Month: October 2021

We become Christ-like in the measure that the Word prevails in us.
The mind is renewed by studying the Word and by acting upon it. One may study the Word for years, but if he does not act it, live it, is not a doer, the mind is not renewed. James gives us the secret in James 1:22, “Be ye doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” Many Bible students are deceiving themselves because they are not acting, living, doing the Word. It is not only committing the Word to memory, which is valuable, but it is letting that Word become an integral part of our beings. It lives in us.

You understand that the mind cannot be renewed by the study of the Word. There must be a continual practice of the Word. The Word must live in me so that it becomes part of me. Just as my blood is a part of me, just as my muscles are a part of me, the Word must become a part of my very being.

The one who thinks that knowledge is all that is necessary will fail .
It is the doer of the Word, the man who practices it, lives it, walks in it, that builds it into his own life, whom God honors.
There is a grave danger of deluding our own selves .
We know the Word . We may be familiar with the original Greek or Hebrew. We may know the history of the Word, but that is all wasted energy if we do not live the Word, practice it.

Isaiah 26:3 (NKJV): “You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You.”

Isn’t it interesting how our thoughts can set the path of our lives? The Bible teaches us that the mindset of an individual dictates who they are (Proverbs 23:7). That’s why the Word of God instructs us to set our minds on the Lord (1 Chronicles 22:19), and to keep them set on the things of the Spirit. Colossians 3:2 says, “And set your minds and keep them set on what is above (the higher things), not on the things that are on the earth.” That doesn’t mean we are to be ignorant of what is happening in the world around us, it just means we have make a choice regarding what we allow our minds to dwell on. Our thoughts are intricately connected to our emotions, which are powerful motivators. They will move us to act in line with them. If our minds are permitted to dwell on discouraging things, we will be swept into the downward spiral of despair. But if we choose to meditate on the truth of God’s Word – the life and peace that it carries will lift our spirits and move us to act as people who are victorious and full of hope. The Apostle Paul instructs us to continually renew our minds to the truth of God’s word, as our reasonable service – it’s what is expected of every believer in order to live the transformed, kingdom life we were saved into! So keep your thoughts in the right place and your life will follow course.

It Is Finished

God has done all that he could do in our redemption. He gave His only begotten son as a substitute for our sins.
His finished work meets every need of man. When He planned our redemption, it covered every need.
He knew what was required.
He furnished a redemption that utterly met the need of every man.
He perfectly satisfied the claims of the Supreme Court of the Universe against outlawed man.
Since the Son has done that work for Him, He now stands ready to make good on all the promise in order to meet our faith for every need.

He has provided a perfect Redemption for Spirit, Soul and Body.
He has provided a perfect Redemption for us so that we may stand in His Presence though Adam had never sinned.
He not only justified His own right to create man in the face of the face that He knew that man would fall, but He has gone beyond that in making it possible for every disease to be healed, every weakness to be turned to strength, all power of Satan nullified, and to stand in His presence a righteous perfect being, an absolute New Creation created in Jesus Christ.
He became Incarnate, took upon Himself our limitations as a man, lived among us, and then permitted Himself who knew no sin, to be made sin for us.
He became sick with our sicknesses; He became weak with our weaknesses.
He was an outcast, and became a part of all that we were, becoming Identified with all our weaknesses, sickness and diseases.
Then He bore our sins and diseases away and suffered until every need of man was fully met.
Then God justified Him, because He had met the demands of the human race in His sufferings.
After being Justified, He was made alive in the Spirit.
Then He met the Adversary, conquered him of his authority and dominion, and arose form the dead.
Then He carried His blood into the heavenly Holy of Holies, poured it out before the Father on the mercy seat, and made an eternal redemption for us.
All that Jesus did, He did for us.
His work is absolutely perfect.
On the ground of the work, any man can stand right with God; any man can be healed from all his diseases.
Satan’s dominion over the New Creation is utterly broken.
To Jesus was given the authority that Adam forfeited, and with that restoration there was given to Him added dominion and power because of what he had done for the salvation of the human race; that authority and dominion has been given to us in the legal use of His name.

