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 Christianity Etc › Re: The Crown Of The Incorruptible! by ichuka(op): 7:42am On Dec 22, 2013 |
MAN MADE FOR GLORY 'O loving wisdom of our God! When all was sin and shame, A final Adam to the fight And to the rescue came. 'O wisest love! that flesh and blood, Which did in Adam fail, Should strive afresh against the foe, Should strive and should prevail.' Paul it is who calls Jesus "the second man", "the last Adam". Our hymn-writer made a little slip, and so we correct; not a second Adam but a LAST Adam. A second MAN, a last Adam. Paul indicates that God takes another step in a second man, and a final and inclusive step in a last Adam. Christ is God's next move and Christ is God's final move, but Christ comes into the place which the first Adam held as representing the intention of God concerning man. As we are thrown back, by this way in which Paul speaks of Him, to the first man Adam, we are shown by the Scriptures that God's intention for man was that he was to be glorified, to be "crowned with glory" (Hebrews 2:7). He was made for glory. That is the definite statement of Scripture. But that glory was conditioned upon life, a peculiar life, the particular life of God. The glory was contingent upon man having that life, because the glory was the very essence of that life; that particular divine life held all the nature and potentiality of glory. So the glory depended upon his having that life, and that life was dependent upon faith and obedience - upon whether man would believe God to be true, to be honest, to be faithful, that God meant what He said: and so believing, would act accordingly, that is, be obedient to God. The life was contingent or dependent upon that. MAN'S FALLING SHORT OF GOD'S GLORY But we know that man did not believe God, did not trust God, did not take the attitude that God was to be trusted. He disbelieved, and acted accordingly; he disobeyed. The result was that he brought into his own being, and into all his seed, first corruption and then death. A state of corruption entered into his moral being, and that corruption led to death. Thus, for that man, the prospect of glory ended, the intention of his being came to a full-stop. No glory for that man. Heaven is closed, the glory departs; man is excluded. But man strangely did not accept that divine verdict. This thing had become such a positive factor in his being, this corruption was so active, that he refused to accept the verdict, and set out upon a course of making his own glory, getting glory for himself. The history of man is the history of an effort to get glory without getting it from God. That covers a very great deal. It started very early in the Bible story, and we see it going all the way through; but the glory of man, as we have said earlier, always ends in corruption. However much glory he draws to himself, however much he achieves of that which is called "the glory of man" it ends in corruption. We who are at the end of the history of this world - as it now is - are seeing how the glory of man is bringing his own undoing, the most universal corruption. That is the glory of man. Is that glory? He cannot help himself, he is energised by another power, he is not his own master. He calls it glory and the thing which is so strange is the blindness of man all the time. He wages a war and calls it 'a war to end war', and he wages a worse war and thinks and believes that this surely is the end of war, and on he goes and still it gets worse and worse; and now it is true that we are in sight of the disintegration of humanity, and the possibility of the wiping out of the human race. We understand today, more than ever it could possibly have been understood before, the meaning of our Lord's words: "except those days had been shortened, no flesh would have been saved" (Matthew 24:22). Is that not true? That is our present condition - corruption with false glory............ |
| Christianity Etc › The Crown Of The Incorruptible! by ichuka(op): 6:40am On Dec 22, 2013 |
"An inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you..." (1 Peter 1:4) The verdict of the long run, that is, what abides as incorruptible when all else has passed, is the verdict upon life and work. How much will be found afterwards to the praise and glory of God? That word 'incorruptible', then, is the word which governs all, is the standard of all. GLORY THE CROWN OF THE INCORRUPTIBLE The crown of the incorruptible is glory. That is the verdict upon the life of the Lord Jesus. John says, many years afterwards: "we beheld his glory" (John 1:14). That was the issue. Neither John nor any of his fellow-apostles was very much alive to it while the Lord was with them; nevertheless He was gaining on them all the time, He was overtaking them. Eventually they were left with one deep and indelible impression which stood the test of many years, many experiences, many trials, much suffering; and at last, at the end of that particular phase, the apostolic age, John, the one lonely remaining apostle of the whole group, wrote the verdict: "We beheld his glory" - the glory of the incorruptible. Peter also, at the end of his life, when he was saying that he was about to be offered up, recorded the same verdict. Referring to that wonderful experience on the Mount of Transfiguration, he wrote: "We were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory" (2 Peter 1:16-17) - the verdict of the incorruptible. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews, whom I always suspect as being Paul, said: "We behold him who hath been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honour" (Hebrews 2:9). Whether that was Paul or not, it was someone who passed the same verdict; but Paul did join in with the words: "Now unto the King eternal, incorruptible... be honour and glory". The verdict of the incorruptible is glory. We have been seeing that the glory of Christ was due to certain incorruptible characteristics. First, His union with His Father; something so deep, so real, so unshakeable, as to abide all tests and go right through, in spite of all the efforts of man and demons and the very Devil himself to part the Two, to come between them. That union with the Father was uninterrupted; it went through. And we said that the Lord Jesus made it perfectly clear that such a union as existed between Him and His Father could exist between us and Himself, and with the Father; not in Deity, but in real, living organic oneness and fellowship; by being born of God. That union is the basis of glory. It is something incorruptible. 1 Like |
| Christianity Etc › Re: The School Of CHRIST. by ichuka(op): 6:47am On Dec 21, 2013 |
