Archive for the ‘the gospel’ Category
Posted by appolus on January 30, 2021
Can the spirit of man fellowship with the Spirit of God? A rhetorical question of course. One is enmity to the other. Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? (2Co 6:14) Some may argue that all men and woman who gather together in churches are believers. Yet in John 8 we see that Jesus tells those who identify as “believers,” that their father is the devil. These “believers,” took up stones to kill Jesus. Its not the name that you call yourself that counts, its the Spirit of God that is either in a man or it is not that counts. While it is clear that it has never been acceptable for the righteous to fellowship with the unrighteous and indeed has caused almost all of the problems that we see in Christendom down through the ages, it gets more and more dangerous to do so as the ages draw to a close. The Holy Spirit is very deliberately exposing what is and what is not, do not get in the way of the Holy Spirit.
Listen to what Tozer says………… The spiritual man has treasures this world discounts. He has a mystic wisdom of the Holy Spirit, but the world has no way to receive this. Jesus said the world cannot receive Him “because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him.” (John 14:17) Just as a deaf man has no sensory organ to receive music, and just as a blind man has no organ to receive light, so a worldly man has no organ to receive the treasure of God’s mystic knowledge by the Holy Spirit. And of course, if the Christian says that he has and is sure of himself, the world is angry with him, even the religious world. They say he is a bigot, he thinks too much of himself. The Christian man has the Holy Spirit, invisible and from God, whom the world cannot receive. The Christian has heard a voice, seen the light and been able to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, while the world is just religious (A.W.Tozer-A disruptive faith)
Tozer is right, isn’t he? The world and the religious men are always angry with the man who can say with a certainty “God said to me.” They say that he is arrogant and unbending. Yet what they do not realize is that the man who has heard from God, who has stood in His temple and been surrounded by His glory and transformed forever by His magnificent presence, minds the things of God and not the things of man. He understands the vastness of God and by comparison, how small man is. Who is he going to listen to? Who is he going to be moved by? God alone. And this infuriates man and brings the man or woman of God into direct conflict with the spirit of man, the spirit of the age. Be ready saints, for the spirit of the end of the ages is strong and vicious. Be prepared and count the cost and stand upon the truth. There is a glorious reward that awaits the saint who refuses to compromise, who overcomes, who endures till the end. Find saints and fellowship with them. Be deliberate in who you fellowship with, and all the more as you see that day approaching. Do not be unequally yoked.
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Posted by appolus on January 27, 2021
Mat 16:24 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
I pray that every trial and tribulation I now suffer is a mile run by one who trains for a marathon. Men run with heavy backpacks on their backs to train their bodies,to discipline them to, to bring them into a place of strength and endurance. The cross that I bear, the cross that I take up, has been uniquely designed for me and for who I am. It is intricately designed to test me and to bring me to a place brokenness and strength in the Lord.
To follow Jesus is to follow the path that He trod. He blazed a trail, a narrow path through fire and flood. We must be equipped to walk through these obstacles. The cross is the equipping. No cross means no forward progress in the Lord. As we walk along this narrow path, many are the encampments of folks who have no desire to go any further. The road, they found, was too difficult. And these encampments have names. One is called Camp compromise. Another is called Camp indulgence. And again another is called Fall Away Camp.
As we pass these camps the inhabitants will come out and jeer at us. They will attempt to discourage us and tempt us to take up camp with them. Many will be hostile and throw rocks at us as we pass them by and pass them by we shall. Each camp becomes a cautionary tale. Each camp that we see only strengthens our resolve to keep on going. The cross has equipped us with all the endurance and perseverance that we need to overcome the obstacles and the temptations.
Brothers and sisters, do not look to the left nor to the right. The Lord Himself has given us the bread of adversity and the waters of affliction through our own cross. The bread has given us sustenance and the waters of affliction has refreshed our parched spirits. In the midst of our prior adversities and afflictions we have seen the Lord, our teacher. And now this all comes back to us as we approach the beginning of the end of the narrow path that lies before us. Lean on the cross brothers and sisters, take strength from it. It’s victory will carry you home.
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Posted by appolus on January 6, 2021
11 Cor 4:6 For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Have you knowledge of this glory? Can we walk as Christians if we have never experienced the glory of God? We cannot be victorious Christians outside of this “knowledge.’ Those who have experienced the glory of God walk in victory. It is this victory that allows for joy even in the midst of suffering. For those who walk in the presence of God cannot help but radiate His glory. It is not something that is achieved by effort.
If I radiate His glory it’s because I am like the moon. The moon is a dead object, yet the light of the sun reflects off the moon and lights up a dark world. And just as the moon, by virtue of its position to the sun and the earth, radiates the light down into the darkness, then those of us who come before the throne and kneel before the King radiate the light from this glorious place into the darkness of this world.
