Archive for the ‘pentecostal’ Category
Posted by appolus on March 14, 2021
My friend Tom shared with me the other day the first two lines of this poem. He said he wanted to pursue the path that has no footsteps which would lead to places he has not been. I told him I was going to steal that line and write a poem based on it 🙂 So here it is with the proper attribution to my brother in the Lord, Tom who is in his late 70s and still wants to pursue the Lord with all of his heart.
The path that has no footsteps.
The path that has no footsteps
Leads to places I have not been
It is the mystery of our walk with God
To walk the path that is not seen
Who can know what lies before us
For our future remains untold
It rests in the hand of God alone
Trust in Him is our stronghold
Your life in Christ it has no chart
No compass can ever point the way
There is no map you can rely on
Only trust in Him for every day
There is no one can lead you forward
No man can craft your way ahead
Christ alone is the road we travel
He is the narrow path we tread
How exciting is this journey
That has brought us here thus far
The Holy Spirit goes before us
He is our Rock our true North Star
Lead us on oh Lord forever
Until our path comes to an end
Then we shall cross the Jordon river
And from this world we shall transcend.
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Posted by appolus on March 14, 2021
Have you ever seen a stone plunge into the water? As it falls into the water is stretches the fabric of the undisturbed lake. A hole emerges as the stone plummets to the deep and just as suddenly, the hole repairs itself and we are left with concentric circles stretching out in all directions like the rings of a tree until they reach the edge of the waters in all directions.
When you come to Christ you disrupt the waters. There is a violent reaction in the fabric of your world. It tears a hole in it and disrupts everyone around you. Jesus did not come to bring peace. His presence violently disrupted the fabric of this world. He came down from the heavens and tore a hole in the fabric of our existence. And forever more, His presence in you sends out concentric circles which disrupt the surface tension of your waters. The ripple effect causes trouble in a world that seeks to be left alone. He is the great revolutionary.
How many can say that when they came to Christ all hell broke loose around them? Amen, the war against darkness is not for the faint of heart. Jesus is a disrupter. Those at ease in Babylon will cry out in protest that their slumbers have been disturbed. Hell will violently oppose the works of Light that diminishes and sets to flight its darkness. Yet there is another kind of violence. Jesus says in Matt 11:12 that the Kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force.
We saints violently oppose the works of darkness. We violently oppose our own flesh despite the fact that it wars against our spirits. We have battles within and we have battles without. And because we have the light of the glory of the knowledge of God emanating from deep within us, then we shall find ourselves oftentimes surrounded by darkness. We seem to have trouble on every side, persecuted, cast down. Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus. We are not destroyed, we are not forsaken. The light from the glory and the knowledge of God is life to us, eternal life, and it has conquered the darkness.
In us, God has displaced hell and sin and death and replaced it with heaven and holiness and life. And it is these concentric circles, these irrepressible ripples of disruption that flow from us into a dark world touching everything for the cause of Christ. Be encouraged saint, your very life, Christ in you, has disrupted the darkness and will continue to so so until we reach the ends of the earth, the end of our journey that takes us home.
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Posted by appolus on March 12, 2021
In my spirit I can see the Holy City in the midst of a mighty desert, a wilderness place. Now I know that in my flesh I would avoid deserts. The vision in my spirit would, I suppose, be metaphorical for the narrow path that leads to life. Now it makes no sense to think that if I was seeking life that I would go seek it in the desert. Yet there it is, the church of God, surrounded by a mighty desert.
There is no way to the heart of it but by striking out and heading deep into a place where my only resource, in fact life itself, will be God. If He does not go before me I will die, I will never get there. If He is not a cloud over my head then the sun will kill me. If He is not a fire by night then I will surely freeze to death. If He is not my rear guard, then the jackals and other predators of this hostile place will sneak up behind me and kill me.
