By J.Farrell Fisher

July 6-8, 2017

There’s an interesting question Jesus asked while here in His earthly body in Luke 18:8b, “…when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” I’m sure, as a student of the Word, that you’re familiar with Jesus’ words about Old Testament Judaism coming to a close, and how there would be times of great deception, times of great open sin, but it would be foolish to say that Jesus wasn’t concerned about anytime but then when He asked that question!

“Will Jesus, when He comes again, find faith on the earth?” In our time period of human history, are there “good souls unredeemed”? Are there those who’ve never been confronted with why they’re here and why Christ died for them particularly? But we certainly know there are billions of people through history up until now who by His grace, mercy, and love, and through their repentance toward God and faith in Christ’s finished work at the Cross, have been “born again”, becoming a child of the King, “Godly spirits washed in Christ’s blood”!

Unredeemed souls or Godly spirits washed in Christ’s blood? Flesh-bent or Spirit-birthed? Here-and-now citizens of their fleshly kingdoms or the born-again into the Eternal kingdom of Christ? Devotees of the ancient who live in unbelief or the cherished sons and daughters of faith who live in the “washing”? Devotees of the ancient fallen world loving it more than God or the “renewed spirits” of grace and mercy living, yes, in the eternal in, with, and through the Resurrected Christ and Reigning God Almighty on His Throne? The ‘self-serving’ of the immediate present or the “selfless, crucified with Christ” and living to His glory in the here-and-now, AND to celebrate after earthly death in His eternal Presence around the Throne of God?

Unredeemed souls? Good souls as well as evil souls? “Flesh-achievers” who see no value in you as a believer looking to “Another”? “I believe in the supremacy of my existence without any concern about ‘His supposed plan for my life’?” It’s not a ‘modern-movement’ but birthed when Adam and Eve listened to Satan more than to the God who birthed them! Look through human history – you’ll be shocked by the number of people who lived “dreamless existences” apart from the “dreams of God-blessed, eternal meaning and reality, through the “blood-sacrifice” of the Son of God”!

Unredeemed souls? God-less existence? Masters-of-science but void of THE Master of life? Atheistic and atoned for but an believing one content to live ‘life’ apart from Holy God’s intent? It’s amazing to me what I read in Genesis 9:12-17! And God said: “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for the perpetual generations: I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud; and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.

The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth. And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant (the rainbow) which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

Yet how many godless souls are there who never consider the Sovereignty of God and His mercy toward them, yes, “drowning’ in the flood waters of sin and unbelief? How many? Merciful God is ignored, denied, cursed, and unbelievers live in carnal, self-composed, self-centered, self-absorbed thoughts about their ‘fleshly existence’ without a concern at all for the love, grace, and mercy of God! Godless souls, many of them, will live their lives in ‘fleshly, respectable goodness’, while also there are the evil, the morally wrong and shameless, like many known by “their evil dispositions”, unaware of the extent Satan will go to destroy them and all around them who need “blood redemption”! There ARE the “extremists”, yes, even of loyalty to their fallen sin natures!

Unredeemed souls? Some live with an attitude of despicable meanness while others live ‘peaceably’ with their absence of faith; some live, so at peace, with their ‘self-intent’ that they easily develop a ‘fetish’ and ‘worship’ and ‘allegiance’ to their ‘godless ways’! Unredeemed souls seldom, if ever, have any thoughts or inspirations about ‘reliance upon God?’- why, they’ll ask! “You don’t know me or my natural instincts, my incredible virtues, my self-centered personal impulses and incredible inner strengths – who needs your God?”

Unredeemed souls? Their ‘common sense’, besides Satan himself, is their worst enemy! Their ‘common-sense-carelessness’, related to eternal intent, becomes their strong foundation of infidelity, blinding themselves to the fact that their cares of their worldly dreams are as strong and blinding as Satan’s intent to sidetrack them to devotion of the Living God and Loving Savior! Have you ever witnessed in the faithless the despair which erupts when all they’ve worked for becomes meaningless to them? I’ve heard of some of the wealthiest men in the world, when it came time to die, who said, on their deathbeds, “What I worked for, what I gained, what I have now, means nothing to me as I face the grave.”

But it’s more than ‘a grave’ that one has to face! What does Proverbs 11:31 tell us? “If the righteous will be recompensed on the earth, how much more the ungodly and the sinner.” My Holman Study Bible, NKJV, footnote says, “But if God’s impartial judgment begins with the righteous, then the sinner will not escape” his own day before Holy God to give an account of his/her spiritual stupidity! Peter, in 1 Peter 4:18, quoted Proverbs 11:31!

Unredeemed souls? You’ve witnessed it: unredeemed souls walking with a ‘spiritual strut’ in self-pride and arrogance that breaks God’s heart! They major on the ‘common sense of godlessness’, majoring on ‘ordinary wits’, and blinded to the snares of Satan concerning the Lord Jesus’ vicarious intercession at the Cross and His victory over that which keeps unbelievers in their ‘graves of sin and death’!

Unredeemed souls? You are aware that Christ Jesus ‘chose’ the twelve disciples, not because He saw in them superb, ingrained natural abilities able to help Him in His task, but ‘vessels’ to be washed in His blood, crucifying all that they, and us, are in our ‘flesh’, resurrecting “the twelve” and you and me, designating US as “temples” in which His Presence can be manifested, honoring and glorifying His Father!

