Archive for February, 2020
Posted by appolus on February 29, 2020
The virus will not wipe out a third of mankind but it will shake them and it is part of the birth pangs. Everything that can be shaken will be shaken. And just as soon as they get over this, lo the next great shaking begins. In Amos 5:19 we see a man escape from a lion only to be torn to pieces by a bear. Or a man runs into his house for safety and puts his hand on the wall and is bitten by a deadly snake. Who can outrun the judgments of God? Those who ignore Gods judgments are pursued by them. The answer to the problems of the people who worship Moloch( to whom infants were sacrificed) is to seek God and live. They are to abandon their places of polluted worship which in the days of Amos was places like Gilgal and Bethal where the golden calf was also worshiped, the same god made by the Isrealites in the desert when Moses departed from them. Today we are faced by the same issues and the same answers but a very much depleted prophetic calendar. The King is at the door. In Amos five it was said that God hated their solemn assemblies and their feast days, He hated their sacrifices and He would not listen to their worship music. Moloch was in their midst. Rather than righteousness and judgment flowing down our streets like streams of water, we have raging rivers of the blood of the innocents instead.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love (1Jn 4:18) Much of the world shall be tormented in the coming months, by fear. How shall you stand saint? Shall you run to and fro with the world” Shall you be driven like a wave on the ocean when the fierce winds blow? If you run with the world how can you be the light of the world, a city set on a hill? You must let your light and your love and your peace be seen of men and in that way you shall glorify your Father in heaven. Fear is the opposite of faith, you cannot please your God if you run with the world in fear. God has given us a place to run, we are called to run into His high tower. In Psalm 18:2 we are told that the Lord is our Rock, our fortress and our deliverer, He is our strength in whom we trust. He is my high altar and the light of my salvation, He alone is my high tower. Pestilence and plagues will come but they who abide under the shadow of His wing shall stand in a good place. Let the world see this place and let them see our love and soundness of mind in a day when they are losing theirs.
Posted in Christian, christian living, Christianity, church of scotland, end times, Jesus, pentecostal, revival, the crucified life, the deeper life, the gospel, the persectuted church, the remnant, the state of the church, theology | 3 Comments »
Posted by appolus on February 26, 2020
Unless there has been an encounter with God how can there be a fear of the Lord? It is, for the most part, those who have never encountered God that do not fear Him. Even in the Word when people encountered angels they fell down like one who was dead, never mind encountering God. Isaiah felt that he was “undone,” as he stood before the Lord. The word “undone,” in the Greek is dawmaw which means to be cut down, to be destroyed, to utterly perish and at a very minimum, to be brought to silence.
There is a direct correlation between the proper fear of God and proximity to God. The greater the revelation of God in our lives the more we fear Him in a proper way. He is high and lifted up and His glory fills the temple. It fills every part of who we are to overflowing with awe and wonder and reverence. Our heads are bowed, our mouths are shut and our trembling hands are raised in submission and surrender to something so utterly otherworldly that it beggers the mind and transforms the spirit and leaves us changed and wanting to be changed even more.
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Posted by appolus on February 26, 2020
Gal 5:16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
Walking in the Spirit is walking in fulfillment of His word. When someone offends me, but I do not take offense, I am walking in the Spirit. When I am insulted, yet I do not care because I am dead to myself and alive to Christ, I am walking in the Spirit. When I love the unlovable I am walking in the Spirit. When I agree with my enemy quickly and he is disarmed then I am walking in the Spirit.
When I look upon a woman, not with lust but with pure eyes then I am walking in the Spirit. When I refuse to be anxious but make a conscious decision to do all things by prayer and supplication and thanksgiving then I am walking in the Spirit. All these things and so many others brothers and sisters is the fruit of my walk in the Spirit.
As I do all these things and the peace that is beyond understanding fills me completely, then I know that I am walking in the Spirit of the Living God and my heart literally burns within my chest. And as it burns, it gives off a light that men can see and they are drawn to Christ in me. When this happens, I know that I am walking in the Spirit! My part is to surrender and yield to the Spirit that is within me. I must also be able to hear that still small voice that leads and guides me.
I must also be genuine in all that I do, my outward actions must be a reflection of my inner life. That right there is the difference between life and death. I must cultivate my relationship with Jesus because my ability to walk in the Spirit is directly tied to Christ in me and my relationship with Him. I must be able to come into His presence. It is only by walking in His presence, which is walking in the Spirit, that I can be used of Him to be light in the darkness.