You see brothers and sisters, there is nothing attractive about the desert. It is not an alluring place, in fact quite the opposite. Will you journey there? Can He be found on the narrow path? Will He be found in the desert? Yes. A burning bush and some sand can be transformed into Holy ground, for where the Lord is, it is Holy. We go where He can be found. We are drawn by the Spirit to a place of splendid isolation. Not like the monks of old, not an actual physical isolation, but in the midst of our very lives. Being in the world and not “of,” it. That word of in this context drips with depth and meaning. To be not of the world is a splendid isolation. To be apart from all of its cares, all of its worries, all of its temptations and noise and distraction. To isolate yourself with God causes you to be alluring. And so, by being in the world and not of it causes you to be a light in the very midst of darkness and draws those who are lost and desperately seeking the Lord.
There is a generation of desert dwellers being raised, a generation of wilderness dwellers ready to rise up and come forth. A generation of saints who have counted the cost and been drawn away into the deep. Whose only desire is to seek Him with their whole hearts. They will see the glory of their God. They will behold His glory and His majesty. And they will make declarations from that place. They will, like John the Baptist declare to the world “Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world.” Yet, this generation also gets to say “Behold the lion of Judah who rides on a white horse with a two-edged sword in His hand. He is coming, the King is coming! Lift up your gates ye ancient cities and lift up your doors for the King of glory is coming and He is coming soon.
This is the purpose of God’s remnant saints. We will make such a glorious noise in the desert of worship to our King. We will sing hallelujahs to His glory. The anointing of the anointed one will be upon us and the world will look into the desert and hear such a strange and glorious noise, a noise such as they have never heard before and a light that shines out of a place where no light and no life should exist, and they will be perplexed and confounded but5 in all of it God will be glorified.
Mat 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
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Posted by appolus on March 12, 2021
Psa 46:4 There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High
There is much noise in the land brothers and sisters. There is much professional worship that makes a great noise. In the world’s eyes it sounds great and is somewhat familiar to their ears because much of it is fashioned after the music of the world. It is designed to entertain. Yet can I suggest, that if the Lord does not inhabit it then it is merely noise and it actually drowns out the still small voice that would whisper to us “He is beautiful beyond description, too marvelous for words, to wonderful for comprehension, like nothing ever seen or heard, who could grasp His infinite wisdom, who could fathom the depths of His love. He is beautiful beyond description, majesty enthrones above.”
As God gathers His people together, a hush will fall upon their hearts. They will catch their breath as the King of glory comes in, comes in in all of His fullness. As He begins to flood the dry creek beds with a mighty rushing river then the saints will begin to rise up and minister in the overflow of His presence. There is a fresh wind beginning to blow in the hearts of Gods saints. There is a fountain rising in their hearts. And the source of this fountain is God Himself in all of His majestic glory. And out of this river flows an everlasting abundant love. It fills us with light and this light is the life of men. Look unto God and see what it truly means to live an abundant life in Christ.
Perhaps you can relate to the dry river bed? Perhaps it has been a long time since you have experienced the river of God that makes glad the hearts of men? Is the Lord calling you today in that still small voice? Will cry out to Him today so that the weight of His glory may fall upon your life today? Can you seek Him out in the silence? Remove all of the distractions of life, the noise and the clamor and the demands. In the end, without His presence, what does any of it mean? Outside of Jesus and His presence all we are doing is marking time until our final day. The Kingdom of God is found when we seek it first above all things. Seek it out today brothers and sisters. The horse must go before the cart, God must be first and when He is then everything that we do finds purpose. Make Him first today.
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Posted by appolus on March 11, 2021
The work we do with God alone in the secret places changes us right down into the DNA of who we are. Difficult circumstances are merely the tests of the work that God has done in us, it is the depths of that work that is being measured by our trials and our circumstances. The work of God in us enables us to take the trials and the tribulations of this world and turn into into something that edifies us. Rather than tearing us down it builds us up. It is all at once paradoxical and counter-intuitive. The devil, who can only ever tear down, becomes an unwitting and unwilling accomplice in proving the work of God in His children.
When God has done a great work in a man or a woman, they are transformed and can now, by the power of God, take the blows and grow in their inner man even as the blows rain down. This is the secret work of God in the inner places of the man or woman of God. A work done in the wilderness, away from the rest of the world, alone with God. Consider Isaiah and the secret work of God in his life. His encounter with God humbles him in ways that only that kind of encounter could.
