By J. Farrell Fisher, Written July 22,2014

Forgiveness is divine, turning ‘dirty water’ into wine; a Sovereign blessing for the taking as God is eternally making, a broken life, a shattered relationship – yours for the taking.

Life can be difficult, and at times very hard, because around all is broken and you’re very scarred.

Heavy burdens you must bear but every day it seems more and more snares. Offenses happen, and you feel so blurred: “Why did it happen, why did it occur?”

But God has appointed a day of Sovereign healing, Because His Word so unveils His Eternal Purpose revealing.

God so loved He gave to keep our souls from the eternal grave, God so loved His Son to share, to nail Him to the Cross and our sins to bear.

Resurrected Jesus came out of the Tomb to reveal God’s able-ness to save us, deliver us from the sin of death, and to stamp us with His image and likeness, forever enveloped in His Holy Presence.

New life, new hope, new power, new opportunity to honor His Son, and our hearts inspire, glorious living to bless our God and our testimony uplifting Jesus in each and every hour.

Flesh was crucified as Jesus took us all to His Cross, granting death to our old man but not to our loss, Because in His resurrection we come to life anew, beginning again a life of blessed hope with Spirit-control to forever ensue.

Each day a new day to bless and honor Him, knowing for certain His Light never dims; Holy Presence to inspire our walk, as moment by moment we so intimately talk.

His faithfulness is promised as our guarantee, no fears, no doubts, no questions will abound, because by His mercy and grace we will not turn around, but forever press in to His shining presence, so kept and guided by His illumining ablebodiedness

Able to save, able to keep, able to comfort, even when we weep; able to lift, able to love, able to inspire in one’s darkest hour, because His love is strong and to Him we belong, and “Glory to our Lord” is our forever song!

Able to defend when the enemy attacks, our loving God will never turn His back, but boldly reach out His Name to protect, and in love and mercy will defend His elect.

“Our God is able” is the hymn of the saints, and by His faithful promises the Blood is His paint – He covers our canvas with the Lamb’s precious Life, and, yes, when the enemy comes to blur with strife, when he stirs our ‘seas’ with stormy waters, our Lord and Savior stands up, “Don’t be bothered”!

Jesus says “Peace” when the devil says “trouble” – our Lord says, “Look unto Me,” and we understand: He’s our overcomer!

GRACING MY LIFE WITH OR IN CHRIST?”

BY: J.FARRELL FISHER, SEPTEMBER 9-10, 2018

Though the ‘worlds’ were framed by God’s eternal intent, I really find it hard to believe those who ‘see’ (?), ‘No God in the founding of a world’s ‘culture’, or any awareness of the ‘so-called’, “need of God”, or that ‘divine, eternal purpose’ has any part in “my determination of what’s good for me and mine”, even shunning Joshua’s call to, (Joshua 24:15), “If it seems evil TO YOU ‘to serve the Lord’, CHOOSE YOU this day whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you now dwell; but as for me and my house, WE WILL SERVE THE LORD,” and that’s the Lord God Almighty, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, with His eternal purpose in mind, in freely giving to every birthed individual the option of whether to ‘choose’ the ‘flesh world’ at its limited ‘best’, OR the spiritual world of God’s grace, mercy, and love of a life being birthed by repentance and faith, fully aware that, without God, one chooses ‘self-will’ over “Divine, Eternal, Richly Blessed Life-Choices in and through His Amazing Grace”!

Thank God for amazing men like Moses in the early days of His creation, learning, yes, by the Holy Spirit, the reality of eternal intent for all mankind, though many then and now, refuse to consider Almighty God’s eternal purpose for men in their world, which He clearly gave to all men, the right to choose whether they would live ‘life’ on their terms or a ‘Life’ He determined in His grace, mercy, and love through their surrender to the Lordship of “Christ in me my hope of eternal glory” and, yes “eternal fruitfulness in and through Christ’s abiding Presence in my heart”! And the problem every birthed human has is, to decide for himself/herself by ‘mental evaluations’ or by “Sovereign intervention”: “My world – my way” OR “God’s world allegiance – God’s Way”?