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore, as you go, disciple people in all nations. (Matthew 28:18,19 ISV) But who is to go? It is the Church, and His irreducible nucleus of the Church is two. It is a corporate thing, the bringing of the significance of the Body into view. When there is a functioning in the Spirit, it is nothing less than Christ risen, ascended and exalted, going on with His work through His Body, with all those limitations dismissed. That is tremendous! It is either true, or it is not true. If it is true, it is an immense thing. If it is not, well, what fools we are! But here it is, and, oh! that the Church might learn more of what it means to be in living union with a risen Christ! That there should be a company, two or three or more, though limited physically here on this earth by time and space, yet really functioning in the Holy Spirit, so that the universal Christ – all that it means that He is there at God’s right hand – is having some expression! I would to God that this could come home to you by the Spirit and that you could grasp it, for what differences it would make! We have a long way to go yet before this is appreciated adequately. But it is true! When you touch these things, human language is a vain instrument for expression. “The exceeding greatness of His power” – the superlatives in this realm! Oh, for this enlargement by a new apprehension of the greatness of Christ in His Person, in His death, in His resurrection! Well, then, the supreme thing the New Testament shows is that the Church on its true, spiritual basis corresponds to Christ risen. Not "the Church" that we know here on earth, for it does not. But God’s thought about the Church is not an impossible and merely idealistic one. It is a practical thing. Two saints, simple, humble and unimportant in this world, but really meeting together in the Spirit, can be a functioning instrument of Him to whom has been committed all authority in heaven and on earth. With them all these old limitations can be dismissed and they can at one moment touch all the ends of the earth. Do you believe that? That is really the meaning of our glorying in Christ risen. It has to be something more than emotion, and more than glorious doctrine; yes, more than a truth to which we give some assent.... If it is true that we are one with a risen, enthroned Lord, it ought to have tremendous repercussions. May it be so! |
| Christianity Etc › The BURDEN Of The Valley Of VISION!! by ichuka(op): 6:40am On Dec 21, 2013 |
ISAIAH 22:1.. THE ''BURDEN OF THE VALLEY OF VISION.''…….. THE WORD ''BURDEN'' HERE JUST DOES MEAN A LOAD OR WEIGHT, AS MUCH AS A MAN CAN CARRY. THUS THE PROPHETS FELT WHAT THE LORD HAD SHOWN THEM TO BE SOMETHING THAT WEIGHED HEAVILY UPON THEM AND OFTEN OVERWHELMED THEM. THE PROPHETIC FUNCTION IS BROUGHT INTO OPERATION AT A TIME WHEN THINGS ARE NOT WELL WITH THE PEOPLE AND WORK OF GOD, WHEN DECLENSION HAS SET IN; WHEN THINGS HAVE LOST THEIR DISTINCTIVE DIVINE CHARACTER; WHEN THERE IS A FALLING SHORT OR AN ACCRETION OF FEATURES WHICH WERE NEVER INTENDED BY GOD. THE PROPHET IN PRINCIPLE IS ONE WHO REPRESENTS, IN HIMSELF AND HIS VISION, GOD'S REACTION TO EITHER A DANGEROUS TENDENCY OR A POSITIVE DEVIATION. HE STANDS ON GOD'S FULL GROUND AND THE TREND BREAKS ON HIM. THAT WHICH CONSTITUTES THIS PROPHETIC FUNCTION IS SPIRITUAL PERCEPTION, DISCERNMENT, AND INSIGHT. THE PROPHET SEES, AND HE SEES WHAT OTHERS ARE NOT SEEING. IT IS VISION, AND THIS VISION IS NOT JUST OF AN ENTERPRISE, A ''WORK,'' A VENTURE; IT IS A STATE, A CONDITION. IT IS NOT FOR THE WORK AS SUCH THAT HE IS CONCERNED, BUT FOR THE SPIRITUAL STATE THAT DISHONORS AND GRIEVES THE LORD. This faculty of spiritual discernment makes the Prophet a very lonely man, and brings upon him all the charges of being singular, extreme, idealistic, unbalanced, spiritually proud, and even schismatic. He makes many enemies for himself. Sometimes he is not vindicated until after he has left the earthly scene of his testimony. Nevertheless, the Prophet is the instrument of keeping the Lord's full thought alive, and of maintaining vision without which the people are doomed to disintegration. WHILE IT HAS SO OFTEN BEEN AN INDIVIDUAL WITH WHOM THE LORD HAS DEPOSITED HIS FULLER THOUGHT AND MADE HIS PROPHETIC VESSEL, IT HAS ALSO VERY FREQUENTLY BEEN A COMPANY OF HIS PEOPLE IN WHICH HE HAS BEEN MORE UTTERLY REPRESENTED. SUCH COMPANIES ARE SEEN SCATTERED DOWN THE AGES. THEY WERE THE LORD'S REACTIONARY VESSELS. SUCH, SURELY, ARE THE ''OVERCOMERS'' OF EVERY ''END-TIME.'' THE MASS OF CHRISTIANS MAY BE TOO TAKEN UP WITH THE EXTERNALS AND ACCEPTED WAYS OF CHRISTIANITY; TOO SPIRITUALLY SATISFIED WITH THE LESSER; TOO BOUND BY TRADITION AND FETTERED BY THE ESTABLISHED ORDER. THE LORD CANNOT DO HIS FULL THING WITH THEM BECAUSE HE DOES NOT PUT HIS NEW WINE INTO OLD WINESKINS; THE SKINS WOULD BURST AND THE LIFE BE WASTED, NOT CONSERVED TO DEFINITE PURPOSE. HE FINDS HIMSELF LIMITED BY AN ORDER WHICH, WHILE IT MAY HAVE BEEN RIGHT AT A CERTAIN TIME AND FOR A CERTAIN PERIOD TO CARRY HIS TESTIMONY UP TO A CERTAIN POINT, YET NOW REMAINS AS THE FIXED BOUND, AND FOR WANT OF AN ESSENTIAL ADJUSTABLENESS HIS FULLER PURPOSES ARE IMPOSSIBLE OF REALIZATION. SO IT WAS WITH JUDAISM, SO IT HAS BECOME WITH CHRISTIANITY, AND SO IT IS WITH MANY AN INSTRUMENTALITY WHICH HAS BEEN GREATLY USED BY HIM. THERE IS NO FINALITY WITH US HERE, AND IT IS DANGEROUS TO THE LORD'S INTEREST TO CONCLUDE THAT, BECAUSE THE LORD LED AND GAVE A PATTERN AT A CERTAIN TIME, THAT WAS FULL AND FINAL AND MUST REMAIN. EVERY BIT OF NEW REVELATION WILL CALL FOR ADJUSTMENT, BUT REVELATION WAITS FOR SUCH A SENSE OF NEED AS TO AT LEAST MAKE FOR WILLINGNESS TO ADJUST. THE LORD NEEDS THAT WHICH REALLY DOES REPRESENT HIS FULLEST POSSIBLE THOUGHT, AND NOT THOSE WHO ARE JUST DOING A GOOD WORK. BUT IT COSTS; AND THIS IS THE ''BURDEN OF THE VALLEY OF VISION.''............... |
| Christianity Etc › Re: Is It True That The Man Christ Is Not God? by ichuka(m): 11:32pm On Dec 19, 2013 |
Boomark: Did Gal 3:20 say, the mediator is God?Dude go and do the NEEDFULL by studing the book of GALATAINS3 1 Like |
| Christianity Etc › Re: Is It True That The Man Christ Is Not God? by ichuka(m): 11:30pm On Dec 19, 2013 |
Boomark: Did Gal 3:20 say, the mediator is God? |
| Christianity Etc › Our Prayer Life....vital. by ichuka(op): 2:15pm On Dec 19, 2013 |
In the morning, long before sunrise, Jesus went to a place where He could be alone to pray. (Mark 1:35 GW) I am quite sure that I have the agreement of most of the Lord's people when I say that one of the most difficult things, if not the most difficult thing, is to be able to get to prayer and give ourselves to prayer. When we contemplate prayer we meet a host of unsuspected and unforeseen difficulties which suddenly rise up as ambush forces breaking out upon us. Anything to prevent prayer! I am not saying something that you do not know, but I am saying it in order that you may recognize it clearly, definitely and deliberately, and face the fact that it is not just ordinary circumstances, but a designed, well-laid scheme of the enemy to prevent prayer. The enemy, instead of objecting, will promote occupation with a thousand and one things for the Lord if thereby he can crowd out prayer. He does not mind how busy we are in the Lord's work, nor how often we are found preaching, conducting meetings, and doing the many-sided work of the Lord, as we may cal l it. He knows quite well that all the work for the Lord which is not founded upon triumphant spiritual prayer will count for little or nothing in the long run and will break down. I say that he does not mind you working. Work for the Lord as hard as you can, but if you leave out prayer you will not accomplish very much. One of the subtleties of the enemy is to get us so busy, so occupied, so much on the go and on the rush with – as we think – things for the Lord and the work of the Lord, that our prayer is cramped and pushed up into a corner and limited, if not almost entirely ruled out; and the Lord will never accept the excuse: "Lord, I am too much engaged in Your interests to pray." The Lord never favors an attitude like that.... Immediately you begin to contemplate or purpose a fuller prayer-life, the enemy launches a new scheme for keeping you more busy and occupied, heaping up the work and crowding in demands so that you will have no time or opportunity for prayer.... But we must recognize this: that the enemy will construct his best arguments about responsibility, duty and conscience to stop us praying, and there is a place where, if we see prayer is utterly ruled out, or brought down to such a limited place that it is completely inadequate for a life of spiritual ascendancy and victory, we have to say: "Lord, I am going to trust the responsibility with You while I pray, that You will not allow my breaking away for this time to have detrimental results, and that You will protect this prayer-time – which I seek for Your glory – from the inroads of the enemy." |
