Being Deceived

One of the greatest deceits of the devil is to seduce us into eating the tree of knowledge. This means to be independent from God, knowing good and evil. The fact is that to know the law of God and to attempt to keep it is to eat the tree of knowledge. Paul in 1 Cor. 15 says that the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. Stay away from trying to please God by your own efforts of doing good and avoiding evil. This will kill you as far all your experience of the Lord is concerned.

God's intention is that you would be living in Him, expressing God. The way is not to try to be like Jesus. Rather it is to look to Jesus and believe that He has accomplished everything on the cross and has become your righteousness. There is nothing left for you to do but to enjoy Him. Righteousness is a Person, named Jesus. Stay with Him, abide in Him. This pleases God and produces everything you desire in your Christian life.

Concerning His Son

Romans 1:1-3 says, "the gospel of God...concerning His Son..." God's good news concerns His Son, not the law, not any kind of program, not doings or anything other than God's Son, Jesus Christ. The gospel of God is not focused on family, children, having a good marriage, going to church, serving others or the myriad of things that religious men have invented to serve God. It is focused on His Son!

What are you focused on? Where are you're thoughts focused? Where is your heart aimed? Is it on His Son? If not you're concerns are not God's concerns. His gospel concerns His Son!

God has no intention of you focusing on self improvement. He has already crucified you on the cross in His Son. You and I are no longer relevant. We are now in Christ Jesus. God has placed us there. (1 Cor. 1:30) So there is no longer any need to strive to be good for Christ is our goodness. We do not have to attempt to be righteous for Christ is our righteousness. If you are still working at it you are living as an Old Testament saint and are not living in the benefit of the New Covenant. Give up all the effort and look away to Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith.

The World System

The world system is simply the fruit of the tree of knowledge, good and evil being the fruit. Everything in the world, the desire of the eyes, the desire of the flesh and the pride of life is the inward desire to eat of that fruit. And the desire is controlled by the basic rules of the system which are do not touch do not taste, do no handle. (1 John 2:15; Col. 2:20-21) Everything that the natural man thinks and decides and even likes or dislikes is based on whether it is good for him or evil.

Every section of the system whether it be religion, politics, commerce, entertainment or military are based on these principles. To advance in any of them depends on how well you perform according to their various rules. Whether you fully engage in any of them or try to leave them and, for example enter into a monastery to flee the world, the world will go with you and you will find yourself in another expression of the same thing.

Many seeking Christians attempt to leave the world by entering into some form of religion thinking that, particularly if that religion is very spiritual or very "free" that they have left the world. Yet in the long run they discover that they have only entered another kind of system with its demands for some kind of perfomance.

What, then, is the answer? It is to enter into the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ and to stay there. Only by remaining in Him are you out of the world. In the reality of its essence, the world is actually another person: the personified Sin in Romans seven which is the life of Satan. There are only two persons in which men and women can live, either in the old man, Adam, who was taken over be the devil, or Christ. (see 1 Cor.15:22)

To sin is to live in your self-life. Only when we live in Christ who is our life do we live without sin. John says that he that is born again does not sin. That's because in the realm of Christ we cannot sin because sin is not in His life. Jesus, who live as man, not as God, although He was God, could not sin because He always lived by His Father's life. He is the model for us to life in the same way. He said, "As I live because of the Father, he that eats me shall live because of me." Only in that day by day supply of the life of Christ can we live without sin and outside of the world-system.

"Leadership"

According to the Lord's word in Matt. 23, no one should be called father, teacher, master, etc. That is, no one should be a leader like the world has its leaders. In the world the leaders are over all their followers. However, in the kingdom of the heaven it is totally different. The Lord Jesus said that He didn't come to be served but to serve. Paul always identified himself as a bond slave of Jesus Christ.

If anyone desires to be a leader in the church, he must realize that he will not be over the saints but that he is entering into slavery. The saints will be over him and his life will be to serve them.

The Lord's view is absolutely different from that of the current practice in today's Christian world. Today, each church has its pastor who is in charge of the church and is over everyone. The Christian church in America has become a business and many pastors make a very good living from it. This is a worldly system just like a big corporation in the world. So it behooves each pastor to produce a big church in order to provide him his income and the power structure to give him his position and popularity. Does this sound like the church in the New Testament? In these institutions many of the members will go to their pastor for help, prayer and all spiritual things instead of going directly to the Lord Jesus as He intends them to do. America Christianity has evolved into the clergy/laity system that is hated by the Lord Jesus in Revelation two.

