OR KINGDOM OBEDIENCE?”

By: J.Farrell Fisher, January, 2018

By: J.Farrell Fisher, July 21-22, 2017

You are aware, I’m sure, of how the Jews in Jesus’ day were well-trained in Jewish traditions, yet the majority of Jews in Jesus day were the ones who participated in or ordered Jesus’ crucifixion! They “heard” the Word, learned certain “truths” about it, but never read the heart of God or His eternal purpose in and through Christ Jesus as revealed in both Old Testament prophecies and New Testament realities!

Acts 4 is an important chapter as I seek to lay the foundation for this message! It says in Acts 4:1-12, Now as they (the first, new disciples!) spoke to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees (“Sad-you-see”, refusers of belief and trust in Christ as Lord and Savior!) came upon them, being greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.

And they laid hands on them, and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. However, many of those who heard the word believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand.

And it came to pass, on the next day, that their rulers, elders, and scribes, as well as Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the family of the high priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem. And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, “By what power or by what name have you done this?”

Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders of Israel: If we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man, by what means he has been made well, let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands before you whole.

This is the ‘stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’ (Psalm 118:22). Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

Would YOU say that these early fishermen who became followers, disciples, servants of Christ, as “disciplined students”, didn’t simply “practice” the Faith, but lived it out in and through their availability to the Indwelt, Ruling, Reigning, King of kings and Lord of lords, who made, by His mercy, grace, and love, their physical, forgiven, blood-washed bodies into His Holy Temple and Heavenly Hospital of saving, healing, delivering, re-birthing needy souls as His earthly presence, to continue touching a needy world around YOU with His Holy Presence IN YOU AND THROUGH YOU?

“Disciplined students” are not the ‘well-trained’ in biblical principles but the “well-served, finished with themselves, only offering their bodily presence for Christ to be Himself in them and through them”! I don’t know of a more hypocritical thought than one who believes, “How grateful God must be to have me on His team since I am the great performer of Christ-likeness!” It’s not performance but Christ’s Presence that must be our testimonies: “Christ in us, Christ through us,” as Paul instructed us about the ‘mystery’ in Colossians 1:26-28, saying, “the mystery which has been hidden from ages and generations, but now has been revealed to His saints (Those who are “set apart”). To them GOD WILLED to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is CHRIST IN YOU, the hope of glory. Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect IN CHRIST Jesus.”

How ‘shocked’ were you when you read and re-read John 2:23-25? Now when He (Christ Jesus) was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did. BUT Jesus did not commit Himself to them because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, FOR HE KNEW WHAT WAS IN MAN.

Our Lord and Savior explained in John 3:16-21 the Lord Jesus said: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him (trusts in, relies upon, adheres to, fully surrendering all rights in one’s self and full trust in Who Christ is and what He desires to do through you) 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 (trusts in, adheres to, relies upon) 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.” (Do you think that this just may be why Paul said what he did in 1 Corinthians 15:31, “I DIE DAILY”?)

And didn’t Paul add in 2 Corinthians 1:9, “Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead”?

Christ Jesus knew what was in those early disciples, and He still reads men’s hearts today as if they were wide-opened books for all to read! He didn’t commit Himself to those ‘partial believers’ who assumed their ‘fleshly bodies’ were worthy of His blessing and forgiveness – but Christ Jesus turned THEM away!

“Disciplined Students”? Luke 14:25-33 speaks of Jesus telling the great multitudes (!!) who followed Him, turning to them and saying to them, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear HIS CROSS and come after Me cannot be My disciple.

For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, (Have you truly been seated before Christ, determining the cost of full surrender unto His Lordship, AND have YOU taken the sentence of death unto yourself that His Resurrection Presence will be manifested in YOUR mortal flesh?”), whether he has enough to finish it – lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish’? Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace. So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.”

