oncoming
flood of testing, which has
already carried away very many of
those who were called Christian, and
even evangelical Christians? Surely
there is only one answer:- On the
one hand, a ministry which has as its
substance and object the
"rooting and grounding," the
establishing, the building up of
believers, and the real increase of "the
measure of Christ." This must
get behind evangelism, so that the
work is deep, not superficial;
enduring, not transient; intrinsic, not
general! On the other hand,
believers must really take stock of their
Christianity. Is it just a
tradition, an assumption, an external
system, the thing which is
common acceptance - more or less?
Or is it really "by revelation of
Jesus Christ" in the heart? A real walk
with God, and a /growing
/knowledge of Christ, a life in the
Spirit? God has said it: the
things which can be shaken will be.
What have we got that, being
unshakable, will remain? Hmm!!

/May He equip you with all you need
for doing His will. May He produce
in you, through the power of Jesus
Christ, every good thing that is
pleasing to Him. (Hebrews 13:21 NLT)/
So long as we are in line with God's
purpose His work can go on in us.
What matters is not first of all our
activity. God is more concerned
with what is done in us than what we
do for Him. He often reaches His
end with us much better when we are
in a state of inactivity than in
times of much work. The hand of the
Potter was upon Moses when he was
in the wilderness where he could not
do much. During forty years he
was just looking after a few sheep.
That is not very grand. No doubt
he wondered sometimes to what
purpose he was there, whether his life
had any value. But principalities and
powers saw something and
wondered at God's wisdom. God
knew how to equip this man, how to
get
His way in that life. That is true in the
case of many a servant of
God. God is working for good, He is
shaping His vessel. There is
wisdom in all His dealings with us. But
we have to see to it that we
have no plans or personal ambitions
of our own. The clay has to be
completely in His hands. If we are
really here for God, we can be
assured that He will reach His end,
that He may work out His purpose
in us. And there we shall find strength.
Are you sure you are in the great
purpose of God? Everybody has some
part in it. Paul, when speaking of the
church, illustrates it thus:
/“that all the body is fitly framed and
knit together through that
which every joint supplies./” No part
of the body is without
function. Each and every one has to
be in God's purpose. Some parts
may be very small, they nevertheless
are equally important. We have to
remember that God has called us for
a purpose which will be realized
as we abandon ourselves to Him.
Whatever it may be to which He has
called us, let us be ready and do it. A
Holy Spirit possessed life is
always marked by purpose. Nothing
can be lost in such a life; let us
not believe in mere generalities. That
is not
good enough. There is
something far more definite in God's
thoughts for our lives. Let us
abandon all personal desires, and be
filled with the Spirit of urgency
- “straight away.” Those who know
that they are called of God, and
who definitely recognize the purpose
of their life, will be wholly
given up to it. Such no longer have
any interest for the things of
this earth. They have no time to lose.
They must buy up their time.

Isaiah 49:16 New International Version (NIV)

16 See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are ever before me.

Lol
Am in.

Some of our leaders are part of the problm.

The last poster need to read Luke2:34

why can't you guys tell us who the bombers are?eeh?

We, too, are confronted by some of the foes which He had to face, for we have been called to bear the cross after Him. The fickleness of friends and fellow-workers, the bigoted criticism of those who claim to be God's servants, the fear-inspiring pressure of popular opinion, the misunderstanding and jealousy which Satan himself inspires - these are some of the tests put to our love. We can never hope to overcome them unless we remember that there is in the presence of God for us a Saviour who suffered the full agony of these things, but accepted them as part of the cup which the Father had given Him to drink. It was love for the Father which enabled Him always to choose the Father's will, and the outcome of His triumph is that "we should be holy and without blemish before him in love". There is a sense in which God is seeking to undo in us all that failure of love which we inherit from Adam. He exposes us to the painfulness of the cross, not in some capricious or unsympathetic way, but because He aims to reproduce in us that love fulfilment of His will which Christ already presents to Him on our behalf.

One day our wilderness journeys will be over. The staves will be removed and we will find ourselves in the full realisation of that eternal purpose that we should be perfect before Him in love. The house, then, will indeed be filled with the glory of God to the exclusion of all else. In that day it will be seen that the only thing which really mattered was love's fulfilment of the will of God. In fact that is all which matters now. There is nothing in the ark save the two tables! What is now true in Him is to be made wonderfully true for us also. And all the glory will be His.