It is not the Lord's intention that any man would take the place of the Lord Himself. He is our Father, our Teacher and our Master. According to the new covenant everyone will know the Lord from least to the greatest among them.(Heb. 8) Christ indwells each believer and is well able to speak to and lead each one.

None of the Lord's people need a human "leader." They need the brothers who have been entrusted with the New Testament ministry to perfect them unto the same ministry and unto the building up of the body of Christ. But these brothers are not over the saints. They are only there to serve them the reality of Christ and then get out of the way so that the Lord can be in reality the head of His body and watch Him be the real leader among the saints.

Meeting Times and Places

How did Christians get the idea that meeting together should be at certain times and certain places? When you look at the gospels you see that when Jesus walked on the earth, He was always walking and meeting with His followers. Wouldn't it make sense that today, His followers would walk and meet the same way? That is to always be in a "meeting" with Him and with anyone else at any time.

At home in the family we would be in a meeting with Him and each other. When we get together with other believers whether in a home, a large building or in a coffee shop, we would be meeting with Him. Why not?

To have the thought that we only get together with other Christians at certain times and certain places gives us the wrong impression of what the Christian life is all about. Doesn't the Word tell us that we Christians are a people for the Lord's possession? That we are His 24/7, not only an Sunday morning? We all need a revolution in our thinking'

Christ vs. the Law

I Introduction

The creation of Adam and Eve was a marvel of the creative brilliance and power of God. They were created in the image of God and were designed to be His glory. But they had a deliberately created weakness. Although they did not know it, this weakness was a part of their make-up as a benefit to them and a means by which they would reach the Divine intention for them.

Not only did God create Adam with a weakness but He also created him with a good nature. At the end of the sixth day God declared that all that he had made was very good. This refers to the creation on the sixth day which mainly was the man. So man’s inclination according to his created nature is goodness. Man, basically, desires to do good. He wants to please God by doing good. So if he can determine what is good, then he will do his best to do it. All human beings have this inbred desire unless totally corrupted by some outside instrument.

However, the devil, no doubt, knowing man’s weakness and his good nature took advantage of it. He had a subtle goal when he deceived Eve and induced her to eat the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He knew that, if he could get her and her husband to eat that tree, they would become independent from God. Once he had separated them from God, the weakness in them and their good nature would result in their living an unrighteous life and would bring the judgment of God upon them.

That weakness and our good human nature is still a part of us and we are continually being deceived because of it. This is why the law is so attractive to us. Especially since we have received Christ as our Savior and been regenerated, we want to do something to please God. We are eternally grateful to Him for His death on the cross which paid the penalty for our sins and rescued us from Hell. The law of our mind, being good, desire to do good to please this wonderful Savior. So we are attracted to the law to attempt to keep it. However, the weakness in our being plus the sin-nature we acquired when we ate the tree of knowledge makes the keeping of the law impossible.

The solution to this problem is the Life of another Person, the Lord Jesus Christ. Unless we receive revelation from our Lord to see the provision that He made through His death and resurrection we will continue to struggle under out inborn weakness. It is possible to live without the certain result of a failing Christian life only by seeing a fresh revelation of Jesus Christ.

II The Tree of Life vs. the Tree of the Law (the tree of the knowledge of good and evil)

A good writer or speaker will always write or speak according to a simple outline. First, he will tell you what he is going to tell you. Then he will tell you. Then, finally, he will tell you what he told you. Our God is the best writer of all. Therefore, His writing of the Bible is according to this formula. In Genesis one and two He tells us what He is going to tell us. Between Genesis Three and Revelation twenty He tells us and in Revelation twenty one and twenty two He tells us what He told us.

The first two chapters of Genesis portray the foundational principles of the Bible. In Chapter two you have a man before two trees. The implications that are revealed through this picture are staggering and awe inspiring. If we can see why God began His revelation with this simple picture, we will be able to unlock many passages in the Bible and to be enabled to live the Christian life according to the Lord’s revealed way.

