PART 2 (by J.Farrell Fisher) Nov.14-15, 2016

It’s so vitally interesting and important to me to read what Leo Tolstoy, in his writing, “The Kingdom of God is Within You,” had to say: First statement? “The Christian cannot promise to do or not do a given thing at a given time, for he cannot know what the law of love, which is the commanding principle of his life, will demand of him at that time.” But one thing is certain: Holy God, King Jesus, the Holy Spirit will not ask you to say or do anything that would violate His Word, His Will, His character, His eternal truths!

The second statement of Leo Tolstoy? “Christianity, with its doctrine of humility, of forgiveness, of love, is incompatible with the state, with its haughtiness, its violence, its punishments, its wars.” But it’s for certain, as followers of Christ Jesus, as He warned, we warn; as He confronted “religious pretense” or “political inconsistencies with Divine Truth” or “flesh at its worst or best”, so true disciples are silent when He’s silent or vocal as He was vocal; as followers of Christ Jesus, we don’t lean on fleshly instincts of one’s own mind apart from Christ or one’s fleshly instincts of fallen mankind’s mind, will, or emotion but rests upon the Christ within guiding, yes, even one’s investment of his/her life in the midst of a lost, needy, separated-from-God world!

And, I certainly don’t stress ‘religion’s pride’ or the ‘pomp’ and ‘showiness’ of self-indulgent performance, or ‘worldly’, or Hollywood’s interpretations of the ‘good life’ or ‘evil life’ or ‘religious activity’ at its best, when “Christ IN YOU IS the hope of eternal glory” and Him alone! Don’t you think this just might be why Paul said 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…”? In fact, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:31, “I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I DIE DAILY.” Later, in 2 Corinthians 4:11, Paul stated, “For we who live (in Christ!) ARE ALWAYS delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”

It’s SO VITAL that every “professing believer”, not only acknowledge, receive and act upon what the Word of God says about every single person convicted and convinced by the Holy Spirit, but affirming the Truth about Holy God’s justification of taking the sin and sin nature of all mankind on the Cross in and through His Son and our Savior and nailing it to the Cross!

Paul acknowledged and affirmed this truth when in Colossians 3:3 he wrote: “For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God,” then challenging us in Colossians 3:5-7, “Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is IDOLATRY. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, in which YOU YOURSELVES ONCE WALKED when you lived in them.” But you don’t “live” there any longer if YOU ARE IN CHRIST!

I don’t know if YOU are fully aware of what Holy God declares about the “new creation” family of faith, but it is so important that You receive, understand, appropriate, and stand upon 2 Corinthians 13:5-8! “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? – unless indeed you are disqualified. But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified. Now I pray that you do no evil, not that we should appear approved, but that you should do what is honorable, though we may seem disqualified. For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth.”

So the Apostle unveils the “true path”, the “new identity”, and the “everlasting unveiling of the Biblical Truth of God’s redeemed, blood-bought sons and daughters of saving grace, mercy, and love in and through Christ alone”!

FIRST, NEW CREATION SONS AND DAUGHTERS HAVE ACCEPTED THEIR CRUCIFIXION WITH CHRIST AND HIS RESURRECTION TO, IN, AND THROUGH THE ETERNAL LIFE OF HOLY GOD! What did Paul tell us in Galatians 2:20-21a? “I have been CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith IN the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God…!”

Even King David learned the vital, eternal necessity of “new life” in and through the “Promised Messiah” when in Psalm 87: 5-7 he wrote: “And of Zion it will be said, ‘This one and that one were born in her; and the Most High Himself shall establish her.” The Lord will record, when He registers the peoples: ‘This one was born there.’ Both the singers and the players on instruments say, “All my springs (fresh springs!) are in you.”

Oswald Chambers wrote, in “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.271), “Our Lord never patches up our natural virtues, He re-makes the whole man on the inside. ‘Put on the new man…’”! That’s “new creations”, “the new man,” accepting, resting in, relying upon the “new covenant,” and rejoicing daily in the celebration of Kingdom living in the “new heaven and the new earth”!

Yes, even in Old Testament times there were those, like Abraham, about whom Jesus said, John 8:56, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad,” Jeremiah even hearing the Lord say in his day, Jeremiah 29:11-14, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity!” [For instance, ‘are you still a slave to your old sin nature, maintaining allegiance, even appreciation, of the ‘old man’ nature and character’?].

What does Romans 8:13-14 says: “For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”

As YOU read the Holy Word, do you find it so illuminating in learning to be “through with the old man of sin” and LEANING ON CHRIST’S DEATH, BURIAL, AND RESURRECTION? In Hebrews 3:12-19 there is a dramatic unveiling of “professors of faith” who fell short of entering “God’s Promised Land Through Christ”! It says: “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.”

