“COLLIDING WORLDS – CONQUERING WILL!”
BY: J. FARRELL FISHER, AUGUST 31, 2017
It was written by an anonymous writer in “The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations,” edited and compiled by Frank S. Mead and published by the Fleming H. Revell company, Westwood, New Jersey, with its author saying: “The ship’s place is in the sea, but God pity the ship when the sea gets into it. The Christian’s place is in the world, but God pity the Christian if the world gets the best of him.”
The brother of Jesus, James, in his letter, (James 4:4), wrote: “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God?”, saying in Verse 8, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded,” with a rallying from ‘fleshly defeat’ to “raised to spiritual victory” by “humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.”
Some believers fail to understand Christ’s calling them to Himself is the call to abandon living for the pleasures of a fallen world and called to be, in the world but not of it, Christ’s “ambassadors”, His “point-men and point-women” who shine the Redeemed Light of the Eternal, True Light, yes, Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior Himself!
Brother James said in James 4:13-17, Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall do this or that.” But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Therefore, to him who knows to do good [Extending Christ’s Life, expressing His love, proving His power?] and does not do it, to him it is sin.”
Did Jesus say in Acts 1:8b, “…and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth”? Is repentance and remission of sins to be preached in Jesus’ name to all nations? AND YOU ARE TO BE WITNESSES OF THIS? (Luke 24:47-48).
In Christ Jesus there is the only message of Eternal Hope! God reigns in death, over death, in the gift of repentance toward Him and faith in Christ’s shed blood to wash away our sins, give us a new heart, commissioning us to be His witnesses; God reigns through Christ and YOUR redeemed life in a “new unveiling” of Eternal Life and Eternal Hope and Eternal Power; God gives a gracious Word: “and, lo, I am with you always…”, with us, the redeemed, the re-born, the rescued, the reservoir of Holy Presence, and we’re commissioned with the anointing of the Holy Spirit, Christ Jesus having told about us “in Him” in John 3:12-21!! It says:
“If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him (trusts in, relies upon, adheres to) should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
For God did not send His Son into the world TO CONDEMN THE WORLD, BUT THAT THE WORLD THROUGH HIM MIGHT BE SAVED. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that THE LIGHT has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he WHO DOES THE TRUTH comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”
Lifted up, and crucified with Christ? Lifted up, raised from spiritual death into eternal Life? Lifted up, the old man nailed to the Cross and the “new man” filled with Resurrection Presence? Lifted up, and the past buried and eternal destiny resurrected in the power of God? Lifted up, a meaningless, ‘fleshly life’ nailed in ‘death’, but “spiritual life” new and eternal in Jesus?
Yet around you are those who are “grasping to their world” and letting the Resurrected Christ pass by with no concern at all about “spiritual life now or for eternity”, not realizing that even in unbelief they do have a forever existence but only on Satan’s turf and Satan’s terms!
A colliding world of unbelief? An eternal world of discontent! A world of snared souls bound to the powers of darkness! A despairing world, centered forever in the deepest, most sorrowful, misery of fleshly spirit that has no remedy, no hope, no relief from the engagement with, oneness with, sorrowing unbelievers, sick minds and hearts, crazed disciplinarians called ‘demons’, and then, forever, the belittling, laughing, and enjoyment of Satan seeing the unredeemed with tears of sorrow that will never be washed away!
A colliding world of unbelief? A forever center of ‘unrest’, an eternal weary world with no relief, The Holy Judge’s constant verdict of “Guilty”, sentenced to an ‘eternal life term’ under Satan’s administration and his dangerous demons; if you’re ‘friends of this world’ without any consideration of God’s Kingdom, you’ll have to bid ‘farewell’ to the eternal blessing of, ‘ yes’, “living in the Presence of the King of kings and Lord of lords”! A colliding world with God is a ‘proud’ world of self-indulgence!
A colliding world of unbelief? Who knows how long it took for Holy God to speak our known world into existence without any ‘fleshly presence’(one spoken word, one year, a century, a million years? It doesn’t matter now, but the one thing Sovereign God was concerned about was, He didn’t want a world population of human beings without the “free will” of choosing to live under His loving authority or under their own “fleshly determination” to be birthed amazingly in the Spirit as “temples of Holy Presence” in Christ’s resurrected presence or not! “Christ in you the hope of glory!”
There’s a quote of Herrick Johnson in the “Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations,” (p.475) that says: “Buying, possessing, accumulating, this is not worldliness. – But doing this in the love of it, with no love to God paramount – doing it so that thoughts of God and eternity are an intrusion – doing it so that one’s spirit is SECULARIZED in doing it – this is worldliness.” And around you walk many ‘secularists’ who are not interested in God’s holiness or the possibility of their own holiness, but only interested in “my fleshly world I truly love indulging in!”
There is no true, enduring, life-change in one’s love of his/her world if it doesn’t open the mind’s and heart’s door of the need to be reconciled to the God who created the world and is ready and willing to take ‘flesh’ by repentance toward Him and faith in His Son’s holy work at the Cross and empty tomb and “birth” a “new life” in and through the Holy Spirit! No awareness of His great love for you personally – no “new creation Life in and through His Spirit”; No understanding of His unending singing of His song of mercy and grace – no reality of “born again, born the second time, born of the Spirit”; No sensitivity to His ‘knock’ on your heart’s door – no opening by you in true repentance and trust in His forgiveness; no ‘feather-bed’ of the ‘gift of redemptive faith’, no resurrection from spiritual death to His ‘gift’ of eternal life in Christ alone!