Have you ever heard that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is a picture of the law? Please think about it. What does the law do? It teaches us the difference between good and evil according the God’s standard. It teaches us and the teaching demands us to love God and to have nothing to do with idols. To love God is good. To worship an idol is evil. It teaches us to honor our father and our mother. To dishonor them is evil. Every other point of the law is the same. By it you know what is good and what is evil. So the tree of knowledge of good and evil a picture of the law.

The law of God demands that if you live by it, everything you do will be good and on the other hand you will not do anything unrighteous or evil. Only this kind of living will please God under His law. However, if you live by the law you will have to do it by your own strength. He will not help you do it. So it means that you will be your own god living by your own decision to work the good and abstain from the evil. You have become independent from God.

However, you are under a deep deception. If we live by the law, we are automatically brought under the domain of the devil. For his life is stronger than the good nature in us and we will be captured by sin and wind up in death.

No doubt you know that the tree of life is a picture of Christ as our life. So it is obvious that Christ is verse the law. Not only Genesis two reveals this but the rest of the Bible unveils that if a man or a nation attempts to please God by keeping the law the result will be sin and death.

This is the history of the nation of Israel and the history of the church. The minute any from of law keeping enters into a man’s thinking, he will enter onto the way of failure in living the Christian life..

Let’s think about it. Was there ever a king of Israel who did not fail? David? No he fell into adultery and murder. Solomon. No, he was seduced by too many women and their idols. How about Josiah? He was excellent yet in the end he died by fighting a battle that was not of God. How about Moses? Also no. Even eventually he was prohibited from entering into the good land due to his failure.

Eventually, there were only four who overcame. Joshua, Caleb, Joseph and Daniel. I believe that these men learned the secret and did not live by the tree of knowledge. It was their hearts desire to God Himself and their determination to stay with Him that saved them.

III Humanity after the Fall living by the flesh, resulting in murder, violence and the beginning of the World-system

After the first couple ate the tree of Knowledge and were expelled from the garden of Eden, their whole life was one infected by the poison of that tree.

Therefore, whatever they and there decedents did, unless they received a fresh word from the Lord, was governed by that tree and the mind-set it produced in them. All their thoughts and their resulting actions issued from a what-is-good and what-is-evil worldview. They would behave by considering that if something was good, they would do it and if it was evil they would refrain from doing it. But they were deceived.

The difference between Cain and Able is the difference between a man who lived by revelation and a man who lived by right and wrong. Cain knew that it was good to bring an offering to God. No doubt he had heard this from his father but when he heard it, it went into his mind as something good to do. He did not receive revelation as to what God desired as an offering, so he offered the work of his hands. That is, something good that he had done. His was rejected by God. He was disappointed and offended that his good works did not please God.

Why? Because he did what was right to do, he thought he would be commended for it. Are we not many times the same. We do some kind act for someone expecting our Lord to praise us for it and discover that somehow we have lost the presence of God. We don’t realize that we have again partaken of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We might even say to the Lord, “Haven’t I done this in your name?” But He would reply, “I never knew you in that thing you did. Depart from me.” In other words, “My presence will not be with you until you confess your sin and turn back to Me.”

The whole race of man after the fall, lived by the good and evil mind-set that got into their first parents and came to them by their birth. They must have some good things that they did and we know that there were many evil things that occurred but the Lord proclaimed that man was nothing but flesh.

Only a very few lived in the way that pleased the Lord. Two are of note; Enoch and Noah.

Enoch walked with God and was not because God took him. He lived only about three hundred and sixty years which was a short life in those days. As fart as we know the only commendation the bible gives him was that he walked with God.

Here we have to stop a moment and think a little about Enoch’s life. “He walked with God.” This is a remarkable statement. It does not say that God walked with him but that he walked with God. When God went, he went. When God stopped, Enoch stopped. He did not moved ahead of God nor did He lag behind. He spent his life with God in the most obedient way always remaining in His presence.

If we would look at it according to the New Testament revelation we could say that Enoch was a man who always remained abiding in the Vine. He never departed from the life flow of the vine so that he has borne much fruit. Because he always stayed attached to God, the Lord could impart great revelation to him. He was the first to prophesy concerning the great flood, naming his son Methuselah, meaning, “when he is dead, it shall come.” Enoch also prophesied concerning the judgment of God coming on all the unrighteousness of the ungodly generation of mankind. (See Jude 3-4

Symzoasis

Just what is symzoasis? It is the fellowship with the Father and with His son Jesus Christ. What is fellowship? It is not what the common thought of fellowship is, ie. to hang out together, have some coffee and talk. This is just a natural concept. According to the Greek, the word is make up of two words: "common" and "being." The word "common" is the same word from which we get the word koine Greek, the common Greek language. The word "being" is the Greek participle "wv (gk.)" for the verb "to be." To have fellowship is have a common-being with the Father and His son, Jesus Christ and with one another. This is symzoasis.