For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He 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.” Do you see it? “Followers? But limited by their unbiblical ‘faith’, dying in their ‘obedience’(which was so limited!) BEFORE entering the Promised Land”? SO YOU discern that’s “salvation by works”, or truly is it not THE EVIDENCE THAT TRUE SALVATION HAS BEEN BIRTHED? I’ve said it often, I’ll say it again: “Obedience is not an option in the age of grace, but the evidence grace is honoring Christ by doing what He says!” Dare I ask you again? “Have YOU “mortified the deeds of your flesh and “rested” in Christ alone?”

SECOND, NEW CREATION SONS AND DAUGHTERS, ARE, YES, LEGITIMATE FAMILY OF GOD OFF-SPRING BY THE BORN-AGAIN REALITY IN AND THROUGH HIS HOLY SPIRIT! In John 3:5-6 the Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus and us; ‘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.”

In Romans 8:16 Paul tells us: “The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together.”

In 2 Corinthians 5:17-18a we read: “Therefore, if anyone is IN CHRIST, he IS a New Creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God who has reconciled us to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them…”; and, as “new creations IN CHRIST”, we don’t ‘rest’, rely upon what we think, or ‘try’ to be better – we “TRUST” God’s testimony about us “in Him”!

“In Christ” Holy God “reconciled us to Himself through Christ Only”! “In Christ” divine forgiveness rules and restoration to God’s eternal intent begins – we are the “tent,” the “tabernacle”, the “temple” of Christ’s Resurrection Presence! “Christ IN YOU the hope of glory”!

In 2 Corinthians 5:21 Paul added, “For He (God the Father) made Him (God the Son, Emmanuel) who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God In Him (in Christ Jesus).” Worldly religions promote personal redemption by determined, best efforts, believing it “rests” in one’s confidence in himself/herself to overcome, faithfulness to an ‘assembly’, whether Christ is there or not! Worldly religions, agnostics, atheists, even, sad to say, some ‘church folk’, believe Christ Jesus went too far saying, “Come to Me, and I will give you rest,” when often the “worldly” discern ‘salvation’ in themselves!

Again, “God made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin FOR US, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” In Romans 6:10-14 Paul illumines one’s lack of salvation knowledge, laying out our true journey! He said: “For the death that Christ Jesus died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. LIKEWISE you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

THEREFORE do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”

Only through the “Blood Atonement” of Christ in and through His sacrificial death on the Cross is there liberty and freedom and eternal blessing in a life re-born by the grace of God to His honor alone! And that miracle of redemption, reconciliation with God, through Christ alone, is the “open door” of eternal opportunity to unveil His Son through the “redeemed”! Galatians 1:15-16 says, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and CALLED ME through His grace, TO REVEAL HIS SON IN ME…”, but you’re unsure if that’s God’s purpose through you? [You might need to “be born again”!].

THIRD, REDEEMED CHILDREN OF FAITH ARE CALLED BY THE LORD TO BE HIS WITNESSES, HIS AMBASSADORS, HIS MESSENGERS TO A NEEDY WORLD! And, of course, WHO determines what a needy world is? Fallen men or Holy God? Also, when it comes to an individual’s determination what his ‘religious profession’ is all about, is it ‘self-determination’ or Sovereign Calling and ordination and equipping for His eternal plan?

It’s true that the unbelieving world has no awareness of or commitment to being ‘reconciled to God’ because they’ve chosen to be “at peace” with their godlessness and unbelief. But for the “church,” for individual believers, there is the reality, for some, that their ‘intellectual superiority’ sets them apart from a disciple’s or church’s mandate and commissioning of “being His witnesses” – that to them is impractical, unadvisable, degrading to their “biblical brilliance”! Really? Yes, really!

Or, like the Dallas pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church, “The Gospel is opened to all and closed to none,” welcoming homosexuals as ‘true disciples’! Where do you find that in the Word of God! The True Gospel of Christ and the Word liberates from, not opens the door to continue in sin, in debauchery, in rebellion and disobedience to the Holy Word!

I believe the Holy Word when it says in Revelation 21:5-8, Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things NEW.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.” And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. BUT the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” And, if you believe ‘sexually immoral’ doesn’t include homosexuality or lesbianism, I’d go into the Word, before the Throne of God, before the community of true “born-again believers” asking them: “Is a homosexual lifestyle acceptable here, in you, and in your church?” And if they said, “Yes”, I’d run as fast as I could AWAY from a compromising, godless, collectively-deceived-mind-set unredeemed by the “Blood of the Lamb”!

In Matthew 28:16 the new disciples went to the mountain where Jesus told them to go. This is after His resurrection and before His ascension. In Verses 18-20 Jesus issued His “Great Commission”! He said: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 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 (or “So be it!”).

IF: “I am not my own, but I was bought with a price, the blood of the Lamb of God, and I am under His authority”, and He then tells me, “You shall be My witnesses, My messengers, My earthly representatives to a lost and perishing world of unbelievers,” do I, do we, just turn deaf ears and blinded eyes to a perishing people, or do I share the “Life-Raft” to ‘drowning people’ with no sense at all of personal accountability for my indifference to their eternal need?