Experiencing His manifest presence as opposed to having a faith in information is life and manna to your soul. Giving a mental assent to an abstract truth cannot feed us, we can only be fed in the Spirit. If we are walking in the Spirit we can be fed, it is then that not only are we fed by bread alone but by every word that proceeds forth out of the mouth of God. It is in the context of His leading and His guiding that our souls are edified. It is in this walk that the desires of the flesh begin to recede and Christ in us begins to increase. May He increase in your life as you walk out your life in the Spirit for there is no other way that He can increase and be lifted up.
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Posted by appolus on February 25, 2020
In psalm 50 we see a rebuke and a warning from God to the people who are called by His name. God never changes and His rebukes and warnings stand so that all of Christendom can read them and apply it to themselves. False professors of the Gospel take note. There is a warning in the psalm that is truly terrifying “Now consider this you who forget God lest I tear you to pieces and there be none to deliver.” (PSALM 50:22) Who are these people that God speaks to in such terms that when heard the very universe shakes? But to the wicked God says “what right have you to declare My statutes or take My covenant in your mouth seeing that you hate instruction and cast My words behind you.” These people are people who are going through the motions of serving God, they go to church every Sunday, they partake in programs and tithe and so on yet His Word is “cast behind them.”
They hate instructions and the Word of God is not before them, it is behind them. It is not a lamp unto their feet nor a light unto their path, they walk their own paths. Rather, since the Word is behind them it creates a shadow before them. There is a form of a man in the shadow but it has no substance. When thou saw a thief, then thou consented with him, and have been partaker with adulterers.(Psa 50:18) Those who have left the Word behind them yet continue to to proclaim the name of Jesus, they are robbers and thieves. By their actions they diminish the glory of God to a dying world. They seek the favor of that world as a man seeks the favor of a prostitute. They seek many lovers from the world because God is not the lover of their souls. Because of the this darkness they are given over to evil thoughts and their tongues speak deceiving words out of the abundance of their evil hearts.
They slander and accuse and misrepresent those who are called their brothers, They sit in the seat of the scornful and falsely accuse the saints. Down through the ages, saints from every generation have been accused and slandered by the religious authorities who declare His statues and take His name in their mouths. They accused them of pride and arrogance because they stood upon the truth of which they love so much that they loved not their own lives unto death. And death was the lot for many of them at the hands of wicked men. These wicked men hated the saints because their light, the word and the truth, went before them and contrasted with the wicked and with their shadow and darkness because they had put the truth behind them.
Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice(Psa 50:5) God has gathered for Himself His saints who know Him by sacrifice, the sacrifice of His most Holy Son Jesus. His wrath is not for them. Just like the saints in Ezekiel chapter nine whose heads are marked by the ink-horn of the angel, the destroying angels passes over them. They are marked by the ink-horn because they cry out to God day and night for the state of Jerusalem. God has given them a love of the truth and they see it trampled in the streets and in the public square. What can the righteous do if the foundations are destroyed? They cry out to God and mourn for the state of what calls itself after God. As the darkness comes in like a flood in our day, so to rises the hatred in the hearts of religious men who despise the saints. God raises up a standard in the saint that directly opposes and contradicts those who seek to please and compromise with the world.
The religious are ashamed and angered by the saint who follows hard after the Lord and His word that is ever before them. They find much more common ground with the world than they do with the saint and this is a reflection of their darkness. They are ashamed of words like “sin,” because they know the world mocks such words. They are ashamed of any stand for righteousness for what they dread most is to be rejected by a mocking world of which they are a part. In truth, they have the world before them and not God therefore the world is what directs their paths and not the Word. Something has to give and in order to hold onto their place in the world then the Word itself is rejected in favor of a watered down version of what they claim to believe as to make it more palatable to their lovers.