The word "symzoasis" comes from two greek words also. First from the Greek "sum" which means together and then from the Greek "zwn (gk.)" which means life. But in the New Testament the word "zwn (gk.)" mainly refers to the life of God not to a natural life like the word "bios" which also means life but primarily the physical life. So we use the word symzoasis rather that the word symbiosis.

Symbiosis refers to two organisms that live together for the mutual benefit of each one. Like the probiotics that live in our gut. We benefit from these friendly bacteria and they benefit from us, their hosts.

Symzoasis refers to the divine Spirit in our spirit and mutually in all the born again children of God. Symzoasis not only indicates our organic oneness with our Lord but also with one another.

John, in his first epistle, is calling all the children, young men and fathers to enter into this organic symzoasis. To not do so is the miss the mark of God's design. In this symzoatic relationship there is the true brotherly life. Outside it is sin where we, no matter how we live, are missing the mark. Truly, to miss is the mark is to miss symaozsis.

Jesus said, "I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me"

Matt. 14:9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
10 “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me?

Jesus lives out the Father. He expresses the Father. He defines the Father. Whatever He is, He does, says or feels is the Father's life expressing itself in Him

It is, or should be, the same with us Christians. We are one with Him as He was one with the Father. We are one with Him as He was one with the Father. He is the head, we are the body. Both head and body are the Christ. Therefore we should live today as He lived then. He expressed the Father, so we express Christ. We are the Christ.Those who do not say that Jesus is the Christ are the instead-of-Christs. (1 John 2:22) Those who live as an instead-of-christ (anti-christ) are opposed to the organic reality of the body of Christ.

Even unbelievers say that the historical Jesus is called Christ. But if you begin to say that today Jesus is the Christ meaning that Jesus is the body as will as the head, you will be condemned and persecuted by religion, even the Christian religion. For though they know it is true, this undermines their hold on their little kingdom and threatens everything they hold dear: ie. their position and their financial income.

So we can say as our Lord Jesus did, "he that has seen us has seen the Christ!" However only if we continually abide in Him.

This organic Christ is what the book of First John reveals.

To Fulfill All Righteousness

Matt. 3:14 But John tried to prevent Him, saying, “I have need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?”
15 But Jesus answering said to him, “Permit it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he permitted Him.

The explanation that Jesus gave to John as to why He needed to be baptized by John was to fulfill all righteousness. It was not that Jesus was sinful nor was it simply to obey His Father but to fulfill all righteousness.

The is an extraordinary statement. "To fulfill all righteousness!"

Since all had sinned in the first Adam, Christ, the last Adam, had come in the flesh, without sin, to pay the price for the sins of all mankind and then to enter resurrection and by the Spirit enter into those men who believed, to become their life and their living.

In order to do that He first had to live a life on earth as a man, living by the divine life rather than His own natural sinless self-life. Then go through all the things that men and women go through so that when He entered into to His people they could live by a human-divine life that He had already lived the perfect humanity on the earth.

However, this living could only come after the perfect Man had fulfilled all righteousness. The first Adam had sinned and all his descendants were partakers of his sin. God, being just and righteous demanded justice. For His law says that if a man sins the just penalty is death. According to God's righteousness we should pay the penalty of death. Yet another volunteered to take out place. Since we all have sinned only a sinless person could pay the penalty. That Person is Jesus.

His baptism pointed to the coming cross upon which He would die and pay that penalty for us all. So when He was baptized He went through death and resurrection, just as we do when we are baptized.