Amazing words found in Numbers 23:19-24:1-19!! God met Balaam saying to him, ‘Go to meet Balak and speak to him what I say,’ and, first, we read Verses 19-24 of Chapter 23, Balaam saying, “God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent: has He said, and shall He not do it? Or has He spoken, and shall He not make it stand? Behold, I have received commandment to bless: and He has blessed; and I cannot reverse it.

He has not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither has He seen perverseness in Israel: the Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them. God brought them out of Egypt; he has as it were the strength of a unicorn. Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel; according to this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, ‘What has God Himself wrought (or worked out!)? Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion, and lift himself up as a young lion; he shall not lie down until he eat of the prey, and drink the blood of the slain.”

Verses 25-30, And Balak said unto Balaam, Neither curse them at all, nor bless them at all. But Balaam answered and said unto Balak, Did I not tell you, saying clearly, All that the Lord speaks, THAT I must do? And Balak said unto Balaam, Come, I pray you, I will bring you unto another place; peradventure it will please God that you may curse me them from there.

And Balak brought Balaam unto the top of Peor, that looks toward Jeshimon. And Balaam said unto Balak, Build me here seven altars, and prepare me here seven bullocks and seven rams. And Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered a bullock and a ram on every altar. ( It’s gracious and good when God sends a man with a message, and the receiver of the Word does what God said!).

Now, Numbers 24:1-19!! And when Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel (Are YOU called of God to “bless others” or do you live with the frame of mind, “They are not my concern!”), he went not, as at other times, to seek enchantments (against Israel), but he set his face toward the wilderness. And Balaam lifted up his eyes, and he saw Israel abiding in his tents according to their tribes; and the Spirit of God came upon him. And he took up his parable and said, Balaam the son of Beor has said, and the man whose eyes are open has said: He has said, which heard the words of God, which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open: (What did he see?):

“How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, and your tabernacles, O Israel! As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river’s side, as the trees of lign aloes which the Lord has planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters. He shall pour the water out of His buckets (Water of the Holy Word poured out?), and His seed shall be in many waters (various kingdoms around our world?)

He shall pour the water out of His buckets, and His seed shall be in many waters, and His King shall be higher than Agag, and His kingdom shall be exalted. God brought Him forth out of Egypt; He has as it were the strength of an unicorn: He shall eat up the nations (who are) His enemies, and shall break their bones, and piece them through with His arrows (arrows of the Living Word that DO pierce into minds, heart, and wills!). He couched (humbled Himself), He laid down as a lion, and a great lion: who shall stir Him up? Blessed is He that blesses YOU, and cursed is he that curses Him.

And Balak’s anger was kindled against Balaam, and he smote his hands together; and Balak said unto Balaam, ‘I called you to curse my enemies, and, behold, you have altogether blessed them these three times.

Therefore now flee you to your place: I thought to promote you to great honor; but, lo, the Lord has kept back that honor (at least, for now). And Balaam said unto Balak, Did I not speak also to your messengers which you sent unto me, saying, “If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the commandment of the Lord, to do either good or bad of my own mind; but what the Lord says, that will I speak?

And now, behold, I go unto my people: come therefore, and I will advertise (promote) you in what this people shall do to your people in the latter days.” And he took up his parable, and said, Balaam the son of Beor has said, and the man whose eyes are open has said: He has said, which heard the words of God, and knew the knowledge of the most High, which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes opened (to Eternal Truth!!):

I shall see Him, but not now; I shall behold Him, but not any time near; but there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Scepter shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth. And Edom shall be a possession, Seir also shall be a possession for His enemies; and Israel shall do valiantly. (Physical Israel or Spiritual Israel?). Out of Jacob shall come He that shall have dominion, and shall destroy him that remains of the city (of unbelief, of rebellion, of disobedience to the Word of God!).”

Are YOU personally aware of Christ’s dominion over ‘sin and death’, and that those who yield to Him experience the saving, Sovereign, sure reign of divine Life, holy power and purpose, becoming an eternal part of His eternal ministry of Life, divine love, anointed ministries, extended to others around you, and the awesome blessing of His abiding Presence with the Promise to “never leave you nor forsake you”?