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Posted by appolus on January 4, 2021
As I was walking my dog the other day, there was a younger man in front of me coming onto the trail. He was running with a backpack on and he had a dog with him. The dog was off leash which always makes me a wee bit bit nervous, especially if its a big dog because my dog is smallish. It’s ironic that it makes me nervous because I walk my dog without a leash. I always have with my dogs over the years. This young man was shouting at his dog every 30 seconds. He was shouting as loud as he could “back.” Even when he was way ahead of me and I could not see him anymore I could still hear him shouting “back,’ and the anger level was noticeably increasing.
It made me think about how I communicate with my own dog. I never really speak to her at all when we are walking. She understands my “expectations.” It rarely has to be communicated by words. If I speak at all I get her immediate attention because its not typical for me to have to speak to her. We have an understanding. Now, that did not happen overnight. It took a significant portion of her younger life for her will to bend to my expectations. I was unmovable so if something was going to change it was going to be her. She had to understand her place.
When she finally yielded to my expectations then everything changed. Her life got a lot less complicated. Her freedom increased dramatically and her anxiety level was dramatically reduced. She had found her place in life. She understands my expectations without me having to speak. I know what God expects of me. I know His expectations. Not just through the written word but also through His Spirit. The older I got and the more I yielded the less He had to “speak to me,” in a sense. I never want to disappoint my Lord. I love Him and I desire to please Him.
When my dog displeases me her world is not right until she makes it right with me. She will come to me again and again and nuzzle into me. She has to know that things are right between us. she will not settle down until she senses that we are good. Us being “good,” is the foundation of her life. She knows my expectations and we know the Lord’s expectations for our lives.
We do not have a God who keeps shouting and screaming at us. He is not trying to dominate us, He is looking for cooperation with His expectations for us and love is the glue that holds it all together. I always want to be right with my Lord because I love Him and the last thing I want to do is disappoint Him. It makes me come to Him again and again with a broken and a contrite heart until I “know,” that we “are good.’ The young man who was screaming at his dog represents religion and its efforts to control people. The Lord who shares His expectations with us in love represents relationship.
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Posted by appolus on January 4, 2021
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. We are not only fed 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 you 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 December 26, 2020
Jesus is the bridge between two worlds. The seen and the unseen. The seen world relies upon the head, the unseen world relies upon the eyes of the heart. Our senses, as great as they are, can only serve us in the seen world. Any interaction with the unseen world must come through the prism of our spirit/heart. Not the physical heart you understand. The physical heart pumps life giving blood in a somewhat mystical way, but the Spirit is the wellspring of a substance called life.
In this context I am talking about the Scriptural word Zoe. An example of this would be John 1:4 “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” This life is the divine life of God in man. This is the abundant life of John 10:10. Jesus had come so that we may have a superabundant never-ending wellspring of divine life in us. This is the divine life that flows through the supernatural heart of a man or a woman.
When this life is flowing through us it comes crashing into interaction with the life that we can see, the seen world. Our life in this world, our actual physical lives is described in the Scriptures by this word, Bios. It is where we get our word biology from and an example from Scriptures would be Luke 8:14 ‘with cares and riches and pleasures of this life.” And the context is the seed that fell among thorns.
Anxieties and worries and cares, all drowning the life, Zoe, divine health, out of us. One has to go. Divine life and the cares of this world cannot co-exist and so those walking in the divine life of God rise above the cares and the anxieties of this world. They can “see,’ the truth that lies in the unseen world and it can be used to over-ride the senses that so dominate this world.
The last use of the world life in the Scriptures comes in the form of this word, Psuche and the Scriptural example would be Matt 16:25 “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” This of course is not referring to your physical life, that would be the word Bios. This word psuche is referring to your soul/spirit. Your soul/spirit will come into its own when it is infused by the life(Zoe) of God through the Spirit of God.
God will “breath,’ into you and it will abundantly overcome all other life in you and your actual physical life. So brothers and sisters, what “life,” dominates your life? Zoe? Bios? Psuche? Zoe life is the life of God flowing in us. It is the light of men living in a dark world. We cannot be light to the world or a city set upon a hill if we are not dominated by the Zoe life of God.
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Posted by appolus on December 23, 2020
Heb 12:2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith;
Only that which flows from an uninterrupted gaze on the Lord Jesus 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 self appointed 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 off 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 leads 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 December 19, 2020
It is a good thing when you are judged, mocked or spoken ill of for the cause of Jesus. For it surely is a sign of a man walking with his Lord? You are blessed when they speak ill of you for the name of Jesus. I always want to be found in the remnant group that is willing to suffer for the name of Jesus. There is risk in every act of faith, every word spoken for the Kingdom. Something that is worth something, costs something. People want the benefits of the cross but want no part of the suffering. They want the crown, but not the cross. It’s called religion.