Paul made a highly interesting and convicting statement in 1 Corinthians 7:35, saying, “And this I say for your own profit, not that I may put a leash on you, but for what is proper, and that you may serve the Lord without distraction.” DISTRACTION? How many examine the true faith and only see Jesus ‘wanting slaves to Him’ when in reality He passionately longs for “servants”. He said of Himself, “I didn’t come to be served, but to serve and to give my life a ransom for many.” Christ Jesus was a “foot-washer, not a pew sitter”! Christ Jesus was a servant, not a ‘slave driver’! Christ Jesus WAS the sacrifice, not a proud, self-centered, cruel ruler demanding your unrelenting devotion to, often, an earthly king’s insane demands on his citizens! But consider the “distractions” of imitators, of “professors” of a faith that omits, or overlooks repentance toward God and faith ONLY in Christ’s Resurrection Presence within their “blood-washed” hearts and minds and surrendered wills only to His Lordship!

In 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 the heavenly blessed, humbled Paul, wrote: “For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be a partaker of it with you.”

You’ll find it very interesting that Paul also said in Hebrews 10:39, “But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.” In fact, earlier, in Ephesians 6:6, he said, “not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart…”

There are those who have drawn back to perdition! There are those who are ‘man-pleasers’, not servants DOING THE WILL OF GOD OUT OF THE OVERFLOW OF THE HEART OF CHRIST IN THEM!!! There are those who are religious, strong-willed, intense imitators, who pat themselves on their backs about their ‘devotion to the Christian ‘church-faith’, but in their innermost being are the award winners of ‘play-acting’ by their best efforts and know nothing about “crucified with Christ” and “raised by the convicting, converting power of the Holy Spirit” to prepare YOU to be His earthly, home-outreach in ministering in you, to you, and through you!

Follow Paul in 1 Corinthians 2:1-16! “And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. FOR I DETERMINED not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

However, we (Paul and the early Apostles) speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written:

“Eyes has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.

These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual (like: “You are not your own but have been bought with a price, even the shed blood of the Lamb of God!”). But the natural man (unbeliever, ‘sinner’, captive of Satan!) does not receive the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him (while in 1 Corinthians 3:19 Paul declared under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God!”); nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned (emphasizing Jesus’ words in John 3:19-21, “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 (and through) God.”), Paul continuing in 1 Corinthians 2:15-16, But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no man. For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” BUT we have the mind of Christ,”

And true disciples wait upon the guidance and leadership of the Holy Spirit in the Spirit’s witness through us, not impulsive, self-directing ‘believers’, but vessels through which the Holy Spirit honors, guides, and glorifies Christ through us!!!

I ask YOU: “Are YOU a “disciplined student AND a delighted servant” living in the light of the glow and glory and submission to Christ’s Resurrection Presence IN YOU? By Christ’s precious blood He purchased through His cross the title deed to ownership of your life – He bought you out of Satan’s bondage and your sinful nature ownership to be “A Child of the King”! Have you “bid farewell” to your old self-controlled life to submit yourself to the sovereignty of “Christ in you”, to the King of kings and Lord of lords? If so, why not “walk in Him, your only hope of glory, blessing, and never-ending satisfaction if His precious, eternal Presence?

By J. Farrell Fisher, June 12-14, 2018

Years ago Thomas Carlyle, in “Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches,” (Vol.5, Pt.10), wrote, “Blessed are the valiant that have lived in the Lord.” When I read his statement, I wondered how much cruel opposition did he face asserting one “lives in the Lord” when most of the church hundreds of years ago and even today “profess” ‘living FOR the Lord’! And there is an eternal difference in “attempting to live for the Lord” and, yes, “living in the Lord”! “Living in the Lord” requires “resting in His death, burial, and resurrection”, while “living for the Lord” is “flesh”, “best effort”, “trying” rather than trusting in what Jesus has done for us!