In some way or other this inevitably means that we are led back to the cross, for the tables of the law were covered by the blood-stained mercy seat. The cross was the answer to all sin. Surely the very essence of sin is failure to love God. If Adam had truly loved God the whole tragedy of man's fall would never have occurred, for love is the fulfilment of the law. Man's sin made Christ's sacrifice necessary; His cross was the only way by which atonement could be made for our shortcomings. But it was also the supreme expression of His love for the Father. In the case of the Lord Jesus His love to the Father was so complete that it enabled Him to face even the death of the cross.

If we consider what were some of the practical factors in Christ's crucifixion we realise that His sufferings were caused by men's fickleness, bigotry, fearfulness, jealousy and treachery. In love He bore all these for us. And these may well be the factors which challenge the reality of our love to God. The fickle crowds so soon forgot the kindness and goodness of the Lord Jesus, allowing themselves to be carried away by base and false accusations, so that they cried out against the one whom they had formerly extolled and praised. The Pharisees were so dominated by a religious bigotry which was cruel in its intolerance and harsh in its legalistic denunciations that they took the lead in causing His sufferings. The disciples, as well as Pilate, were fearful; Judas was treacherous; and Satan was jealous himself and inspired jealousy in the Sadducees and others. But all this concentration of attacks upon love did not turn the Lord away from remaining faithful to the Father's will in every detail. God's love meant more to Him than the bitterness of enemies, the failure of friends, the strength of popular opinion or the matter of His own rights. When He came to rest in the glory of the Father's presence, love had conquered every temptation. Just as the tables of the law had been preserved inviolate - not only unbroken but not even scratched - so the will of God was preserved in perfection by the Lord Jesus, whose love for the Father was so great that it enabled Him to drink even the bitter cup of Calvary................

And what shall we say of Aaron's rod which budded? Life in its fullness, beautiful and fruitful life, is ours as we rely entirely on the utter sufficiency of Christ. "There was nothing in the ark save the two tables...". Nothing more is needed; nothing more is possible; this is enough for God, as the clouds of glory testified, and so it is surely enough for us. In Aaron's case the budding rod represented God's answer to men's criticisms and Satan's accusations. So it is in our case, for we can rightly claim that for us the law has been fully satisfied. The will of God in perfection is just as truly sustained in Christ Jesus our heavenly Ark as ever the tables given to Moses were permanently deposited in the gold-covered chest which came to rest in the holy of holies. The ark of the testimony had been specially constructed to hold the tablets: they belonged there and no one could ever remove them. And all the good of Aaron's rod was made available because of them. We pine for life, we bewail our lack of beauty and fruitfulness whenever we take our eyes away from Christ's perfection; but conversely we enjoy life in its fullness as we concentrate our faith and hope on His finished work on our behalf.

The will of God has so many aspects that we get into all sorts of difficulties about it, wondering what the will of God is about this matter and that. There is only one way to resolve our difficulties and that is by accepting Christ as the fulfiller of the law in everything, and yielding ourselves completely to His headship. The will of God is not sectional or divided up into compartments; we cannot submit to it in piecemeal ways. We must know that will in all its comprehensiveness, for when Christ is altogether given His place of absolute headship as the perfecter of the will of God for us, then we find the key to a life in which the many details of that will are all included. It is no longer a matter of applying the law to different aspects of our life, but a question of a wholehearted subjection to Him as Lord. This reduces every problem to the simple issue of what He wishes, with the one question: 'Lord, what do You want me to do?'....................

1 Kings 8:5-11
King James Version (KJV)
5 And king Solomon, and all the congregation of Israel, that were assembled unto him, were with him before the ark, sacrificing sheep and oxen, that could not be told nor numbered for multitude.
6 And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the LORD unto his place, into the oracle of the house, to the most holy place, even under the wings of the cherubims.
7 For the cherubims spread forth their two wings over the place of the ark, and the cherubims covered the ark and the staves thereof above.
8 And they drew out the staves, that the ends of the staves were seen out in the holy place before the oracle, and they were not seen without: and there they are unto this day.
9 There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb, when the LORD made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt.
10 And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the LORD,
11 So that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud: for the glory of theLORD had filled the house of the LORD.