In Luke 18:31-34 we read, Then Jesus took the twelve aside and said to them (and to you and me?), “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished. For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon. They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.” But they understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken. (Oh, really? But modern-day folks? Neither do they know or understand the things which were spoken!

“They understood none of these things”? Oswald Chambers in “My Utmost For His Highest” (p.159) wrote the following: “God called Jesus Christ to what seemed unmitigated disaster. Jesus Christ called His disciples to see Him put to death; He led every one of them to the place where their hearts were broken. Jesus Christ’s life was an absolute failure from every standpoint but God’s. But what seemed failure from man’s standpoint was a tremendous triumph from God’s because God’s purpose is never man’s.

Chambers continued: There comes the baffling call of God in our lives also. The call of God can never be stated explicitly; it is implicit. The call of God is like the call of the sea, no one hears it but the one who has the nature of the sea in him. It cannot be stated definitely what the call of God is to, because His call is to be in comradeship with Himself for His own purposes, and the test is to believe that God knows what He is after. The things that happen do not happen by chance, they happen entirely in the decree of God. God is working out His purposes.”

Yet how many surround you in your modern world who have no grasp at all of what Holy God had planned through their available lives as they lived unavailable to Him for only what “pleases my flesh”! At the same time, are you aware of those who “pump” their flesh-mindedness of “how pleased God must be to have me with all my talents and gifts available to Him”! Really? Or is it, “They understood none of these things”?

I’ve often wondered how many ‘church folk’ live with a true passion and concern about living out their ‘life in Christ’ in such a way that all honor, praise, and thanksgiving goes to Him because they chose death to their old man and rejoice in the miracle of God’s grace that their “new man in Christ” has become His holy tabernacle and temple through which He’s allowed to be Himself in “vessels” of earthly bodies as the faithful take the sentence of death daily unto themselves that His resurrection life will be manifested in and through their mortal flesh – and that has nothing to do with one’s talents, one’s mind, or one’s willful determination to “be a good Christian”.

Again, Oswald Chambers said: (p.158), “The bravery of God in trusting us! You say – ‘But He has been unwise to choose me, because there is nothing in me; I am not of any value.’ THAT IS WHY HE CHOSE YOU! As long as you think there is something in you, He cannot choose you because you have ends of your own to serve; but if you have let Him bring you to the end of your self-sufficiency then He can choose you to go with Him to Jerusalem, and that will mean the fulfillment of purposes which He does not discuss with you.” (Aren’t you thankful that He only uses ‘empty vessels’ with nothing to brag about but Him?)

“Good Souls Unredeemed Or Godly Spirits Washed In Christ’s Blood”? I’ve always appreciated John Wesley’s writings of great Hymns. One entitled “O For a Thousand Tongues” says in the fourth verse, “He breaks the power of canceled sin, He sets the prisoner free; His blood can make the foulest clean; His blood availed for me.” But you hear the proud unredeemed souls asserting, “Your Savior (?) talks about the power of canceled sin when I don’t have any sin? He sets the prisoner free? I’ve never been in jail! His blood makes the foulest clean? What an insult! His blood was availed for ME? You Christians are mind-warped, brainless, and ‘charmed’ by a charlatan!” That’s many in modern-day America! They have no shame spitting on Christ Jesus, THE Savior and Lord, THE Redeemer, yes, THE ‘restorer’ of men’s souls!

In Psalm 23 David sang: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He RESTORES MY SOUL; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You (Lord Jesus) are with me; Your rod and Your staff they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Do you see, celebrate, rejoice in, rest in, rely upon “The True Shepherd” who restores your soul to eternal intent, with the never-ending promise, “of goodness and mercy following you all the days of your life, assured you’ll dwell in the house of the Lord forever”?

Good souls unredeemed are blinded, by choice, to the declaration of Sovereign Care! Good souls unredeemed are ‘satisfied’ with ‘wilderness wanderings’ rather than “Promised Land Blessings”! Good souls unredeemed are ‘far from Holy God’ constructing their own ‘idols’ of imitation living! Good souls unredeemed make God’s desired plan of heritage an abomination! Good souls unredeemed walk after, live in, invest their lives in that which is actually consuming them with no eternal profit to the honor of God existing for them!

God said, in Jeremiah 2:11-13, “Has a nation (Israel) changed its gods, which are not gods? But My people have changed their Glory for what does not profit. Be astonished, O heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid; be very desolate,” says the Lord. For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns – broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

And how many do you personally know whom “Loving God” led them ‘in the Way’, but they forsook Him and drifted into the wilderness of wickedness, unbelief, and ‘self-idol’ worship – degenerate plants of alien vines, ‘washing themselves in iniquitous soaps thinking they can fool God’, ‘playing the harlot,’ with their backs turned from the only Savior and Lord!

Again, in Jeremiah 2:19-22, God unveils not only Israel, His initial ‘chosen people’, but all men in every nation of the world who live, many, “compromised lives” before Him, and the “many” professing allegiance but are nothing more than “degenerate plants of an alien vine”, so foreign to the nature and character of Christ Jesus!