Saints, God is not mocked. What a man sows he shall reap. The men who reject God in favor of the world shall reap the world and the judgement to come. They will cry out “but Lord we declared your statutes and we voiced your covenants and we performed religious ceremonies in your name.” And the Lord will say “depart from me you workers of iniquity for I never knew you.” And there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth and eternal darkness for those who sullied the name of the Lord in the eyes of the world. They feared the world more than they feared God and now they must face a fearful God. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God. God Almighty, today we lift up your name by the blood and the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let the eyes of the blind be opened and the scales fall from them before it is too late. Let the true state of Christendom be opened to all who would have eyes to see and ears to hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
Posted in Christian, christian living, Christianity, church of scotland, end times, Jesus, pentecostal, revival, the crucified life, the deeper life, the persectuted church, the remnant, the state of the church, theology | 12 Comments »
Posted by appolus on February 23, 2020
When you encounter God before His throne it is crystal clear who God is and who man is. What man could stand before His throne and cry anything other than Isaiah cried out? Every man who does not have the Blood of Christ in his veins will cry out. Better to encounter God now, in this flesh, and cry out and be purged and cleansed than to encounter God when you have thrown of this mortal flesh. For in that day, when the wages of Sin is counted out and distributed then the cry from the forsaken man will rise forever. He will take what he has earned and forever leave the light that is brighter than a thousand suns to dwell in the total absence of it.
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Posted by appolus on February 21, 2020
The photograph that you see is of a shipyard worker who refused to give the Nazi salute. Never underestimate the courage that it took for this man to refuse to salute evil. There was a devilishly simple yet brilliant strategy that compelled all of German society to give each other the Nazi salute. Fail once to return the salute would arouse suspicion, fail a second time and you would more than likely have the Gestapo knocking at your door and looking into your background. And so the Nazi salute had become a kind of social litmus test to see if you were loyal to the state. I want you to ask yourself this question. If you, as a born again Christian, were alive in Germany during the war, would you give the salute or not? Would you have the courage of your convictions? Would you simply rationalize it away with thoughts like ” well I know it does not really mean anything so why cause a stir?” Wrong, it does mean something. It is symbolic and it was an issue of conformity. This is how evil rises. The inability to stand apart from the crowd. Do not be fooled, we are already in the midst of a society that is compelling us to conform. Will you conform, will you bow to the gods of this world?
At a church I attended for about ten years, early on the Holy Spirit convicted me not to stand and applaud for any man. God alone deserved me standing to my feet and He alone deserved my applause. You may not agree with my conviction, but it was just that, my conviction. It never got easy. Every single time I was aware that I was the only one seated in a room full of people standing and applauding, sometimes wildly. I felt the eyes of those around me on me. I could almost read the thoughts. “Who does he think he is?” “Look, he is too good to stand.” I could actually “feel,” the pressure to conform. My own nature working against my spirit along with the spirit of man. We identify this in teenagers and call it peer pressure. We know that it is powerful. This thing called peer pressure never leaves us. There is something in us a men and women that wants to fit in, to be popular or at the very least, not to be hated. No one really wants to stand out in a hostile crowd. Yet is that not exactly what we are called to as born again Christians?
In 250 AD the Roman emperor Decius issued an edict to the Roman world. The edict demanded upon pain of death that everyone in the Roman empire must perform a sacrifice to the Roman Gods and call for the well being of the emperor. Typically burning incense would be good enough but here is the kicker, it had to be performed before a Roman magistrate who would then issue a signed certificate. You might think this was a disaster for the Christian community and would totally decimate it. Yet, in Carthage, so many “Christians,” showed up on the particular day to perform the sacrifice that it had to be extended for two days. This caused a serious rift in the Christian community that never healed. Those who sold out to the state were seen by the minority or remnant as traitors who had committed monstrous tyranny by denying the Lord Jesus while acknowledging the gods of the Roman world. This would not be the last time events of this magnitude occurred and the sifting would continue.
I would like to put it to you that we are seeing similar events taking place now which will only increase in intensity. Litmus tests and the gods of this world are, as we speak, demanding that those who hold to the name of Jesus bow down to them. Denominations of varying sizes are falling and many are falling over themselves, just as in Carthage, to join in and be identified with the world so as to have their favor and avoid any of the consequences of standing up to they tyranny of conformity. Yet, in every village and in every town and the great cities of the world wherever the name of Jesus is named, there will always be a witness that refuses to be identified with the world, who refuses to give the salute, to bow the knee, to burn incense to the gods of this world. Daniel threw open his window and prayed openly in defiance of the world and its edicts as did the Hebrew children. What say you saint? Will you refuse to stand, will you refuse to bow down to the gods of this world? It may cost you everything in this world but you will certainly gain the next.