At last the ark of the covenant had arrived at its destination. Amid scenes of great rejoicing it had been brought "to its place" and left there under the wings of the cherubim and surrounded by clouds of divine glory. "There was nothing in the ark save the two tables". God's holy law had been perfectly preserved, and there it reposed in the inmost oracle of God. Originally, of course, there had also been the golden pot of manna and Aaron's rod which budded. Their absence at this later date does not imply that their significance was any less, but rather indicates that the tables of the law included them in its own divine sufficiency. The wilderness journeys of God's people had ended and the ark was now at rest in the house of God. In that temple which symbolised the heavenly reality which marks the end of earthly pilgrimage, there was no longer any need to perpetuate reminders of the wilderness way: the abiding truths which they typified were all included in the tables of the law. These tablets set forth God's mind, His will for man; they were an expression of how life would be lived in accordance with His unchanging desires.

There can be no question about the perfection and finality of God's will. The letter to the Ephesians lays great stress on this matter, making use of such phrases as: "the good pleasure of his will", "the mystery of his will" and "the counsel of his will". It takes us backwards and forwards in thought, pointing back to God's will as predetermined before time was, speaking of that will as now operating through the years of time, and looking forward to the will of God overstepping time in eternal fulfilment. The passage shows that God's will is centred in one glorious intention of love: "he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love...". God's will from all eternity is to have a great family whom He can love and who love Him in return.

Love is the fulfilling of the law, a fact symbolised in the ark, which was the receptacle in which the unbroken law was preserved. This ark was a chest made of acacia wood overlaid with gold within and without. The gold speaks of divine love, so that the fact that the tablets were hidden in the ark typified the fact that the mind of God dwells within a heart of love. Since Christ is the true expression of God's love, He is the only one qualified to be the fulfiller of His law. We know that the Lord Jesus always made love the principle of fulfilling the law. He made it clear that in His own case love for the Father governed everything. As the ark was at last placed before God in the holiest of all, so Christ is now in the presence of God, and He is there as a testimony that the will of the Father has been perfectly fulfilled, and that this has been done not through compulsion or legal obligation but by love alone. Love is the fulfilment of the law or, in other words, love consists in doing the full will of God.

As Christians we hear much about the will of God, and we often find it to be one of our greatest problems. We can only find the answer to these problems in the Lord Jesus who has perfectly fulfilled that will for us. "There was nothing in the ark save the two tables...". Nothing more is needed, for Christ's fulfilment of God's law includes everything else. It includes the manna, for we find heavenly nourishment as we feed on His perfect life of love. All hunger of the soul is met when we realise how in love Christ has fully satisfied the Father's every wish for us. To the last degree He has fulfilled God's eternal desires for our lives; no more needs to be done; no more can be done for love's fullness is revealed in the perfection of the Son's obedience to the Father's will. When we get this clear we can feed on His faithfulness, and it will prove to be sweet heavenly food. If, however, we admit any doubts or questions about this, if we have any reservations or uncertainty as to whether the unbroken law is preserved in love on our behalf, then we become lean and starving believers, hungering for rest and comfort and failing to find them. This is quite unnecessary. We may feast continually on the glorious perfection of God's Son. The manna has not been lost or left behind; it is all included in those two witnesses to love's fulfilment of the law. There, in the holy presence of God, the living Ark has come to rest and, as in Solomon's day the staves were removed to signify the reaching of journey's end, so Christ has perfected for ever those whom He has sanctified unto the will of God. There is nothing more to be done. There is not another inch to go, for the goal of God's will has been gloriously attained. "Lo, I am come to do thy will," Jesus affirmed as He entered this world for us, and when He returned to the Father's presence He was able to say: "I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." To grasp this is to find the end of all soul hunger, to enter on a spiritual banquet, to feast on love - His love for the Father as proved by His total obedience to the divine will..........

They should go and resurrect Abraham before any peace deal between the two parties will work.