All the flesh is stripped away and now a mere man stands before God and sees that outside of God he is nothing. He cries out “woe is me, I am undone.” And in the undoing of the man, the new man of God steps out of that encounter. He would face many challenges in his life and would eventually be killed by being sawn in two, yet the work had already been done by God in his life and he had been enabled. The trials and the testings and indeed even his martyrdom simply became evidence of the work of God in his life.
Brothers and sisters, you have been uniquely designed to grow in the desert. In a place known for death, where nothing grows, you shall bloom. You shall bloom because God has done such a work in you. In the midst of your trial or tribulation, fall back upon your inner man. For that which causes the outer man to perish, renews and restores your inner man daily as you yield to God and give Him all the glory.
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Posted by appolus on March 10, 2021
Heb 12:2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. ‘
Brothers and sisters, when I look up to the cross I see humility. I see my Lord humbled and naked for the whole world to see. Nothing hidden. When I look up to the cross I see justice. I see sin condemned. O brothers and sisters when I look up to the cross I see mercy. Mercy for me. I do not see my own condemnation, I see my Jesus condemned and rejected by the world, willingly taking my place. There is therefore, now no condemnation, because He took my condemnation, to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
O what a glorious freedom. Free indeed. Free indeed to stand and fight. To battle even unto death, with my fellow freed men. I pray today that those whom the Son has set free will catch a glimpse of who they are in Christ. Royal priests in a royal priesthood. Children of the living God. Loved and redeemed and reconciled and called to walk in the beauty of holiness. That the world may know that Jesus was sent by the Father. That the world may see something of the glory of God which was given to Jesus and which He has given to us. Rise up and shine today saints of God, rise up and shine, for you are loved so much. How much? Look up to the cross!!!!
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Posted by appolus on March 9, 2021
God tells Moses to tell the children of Israel this ….”You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all the nations of the earth, for all the earth is mine. And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”
You just read an insight into the very heart of God. He bore you up on eagles wings and carried you from captivity. He destroyed that which sought to destroy you and He was looking for His own special treasure. He was looking for a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. And the qualifier for that? Obedience. It is obedience to the Word of God and to the still small voice of the Spirit that draws us near to Him. Obedience, without that we can do nothing. Who will obey the voice of God? Who will be a priest of the most High God? Who would be holy as He is holy?
You will know them by their love for one another. You will know them by their love for God. You will know them by their reverence and fear of the living God. You will know them by their obedience and their longing to live an obedient life. God saw that the children of Israel would not be that. They wanted an intermediary. They wanted nothing of the fire that fell upon the mountain. They wanted nothing of the thick clouds and the thunderings and the lightening.
It is interesting that God bore the children of Israel on eagles wings and carried them to where He was. Where was He? He was in the wilderness. He was in a place where only total reliance upon Him would bring life. Without Him there would be no water, without Him there would be no food. In the wilderness, water had to gush forth from rock. Manna had to fall from heaven. To get to Him Moses had to walk through thick darkness, probably a place where you could not even see your hand in front of your face. Would you like to ascend a mountain in thick darkness? A place where at any moment you could walk right of the edge?
The royal priests of God learn how to dwell in the wilderness. They come there for they are looking for where God is. He is not in Egypt and He is not in Babylon. He is not in the places of ease and comfort. He is well beyond our comfort zones. Thunderings and lightenings and thick clouds and the earth trembles and the mountain shakes and the trumpet of the Lord reverberates and touches every part of who we are. Could there be a greater contrast than between the place of seeming barrenness and this mountain of His presence? Total reliance and obedience to God in the wilderness brings us to the mountain of His presence.
Now the question has to be for us, shall we live at ease? The prophet cries out “Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria, which are named chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel came!” (Amos 6:1) We in Christendom feel safe within the cherished walls of our traditions and our heritage. Zion was considered all but impregnable. Who in their right minds would come out of Zion and go dwell in the wilderness? Those who seek God with all of their hearts. God is calling forth such a people today. Shall we be obedient to the call?
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Posted by appolus on March 8, 2021
In the very first commandment we see that God says He is a “jealous God and that He visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me.” Yet, he says that He shows “mercy to thousands to those who love me and keep my commandments.”