Posted in Christian, christian living, Christianity, church of scotland, end times, Jesus, pentecostal, revival, the crucified life, the deeper life, the persectuted church, the remnant, the state of the church, theology, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
Posted by appolus on February 21, 2020
Mat 25:21 His lord said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful over a few things; I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.
The seasons of God are good. One of those seasons is a time for weeping and mourning. Yet, if that is all that we have, if we live forever in a perpetual winter of weeping and mourning then nothing will ever grow. We will not grow and neither will our effectiveness for His kingdom. Neither will we grow in the knowledge of God. There is a time to rent our clothes and throw dust on our heads, yet if this one season becomes the whole then we render ourselves weak and ineffectual. Our real strength comes in the Joy of the Lord. If we cannot put on a garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness then we will not be able stand in the evil day. We will be overcome by trial and tribulation and persecution.
When the Israelites were captured and taken from Jerusalem, their captors sat them down by the river of Babylon and taunted them. They said to them, “let’s hear your songs of Zion, let us hear your songs of victory now.” And the Israelites who were famous for their songs of praise to God, hung their harps on the willow tree, unable to sing, overcome in spirit in their defeat. The enemy had not only robbed them of their earthly freedom, they had robbed them of their joy, their essential core. They no longer had a song in their heart or on their lips. The willow tree upon which they hung their harps represented weeping. Their praise was silenced and only their weeping could now be heard.
Can I ask you something? Have you hung your harp on the willow tree? Have you suffered a loss or a defeat that has robbed you of your song? Do you find it impossible to praise the Living God? Has your mourning went on too long? When our mourning and weeping goes beyond what is natural we will find ourselves in trouble. Now, our hearts will be filled with something. If we have lost out song or our joy then our heart will be filled with some level of anger or bitterness or cynicism, perhaps all three.
The Apostle Paul and Silas shows us the way when we see them praising God in the midnight hour. They had been whipped and scourged and found themselves in stocks in the lower reaches of the dungeon. When they seemingly have nothing to praise God for they begins to sing His praises. And we see something very spectacular happen. The whole building shakes as the power of God falls upon that prison. The doors are supernaturally opened. What God done for Paul and Silas he can do for you. Will you praise Him today? Despite your circumstances will you praise Him today? If you do, you will see the doors of darkness open before you and you will be able to step out into His marvelous light.
You see brothers and sisters, we have been called not only to be a witness to the world but we also testify against principalities and powers. In the opening chapter of Job we see God boasting about His faithful servant, and right away the accuser of the brethren fires back that Job is only faithful because God has blessed him and protects him. The accuser tells God that if the circumstances were different Job would curse Him to His face. Right there brothers and sisters, can you see it? Can you see why it is so important to praise the Lord our God even in the depths of out trials and difficulties?
When we do that we shake the universe for we not only prove by our actions that no matter what, our God is worthy to be praised and we will praise Him. We also prove, surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, that the enemy of our soul is a liar and that our love for God is unconditional. There is something really big playing out in your lives brothers and sisters even if you cannot see it or you think your life is insignificant, it is not. Join the hosts of heaven as a witness against the enemy this day and praise the Lord your God.
Posted in Christian, christian living, Christianity, church of scotland, Daily devotional, Devotions, end times, Jesus, pentecostal, revival, the crucified life, the deeper life, the remnant, the state of the church, theology, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
Posted by appolus on February 17, 2020
The battle against the flesh is epic. Once we knock down and overcome its obvious ramparts it manages somehow to sneak up on us from behind and follow us in the shadows waiting patiently. Waiting for the insult or the injustice and it springs to our “defense” like a mighty Trojan horse filled with all manner of bile and poison. It pretends to be the antidote but it is truly the source of what ails us.
Posted in Christian, christian living, Christianity, church of scotland, end times, Jesus, pentecostal, revival, the crucified life, the persectuted church, the remnant, the state of the church, theology | 5 Comments »
Posted by appolus on February 17, 2020
Some of us have had the great privilege of seeing the majesty and the glory of God’s creation in places like Niagara Falls or Yellowstone Park or the mighty peaks of Colorado. There is the breathtaking beauty of the Columbia river gorge and the mighty forests of the pacific northwest. Killers whales in their natural environment of the coast of British Columbia or Bald Eagles soaring over magnificent valleys. The Sierra Nevadas rising straight up like a glorious towering cathedral encapsulated in the dramatic Half Dome or its nearby cousin El Capitan. Four thousand feet above the valley floor and eight thousand feet above sea level, the magnificent monuments to the glory of God were first thrust up from the earth and then carved out by glaciers. Imagine four thousand feet of solid ice carving its way through solid granite inch by inch until all that is left is the grandeur and the glory of God. If the heavens declare the glory of God, and they do, so too does the architecture of our landscapes.