God’s Word came to Jeremiah saying, “Your own wickedness will correct you, and your backslidings will rebuke you. Know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing that you have forsaken the Lord your God, and the fear of Me is not in you,” says the Lord of hosts.

For of old I have broken your yoke and burst your bonds; and you said, ‘I will not transgress,’ when on every high hill and under every green tree you lay down, playing the harlot. Yet I had planted you a noble vine, a seed of highest quality. How then have you turned before Me into the degenerate plant of an alien vine? For though you wash yourself with lye, and use much soap, yet your iniquity is marked before Me,” says the Lord God.

I want to close this message about “Good Souls Unredeemed Or Godly Spirits washed in Christ’s Blood” with words from Paul the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 1:17-24! The Apostle Paul said: “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.’ (Prudent? ‘Self-figuring of what’s important to them from the best of human nature, but void of God’s Presence within them!). Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe (trust in, rely upon, adhere to). For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God AND the wisdom of God.”

By J. Farrell Fisher, May 29, 2017

There’s an interesting verse in John 4:4 about Jesus “needing to go through Samaria.” He came to Sychar, a city in Samaria, and came to “Jacob’s well.” Jesus, because of His journey was tired and thirsty. He sat down by a well – physical necessity or an eternal appointment? Verse 7 then tells us that “a woman of Samaria came to draw water” and Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.”

The woman of Samaria was shocked! She said, Verse 9, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. In Verse 10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get this living water? Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?”

Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”

Jesus asked the woman at the well to “believe Me,” saying in John 4:23, “But the hour is coming, AND NOW IS, when the true worshipper will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” NO WONDER JESUS SAID TO THE ‘RELIGIOUS’ NICODEMUS: “YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN!”

“If you knew the gift of God…”! Do YOU? Sadly, many have determined for themselves that to earn a gift from God one must work for it, slave for it, earn it by one’s best effort and positive attitude of ‘self-determination’, but I love what Elizabeth Barrett Browning said in her writing long ago entitled “Sonnets From the Portuguese”, (no.26), “God’s gifts puts man’s best dreams to shame.” So true!

I remember a few years ago recording a publicized statement by an ‘active’ homosexual sick man named Mitchell Gold who publicized a diatribe against the Word of God and churches, pastors, and faithful disciples who stand on the Word of God in opposing homosexuality who said: “[They} must be made to take homosexuality off the sin list,” with a New York Time’s writer, Frank Bruni, affirming Gold’s obscene opposition to Holy God’s declaration of the Holy Word, saying, “His commandment is worthy – and warranted.” Gold and Bruni’s ‘word’ or Holy God’s unchanging, eternal declarations in Holy Scripture?

I’m sure you remember when Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. You’ll remember , in Matthew 4:3, when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But in Verse 4, Jesus answered the devil, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” The devil today still wants men believing the ‘stone of sexual immorality, yes, even homosexuality’, can, and is for them “living bread”, when in reality it is the ‘stone of suffocation and self-annihilation’!!

Muddy ‘creek-water’ of men’s fleshly indulgences is not the same as “LIVING WATER” out of the very throne and heart of God! In Matthew 7:13-14 the Lord Jesus said: “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

Difficult is the way which leads to life? The word ‘difficult’ comes from a word meaning, “pressed or crushed” like a grape, but is that the way only for modern-day believers or ‘church-folk’, or have they ignored, even denied, dying to the old man that resurrected life in Christ may be manifested in mortal flesh to the glory of God, not to please ‘flesh’ but to live honoring the King of kings and Lord of lords in obedience to His Word? Don’t you find it strange that much of ‘church life’ today ignores “Take up your cross and Follow Me”?

Didn’t Paul, in 2 Corinthians 1:9, tell us about taking the sentence of death to the old man? It says, “Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead…”?

“If you knew the gift of God…”? That’s words out of the mouth of King Jesus! I find it so illuminating, convicting, and convincing when I read the Word and hear John say in 1 John 2:28-29, “And now, little children, abide in Him, that when He appears, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him.”

Is there ‘confidence’ and ‘unashamedness’ in the life of one who ‘compromises’ His Word and leads a life of, yes, scriptural shame, living without the sentence of death in one’s old flesh, but allowing it to exist in daily allegiance to that ‘flesh’ rather than allegiance to the Indwelling Christ?

“If you knew the gift of God…?” Do YOU? In 1 John 3:1-3 the beloved John highlights truth like a former Babe Ruth hitting one home run after another! He said: “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”

Are YOU called as a child of God, or is it that you ‘just try to be’? Is that ‘trying to be worthy of His gift’ or is it one resting in thanksgiving for His blessed gifts? ‘Trying to be worthy’ is so foreign to one living in thanksgiving because God has blessed him/her beyond measure! The ‘trying-to-be-ers’ are like Martin Luther’s statement: “Therefore God commonly gives riches to foolish people, to whom He gives nothing else.”

“If you knew the gift of God…!” The gift of God? Has the need of divine forgiveness ever surfaced in your spiritual journey? If one is alienated from God because of his/her sin, has there been birthed within that one the awareness of the need of being reconciled to God? In 1 John 1:8-2:2 we read: “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 us 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 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 sins of the whole world.”