From the time of His baptism on, He lived a life of a perfect New Testament saint, that is a life under the cross yet in resurrection. He lived by the source of the divine life in His spirit as we are commanded to do in this age. From this time on He lived a life in the spirit according to the divine law of life which operated according the divine nature of our Father. Because He lived this kind of life by the Father's life, His experience was much higher that those attempting to live by the law of Moses. This is why the Lord could speak concerning the constitution of the Kingdom of the heavens in Matt. 5-7. This is the description of a person who lives a life sourced from the Spirit in his spirit. (John 3:6; 4:24)

So the life we are able live in our spirit is that God-man life that Jesus lived while He was on earth. It has nothing to do with any effort on our part. It is altogether by the faith of this Person, Jesus . The way He lived on earth, in a total expression of the Father, is the way He wants us to live in Him. So we, if we are willing to pay the price of our self-life, may also live this life sourced from our spirit.

Ministry

Matt. 7:21-23. The Lord says, "Not every one who says to Me, "Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of the heavens, but he who does the will of My Father who is in the heavens. Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, was it not in Your name that we prophesied, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name did may works of Power? And then I will declare to them: I never knew you. Depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness." (Knew here means approved. The same word in Rom. 7:15 is translated acknowledge.)

There are so many "ministries" in the Christian world today but how many of them does the Lore approve of? Unless we live in Him, in spirit, and allow Him to live out through us then no matter what we do for Him is not approved by Him. Because the Spirit has been poured out at Pentecost and at the house of Cornelius, whether or not we live in him men can work miracles, etc.

But our Father only works through His Son. He created the universe through the Son. He holds it together through the Son, He redeemed us through the work of the Son on the cross and through that work of His we are justified and have all the riches of the Triune God. Our Father's desire is that we would be related to everything through Christ. We relate to sin through Christ, we relate to others through Christ, we relate to our Father through Christ and even our relationship to ourselves is through our wonderful dear Lord Jesus. So even we also relate to any ministry through Christ. The ministry is not initiated by us nor if He does initiate the ministry through us is it carried out by us but by our continual abiding in Him and allowing Him to bear the fruit through us as a branch in the Him as the true vine.

The Walk in Spirit in Galatians Five and Six

Gal. 5:25-6:1

^25If we are living with what is spirit, let us keep in line (stoikew) by what is spirit. ^26Let us not become vainglorious, provoking one another, envying one another, brothers. ^6:1 Even if a man be overtaken in any trespass, ye who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of meekness, looking to yourself, lest you also be tempted. (Greek translation by R.C.H. Lenski)

One of the first principals of Bible interpretation is to consider the context of the verse or passage you are studying. Concerning the above verses, it is important to see that when the translators of the Bible divided verse 26 from the next verse, chapter 6, verse 1, they implied that a new thought was beginning in chapter 6, however, this is not true.

Paul's thought is as follows: Since our general walk is by our spirit, then it follows that the specific going along, following along just like an army marching along rank on rank should also be by our spirit. No one should think himself or herself higher or better so as to become vainglorious. We are all brothers of one another, nothing more. When pride created vainglory in a brother, it causes others who are not in spirit to be envious or to be provoked. This situation should never be allowed. So the ones who actually do live in spirit should go to the one who has stepped aside out of the line (the Greek word for trespass means to step aside) and with a spirit of meekness, which is in contrast to the pride and envy and wrath exhibited in 5:26, and help that vainglorious one. But in helping you have to beware that you too won't fall into vainglory for we are all subject to being tempted with pride.

Paul concludes the last chapter with the words, "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is with the spirit of you all, brothers. (Greek word order) Paul looks at us all as having one spirit and that we are all simply brothers. We must have revelation to see that the other brother's spirit is my spirit and my spirit is his spirit. The reality is that we are in such an organic oneness.

None is higher or better. It is true that the functions of all differ, but there is no rank among us. Pride always wants to assume a higher, better, or more knowledgeable position. Since humanity is so fallen we all should look to ourselves lest we be so tempted.

Our Calling

1 Cor. 1:9 God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of His son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

We are not called to follow any man, to join any denomination, mission society or even to associate with those who are spiritual. We are called into the fellowship of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Greek work translated "fellowship" comes from two Greek words: "common" and "being." So we have been called into the common-being of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have all been called into His Person, to be a member of His body.

We are not called to be individual spiritual giants, missionaries, pastors, church members, or to follow a powerful speaker. We are called into this Person. Since this is the case, then we are to abide in Him. Forget everything else. Remain in Him. loving Him and being filled with Him and He will cause the reality of the church to emerge.