We do not know what that part was in redemption except that we see a glimpse of it here and there.
We know that it was the Holy Spirit that gave Jesus strength and courage to offer Himself on the cross.
We know it was the Holy Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead.
We know that the Spirit did all that was expected of Him to do, and that He stands ready to make good in every one of our lives all that God wrought for us in Christ, to pour the very life and nature of the Father God into our mortal bodies and actually swallow them up in life

1 Corinthians 2:4(NKJV): “And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power” As Kingdom ambassadors we are called to demonstrate the Kingdom of God with power. Being a carrier of the power of God is what sets the church apart in this hour. For many years the church has majored on becoming like Jesus in character, far more than becoming like Him in power. While been known as good natured, honest and reliable people is noble; it’s just as important to be known as people who pray for the sick and see them healed, and pray for those who are oppressed – and see them delivered. We must be known as people who can snatch those who are going to hell out of the devil’s grasp and pull them into the kingdom of God! When we encounter the tangible presence of God, we are not only transformed to have a heart after His Word – that brings change to our characters – but we are enabled to demonstrate His kingdom power too! God didn’t just authorize those in five-fold ministry to do the full works of Jesus – He authorized every Believer! If Jesus Christ is your personal Lord and Saviour, and you have been baptized in the Holy Spirit – begin to educate yourself on what you have been authorised, and mandated to do. Commit to a church or ministry that will teach and equip you to walk in the full authority every believer is meant to walk in. Become a carrier of the character and power of God, permitting you to demonstrate the full Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Until we know why God desired to create man, we do not know the reason for creation.
Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The word “God” in the Hebrew is “Elohim.” This word is plural, revealing the Trinity at work in creation. John 1:1-3 and Colossians 1:16 reveal that Christ had a major part in the great acts of creation. Psalm 104:30 and Genesis 1:2 show the Holy Spirit’s work in creation. The Trinity lies hidden throughout the Old Testament. Many Jews who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Saviour have testified that one of the factors causing them to realize that Jesus was their Messiah, was that they glimpsed, hidden in the Old Covenant, the Trinity.

Israel, however, did not know who composed the Trinity. Not until Jesus Christ, the Living Word, was manifested in flesh, did man know that the Trinity consisted of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In His ministry of teaching, Jesus Christ revealed the Father-God.
On several occasions in the life of Jesus Christ, the Trinity is manifested to man’s senses. One time is at the baptism of Jesus, recorded in Matthew 3:13-17.
When Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit appeared in the form of a dove, descending upon Christ, while the Father spoke in a voice from heaven, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”
Matthew 28:19 reveals the Trinity as being the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
From this we can understand that in the beginning the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit created the heavens and the earth. You see, He was in the beginning a Father-God. In eternity He had a Father-nature. We can understand a father’s love and desire for children. Our civilization is built around this fact, for the home is the basic unit of society.

Ephesians 3:14-15 reveals that the human father is just a type of the Father-God. The human father’s love exists because in eternity God was essentially a Father-God.
It is natural that the Father-heart of God should long for sons and daughters. This yearning passion took form, and God planned to create a man who would walk with Him as His child. Ephesians 1:4, 5 (Rotherham), “According as He made choice of us in Him before the founding of the world, that we might be holy and blameless in His presence. In love marking us out beforehand unto Sonship through Jesus Christ for Himself.” Before He created a world, in His dream plan, man was marked out for Sonship. He was to hold the place of a son in the Father-God’s love. He was to be the answer to the Father’s hunger for children.
Other scriptures that reveal that man was the reason for creation are: Romans 16:25 and I Corinthians 2:7. These scriptures reveal that man was chosen for the place of a son first, then God created this universe to be a home for him. We often list the attributes of God: His Omnipotence, His Omniscience; but we have over- looked the fact that He is first a Father-God.

The reason for creation is the Father-heart of God.