Now in our time, three or four generations is about one hundred years. Seems like a long time and we know that God’s mercy can break the iniquities of unbelievers. Yet His mercies extends at least that long and more to the generations that love Him and keep His commandments.
I can trace my own Christian lineage back to just over 100 years. My great great grandfather was a drummer in a Scottish regiment in the first word war, that is him with the mustache in the picture. I know next to nothing about him, but I have two pictures of him. One in his uniform, kilt and all, and the other in the uniform of the Salvation army. I can only surmise that he saw all the horrors of the first world war and gave his heart to Jesus around that time.
The Salvation Army at the turn of the last century was a powerful force for the Gospel. They marched into tenement slums where “angels feared to tread.” Enough to say that if you were in the Salvation Army at that time is was because you had been gloriously regenerated and wanted to serve Jesus in the saving of souls. And so the lineage was passed down to my mothers generation and some of her brothers, and now she is 80 and the last of ten siblings still alive.
I and a few of my cousins have taken up the banner and are moving forward in the battle. This is the mercy of God shown to the third and fourth generations and beyond. A legacy of Christ in my family on my mothers side. Interestingly, although he was the only Salvationist in our family I know of, my mother was born again in a Citadel. She did not join the Salvation Army but you can see the thread of the Lord working to the third and forth generations staring with my great great Grandad.
There is a legacy brothers and sisters. Gods faithfulness to us, and His mercy that runs down through the generations. So no matter what the state of your family when it comes to those who are saved or not saved, keep shining the light of Christ. There is a lot more going on than you know. I know that it can be discouraging sometimes when we look at the landscape of our families. Yet we are not laboring in vain, the Spirit of God is at work and His mercy, we are told, endures forever. Take heart, keep shining your light, keep praying, keep loving, keep forgiving and we shall see God’s mercy at work in the land of the living.
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Posted by appolus on March 8, 2021
Zec 4:3 And two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof.
One hot summers day as I was walking and talking with the Lord, I thought about how important it is to be filled, to be constantly filled by Him and with Him. I had been reading recently in the Scriptures about the two olive trees in Zec 4. I read that the candlestick was constantly supplied by oil from the bowl that was connected to the two olive trees on either side of the bowl.
Now, it seems clear from Scripture that these trees represent for us, Jesus on one side and the Holy Spirit on the other. And when we are connected to Jesus by the Holy Spirit, then our bowls, our vessels are filled with a never ending source of power, the power of God and the grace of God. In that same chapter we see, and it is such a well know Scripture, that “It is not by might, nor by power but by Spirit says the Lord.”
Then Psalm 133 came to my mind. I thought about the precious oil that anoints the head of the priest. An abundance of oil, so much so that it flows down from the head, onto the beard and covers the garments of the priest. Can I ask, do you have such an anointing brothers and sisters? Do you long for it? Are you intimately connected to the source of such oil? Does it cover every part of you as it did the priest in the Psalm?
As it was early in the morning that I was walking everything was dripping with a heavy dew. Even although it had not rained for many days, the grass was totally soaked and to walk through it meant getting very wet. Here I was, in the middle of a Kansas summer, soaked by the dew that fell from heaven. This is how it is likened in Psalm 133 ”Like the dew of Hermon that flows down the mountains of Zion : for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forever more.”
Oh brothers and sisters I thought about that life, that life that is in me, that abundant life that overflows out of the abundance of my heart. Unless our heart is like a vessel, connected to the two trees, how can it ever be filled? How can the light of Christ keep shining in us unless we are abiding in Him, connected to Jesus and His Holy Spirit? And how can this oil of gladness, this oil of unity, this oil of life overflow and pour down our garments unless our hearts first be filled to capacity? In this the Lord Himself commands a blessing of life. Only in this is life. Can you see the importance of the two trees? Can you see how important it is to be connected to both?
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Posted by appolus on March 7, 2021
When every golden sunsets
And sunrises melt as one
By the fervent heat of your majesty
And the glory of your Son
There forms a golden ocean
As vast as the skies above
Where ambient waves of worship
Consume us in your love
Oh carry us across this sea
To the horizon and beyond
Make as one as thou art one
In a glorious mystical bond
When sea and sky and heaven too
Collide at the end of the age
May we be found as one with you
Our names written upon your page
This book of life is opened
And the ink is clearly red
Tis from the veins of Emmanuel
From the hands and feet that bled
This life and all the ages
Shall bow down and worship you
A new heaven and new earth are born
They are surely born anew.