“If they knew the gift of God…”! The penalty for the sins of all of mankind was paid for by the shed blood of Christ on Calvary’s Cross – forgiven is an eternal, divine reality, but reconciliation to Holy God still remains for men and women everywhere to exercise! Forgiveness has cleansed the dark side of fallen mankind, but ‘opening the door for His entrance into the hearts of the forgiven’ still remains for every man to act upon! Revelation 3:20-22 says, Jesus speaking, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

What was it James said in James 1:17-18? “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures,” adding in Verses 21-22, “Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. Be DOERS of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” One doesn’t keep the Word of God in order to be saved, but he/she keeps the Word because he/she has been saved!!

“If they knew the gift of God…”! In Acts 3:19-20 Peter declared: “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ who was preached to you before…”, and if God promises on the basis of one’s repentance that He will send Jesus Christ, dare I tell you that the times of ‘refreshing’ is His Holy Presence living within the repentant, re-born life? “Christ in you the hope of glory!”

I would ask you: Have YOU been convicted of your sin, convinced of your old sin nature, horrified that that has produced alienation and separation from God, and also you’ve been made fully aware that without Christ, YOU ARE HOPELESS, related to His eternal purpose of a vessel, temple, tabernacle of Holy Presence? I’d say it’s time to look at God’s offer of repentance toward God and the gift of faith in the finished work of Christ! Maybe Paul’s declaration in 2 Corinthians 9:15 could be your confession and celebration: “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!” I find Acts 11:16-18 so powerful as Peter declared: Then I remembered the word of the Lord, how He said, “John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” If therefore God gave them the same gift as He gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God?’ When they heard these things they became silent; and they glorified God, saying, “The God has also granted to the Gentiles REPENTANCE TO LIFE.” Do YOU know “repentance to life”?

“If they knew the gift of God…”! Yes, praise God, there Is reconciliation through Christ with God the Father, sins washed away by the blood of Christ! But in our journeys of faith there must be THE AWARENESS THAT WE ARE TO BE FILLED WITH ALL THE FULLNESS OF GOD!

In Ephesians 3:14-19 Paul illuminates our understanding in our journey of faith! He said: “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; [Does the Lord Jesus feel at home in you?]; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Is the Lord Jesus, in you, able to do exceedingly abundantly above all you ask or think, according to the resident power of the Holy Spirit that lives in you? Did Paul just tell us that you are “to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man”?

Oswald Chambers wrote in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” (P.151), “When the Holy Spirit comes in, He brings into the center of my personal life the very Spirit that was manifested in the life of Jesus Christ, viz., HOLY Spirit, which is unsullied purity.” What was it Jesus said in Matthew 5:8? “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

I tell you, my heart breaks when I hear ‘professing Christians’ talking about their, yes, self-willed journeys as professing disciples! I want to remind them, as I’ve done many times: “The true faith is all because of the gift and grace of God! We don’t achieve, we receive, we don’t merit – we’re MERCIED, we don’t earn – we have credited to our account ALL that Jesus is and desires to do through us, we aren’t primed or pumped up but are those who through repentance toward God and faith in Christ’s finished work have divine life, divine presence, and divine power poured into us, not a purchase we make but a price paid for our freedom through His shed blood, not a talent we’ve mustered, but His presence that MASTERS through us, not entering man-made doors but allowing the Door to be opened by Christ Himself, not personal initiative but the Prince of Peace’s divine intervention!”

There is a powerful, awakening, enlightening verse in Proverbs 22:11 that says: “He who loves purity of heart and has grace on his lips, the king will be his friend.” And, of course, the Lord Jesus takes us up into heavenly places when He said in John 15:11-16, “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends IF YOU DO WHATEVER I COMMAND YOU. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.”

In the old “The American Hymnal” published in 1933, I came across an old hymn entitled “Friendship With Jesus” authored by Major Ludgate. It says: “A friend of Jesus, O what bliss, That one so vile As I should ever have a friend like this To lead me to the sky . A friend when other friendships cease, A friend when others fall, A friend who gives me joy and peace, A friend when foes assail.

A friend when sickness lays me low, A friend when death draws near, A friend as through the vale I go, A friend to help and cheer.

A friend when life’s short race is o’er, A friend when earth is past, A friend to meet on heaven’s shore, A friend when home at last.

Friendship with Jesus, Fellowship divine, O what blessed, sweet communion, Jesus is a friend of mine.”

Thomas Gray, in “Elegy in a Country Churchyard, The Epitaph”, (st.20), wrote “Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, Heaven did a recompense as largely send: He gave to misery (all he had) a tear, He gained from Heaven (‘twas all he wished) a friend.” Aren’t you thankful, and don’t you rejoice, that you have a Friend in Spirit-Land though you still dwell on earth, content that your Friend is also your Lord, Savior, Protector, Guardian, and the Lover of your soul?

There is an interesting Verse of the Holy Word in Isaiah 26:3 when the prophet spoke, saying, “You (God) will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in you.” But can there be, is there a ‘spirit’ today in many minds AND hearts focused on themselves, “my best”, one’s ‘spiritual determination to live godly’, but ignoring “You MUST be born again”? Dare I tell you that today there IS ‘a spiritual starvation diet’ though ‘devoted’ to “trying” to be acceptable to Holy God, clearly unaware that their old man with its old sin nature was crucified with Christ?