A few scriptures that reveal the Father’s care for His children are : Matthew 7:11; 6:8; 6:25-32; John 16:27; 17:23; I Peter 5:7; Philippians 4:6, 7, 19 and John 14:23.
Satan has been very subtle in blinding our minds to the Father-nature of God. The average Christian has had no real consciousness of God as being his Father. This ignorance has been due to the fact that our minds have not been renewed by the Word of God. Romans 12:1-2 and Ephesians 4:23. Here we see the importance of the study of the Word.
Sense Knowledge has taken the place of the Word of God in our lives. Jesus Christ has been manifested to man’s physical senses. I John 1:1, 2, “That which we have handled concerning the Word of Life.” Jesus Christ took upon Himself a human body through which He was manifested to man.
Man’s mind derives its knowledge through the senses of the physical body. The Father has never been manifested to these senses, as He is a Spirit being; therefore man’s mind can form no mental picture of Him.
When a man has been born again, past sense knowledge of the life of Jesus Christ has taken the place that the Father should have had in his life. Because man could form a mental picture of Christ, he has developed the habit of praying to Christ, praising and worshipping Him alone. The renewing of the man’s mind by the Word of God, brings a consciousness of the Father to him that revolutionizes his life.

The Attributes of God

In this revelation, the Father nature of God has been revealed to us at creation. There are two other laws of His being revealed here : one is that He is a Faith God, and the other, that He is Love. Love caused Him to create a universe, and He created it by Faith. He works by Faith in His Word.
In the first chapter of Genesis there are six creative faith statements. Hebrews 11:3 reveals that God created this universe through faith in His Word. It was through His spoken Word that creation came into being.

We do not need to seek the Holy Spirit, He has already been given. He is here.
Luke 11:13, “how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?” Notice, “your heavenly Father”; that is for a believer. That was not written for the Jews, for He was not the Jews’ Heavenly Father. Gal. 3:2 “This only would I learn from you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the message of faith?” That settles the issue! But, you say, the disciples waited ten days. Yes, but they didn’t know what they were waiting for. They didn’t know that Christ had died for their sins according to the Scripture. They didn’t know during those ten days why they were waiting in that Upper Room.

They didn’t know anything about His Substitutionary Sacrifice. None of them believed in His resurrection, even when they saw Him after He arose. They knew nothing about what the three days and three nights meant to the human race. They didn’t know what Jesus meant when He said they were to tarry and be baptized. They didn’t know that baptism meant the New Birth. They didn’t know anything about the indwelling of the Spirit that was to enable them to speak in tongues. They didn’t understand it. 1 Cor. 12:13 “For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greek, whether bond or free; and were all made to drink of one Spirit.” That is the New Birth.

Immersion doesn’t mean a filling, for when I immerse one in water, I don’t fill them with water. When they were immersed by the Holy Spirit in that Upper Room, they weren’t filled with the Spirit until after the immersion. The question we should ask is the question that Paul asked the Ephesians, “Have ye received the Holy Spirit since ye believed?” This is an intelligent question. When you ask a believer if he has received his baptism, and the believer is instructed in the Word, he will say, “Certainly, I have received Eternal Life. But if you mean, have I received the Holy Spirit, that is another question.”

We do not seek for Righteousness. We are made the Righteousness of God in Christ.
We do not seek for power, because we have the Holy Spirit, who raised Jesus from the dead, within us. We do not seek for faith, because we are believers. We are not doubters, we are the true Sons of God. We are men who act upon the Father’s Word just as Jesus acted on His Father’s Word. This new order of Life, this new type of Christianity that has unveiled to us the truth about sense knowledge and has made us Masters in the Name of Jesus over the forces that have held us in bondage all our lives, has become a Living Reality. We know now what makes an atheist, an atheist; a modernist, a modernist.

We know the why of metaphysics. We understand why men have become philosophers.
It is all sense knowledge seeking after something to satisfy a hungry human spirit that is craving God. These people are all in one class. They are all sense knowledge devotees. They tell me they are scientific. What is science? It is but sense knowledge gathering together certain data. They haven’t one thing except what the five senses have contributed. They are sense knowledge men, ofttimes drunken with the few facts they have collated, gathered, classified. Philosophy is sense knowledge seeking after God. No philosopher ever found God in the realm of philosophy. It is the child of the senses.
The seeking philosopher finds only himself, for he is seeking in himself. He can’t seek outside of himself. The natural man cannot find or know aught but himself.

The philosopher is a psychical, mental man. Psycho-analysis is but discovering oneself. He has not discovered the real self, for he can’t find that. The real self is a spirit. The only self he has discovered is the mental self that has derived all his knowledge from the five senses. When one searches in his inner self, he only finds what he has already built there or else someone else has built. Philosophy is a total failure in seeking the solution of the human problem. Psychologists have called our human spirit, “a subconscious mind,” for this searcher in his own self-consciousness, has discovered that there is something besides the reasoning faculties.