Loving Jesus

1 Cor. 2:9 Things which Eye has not seen and ear has not heard and which have not come up in man's heart; things which God has prepared for those who love Him.

The first thing, the main thing and the primary thing is to love the Lord. We can serve God, study the word, pray, preach the gospel, know the doctrines even give our bodies to be burned, yet without love to the Lord all these count for nothing.

To love Him is to love Him for Himself alone, not for what He has or will do for you. We appreciate to the uttermost what He has done for us but we love Him simply for Himself.
The church in Ephesus in Revelation two had one great lack. She had left her first love. No matter what they had done to serve the Lord Jesus, He still said, "I have against you because you have left your first love.

If we would examine American Christianity don't you also feel that this is one of the key failures? How many Christains do you meet who talk about loving Jesus, seeking Him and longing to be together with those who also want only Him? With the Lord in Deuteronomy 6:29 we also would say, "Oh, that we all would have such a heart..."

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.

The Mind-Set of the Spirit

Read: Rom. 5:12-8:39

Romans 5:12 through Romans 7:8 tells us the facts concerning how the Lord dealt with sin on the cross and the results of that dealing. Romans 7:9 to the end of chapter 8 tells us the experiences of the saints who seek to live to the Lord based on those facts.

I want to concentrate on the experience and show why so many do not attain to the living described in Romans 8 and show the way into that experience.

The reason I want to discuss experience is that many of us who have been saved for many years are able to talk about these spiritual things, but nevertheless are lacking the true experience of them. I am not only talking about others but about myself. For years I myself have spoken about these thing and given messages on Romans seven and eight, but still lived an up and down life. I would react to my wife and be upset with little things that she said, instead of experiencing the love of Christ for her. So I confessed this kind of sin any number of times. Many times I would wind up in condemnation and death. Although I sought the Lord to live Him, I still fell into myself to live me! Even though I was able to teach about these things I felt myself to be most miserable and cried out to the Lord as Paul did, “Who shall deliver me from this body of death?” What a wretched man I was!

Although I knew the answer Paul gave to this question, I still didn’t see and still felt frustrated and unable to enter in.

Being a person who wanted perfection and wanted to please the Lord, I lived in Romans seven and didn’t even know that that was my problem. I said to myself, “I know the spirit. I pray daily in the Word. Often, I would I experience the Lord and be filled with Him, but, also, many times I didn’t and would live a life out of the self which is so ugly. Why, I asked myself? I thought that the reason was that I just did not live in my spirit. I desired that, but it seemed as though that I often always failed.

I could not see the answer. Even though I knew the answer was Christ, I did not see. Without seeing I was just in the knowledge of the truth not in enjoyment of the reality of it. I could teach it, but still remained in the striving of the flesh. So I would, for years, cry out to the Lord for deliverance but deliverance seemed to avoid me.

Over the last two years, in our Bible study group, we have been going over Romans. As I got into the first eight verses of Romans eight I noticed something about the word translated “mind.” It is the Greek word fronhma. It means mind-set or viewpoint or the way your mind is disposed to think. You can check it out in Strongs, number 5427.

I realized that just to exercise the spirit is inadequate. We also must have the mind-set of the Spirit. But just what does that mean?

Romans 1:1 says, “There is now therefore no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.” (NKJV) Most modern translations do not include the clause, “who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” This is because it is not included in the Critical Text. However, it is included in the Textus Receptus from which the King James Version and the New King James Version are translated. It is also included in the Majority Text.

Since we are talking about the experience of condemnation, the last clause should be included. Here is why. If the verse only says that there is no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus, then why are so many born again Christians condemned? Are they in Christ Jesus? Yes. Since they are in Christ Jesus, and since many experience condemnation, there is either a problem with the verse or a problem with their experience.

But if you add the last clause, the problem is solved. If a Christian walks in the Spirit he or she would not be condemned. It seems very simple, yet even the Christians who seek and experience the filling of the Spirit still fall into condemnation. If this is true there must be another problem. That problem is thoroughly discussed by Paul in Romans seven and eight. What is the problem? It is the law.

Paul used a long section to expose the problem of the law. He, being a faithful Jew, attempted to keep the law and discovered that the more he strove to keep it, the more he failed. The failure was sin and sin brought death. In 1 Cor. 15:56 Paul says that the sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law. So the more someone attempts to keep the law, the more sin will be strengthened and that strengthened sin will inject, by its sting, death into the law-keeper. There is no way the Lord can deliver anyone if that one continues to try to please God by keeping the law.