Now consider this brothers and sisters. You are more glorious than the stars in the heavens and the mighty mountains and raging rivers. When God saw His handiwork in the heavens and the earth He said that it was very good. Yet in you He breathed His very life and you became a living soul created in the image of God. Now when you came to Him you were like a piece of clay taken from the ground. You were without form and in your spirit you were void. You had a soul but the poison of sin had robbed you of a spirit that was alive, you were dead in your sin. And yet the Lord took that piece of clay and He prepared it. The Potter put you upon the wheel and by His very hands He is shaping you for His own good pleasure. You, saint, are His creation. He is shaping you and molding you for His glory. You are His El Capitan. He causes you to rise up in your spirit higher than the loftiest peaks in the world. You can soar above the eagles, in fact you can rise all the way up to heavens throne. Your role in all of this is simply to yield to that Master’s hand and trust Him. He knows what He is creating in you. He saw it before He began. Can you see it? Do not lose sight of what the Lord has done in you and what He is still doing. Remember, the Lord is faithful to complete that which He begun in you. You are His creation and you are being rightly shaped to fit perfectly into His plan. Take a moment and give glory to God and magnify Him in your heart today as you consider His handiwork.
Posted in Christian, christian living, Christianity, church of scotland, end times, Jesus, pentecostal, revival, the crucified life, the deeper life, the gospel, the remnant, the state of the church, theology, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Posted by appolus on February 17, 2020
1Th 5:17 Pray without ceasing.
Most of us have a concept of prayer that is all about talking. We start of by giving thanks, then we make our requests, we pray for family members and before we know it has become ritualistic and barren. Prayer should be much more like breathing. When was the last time you thought about breathing? You’re probably not even conscious of your breathing yet you do it continually and it sustains you and gives you life. Prayer is our relationship with God. They are one and the same. If we attempt to separate them then we will get lost. There are no formulas, no secret methods, prayer is being in the presence of God.
Prayer times and quiet times are good. For many this is our moments when we connect with God. In the morning and in the evening before we go to bed. Yet if we have neglected His presence all day, our prayer times will not be as effective. In our minds we must take God every-where we go, whispering to Him all through the day as we face the challenges, trials and temptations that come with life.
Begin to see God everywhere. Don’t simply walk out the door and leave Him behind to pick Him up again in the evening. Let the Lord invade every part of your day. You will be amazed at how this will change everything. You will not just be talking to Him in your prayer times and quiet times, He will become an integral part of everything that you do and think and say. Remember, He is the reality, the world we go out into every day is but the shadow, walk in the reality of God.
Each whisper, every God-ward thought, every word spoken, each moment of silence spent in His presence is like a musical note to the Lord. The Scriptures refer to the Lord as “He who sits above the circle of the earth.” And so He who sits above the circle of the earth sees each and every one of these musical notes from around the world from the Body of Christ rising up in a majestic symphony of love and worship and it is a sweet, sweet sound in His ears.
Wont you become part of that symphony today? Let your day be filled with thoughts of Him. Release whispers of love to add to the music of prayer. Simply whisper the name of Jesus all throughout the day. Remind Him of how much you love Him and thank Him continually for the day, no matter what kind of day that your having. Rediscover that bond of love and joy and peace that comes simply by being in His presence. When you do this brothers and sisters, your prayer life will change dramatically, but not only your prayer life, life itself.
For when we walk in continual prayer we begin to see the beauty of the Lord everywhere. If it rains, we see His beauty in the raindrops. If the sun shines then we see His beauty as the flowers turn themselves around to face the glory of the risen Son. If it is cloudy we can see his beauty break through the clouds in beams of light that remind us that despite the momentary darkness, He is not finished with us and that His light is ready to break through the darkness of our situations and this world. When we fly above the clouds we discover that there is a perpetual blue sky. In the same manner brothers and sisters there is a table set before you. Can you see it? Goodness is the meat to the hungry soul found in the Word of God and mercy is the living waters of life to the thirsty saint found in His presence. It is His promise that these shall follow you all the days of your life.