He can’t find it nor diagnose it, so he calls it “a sub-conscious mind.” It is his spirit. That is not the right way of expressing it. It is himself, his spirit, that the reasoning faculties cannot find or understand even if they found it. When that spirit receives the Nature of God and gains the ascendancy over the reasoning faculties that get their impulses from the senses, then man can study psychology and get to know himself in Reality. There is room for a new psychology, but it will not be called psychology – it would be Spiritology.
It is knowledge of the activities and operations of the recreated human spirit in its relation to the renewed mind.

The one who thinks that knowledge is all that is necessary will fail.
It is the doer of the Word, the man who practices it, lives it, walks in it, that builds it into his own life, whom God honors.
There is a grave danger of deluding our own selves.
We know the Word. We may be familiar with the original Greek or Hebrew. We may know the history of the Word, but that is all wasted energy if we do not live the Word, practice it.

When you come to a hard place, and need money, you resolutely turn to the Lord, because you know that “My God shall supply every need of yours.”
You have taken your place. You act the part of a real believer.
Instead of turning to the beggarly elements of the world, you turn to the Father.
Or if a loved one is sick, instead of being frightened, you remember the Word: “Surely He hath borne our sicknesses and carried our diseases. And we have come to esteem Him as the One who was stricken, smitten of God and afflicted with those diseases.”
We know it now. We act on that Word. We do not fear; we are not disturbed, because we know that the Word says that with His stripes we are healed.
Or if some calamity has come, some rumor, the adversary has stirred things to our detriment, we know that the Word tells us in Isaiah 54:17, “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment, thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me.”

You see, you can trust Him. You bank on Him. Your expectations are from Him. You do not turn to the beggarly help of Sense Knowledge.
We do the Word, we live the Word, we act the Word, we trust implicitly in the Word, and we know that God and His throne are back of every word. That gives us a quiet, restful confidence.
John 15:9, “Abide ye in my love.”
You remember that He loves you and that you are born of that new kind of love. You remember I John 4:8, “God is love.” And you remember that you are a partaker of His nature. (II Peter 1:4.)
And so, with a quiet confidence, you live love, you practice love. You are a doer of love. You are not a hearer only. You are not only an admirer of love, but you are an actual doer. You live in the love realm. You speak love, you walk in love, you live the love life.

John 13:34, 35, “A new commandment I give unto you that you love one another, even as I have loved you.”
You face that squarely and you decide it definitely in your own life, that you are going to love men “even as.” That means that you are going to practice it.
Men may not understand you. They may think that you are unwise. But you live this love life. You are taking Jesus’ place, acting as Jesus would act. You are one that loves as Jesus loved, and you are not deluding yourself now; for in John 8:12, Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. He that followeth (or practices what I teach)… shall have the light of life.”
You are going to prove to the world that you have the light. They that walk in human reason are walking in darkness, and they know not whither they go. They have deluded themselves. The great teachings are mere doctrines to them, a part of their creed. They will assent that it is true, but they dissent when you ask them to practice it.
The one who loves as Jesus loved will not delude anyone else.
There are Word-hearers, mere listeners-good talkers, but not doers.

John 15:5-8, “I am the vine; ye are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in him, the same beareth much fruit.”
What kind of fruit is it? It is love fruit; It is faith fruit; it is prayer fruit. It is the same kind of fruit that Jesus bore.
It will be doing what Jesus did.
“If ye abide in me and my words abide in you; ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”
The doer abides in Christ, and His words are living in him in the measure that he lives them, does them, practices them.
All his decisions are made by the Word. He is living in the realm of the living Christ. Notice this eighth verse: “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; and so shall ye be my disciples.”
What kind of fruit is it? It is the fruit that comes from doing the Word.

The hearer may show many blossoms of promise, but it is the doer that delivers the ripened fruit. The Word lives in him; he lives in the Word. He is the fruit-bearing branch-a real doer.
Prayer is a reality. He is not talking off into space. He is in the Throne Room in the presence of the Father. Here the Name of Jesus is always honored. He receives that for which he asks.
Did you notice, “As you live in me and my words live in you”?
That is the real doing of the Word, not just a doctrine, but God speaking and God living in His own Word in us.