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Posted by appolus on March 5, 2021
Psa 17:15 As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.
The true power of those who walk the Kingdom walk lies not in an alleviation of circumstances but an elevation of Spiritual awareness.To enter into the Glory. Just one glimpse of His glory elevates us high above the circumstances of our lives. His Glory is the updraft that raises us high above our circumstances. To look into the eyes of Glory means to rise above the storms of this world. There is no set of chains that can restrain the child of God. There is no trial on earth that can hold our bodies down. When we see His Glory, when we fix our eyes on His majesty then no matter what our circumstances are we begin to rise up.
There is a heavenly choir of glory that beckons us to come up. The only thing that can hold us down is our own hands. When we let go of our circumstance and lift our eyes up to Jesus that name which is above every name, then we begin to rise up. Will you lift your eyes towards heaven today saint? The Lord sees you in the midst of your trial, can you see Him? Will you let go today? Will you release your grasp today from the circumstances which threaten to destroy you? No matter how terrifying this may seem, will you let go today? Glory awaits you. Lift you voice in praise today, let it rise up to heaven itself and suddenly you will find yourself in the midst of Glory.
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 Chuch and Manifest presence, the state of the church, theology, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Posted by appolus on March 4, 2021
The title to this piece is of course misleading, you cannot deal with strongholds, or make a deal with them. The Lord is looking for unconditional surrender. In that type of surrender, there can be no place found for strongholds. In war, in unconditional surrender, all weapons must be laid down. Unconditional surrender is total capitulation. How this wars against the flesh. Many elements within Germany and Japan desired to fight to the death rather than suffer the humiliation of total capitulation. Our flesh is not much different from those unyielding elements found in Germany and Japan.
We have a saying where I come from, actually I have found this saying all over the world. I come from the town of Greenock in Scotland, so they say “you can take the boy our of Greenock but you cannot take Greenock out of the boy.” It is usually said when you have done something negative that reflects the culture of where you come from, but in it there is usually a sneaking pride. For example if someone got in my face and I punched him out, they could employ that saying. Maybe I would try and excuse my behavior my employing that statement. What I would really be saying was “it’s not my fault.”
It is true that as saints we carry vestiges of the world from whence we came in our flesh. And it never ceases to rise up and challenge our spirits. They war against each other and this war can certainly make us weary. Oftentimes soldiers would be so weary that they cared less if they lived or died. It is that kind of weariness when in and of ourselves we despair of this war
How then do we overcome in this war of attrition? How are we to diminish the flesh in us? Some of you may be familiar with Greek mythology. There was a beast called the “Hydra.” It had nine heads and as each head was cut of by Hercules, another would grow back in its place. I think our battles with the flesh often feel like that. We deal, what we think is a death blow, only for it to return again when we least suspect it. In the Greek story the neck had to cauterized, sealed shut by fire so that it could not grow back again.
Our flesh is made up of multiple strongholds. When we come to Christ and are reborn, we are given the Holy Spirit and when we cooperate with Him, then we can overcome these strongholds and as each of them is overcome then the flesh is diminished and loses power. Each stronghold has to be taken down one by one. As an example, Jericho had to be dealt with. The children of Israel were given instructions and they followed them and down came the walls. Do you see the universal principal there? God instructs us through His Spirit and His word, we hear, we obey, and down comes the stronghold. Is there any other way? No. In ourselves we have nothing, no power, the flesh rules supreme.
The kingdom of our flesh, your life, has been invaded and the invader demands total capitulation, total surrender. He will go through the land and deal with the strongholds one by one and He must have our obedience in this. This is how we overcome the flesh, in Him, by Him and through Him. Even after the stronghold has been torn down, we must remain vigilant. The defeated enemy can scatter to the woods. Our spirits must be alert. The remains of the enemy will undoubtedly attack on dark and stormy nights. The rain will be so loud that you cannot hear him approach. When you are weary in the midst of trial he can come screaming out of the trees catching us of guard.