In “Macbeth”, William Shakespeare wrote: “I had most need of blessing, and ‘AMEN’ stuck in my throat.” Yes, he seemed to realize that the Savior and Lord, did His marvelous work and ministry of “saving grace” through His shed blood, death on the Cross, burial, and resurrection, AND “IT IS FINISHED!” I Repent and Thank Him for His mercy and grace, granting to “trusting hearts” His mercy, His grace, His forgiveness, His abiding Presence, making the repentant heart His eternal home and reigning and ruling through that available residence of ALL HE IS IN HIS RESURRECTED PRESENCE!

Do YOU find it amazing that in Job 19:23-26 that Job wrote these verses? “Oh, that my words were written! Oh, that they were inscribed in a book! That they were engraved on a rock with an iron pen and lead, forever! FOR I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh (Resurrected?) I shall see God.” Glory!

Oh, but there are ‘Pharaohs’ throughout human history! In Exodus 5:1-2 we read: Afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness.’ And Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go.”

Come to John 8:48-59! It’s shocking and amazing to read of the descendants of Abraham, the Jewish ‘natural’ community who had nothing to do with King Jesus, but to see Him rejected by them, crucified, and buried! It’s like ‘modern-day’ citizens of darkness who “still want Jesus crucified and in a grave” – “Nothing about Him for us!” Does that sound familiar around you of voices denying The Lordship of Christ? “Nothing about Him for us!” The Word says:

Then the Jews answered and said to Him, “Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?” (INCORRECT!!). Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon; but I honor My Father, and you dishonor Me. And I do not seek My own glory; there is One who seeks and judges. Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death.”

Then the Jews said to Him, “Now we know that You have a demon! Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and You say, “If anyone keeps My word he shall never taste death.” Are you greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? And the prophets are dead. Who do You make Yourself out to be?”

Jesus answered, “If I honor Myself, My honor is nothing. It is My Father who honors Me, of whom you say that He is your God. Yet you have not known Him, but I know Him. And if I say, ‘I do not know Him,’ I shall be a liar like you; but I do know Him and keep His word. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”

Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, “I AM.” Then they took up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.

Do YOU understand that just as with the unbelieving, religious Jews, that all around the world, yes, even in ‘religious’ communities, there are those ‘professing’ Christ who’ve never been claimed by Him to truly be His children of the true, eternal FAITH that saves, transforms, indwells, and, yes, gives eternal glory to the God of Calvary’s Cross and the empty tomb?

Hear Christ Jesus in Matthew 7:21-23!! “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. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!”

I hate to be the one to tell you if you’ve never truly “heard Truth”, but, yes, have ‘practiced Christ’, even reaching out to needy people enslaved to the powers of darkness, and, yes, casting out demons, but Jesus said that THAT is no true defining of His disciples! It’s not what “they (“professing disciples” or what “true disciples do” but true Biblical ministry of “WHO HE IS” in defined residence of the repentant heart because of their choice of “death to self” that the Resurrected manifestation of Divine Presence has entered the true tabernacle of a repentant man’s heart and JESUS is free TO BE HIMSELF in a life possessed of His Presence, fully surrendered to, yes, simply being the earthly dwelling of the awesome Christ Jesus – true biblical spiritual ministry is daily taking the sentence of death to yourself, so Christ Jesus may be manifested, unveiled, being Himself in you!

In Colossians 1:24-29 Paul says illuminatingly (!), “I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God, the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints.

To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which IS Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present EVERY MAN PERFECT IN CHRIST JESUS.” “Every man perfect in Christ Jesus” is not because of what men choose to do in trying to honor Him by the best of flesh effort, but willfully allowing one’s life in bodily presence where Jesus “knocked”, your door was opened through repentance and faith, and the Resurrected Christ found the repentant, new-born life, the residence where He could be Himself through you, not you trying to be “Christ-like”! America and the world has witnessed enough of ‘cheap imitation’ – they must see Christ Himself in you, allowed to express Himself in and through an available vessel!

Forgiven lives, repentant hearts, truly redeemed minds, men “finished” with themselves, men accepting the eternal Truth of “crucified with Christ”, ‘old man gone’, “new man” birthed by the Holy Spirit with the re-born life willing to be, yes, the structural housing where the Prince of Peace births a ‘Holy Temple’, enabling Him to reach out to a lost world, to spiritually ‘dead’ individuals, and through YOU to exercise His miraculous power to speak Life into the ‘dead’!