| Christianity Etc › Re: Is It True That The Man Christ Is Not God? by ichuka(m): 11:54pm On Dec 18, 2013 |
TroGunn: The above seems pretty clear - no issues. TroGunn: The above seems pretty clear - no issues.lolz... So na your own understanding of d verse b dis^^^^ Dude,you have to SEE inorder for you to truthfully believe and UNDERSTAND.I will advise you STUDY the book of GALATAINS Chapter3 let the HOLYSPIRIT by your guide.  |
| Christianity Etc › Re: Is It True That The Man Christ Is Not God? by ichuka(m): 11:53pm On Dec 18, 2013 |
TroGunn: The above seems pretty clear - no issues. TroGunn: The above seems pretty clear - no issues.lolz... So na your own understanding of d verse b dis^^^^ Dude,you have to SEE inorder for you to truthfully believe and UNDERSTAND.I will advise you STUDY the book of GALATAINS Chapter3 let the HOLYSPIRIT by your guide. |
| Christianity Etc › Re: Is It True That The Man Christ Is Not God? by ichuka(m): 12:06pm On Dec 18, 2013 |
TroGunn: The case is over rested sef.Dude,y are you runing away from that simple verse i posted?whats there in GAL3:20 Thats so problematic for you guys to comprehend? OK,make i help una again.. GAL3: 20 Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one. ( Now a mediator is not a mediator of one)Paul was talking about the law here,that is,theres GOD'S side,Man side and a mediator. (but God is one.)BUT in the aspect of the promise/GRACE GOD is ONE!!! theres no mans side or a mediator,BUT if there is GOD is still ONE,meaning HE GOD is GOD,HE is also the MAN,and if theres a mediator HE is GOD. theres no second or third party in the aspect of GRACE.BUT if there is "GOD is ONE" |
| Christianity Etc › Re: Is It True That The Man Christ Is Not God? by ichuka(m): 6:42am On Dec 18, 2013 |
TroGunn: This your explanation and conclusion is befuddling.dude if you cant deal with the simple verse i posted,y dont you rest your case.(gal3:20) |
| Christianity Etc › Re: Crucified To The Religious World by ichuka(op): 11:02pm On Dec 17, 2013 |
He said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. (2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV) What is your idea of power? What is your mentality concerning power? Are you clamoring for power, wanting power? Well, it all works out this way. True power from God's standpoint is Calvary power. Christ crucified is the power of God. What is Calvary power? Well, it is emptiness of self, you and I being emptied of self – and truly, that is easier said than endured! Oh, how very much there is of this self about us still! How we hate – how we suffer – being emptied of ourselves! What a terrible thing it is to feel our inability – to know that we do not count in ourselves. Oh, to be ABLE! And yet have we not proved, again and again, that our times of greatest emptiness and weakness have been the times when God has done most, and got glory by what He has done? Yes, it has been true. We have learnt it along various lines and different ways, but God has been working right into the very inside of us, so that the thing is done &ndas h; it becomes a part of us. He does not have to maintain it by external conditions. But He frequently uses such – very often physical – conditions, to bring us to that place of utter dependence upon Himself. It is really not good enough, is it, to be forced to it, compelled to it? That is God's way of education, but it would be very much better for us to be fit and well and as dependent upon God as ever. So it all resolves itself into the need, in the first place, for what is meant by being born from above: an entirely new nature and disposition, to begin with, and then a letting God do His work of conforming us to the image of His Son. I am not saying that works and words do not come in, but it is a heartbreaking business to be working and speaking with no power, and no registration of heaven. The Lord give us light as to what He means by this....... |
| Christianity Etc › Re: The School Of CHRIST. by ichuka(op): 5:03pm On Dec 16, 2013 |
Truly, I tell you with certainty, unless a person is born from above he cannot see. (John 3:3 ISV) This is something very searching for us as to our being children of God, being the spiritual children of the travail of Christ. This is not something that is extra to the Christian life, or for those who advance to certain heights and degrees. Right from our new birth, you and I, every one of us, ought to have a faculty of spiritual understanding and perception and knowledge that is possessed by no other person outside this Kingdom! We could spend much time in pointing out the tragedies that have come into Christianity because of failure to recognize or live up to this. I would go so far as to say that the largest proportion of all the trouble between Christians is due to either a lack of, or a failure to live on, the basis of spiritual understanding, spiritual discernment, spiritual perception, spiritual knowledge. There is any amount of natural knowledge in the Christian world: Bible knowledge, prophetic knowledge, and what not. But spiritual knowledge is a rare commodity; and yet it is supposed to be a constituent of our new birth from above, a faculty that we ought to have. Now, if you are thinking: “Then woe is me – I don’t know much about that!” the Lord is simply saying to you: “Look here, this is yours by rights. It is not some extra thing to which you attain by struggle and effort, or by years of laborious Christian living, or by some specific act, some terrific upheaval in your spiritual life. It is a birth thing, it is a birth right: you have a right to this!” But it may be that, after all, you do know in this way, although you do not know that you know! You have a new sense, a new faculty, a new “something” in you, that causes you to know – in some measure at least – what is of the Lord and what is not, what is spiritual and what is not. But oh for the increase of that! It is the development of that, the increase of that, which is the apprenticeship in the school of C hrist. We learn by mistakes, we learn by blunders, but the thing that we are learning is not something objective. We are learning inwardly that such and such is not the way of Life and we should do well to avoid it; and that such and such IS the way of Life, and that is the way for us to go. We learn it inwardly. It is a new kind of knowledge. ............ |
| Christianity Etc › Re: The School Of CHRIST. by ichuka(op): 11:02pm On Dec 15, 2013 |
Solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. (Hebrews 5:14) In our natural, physical man we have five senses. We have our sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. Those are the five senses of our physical natural life. But there is also an inner man called the "hidden man of the heart," and that inward man has what corresponds to the outer man's five senses. There is a faculty of spiritual sight, of spiritual hearing, of spiritual smelling or sensing, of spiritual taste and spiritual touch, and these senses are very important to the life of the inward man – yes, more important even than the senses of the physical man. We know how we feel the tragedy of people who have lost any of those outward senses. It is a great loss; it is an imperfect life, a life of limitation. But it is equally true of the inward man. To be without spiritual sight is a tragic loss and a terrible limitation; or without spiritual hearing, that capacity for answering to the Spirit – "he that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith": if there is no capacity for hearing, that is a desperate situation. What loss there is if there is no sensing – sensing as in the matter of smell, so that you at once scent things. I know how wrongly that has been used, in an everlasting attempt to scent heresy and fault and wrong, but there is a right faculty of spiritual scent which is very important. I believe it was to that that reference was made concerning our Lord – "His scent shall be in the fear of the Lord" (Isa. 11:3, A.R.M.) – quick of scent, right on the mark in sce nting what the Lord wanted. And how true it was of His heavenly life: what it saved Him to scent the enemy and what the enemy was up to, to scent what the Father wanted and when He did not want things. It is important to be quick of scent. And so with our taste and with our touch – our contact, and what we register by contact. This is a very real inward man, and these are the senses which form the basis of spiritual capacity: these are the things to be exercised, to be "put through it" for increase and development......... |
| Christianity Etc › Re: Serve Each Other Through Love. by ichuka(op): 2:43am On Dec 15, 2013 |
I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. (Ephesians 1:18 NIV) "The eyes of your heart enlightened..." discerning love. Love is as far removed from blindness as heaven from earth. "Love is blind"? No – not true love. The fact is that true love sees everything, but transcends everything. The love of Christ for His disciples was not blind love that did not know His men, love that was duped, deceived, misled, but eventually found out that they were not the men He thought they were. No, "He... knew what was in man" (John 2:24). His love saw everything and could tell them beforehand exactly what they would do; but love persisted in face of it all. Love is a great seeing thing. If you are consumed with a burning love for the Lord, you will be very quick of scent as to what is doubtful and questionable. You will not need to be frequently and continuously told when a thing is not right. No, love for the Lord will bring you quickly to see and to sense there is something that needs to be adjusted. You may not know what it is at the time, but you have a sense that all is not well. Love will do it. All the instruction in the world will not bring you to it. You may have the Word of God brought to you on all such points, and you might even say, "All right, because you say so, because it is in the Bible, I will do it, I will be obedient." Do you think that is good enough? Such a thing has never come to you through the eyes of your heart. But, mark you, if this love, this discerning love, has really filled your heart by all the intelligence of the Holy Spirit indwelling you, you will sense it without being told; or if it should be brought to you from the Word, that within you will say, "Yes, I know that is right, the Lord tells me that is right." Do you not think that is the kind of Christian that is needed, and what the Lord needs at the end? That is what He has had in mind from the beginning and He calls that first love that is quick of scent to see what needs to be cut off or added, what adjustments are necessary, and does accordingly. You do not have to follow round and say, "Please do this; have you never taken note that you might be helpful in this way?" You do not have to do that where there is devotion, love watchful all the time, aliveness, alertness, perception, readiness to do without being all the time told to do it. Real devotion to the Lord is something that far outreaches legality. First love is discerning love. |
| Christianity Etc › Re: Serve Each Other Through Love. by ichuka(op): 2:41am On Dec 15, 2013 |
In Him the whole structure is joined (bound, welded) together harmoniously. (Ephesians 2:21 AMP) You find a company or lives welded together in an indissoluble, indestructible oneness and you will find there the love of God wrought very deeply into the heart. “That they may be one,” one by the giving love of God through the Son transmitted to the seed. Yes, this matter of Divine love touches so many points all the way round, and why is there such a passion in our hearts as we do speak in these days about this matter? For this very reason: that tragically, grievously, on this earth so very many of those who bear the name of Christian are drawing to themselves, are standing for their own rights, are jealous, envious, divided. And it is just the contradiction of the Divine thought to have a heavenly people on this earth of this kind; the reproduction of this seed which is Christ, which is the embodiment of this love that lets go, this love that knows how to yield, this love that is all the time giving. That is what the Lord is after. It represe nts a deep work of the Cross within, but surely we can accept nothing less than this? I do feel that we need so much more of this grace of our Lord Jesus, this love of God, that gets us out of the picture. So often, as you look at people, you can almost see them occupied with themselves, turned in upon themselves. They are just individuals in themselves, tied up. The love of God should release us from all that sort of thing, to say nothing of worse traits of spitefulness and criticism and hurting one another with words. The Lord’s love deliver us from all and make of us part of this heavenly seed, this heavenly people, really expressing the giving, letting go love of God which comes back a thousand-fold. And do not let us do it for that, to get, but to glorify the Lord. The Lord give us grace! |
| Christianity Etc › Re: Is It True That The Man Christ Is Not God? by ichuka(m): 8:29am On Dec 12, 2013 |
GAL3:20a..Now a mediator is not a mediator of one...! The Law has a mediator,there,s God side and man side.that is man has to do certain things for God before God will do certain things for man. When parties A and B draft a contract, the contract states what A must do and what B will do in return and vice versa. A mediator will then serve as a witness between the two parties. The law states what God's responsibility to man is and what man's responsibility to God is. If either side fails, the whole matter falls through. GAL3:20b.... but GOD is ONE. The law implies two sides. If either side has problems, the whole matter falls through. In giving the law, God said that we should do this and that we should do that. If we fail to do them, the whole matter will fall through. But in making the promise, "God is one," regardless of how we are. In promise and in grace, there is no mention of our side, only of God's side.party A is GOD,PARTY B is GOD,and if by chance theres a mediator He is God!! |
| Christianity Etc › Re: The Heavens Do Rule! by ichuka(op): 3:42pm On Dec 11, 2013 |