And the key understanding of true conversion through repentance and faith in the shed blood of the Lamb of God with the eternal confidence in the ‘heart-home’ of all who, yes, invited Him in as Lord, as Savior, as Master, as Commander-in-chief over your life? Yes, it’s Him who RULES IN THE REPENTANT, TRANSFORMED CHILD OF GOD! Colossians 1:18 says, “And He (Christ Jesus) is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead: that in all things He might have the preeminence.”

Questions YOU as a ‘professing church member’ must answer: When it comes to one’s ‘profession of faith’, what does he/she profess? “I’m a mortal man, I live in the mortal sphere of misguided men, and because I believe in Jesus, I try to do the best I can?” “Religious traditions” or RESTING IN DIVINE, ETERNAL TRUTHS? “Best-Effort Mentalities” or BLESSED BY THE HOLY PRESENCE OF THE RESURRECTED CHRIST IN THE REPENTANT HEART? “Self-Motivated Lives” or LIVES LIVING UNDER THE MASTERING OF THE RESURRECTED, REIGNING CHRIST”? “Religious without a ‘knock on the heart’s door’ to let Him in, in His Resurrection Presence to be Himself in your “new-graced-Temple of praise and worship” where He knows He’s now at home reigning in and through your surrendered, yielded, ‘hands-off-allegiance to self-life’, daily inviting Him to have His way through you to the glory of God?”

Highly interesting, instructing Verses of the Word from the lips of Jesus when He said in Mark 11:24-26, Therefore I say unto you, “What things soever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them. And when you stand praying, forgive, if you have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But IF you do not forgive (others who come against you), neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.”

Another powerful Word of God is found in Malachi 3:8-11 when the prophet, inspired of God, said: “Will a man ROB GOD? Yet you have robbed Me. But you say, ‘Wherein have we robbed You?” In tithes and offerings. You are CURSED WITH A CURSE: for you have robbed Me, even this whole nation. (That’s Israel then, but what about now? Israel only, or most of Israel, most of Africa, most of Europe, most of South America, most of North America – wherever humans breathe, you’ll find “thieves”!).

Verses 10-11, God also saying, “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in My house, and PROVE ME NOW HEREWITH, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open to you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” PROVE GOD NOW HEREWITH, in your obedience, in your faithfulness, in your willingness, yes, to DO WHATEVER GOD SAYS!!!! Holy God is NOT a ‘promise-breaker’ but a “Promise-Keeper”! Always has been – always WILL BE!! “PROVE ME NOW AND HENCEFORTH”!!

That Is His Faithful Word! That Is His Faithful, Never-Ending Response! That Is For YOUR “HERE AND NOW” because the very heart of God is His desire to be “proven” in any generation, any country, any nationality, anywhere, any time, by “any-who(?)”!! “PROVE ME”! He still calls, He still knocks on every heart’s door, He still asks for permission to enter, never violating one’s free will to accept Him or reject Him, but always, clearly, and in a convicting-manner, explaining: “There ARE Eternal Consequences!” WHAT IS YOUR ETERNAL DESTINY?

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”!!

By: J.Farrell Fisher, August 24-26, 2017

Does humanity change much when it comes to earthly existence but void of the reality of divine truth, God’s purpose, and Christ’s remedy for their problems? I don’t think so! In fact, I’m not sure there are many who ‘tire out’ in their fleshly pursuits, never looking to Holy God as He relates to His Eternal intent in truly available lives, but being unavailable to God and His purpose for their lives, they still, and in spite of an attitude of unbelief in redemptive faith through Another, “feel” they are being fulfilled but are “starved” in their fleshly imaginations concerning what it means to be living a “successful” life, because to live in the “best” of “flesh-will” is to cancel the perfect will of God for their lives, futures, or destinies!

Spiritual unbelief in divine intent is to ‘live’ (?) in a state of exhaustion though active day by day intending to prove their ‘self-lives’ can and are meaningful to them but “starving” God’s eternal plan for their available lives to His Throne-Room designation. Self-will rather than divine will produces a “tiring” that drains one more and more of eternal meaning and eternal purpose being fulfilled through available vessels because they “shut God out”, sure they know best how to be successful in their known, warped, ‘self-created’ world.