But, as in Old Testament times and in New Testament actual historical times and through the ages of human existence up into our ‘modern-world’, what Jeremiah in his prophetic time period saw, one can update it even to today across America and any corner of the world globe. The ‘history’ of modern-men as ‘pretenders’ to revealed Truth is astounding!

Examine Jeremiah 6:10, Verse 13-15, Verses 16-19, Verses 27-30!! Get Ready!! It’s as relevant today as when Jeremiah bravely proclaimed the “Word of the Lord” in his day! Jeremiah 6:10, “To whom shall I speak and give warning, that they may hear? Indeed their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot give heed. Behold, the word of the Lord is a reproach to them; they HAVE NO DELIGHT IN GOD’S WORD.” [Are you aware that there are multitudes of Holy Bibles in ‘professing’ Christians’ homes that are seldom opened, but are only used as a table-decoration? Yet the Lord and His Holy Word says it is “the bread of life”, it is spiritual sustaining milk, and it IS the “spiritual meat” from the mind and heart of God for Christ to use as He works with much in you or little Word in you!]. Why is that?

Jeremiah 6:13-15, “And their houses shall be turned over to others; For I will stretch out My hand against the inhabitants of ‘church property’,” says the Lord. Because from the least of them even to the greatest of them, everyone is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even to the priest, everyone deals falsely. They have also healed the hurt of My people slightly, saying ‘Peace, peace!’ When there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not ashamed at all; nor did they know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time I will punish them, they shall be cast down,” says the Lord.

Jeremiah 6:16-19, Thus says the Lord: “Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; then you will find rest for your souls. But they said, “We will not walk in it.” Also, I set watchmen over you, saying, ‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’ (Joel 2), But they said, ‘We will not listen.’

Therefore hear, you nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them. Hear, O earth! Behold, I will certainly bring calamity on this people – the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not heeded My words nor My law, but rejected it.

Jeremiah 6:27-30, “I have set you as an assayer and a fortress among My people, that you may know and test their way. They are all stubborn rebels, walking as slanderers. They are bronze and iron, they are all corrupters; (or an unholy mixture!). The bellows blow fiercely, the lead is consumed by the fire; the smelter refines in vain, for the wicked are drawn off. People will call them rejected silver, because the Lord has rejected them.”

How many modern, Sunday preachers, or week-day “professors of faith” have you witnessed – and your heart is broken, because even the “compromisers”, in their frustration and anger with the Truth-tellers is so gross that they’d just as soon also see the sold-out citizens of the kingdom ‘crucified’!

I’m sure that, at least, you understand what Paul wrote about in 2 Corinthians 11:13-15! He said: “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great things if his ministers (‘servants’) also transform themselves into ministers (servants’) of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.” (Is that imitation works, pretense works, similar but not the same, as Christ Himself through them!!).

“KNOWING”? In John 14:6-7 Jesus said: “I AM the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”

Did Job 19:25 jump at your mind and lay hold of your heart? “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and HE SHALL STAND AT LAST ON THE EARTH…”; Crucified, died, buried on the earth, but after 3 days the Father raised Him up from the grave, standing Victorious over sin and death!

Come with me to 1 John 5:9-15! “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which He testified of His Son. He who believes in (“trusts in, relies upon, adheres to”) in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son. And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life (IN THE HERE AND NOW – NOT IN THE ‘SOMEDAY-PIE-IN_THE_SKY MENTALITY”!!), and that you may continue to believe in (trust in, rely upon, adhere to!) the name of the Son of God.

Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.” THAT’S “KNOWING”!! But, yes, beyond “knowing” is:

“RECEIVING”: In Proverbs 1:2-5 we read: “To know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding, TO RECEIVE THE INSTRUCTION OF WISDOM, justice, judgment, and equity; To give prudence to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion – a wise man will hear AND increase learning, and a man of understanding will attain wise counsel.”