Christ Jesus was, and still is, the Savior of the world through “blood redemption”, rejected by men who despise Him, deny Him, and seek to silence any who proclaim Him, but His Resurrection Life still walks in our world today, and true believers are at His feet faithfully worshipping, morning, noon, and night!
I pray that you’ve already discerned in your journey of true faith that though the “colliding world of unbelief” still exists around you, YOU WILL BE A PORTION OF HIS ARMY OF FAITH INTENT ON PROCLAIMING, UNVEILING HIS CONQUERING WILL!
In Matthew 20:17-28 the Lord Jesus spoke to the twelve disciples as He began to make His way to Jerusalem, knowing what would soon take place. Christ Jesus said: “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; (the religious leaders of the Judeo system!), and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him to the Gentiles to MOCK and to SCOURGE and to CRUCIFY. And the third day He will rise again.”
Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Him with her sons, kneeling down and asking something from Him. And Jesus said to her, “What do you wish?” She said to Him, “Grant that these two sons of mine may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on the left, in Your kingdom.” [At least this mother KNEW the reality of the establishment of THE ETERNAL KINGDOM OF CHRIST JESUS!!].
But Jesus answered and said, “You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They said to Him, “We are able.” So Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink My cup (Are YOU presently ‘drinking of His cup’ taking the sentence of death unto yourself DAILY that His Resurrection Life may be MANIFESTED IN YOUR MORTAL FLESH?), and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with; but to sit on My right hand and on My left is not mine to give, but it is those for whom it is prepared by My Father.”
And when the ten heard it, they were greatly displeased with the two brothers. But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave – JUST AS the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
What about our “modern world”, and especially as it relates to “disciples of Christ” in the midst of much societal unbelief and disregard for His Holy Word? There are “street gangs” out to destroy faith, mercy, and love, rather than “strong men” of humble faith, loyalty, and service to others! There are the “intellectually superior” who know nothing about God’s mercy and grace! And, sadly, there are the “religiously deceived and spiritually un-birthed” who know nothing about “Spirit- conviction, Spirit-birthing, and Spirit-anointing”, absent of the Spirit’s delight in submissive servants honoring Christ Jesus in their daily walks, ministries, intercessions, and “rest” in the Resurrected Christ’s presence within them!
It was an amazing statement that William Shakespeare made in his writing, “Henry V111”, (Act 111, sc.2,l.456), when he said, “Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, He would not in my age have left me naked to my enemies.” Our unveiled awareness of our sin is when, having professed faith in Christ, we look within but see “no servant-grace or spirit” but only compromised lives walking both sides of the street! That, my friends, IS spiritual disaster, not flesh-promotion in the Spirit-realm!
BUT, THERE IS, BY GOD’S GRACE AND MERCY, HIS “CONQUERING WILL”! What a thrilling revelation in Romans 6:15-18 when Paul wrote: “What then ? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? CERTAINLY NOT! Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, WHETHER OF SIN LEADING TO DEATH, OR OF OBEDIENCE LEADING TO RIGHTEOUSNESS? But God be thanked that though YOU WERE SLAVES OF SIN, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. AND having been set FREE FROM SIN, you (Did YOU?)) became slaves of righteousness.”
Are YOU “under grace”? Have you “presented yourself to Christ as a ‘slave’ to obey” or an independent unbeliever ‘doing as you damn well please’? Do you know to whom you are loyal? To Satan or the Savior? Is your ‘life-style’ Hell-bound or Heaven-oriented? Are you “free from sin” or still a slave to your old sin-nature – it IS NOT BOTH WAYS!!
There are powerful enlightening Verses in 1 John 1:6-2:2; John wrote: “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice (or walk in) the truth. BUT if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from ALL SIN. (Living in sin is evidence one is not living in and through Christ Jesus!).
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. 2:1-2, “My little children, these things I write to you, SO THAT YOU MAY NOT SIN. And, (per chance), if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.”
Sin has been forgiven for every man, past, present, or future! Does that mean all are no longer accountable for sin’s penalty? Absolutely! But it doesn’t mean every forgiven man is a true disciple! Forgiveness has opened the door for one to choose ‘Life in The Spirit’ where Christ Himself chooses to reside, if a forgiven man desires to be the Holy Temple of His Resurrected Presence! Don’t be deceived: billions have been forgiven but, “Few there be who become vessels through which Christ chooses to be Himself in them and through them! Christ Jesus IS the Lamb of God that took away the sin and guilt of all fallen humanity, but that doesn’t mean all men, now forgiven, choose to be the ‘vessel’ in which the Resurrected Christ chooses to be Himself”!
What did we see in 1 John 1:7? “BUT if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
Hear Oswald Chambers! (“My Utmost For His Highest”, p.268). “To mistake conscious freedom from sin for deliverance from sin by the Atonement is a great error. No man knows what sin is until he is born again. Sin is what Jesus Christ faced on Calvary. The evidence that I am delivered from sin is that I KNOW THE REAL NATURE OF SIN IN ME. It takes the last reach of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, that is, the IMPARTATION OF HIS ABSOLUTE PERFECTION (abiding in you!), to make a man know what sin is.” So true! As a result, are you “walking in the light as He is in the light?” And, if you truly know liberty and freedom from the power of sin in your old man, if Christ in you is the hope of glory, does that include “no longer servants of sin, but servants of my Lord and Savior, free from the bondage, burden, and belittling of one’s enemy, Satan, till accusing you of less than you are in Christ”? “Rise Up, Men of God, have done with Satan’s slurs and mockings, and daily rejoice in your “new man citizenship in the eternal Kingdom of Christ Jesus, Emmanuel, “God in flesh”!!”Amen?