The only safe place is by His side. Staying close to Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. Our enemy can do nothing when we stay close to Jesus. He is our big guns. And that enemy knows he cannot come close to us when we are standing right by his side. So he waits, like a wolf in the shadows to see if we drift away from His presence, from His nearness. If we do, then he strikes. If we do not then he waits and he waits and he waits and all the time he is starving and dying. This is how you kill the flesh, he must be starved to death. In this we overcome and stand in the power and the might of Christ our risen King. Victory in Jesus our Commander in chief.
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Posted by appolus on March 4, 2021
The prophet Samuel is a type of the last-days holy remnant—a prepared body of believers that rises out of the ruins of the old, decadent church.
Hannah, Samuel’s mother, birthed her son through bitter tears and much prayer. “And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the Lord and wept in anguish” (1 Samuel 1:10).
Try to imagine the scene: Hannah was at the temple every day, on her knees before the altar, crushed and broken because she was childless. As she wept, her adversary—her husband’s other wife—made fun of her. “And her rival also provoked her severely, to make her miserable, because the Lord had closed her womb” (1 Samuel 1:6).
There are three important things I want to point out from this passage:
First, the remnant that Samuel represents is born in grief and intercession.
Second, those who pray and grieve after God’s heart will be provoked by adversaries.
And third, God’s remnant is always going to be misunderstood!
Note what happened to Hannah as she prayed: “And it happened, as she continued praying before the Lord, that Eli watched her mouth. Now Hannah spoke in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli thought she was drunk. So Eli said to her, ‘How long will you be drunk? Put your wine away from you!’” (1 Samuel 1:12-14). Eli and his sons represent the dying, corrupt church that has forsaken the Lord’s way. Eli was so out of touch—so dead in his spirit—he thought Hannah was drunk!
When Hannah was praying, she was filled with grief, burdened for the birth of a son. All she could do was move her lips because of her groaning in the Spirit. She prayed, “If You will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, and . . . will give Your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life” (1 Samuel 1:11).
Here are two distinguishing marks of God’s holy remnant:
They pray like Hannah. Their burden is deep and their heart is stirred because of the wickedness in God’s house.
Like Hannah, they give themselves to prayer every day of their lives.
God wants to make you like that. He wants you to be able to touch Him and hear from Him. He wants to give you a ministry to others who will come to you with their burdens and trials. And as you pray for them, His Word will come forth! (David Wilkerson)
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Posted by appolus on March 3, 2021
Here is one of the oft misquoted out of context verses in our modern day. Isa 53:5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
You see the context? First the whole chapter is about a suffering Saviour who is crushed on our behalf. Then we see in verse five that it is our Lord that was wounded for our transgressions. It was He that was bruised for our iniquities and chastised for the sake of our peace. All of these things are healed, restored by the stripes He received on our behalf.
Exo 15:26 And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD that healeth thee.
You see the context of ” I am the Lord that healeth thee.” There is a diligence in heeding the voice of God. There is an acknowledgement of doing what is right in the sight of God. What is right in the sight of God? To do the will of His Son Jesus. To follow the still small voice of the Lord according to His Word.
The great irony of diligently following God with all of your heart is that whether you live or whether you die loses its importance The single most important thing to almost every human being on the planet is to live, to survive. Yet the born again saint who is diligently following the Lord and seeking first His Kingdom seeks only to glorify God.
Healing or no healing is in the hand of God. What matters is our chief end in life, to glorify the one true living God. To heed His voice with diligence. Jesus gave us everything that we need to live well and also to die well. Let us live well brothers and sisters and let us die well brothers and sisters and let us do it all to the glory of God.
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Posted by appolus on March 3, 2021
There is a place where your longing and your will, embrace. It’s a genesis. It is the true beginning of a change in the spiritual life of a saint. There is no power in longing alone. Longing, without the accompanying will, is no different than good intentions. We know that there is a broad road, a steep hill, that goes all the way down into hell and that hill is paved with good intentions as the old adage goes.
