As we approach the edge of Glory
the universe itself
it simply has an ending
but of You there is no end
As we step into Your presence
The worlds are all consumed
For you are not contained by all that there is
You’re the Revelation and The Genesis
At the edge of all there is
All the worlds, all the skies, the universe
Is to stand on the shore of Your vastness
And gaze upon a sea that never ends
It’s the beginning of all of You
Simply beyond our comprehension
Yet in an effort to be reconciled
You came to us as a helpless child
Hark the herald angels sing
Unto you this day a child is born
He is the essence of all that there is
Born to be betrayed by a single kiss
Yet a Door was opened
That no power can ever shut
It’s the Door that leads to glory
It is the gospel story
And this Door is found
In the valley with the river of tears
The Hope and the Glory of all mankind
And this Door is your destiny to find
Destiny and Glory stepped down
The finite consumed by the infinite
Now mortal can glimpse immortality
By gazing upon the One who set us free
The Door, the Door, the Door to our heart
Is open and its Glory shines forth
Step through this Door step onto the shore
Of the Sea that goes on forevermore.
THE BABE
Our Lord He came from the glories above
He came to earth with a heart full of love
And choirs of heavenly angels sang
As the bells of upper Hades rang
Oh joyous night Oh Christ divine
A star in heaven, a heavenly sign
For Christ the Lord is born today
He came to show the world the way
He came to set the prisoners free
He came that every eye might see
A light at the end of a tunnel deep
A glorious harvest ready to reap
Consider this babe so innocent and pure
He has come to make your salvation sure
Lift up this child in your heart tonight
Lift up your eyes to a glorious sight
Behold your King is born today
Fall to your knees,worship and pray
For unto you a child is born
Behold the darkness gives way to dawn
The post below by Jamal Jivangee makes some excellent points worth true consideration………….bro Frank
In today’s post, I’d like to share with you some very real temptations that can occur to folks who are attempting to meet organically outside of the traditional religious system. This is a temptation that I am experiencing right now in my current season of life, and I’d like to share my temptation with you today in the hope that my experience can be helpful to you and your relationships. Before I do that, however, I need to give you some background information about me.
Several years ago, I left the institutional religious system. This was no small feat for me as it was a system I was heavily invested in. I had been religiously trained in college, and I had been employed as a clergy member. When I decided to leave this system, many people felt I had withdrawn or abandoned them personally. On a semi-regular basis, it would be common for me to hear something like this when I would encounter a former ‘church member’ in a store when I was out and about:
“Oh hey Jamal, how are you? I haven’t seen you in a while. We’ve missed you lately. It would be great to see you soon.”
I want to rest in the arms of your love
I want to soar with the eagles above
I want to spread my wings
And fly to where the angels sing
I want to lay down in pastures green
I want to go where I’ve never been
To simply rest in the knowledge of you
Is all that I want to do
I want to go to that place of rest
A place of refuge from trial and test
To the mountaintop in the valley so low
That’s the place that I want to go
I want to be found in the depths of you
To fly in the sky above so blue
I want to walk into the Father’s heart
And from there never be apart
You brought light to the darkness in me
You touched me and set me free
Your thoughts of me are beyond measure
This knowledge is my heavenly treasure
I asked for a rose and you gave me a garden
In the depths of my sin you brought me a pardon
And you have forever set me free
And gave me eyes that can truly see.
Now I realize that this is a provocative title, I make no apologies for that. In 2 Sam 12, we find King David in a very bad situation. He has committed adultery with Bathsheba, he tried to cover his tracks when she got pregnant, but a foreign convert , Uriah the Hittite , the husband of Bathsheba was more honorable that David. Therefore David’s attempts to cover up his adultery was foiled so David had him killed.
Brothers and sisters, this is such a low state for the man after God’s own heart. And after Nathan the prophet comes to David and exposes him, God speaks. God speaks brothers and sisters, one should be very afraid when God speaks, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God. And here is the charge that God levels against David, His beloved. ” You have despised me.” ( 1 Sam 12:10) Can you imagine hearing that charge against you from God? Yet that is exactly what David heard.
Since the beginning of time, there has been this question, or some form of it ” Why do bad things happen to good people?” Some philosophers have asked ” What is justice?” Now Christians are not immune to these thoughts or questions, in fact I would argue, that we will all ask that question to one degree or another at some point in our walk, maybe at many points in our walk.
Now there are certain times in our life when it is not just one bad thing that happens. Sometimes they overlap don’t they? They threaten to overwhelm us and those initial questions are simply intensified as we try to figure out what is going on and what is the purpose of it all. Many of you will readily identify with these times. They are specific times when the enemy comes in like a flood and threatens to drown us in our circumstances. We scramble in our minds to make sense of it all. We hear familiar Scriptures from our hearts reminding us that God will never leave us nor forsake us yet that is exactly how we feel, left and forsaken and then the hammer drops again.