Posted in Christian, christian living, Christianity, church of scotland, Daily devotional, Devotions, end times, Jesus, pentecostal, revival, the crucified life, the deeper life, the gospel, the remnant, the state of the church, theology, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Posted by appolus on February 14, 2020
That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.(Eph 3:17-19)
If it’s the moon they say 250,000 miles or if it’s the sun they say 93 million miles. But after that they start talking in light years. They say that there are bodies millions of light years away—say 10 million just to get a start. So if you want to know how far it is from earth to that body I’m talking about, you multiply 5 trillion, 862 billion, 484 million by 10 million. Doesn’t that stun you? It makes my head ache! Seen over against this, you and I are terribly small (A.W.Tozer The Attributes of God)
Can you see what Tozer is getting at? He is showing us just how vast the universe is and yet how infinitesimally small it actually is in comparison to God almighty. This is beyond our ability to comprehend. It is too big. Yet right there in the Scriptures it says that those who have Christ in their hearts, and are rooted and grounded in love can indeed comprehend God. Think on that a while. Comprehend God. We can know the breadth of His majesty. We can know the depths of His love. We can know the heights of His glory. In short, we can know that which is beyond knowledge. We can be filled with the fullness of our God who is infinitely vast. This is astonishing that we can enter into and be filled with His fullness. It’s is an invitation by our Lord who owes His creation nothing. And yet He beckons us to come into the glory. Our God wants to share this with us. And there is purpose in it.
For this purpose Paul bowed his knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus, his Father and our Father. The purpose is that we faint not in the midst of tribulations. When we apprehend His glory we comprehend His glory. When we comprehend His glory we are strengthened by His might in His Spirit in the inner man. On the outside we may be in prison, we may be hard pressed on every side, perplexed and persecuted and struck down but we stand fast and we are not overcome. We stand and do not fall because He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or even think according to His power that is in us, the fullness of His power. Glory to God in the highest. He causes us, whose heart He dwells in by faith and who are rooted and grounded in love, to stand.
Posted in Christian, christian living, Christianity, church of scotland, Daily devotional, Devotions, end times, Jesus, pentecostal, revival, the crucified life, the deeper life, the remnant, the state of the church, theology, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
Posted by appolus on February 12, 2020
He comes to us in the majesty of silence and we are hushed and our heads are bowed in the glory. Tears begin to flow as He inhabits the very atmosphere around us and we breath Him in and He invades every part of who we are and we are willingly conquered. Trembling hands are raised up into the glory that now surrounds us and fills us to full and overflowing.
Surely our hearts and our souls will explode, surely our trembling bodies shall not be able to contain such glory? And we are changed forever. Modern worship can never really experience this because they can never simply be quiet and bow to the fact that the King has come, let all men fall before Him. He competes with no one. He is preeminent or He is not, there is no in between.
Posted in Christian, christian living, Christianity, church of scotland, end times, Jesus, pentecostal, revival, the crucified life, the deeper life, The presence of God, the remnant, The State of the Chuch and Manifest presence, the state of the church, theology | Leave a Comment »
Posted by appolus on February 12, 2020
It’s not what goes into your mouth that defiles you; you are defiled by the words that come out of your mouth (Matt 15:11)
Isn’t it interesting that Jesus would say that it was not what man takes into him that defiles him, but it is what comes out of him that can be defiling. As I was praying I caught a vision of tall trees, a vast forest. It occurred to me that trees soak up the carbon dioxide that we as humans breathe out, and in turn the trees turned this poison into life giving oxygen.
We, the children of God are the trees of the world and we move in harmony to the wind of the Spirit. We take upon us the offenses of this world. The hatred, the bitterness and the false accusation and we do this all in our every-day lives whether it is with coworkers or family and friends or even brothers and sisters in Christ. We are called to this brothers and sisters.
Do you have the grace and the faith and most especially the love to be able to fulfill your role? Are you dealing with difficult people right now? Have you been hurt and offended? Breathe deeply brothers and sisters, yes take it in and breathe out life giving love in response. The closer these people are the more difficult this will be. Who can hurt us more than our spouses and our children? Yet the degree of difficulty only magnifies the love and the power of God in us. Nothing tills the soil of our hearts more than this. Nothing removes the stones in our own hearts more than this. It is power in the Kingdom and weakness in the world. What Kingdom shall we walk in saints? How then shall we grow?