I tell you, I truly understand why the ‘modern church’ and ‘modern music leaders’ avoid old hymns that convict, convince, and open uncaring ‘church members’ to a lost world around them – they want no reminders of spiritual responsibility to touch their world with grace, mercy, and love – they are so enamored with their own spiritual concerns that ‘witnessing, evangelizing, touching my world with mercy and grace is just too heavy a responsibility to bear’!

Fanny J. Crosby and William H. Doane, in the old “The American Hymnal,” (compiled and edited by Robert H. Coleman, in cooperation with The Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee, copyright, 1933), wrote the hymn “Rescue the Perishing.” It says:

“Rescue the perishing, Care for the dying, Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave; Weep o’er the erring one, Lift up the fallen, Tell them of Jesus the mighty to save.

Tho’ they are slighting Him, Still He is waiting, Waiting the penitent child to receive; Plead with them earnestly, Plead with them gently, He will forgive if they only believe.

Down in the human heart, Crushed by the tempter, Feelings lie buried that grace can restore; Touched by a loving heart, Wakened by kindness, Chords that are broken will vibrate once more.

Rescue the perishing, Duty demands it; Strength for your labor the Lord will provide; Back to the narrow way Patiently win them; Tell the poor wanderer a Savior has died. Rescue the perishing, Care for the dying; Jesus is merciful, Jesus will save.”

FOURTH, TRUE CHILDREN OF SAVING FAITH ARE NOT ONLY WITNESSES, MESSENGERS, AND AMBASSADORS, THEY ARE ‘FOOT-WASHERS’ AND “TRUE SERVANTS”! In John 13:1-17 there is an amazing revelation of true, heavenly, God-interpreting living, ministry, and service of the true disciples of Christ Jesus! It says: Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.

And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself.

After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. Then He came to Simon Peter. And Peter said to Him, “Lord, are You washing my feet?” Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.”

Peter said to Him, “You shall never wash my feet!” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.” For He knew who would betray Him; therefore He said, “You are not all clean.”

So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, FOR SO I AM. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. FOR I HAVE GIVEN YOU AN EXAMPLE, that you should do as I have done to you.

Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, BLESSED ARE YOU IF YOU DO THEM.”

Dare I give you a hint to successful, Christ-honoring servants? In Philippians 3:10-11 Paul wrote: “…that I MAY KNOW HIM and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” THE DEAD WITHOUT CHRIST ARE NOT ABOUT TO BOW BEFORE OTHERS TO WASH THEIR FEET! They’d SAY, “How disgraceful, how demeaning, how foolish,” yet Christ directs His disciples to be “foot-washers”!

“Foot-washers” ARE “true servants” of the Lord Jesus Christ! They understand humbling one’s self to be exalted in and with Christ Jesus, the “Eternal, God-given foot-washer”! Doesn’t 1 Corinthians 10:31 tell us, “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God”? Whatever YOU do – do YOU sense the Christ in you saying, “Live with the ‘foot-washing’ spirit and attitude of the Christ in you! You’re the “vessel” – I’m the content”! And the Christ in you desires to wash fallen mankind’s feet AND the saved, and as you humble yourself before Him and allow Him to be the foot-washer through you, He’ll humble more and more souls before His Father, Holy God!

Are YOU aware, even as pastors and teachers, of “the calling, the instruction, the EXAMPLE of Christ Himself” as He said in John 12:23-27,But Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

IF anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor. Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for THIS PURPOSE I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name,” (through you and me?)!

I close this message with John’s challenging illumination for true disciples in 1 John 3:16-19! “By this we know love (agape love), because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or tongue, but in deed and in truth. And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him.”

“Identifying True Disciples of Christ?” I don’t know who wrote it, but his/her challenge is so on target! “My goal is God Himself, not joy nor peace, Nor even blessing, but Himself, my God.” THAT’S “CHRIST IN YOU THE HOPE OF GLORY”!!!

BY: J.FARRELL FISHER, JULY 11-13, 2018

There’s no doubt if one “lives” in, through, by “The Word of God”, that he/she would be familiar with the fifth book of the New Testament that is referred to by many as the “Acts of the Apostles”, although faithful Bible students truly know that it WAS and IS “The Acts of the Holy Spirit” as the Spirit came at Pentecost to, yes, unveil Christ the Redeemer, Savior, and Lord of the Eternal, Heavenly, Resurrected Life in Christ! Without a doubt, it is one of the most thrilling, demanding, life-changing messages in all the Word of God! It unveils the “blood-bought”, “Christ-Indwelling Disciples”, AND their “mission” under the anointing of the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit! And true disciples are told by Christ, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” “Be filled with the Holy Spirit,” “Be guided by the Holy Spirit,” “Be empowered and led by the Holy Spirit”!!