Dare I tell you that the man of understanding who attains wise counsel is the true believer “guided and taught” by the Holy Spirit? In John 14:15-18 we read first about receiving scriptural, eternal Truth! Jesus said of the Holy Spirit, “If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give Me another Helper, that He may abide with you forever – the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you AND WILL BE IN YOU. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.”

Notice Verses 25-26 where Jesus also said, “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” True for disciples then – true for disciples NOW! “KNOWING”, “RECEIVING”, but what about “RESTING” in the Lord?

“RESTING”? In Matthew 11:28-30 we read: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will GIVE YOU REST. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” HAVE YOU TRULY “RESTED IN CHRIST” or still heavily involved in “trying your best”, which He crucified?

The burden of separation from God is gone, even if you’ve ever gotten to that awareness in your heart and mind! The burden of the ‘sinful mind and heart’ is erased by the conviction of the Holy Spirit, the awareness and appropriation of the shed blood of the Lamb of God, the certainty of understanding that it was because of YOUR sin and sin nature that Jesus died on the Cross, and because of the gift of repentance and the grace of mind-understanding of what He did for you at Calvary, and activating the “gift of repentance”, you learn to lean on “Jesus Only”!

I close this message with Hebrews 3:7-15! It says: Therefore, AS THE HOLY SPIRIT SAYS: (Do YOU allow the Holy Spirit to teach you God’s Word?), “Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness, Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, and saw My works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways.’ So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’

Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today”, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, while it is said: “Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

Oh, what does the Word then say in Hebrews 3:18-19? “And to whom did God swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? SO WE SEE that they could not enter in because of unbelief.” At the same time, dare I tell you? Believe I will! “True, redemptive, saving faith is the act, practice, and walk in submissive obedience to the words of King Jesus, yes, His every command!

And, I believe that’s why Paul said: “I take the sentence of death daily that the resurrection life of Christ may be manifested in my mortal flesh.” (1 Corinthians 15:31b) Amen? DO YOU “CHOOSE DEATH DAILY” THAT CHRIST BE REVEALED IN YOU AND THROUGH YOU?

BY: J.FARRELL FISHER, NOV. 11-13, 2017

“Length of age”? At the present time period, I’m 81 years of age on my way to 82 in about 7 months, having outlived “Papa” Fisher who died at 78 and my father, Jim Fisher, who died at 78 years of age! I think I have more Lemons’ genes than Fishers because “Pappa” Lemons lived to about 94; oh, and my Dad’s mother lived to 102! So in physical ‘age-traits’, I have some of both sides of the family. But, when it comes to “quality of life”, that, my friends, is a huge question mark, because I do not see “length of age” as a legitimate indication of “quality of life”!

As a pastor of churches for over twenty years and then missions for another twenty-five years, I witnessed some ‘children’ age-wise who understood and lived out the vibrant ‘quality of life’ even stronger than many aged-men who ‘professed’ faith but had no “Fire” in their bones! I’m all in for a lengthy ‘length of age’, but it’s Holy God on the Throne who can ‘end’ or ‘extend’ as He sovereignly chooses!

It may be that with the psalmist we need to learn, rest in, and live by: “This is the day the Lord has made; I will rejoice and be glad in it!” In Psalm 119:33 the psalmist said: “Teach me, O Lord, the way of Your statutes, and I shall keep it to the end,” even requesting in Verses 34-37, “Give me understanding, and I shall keep Your law; (In Old Testament days, the “law” was engraved on stones to be observed; in New Testament days, the “law” is engraved on our hearts and in our minds!); indeed, I shall observe it with my whole heart.

Make me walk in the path of Your commandments, for I delight in it. Incline my heart to Your testimonies, and not to covetousness. Turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things. And revive me in Your way.”

“Revive me in Your way?” For Holy God who IS the Almighty on the Throne, is His concern for YOU the length of your age OR the quality of your life? Do you realize that Holy God knows what HAS your mind, heart, and spirit of life, whether it’s the worthless or valuable quality of life?