You have been supernaturally created to be able to take this poison and darkness and expel love and light in its place. It is our calling. When we stand before the Lord, I am fully convinced that this will be our offering to Him. For what reward will the world give you to take the insult? Where is the pat on the back for returning love for evil? There will be no recognition, no standing ovation in this world, but the Lord will see and what He sees is pure gold. And this is the treasure that will meet us in the world to come.
Into the darkness of this world we shall bring the light of Christ, for we are the bearers of the light. The love of Jesus our Lord, the love of God the Father, poured out upon us who deserved nothing is a monumental thing. In the light of this love we have been called to love the world. We who have been forgiven for so much have been called to forgive. Will it tear the flesh from your back? Will it scar you? Certainly it will. Look to Calvary and see the scars upon our Saviors back, see how they pierced Him and hated Him. You scars tell the story saints, it tells the story of His glory. Not on some majestic mountaintop but down in the mud and the mire of the deepest valleys. This is how we share His glory. Treasure in the Kingdom and garbage to this world. Diametrically opposed worlds separated by paradoxes. Jesus sees your scars, and the secrets that He sees He will one day reward you openly for. Maybe not in this world but certainly in the next.
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Posted by appolus on February 12, 2020
Who will join me in the valley
Where swings the sword and flows the blood
Where the gates of hell are fully opened
And the enemy comes in like a raging flood
Up and out from these depths He came
His standard fluttering in the wind
Victory in Christ our Lord and Saviour
For every man who ever sinned
Who will lay their burden down
Broken and contrite beneath his feet
Who will be washed in the Blood of the Lamb
Who will march on forever and never retreat
Where swings the sword and flows the blood
In the valleys darkest mire and mud
There march the soldiers to drum and beat
There falls the darkness to utter defeat
In Christ our King we stand or fall
Upon the Truth we are standing tall
One in Him or not at all
The battle belongs to our God.
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Posted by appolus on February 10, 2020
Heb 12:2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith;
Only that which flows from an uninterrupted gaze on Him is real. Everything else is the shadow of the object. Granted, the shadow of the Lord is more powerful than all that can be seen, and one can even enjoy the heat from the sun in the shadow. Yet the glow from the face of Moses was not the glow of a man who stood in the shadows. I believe that the Lord can pour out his unadulterated light if it is not diffused by the efforts of middle men or intermediaries.
Can it be that simple? Can we simply come into His presence and be changed? Does everything begin and end with the Lord Jesus? How does one continue to look to Jesus? It is a conscious act of the will to take our eyes of our circumstances and cast them upon Jesus. This is the great battle of our lives, not our circumstances. Our circumstances can simply be doors that if walked through lead directly into His presence. It is in that place, looking unto Jesus, that we are changed. Trust is the key that opens the door. To trust in God is to walk through the opened door of our circumstances into the throne room of God.
There are two Kingdoms. The kingdom of the world and the Kingdom of God. One is seen and affected by our senses and circumstances. The other is unseen and if walked in, relegates our circumstances to mere opportunities to go deeper into its depths. Now these two kingdoms compete for our attentions. You must cry out to God every day to bind up the reality of the kingdom of this world and to loose the reality of the Kingdom of God in your life. Cry out to God to give you eyes to see what He sees and how He sees it. Can you imagine the prospect of every situation you face being an opportunity to grow in grace and power? This is the Kingdom reality, will you walk in it today?
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Posted by appolus on February 7, 2020
A trimmed down Gospel never saved a soul. A trimmed down diluted, edited religion is not the religion Christ died to establish. Heaven is not filled with weaklings who had to have someone go along and help them over the rough spots, it is full of soldiers and martyrs and the dreamers and the prophets and the clean man who loved his God and loved his generation and lived and died living a good life-a hard life. (A.W.Tozer)
In this quote Tozer identifies that saints will live hard lives. They will not be loved by the world, they probably wont even be loved by their own families. A saint living a Godly life reflects badly upon those who are not. A saint living a bold and unashamed life in Christ reflects badly upon the ones who are not, whether of the world or religious professors. A saint who speaks the truth in love with fear and favor for no man reflects badly upon those only share convenient truth. I know a man who refuses to use the word sin when preaching. It is too offensive and he loves people too much to use the word sin. Apparently he is more loving and Holy than the Word of God and Jesus Himself. Instead he uses the words “errors,” and “mistakes.” He will actually say that Jesus died for your mistakes. This is the essence of being ashamed of the Gospel. A trimmed down edited for local consumption Gospel but not the Gospel that Jesus died to establish.