A powerful inspired Verse of the Holy Word is found in Isaiah 26:3 that says: “You (God) will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because He trusts in You.”

I pray the title doesn’t offend you – I’d rather it spurs divine conviction in every listener or reader to “Examine yourself whether you be in the true faith or not!” (2 Corinthians 13:5!). Some get ‘drained’ and quit rather than quickened by the Word and the Spirit. Some choose to forget Christ’s purpose in them and through them rather than, day by day, remembering His eternal calling. Some are zeroed in His designation for their journey of faith rather than “zoned in” to Holy Spirit leadership, guidance, instruction, and inspiration!

Do you remember Moses as he met with the Lord before entering the Promised Land? In Exodus 33:13-18 we read, Moses saying first to the Lord, “Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight. And consider that this nation is Your people.” And God said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you “REST”.” Then Moses said to Him, “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here. For how then will it be known that Your people and I have found grace in Your sight, except You go with us? So we shall be separate, Your people and I, from all the people who are upon the face of the earth.”

So the Lord said to Moses, “I will also do this thing that you have spoken for; for you have found grace in My sight, and I know you by name.” And Moses said, “Please, show me Your glory.” Dare I ask if YOU are walking under, in, and through the glory cloud of God’s Presence?

Let me ask you about, yes, God’s unveiling of ‘who’ and ‘what you are about’ as an “unbeliever in anything related to the “God-crowd”, or a “professing disciple”, ‘active church member’, ‘paralyzed ‘disciple’ (?)”, OR A TRUE “BEING-PERFECTED-SON OR DAUGHTER OF THE TRUE FAITH”! And, dare I tell you that the Word says, “By their fruits you shall know them”? Zechariah 4:6 says, “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit”, says the Lord of hosts! Yet the “crowd” mentioned in the title could care less about Holy God’s “Spirit-provision” of victorious living!

Do you remember Moses and Aaron confronting Pharoah of Egypt about “letting God’s people go”, and he responded in Exodus 5:2, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, now will I let Israel go.”?

In Psalm 101:1-3 David sang! (I often wonder how many “professing believers” live day by day with a song in their hearts!). He said: “I will sing of mercy and justice; To You, O Lord, I will sing praises. I will behave wisely in a perfect way. Oh, when will You come to me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. I will set nothing wicked before my eyes; (Does that mean less TV time in this modern-day?). I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cling to me.”

“Falling away”? Is that “the work” of ‘pompous preachers, paralyzed disciples, or poverty-stricken churches’? Or is there in YOUR heart, mind, and will the “resting” in the finished work of Christ as “being perfected sons and daughters of the True Faith”?

Having been both a high school and collegiate athlete – high school for me was football, basketball, and baseball in Bradley High School, Cleveland, Tennessee, but in college only football on scholarship at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. One thing I knew early on: Holy God Himself gifted me as an athlete and He called me, set me aside, anointed me to be His earthly vessel for Christ’s Heavenly Presence – and I’ve never doubted His “perfecting”, “equipping”, and “pouring out more and more of my ‘old man’ in exchange for the fullness of the blessing of the gospel in and through and for the glory of “Jesus Only” in the “new man” of Christ’s blood redemption!!

Whether preachers, churches, or an individual, paralyzed disciple trying his/her best, the lesson, the truth, the only hope, must be learned: It’s “Christ in you the hope of glory.” And, beyond the victory Christ Jesus won over sin, Satan, fallen flesh and their ‘best efforts’, Christ Jesus promised every son and daughter of redemptive faith, saying in John 14:25-27, “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. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.”

Yet, how many do you know who are “professing disciples, “church related”, and “who sincerely try their best”, but sense something is sadly wrong in their spiritual journeys , good folks, sincere folks, ‘failing’, ‘falling short’, ‘feeble in the journey’, because no one EVER taught them about “taking the sentence of death daily to the old man separated from Christ in order that His Resurrection Presence would be manifested in and through their mortal bodies”! And you’ll hear some say, “You mean my faith in Christ has nothing to do with my ‘trying’, my ‘best efforts’, or my determined mind-set to BE a “successful disciple”?

