WHO HE IS:

Jesus is altogether lovely; He saves us; and He keeps us by His power from sin and death.

He has given to us His robe of righteousness. He extends His mercy, longsuffering, lovingkindness, tenderness, healing, and compassion.

He is our Shield, our Defender, our Rock, and our Hiding Place.

He is our Provider, Counselor, Great Shepherd, our Friend, who is closer than a brother, and He is our Love. He is the Husbandman, the Keeper of the vineyard. He is the Source of all blessing.

He restores, rescues, forgives and redeems.

He is our Victor, the Captain of Hosts, Mighty in battle. He is our Banner, and our Standard, and He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Jesus is crowned with glory and honor; He is our Savior, Sanctifier, Redeemer, and the merciful and faithful High Priest.

He is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. He was dead, but now He is ALIVE forevermore, and He is seated at the right hand of God--it is finished!

He destroyed death and He led captivity captive.

He is the Great Apostle of our faith; He is the Supreme Sacrifice; and the spotless and blameless Lamb.

He is our Anchor and our Strong Tower, and He was the Ancient of Days before the first day began.

He is the Forerunner, the Firstborn among many brethren. He is the surety of a better testament; He comes from the unchangeable priesthood; and He is able to save to the uttermost.

His Presence doesn't cast any shadow because He is the Light that lights the Heavenly City. He is the Light of the world and the Giver of life.

He is the Door, the Way, and the Truth.

He is the Treasure, the Pearl of great price, and more precious than the finest gold.

He was the Rock of Ages before any mountain peaks were formed.

He was the Bread of life before there was any grain. He was the Lily of the Valley before there were any flowers on the earth.

He is the Eternal Intercessor. He is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, higher than the Heavens; He makes His enemies His footstool, and laughs at His adversaries.

He is the Tree of life; He is consecrated forever, and makes us sanctified forever by His precious blood.

He is the Minister of the Sanctuary, and He is the Mediator of the New covenant.

He is the High Priest of GOOD THINGS to come; He's the Lion of Judah; and the Lamb that was slain. He is the New and living way.

He was born contrary to the laws of birth. He lived contrary to the laws of life. He healed contrary to the laws of medicine.

He was tried and condemned contrary to the laws of justice, and He arose contrary to the laws of death and the grave.

He ascended contrary to the laws of gravity, and He is coming back again contrary to the expectation of the world!

He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is the Great Shepherd of ALL THE SHEEP.

HE IS THE HOLDER OF THE KEYS; HE IS THE AMEN; AND HE IS THE FINAL WORD...

He is qualified to open the Book, and He is the expression of the Heart of the Father.

His love has no limits; His grace has no measure; His power has no boundaries known unto men; and out of His infinite riches, He gives and gives and gives again.

He is our nearest Kinsman, and is qualified to redeem us.

He is THE WORD MADE FLESH and the Honey in the rock.

He is high and lifted up; He is the bright and morning star, and the fairest of 10,000.

He is more precious than gold, and He's the glory and lifter of our heads.

He is the righteous Judge; He is a refuge for the oppressed; and He doesn't forget the cry of the humble.

He bore our sicknesses and our pains; He was despised and rejected of men; and now He controls the destiny of the nations--the kingdoms of this world are going to become the Kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and forever.

He is our portion and our inheritance; His garments smell of sweet myrrh; and His breath is as sweet apples. He is a very present help in trouble.

He hides us under the shadow His Wings and keeps us as the apple of His eye.

He is our High Tower, and He makes the hills shake, the mountains melt, and the Heavens bow.

He pulled back the curtain of eternity and stepped out on the stage of time for one brief moment, and then stepped back again into eternity, but in that one brief moment of time, He sealed the fate of every man and woman and fixed their destiny.

He is the bright Lamp in the darkness because He is the Light of life.

He is the Branch and the Root of Jesse.

HE IS THE GREAT WAVE MAKER FROM GALILEE.

He makes the crooked paths straight and the rough places plain.

He split history and divided the ages.

He is the greatest Teacher the world has ever known, and He is the Baptizer in the Holy Ghost.

He preserves the faithful, and He is the resurrection and the life.

He spoke and framed the world; He makes our way perfect and makes our feet like hinds feet; and He causes us to walk in high places. He is able to comfort, guide, and bless.

He spoke, and the Heavens unrolled themselves, and the galaxies were born. He spoke, and the streams and the rivers wound their way across the earth. The rose began to blush, and the violets cast their fragrance, and the birds began to sing. Colors wove themselves into a rainbow. He spoke, and a handful of dust became a living soul.

He turns our mourning into dancing and girds us with gladness.

Let me tell you about His voice--His voice is powerful upon the waters, full of majesty, like thunder, it breaks the cedars, divides the flames, shakes the wilderness, makes the hinds to calve, discovers the forests, and sets the mountains in their place.

His voice stilled the seas and shook the earth and melted the hills.