But for many ‘professors of faith’, their service in honor of Christ is a call to “best effort” without any consideration of the need of the Holy Spirit to magnify, honor, or glorify Christ through them – “My best effort is all God asks of me”! Really? Is YOUR ‘faith’ what you hold in yourself as to your ability ‘to do’ whatever Holy God would ask of you? OR, is there “the raising up from spiritual death by the Holy Spirit” what must occur, has occurred, and will occur as loving God seeks to ‘save’ whoever is captive to their old sin natures and separated from Holy God, doing so by Christ’s purchase of men bound and enslaved to their sin natures by shedding His own precious blood FOR “their salvation and deliverance from the bondage of sin and Satan’s ‘hold’ on their lives”, freeing them to be “vessels” or “tabernacles” or “Temples” of His Resurrection Presence?

In Jeremiah 29 there are words from God through Jeremiah unveiling God’s heart not only for “captives” then, but I’m convinced even “captives” now enslaved to their old sin natures and under “satanic’ control! In Verses 11-14a we find a “Thus says the Lord”! “For I know the thoughts that I think toward YOU, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give YOU a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.

And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity”! Are YOU “free in Christ” or still bound in ‘flesh-allegiance’, a strong ‘self-will’, or, even worse, ‘bound in Satanic allegiance though unaware YOU allowed him in your life’?

IN Luke 4:16-21 Jesus was rejected at Nazareth, but He still had Eternal Words that had to be shared then and now, The Word saying: So Jesus came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written (from Isaiah 61):

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Several questions that each one reading this passage must answer! If Christ Jesus, the Son of God in a human body, necessitated the Holy Spirit’s anointing on His Life of Faith and Obedience, are we, like Jesus, to receive the Holy Spirit in our walk of faith and obedience? (Yet, I would dare say that at least 90% of the Christian community, past, present, and future, have, or will, remain ‘brainless’ about Spirit-Anointed living!).

Beyond ‘Spirit-Anointed Living’, like Christ Jesus, as an eternal necessity, there is the ‘divine unveiling of the necessity of response to the Holy Spirit’s will’! Luke 4:18b tells us, “because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor” – and without hesitation, I’m convinced ‘the poor’ includes but is beyond ‘street beggars’ but includes the vast volumes of life stories poor in God’s intent of the need of ‘lost men’ being reunited to Holy God! And King Jesus was fully aware of the necessity of Holy Spirit “Anointing” in fulfilling God’s call upon one’s earthly walk and journey of “Redeemed Faith Through Holy Spirit Anointing”!!

To be “in Christ” is to live in understanding of our new “eternal calling”, being witnesses of God’s “amazing grace through the blood redemption of the Son of God”, yes, enlightened by the Holy Spirit!

Oh, and then in Luke 4:20b, we read of “eternal enlightment”! “And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were FIXED ON JESUS.” Sadly, there is a ‘world’ surrounding you, even in most churches, whose “eyes” are “FIXED ON EVERYTHING BUT HIM”!!

I personally look upon the Book of Acts as “The Introduction To True Discipleship”, more than likely penned by Luke as a further explanation of his “The Gospel of Luke”! And Acts 1:1-3 is Dr. Luke telling us: “The former account I made, O Theophillus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen, to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.”

Hear me! To have eyes fixed upon Jesus’ resurrection presence is TO SEE AND HEAR AND LEARN OF ‘born-again disciples’ learning of, yes, the reality of Jesus’ ushering in “the kingdom of God in the here and now” AND “new disciples” being enlightened to the reality of extending His kingdom rule, expressing His kingdom love, and proving His kingdom power in touching the needy world with His love, His grace, His mercy, and His power through every new ‘citizen of His Kingdom-rule’!

In Acts 1:6-8 we read, “Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” And Jesus said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. 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.”

But throughout ‘human history’, which has been and still is resistant to the Holy Spirit “guiding us into all truth”, in Romans 1:18-25, the Apostle Paul alerted us saying: “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 clearly known of God is manifest in 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’, (The Lie? One can ‘sin’ and not die!), and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.”

In “The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning”, published writings from 1826 to 1844, she had one writing entitled “The Soul’s Travelling” where she introduced it (p.76) saying: “I dwell amid the city, The great humanity which beats Its life along the stony streets, Like a strong unsunned river In a self-made course, is ever Rolling on, rolling on!” Oh, and a few sentences later she wrote about, “The whine of voices that have made Their own grief’s sacredness a trade – The curse that rings hollowly The crime against the misery –“!

Throughout all of human history, Holy God IS honored by some as they “rest” in the finished work of Christ, being guided by the Holy Spirit into all of Christ’s embodiment of Holy Truth! Has the Holy Spirit unfolded in you an understanding of what Christ Jesus was all about in His earthly walk, His faithful ministry, and His historic personal sacrifice “At The Cross”?

In “Unger’s Bible Dictionary”, compiled by Merrill F. Unger and published by Moody Press, (the twentieth printing in 1974!), he defines a “Christian” as follows: “A Christian is a believer in and a follower of Jesus Christ the Messiah. This name is more widely employed than any other designation of those who believe unto salvation. However, it occurs in the Sacred Text only three times: “And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch” (Acts 11:26); “Then Agrippa said unto Paul, ‘Almost you persuade me to be a Christian’” (Acts 26:28); “If any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed” (1 Peter 4:16).