“Crucified with Christ” doesn’t mean He overlooks your “best” fleshly nature! No! He didn’t overlook it – He crucified it on the Cross several thousand years ago so you, being convicted because of your sin and sin nature, then repenting before Holy God, and willfully putting your “redemptive faith” in Christ alone, can take that sentence of death daily to the old man, and CHOOSE to live “by the Life of Another, even live in, by, and for His Resurrection Life, Resurrection Glory, Resurrection Honor, and Resurrection Ministry and Service in and through Him!

In James 4 the brother of Jesus said, Verses 4-10, “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scriptures says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealousy?”

But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: ‘God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’ Therefore submit TO God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you DOUBLE-MINDED. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.” Christ’s Presence in you is God’s will, God’s Way, and God’s Wisdom in directing your life in Christ as a testimony of His great, abiding, and transforming Life as Jesus brings glory to the Father through you as you yield yourself to His awesome Presence!

How many “successful people” do you know who would willfully look to their ‘old, sin-natured life’, crucified with Christ, and buried in the ‘sea of God’s forgetfulness’, understanding that God rejoices over them, IF, as they lean not to their own understanding, but accept His judgment about their sin nature and its crucifixion, then thank God for His grace, mercy, and love, even praising Him for exposing what they tried to hide for a long time, but now Rejoice over God the Father’s sacrifice of His only Son to reconcile them to Him? Sadly, many worldly, self-centered men could care less about the crucifixion of Christ – they don’t see He shed His own blood for them!

Do I need to remind you of John 14:26? “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.” Nowhere in the Word do you find mankind are instructed to “try your best” but “Give the Spirit His rightful place as your guide, your equipper, your trainer, and, yes, your convincer, ministering deep conviction when you choose a wrong path!

The Holy Spirit is “the spiritual parent” training, equipping, disciplining, inspiring every true “child of the King.” He’s YOUR “tutor”! In fact, in Galatians 5:16, Paul said: I say then, “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh,” then contrasting the “works of the flesh” and the “works of the Spirit”! In Galatians 5:19-25 the anointed Apostle instructs us:

“Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murder, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. BUT the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. AND those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

The question of the day is: “As a disciple of Christ do you walk day by day under the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit, promised by Christ, to be YOUR equipper in the “Overcoming Life of Christ”, yes, overcoming sin, Satan, the flesh or old sin-nature, and, overcoming the temptations, by the Spirit, of the world, the flesh, and the devil”? Let’s resolve the question right now! “Will YOU receive Christ’s gift of the Holy Spirit to be your guardian of faith and your guide into all Truth”?

I don’t know how you personally respond to the title of this teaching, but one thing I’m assured of, and that is the vast difference between fallen mankind’s view of hope and the true biblical hope which is in Christ alone.

I really felt it very comical when I first went to a dictionary, and read in the “Random House Collegiate Dictionary” of 1975, copyrighted by Random House Inc.! Their first words to define hope? “The feeling that what is desired is also possible, or that events may turn out for the best…” (A ‘feeling’? Or ‘what is desired is possible’- even if it deepens and broadens the separation between God and man?) The second words in the Dictionary as they tried to define hope? “A particular instance of this feeling: ‘the hope of winning’! (But has ‘winning’ in one’s fleshly journey enhanced his/her nearness to God, or, because of “pride” in winning and achieving, is the gap widened and broadened before a lost man and the seeking God?).

The third words in Random House’s interpretation of hope? “There is little or no hope of his recovery”, yes, hope for many is really hopelessness in human flesh seldom making a difference in one’s desire for something better than they’ve known.

But somehow, by God’s grace and divine intervention, fallen humanity must see the voice of God and the hand of God lifting people out of spiritual hopelessness to the realm of never-ending seasons of hopefulness! And we’ll search this out in the Word in a few moments, but for now, examine “hope” from the human perspective without divine intervention!