Grace is high-jacked in these circles, the Gospel is edited and men believe it to be virtuous, it is not virtuous it is cowardice. It is not the language of the soldier for Christ. Nor is it the language of the martyr or the prophets or the good men who strive with everything that is in them to speak the truth in love. These men are not ashamed of the Gospel before a wicked and adulterous generation. Listen to how Godly men, filled with the Spirit spoke. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?………Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost (Act 2:36-37) You see how the language of the Holy Spirit speaks? He reminds the crowd that they crucified Christ and then when they are shaken to their very core- that they should repent. Repent of what? Their errors? Their mistakes? No, their sins.
You know who hates the concept of sin being spoken about? The author of sin. The deeper we move into the last days the more he becomes infuriated with the word sin. He has managed to get society to all but outlaw it. It will be soon. It will be hate speech to call out sin, especially the favorite sins of a wicked and dying society. At best you will be mocked for using that word. The soft men will tell you they do not use it because they love people so much and do not want to do or say anything that would allude to it, rather they say things like “well, we have all made mistakes.” How badly this compares to the saints of the first century. But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; And killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses.(Act 3:14-15) Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole.(Act 4:10) The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.(Act 5:30) Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:(Act 7:52)
Can you see the language and the power and the boldness that penetrated the hardest hearts of men and established the Church? They were not ashamed of the Gospel, the full Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Calvary was an amalgam of justice and mercy intertwined on the cross. It is where sin was judged and grace was found. Preach one without the other and your words will never penetrate the hard hearts of men. You will create religious men or anemic converts. There is a baptism of fire for the soul that has been penetrated by the Holy Spirit. And out of that fire they cry out- and out of that fire they are plucked by the hand of grace, the Lord our God. Errors and mistakes are what happens when you take an arithmetic test. Sins dealt with and souls saved is the work of Calvary.
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Posted by appolus on February 7, 2020
1 Cor 15:57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Do you have the victory saints? What is “the victory?” In verse 54 it says that “Death is swallowed up in victory.” There are many kinds of death just as there are many kinds of victories. There is of course physical death and for those saints who “have the victory,’ then every aspect of death’s power, fear and dread and darkness are swallowed up by the life of Christ. For we know that because He lives then so shall we. The darkness of this world shall be swallowed whole by the light of Christ that is brighter than a thousand suns. Let all you suns of the universe hide yourselves in shame as mere candles in the wind when my Lord appears.
And because we “know” Him we have already been touched by the glory of His light. Can you feel it’s glow even now deep within your heart? It burns at the center of who we are. There is life in this light of God. There is power and there is victory and because there is we can say with full authority to death- where is your sting? Oh grave where is your victory? You have been defeated and you have been swallowed whole. The victory belongs to Jesus. His very life is our victory and His eternal throne means that out victory is eternal.
And therefore if death has been overcome and we ourselves have died to this world then we are now alive to walk in His Kingdom. And in this Kingdom we walk in victory. In every situation we have something that belongs to Jesus and was created by His very life. The light of Christ. It overcomes every darkness saints. When you apply this light to whatever battle that you are in you will find the victory. There is victory in the glory. Just as the glory of God fills all of heavens chambers that are vast beyond imagination, then it also fills you. His glory is your victory. For it’s release from your spirit lights up the darkness of every corner of your soul. When the deer pants for the waterbrooks and finally finds the fresh springs that flow from heavens throne then she rejoices.
Victory. That is what you have today saint. It lies within you for the Lord rules and reigns in your heart. You are a single tear drop away from His glory. No matter your situation today saints, search, like the deer, for the waters of life, the glory and the victory that lies within you. There is a fountain, an eternal spring and its waters have life and they have been prepared for your use. Desperation is often the key that opens the door of humility revealing the source of life and victory. Jesus is the life and the light , the watererbrooks, the eternal springs and the glory and the victory.
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A Call To The Remnant 