His voice is as the sound of many waters; He spoke and calmed the storm; He spoke and gave life to the dead, brought healing to the sick, strength to the weak, and forgiveness to the sinner.

Herod could not kill Him. The Pharisees could not confound Him, and Satan could not trick Him. Sickness could not withstand Him; devils could not stay near Him; and the waves could not drown Him.

The rabble could not disturb Him; death could not corrupt Him; hell could not keep Him; and the grave could not contain Him!

Gravitation could not restrain Him, and God has highly exalted Him and given Him a Name above every name, and at His Name every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that He is Lord of all.

He gave gifts to men; He brought a stream out of a rock, and fed the people in the wilderness; He fed 5000 with two loaves and a few fishes.

He is Savior to the lost, healing to the sick; He is hearing to the deaf, and sight to the blind. He is cleansing to the leper and strength to the weak. He is comfort to the oppressed, hope to the hopeless, and help to the helpless. He is a brother to the friendless, and a friend to the brotherless, and He is LIFE to the dead.

He is infinite, eternal, glorious and full of majesty.

One day in His courts is better than a thousand; wouldn't you rather be a doorkeeper in His house than dwell in the tents of the world...?

He is the covenant Keeper--keeping covenant with covenant breakers.

He is sweeter than all the flowers; He is the lover of our soul; and the keeper of our hearts.

He is music to the poet, and a song to the worshiper. His Name has been whispered by thousands upon thousands of dying soldiers on the battlefields of the ages.

His Name has been the battle cry of those who fought for righteousness and truth.

HE IS THE KING OF ALL KINGS AND EVERY NATION WILL BOW TO HIM....

HIS NAME IS JESUS.

By:

Kathie and David Walters
Good News Ministries
http://www.goodnews.netministries.org/

The Valleys and the Mountains of the Good Land

"For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of waterbrooks, of springs and of fountains, flowing forth in valleys and in mountains. . .(Deut. 8:7;)

This picture of the good land is the type of Christ who is the one who is everything to His people in this age. All the items of this good land represent experiences that we, His people, may have of Him.

The valleys and mountains are pictures that show our experience of the ascending and descending Christ. (Eph 4:9-11) The valleys and the mountains always go together. The Lord will cycle us through these kinds of up and down experiences continually over our Christian life-time. How many times have we experienced being down? And then somehow we were then brought up? This happens over and over again in the seeking Christian.

Why? To produce us into the gift that we are for the sake of the body of Christ. Don't despise the valleys. They are part of the process. You will notice that the valleys are first, followed by the mountains. But don't despair. The springs and fountains flow forth in the valleys and mountains.

Whether we are down in the valley or up on the mountain there is always the supply of the life-giving Spirit to comfort and nourish us while conforming us to the image of the Son.

Excerpt from Casper Schwenkfeld

Among all the reformers of the sixteenth century who worked at the immense task of recovering, purifying, and restating the Christian faith, no one was nobler in life and personality, and no one was more uncompromisingly dedicated to the mission of bringing into the life of the people a type of Christianity winnowed clean from the husks of superstition and tradition, and grounded in ethical and spiritual reality than was Casper Schwenkfeld the Salesian noble.

“. . . They saw with their inner spirits that the real healing of the human soul and the eternal destiny of man were indissolubly bound up with the person of Christ. He emphasizes the inwardness of true religion and the importance of the personal experience of the living, creative, and divine word. He called attention to the superficiality of the change which was taking place in men’s lives as the result of the Reformation. He pleads for a faith in Christ and an appreciation of Him that shall, ‘. . . reach the deep regions of the spirit, renew the heart, and produce a new man in the believer.’

‘Christ is the first born of this new creation. He is the first new Adam, who, by His triumphant life and victorious resurrection, has become forever a life-giving Spirit––the creative principle of a new humanity in Christ. The Word of God, the actual divine seed of God, became flesh, entered into our human nature, and penetrated it with Spirit and Life, conquered its stubborn bent towards sin, and transfigured and transformed this human flesh into a divine and heavenly substance. Christ glorified human flesh and exalted it from flesh to Spirit and in His resurrected, heavenly life He is able to unite Himself inwardly with the souls of believers, so that His spiritual, resurrected flesh and blood can be their food and drink, and He can become the life-giving source of a new order of humanity, the spiritual head of a new race. The process, for it is a vital process, it is from beginning to end in the realm of experience. By the exercise of faith in the crucified, risen, and glorified God-man as the life-giving Spirit, real power from a higher world streams into the soul. Something pneumatic, something which belongs pathologically to a higher spiritual world order comes into the person as a divinely bestowed germ plasm with living, renewing and organizing power. The recreative energy which pours in transforms both soul and body. The inner, internal Word of God, Who became flesh, acts upon the inner nature of man, so the believing man is changed into something spiritual, divine and heavenly, and like Christ, the incarnated Word of God. Thus this Word, which is the same life-giving Spirit that became flesh in Christ and that produces the new creation in man, becomes a perpetual, inward teacher in those who are reborn.