The heavens do rule. (Daniel 4:26) There is a great need today that there should be the rule of the Heavens. But the Holy Spirit has got to do it, and we have got to come to recognize the fact that what we see in organized Christianity is not it. The spiritual people of God are more and more feeling separated from the old system of Christianity and churches and ecclesiastical systems. People are recognizing a deep dissatisfaction with what has held the ground so long, and there is a cry for spiritual reality. Many sermons are clever and full of mental ability, but they are starvation to the spirit. There is all the activity, but it is not spiritual Life, and I believe the Lord is going to show us the nature of the thing that is in the heavens. The thing that man has brought down on to the earth and taken up and perpetuated is only at best a poor imitation of things in the heavens, but in a very large realm it is a caricature of heavenly things. Man has taken hold of heavenly things and brought them down to earth and made them earthly things. That is where things all went wrong at the beginning. At the first, things were of the Spirit. The people gathered in their homes or anywhere. It was not the place. It was not the ministry. It was the Lord, and they were circled around Him. But then the day came when they said, "We must have public buildings," and then the architecture became a factor, and so things developed, and they became something on the earth for men to take note of. They wanted man to be attracted, and that was the first step in one of the greatest perils that has overtaken the church. For prestige, recognition, the world to be attracted, there is the result that you get the mixed multitudes in the church. If you can attach some big names to it, you can attract the people, and one of the devil's greatest measures has been popularizing the church. The preeminent thing is lost, that the church and Christ is a mystery to the natural man and that it is no use to expect the natural man to appreciate it. The church is essentially a spiritual thing according to the mind of God. What really governs everything is God's conception of things, not ours, and if we are going on with the Lord there is going to be a whole system of change and we are going more and more to view things from the heavenly standpoint. You have got to get into the heavenly system to get heavenly results. |
| Christianity Etc › Re: Serve Each Other Through Love. by ichuka(op): 11:22am On Dec 11, 2013 |
If one part of the body suffers, all the other parts share its suffering. (1 Corinthians 12:26 GW) But that is not on the earth. I may be going through a very great deal of suffering without you knowing anything about it so far as the natural life is concerned, you are not affected by it, but beloved, there is a realm where if one member spiritually suffers the whole Body is involved in that suffering, which shows this Body is a heavenly thing and its relationships are not natural, they are spiritual, and that the unifying factor of the Holy Spirit operates apart from the natural consciousness.... You see what is involved, you see what a motive we have in our relationships for keeping them on a high level. If there comes between those in these relationships, these strains, these cross-purposes, these cross-currents, this being offended and upset, this breach of true love, our attitude must be, not just that this is a miserable unhappy thing, and the sooner we make it up the better; our attitude must be, this thing out in the realm of spiritual intelligences is w orking against the glory of Christ, this is working against Him as the Head because all these relationships are joined so vitally to the Head; this is working against the Holy Spirit as the unifying power of the whole Body, this is doing damage, and therefore, inasmuch as we are so minutely related to all the members by the Holy Spirit, what one does must somehow, all beyond our realization or consciousness, touch Christ, touch the Holy Spirit, and therefore, all other members. It is doing that. That is the revelation here, that is the nature of the Body. You see why we should see to these relationships and lift them up out of the earthlies. I think that is something to think more about. Relativity is the law of the Body of Christ. Relativity is holding fast the Head; and let us beware of trying to maintain the Body in its oneness along the horizontal line. You cannot do it. It is a hopeless thing, and we shall always be running round and making apologies. On the horizontal we cannot do it, but if we hold fast the Head, we shall find our gravitation is together. We cannot give Christ His place fully and absolutely and be at cross-purposes with another believer. Christ must have His place so that we do everything unto Him, all for Him, all for His sake. |
| Christianity Etc › Re: Inviting Tithers To A Theological Discuss with Miwerds and Candour On Tithing by ichuka(m): 6:31pm On Dec 08, 2013 |
Seated |
| Christianity Etc › Re: The First COVENANT Wholly OBSOLETE. by ichuka(op): 6:29pm On Dec 08, 2013 |
ARareGem: Hmmm....  |
| Christianity Etc › Re: The First COVENANT Wholly OBSOLETE. by ichuka(op): 6:28pm On Dec 08, 2013 |
Goshen360: You are a blessing to me and many at all times. Grace be multiplied to you!!!Thanks bro.and may Grace continue to abide in you |
| Christianity Etc › The First COVENANT Wholly OBSOLETE. by ichuka(op): 2:55pm On Dec 08, 2013 |
When God speaks of a new covenant or agreement, He makes the first one obsolete (out of use). And what is obsolete (out of use and annulled because of age) is ripe for disappearance and to be dispensed with altogether. (Hebrews 8:13 AMP) This letter to the Hebrews sets forth the all-inclusive revolution or reconstitution which God made when He brought His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world – that is, the religious revolution. This revolution, which was rejected by Judaism, has been almost entirely overlooked or lost sight of by Christendom since Apostolic times. The entire present system of Christianity as generally accepted would be impossible if the meaning of this letter were received as a heavenly revelation in the power of the Holy Spirit. That is – if it came into the heart by the Spirit's power with the effect of a revelation in the same way as the Apostle Paul came to see who "Jesus of Nazareth" is, then a Christian-Judaism, or Judaistic-Christianity (which Christendom so largely is) would be impossible; as it became in his own case. The Letter to the Hebrews is only one other aspect of the battle fought out in the Letters to the Romans and Galatians. In the light of such a spiritual eye-opening a whole lot of things would go: but being a "heavenly vision," there would be no tears, no sense of loss, and no fond farewells. The gain and joy would rather put all such things into the category of a worn-out and no-longer-to-be-desired suit of clothes. In saying this we are only contemplating the full-tide of spiritual life known before any of these things came into being. These things only came in when the fullness of the Spirit had gone out, and, being an artificial substitute, they can never but be limiting things in the realm of Divine purpose. And yet, behold how these things have become the very nature of traditional and organized Christianity! So much so that to touch them in any way which threatens their existence is to meet something more bitter and formidable than any persecution from the world. This is not said carelessly. Religion can be, and is very largely, a terrible force; and Christianity ha s become a religion. There are very few communities of Christians – even the most evangelical, and spiritual – who wholly escape the tendency or propensity to persecute or ostracize other bodies of Christians who might be regarded as rivals in their field of activity... "God... hath at the end of these days spoken... in His Son." But the new era and new order had brought out a new and mightier-than-ever conflict........................ 1 Like |
| Christianity Etc › Re: Crucified To The Religious World by ichuka(op): 2:43pm On Dec 08, 2013 |