He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him. (2 Corinthians 5:15 NIV)

We can only know Christ after the Spirit, so that Christ for us in this dispensation is spiritual in the sense that all that we know of Him or can have to do with Him can only be in the Spirit. “Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer.” (2 Cor. 5:16). He is known after the Spirit. Our resources are spiritual. The weapons of our warfare are spiritual. Everything has got to come to us from above. The one great effort of the enemy, which is again and again successful through this dispensation, has been to bring the things of God down to the attachment with this world, attachment to this earth, to make them something here....

You only need to read John to see how unattached everything is, how everything is lifted clean out of this world, and everything is bound up with the fact that Christ is in heaven, and that the Lord’s people are here, but not here; here, but not known; in the world, but not of it; a mystery people in this world so far as the world is concerned... unrecognized, unknown. And yet by that very means and for that very reason, the most potent force that this universe knows: the spiritual, hidden, secret people of God in this earth. To take hold of Christianity and mold it, and shape it, and systematize it, and crystallize it, and make it some mighty movement here; with its roots here, with all its associations such as man can see, appreciate and approve; to register itself upon the ordinary consciousness of this world as being something; all of that is contrary to the Word of God and is contrary to spiritual life and spiritual power. Christ is in heaven, and we are lifted out, translated, seated together with Him in the heavenlies. Our present purpose in this world is testimony only, by which others will be taken out of the nations, a people for His name.

"Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls" (Jeremiah 6:16).

At some point - not quite easy to fix - a false current had entered the stream of the life of the Lord's people. Small at first, it had gathered momentum, until it had taken control and was carrying everything before it.

The effect was the almost total loss of a central and controlling, integrating authority; a loss of one uniting vision and objective. Out of this there arose confusion; no one knowing what was right or wrong. This confusion and uncertainty became wearing and wearisome, and futility took the heart out of them. The inevitable result of all this was division.

Some wearily accepted the situation and sought to neutralize it by compromise. Some, numbed and bewildered, stood with hand on hips (metaphorically) hoping that something would come round the corner and things would improve. Others were fearful and anxious as to where it would all lead to.

To this situation God spoke in the words quoted above. It was a pointer as to the way, and a challenge to courage, faithfulness, and humility.

"Stand in the ways and see", said the Lord.

The ways were the crossroads; the place of alternatives. Go back to where you made the wrong choice, took the wrong turning, and got off the way of blessing. In the light of the unhappy present, reconsider your decisions. Ask yourselves whether 'the old paths', with all their difficulties and conflicts, were not better than this present.

"Stand". Pause, reflect, consider, relax, break the spell.

The case with Israel seems definitely to come down on the side of "the old paths". There was then an authoritative voice; a throne overhead, a vision and purpose uniting, co-ordinating; a distinctive objective, and an impact upon peoples near and far. Those days of David and Solomon were such 'old paths'. They were days when Heaven was in evidence.

Then came that false current in the nature of tiring of the heavenly, they stooped to the earthly, the tangible, the present, the popular and less ostracized. So the realm and level began to change, until the situation in Jeremiah's time was the general. But people were weary of soul.

If it is thought that the diagnosis which we have given is strained or a mistake, look at the inclusive answer in chapter 17, verse twelve:

"A glorious throne, set on high from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary".

The rule of the heavenly is the sanctuary; the refuge and rest. It was the way of the opened Heaven, which is the way of God's satisfaction. Says the Lord: "And ye shall find rest for your souls". We seem to have heard words like those before.

The reconsideration at the crossroads must lead to action. Having stood, asked, and seen - "walk therein". Repent, return, decide, do! "Walk therein".

The open mind and heart. The submissive and humble will. The honest and courageous resolve and committal.

"Stand". "Ask". "Walk". "Find rest".

None of you can be My disciples unless you give up everything. (Luke 14:33 GW)

Nothing is truly established until it has been yielded up and has received the brand of the Cross upon it. Have you got that? Even though that may have been given to you from God, there is still always the danger of something in ourselves impinging upon something that God has given us. We insinuate ourselves into it, and make it ours somehow. This Self! This flesh! Oh, yes, God gives us a ministry and then we get hold of it and become jealous about our ministry and afraid of other people getting in our way and taking our ministry away from us; interfering with our ministry, you see. The flesh comes up in that way and in so many other directions and connections. God does something, and then we come into it. We get into the picture.