It most often hides in plain sight and can often look wonderful and speak wonderfully, but always, without exception, self lies behind it all. If self is threatened then they fall back and compromise with the world in order to keep what they consider to be their position in society. No better example of this than the Pharisees and the high priest who thought it expedient that Jesus should die so that they may keep their position and their country, and of course it was not long after that that both were destroyed, position and country.
In the end, the hireling runs, it is what he/she does. They will always find another flock to attach to. The days ahead will surely see an even greater separation between the wheat and the tares. How is this weed identified in the end? It always comes against the flower, always. Give it time. We all act according to our natures in the end. That is why we must have the nature of Christ abiding in us. Stand therefore, saints, stand. The day is upon us.
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Posted by appolus on December 16, 2020
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.
Can I suggest that life, the Christian life, whether you know it or not is an all out battle. There is an enemy of your soul and he does seek to drown you. He seeks to simply sweep you away by wave after wave of circumstances. It is in these times that we make life altering decisions. Now remember what the enemy is after is your testimony, make no mistake about that. He does not care about you at all, what he wants you to do is to curse God and die. He wants others to see, as they look upon your circumstances, merely a man or a woman just like them. He wants to steal hope from your heart. He wants to present you as hopeless to the world so that a hopeless world can take comfort from the fact that there is really nothing in what you have said in the past. It was merely all words and now circumstances have revealed that you are no different from them.
He wants to rob you of your peace, he wants to show the world that the peace that you claimed to have was merely circumstantial peace, not a supernatural peace that surpasses understanding. He wants to present you to the world as just like them and that as long as things are going okay then you have peace, but as soon as you are opposed by trial and circumstance, then your peace is gone, just like theirs. He wants to rob you of your joy. He wants to show the world that this joy that you had was not supernatural, but merely a happiness that the world understands which again is gleaned from circumstances. He does not want the world to see the kind of joy that Paul presents after having been scourged and thrown into a dungeon and yet begins to praise God in the darkness of the night. And in that incident we see that this kind of joy, this supernatural joy is a door that leads from the deepest valleys, the darkest nights, the most gruesome of circumstances into the throne room of God Himself. This open door allows the power of God to flow into that very darkness and convince those who dwell in that darkness that there is a light that can redeem them from their chains.
We are a people set apart from the world by God to show His glory. We are His answer to the accuser. Listen saints, I know it very rarely feels like it, but there is glory in our sufferings. When we are the target of the enemy of our souls and we stand strong in the Lord and in the power of His might, then this faith, this trust in God pleases Him. We know that without faith it is impossible to please Him. In this context it simply means to trust Him. There is a purpose in your suffering and it may never be revealed to you on this side of eternity, but there is a purpose. God bless you in your suffering, look for the open door to the glories of heaven. Paul and Silas found it. It is yours to walk though. And in that place you will rise up with wings as eagles. Strength will return to you. And there lies before you an eternal reward.
Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.(Heb 12:11-13)
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Posted by appolus on December 11, 2020
One week before my son Daniel was born, I came home from church on a Sunday afternoon. The Lord whispered in my ear to sit down with a pen and write whatever He put on my heart. I was to mail it to my Mom and Dad, I had no idea what I was going to write. I also had no idea that just a week later Daniel would be born with Down Syndrome and be so sick he would almost die. I also had no idea what depths of despair and darkness would overwhelm me because of his birth.
Dear mum and dad
There is not a hair on your head that the Lord does not know. The Lord Himself, in the garden of Gethsemane was tried to His very core, even His closest friends had fallen asleep on Him. And in His agony, in His despair, He cried out to His Father, “Father, take this cup from me”, at that very second we see the Lords humanity, He is so able to understand our situations.
Sometimes we would question ,”why Lord”, but there is always a reason.The lord cried from the cross “my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me.” At that very point He touched man’s lowest ebb, despair, hell itself. I do not know, but I imagine that this was the hardest moment for our Father as He watched His Son hang from that cross and withdraw His presence.
The Father in His infinite wisdom and mercy and love for us, sacrificed His Son. Oh the agony the Father felt, but now the perfect wisdom of our Father is shown. There is nothing now His Son does not know, His dying and rising, formed in perfection, is now the hope of mankind. Our Jesus is alive and He knows us inside out. He will never abandon us.
And when our time arrives to come into the very presence of the living God, when we kneel before the precious lamb of God, when we become one with our Lord, then we will know all that the Lord has done for us. It is an honor and a privilege to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. I tremble at the very thought of coming into the presence of Almighty God. We simply can’t imagine, our minds are totally inadequate to realize the Glory of our Lord. May the Lord strengthen you and fill you with His glory. The victory is already won, let us wait upon the Lord.