Interesting passage in 2 Chronicles 1:11-12! Then God said to Solomon, “Because this was in your heart, and you have not asked riches or wealth or honor or the life of your enemies, nor have you asked for long life – but have asked wisdom and knowledge for yourselves, that you may judge My people over whom I have made you king – wisdom and knowledge are granted to you; (Is God ‘the same’ yesterday, today, and tomorrow?); wisdom and knowledge are granted to you; and I will give you riches and wealth and honor, such as none of the kings have had who were before you, nor shall any after you have the like.” [Are there “The Chosen” and the “Not chosen”?].

Question! “Is there STILL God examining our “hearts” to see what truly has them, whether His eternal purpose or our fleshly pleasures, His eternal design or our instinctive, fleshly aims and ambitions, His eternal PLAN or our ‘self-determined’ desires, ambitions, or ‘self-centered’ awards?” HOLY GOD NEVER CHANGES – the “same, yesterday, today, and forever”! Are you a “stickler” for old age, but void concerning submission and obedience to the King of kings and His instructive Word for true disciples?

It was G.A.Young in the 1930’s who wrote a hymn entitled “God leads us Along”. It says: “In shady green pastures, so rich and so sweet, Where the water’s cool flow bathes the weary ones feet, God leads His dear children along.

Sometimes on the mount where the sun shines so bright, God leads His dear children along; Sometimes in the valley, the darkest of night, God leads His dear children along.

Tho’ sorrows befall us, and Satan oppose us, God leads His dear children along; Thru grace we can conquer, defeat all our foes, God leads His dear children along.

Away from the mire and away from the clay, Away up in glory in eternity’s day, God leads His dear children along.

Some thru the waters, some thru the flood, Some thru the fire, but all thru the blood; Some thru great sorrow, but God gives a song, In the night season and all the day long.”

What has really been the testimony of your “faith walk In Christ” or your “faith walk without Him”? Joshua had questions for all men but especially to those of “professing faith” or of “possessing faith”? Joshua 24:14-15 we read: “Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord! And if it seems evil to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Hear me! Every man, woman, and child is “led” to believe and does serve some kind of god! There are ‘gods’ and there IS the one, true, Living God who desires to be worshipped, blessed, and served by “sold-out” servants TO the King of kings and Lord of lords, not to the gods of men’s flesh-minded inventions! There are vague, ‘flesh-adorned’ thoughts of God but they don’t draw anywhere near to Biblical Truth, though the proponents would argue until their dying days their position is Biblical Truth “whether God likes it or not”!

Even atheists and unbelievers have “theologies” whether they’d ever admit it or not! There are “graced theologies” and “gritted theologies” – that’s men under God’s administration or men under their “best effort” mentality! There is INTERSECTION with God and man, but also there is INSURRECTION because some oppose any relationship with Holy God, and especially if ‘beginning’ is through “the shed blood of the Lamb of God and Him alone!”

Lives without Christ as Lord and Savior and Master of the “new-born” life are men and women, boys and girls, strongly influenced by devilish activity, choosing their “own tents” with no recognition of accountability before Holy God the Creator and Redeemer! For the spiritually unborn, they choose a fragmented ‘faith’ that has no responsibility before the God who made them, lost them, and even bought them out of their ‘bondage, but choose to live “on my own”! And if one shuts Holy God out, they open the door to buy into anything their fleshly mind and will can allow, and does – and the eternal “death-nail” is ready to shut the eternal door tight, away from God, if the Intercessor is not allowed to intervene! (And do you understand? Even in Protestantism, some believers have ‘professed’ Christ while they walk with one foot on the path of faith and the other foot firmly given over to “flesh avenue” – and in the Holy Word, that doesn’t soar into heavenly places!).