Somehow or other this flesh cannot keep itself out of even the things that God does by a miracle. We turn them to the glorification or the gratification of this flesh of ours, and even a thing which God may give – and you are thinking perhaps of different things which God may give – will never be established and confirmed until it has been yielded up and knows the mark of death to ourselves and that is only alive for and unto God, and we are only alive for and unto God in that connection, whatever it may be. The Cross is the way of Life in everything and immediately the Cross is nullified by this thing upon which the Cross says, "No, No!" Immediately anything of that comes up again, we counter the life of that thing, we strangle its life, we limit its life. We not only arrest the progress, but we bring into smallness God’s intention of multiplication. Why cannot God increase? And the answer is clearly and definitely this: that somehow or other man has come into this business of God and turned it to himself. The Cross has not been kept in its place to give God a clear, full, free way.

He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. 32 Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”Matt13:31-32.
The parable of the mustard seed (vv. 31, 32) is one of the most difficult of all, and one that has perhaps been the occasion of some of the worst interpretations and teachings."The kingdom of heaven is like unto a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: which indeed is less than all seeds; but when it is grown, it is greater than the herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the heaven come and lodge in the branches." Do you really believe, in the light of all these other parables and of His whole teaching, that the Lord Jesus said, 'This is the Kingdom of Heaven - the Kingdom of Heaven is like that'? If the common and popular interpretation is to be accepted, then we are involved in some real difficulties. Admittedly, the parable does seem to mean that Christianity, or "the kingdom of heaven", has very small beginnings and then grows to very great dimensions. There may be an element of truth in that. The beginnings in Jerusalem WERE small, and in the course of the centuries Christianity has become worldwide. But is that just what the Lord meant by the parable?
There are at least three things that would pull us up and make us think again, and think more energetically.
One is that at other times the Lord definitely used terms of strict and severe limitation in relation to salvation, the way and the issue. So much was this so, that His disciples were startled into ejaculating: "Lord, are there few that be saved?" (Luke 12:23). He spoke of the way to life being straitened, and few finding or accepting it: of the gate being narrow, and few entering thereby (Matt. 7:13,14). He called His disciples (representatives of His Church) the "little flock" to whom it would be the Father's good pleasure to giveTHE KINGDOM (Luke 12:32). There are contrasting ideas between "wide" and "narrow", "broad" and "straitened", big and little, popular and unpopular. All this does not agree with the usual superficial interpretation of this parable.
Then what about the "fowls of the air"? Did He use this metaphor in a contradictory way? In the parable of the sower He had spoken of these in a bad sense: is He employing the same terms in a right and proper sense here? This violates the principle of consistency in inspiration.
Thirdly, is it COMMONLY true that the "mustard seed", the smallest of all, grows into a tree so great as is here depicted? No, it is positively not true. If our Lord saw such a thing - and He may have done - and drew attention to it, He was drawing attention to something abnormal and not natural. It was sufficiently abnormal and unnatural to attract attention.
This brings us to the factor that is common to ALL the parables and all the teaching of Jesus, and of the Apostles subsequently. In all these parables there is a selective, discriminating, contrasting, comparative, good-and-bad element. The Kingdom of Heaven is like that: the sovereign rule is all-comprehending, but it is very particular, selective, and judicial. Consistency in every direction demands that we interpret this "tree" of Christianity as an abnormal, unnatural development, capable of housing many things that are not in keeping with the true NATURE of the Kingdom. These "fowls" are NOT the born-from-above people who alone can see or enter the kingdom (John 3). They are all the accretions, the camp-followers, the parasites, the various kinds of people and things that take advantages of Christianity, and use its cover, but are not of its nature.
The Lord was letting His disciples know that this is what would happen, and that the sovereignty took all this in its stride. It is as well that we should know that the Lord has foreseen the developments of Christianity and its abnormalities, but it is to great detriment that His spirit of discernment and discrimination does not have a way with so many Christians.
Does the New Testament, to begin with, indicate that there is any such thing as abnormality, or this kind of abnormal development, about the true work of God? It rather indicates that, although ultimately the sum of many, many centuries will be 'a great multitude which no man can number', there will be, as we get nearer and nearer to the end, a tremendous sifting out and falling away. It is definitely stated that that day will not come before there is a great falling away (2 Thess. 2:3), and that "judgment must begin at the house of God" (1 Pet. 4:17). Well, then, if this is right - a great falling away - the Bible contradicts itself. As we have said, the teaching of the Lord seemed to be so clear to the disciples on this matter that they exclaimed: "Are there few that be saved?" What is all this about the broad and the narrow way? The broad way - many go by it; the narrow way - few find it. The Bible does not contradict itself; but it says that God takes account of these things, and God in His sovereignty permits them. He does not come out and destroy this freakish thing popularly called 'Christianity'. That may be there, but God in His sovereignty is pursuing His own course to secure what He is after. Though all this may be quite true, the sovereign rule of God goes on, the sovereignty is preserved.