This letter arrived back at my house two weeks after Daniel was born. My mother informed me that the Lord had told her that letter was not for her, but was for me. I sat down and read the letter and wept when I realized that the Almighty God of the universe had not only sent me a letter, but that He was sharing some of His pain as a Father with me.
Not only was He healing me at this point, but my mind snapped back to the time when my older son had been very badly burned,third degree burns over 60% of his body. For the first several days as part of his treatment to avoid infection and death, the hospital would force him down into salt baths. They asked for my assistance. It was so hellish that there are no words to describe it.
He was only two years old but it would take everything that I had to put him down into that bath and hold him there. He would flail and scream. My own inner scream, if heard, would have caused the stars to fall from the heavens. His eyes would burn into mine with confusion. I was the his father, I was supposed to protect him, he could not possibly understand why I was doing this to him. Over those days my hair started to fall out even although I was only 20. Big circles of missing hair such was the trauma of it all. Now all these years later I was being given a little insight into what our Heavenly Father suffered as He watched His Son be rejected and mocked then tortured and nailed to a tree. And then have all the filth of the world put upon Him.
Our minds cannot comprehend the pain our Father suffered. And at any point He could have stopped it, why didn’t He? “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him, shall not perish but gain everlasting life.” (John 3:16) This is a love that is beyond comprehension. We can feel pain and emotions and horror, one can only imagine what the giver of these emotions can feel. To reject this sacrifice is what separates the saved from the unsaved. This is what we will be judged upon. Not how good we are, or how holy we are, but have we accepted Jesus as God’s Holy and only way to heaven.
I did find myself asking , “why Lord?” Of course the Lord knows the bigger picture. Can you imagine any Psychologist in the world, looking at two dysfunctional people and saying to himself, “yes, these guys need a mentally handicapped child in their lives.” Yet Daniel, with all his medical problems and challenges is a perferct gift from the treasures of heaven. God the Father reached into His treasury, pulled out Daniel and said to Himself , “Yes, this is exactly what they need.” So great has been the effect that my unsaved wife, upon seeing a couples marriage in deep trouble, whispered to me “Its a shame they don’t have a Daniel.” How great is our God, how much higher is His ways than ours?
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Posted by appolus on December 9, 2020
Mat 21:44 And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
The Word of God is immovable, it sits as the cornerstone of all that exists. The arc of our lives must bend towards the Word of God.Time and space itself bends towards the Word. The revealed truth of God establishes the foundations of all existence. In the beginning was the word and God created the heaven and the earth. The spoken word of God calls forth light and the light creates a separation between itself and the darkness. The light of God is still separate from the darkness. And in the end the Word remains and every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
The word of God speaks to the sons and the daughters of light and it calls them to bend. If the arc of your life does not bend towards the word of God then the word of God does not hold sway over your lives. It may intrigue you. It may fascinate you. It may challenge you. You may argue about it and it may be philosophy to you, but if it has not bent you, if your life has not been broken by it and renewed and put back together by it then it does not sit on the throne of your heart. The truly broken shall bend, yet in the end all those who resist and reject the chief cornerstone, that stone shall fall upon them and they shall be ground to powder and be scattered like dust.
Have you been broken? The poor in Spirit are the ones who cry out from the depths of who they are to the One who is high and lifted up. The broken are the ones who cannot even lift their heads in the presence of God. Yet He gently places His hand under their chins and raises up their heads to look at Him. He pierces the souls of the broken and the contrite hearts as they look unto Him, the Author and the Finsher of their faith.
I am broken, I am vanquished, I surrender. Is this your cry? To be broken is to see your flesh for what it is, in the horror of that you will be broken. To be vanquished is to be subdued by a superior force. And in your brokenness you are subdued and you surrender into the hand of God. Do not resist the work of the Holy Spirit in your life and in your circumstances, they are the hammer and the chisel of God. He will shape you.
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Posted by appolus on December 4, 2020
Who could know that the child who would walk on water
Was also the Lamb being prepared for the slaughter
Who could know that the man who would heal the blind
Would be reviled, rejected, hated and maligned
Who could know that the man who would walk in peace
Was God Himself,the Christ, a living Masterpiece
Who cold know that the man who would heal the lame
Would baptize, not with water, but with a burning flame
Who could know that the One who would turn water into wine
Was also the Branch, the giver of life, Himself the Grapevine
Who could know that the one who would raise men from the dead
Would die Himself with a crown of thorns upon His Holy head
We know that Christ was made in the likeness of man
He humbled Himself that He might fulfill His Father’s plan
He was obedient unto death and would die upon a tree
He would break the chains of hell and death and set the captives free
Who could know that the child lying there in the manger
Would face the wrath of hell itself and overcome all danger
The heavenly choirs of angels knew and sang with all their might
And the shepherds knew down in their hearts on that glorious starry night.