This is a poem the Lord gave me last week. My mother, a very Godly woman, is facing a set of circumstances that are, to say the least, formidable , she used the word ” Insurmountable.” And as she said this word and as we talked about the glory of God who is well able, the Holy Spirit birthed this poem into my heart. I pray that it will bless you and remind you of the grandness and beauty and the majesty of our God and His presence before the throne.
In the time of David, at the very heart of Judah and what we now know as Jerusalem , dwelt the Jebusites in Zion. A stronghold, a seemingly impenetrable stronghold. It seems that at the heart of today’s modern Christianity, nominal Christianity, lies the Jebusites who have the stronghold of Zion. And where is the ark of God’s presence? If the enemy has a stronghold at the very center of Christendom , then surely that stronghold must be taken back if God is to have His rightful place in the hearts of His people? Within every nominal Christian lies Zion. It is either a place for God’s presence or it is a place where the Jebusites rule, where the world rules. And this place without God is a place of pride and self-dependence, a place of self-righteousness that creates a blindness to the actual condition and situation of those who dwell there.
When David was determined to take the heart of Jerusalem, the stronghold of Zion from the ungodly here is what they said to him. “You shall not come in here, except the blind and the lame will turn you away; also saying, David cannot come in here.” (2 Sam 5:6) The Jebusites were so proud and so secure in their surroundings and in their self-deception that they could never be brought down that they paraded blind and lame soldiers at the entrance to their city strong-hold to pour scorn on their enemies. It is the classic mistake of the proud who are just about to fall. The proud always insulate themselves with the comfort of their surroundings and upon the work of their own hands.
I am fragile I can be broken
Broken by the words spoken
Can’t you see your words are clawing me apart?
Can’t you see how you’re crushing my heart?
How my heart longed to hear warm words spoken
Full of beauty and light from above
Why didn’t you just reach out and touch me?
And cover me and hold me in love.
The broken child in you
Now breaks the child that you can see
Two broken children collide
Only wanting to be free
I am fragile I can be broken
Broken by the words left unspoken
And this brokenness is now a void in me
That is deeper and wider than the deepest sea
What can fix a broken heart?
And fill this vast expanse in me
What can fill an endless void?
That’s deeper than the deepest sea
So many tears, enough to fill an ocean
Shed by all the children, broken
A Saviour comes and walks upon this sea of tears
He calms the stormy sea and quells the fears
I have come to mend the broken heart
To heal the wounds where you were torn apart
I have come to set the captive free
To dry up every tear that fills the deepest sea
I hold the universe in my hand
I cause the blind to see and the lame to stand
And every star in the heavens, I know them all by name
And I will touch you and you shall never be the same
The words I speak they are life and they are love
I know every sparrow that falls from above
I created the sun and the moon and the rain
I still the stormy seas and I take away the pain
Come and bring your emptiness to me
And I will fill you with a love that’s deeper than the sea
Come all you broken and contrite
And I will heal you and set you free this night
And so I came and took my Saviour’s hand
Out of the pit on the solid Rock I stand
A broken heart replaced and reconciled
Standing whole and new, I am my Father’s child
And every word spoken, they are life to me
Your love and Your kindness, they have set me free
And by thy Spirit my eternity is sealed
And by thy love my broken heart was healed.
It is life itself to me to know the King of Kings who sits upon the throne and the train of His robe fills the temple but who also is the Shepherd who takes me in His arms and carries me when I am wearied. He never sleeps and is never wearied and I love Him. And when I wait on Him I can find the strength to run and the weariness is left below as I am caught up in the updrafts of His presence and I am carried up into His arms. Wait upon Him saints , He sees your distress, He shall come and you shall walk and not faint.
He shall feed His flock like a shepherd; He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those with young. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and measured out the heavens with a span? And who has shut up the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
(Isa 40:11-12)
Many years ago I was walking in the suburbs of Kansas where I live. Walking through a wealthy neighborhood I saw gardens with very meticulously planted flowers. A lot of work had obviously went into them. They had a design and had undoubtedly been measured exactly, every flower planted the exact distance from each other. Each home-owner knew what they wanted and it had been achieved. There was a regimentation in these gardens and they certainly had some kind of beauty. Then I heard the Holy Spirit telling me to look across the street. There was a large playing field. At the far end of the field was an open drainage system for water run-off and a large culvert. All around this area was full of wild flowers of all kinds. No hand had placed them where they were. They were wherever the wind had blown their seed. It was truly a magnificent sight and had a beauty that could not be matched by the little regimented soldiers standing to attention, watching from across the street, now seemingly trapped and longing to breathe free.