The term Christian is clearly a Gentile designation for believers since the word Christ upon which the term was constructed, suggestions recognition of the Messiah, which no unbelieving Jew was prepared to do. Becoming a Christian, according to the N.T., is a very definite act with significant results. According to Lewis Sperry Chafer, no less than thirty-three simultaneous and instantaneous divine undertakings and transformations, which collectively constitute the salvation of a soul, take place the moment one exercises faith in Christ and is saved.

Among these is that a believer in Christ has the guilt of sins removed. Secondly he is taken out of Adam, the sphere of condemnation, and placed in Christ, the sphere of righteousness and justification. Thirdly, he is given a new standing by virtue of his being placed “in Christ” by the Spirit’s baptizing work (1 Corinthians 12:13, Romans 6:3-4) and “made…acceptable” (Ephesians 1:6). (Chafer continues):

A Christian then, as Chafer says, “Is not one who does certain things for God but…one for whom God has done certain things; he is not so much one who conforms to a certain manner of life as he is one who has received the gift of eternal life; he is not one who depends upon a hopelessly imperfect state but rather one who has reached a perfect standing before God as BEING IN CHRIST.” (This came out of “Systematic Theology”, Vol.7, p.75).

(Question! “If there are “false Christs” professing to be the “new Messiah”, are we to suppose there are “no false Christians”?). AND, in 2 Peter 2:1-3, Peter, inspired by the Spirit, confronts, whether in New Testament historic days or modern-day ‘Christianity’, the reality of the “pretenders” who must be challenged by the Living Truth! He said: “But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.

And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber.”

When what you’ve been reading here, or in the Word of God, begins to “sound out” Biblical Truth, what does one do? Adapt to the ‘majority’ of Biblical followers who know NOTHING of redemptive truth, OR, be ‘sold out’ to full surrender to the Christ and His error free, Living Word?

Several truths to bring this teaching to an eternal, life-blessing fulfillment and completion: 1) THERE IS THE POWERFUL, SPIRITUALLY MAGNETIC, AWESOME PULL OF GOD ON ALL MEN, BEYOND AND ABOVE WHAT HE/SHE DETERMINES FOR ONE’S SELF! I will never forget C.S.Lewis’ statement in his book entitled “Mere Christianity” published by Simon & Shuster in 1996, p.121, “If I find in myself a desire that no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” Could that be the ‘other world’ entitled “the kingdom of God” where Christ Jesus IS Lord over all?

I have no hesitation in saying to you that the “trash” of warped, fleshly, worldly, man-educated minds is not the “Treasure of Truth” that IS Christ the Lord Himself, the True –Redemption- Savior- the Master of the “blood-bought sons and daughters” who have understood, repented, rested in Christ’s “finished work” at the Cross, yes, becoming sons and daughters in the Eternal Family of God, having been transformed out of repentance and faith into “new creations” in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ!

2) THERE IS THE “AT TIMES” SAD AWARENESS OF MEN’S LIVES WHO ARE, YES, TOTALLY SOLD OUT TO A LIFE-WALK VOID OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE GOD AND SAVIOR AND SPIRIT OF LIVES LIVED IN ETERNAL BLESSEDNESS! How ‘wise’ was Solomon when we read in Proverbs 10:6-9, 22-25, “Blessings are on the head of the righteous, but violence covers the mouth of the wicked. The memory of the righteous is blessed, but the name of the wicked will rot. The wise in heart will receive commands, but a prating fool will fall. He who walks with integrity walks securely, but he who perverts his ways will become known.

Verses 22-25, “the blessing of the Lord makes one rich, and He adds no sorrow with it. To do evil is like sport to a fool, but a man of understanding has wisdom. The fear of the wicked will come upon him, and the desire of the righteous will be granted. When the whirlwind passes by, the wicked is no more, BUT THE RIGHTEOUS HAS AN EVERLASTING FOUNDATION.” Glory!

Blessed or cursed? Walking securely or walking void of the presence of the God of unending promises? ‘Trying’ or “TRUSTING”? “Tiring through life’s journey or ‘resting’ in His abiding strength and power”? Whirlwind existence but with no Promise of Assurance to see you through your storm?

3) I PRAY THAT “YOU” KNOW THERE IS ETERNAL HOPE FOR THE BLESSED LIFE IN CHRIST AS DAILY THE “New-Born” in Christ TAKES THE SENTENCE OF DEATH DAILY TO THE OLD MAN THAT, YES, DAILY, CHRIST JESUS MAY HAVE HIS RIGHTFUL PLACE ON HIS THRONE IN YOUR HEART, MIND, AND DAILY WILL OF FULL SURRENDER TO HIS LORDSHIP! In Romans 5:9-11 we read, “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God THROUGH THE DEATH OF HIS SON, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be (being) saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we HAVE NOW RECEIVED THE RECONCILIATION.” Are YOU “reconciled to God through Christ”, and YOU KNOW IT?