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Posted by appolus on December 2, 2020
In Psalm 84 we see this verse…..
For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. This word day in the Hebrew is Yom, it quite literally means to be hot, as in the hot hour of the day. Sunrise, sunset, when the sun is high above us in the sky. The golden hours? Moments that pass quickly but while in them and surrounded by them they are warm and golden and unforgettable. Such are our moments in the manifest presence of God. They may be few and far between, they may be fleeting, but the warmth of their memories strengthen us in our inner souls.
A moment. Caught up in the vast expanse yet tenderly held in a warm embrace. Vast and intimate all at the same time. And these moments linger in the depths of our spirits. We remember every word we hear and how they flowed, like each word was a musical note and the song that is played becomes the melody of our heart, our song in the night. Our word from Him spoken into the deep.
So, one day, one moment in His presence is better than a thousand sunrises and more beautiful and inspiriting than a thousand sunsets. In these golden hours on earth where everything is brilliantly illuminated by the rising or the setting sun, we bask in their beauty and warmth. Now imagine a world and your life illuminated by something so vast that it could hold the sun in the psalm of His hand. The sun becomes a mere spark in the presence of our God. This is the source of all that we are. This illumination is life itself.
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Posted by appolus on December 2, 2020
So the Cross is as much a part of the consummation as it is of the initiation, and by its operation in the life as a principle and power the Lord will come for “a people prepared.” This preparation relates to heart condition and not to mental apprehension of prophetic truth. (T.A.Sparks)
A great truth revealed hear by brother Sparks. If all we have is initiation then all we would have is a loveless marriage that was never consummated. In the natural a marriage that is never consummated is grounds for annulment.
There are people who come to the cross because they desire to be saved. They are looking for all the benefits that come from salvation. They want to enjoy the blessings and the grace and the mercy of God. Yet they want no part of the suffering of God. They are quite happy that Jesus picked up His cross but they themselves find the notion of picking up their own cross an offensive one.
There are whole theologies devoted to the notion that since Christ suffered then we do not have to. And it attracts millions of adherents. Cross-less denominations and movements. There can be no consummation with Christ outside of the cross, our cross, willingly taken up. It is as much a part of the genuine saint as is the abiding.
As we abide in Him and willingly take up our crosses daily, then we get to “know,” the truth. Joseph did not “know,” Mary until after Jesus was born. Know, in this context, is the Biblical word for intimacy between a man and a wife, where they become one flesh. One must “know,’ the Lord spiritually. No one ever wants to hear the words “depart from me you workers of iniquity for I never “knew,” you.
An annulled marriage is erased from a legal perspective, and it declares that the marriage never technically existed and was never valid. Think about that, a marriage that was never consummated and then annulled means that in never actually existed and what did exist was never valid.
Jesus is coming back for a consummated people, a people made ready by “knowing,” and abiding in Jesus. It is indeed a heart condition and has nothing to do with any mental apprehension of a prophetic truth. A mental assent to an abstract prophetic truth in no ways prepares anyone for the fulfillment of that prophecy.
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Posted by appolus on December 2, 2020
John 1:14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
All the sins of the world would be laid upon Him. And in the darkest moment of history, one that cannot be imagined, the Father turned His head and looked away. The full horror of hell, now visited upon the one who was one with the Father. And He would suffer our punishment in our place. And in the most agonizing cry ever uttered, Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me.” Only when one comes before God for judgment, and then is cast away from His presence, will that one even begin to imagine the horror Jesus suffered for each and every one of us.
The Character of Jesus is higher than the highest heavens. His love and compassion and mercy and obedience are beyond what our feeble minds can comprehend. And since we can only compare with what we know, we can say with full assurance, and still fall pitifully short, that our Saviors love would render the deepest ocean to but a single tear from the Masters eye. The sun that blazes brilliantly in the sky, but a spark compared to our Lords burning passion. The universe and all others combined, smaller than the smallest chamber of His heart. This is the God we serve; this is the Jesus of the Gospels; this is Jesus, God among us. Bow down to Him and enter into the glory.
Have you caught a glimpse of His glory? John writes “We have seen His glory.” Jesus says in John 17 when He is praying for those who would believe in Him “And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them.” So the Apostles saw His glory and those who would follow them would be given His glory. Do you have it? Have you stepped into it? Have you slipped behind the veil and been transformed by it? He gave it and promised it for three reasons. Firstly “that they may be one, even as we are one.” He gave us His glory that we may be one as He and His Father are one.