“Hope”? A healthy body! Yet how many have you witnessed in healthy bodies who ARE sin-sick souls? “Hope”? Food on the table every day, but all it does is feed the sin-sick body! “Hope”? A decent income for life’s comfort! Well-fed in the body but dead because of spiritual malnutrition! “Hope”? Pleasurable activities to keep one restrained from having to consider and wrestle with the eternal purpose of God! “Hope”? The ramping up of acceptable ambitions that keeps one reasonably at peace with himself and void of consideration of God’s intention! “Hope”? A relatively cheap acceptance of true devotion or even an awareness of a “God-life”! “Hope”? For a truly fleshly, hopeful life, there must be a strong defense and avoidance of whatever would introduce Light and Life, especially since one is comfortable in darkness and death! “Hope”? Have YOU ever heard someone say to you, “Aren’t I allowed to choose to be at peace in myself with my own darkness and spiritual death?”

And God still says: “Choose you this day whom you will serve”, because Holy God is not interested in imitation discipleship on one’s own terms, but men and women who voluntarily choose, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!”

You realize that there are ‘make-shift stars’ in the galaxy of one’s own fleshly creation, but there IS the Holy Presence of “Heaven’s Star of Bethlehem” never fading but more gloriously illuminated when ‘death to self’ is unreservedly yielded to!

Educated unbelievers are enslaved to their godless enmity of God’s holiness, and enormously arrogant concerning their godless identity! You’ve heard it: “Who cares what God desires? I call the shots of my own life-direction!”

Dare I tell you that unbelievers, smart or dumb, are, and one day will be, called before the Holy Throne of God to explain their “life decision”! Consider Revelation 20:11-15! Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the “BOOK” Of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. {God’s determination and declaration of eternal punishment?}. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire. {Is that cast into the lake of fire called Hell after God’s declaration of guilt because of unbelief, but For the Blood Redeemed, the New Creations, the Sons and Daughters of Redemptive Faith, it’s “Kingdom Living” in God’s realm of, yes, His Eternal Heaven?}

I tell you, it’s absolutely heart-breaking to know, sense, and have to declare that rejecters of the true gospel, rejecters of the Resurrected Christ, enemies of the Cross, are, in the flesh, as the embodiment of self-will, self-rule, reserving the right of self-determination, and are mentally deranged, morally bankrupt, fully ‘flesh-inspired’, demonically controlled, and ‘motherly ill and sin-sick’ like a disguised Jezebel!

Oh, but listen!! Romans 5:5-11! “Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For when we were still without strength (“helpless” as to be being reconciled to God by ‘fleshly effort’!), in due time CHRIST DIED FOR THE UNGODLY. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be (being) 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 Crucified but Resurrected Life!. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have NOW received the reconciliation.” [Don’t you find it strange to hear some Bible teachers talk about everything related to redemptive faith to be finalized IF Jesus comes back to “get” them?]. To far too many ‘hope’ is future, yet when I look at HOPE I see “Hope” like this: “H” or holy, “O” like this: omnipotent, “P” like this: power, “E” or endowed (or blessed with a personal, eternal gift!)! “HOPE”!!

Is it possible that this is why David wrote in Psalm 87:7, “All my ‘fresh’ springs shall BE IN You,” when for all of fallen humanity, apart from a redeemed heart, we drank from streams of dirty water? I know the Book of Jeremiah was written specifically in his day for enslaved Jews, but since the Word declares “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable…,” does all of fallen humanity drink from ‘dirty waters” needing the “new spring of life and living water in Christ”? I think so! Hear me! “The living ‘hope’ doesn’t make one ashamed, but inflamed in the blaze of God’s love, grace, and mercy – out of the “death of the ungodly”, through repentance and faith, we leap with sure and complete confidence in our Lord’s saving grace, and we’ll never be ashamed to honor Him!

Several truths you and I need to rest in: FIRST, THE ASSURANCE OF UNASHAMED HOPE THAT NEVER DIES! But, for an enemy of Christ, they live, at least some, with a false hope of ‘self-betterment’ by their fleshly ‘best’, assuming God should recognize their personal effort at self-improvement, whole others are gripped by their spiritual poverty, satisfied ‘with the husks the swine eat’!