What does Romans 8:1-6 and Verses 9-17 tell us? There is therefore NOW no condemnation TO THOSE WHO ARE IN CHRIST JESUS, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh BUT (walk) according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Verses 9-17 follows: But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

Therefore, brethren, we are debtors – not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, IF INDEED WE SUFFER WITH HIM, THAT WE MAY ALSO BE GLORIFIED TOGETHER.’

4) ONE MORE VITAL POINT OF INTEREST AND CONCERN ABOUT “FAITHFULNESS FOREVER”! Get Ready! Some are going to be shocked by what they are about to read, even angry with God and with anyone who shares “the whole truth and nothing but the truth”! In Hebrews 3:7-19 we read:

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “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 for 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.’

For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He 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.”

Did you hear it and catch the spirit of those who, yes, do “fall away”? THEY DID NOT OBEY, THUS FALLING AWAY THROUGH UNBELIEF!! (PLEASE read carefully Luke 12:35-46, earth-shaking, foundation quaking in many professing lives who live their “faith” in self-awareness, not in and through Christ’s eternal Presence within them, truly their only hope of eternal glory!). (Even 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 Paul the Apostle scared Hell out of a lot of professing believers who lived a compromised ‘faith-journey’, assured they were OK when Hell’s gates had already been opened wide for their entrance!).

I close with an old hymn by Charles Wesley and Lowell Mason entitled “A Charge to Keep”, found in The Broadman Hymnal published in 1940 by Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee. It says: “A charge to keep I have, A God to glorify; Who gave His Son my soul to save, And fit it for the sky;

To serve the present age, My calling to fulfill, – O may it all my powers engage To do my Master’s will!

Arm me, Lord, with jealous care, As in Your sight to live; And O, Your servant, Lord, prepare A strict account to give!” Are YOU ready to be examined by your Master as to His will, walk, and ways, being done in you by His Abiding Presence?

BY: J.FARRELL FISHER, JULY 11-13, 2018

There’s no doubt if one “lives” in, through, by “The Word of God”, that he/she would be familiar with the fifth book of the New Testament that is referred to by many as the “Acts of the Apostles”, although faithful Bible students truly know that it WAS and IS “The Acts of the Holy Spirit” as the Spirit came at Pentecost to, yes, unveil Christ the Redeemer, Savior, and Lord of the Eternal, Heavenly, Resurrected Life in Christ! Without a doubt, it is one of the most thrilling, demanding, life-changing messages in all the Word of God! It unveils the “blood-bought”, “Christ-Indwelling Disciples”, AND their “mission” under the anointing of the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit! And true disciples are told by Christ, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” “Be filled with the Holy Spirit,” “Be guided by the Holy Spirit,” “Be empowered and led by the Holy Spirit”!!

But for many ‘professors of faith’, their service in honor of Christ is a call to “best effort” without any consideration of the need of the Holy Spirit to magnify, honor, or glorify Christ through them – “My best effort is all God asks of me”! Really? Is YOUR ‘faith’ what you hold in yourself as to your ability ‘to do’ whatever Holy God would ask of you? OR, is there “the raising up from spiritual death by the Holy Spirit” what must occur, has occurred, and will occur as loving God seeks to ‘save’ whoever is captive to their old sin natures and separated from Holy God, doing so by Christ’s purchase of men bound and enslaved to their sin natures by shedding His own precious blood FOR “their salvation and deliverance from the bondage of sin and Satan’s ‘hold’ on their lives”, freeing them to be “vessels” or “tabernacles” or “Temples” of His Resurrection Presence?

In Jeremiah 29 there are words from God through Jeremiah unveiling God’s heart not only for “captives” then, but I’m convinced even “captives” now enslaved to their old sin natures and under “satanic’ control! In Verses 11-14a we find a “Thus says the Lord”! “For I know the thoughts that I think toward YOU, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give YOU a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.

And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity”! Are YOU “free in Christ” or still bound in ‘flesh-allegiance’, a strong ‘self-will’, or, even worse, ‘bound in Satanic allegiance though unaware YOU allowed him in your life’?

IN Luke 4:16-21 Jesus was rejected at Nazareth, but He still had Eternal Words that had to be shared then and now, The Word saying: So Jesus came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written (from Isaiah 61):

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Several questions that each one reading this passage must answer! If Christ Jesus, the Son of God in a human body, necessitated the Holy Spirit’s anointing on His Life of Faith and Obedience, are we, like Jesus, to receive the Holy Spirit in our walk of faith and obedience? (Yet, I would dare say that at least 90% of the Christian community, past, present, and future, have, or will, remain ‘brainless’ about Spirit-Anointed living!).