There IS a ‘religious climate’ today where “pretenders” announce their ‘right standing before God’ because “we are fully devoted in our best efforts to honor Him” – “Imitation Allegiance”! – when the Holy Word, through Paul, 2 Corinthians 10:4-6, unveils, not ‘imitation allegiance’ but “Sovereign Birthing”! It says: “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing (in a man’s fleshly mind!) that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.”

Is ‘punishing all disobedience’ the exposing of every lawless deed that raises itself up in one’s disobedience in order to unveil the love, mercy, and grace of God for the spiritually needed, the ‘sinner’, the alienated and separated from God? Of course it is, but “imitators” sense no need to be “witnesses” to a godless generation, but at ‘peace’ that they are a part of the family of God, so no concern for the ‘imitators’ or deniers of Emmanuel, “God with us”!

Our ‘modern-day’ in American- evangelical circles is often guided by ‘suspicions’ rather than Revelatory Truths! Many in ‘modern-day’ religious circles are focused on idols of self-invention and not the Holy Word of God! Oh, they want to be ‘religious’, but ignore the path and Person of “blood redemption”! Look at many in Israel who ‘heard’ biblical Truth but still lived devoted to idols, sexual immorality, and the shedding of innocent blood! Of course, in America today, aborting babies is reasonable without any spiritual consequences! Really? In fact, Isaiah says, in Isaiah 28:15, Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we are in agreement. When the overflowing scourge passes through, IT WILL NOT COME TO US, for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood we have hidden ourselves.”

Does that sound like a ‘life testimony’ based on falsehood, on deception, on the excusing of the sin-nature apart from the blood of the Lamb of God? Does that sound like ‘self or flesh vindication’ and an unwillingness to accept the crucifixion of the flesh and old sin-nature, but acceptance or adapting or affirming one’s independence from God, exalting ‘individuality’ as all their life is and will be without any consideration of divine, eternal intent?

You are aware of the multitudinous assumptions, not only of fallen men but even ‘religious devotees’, who create their own ‘canned faiths’, but are void of Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope! And just because one ‘attends’ a church and ‘professes’ faith does not mean that they are exemplary ‘unveil-ers’ of Christ’s indwelling presence!

I was awakened more to this ‘message-Truth’ when I came across Winston Churchill’s amazing word when serving as England’s stout leader! He said: “Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on,” just being a religious observer apart from ‘You must be born again’!

As I recently opened Isaiah’s prophetic word, in Isaiah 1:2, I was gripped by a convicting passage that I saw relating not only to the nation of Israel but even many ‘church-goers’ across the world! It says: “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! FOR THE LORD GOD HAS SPOKEN: ‘I have nourished and brought up children, and they have REBELLED AGAINST Me!”

“Sovereign Birthing” is not for a ‘believer’s desire’ to be religious apart from being ‘atoned for by the blood of the Lamb’, or ‘new-born’ in the sense that the ‘flesh’ has learned how to ‘perform’ religious leanings, or ‘pretending’, ‘imitating’, or at least ‘leaning’ toward Christian ideas! Isaiah continued in Isaiah 1:4 saying, “Alas, sinful nation (which was the majority of Israel, the chosen people of God!), a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corrupters! THEY HAVE FORSAKEN THE LORD, they have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel, they have TURNED AWAY BACKWARD.”

Walter Chantry wrote a little book full of prophetic truth in 1970 entitled “Today’s Gospel – Authentic or Synthetic?” His ‘Introduction’ began, saying, “Evangelicals know that all is not well in their churches and missions. Behind the façade of glowing missionary reports and massive statistics there is a profound awareness that the church has little power in evangelism. While bravely trying to produce an aura of joy and victory among their followers, church leaders are uneasy and deeply dissatisfied with their present experience and the result of their efforts.”

As a disciple, a church, a pastor, a gathering of the “blood-bought”, certainly there IS a calling ‘out of the world’s ways’ but not abandoning them to their ‘lost estate’! True disciples are called to abandon their self-centered, idolatrous ways, and to faithfully yield to the Lord in submission and obedience to His every Word, including “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”Amen?

Is there ‘rebellion’ today in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ or a serious surrender to His calling with the church touching their world with “saving grace”? Charles Haddon Spurgeon, in his Volume 19, “Spurgeon’s Sermons,” (p.60) wrote: “The true church consists of men who are called, and faithful, and chosen. They are redeemed from among men, and called out from among their fellows by effectual grace. God the Holy Spirit continues to call out, and bring to the Lord Jesus, those who are chosen of God according to the good pleasure of His will.”

I often have wondered, over my, now, 80 years of life, how Acts 1:8 has become so buried in a ‘believer’s’ (?) mind, since you know, sadly, it’s not in most ‘church’ hearts, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” And, sadly, most Christians ‘prove’ their loyalty by church attendance but ignore His “Great Commission”! Are YOU, as a disciple of Christ, the ‘faithful witness’, the ‘ambassador of Christ’, the ‘openers to others’ of the Way, the Truth, and the Life, or do you emit an appearance of only a religious man without identity before God as a faithful sharer of the Truth to your needy friends, family, or a nation’s followers void and empty of Saving Grace and Mercy and Calvary’s love?