Secondly. “That the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” Unless we walk in the glory and the oneness we cannot be a witness to a dying world that God so loved them that He sent His Son to die for them. Thirdly. That they may “be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory.” The glory leads to the glory. The glory of our Lord Jesus Christ leads to the glory of our heavenly Father where we behold, as Isaiah beheld, the glory of our God who sits upon His throne. And in that we are changed from glory to glory for His glory.
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Posted by appolus on November 28, 2020
We have fallen from Grace
In the west there is a very low view of God. Some kindly grandfather? A benevolent Santa clause? A buddy?. Of course He is none of these things. Familiarity has bred contempt and the traditions of men have caused us to fall from grace. It has caused us to forget who God really is. He is high and lifted up and the train of His robe fills the temple. He is majestic in holiness. He is awe-full, meaning full of awe. Those around His throne can only cry out “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God almighty.’
It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the LORD; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and praised the LORD, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever: that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the LORD; So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of God. (2 Chron 5:11-14)
As the people stood as one, no hierarchy observed, and the Ark found its rightful place in the temple, the glory of God came down, God Himself took possession of the Temple and it was filled with a cloud of glory. His true unadulterated presence would have obliterated these mere mortals. Impenetrable light hidden in the cloud and still the people were overwhelmed. In Job chapter 26 the righteous man of God cries out as he explains the unsearchable glories of God and says “He holdeth back the face of his throne, and spreadeth his cloud upon it.” The cloud, the glory, the manifest presence, all of this and more when the children of God become as one.
Unless the people have an encounter with such a God, they will continue to have a low view of Him and worship some weak anemic cultural god of their own making. The church in the west is starving to death, they are dying of thirst and the tragedy is that for the most part, the majority that are called after His name do not even know that they are in the midst of a famine and drought.I thank God for His remnant people who do know. Who agonize over the state of the church. Who cry out to God and who want nothing less for the multitude of people to experience the majesty and the glory and and anguish and the joy of falling down before the throne, to be ruined for life and to walk with the grand obsession that is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
For the glory of the Lord had filled the house of God. Now brothers and sisters, we know that we are the house of God. We are His temple. Each one of us is a living stone. Each one of us are priests in a Royal priesthood. Has God so taken us, so fully possessed us that we could barely stand? Have you experienced God is such a way? When His presence falls upon you and there is a weight of glory where you can barely lift your head? You barely dare breathe as He fills every part of you. Tears flow freely, trembling hands find their way into the air in surrender, surrender to the glory. It is not a passing moment, rather it is a passage from the temporal world into the glory. And once you have slipped behind this veil then nothing can ever be the same again.
This is what the people are starved of, this is why they are dying of thirst. There is a famine of the Word of God in the land, not the Word preached, but the Word preached with the power and the presence of God. The crisis of the age is a lack of God’s empowering presence in our assemblies.Can we do anything outside of His presence? Unless the Lord builds the house then we labor in vain. It is very clear that the Lord has an issue with us. Every church , every gathering throughout the land should shut down their activities until they have the presence of the Lord walking in their midst, until the people know that……
“the heavens shall be shut up, and there is no rain because they have sinned against You; if they pray toward this place, and confess Your name, and turn from their sin when You afflict them, then hear from Heaven and forgive the sin of Your servants and of Your people Israel, when You have taught them the good way in which they should walk. And send rain on Your land which You have given to Your people for an inheritance.”
The people must realize how far they have wandered from the Living God. When they are desperate enough to cry out and acknowledge how far they have fallen, fallen from grace, then and only then shall they have the ear of God. Falling from grace is the result of trying to complete the Christian journey in the flesh, when it can only be completed by the Spirit. The Galatians problem was the Law, they were trying to live by the law. Christianity today tries to live by its traditions. It is as much ruled by its traditions as the Galatians were ruled by the law and the result for both groups is the same, a falling from grace.
Falling from grace is a cutting yourself of from the vital connection from Christ that gives you life. Build your life upon the law or upon the traditions of men and you have cut yourself of from the very real relationship of Jesus Christ. The traditions of men, no matter how good, are but a mere shadow of the reality. The object itself casts a shadow, and while the shadow has something of the image of the object, it has no substance. It cannot edify, it cannot sanctify, it cannot instill abundant life, and so those who rely upon the shadow begin to die. Where the shadow abounds, death abounds. Where the substance of Christ is and along with that and His actual presence, there is life and liberty, and grace to be found.
We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. When the people who dwell in great darkness see the children of the living God set on fire among the cloud of glory, when they see that the glory of God has fallen upon the temple, when the glory of God fills the temple, then those who dwell in the darkness of this world will be drawn to the light of Christ that burns at the center of our hearts and souls. Will we serve the Lord our God with all of our hearts? Are we ready to throw off the things of this world and enter into the Holy of Holy’s? The Kingdom of God dwells within us.