It is, in fact, God Himself, operating as life and spirit and light upon the spiritual substance of the human soul, first, as the life-seed which forms the new creation in man and afterwards as the permanent, nourishing and tutoring spirit who leads the obedient soul on into all the truth and perfects it into the likeness stature of Christ. Schwenkfeld always insists that written words, however inspired, are still external to the soul. The Bible leads to Christ and it bears witness of Him as no other book does, But it is not Christ. If these spiritual realities are to become real and effective to us, it must be through the direct relation of the human spirit with the divine Spirit, the inward spiritual Word of God.’

Schwenkfeld’s views of the process of salvation and the permanent illumination of the reborn soul by a real incoming divine substance, whether called word or seed, is the dynamic feature of his Christianity. It was a necessity, he felt to discover some way by which man could be actually renewed, transformed, recreated, and made righteous. “Justification,” he once wrote, “is not only forgiveness of sins, but it is more. It is the actual healing and renewing of inward man. It must involve a real and radical transformation of man’s nature.” The passion for goodness, in Schwenkfeld’s view, is created through the vision of the God-man who suffered and died on the cross for us and has been glorified in absolute newness of life; and the power of more holiness is supplied to the soul by the direct inflowing of divine-life-streams from this new Adam, who is hence forth the head of the spiritual order of humanity, the life-giving Spirit, who renews all who receive him in faith.

“Faith,” he says, “is the penetrating stream of light flowing out from the central, divine light and fire, which is God himself, into our hearts, by which we are inflamed with love for God and for our neighbor, and which we see what we lack in ourselves and what can abundantly supply our lack, so that we may be ready for the Kingdom of God, and be prepared to become children of God. Real faith is the gracious and gratuitous gift of God through the Holy Spirit. It is an emanation from the eternal life of God, and it is the same essence and substance as God Himself. It is, in fact, the eternal Word of God become vocal and vital within the inner region of our own selves. Each soul that enters the kingdom of experience through the work of the life-giving Spirit is builded into this invisible, expanding Church of the ages, and is endowed with some gift to become an organ of the divine Head. Christian baptism is therefore not with water but with Christ. It is the immersion of the soul in the life-giving streams of Christ’s spiritual presence. Through the exercise of faith in the person of the crucified, risen, and glorified Christ, the created Adam, incorruptible life-giving substance comes into the soul and transfigures it. Something from the divine and heavenly world, something from the spiritualized and glorified nature of Christ becomes the actual food of man’s spirit, so that through it he partakes of the same nature as that of the God-man. Not once or twice, but as a continuous experience, the soul may share this glorious meal of spiritual renewal, the eating and drinking of Christ.

Make No Provision for the Flesh

Rom. 13:8. Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. 9 For this, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; love therefore is the fulfillment of the law.

11 And this do, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. 12 The night is almost gone, and the day is at hand. Let us therefore lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.

(The New American Standard Bible, (La Habra, California: The Lockman Foundation) 1977.)

Paul is not urging the Roman saints to keep the law in verse nine but to realize that the whole law is summed up in the saying, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This is the only debt that we should have toward any other. This is not a matter of trying to love others but one of remaining in Christ all the time.

And he says that we should wake up for the time is short, that salvation is nearer than when we first believed. So we should put on the armor of light which is the same as putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. He encourages us to walk properly as one who walks in the day and not as those who walk in sinful things in the dark. And, “put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh.”

What is the provision for the flesh? I was taught that we should make sure that there is no provision for the flesh in our homes. For example, if I was a drunkard before I was saved, I should make sure that there was no alcoholic beverage in my home so that I wouldn’t be tempted. No doubt if that were my case it would be wise not to have those kind of things in my home.

But Paul is not talking about that kind of outward arrangement in our lives. The provision for the flesh here is its desire to keep the law. The flesh, which is our entire human being, loves the law of God and wants to live up to it. But whenever we try, the law of sin captures us and brings us into spiritual death. (See Romans Chapter Seven)
By putting on the armor of light, we live in God as light. This light kills the desire to attempt to please God, for in His light we see that our fallen human being cannot keep the law and never will be able to. At the same time we see that Christ on the cross has accomplished everything for us. He shines on us and we stay in fellowship with Him as we confess out sins. Then we exercise our spirit to contact the Lord and put Him on. By this “putting on” of the Lord the desire of the flesh to keep the law is cancelled out in us. It remains cancelled as long as we live in spirit. This is to make the body of this death unemployed as Paul mentions in Rom. Seven.

The minute we get out of spirit, the desire of the flesh to be good, to keep some law to please God will crop up again. The only solution is to remain in Him.

For those who have known and experienced the mingled spirit, that is the divine Spirit mingled with our human spirit, can I believe relate to this.