Beyond ‘Spirit-Anointed Living’, like Christ Jesus, as an eternal necessity, there is the ‘divine unveiling of the necessity of response to the Holy Spirit’s will’! Luke 4:18b tells us, “because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor” – and without hesitation, I’m convinced ‘the poor’ includes but is beyond ‘street beggars’ but includes the vast volumes of life stories poor in God’s intent of the need of ‘lost men’ being reunited to Holy God! And King Jesus was fully aware of the necessity of Holy Spirit “Anointing” in fulfilling God’s call upon one’s earthly walk and journey of “Redeemed Faith Through Holy Spirit Anointing”!!

To be “in Christ” is to live in understanding of our new “eternal calling”, being witnesses of God’s “amazing grace through the blood redemption of the Son of God”, yes, enlightened by the Holy Spirit!

Oh, and then in Luke 4:20b, we read of “eternal enlightment”! “And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were FIXED ON JESUS.” Sadly, there is a ‘world’ surrounding you, even in most churches, whose “eyes” are “FIXED ON EVERYTHING BUT HIM”!!

I personally look upon the Book of Acts as “The Introduction To True Discipleship”, more than likely penned by Luke as a further explanation of his “The Gospel of Luke”! And Acts 1:1-3 is Dr. Luke telling us: “The former account I made, O Theophillus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen, to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.”

Hear me! To have eyes fixed upon Jesus’ resurrection presence is TO SEE AND HEAR AND LEARN OF ‘born-again disciples’ learning of, yes, the reality of Jesus’ ushering in “the kingdom of God in the here and now” AND “new disciples” being enlightened to the reality of extending His kingdom rule, expressing His kingdom love, and proving His kingdom power in touching the needy world with His love, His grace, His mercy, and His power through every new ‘citizen of His Kingdom-rule’!

In Acts 1:6-8 we read, “Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” And Jesus said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. 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.”

But throughout ‘human history’, which has been and still is resistant to the Holy Spirit “guiding us into all truth”, in Romans 1:18-25, the Apostle Paul alerted us saying: “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 clearly known of God is manifest in 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’, (The Lie? One can ‘sin’ and not die!), and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.”

In “The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning”, published writings from 1826 to 1844, she had one writing entitled “The Soul’s Travelling” where she introduced it (p.76) saying: “I dwell amid the city, The great humanity which beats Its life along the stony streets, Like a strong unsunned river In a self-made course, is ever Rolling on, rolling on!” Oh, and a few sentences later she wrote about, “The whine of voices that have made Their own grief’s sacredness a trade – The curse that rings hollowly The crime against the misery –“!

Throughout all of human history, Holy God IS honored by some as they “rest” in the finished work of Christ, being guided by the Holy Spirit into all of Christ’s embodiment of Holy Truth! Has the Holy Spirit unfolded in you an understanding of what Christ Jesus was all about in His earthly walk, His faithful ministry, and His historic personal sacrifice “At The Cross”?

In “Unger’s Bible Dictionary”, compiled by Merrill F. Unger and published by Moody Press, (the twentieth printing in 1974!), he defines a “Christian” as follows: “A Christian is a believer in and a follower of Jesus Christ the Messiah. This name is more widely employed than any other designation of those who believe unto salvation. However, it occurs in the Sacred Text only three times: “And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch” (Acts 11:26); “Then Agrippa said unto Paul, ‘Almost you persuade me to be a Christian’” (Acts 26:28); “If any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed” (1 Peter 4:16).

The term Christian is clearly a Gentile designation for believers since the word Christ upon which the term was constructed, suggestions recognition of the Messiah, which no unbelieving Jew was prepared to do. Becoming a Christian, according to the N.T., is a very definite act with significant results. According to Lewis Sperry Chafer, no less than thirty-three simultaneous and instantaneous divine undertakings and transformations, which collectively constitute the salvation of a soul, take place the moment one exercises faith in Christ and is saved.

Among these is that a believer in Christ has the guilt of sins removed. Secondly he is taken out of Adam, the sphere of condemnation, and placed in Christ, the sphere of righteousness and justification. Thirdly, he is given a new standing by virtue of his being placed “in Christ” by the Spirit’s baptizing work (1 Corinthians 12:13, Romans 6:3-4) and “made…acceptable” (Ephesians 1:6). (Chafer continues):

A Christian then, as Chafer says, “Is not one who does certain things for God but…one for whom God has done certain things; he is not so much one who conforms to a certain manner of life as he is one who has received the gift of eternal life; he is not one who depends upon a hopelessly imperfect state but rather one who has reached a perfect standing before God as BEING IN CHRIST.” (This came out of “Systematic Theology”, Vol.7, p.75).

(Question! “If there are “false Christs” professing to be the “new Messiah”, are we to suppose there are “no false Christians”?). AND, in 2 Peter 2:1-3, Peter, inspired by the Spirit, confronts, whether in New Testament historic days or modern-day ‘Christianity’, the reality of the “pretenders” who must be challenged by the Living Truth! He said: “But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.

And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber.”

When what you’ve been reading here, or in the Word of God, begins to “sound out” Biblical Truth, what does one do? Adapt to the ‘majority’ of Biblical followers who know NOTHING of redemptive truth, OR, be ‘sold out’ to full surrender to the Christ and His error free, Living Word?