The Holy Spirit points out that the way into the true Holy of Holies is not yet thrown open as long as the former tabernacle remains a recognized institution and is still standing... For Christ (the Messiah) has not entered into a sanctuary made with human hands, only a copy and pattern and type of the true one, but He has entered into heaven itself. (Hebrews 9:8,24 AMP) Fellowship with God must be of that kind, that whether we can go to meetings or not, we still have the Lord; whether we have nice soulish music or not, we still have the Lord. You are not in that realm: "Neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem...." Bricks and mortar cannot communicate with spirit. Man's soul can communicate with God only through the vehicle of his spirit in union with God. That is what Calvary has done. You can understand now, of course, why the message of the Cross is unacceptable... and that, because of this strong cleaving to a historic, traditional inheritance, you will be outside the camp if you are going to proclaim it and stand for it. And, too, the awful thing is this – that Satan has taken hold of the Divine representation, or typical system, to appropriate it, when God has done away with it, and that what God brought in for a temporary purpose he has captured for himself in order to obscure the real nature of fellows hip with God. Now no one will think that I am saying that there are no spiritual people in that system of things. I am not saying that; but I am saying that if that represents for them their spiritual life – if they must have that, if that is the realm in which they live... that they do not see beyond that and are not free from that as a thing in itself – then they have missed the meaning of Calvary, and they are bound to miss all the meaning of Christ crucified – the wisdom and the power of God. Wrestling with principalities and powers wants something more than a system of external things. You see, we are up against a terrific business; we are up against a spiritual opposition which is colossal, and only a spiritual position is adequate to that – nothing less. We do not want to be in any position less than the Lord's first and best for us. The toys, the picture books, the illustrations, the symbols, the types are for children who have little intelligence ; they are taken away at a certain time when God is out to have, not children but sons; and there is all the difference between the two. And so Calvary dismisses the kindergarten of external things in relation to God and brings in the fullness of heavenly order so as to make of us full-grown sons of God. May we be so! |
| Christianity Etc › Re: Crucified To The Religious World by ichuka(op): 2:01am On Dec 07, 2013 |
Wherever two or three are gathered (drawn together as My followers) into My name, there I AM in the midst of them. (Matthew 18:20 AMP) Jesus, as the Truth, is contrasted with Satan, the liar. But He is also contrasted with all representations, types, symbols, outward forms, etc., which were – and are – not the true, the real. When our Lord spoke of His body as the Temple, deliberately refraining from the fuller explanation because of the fixed prejudice of His hearers, He introduced the great truth of the transition from one dispensation to another, and the complete change in the nature of temple and worship. It was because Stephen saw this and declared it that he was murdered by these very people. Said he: "The Most High dwelleth not in houses made with hands" (Acts 7:48). Paul said the same to the Athenians (Acts 17:24). This does not mean that God never came into representations when they wholly corresponded with His thought. Both the Tabernacle and the Temple were "made with hands" and God came into them in power and glory, but not to commit Himself to the thing. The time came when He forsook both and He was no longer found there. They were only temporary representations and His presence was conditional. The "true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man" (Hebrews 8:2) is "not of this creation." The whole Letter to the Hebrews has to do with this change from the earthly and temporal to the heavenly and spiritual. Hence, He is no longer in "temples made with hands." To come right to the point: the New Testament teaches that the Temple in this dispensation is a Person, and persons incorporated into Him through death, burial and resurrection, and "baptized into one body by one Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:13). We must also remember that Jesus foretold the passing away of that entire temporal system, with Jerusalem as its center and representation. With His foreknowledge of the passing of the earthly, temporal and material things; places, systems, fixed locations, and outward forms, the Lord Jesus put the whole matter of survival upon Himself as the constituent of a spiritual structure against which the very powe rs of hell would not prevail. Against fixed localizing and systematizing of Himself and His presence He was emphatic, and history is evidence of how right He was. If, according to John 3:16, salvation is a matter of "whosoever," the Lord's presence and true worship, according to Matthew 18:20, is "wheresoever." |
| Christianity Etc › Re: Crucified To The Religious World by ichuka(op): 2:49pm On Dec 05, 2013 |
Let us go out to Him, outside the camp, and bear the disgrace He bore. (Hebrews 13:13 NLT) We can organize our movements, lay our plans, and draft our schemes. We can lay it all out according to the New Testament and it can be dead, ineffective.... You see the difference between a traditional system, whether it be Judaism or Christianity, and a living thing coming all the time in a living way out from the Christ Himself by the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit Himself doing it. Well, this is going to cost something. See what it meant for these people. At the end of this letter you come on this: “Wherefore, Christ also... suffered without the camp. Let us therefore go to Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.” The camp was Judaism, and He suffered without the camp because He repudiated Judaism and stood for the realization of all God’s thoughts as in Himself personally. He gathered up everything into His own person, “I am.” It is the Christ who is the full sum and embodiment of all God’s thoughts and ways, and that take s the place of Judaism, and He, therefore, repudiated Judaism and suffered without the camp. "Let us go to Him without the camp." What is the issue? If you are going to take this line you are going to repudiate organized Christianity, going to repudiate Christendom as a traditional system, going to repudiate that order of things which is made, and going, therefore, to suffer reproach and be outside of the camp suffering His reproach. In other words, we are immediately going to come up against that force of antagonism to stop what has come in through the death and resurrection and exaltation of the Lord Jesus, the heavenly thing. Is it not sad that these people met it through God’s historic people, the people who claimed to have the oracles, to be the elect, to be the favored of the Lord? It is always like that. “A man’s foes shall be those of his own household.” Do not narrow that down to the limits of a family where one is a Christian and all the rest are not. That is not the point at all. It is his own household, the Christian household. You will meet the antagonism to what has come in from heaven as a heavenly thing; you will meet the antagonism amongst those who are the traditional people of God in this dispensation. That is how it will be. That is going to be the cost of a walk in Life with the Lord and not with man, knowing the Lord for yourself. |
| Christianity Etc › Re: Let Light Shine Out Of Darkness by ichuka(op): 2:45pm On Dec 05, 2013 |