Again, Walter Chantry nailed it strong when in his book, (p.11), he wrote about ‘the church’ in our day, and individual Christians, “lowering their estimate of the value of truth.” He stated: “In a large congress on evangelism we could not insist on a truth of God’s Word that would offend ANY brother evangelical. Thus we must find the lowest common denominator to which all born-again Christians hold. The rest of the Bible will be labeled ‘unessential’ for missions. After all, unity (among Christians) is more essential than doctrinal preciseness,” and especially if it means we should be stressing evangelism and witnessing as one of the primary essentials of a “Live” congregation! God, help us!

If YOU did your ‘discipleship’ thesis, what would be your strong points of emphasis, besides one’s fellowship and communion with your Savior and Lord? Would it include “the just living by faith” AND the awareness of those who know nothing of justification, sanctification, and glorification? Come to Romans 1:16-32 – patience, please, as I share these 16 Verses! It says:

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For IN IT (the gospel of Christ!) the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith.’

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse; because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man – and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.”

With that sad word of faithless men’s condition, please hear and receive God’s Word of intent for all men “in Christ”! Colossians 1:12-18 illumines our minds and hearts, granting us mercy and grace! Paul said: “giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He (God!) has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom WE HAVE REDEMPTION THROUGH HIS BLOOD, THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. (Is that so one can continue in it without any consequences? GIVE ME A BREAK! HOW UNGODLY IS THAT?)

He (Christ Jesus) is the image (exact likeness and identity) of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation (new creation!). For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. ALL THINGS WERE CREATED THROUGH HIM AND FOR HIM. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist (or ‘are held together’).

And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, THAT IN ALL THINGS HE MAY HAVE THE PREEMINENCE.” Do you see yourself as a “new creation” in Christ, having been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb? Are YOU “a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in the light (of His eternal glory)”? Have YOU been delivered from the powers of darkness and then, yes, conveyed into the Kingdom of the Son of God’s love? If Christ Jesus says, “You must be born again,” is that true of you? If it pleased Father-God that “in Christ” all the fullness should dwell, are YOU living in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Do you see yourself, new-born, having been conveyed into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love? And that’s here and now, not in the “sweet by and by”!

“IMITATION ALLEGIANCE OR SOVEREIGN BIRTHING”? Isn’t it true that James was inspired to unveil the sin of partial allegiance or obedience? In James 2:14-17 he wrote: “What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,’ but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”

To me, “imitation allegiance” is a half-hearted, compromising, convenient way of declaring ‘salvation in Jesus’ with no evidence of the “new-born life in Christ”! Several things I encourage you to deal with, examining your own mind and heart which God clearly reads:

• TO COMPROMISE THE LORD’S LIFE AND COMMANDS IS TO ACKNOWLEDGE DISOBEDIENCE AND TO STAND UNDER ALMIGHTY GOD’S JUDGMENT! Didn’t Jesus say, “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’, but you do not do what I say?”
• TO COMPROMISE IS TO ACKNOWLEDGE OUR UNDERSTANDING OF ITS CONSEQUENCES, INCREASING OUR ACCOUNTABILITY AND RESPONSIBILITY BEFORE THE GOD OF THE THRONE WHO RULES AND REIGNS IN RIGHTEOUSNESS, AWARE ONE’S OWN CHOICES HAS CONSEQUENCES! “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’ but you do not do what I say?”
• TO COMPROMISE IS TO DECAY OBEDIENCE, BRINGING ON THE OPEN DOOR TO THE DETERIORATION OF BIBLICAL MORALITY AND LORDSHIP HONOR! Do you think the Lord Jesus is pleased if, at least, you do half of what He says?
• TO COMPROMISE IS TO INVITE THE ABSENCE OF BLESSING AND ANOINTING, OPENING THE DOOR AGAIN TO “LIVING UNDER THE CURSE”! David came to the spiritual awareness of what betrayal to Holy God could bring! In Psalm 28 he stared spiritual danger in the face, cried out to Holy God, and was delivered! He said: “To You I will cry, O Lord my Rock: Do not be silent to me, lest, if You are silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit.

Hear the voice of my supplications when I cry to You, when I lift up my hands (in surrender?) toward Your holy sanctuary. Do not take me away with the wicked and with the workers of iniquity, who speak peace to their neighbors, but evil is in their hearts.

Give them according to their deeds, and according to the wickedness of their endeavors; give them according to the work of their hands; render to them what they deserve.

Because they do not regard the works of the Lord, nor the operation of His hands, He shall destroy them and not build them up. Blessed be the Lord, because He has heard the voice of my supplications! The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in Him, and I am helped;

Therefore my heart greatly rejoices, and with my song I will praise Him. The Lord is their strength, and He is the saving refuge of His anointed. Save YOUR PEOPLE, BLESS YOUR INHERITANCE; Shepherd them also, and bear them up forever.”

Reading Spurgeon recently in his “Spurgeon’s Sermons”, (Vol. 19,p.66), Spurgeon wrote and preached, no doubt, about Abram before he became Abraham. He said, God speaking to Abram, “You have left Ur of the Chaldees – the place of open sin; but you have not come to Canaan the holy.” Is that why some “professors of faith” never enter into their Land of Promise because, as Spurgeon said a few sentences later, “They are willing to be saved by the cross of Christ, but they are not willing to take up Christ’s cross, and come right out decidedly upon His side at all times.”