But the question of this moment in YOUR journey: “Length of Age or Quality of Life?” In 2 Timothy 3:1-5 is a convicting word that no doubt related to ‘early Jewish believers’ before and during Paul’s time of ministry but has a challenging Word for men today in our modern times since “All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable to all men…!” It says:

“But know this, that in the last days (of Judaism?) perilous times will come: (I’m 81 years of age – and without a doubt, I say to you, WE are living in perilous times!) For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents (especially students (some), before school teachers today, because many come from one parent homes!), unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!”

In our ‘modern-day’ there is far more emphasis on “Length of Age” than there is on “Quality of Life”, understanding that I am using “Quality of Life” as THE WAY OF LIFE in and through repentance toward God and faith in Christ Jesus’ finished work in and through the Cross and His Empty Tomb Resurrection! There’s a challenge in Ephesians 6:3 about honoring your father and mother which says, “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.” And, certainly, but sadly, there are those who had fathers and mothers who lived ‘long lives’ but were spiritually faithless in that long journey. At the same time, I also say, there are those whose parents lived victoriously the “Life in and through Christ” and were faithful examples to their children.

Having come from a broken home, my parents divorcing when I was three years of age – and I was taken by my mother to her parents who cared for me for nine years when my mother married again, and I was taken to live with her and my step-father. But my grandparents had two other daughters still at home, one only three years older than me and the other about ten years older than me – and besides my faithful grandparents, their two daughters still at home became dynamic Christian witnesses, nurturing me strongly in the “true faith”!

Paul also said, in Ephesians 6:4, “And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.” Tell me: “How do fathers bringing up their children today ‘in the training and admonition of the Lord’ sound to you? Does it ring a familiar or strange tone in your life and early relationships with family or lack of it or a reminder of your blessings of true spiritual nurturing?” Sad to say, my father was never in my home after I married and raised three sons and a daughter? If I saw him, I traveled thirty miles from one city to where his business was his entire adult life – but never in my home or never desiring to see his grandchildren. My Dad lived to be 78 years of age, but “quality of life”? Little evidence of a deep or abiding love of the Lord Jesus Christ –it shows in abiding love and concern for your own and for those who need the introduction to Christ’s passionate love for the “lost” and “unredeemed”!

Interesting verses in Deuteronomy 32:3-6! The “song of Moses” says: “For I proclaim the name of the Lord: Ascribe greatness to our God. He is the Rock, His work is perfect. For all His ways are justice, a God of truth and without injustice; righteous and upright is He. They (the, yes, ‘unbelieving Jews’) have corrupted themselves; they are not His children, because of their blemish; a perverse and crooked generation. Do YOU thus deal with the Lord, O foolish and unwise people?”

Oh, and what you’ve just read is followed by Verses 15-20!! “But Jeshuran (‘religious’ but unredeemed Israelites!) grew fat and kicked; you grew fat, you grew thick, you are obese! Then he forsook God who made him, and scornfully esteemed the Rock of his salvation. They provoked Him to jealousy with foreign gods; with abominations they provoked Him to anger. They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they did not know, to new gods, new arrivals that your fathers did not fear. Of the Rock who begot you, you are unmindful, and have forgotten the God who fathered you. AND WHEN THE LORD SAW IT, HE SPURNED THEM, because of the provocations of His sons and daughters. And He said: “I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end will be, for they are a perverse generation, children in whom there is no faith.” [Do YOU see “faith” as true obedience or simply a ‘religious’ mind-set with no “new-birth”?].

Parenting today? Whether by both parents or one, at least those who have responsibility for the children at least have a concern that they learn about “length of Days”, but not as many as there once was who are, yes, truly devoted to their children’s spiritual “Quality of Life” in nurturing them, bringing them up in the biblical “admonitions” of “blood-bought lives” as “devoted, yielded servants of the King of kings and Lord of lords”, yes, regenerated, born-again, Spirit-filled disciples of Christ Jesus!

“Quality of Life” under the administration of the Resurrected Christ, by the Indwelling Holy Spirit, and by the “daily manna” of the milk and meat of the Word of God, plus the “care”, yes, of spiritual brothers and sisters of the Lord’s true “family of faith”?