Therefore, since the Word says that those who walk according to the flesh are brought into condemnation, it must be that the flesh in Romans eight is the flesh that wants to do good by keeping the law. Paul is not talking about the works of the flesh that are sinful in this portion but the mind-set of the flesh that wants to perfect itself. (Gal. 3:1-3)

The self is so subtle and so prone to being deceived. We may think we are okay with the Lord but not be able to realize that we are law keepers. We may even be strong against anything legal. Not being legal may actually be an excuse to be loose and worldly. At the same time we may have many little self-invented or preacher-inflicted laws that we subconsciously attempt to keep and so are captured by the law of sin and death.

This is why in Rom. 8:6 Paul says that, “the mind-set of the flesh is death and the mind-set of the Spirit is life and peace.” (my translation) Here the word again for mind-set is fronhma. To live in the Spirit depends upon which mind-set you have.

The mind-set is our operating system. Just like in your computer there is an operating system. How the computer functions depends on the operating system. Equally true is the fact that our human being also operates based on our operating system. Our operating system is our vision. The vision we have governs our living. Prov. 29:18 says that where the people cast off vision they run wild. So each one of us needs the vision that is of God and not our own opinion of what is the vision of God’s way.

In many cases there is the need of a change in vision or realization. Although we may not know it, we may be still in a deep corner of our mind have the thought that we need to fix ourselves up, that we need to improve, that we need help to learn how to live a good life, have a good marriage, to stop our besetting sin, or become better in some way. This is the mind-set of the flesh. Any thought of improving self is a fleshly thought. We need a change in vision, a change in mind-set which will change our operation system.

In Gal. 4:19 Paul says, “My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you.” The word “formed” is not in the present tense but in the aorist. So he is not talking about something that is going on in a continuous was way but in this case something that happens in a point of time. The present tense in Greek looks at things that are happening over a continuous period of time. The aorist, in some cases, is the tense that indicates a point of time. Paul is talking here of a paradigm shift in a point of time.

The Galatians saw the Christian life as one in which they should believe in Jesus and then keep the Old Testament law. Paul was writing them to attempt to change their paradigm so that they would see that instead of living by the law they should live by Christ who was the life within them. His testimony was that he was crucified with Christ and it was no longer he that lived but that Christ lived in him. (Gal. 2:20) They needed a paradigm shift from having the mind-set of the flesh to having the mind-set of the Spirit.

What then is the mind-set of the Spirit? If we go back to Romans eight you’ll notice that Paul never tells us how to get into the Spirit. Romans eight is a description of a man in the spirit and the results and practices of one already in spirit. What has caused him to change from a man attempting to keep the law, a man whose mind-set was the flesh to one who experiences the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus overcoming the law of sin and death?

I would suggest that his paradigm shift came in Romans 7:25 when he answered his own question about who would deliver him from the body of death. He said, “Thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The veil came off his eyes and He saw that it was Christ Himself who was his answer. That Jesus had accomplished everything that was needed to be done on the cross. There was nothing left to do. Now this Jesus would be the reality of his living and he, Paul, could rest in that.

When he realized that everything was done on the cross by and in Christ and that He was everything Paul needed to approach God, to be with God and to please God, all self effort spontaneously stopped and this Christ practically and in reality became his life.

Do you see it? The Lord does not expect us nor want us to be good or better, or to try not to do certain things or fight against sin. He wants us to look away from all that and look at Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. He can and will do everything we cannot do and even everything we can do. And He wants to. The problem is that we remain in the way.

May the Lord open our eyes to see the many little foxes in us that spoil the vine? That is all the little rules and regulations that we are attempting to keep which lead to sin and death. Then may He grant light and revelation to see that He is the answer to everything.

How will I know that I see this mighty revelation? When you see the Christ who is all you will be at rest. You will not work at being a Christian any longer, but will enter the joy of the Lord’s rest from your labors. You will cease living an up and down Christian life. Christ will be, as He was for Paul, your life and living. As long as you experience an up and down life you still are without adequate revelation of Christ. Seek Him. Look to Him. Tell Him how much you love Him and want to see all that He has accomplished on the cross and fully realize that now He is the Spirit to transmit that life to you.