You are the light of the world – like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. (Matthew 5:14 NLT) In speaking of the light of the Lord's heavenly people we are touching again a very solemn, and serious, and important feature, something which has a tremendous history associated with it. The entire history of the Lord's people, and of the spiritual life, is one of light and darkness, of truth and falsehood, of purity and adulteration or mixture, of clearness and cloudiness, of openness and secretiveness.... Truth may be in word, in doctrine, but there has to be a corresponding truth in heart, truth in life. Light may be a matter of doctrine, but there has to be a corresponding state of light in the heart. The enemy will not object to us having plenty of the former kind of light and truth, but, if he can, he will seek to destroy its real value by introducing a lie over against it, a contradiction.... Remember that God never builds in the dark; that is, there can be no constructiveness where there is not light. Before ever God would bring this world back into order and fruitfulness He said: "Let there be light." God is out for the manifestation of the truth. God's works are never darkness, and we can never know constructiveness and progress unless there is absolute light. You know quite well that you cannot go on with people who are not straight, people who are crooked, people who are all the time furtive, not open, not frank, who have somewhere in the background a secretiveness. You have to say, "I cannot go on with that one." God is like that. He would say to any one of us who might be there, "I cannot go on with you until you are absolutely out in the open, until you have come to a place where you are going to be perfectly honest ." Reality is God's demand for any kind of work that He will do. There may be many weaknesses, many imperfections, but if there is genuineness, reality, and openness before God, where the spirit is clear and pure, God can go on with His work. But immediately we begin to lock something up inside, hold something back, cease to be perfectly open before God, the work stops. Light in the sense of clearness is an essential for the building of the city of God, because the ultimate purpose for that city is to shine forth with that glory of God in character. With Him there is no variableness, neither shadow cast by turning. That means that God can be relied upon. The Lord make us like that. |
| Christianity Etc › The Heavens Do Rule! by ichuka(op): 2:39pm On Dec 05, 2013 |
I saw no temple in the city, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. And the city has no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its light. (Revelation 21:22,23 NLT) Is it not very clear that from God's standpoint, in God's mind, everything is intended to be related to heaven and governed from heaven? Heavenly fullness is His objective with His people: to make them a heavenly people and to fill with His heavenly fullness. And right at the end we see the New Jerusalem – not the old one, but the New Jerusalem – coming down from God out of heaven, in great heavenly fullness. It is something immense, is that Jerusalem – twelve thousand furlongs in every direction (Revelation 21:16). There is great fullness here. All the nations are going to derive their resource from it. The fruit of its Tree of Life, the waters of its River of Life, are for all the nations. Its light is for all the nations. "The nations shall walk amidst the light thereof" (Rev. 21:24). This is heavenly fullness, the thing to which the Lord has been working all the time. He is working now in you and me. I sometimes think that we are two persons, one here and one in heaven. Naturally we are here, but there is something of ourselves "going up" all the time, when the Lord is getting in us something more of heaven. It is being stored up there. Is not that perhaps what the Lord meant, when He referred to Himself as "the Son of man, who is in heaven" (John 3:13), even while He is on earth? There is an aspect of us that is growing in heaven. Do not think of heaven as some remote planet. We are growing in that heavenly thought of things. Something of us is "going up." Do you say your situation is too difficult to bring heaven in? Well, there are difficult situations. Daniel's was a difficult situation – his three companions were in a difficult situation; but they brought heaven in. A grand phrase in the book of Daniel is – "the heavens do rule" (4:26). And they proved it. Headquarters is in heaven: not in Babylon, not in Rome, not in Jerusalem or anywhere else, but in heaven. The Lord help us to live up to and out from heaven. |
| Christianity Etc › Re: The School Of CHRIST. by ichuka(op): 9:55am On Dec 02, 2013 |
The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him… (1 Corinthians 2:14) Here truly will be found such as are sinners manifest to all; here heathens who are often referred to by the "civilized" (?) as "sitting in darkness" (what a false comparison!), but here also are included the most enlightened by the light of civilization as such. Here are some of the greatest brains the world has known. Here are multitudes of the most scholarly and learned. Here are even many whose researches have led them far into the realms of theology and theosophy. Yes, they include many who have held place in ministry and office in what is called "The Church." Many of these live lives which from man's point of view are morally almost flawless. And yet, and yet, with all they do not know in that realm and in that vital way which is "life," eternal life, because Divine and not human life. Look again! What is their description? "The natural man receiveth not... neither can he know the things of the Spirit of God." It should be well known by now that that word "natural" in the Greek is psychical. Perhaps the faulty translation is not altogether unfortunate for the natural man is the psychical man, and the psychical man is the natural man. He is a different species – so to speak – from the spiritual man. As the word implies the psychical man is entirely governed and bound by reason, feeling, volition, within a world of sense. But the things of the Spirit of God are not in that realm in the first instance. True, spiritual forces can and do register themselves upon psychical apparatus, but the psychical apparatus does not know them (hence the delusion and deception of spiritism), and this is true to the absolute in the matter of the things of God. Not only the delusion of spiritism has its ground in the psychical as a registering apparatus, but the entire counterfeit of the truly spiritual or divinely spiritual is in this realm. Evangelism, "Apostolic" teaching and practice (?), "Pentecostal" experience (?), prayer force, and even exorcism can all be merely psychical. Signs, sensations, impacts, can be psychically produced by the use of the most orthodox New Testament language and doctrine, even the Name and the Blood of Jesus may be employed in terms and language. There is only one sure safeguard against the colossal delusion by which multitudes will be carried away in the latter days, and that is a clear apprehension of the teaching of the Holy Spirit concerning soul and spirit and the continual operation of the Cross in the realm of the "natural" man. No, the natural man CANNOT! He may be full of religious knowledge, emotions or feelings, and activities, but if the Bible thunders more than speaks on any matter, it is this: that such can be the most mistaken and deceived. The highest reach of genius comes far short of t he lowest degree of Divine inspiration and revelation. |
| Christianity Etc › Re: Crucified To The Religious World by ichuka(op): 9:44am On Dec 02, 2013 |