Brothers and sisters, where are you? Did the wind of the Spirit blow in your life? Did He guide and lead you to where you are? To be where the Lord wants you to be and to be part of a garden that the Lord Himself planted is to have ridden the winds of the Holy Spirit. Breathe free today, it is your birthright. This freedom from a crushing religious system of control and man centered activity was wrought for you on the bloody battle field of Calvary. To live in anything less than that freedom is a tragedy.
God is and has called His children out of darkness into His marvelous light, the light of freedom. God’s remnant children have labored for most of their lives burdened by a heavy yoke of slavery. How tragic to find that the yoke of bondage came from the same source from which they were originally freed. Religion, is the deadliest enemy of Gods freed children. It spies out their liberty and seeks, with much patience oftentimes , to again enslave and control. In these days, God is releasing a generation to come forth and live in the freedom that He has called them too. The shackles of the old religious systems are being exposed and broken down. The strange thing is, it can be scary to begin to think for oneself and to walk into open fields of freedom having been so restrained for so long. He who the Son has set free is free indeed. Free to walk with Him, free to be taught by Him, free to hear Him, free to be directed by Him
The scene set in 1 Sam 14 is quite a desperate one and serves well to highlight the difference between the religious man and the Spiritual man. The Philistines are encamped in great numbers on the high ground in this scene. They are multitude in number as opposed to Saul’s 600. Now this is far from a Gideon story. Saul’s ranks had been whittled down but not by God. And Saul is a man who has been rebuked by the prophet Samuel and so we can see, as we watch what Saul does, how the religious, those of the flesh, operate without the direction of the Holy Spirit. Even Ichabod’s brother is in their ranks ( the presence of God has departed)
Now it is interesting that while Saul is giving instructions to his troops “Cursed is the man that eats food until evening, so that I may be avenged on my enemies. So none of the people tasted any food,” Jonathon , the man of God, is already gone. You see Saul is afraid and fretting over what he sees as his enemies and how he can be avenged, we hear nothing about God from him. The religious man takes things personally and seeks to avenge himself on his enemies and he must try to work out all the details himself since he cannot converse with God. Now Jonathon on the other hand, so full of the Holy Spirit, decides to go to the enemy. He has a simple faith in God. He is so trusting that while all the other men are listening to instructions from religious men on how to gain victory, Jonathon is on the move. He is headed towards the enemy.
The title above expresses the unspoken mantra that drives much of our Church world. The mindset is that God’s elite are those who accomplish big and visible results. This often leaves “ordinary believers” feeling as though their lives don’t really matter.
The truth is that this man-centered, superstar-driven mentality is “from the world.” We have our iconic celebrities, talented musicians, gifted writers, ingratiating media personalities just like the world does. The unspoken inference is that the important people in God’s Kingdom are those who have achieved fame and fortune. Not only does this “success-is-everything” mentality create a system that is ripe for slick-talking, ear-tickling charlatans, but it also leaves laypeople feeling as if their efforts to please the Lord don’t mean much.
Religious spirits are those who come as angels of light! Their deception is deep and hard to recognize, but once it is uncovered they reveal who they really are and you find no love in them! You willl find judgement, bitterness and strife all the while they will accuse you of this very thing! I pray we all become educated by His Holy Spirit to be able to discern the true from the false! Just because one says Jesus is Lord! Does not make them a true follower of Jesus!- Bren Brantley.
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I pray that if you are looking for me, the one place you are guaranteed to find me is before the throne and not before the crowd.- Bro Frank
But the word about Him spread even more. And great crowds were coming to hear, and to be healed from their infirmities by Him. But He was drawing back in the wilderness, and praying.
(Luk 5:15-16)
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The narrower the path we are called to walk in this world, the greater the desire we will have for the world to come- Bro Frank
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Do you conform to the image of your church and its characteristics or do you conform to Jesus and His characteristics?-Bro Frank
The holidays are here. We see people rushing to and fro. Images abound on billboards and TV and for many it is a truly wonderful time where family and friends gather together. And I say God bless them all. Yet there are many folks who dread this time of the year. Perhaps an empty seat at the table reminds you of someone dear who is no longer with you? Or maybe it’s the people in the seats that’s the problem? Maybe your family is not exactly the Cleavers? My own son will not be sitting at my table and has not now for the last four years. He is in prison. Fathers feel the need to be strong. You have to steel yourself. I believe that there is no greater agony than watching your child suffer and being powerless. This is not the first time I have felt this kind of agony with this, my eldest son who is now 30. When he was two he was burned over 60% of his body with third degree burns. Part of his treatment, to keep him alive, was to plunge him into a salt bath everyday and remove and replace his bandages. The nurses would have a parent help them with this. If you have ever had a small cut on your finger and got some salt in it, you know how painful that is. Now imagine a small child having to endure the agony of being forced into a salt bath day after day after day. The absolute helplessness I felt was a hell on earth as I helped force my child into this bath as he kicked and screamed and cursed. There was no way he could possibly understand why his dad was doing this to him.