Candour: God bless you my brother i.chuka

Wonderful write ups here

Thanks bro.
Happy new year

And the remnant... shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward. (Isaiah 37:31)
The Lord must have something which cannot be carried away, which cannot be removed, cannot be shaken, and certainly something which cannot be rooted up. That is His remnant. That, He must have for His own glory, and, that being so, He will take every measure with His remnant to have them after that kind, with roots downward. Of course, unto fruit upward. We speak much about the upward side of things, life in the heavenlies, sitting in the heavenlies, and our warfare and work – the fruitfulness of our life in union with the Lord. That is only possible as our roots are downward. In order that that might be so, we have to get into a place of unshakeableness where the roots have got such a grip that nothing can overthrow. And I believe that explains a very great deal of what the Lord is doing with His own spiritual people in these days.
It is true that the true children of God are going through a time of intense trial and testing spiritually in these days; everywhere it is so. Why? Because the Lord must have something against which hell is impotent and by which He demonstrates to the universe that strength of His might which causes to stand and withstand, and having done all to stand. If one were asked what the last issue for the Church in this age is, I would say that it stands, and that is saying a tremendous thing. Oh, you say, that is surely limiting things, are you not expecting much more than that? Progress, advance, sweeping movements? The Church will have all its work cut out in the end to stand, but its standing will be its victory. Just to be able, through testing, trial, when everything is blowing round you like a blizzard; when everything is dark, mysterious, and even God seems far away and unreal, and faith is tested and you are being assailed on the right hand and on the left, and th ere is every reason outwardly for your moving, giving up, falling down, surrendering, lowering your standard, just to stand and not be moved in your faith is the greatest possible victory.... We are passing through deep experiences, the enemy is doing it and the Lord is not preventing him, but we are coming to a fuller knowledge of the power of our God and a deeper rooting beyond all previous shakeableness. And the Lord is seeking to have a people who cannot be shaken, against whom hell with all its demonstration of arrogance and pride, is impotent. “And the remnant... shall again take root downward.” That is what the Lord needs.

The words "once more" indicate the removing of what can be shaken – that is, created things – so that what cannot be shaken may remain. (Hebrews 12:27 NIV)

In the destruction of Jerusalem – toward which the Letter pointed – the whole earth was shaken so far as Jewry was concerned. The Temple, as the focal point of that whole world, crashed even with the ground. The priesthood, as gathered up in the high-priestly order, passed away. The temple service ended, and the nation ceased to be an integrated and unified people. These were things capable of being removed. And yet how long they had stood! What forces they had withstood! What confidence there was that they could never cease to be! How assured they were that God was so bound up with it all that it could never be destroyed and cease to be! How they fought and clung to it to the last terrible extremity! But it was of no avail. God was no longer wanting the framework and earthly system, which had taken so much room, and energy, and expenditure, before the really spiritual was reached. The percentage of spiritual value was so small after all, and spiritual interests lay so far along the labyrinthine ways of religious machinery and tradition, that it was not worthwhile. The means to the end was not immediate, that is, there was far too big a distance between the means and the end. There was no immediate touch with the real Divine requirement, and there was far too much that was intermediate. And so it had to go, and, rather than preserve it, God Himself shook it.

What remained after the shaking was just that, and that only, which was Christ in a spiritual and heavenly way: Christ in heaven, and here by His Spirit, the gathering point, or occasion of assembling; Christ in heaven the High Priest and Sacrifice; the order of God's house here a purely spiritual and heavenly one – not formal, arranged, imposed, imitated, or material. Order grows out of life, and if that Life is Divine, and unchecked, Divine order will be spontaneous...........

Here we go again,SMH