It was Thomas Jefferson of historic American ‘birthing’ who once said: “Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever He had a chosen people, whose breasts He has made His peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.” When I read his comment, I wondered, “How many believers today truly see themselves as “the chosen people of God”, set apart by His grace, mercy, and love, to extend His LIFE, to express His LOVE, and to prove His POWER?” That’s like John Steinbeck’s comment years ago who said, “We can shoot rockets into space but we can’t cure anger or discontent” – and certainly fallen mankind, on his own, cannot graciously ‘create’ “new birth” with “new resurrection life” ordained for God’s “eternal purpose” but exists only with a ‘divided personality’ unaware of their “world” split apart and separated from God’s aim of “vessels” overflowing with His Holy Presence and Purposes as He outlines a “servant of Christ”, yes, every step! DO YOU LIVE IN SUBSTANTIAL AND GENUINE VIRTUE?

The “TLB” translation of the Bible (“The Living Bible”) in Proverbs 8:18-21 says, God speaking, “Unending riches, honor, justice, and righteousness are mine to distribute. My gifts are better than the purest gold or sterling silver! Those who love and follow Me are indeed wealthy. I fill their treasuries.”

Are YOU aware that Holy God, through Christ Jesus, through His Holy Spirit, and through His Holy Word “sustains” and “keeps His own”? Receive Psalm 37:23-26!! It says: “The steps of a good man are ordered (established or made to stand by Him!) by the Lord, and He delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the Lord upholds him with His hand. I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread. He is ever merciful, and lends; and his descendants are blessed.”

Yet how many do you know or have witnessed, locally or nation-wide, whose ‘witness’ about God’s and Christ Jesus’s and the Holy Spirit’s “divine revelation” as simply ‘moral relativism’ or “try your best”, rather than receiving, repenting, and resting in “the mercies of God”? I read recently David Wells, in his book, “No Place For Truth”, who said: (p.59), speaking about godless men and their “illusions of progress”, without God’s Grace (!), saying:

“Yet it is interesting that the illusions of progress that went hand in hand with these (fleshly, humanistic, man-made interpretations!) ideologies have managed to live on despite the fact that the ideologies themselves are now hiding in embarrassment or have already passed onto the junk heap of history.” And there’s a reason for that: Wells went on!

“What is it, then, that accounts for the tenacity of the belief? It is not that contemporary people are self-consciously utopian, at least not in obvious ways. No, it is not ideology that seems to fuel this fire but “experience”. More specifically, it is the experience of science. It is the experience of a world made over by technology in which the prospects of conquering disease, discomfort, and distance are large and the expectations of limitless improvement are themselves unlimited. It is this conquest, Christopher Lasch thinks, that has given to science its current aura of immortality and, with that, the immortality of what drives it, the belief in progress.”

“Let’s lengthen their days – that’s the vital thing!” Really? Lengthened days without God’s grace and mercy? Lengthened days apart from eternal purpose? Lengthened days apart from “new-born Life in the Spirit”? Lengthened days apart from the miracle of resurrection life and hope but guided by one’s self-conscious utopia? Fleshly betterment through social self-improvement apart from the miracle of God’s power to “raise up the spiritually dead” just as He raised His Son Jesus from the grave to reign eternally in and through your transformed life? “Lengthened days” OR God’s Gift of His “Quality of Life” in and through Christ alone?

I close with “The Living Bible” translation of Hebrews 11:13-16 which says: “These men of faith…agreed that this earth was not their real home but that they were just strangers visiting down here…they were looking forward to their real home in heaven. If they had wanted to, they could have gone back to the good things of this world. But they didn’t want to. They were living for heaven. And now God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has made a heavenly city for them.” In fact, “His Kingdom has come, on earth, as it is in heaven”, and “in Christ” you live gloriously in and through Christ Jesus’ Resurrection Presence extending His Kingdom Rule, releasing His Kingdom Power, and celebrating daily His Kingdom Purpose! Yes, it’s “To God Be the Glory”!!