And “compromisers” have not the blessing of perfect peace, abounding joy, intimate fellowship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, but live with ‘religious appreciation’ of “imitation allegiance” but not Heaven’s blessing in and through Christ alone, knowing, yes, “Sovereign Birthing” by the Holy Spirit with “the seed of His eternal Word” blooming in their “new-born” Life in Christ! AMEN?

I’m so impressed with Isaac Watts and George F. Root’s hymn entitled, “There Is a Land of Pure Delight,” – and I believe it’s illumining the “Land of Sovereign Birthing”! It says: “There is a land of pure delight, Where saints immortal reign; Eternal day excludes the night, And pleasures banish pain.

There everlasting spring abides, And never withering flowers; Death, like a narrow sea, divides This heavenly land from ours.

Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood Stand dressed in living green; So to the Jews old Canaan stood, While Jordan rolled between.

But timorous mortals start and shrink To cross this narrow sea, And, lingering, shivering, on the brink, And fear to launch away.

Oh, could we make our doubts remove, Those gloomy doubts that rise, And see the Canaan that we love With un-be-clouded eyes!

Could we but climb where Moses stood, And view the landscape o’er, Not Jordan’s stream nor death’s cold flood Should fright us from the shore.” [Dare I tell you? I’m not frightened by ‘death’s cold flood’ because of Christ in me!

Intellectual Allegiance apart from Internal Transformation is the result of a fallen man’s conviction that ‘what I know about myself mentally easily rebuts anyone’s belief that I need a Savior – I’m OK’, so he/she mirrors ‘intellectual allegiance’ to himself/herself!

Certainly across human history one will find ‘intellectual geniuses’ with, yes, strong, natural capacities of intellect or mental superiorities that establishes them in their world to strongly influence others for good or evil without any consideration of what their influence does for others in the spiritual domain of life as to producing, opening the door, or unashamedly proclaiming every man’s need of “Reconciliation to Holy God”, the Author and Finisher of true faith, OR EVEN UNASHAMEDLY ACKNOWLEDGING NO NEED OF GOD, just one’s best ‘intellectual allegiance to himself’!

One can’t explain ‘intellectual allegiance’ to one’s self, his own dreams and visions, or his influence in his/her world without God as Author and Finisher, unless he/she has accepted the results of godless living now and through all eternity! He/she “sees” through the wrong end of ‘the scope of life’ from fallen humanity’s perspective without any awareness of what “God’s scope of life” has clearly unveiled through the birth of Emmanuel, “God in flesh”, seeing in Christ God’s multiplied mercies, His unending blessings, His abiding PRESENCE in the ‘new heart’ and His extended family of reborn sons and daughters of true faith!

In the Old Testament, 1 Samuel 15:22-23, Samuel said to King Saul, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? BEHOLD, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king.”

Of course, I have to ask! “Are there ‘professors of faith’, yes, even intellectual ‘giants’ about the faith, but men/woman who’ve never truly been born again?(I’m glad that determination will be made by God alone when every man, woman, boy, girl, nations, governments, churches will stand before Holy God to give ‘their’ accounts of their ‘intellectual allegiance’ but, for many, no internal transformation!).

In 2 Corinthians 3:2-6 Paul enlightens many by his “Epistle of Christ”! He wrote: “You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, the heart.” What an awesome, enlightening, encouraging, revealing word! And I would ask, “Have YOU been “born again” by the Spirit of God”?

What did Jesus say in John 3:3-8? “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water [the Water of the Word!] and the Spirit [the Holy Spirit], he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Born of the Spirit is not a matter of ‘intellectual allegiance’! Oswald Chambers, in his book “My Utmost For His Highest”, (p.166), concerning Jesus’ statement, “You must be born again,” (John 3:7), “The answer to the question “How can a man be born when he is old?” is – When he is old enough to die – to die right out to his “rag rights,” to his virtues, to his religion, to everything, and to receive into himself the life which was never there before. The ‘new life’ manifests itself in conscious repentance and unconscious holiness.” A number of things which we all must deal with!

FIRST, INTELLECTUAL ALLEGIANCE WILL BLIND ONE TO HIS PRESENT GODLESS CONDITION! BUT INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION BEGINS WHEN CONVICTION OF ONE’S SIN NATURE BY THE HOLY SPIRIT BRINGS HIM TO AN AWARENESS: “WITHOUT GOD’S SOVEREIGN HELP, I’M FORVER LOST, BUT BY HIS GRACE, MERCY, AND LOVE, I CAN, WILL BE, AND AM BIRTHED TO NEW LIFE!”

In John 1:1-5 the beloved John unveils for us ‘the Eternal Word’, Christ Jesus! “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” The Life of Christ Jesus IS the “Light of Life” but men, in the darkness of their hearts don’t even know they’re “in the dark”!

Before I continue in John 1, I want you to highlight in your own Bible 2 Peter 1:19-21! It says: “And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, WHICH YOU DO WELL TO HEED as a light that shines in a dark place, UNTIL THE DAY DAWNS AND THE MORNING STAR RISES IN YOUR HEARTS; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.”

In Acts 2:22-28 is another awesome declaration of Peter! It says: “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know – Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it. For David says concerning Him:

“I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for He is at my right hand, That I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart rejoiced, and my tongue was glad; moreover my flesh also will rest in hope. For You will not leave my soul in Hades (or among the dead), nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life; You will make me full of joy in Your presence.”