Shall we take our place before the throne? Is the Lord inviting us to the marriage feast and tragically we are too busy? Do we make excuses as to why we do not come fully before Him? In Luke chapter 14 the call goes out to come to the great banquet and any number of excuses were made as to why they would not come, in short they were too busy living in the material world and living material lives. He is knocking at the door of your heart, will you open up your heart and let Him reign upon its throne today? Will you give Him your all today? He will have all of us or He will have none of us. To look back at the things of the world disqualifies us from serving Him.
Come brothers and sisters with our whole hearts. Come to Him and cry out with a desperate cry “Lord I die of hunger today, I desperately need your word with your power and your presence. Lord today I am dying of thirst, I have an unquenchable thirst for the Living waters of life and I desire to be fully immersed in this river and want to be taken to wherever it will take me. Lord I would rather be in the center of your will and die today, than to live 30 more years of compromise in a dry and thirsty land.”
What hinders you today brothers and sisters from entering into the fullness of God? It’s not the Lord. His desire is to possess all of you and be the Lord of your whole life. So what hinders you today? Your life, your traditions your place in the world? Lay it down and come and walk in the fullness of Him. Let His glory fill the temple. Let His glory take full possession of you. The day is coming to and end and the great persecution will soon be upon us. Unless you are filled with His glory, unless He has full possession of you, you will hear yourself making any number of excuses as to why you cannot serve Him with your whole heart and join the oneness that is also soon to come.
Persecution will burn away the kindling and the broken branches and the branches that no longer are fed by the sap of the vine. When the smoke clears there shall be the oneness left. The oneness that Jesus spoke of in John 17 where He said that we would be one just as He and His Father are one and we shall be where the glory is, the glory that He has given to us. This glory will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea and every nation will see it. The glory of God come down upon those who walk as one, just as they were called to. Cry out now with A desperation and repent if you have fallen from His grace. He waits, He waits to lifts us from the valley of dry bones, but He shall not strive forever with us.
Posted in Christian, christian living, Christianity, church of scotland, end times, Jesus, pentecostal, revival, testimony, the crucified life, the deeper life, the gospel, the persectuted church, the remnant, the state of the church, theology, Uncategorized | 9 Comments »
Posted by appolus on November 23, 2020
I am not waiting on a move of God, I am a move of God. ( William Booth)
Amen! Every genuine saint is a move of God, a force of nature, supernature. We are taken up with the Holy Spirit of God and we are the light in the darkness. We are not called to be a light, it has been declared that we are the light, the light of Christ shining through us into the darkness of a world reeling from gross darkness and fear. Saint, there is power in the Blood, the blood of Christ that flows through your veins. You are a move of God!.
People who understand who they truly are in Christ do exploits for their Lord. This is no mere mental assent to an abstract truth. First and foremost, the power of the Living God in us changes us. This is a move of God. And as men see this change in us, they are drawn towards the agent of that change, Jesus. For God to move in the world, He must first move in us. You can cry out from here to eternity for a move of God but unless He is moving in you, you will not see the supernatural God moving. Stop waiting for a move of God and understand that God is waiting for you to move. Christ in you is the agent of change in the world that you inhabit.
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Posted by appolus on November 23, 2020
2Co 2:14 But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.
Every triumph we have we have in Christ. He is our victory and in Him we have victory. If we overcome it is because He overcame. If we love it is because He first loved us. If we forgive it is because we are forgiven by Him. When we weep, we know that He wept first. And when we give comfort to others it is because we ourselves were first comforted by Him. Every good thing, every triumph we have we have in Christ. This is why He leads us in a triumphal procession. And as we follow Him in victory then the world gets to witness the knowledge of Him and His victory over hell and sin and death.
They get to see how He broke every chain and how He healed our broken hearts. Every obstacle removed. They see a new creature in Christ who in Him has taken captive that which had formerly held us captive. We are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus. You see that phrase “in Christ.” This is the key to everything. We must be found “in Him.” Paul suffered the loss of all things to be found “in Him.” And when we are found in Him, then and only then is the fragrance of His beauty and glory and majesty and knowledge spread abroad in the hearts of man everywhere.
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Posted by appolus on November 20, 2020
Eze 47:3 And when the man that had the line in his hand went forth eastward, he measured a thousand cubits, and he brought me through the waters; the waters were to the ankles.
There is a river that flows from heaven itself. It flows through our hearts and beckons us to come deeper. This river is spoken of in many places in Scriptures. It is the presence of God and it brings us deeper into the heart of the Almighty. There are trees on either side of this river and their roots are directly connected to the river and they are perpetually green, evergreen trees for the healing of the people and the nations. The river itself brings healing everywhere it goes. To be walking in the Spirit is to be swimming in the river of life.