I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ. (Philippians 3:8 NIV) Man has constructed his own interpretations of Christianity and of truth, brought in his own systems and has confused things so much that you really do not know, unless you have clear discernment such as Nehemiah had, what is of God and what is not of God. There are multitudes of good, honest, sincere Christian people who really are in the most awful fog as to what is of God and what is not of God religiously. Man's religious systems have brought about that confusion and multitudes of honest people believe with all their heart that the thing that they are in is of God, and it is just possible for them to get such an awakening to see the whole thing was man-made and not of God at all; "...much rubbish." Paul was one of those. Reflect upon his past life, privileges, and inheritances which he at one time believed were so utterly and absolutely of God for him, and that he really was in God's will. He came to a time when he said: "The things which were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ... for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ"; and yet he was so devoted to all that as a traditional religious system in which he at one time was living as out from God, which had now become merely an outward thing of forms and external laws. He believed, nevertheless, that it was all of God until the light shone, until he saw that in comparison with the fullness of Christ it was refuse. It is a strong word that he uses; the word he uses is "stuff to be flung to the dogs." Saul of Tarsus throwing his Judaism to the dogs! He did it when he saw Christ. You can never come out of the rubbish until you see Christ. Ask the Lord to reveal to you the fullness of Christ and you will find things which have gripped and held you become as mere refuse, stuff to be flung to the dogs. There was much rubbish in the place which once represented a clear line of division between what was of God and what was not of God; confusion, mixture. I shall not attempt to apply that more thoroughly. The Lord will have to show us by revelation what the rubbish is, but there is the simple statement and it contains a truth, and you and I will really have to ask the Lord to show us even in religious matters, where man ends and God begins, or where God ends and man begins, so that we shall be delivered from everything that man has imposed or added upon what is of God, and we shall be able to get right down to foundations, the rubbish being removed: and there is a very great deal of ecclesiastical rubbish about in these days that must go. That is a real difficulty in recovering the full testimony of the Lord Jesus. |
| Christianity Etc › Re: The Fullness Of God Dwelleth In Him Alone! by ichuka(op): 12:44am On Dec 02, 2013 |
All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes. (Ephesians 1:3,4 NLT) That which has been chosen before the foundation of the world and which has been foreordained unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, has been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies. That is the fullness of God’s thought for His own, as a full, comprehensive, utter thought. We have not yet come into all those blessings, not because God has not given them, but because we have not grown up into them. We have not grown up into Him in all things. That is the point of our word, the urge to come to God’s thought, the measure of Christ. What is God’s thought? The full measure of Christ, the fullness of the stature of Christ. That is God’s thought for us. Let us lay hold of God’s thoughts; let us by faith appropriate those thoughts, let us believe in God’s thoughts, let us seek to get into line with those thoughts, and take the Holy Spirit and His energies to form us, and constitute us, that God’s thoughts may become living expressions in us. That is His purpose: to bring us to the full measure of Christ. All that we need to do is to state that as a definite fact, but, mark you, it represents a tremendous responsibility. We cannot talk, and hear about things like that without coming under tremendous responsibility. If this is the revelation of God from heaven in Christ through His Word and to our hearts by the Holy Spirit, then it involves us in very great responsibility. Is it necessary to speak about responsibility? Ought not God’s thought for us really draw out our hearts in unspeakable gratitude and worship? Ought we not to recognize these other words here associated with the calling: “according to the good pleasure of His will,” the Lord’s delight? You remember what Joshua and Caleb said when they reported on the land: “If the Lord delight in us He will bring us in.” That is only what we have here. Christ is the Land of God’s fullness, and it is according to the good pleasure of His will that we should come into that fullness. |
| Christianity Etc › A Living Witness!! by ichuka(op): 12:29am On Dec 02, 2013 |
All the people saw him walking and praising God. (Acts 3:9) “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk”; and he leapt. Simple in its terms, but very, very drastic and very utter in its action. Immediately the man in himself knew the glory of God. He, leaping up, praised and glorified God. He had got it in his own heart, in his own soul. He knew he was changed, he was in the good of God’s rest.... This man was a testimony which was the answer to every argument. Seeing the man there in the midst whole, they had to shut their mouths. There was no argument. It is all argument if it is doctrine, theory, teaching, interpretation of truth, but a living witness – you cannot argue against that. Your mouth is shut when you have a living person standing there right in the good of things. Are we closing the mouths of people? We shall not do it by the truth that we hold, teach, interpret, but we can do it by what we are, by being in possession of the goods. Are we that? Are you that? Are you going to be that? A real answer to every argument so that people say, “Well, look here, it is not the teaching they have taken on, the associations they have made: no, no, look at them; you know what they were, you know how little they counted, you know what cripples they were spiritually, you know what liabilities they were, you know how much they were without rest: but look now; they have the goods, they are in the good of things, they are counting, they mean something, and they are in rest, they are in joy, they are in satisfaction, they themselves are changed!” What can you say to that? You cannot say anything to that if you are going to be honest. Oh, dear friends, we are not to go out to try and pass over some teaching, some truth, to people. That will never convince. You and I are to be here as those who in themselves convince others because we embody His rest, we embody His peace, we embody His strength, and we count for something. We are responsible people, we are positive factors, we are assets, and the Lord is getting something by reason of us. That is how it must be. Is it like that? All this can be if we will go the way of this man, and say, “Yes, this has gone on long enough and it has to end, and to end, so far as my giving diligence is concerned, at once, and I do most truly by the grace of God take a deliberate and definite faith attitude toward the Lord Jesus for my complete deliverance and the setting of me upon my feet for His glory, for His praise!” I think there will be an issue, and I think it will be – “he, leaping up, stood upon his feet, praising and glorifying Go d.” May it be so with every one of us in Jesus name... |
That alone made me to sharpen my double edge sword just to expose the false foundation(trinity) you are standing on.1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ... 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 (of 91 pages)