Several truths to bring this teaching to an eternal, life-blessing fulfillment and completion: 1) THERE IS THE POWERFUL, SPIRITUALLY MAGNETIC, AWESOME PULL OF GOD ON ALL MEN, BEYOND AND ABOVE WHAT HE/SHE DETERMINES FOR ONE’S SELF! I will never forget C.S.Lewis’ statement in his book entitled “Mere Christianity” published by Simon & Shuster in 1996, p.121, “If I find in myself a desire that no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” Could that be the ‘other world’ entitled “the kingdom of God” where Christ Jesus IS Lord over all?

I have no hesitation in saying to you that the “trash” of warped, fleshly, worldly, man-educated minds is not the “Treasure of Truth” that IS Christ the Lord Himself, the True –Redemption- Savior- the Master of the “blood-bought sons and daughters” who have understood, repented, rested in Christ’s “finished work” at the Cross, yes, becoming sons and daughters in the Eternal Family of God, having been transformed out of repentance and faith into “new creations” in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ!

2) THERE IS THE “AT TIMES” SAD AWARENESS OF MEN’S LIVES WHO ARE, YES, TOTALLY SOLD OUT TO A LIFE-WALK VOID OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE GOD AND SAVIOR AND SPIRIT OF LIVES LIVED IN ETERNAL BLESSEDNESS! How ‘wise’ was Solomon when we read in Proverbs 10:6-9, 22-25, “Blessings are on the head of the righteous, but violence covers the mouth of the wicked. The memory of the righteous is blessed, but the name of the wicked will rot. The wise in heart will receive commands, but a prating fool will fall. He who walks with integrity walks securely, but he who perverts his ways will become known.

Verses 22-25, “the blessing of the Lord makes one rich, and He adds no sorrow with it. To do evil is like sport to a fool, but a man of understanding has wisdom. The fear of the wicked will come upon him, and the desire of the righteous will be granted. When the whirlwind passes by, the wicked is no more, BUT THE RIGHTEOUS HAS AN EVERLASTING FOUNDATION.” Glory!

Blessed or cursed? Walking securely or walking void of the presence of the God of unending promises? ‘Trying’ or “TRUSTING”? “Tiring through life’s journey or ‘resting’ in His abiding strength and power”? Whirlwind existence but with no Promise of Assurance to see you through your storm?

3) I PRAY THAT “YOU” KNOW THERE IS ETERNAL HOPE FOR THE BLESSED LIFE IN CHRIST AS DAILY THE “New-Born” in Christ TAKES THE SENTENCE OF DEATH DAILY TO THE OLD MAN THAT, YES, DAILY, CHRIST JESUS MAY HAVE HIS RIGHTFUL PLACE ON HIS THRONE IN YOUR HEART, MIND, AND DAILY WILL OF FULL SURRENDER TO HIS LORDSHIP! In Romans 5:9-11 we read, “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God THROUGH THE DEATH OF HIS SON, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be (being) saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we HAVE NOW RECEIVED THE RECONCILIATION.” Are YOU “reconciled to God through Christ”, and YOU KNOW IT?

What does Romans 8:1-6 and Verses 9-17 tell us? There is therefore NOW no condemnation TO THOSE WHO ARE IN CHRIST JESUS, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh BUT (walk) according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Verses 9-17 follows: But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

Therefore, brethren, we are debtors – not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, IF INDEED WE SUFFER WITH HIM, THAT WE MAY ALSO BE GLORIFIED TOGETHER.’

4) ONE MORE VITAL POINT OF INTEREST AND CONCERN ABOUT “FAITHFULNESS FOREVER”! Get Ready! Some are going to be shocked by what they are about to read, even angry with God and with anyone who shares “the whole truth and nothing but the truth”! In Hebrews 3:7-19 we read:

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “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 for 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.’

For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He 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.”

Did you hear it and catch the spirit of those who, yes, do “fall away”? THEY DID NOT OBEY, THUS FALLING AWAY THROUGH UNBELIEF!! (PLEASE read carefully Luke 12:35-46, earth-shaking, foundation quaking in many professing lives who live their “faith” in self-awareness, not in and through Christ’s eternal Presence within them, truly their only hope of eternal glory!). (Even 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 Paul the Apostle scared Hell out of a lot of professing believers who lived a compromised ‘faith-journey’, assured they were OK when Hell’s gates had already been opened wide for their entrance!).

I close with an old hymn by Charles Wesley and Lowell Mason entitled “A Charge to Keep”, found in The Broadman Hymnal published in 1940 by Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee. It says: “A charge to keep I have, A God to glorify; Who gave His Son my soul to save, And fit it for the sky;

To serve the present age, My calling to fulfill, – O may it all my powers engage To do my Master’s will!

Arm me, Lord, with jealous care, As in Your sight to live; And O, Your servant, Lord, prepare A strict account to give!” Are YOU ready to be examined by your Master as to His will, walk, and ways, being done in you by His Abiding Presence?