As we see in Ezekiel 47, the Lord brings us to through the waters. Always the Lord, compelling His children to come deeper into Him. Not ankle deep, not knee deep or even waist deep but fully immersed in a river so vast that it cannot be crossed, it can only be swum in. We must give ourselves to the river, let go and give way to the current of the Holy Spirit. Whether you are ankle deep, knee deep or even waist deep, you are still standing on your own two feet. In many respects you are still in charge. Yet to give ourselves completely to the river we are no longer standing.
When we are fully given to our Lord. When we are yielded to the depths and the power of this vast river, the power of the Holy Spirit, only then can we truly be led. All resistance is gone in its depths. It is carrying you towards the sea, the vastness of God Himself. Ever closer, ever deeper into the Father’s heart. And the Lord says to to you “come, I will bring you through the waters into the deep.” “Seek me with your whole heart and I shall be found and you shall be rewarded for your diligence, I am your exceeding great reward.”
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Posted by appolus on November 15, 2020
Sanctification. We could spend years speaking on the subject. The shaping of a man or a woman. Imagine a glacier cutting its way through solid granite. In its wake, mountains and valleys and paths for mighty rivers to flow.It moves at its own pace. There is no force in all the world that could stop its inexorable forward progress. It will meet the sea when it meets the sea. And when it is spent, there is a whole world created in its unstoppable often violent wake.
The thing about pain. When you hide a darkness in the deepest recesses of your heart it defies the depths and it shapes every part of who you are. You think that you have compartmentalized it, yet even the deepest chambers of our heart has fissures. No matter how tight the cell door, no matter that it lies at the center of your soul, the darkness bleeds out. It bleeds into every part of who you are.
Then suddenly the light. An impenetrable light that penetrates every part of who we are. All at once? The light of God marches towards the center of your soul. It takes captive every darkness as it makes its inexorable way to the very core of who you are. The light will not co-exist with the darkness. Sanctification will have its way. To the saint of God it is unstoppable as a jealous God takes every part of who you are and shapes you by immense forces beyond your capability of understanding.
I am 17. My wife has almost bled to death in the process of giving birth to our first born son. The cord was wrapped around his neck and she was hemorrhaging. An emergency cesarean section was carried out and our son was born. He was immediately moved to the intensive care unit and there he lay, attached to a machine that breathed for him and who knows what else. And there I sat beside him alone. A heart already darkened by a dark childhood. I will not let this child touch me.
The doctors recommended that he be taken of the life support machine. Two months premature and several minutes without oxygen, they said. The plugs were pulled. Two days he stayed alive. The nurse says “would you like to hold him?” I heard myself saying no. He was dying and I was dead and the gross darkness poured into a ship that had already overturned in violent seas. Stephen died. On the day of his burial they placed a small white coffin on my knee as I sat in the back of the hearse. I felt nothing until the hearse took a corner too fast and I felt Stephen’s body move within the coffin and a gaping hole was violently torn into the very depths of who I was. I would spend many many years plugging that hole.
Ten years later I got dramatically saved. All the years and overlays of the results of my sin were slowly but surely being removed. With every inch, the glacier was slowly reshaping me. Breaking down everything that stood it its path. The force of this change was unstoppable. And very suddenly after many years, the inner chamber was breached. I did not see it coming, I was not even aware of its existence. Yet one moment in a shower, singing praises to God was suddenly and violently replaced with cries from the very depths of my heart. This man, always in control, was not in control. I fought to control the sobs and the racking of my body.
I put my hands over my mouth but could not contain the pitiful noises that were coming from this ancient chamber, locked away for so very long. My poor wife heard me and rushed into the bathroom in time to see me clinging onto the tiled walls. I can still see that look on her face. Total confusion. More than that, she was terrified at what she was looking at. I could not articulate what was going on. Darkness and shame and guilt and pain and sorrow were pouring out of me and there was nothing to be done until it had emptied itself. And just as suddenly as it had begun, it was gone, leaving me physically and mentally exhausted. Yet, I felt so much lighter. A profound change had occurred. It was 15 years in the making but it was now God who was doing the making and He leaves no stone unturned.
The thing about pain, it leaves an indelible mark upon our soul. The thing about change, it uncovers every indelible mark. Sanctification, the process of being set apart and becoming more and more like our Lord means there is no hiding place. There is no chamber that does not belong to Him. Buy an old house and everything left in the attic and the basement belongs to you. We have been bought with a price, everything belongs to the Lord. He is Lord of all, every part of who we are. He is always in the process of changing and renewing and remaking. What could resist a glacier? Who can resist the Lord? The Potter and the wheel and the clay.
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A Call To The Remnant 