There is nothing more tragic than one who hears the words of Jesus, who agrees with the words of Jesus but who, in the end, does not do the words of Jesus. It is in the doing that we take possession of the promises of God. It is when the longing intersects with the will that something radical happens. Something dies and in that death spiritual life springs forth. It is by an act of the will that we step forward and volunteer to die. And when we empty ourselves of the things of this world, when they die upon our own cross, then spiritual life rushes in and our inner man is empowered and infused and our outer men are changed into the image of of our Lord.
Working out your salvation is gloriously noble and difficult. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise. It is a quest full of multiple obstacles that require to be overcome. In and of ourselves we could never do it, but we have been gloriously enabled. What was not possible is now possible but you must reach our and take a hold of it. You must possess that which was given to you. It is yours by virtue of the new birth. The Lord overcame so that we too could,by the power of the Spirit, overcome. I pray that today your will, will have, a radical encounter with your longing so that it gives birth to change.
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Posted by appolus on March 3, 2021
Psalm 11:3 If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
Brothers and sisters, even now the fires burn all across Christendom. The vandals have entered the gates of the cities. These spirits have come to invade every heart and every mind and every church in the land. These are hordes that have poured forth from the bowels of hell, foul defiling hordes. Yet, they are only the pre-cursor for what is to come. Their job is to tear down everything that is called holy. Every part of society is to be torn down stone by stone. This is the spirit behind the forces who turn wrong into right, who turn day into night. Now brothers and sisters, we can see evidence of this all around us and we see the rapid disintegration of society.
The forces that align themselves against Christianity are gaining momentum. They are making a way for their own master to enter onto the world stage. How shall we react to such forces and events? Many without eyes to see, struggle greatly against this incoming tide. As they see the loss of everything they know and hold dear they have a great desire to fight back. They want to fight against the immoral forces that are tearing down the culture that they love and have created. Fear rises up in them, panic even.
That fear and that panic compels them into the arms of many would be leaders. Some cry out that we need a great revival, others cry out that we need more Godly men in political leadership. Others even consider arming themselves for what they see as a coming cultural war. What is to be the Body of Christ’s response to a society that seems to be in moral free fall? God’s children must worship the Lord their God with all of their hearts, all of their minds and all of their souls.
They must decrease and He must increase. Now is the time for the people of God to trim their lamps and light up the way in the great darkness that is falling over us. Our singular goal must be to press in close to our Lord. He and He alone is our deliverer. Only in Him can we know true freedom, a freedom that can praise God even in captivity. Men prefer another kind of freedom but the freedom that we find in Jesus cannot be taken away by any force.
What the world gives, the world can take away. What was given to us at Calvary can never be taken from us, even if we ourselves were to be crucified. What freedom do you desire today? Choose wisely, one is eternal, the other is fleeting. One is of the Spirit, the other is of the flesh and oftentimes those who follow the flesh do not even know what spirit they are of.
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Posted by appolus on March 1, 2021
To know the love of Christ which passes knowledge that you might be filled with all the fullness of God (Eph 3:19)
A.B.Simpson says “Being filled with the fullness of God is like a bottle in the ocean. You take the cork out of the bottle and sink it in the ocean, and you have the bottle completely full of ocean. The bottle is in the ocean and the ocean is in the bottle. The ocean contains the bottle, but the bottle contains only a little bit of the ocean. So it is with Christians.”
Can you see what brother Simpson is saying? The ocean is God. Have you sunk into the depths of the ocean? The only way for a bottle to sink into the depths of the ocean and not remain just at the surface, is to be full of the ocean. The only way to be full of the ocean is for the cork to be removed. Have you removed the cork? Have you allowed the ocean of God’s being to rush into you and sink into His depths? Many followers of Jesus will remain on the surface of the ocean all the days of their lives, never truly giving themselves over to the ocean.
The cork in the illustration is the heart. Will you open up your heart and allow the Lord to flood your very being? Most of us are very comfortable existing on the surface. Yet, He has called us to the deep. The air inside the bottle must be replaced. The atmosphere has to change. We must be full of something all consuming. And that something is God. We cannot contain all of God but we can be contained by Him. The verb contain is defined as to hold or include within its volume or area.