Now, back to John 1:6-16 where John’s continued witness reveals the True Light! It says: There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through Him might believe (or trust in, rely upon, adhere to). He (John) was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name; who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.” And of His fullness we have all received.”

A question concerning your ‘intellectual allegiance or your internal transformation’: “Are YOU salty salt or savorless salt? Are YOU ‘the light of the world’ or a ‘darkened city’? In Matthew 5:13-16 the Lord Jesus spoke to His disciples: “You are the salt of the earth; BUT if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.

You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

SECOND, INTELLECTUAL ALLEGIANCE WILL BLIND ONE TO THE DEMANDS OF DISCIPLESHIP, IGNORING THE HOLY WORD AS TO SUBMISSION TO OUR LORD’S HOLY CALLING IN THE “NEW-BORN LIFE”! There’s an interesting few verses in Luke 9: 57-62 that my NKJV of the Bible reads as follows: Now it happened as they journeyed on the road (I would ask, ‘What road are YOU traveling on?’), that someone said to Him, “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”

Then He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go sand preach the kingdom of God.” And another said, ‘Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.”

But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” Tell me about ‘the plow’ to which your hands are fully placed! What is it that holds you back from full surrender to the King of kings and Lord of lords?

Our Lord AND Savior has no interest in one’s fleshly allegiances – He wants to know: “Will YOU forsake all and follow Me?” He’s not interested in your fleshly distractions – He wants to know: “Will you, are you, have you, forsaken all to follow Me?” Do you understand that ‘selfish concerns’ can blind one to all-out and full surrender to the King of kings and Lord of lords? Jesus had nowhere to lay His head, but how many “professors of faith” do you know who are more concerned about where they lay their heads, what they have to eat, what gives them pleasure, rather than what blesses and honors Jesus in and through my life?

When the calling of Holy God comes upon a man’s life, if a man’s allegiance is one of ‘fleshly determination’, THAT IS NATURAL INTUITION, NOT SOVEREIGN DETERMINATION! But in 1 Corinthians 9:16 we learn of, yes, the awesome, true pattern of one’s self-denial, surrendering to the Lordship of Christ determining for me, for each of us, our eternal purpose, design, and ministry! Paul wrote: “For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for necessity is laid upon me; yes, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!”

Would you dare say, “Whatever Jesus has for my calling in life, I am ready to do that ministry of service?” Yet, for many, the demands of discipleship are the furthermost things from their mental and willful contemplation! And without a doubt, whether one has “a pure heart” or not is, for many, whether intellectually aligned or for some, even if they’ve experienced ‘internal transformation’, not a matter of serious consideration! Yet, Jesus said, in Matthew 5:8, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.”

It was C.A.Tindley who wrote the words and music to an old hymn entitled “Nothing Between.” It says: “Nothing between my soul and the Savior, Naught of this world’s delusive dream; I have renounced all sinful pleasure, Jesus is mine; let nothing between.

Nothing between like worldly pleasure; Habits of life, though harmless they seem, Must not my heart from Him ever sever – He is my all, let nothing between.

Nothing between, even many hard trials, Though the whole world against me convene; Watching with prayer and much self-denial, I’ll triumph at last, with nothing between.

Nothing between my soul and the Savior, So that His blessed face may be seen; Nothing preventing the least of His favor, Keep the way clear! Let nothing between.”

THIRD AND LAST, THERE MUST BE THE AWARENESS OF, YES, THE REALITY OF INTERNAL TRANSFORMATION! Again, what did Jesus tell Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, in John 3: 3? Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,” saying in Verses 5- 6, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water (the water of the Word!) and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’”

And, if one is “born again”, what is the evidence? In fact, in Matthew 7:21, the Lord Jesus said: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who DOES THE WILL OF MY FATHER IN HEAVEN.”

Obedience is not an option – it is THE EVIDENCE of the “new-birth” manifestation! And the evidence of the “new birth” manifestation?

• One is delivered from sin’s penalty, sin’s power, and sin’s perversions!
• One becomes, yes, a “new-born babe in Christ” who has begun an eternal journey into the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
• One is empowered to live the “blessed life in Christ” with the abiding and empowering and anointing of the Holy Spirit!
• One intuitively in Spirit-Anointing knows the difference between “darkness dwelling” and “living in the Light”!
• One understands what Jesus meant when He asked, “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’, but you do not do what I say?”

It was John Greenleaf Whittier who once wrote: “In simple trust like theirs who heard beside the Syrian sea, The gracious calling of the Lord, Let us, like them, Without a word, Rise up and follow Him”! The same author, Whittier, also wrote in “Lucy Hooper” these words: “I have friends in Spirit Land – not shadows in a shadowy band, not ‘others’ but ‘themselves’ are they, And still I think of them the same As when the Master’s summons came.”

Are you a ‘follower’ or a ‘pretender’? I close with words from Charles Churchill in the writing “Independence”, about the Bishop of Gloucester, William Warburton, saying: “He was so proud that should he meet the Twelve Apostles in the street, He’d turn his nose up at them all and shove His Savior from the wall.”

I don’t know Churchill’s source, but I do know that Jesus said: “By their fruits you shall know them.” Tell me about YOUR FRUITS!