How many times was the Lord rejected? How many times was He ridiculed and scorned? How grievous the journey knowing the end? How savage the battle in the garden? How savage the treatment at the hands of Romans? How cruel the desertion of all of his friends, including his best and dearest? How indescribable the drinking of the cup? Yet even in the midst of one of the cruelest deaths known to man, He ministers. How deep the love that cries ” forgive them Father?” Can we forgive?
Gal 4:17 They are zealous for you, but not well. But they only desire to exclude you, that you be zealous to them.
In this particular context the Apostle Paul was speaking of the false teachers who desired to keep God’s freed men under the law. Yet there is a wider application, it applies to all false teachers, the pattern never changes. Today Christendom is full of false teachers. And we can see that many men and women desire that God’s children be zealous for them. How many Christians have you heard talking about famous women teachers and famous men teachers. They will tell you plainly that they love them and buy all of their books and go to their conferences. They convince others to join them saying things like ” you just have to hear so and so,” or ” you must get this book.” Such as these are lovers of men , zealous for them and it is by design. These teachers build their ” brand,” and enrich themselves by cashing in on this zeal that they have created in the masses. So what does Paul mean when he says that they desire to exclude you?
That is a heavy charge. We know that God is a jealous God and He shares His glory with no one. You cannot give your zeal to a man or a women and maintain your relationship with God, He will have no other gods before Him. These teachers who desire the zeal of men are little gods unto themselves and others. And because they are gods unto themselves they see no problem at all with enriching themselves and making merchandise of God’s word and truth. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. If He made a scourge of chords for the money changers and drove them out of the temple here on earth, what will He do when they come before Him in the world to come? If zeal for His house ate Him up and that was for a temple built by human hands destined to be torn down, what shall that same zeal do to those who defile the heavenly temple? You cannot follow men and follow God, you will be part of one and excluded from the the other. You are excluded from fellowship with God when you follow men.
Control seems to be a great part of the system of churches. I know that in very many Pentecostal circles that unless the testimony is in some way connected to the Pastor then it will rarely be heard from the platform because it does not lift him up. This only exemplifies kingdoms and fiefdoms of men. The notion of Jesus truly being preeminent is something that is lost to almost all of Christendom. What a beautiful thing it is when your chief role amongst the bretheren is to come along side them and support them in what The Lord has them do. Oh it is so beautiful when a man can say from the bottom of his heart that he must decrease that The Lord may increase.
The pyramid system of authority in the churches, rather than a plurality of leadership is truly erosive amongst the Body. He has His parts and He has apportioned gifts and leadership. That is why I believe The Lord is raising up a remnant generation, hungry for His presence, hungry for His preeminence and hungry for the organic church we read of in Scriptures.
Today most pastors try to be all things to all men. Many complain that this is foisted upon them, but the reality in so many churches is that this is by design. It is the nature of what we now call church. God has shown us that church is where two or three or ten or 100 are gathered together in His name. The number is not important, what is important is God’s definition of what church is and how it should operate.
Now we know that the Body of Christ is just that, it is a body. It was God Himself who uses this analogy and if we are to follow Him then we have to follow what He has laid down. “For the body is not one member but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? If all the body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If all hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body as it has pleased Him. And if they were all one member, where would be the body?” (1 Cor 12:16-19)
Where is the body today brothers and sisters? Does it function as you have just read? Does your church function in the Biblical fashion or is it ” one member,” a pastor who does all the preaching, all the praying, all the exhorting all the prophesying , all the words of knowledge and so on? The truth is that this is the Catholic model and it is indeed a sick model. How can the body function if it operates as one member? In your church, are you merely a spectator? What does your participation look like? Paul says ” We, however, will not boast beyond measure, but within the sphere which God appointed us.” ( 2 Cor 10:11)
God has appointed men and women to operate within the church in the gifts He has bestowed upon them. Any system which suppresses these gifts or simply does not allow them to function is in direct conflict with that which God has ordained. And so, rather than measure themselves against the Word of God, modern pastors ‘measure themselves by themselves.’ This is not wise and God will not participate in any system that so directly violates His commands and instructions.
A Call To The Remnant 