If we are floating on the surface of the waters, then most of who we are is out of the waters. On the other hand, if we become full of the waters of life then we slowly sink into its depths and become one with the waters. We find ourselves filled with the fullness of God. This is God’s plan for His children. Open up your heart today and let Him flood in and plunge you into the depths of His heart.
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Posted by appolus on February 26, 2021
Thank you Jesus that I am an infinitesimal part of who you are, just a tiny chip, but whole in you. A fragment that you captured and placed in the most incredible mosaic. A work of art so incredibly intricate that it would defy any human ability. This mosaic makes the smallest pixels look like the size of pennies. Each fragment, each part of the mosaic is a mosaic all of its own, down into infinity. The Body of Christ. The Church. The Royal Priesthood. Even the vastness of the universe with its trillions of stars seems very basic in comparison to your greatest work of art. Thank you Father for capturing my heart and taking what was crushed and broken and only good for the scrap heap, and restoring it, piece by piece and placing it withing something so magnificent.
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Posted by appolus on February 26, 2021
Eph 6:18 Pray in the Spirit at all times, with every kind of prayer and petition. To this end, stay alert with all perseverance in your prayers for all the saints.
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. This day, become part of that symphony, let your days 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, thank Him for the day, no matter what kind of day that you’re 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, your 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.
When the sun shines we see His beauty as the flowers turn themselves around to face the glory of the Son. When it is cloudy we 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. Pray without ceasing brothers and sisters, it is not a bondage, rather a glorious privilege that enables us and empowers us to be over-comers in a dark world that is desperate for a manifestation of the light and the love of our Lord Jesus.
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Posted by appolus on February 25, 2021
The nobody’s perfect card. How many times have you seen it played? The great excuse, it is often a cover for mediocrity and the life less lived. Its the great tragedy of identifying ourselves as sinners rather than saints. We have been called to be extraordinary and the path to the extraordinary is found by the words “follow me.”
We are instructed to be holy as He is Holy. He that called us is Holy and He has called us to be holy. Several hundred years ago, in times of inquisition, the inquisitor’s would come and ask the locals “who among you are living exemplary lives?” This would point them in the direction of those who were truly born again, it would identify them for martyrdom.
If we found ourselves in similar conditions, would we be identified by the locals? This call to the beauty of holiness cannot be heard if you identify yourself as a “mere sinner,” saved by grace. You will not find that in the New Testament. We who know Jesus are children of the living God. We are not sinless but neither are we “mere sinners.”
Too often that is used as an excuse for placating the world, a kind of virtue. It is not virtuous to identify yourself as a sinner. And before someone says well Paul says “of whom I am the chief,” in regard to sinners saved by Jesus, remember the context. Paul is saying that he is the chief of all saved sinners, meaning there was no worse sinner than he and despite that, Jesus saved him.
This is the humility of Paul saying that no one was worse than He , yet still he was saved. It was not that he was still the chief of sinners after being saved, God forbid. That is not how he identified himself and in fact he is bold enough to say “You are to imitate me, just as I imitate Christ,” in 1 Cor 11:1. This really should be the last line in chapter 10, read it in regard to Paul calling us to holiness.
We are new creatures in Christ and behold all things are new. We carry His name among the world. We bring His light down into the darkness. Our total identity is in Christ. There are no other competing identities other than being children of the light, adopted sons and daughters of the Living God, priests and priestesses in a Royal priesthood. This is what we offer the world. They can be saved from drowning in their own sins.
It is strange that all down through the ages that this has been a hated truth. The notion that we count ourselves as separated from the world brings great conviction to the world. “Who do you think you are,” has been the cry down through the ages, the initiator of it being the devil himself. He despises the sons and daughters of the Kingdom.
And so the answer to the world when they say “who do you think you are,” is not to say “we are just like you but we have this theological technicality.” No, the answer is the same as Paul’s “we were just as you are, worse even, but we have been redeemed and rescued by grace and so can you be.” “We have been delivered from the curse of sins deadly power and we have been empowered by His Holy Spirit to live such a life.” An actual witness that brings credit and glory to God because He enabled us to live such a transformed life.
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A Call To The Remnant 