And whether they recognize it or not, ‘unashamed hope in one’s self’ IS the vast void that is a personal stronghold, the unawakened aching abyss of the unbelieving heart, and the diseased heart and mind that resists strongly any conviction of sin, or their part because of sin being the reason Christ Jesus chose Calvary’s Cross in their place! Yes, Jesus died for both ‘saints’ and sinners!

But true believers redeemed by the blood of the Lamb? Having repented, they received forgiveness, reconciliation, “new life in Christ”, and a hope that is eternal! In Hebrews 10:12-14 we see, sense, are sure of, the validity of Christ’s eternal work in our place for our forever benefit! It says:

“But this Man (Christ Jesus), after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.”

The assurance of unashamed hope that never dies? I can tell you without hesitation or reservation, Holy, Loving, Merciful God intends every true believer resting in and rejoicing in Christ alone and, yes, His gift of assurance in His unashamed hope that never dies! In Philippians 2:5 Paul said, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus…”, who made Himself of no reputation…, Verses 8-11, “And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. THEREFORE God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that AT THE NAME OF JESUS every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

And Paul’s primary concern for the believers he was apart from at the time he wrote the letter? Verse 15: “that you (as a disciple of Christ!) may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, AMONG WHOM YOU SHINE AS LIGHTS IN THIS WORLD, Verse 16, holding fast the word of life…”. Tell me about your testimony of “unashamed assurance and hope that never dies”!

SECOND, KNOWING HOPE NEVER DIES OR THAT THE JOURNEY DOESN’T HAVE TO BE DELAYED, FORSAKEN, OR PARTIALLY ACHIEVED, DO WE STAND ON GOD’S PROMISES? Hear the Biblical Assurance of Victory in Jesus! In Romans 5 I remind you of what Paul wrote, inspired by the Holy Spirit: Verses 5-10, “Now hope does not disappoint, BECAUSE the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

For when we were still without strength (“helpless”), in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. BUT God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

MUCH MORE THEN, having NOW been justified by His blood, we shall be (being) 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.” GLORY!

It was J.P.Scholfield who wrote the old hymn entitled: “Saved, Saved!” It says: “I’ve found a friend who is all to me, His love is ever true; I love to tell how He lifted me And what His grace can do for you.

He saves me from every sin and harm, Secures my soul each day; I’m leaning strong on His mighty arm; I know He’ll guide me all the way.

When poor and needy and all alone, In love He said to me, “Come unto Me and I’ll lead you home, To live with Me eternally.”

Saved by His power divine, Saved to ne life sublime! Life now is sweet and my joy is complete, For I’m saved, saved, saved!” Is that YOUR testimony?

THIRD, HAVE YOU BEEN DISCIPLED, AFTER RECONCILIATION AND CONVERSION, IN THE LIFE ENCOUNTER, ENLIGHTMENT, AND ENERGIZING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT? I’m sure you’re aware of what Jesus said before His crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. In John 16:13-15 our Lord said: “…when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.

Didn’t Romans 5:5 tell us, “Nor hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us,” followed by the awesome truth of the ministry of ‘helps’ by the Spirit under His sovereign guidance in Romans 8:8-14,

“So then, those who are in the flesh (old sin-nature!) cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh (any longer if Christ lives within you!) 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.”

Are you aware of the “Super-Intended Life” over-seen, watched over, trained in the skills of spiritual warfare against the world, the flesh, the devil? Did Romans 8:14 tell us, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God?” Did Romans 5:5 tell us, “Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us”?

And as the result of the Holy Spirit’s presence in true disciples and His eternal watch-care over us, guiding us into all truth, the Spirit interprets tribulation for us as the opportunity of receiving His perseverance, showing us perseverance produces character, and character, endless hope, because we see, receive, rely upon, and welcome every testing and our victories in and through the Spirit!

In fact, what did Paul tell us in Romans 8:26-27? “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He (the Spirit) makes intercession FOR THE SAINTS according to the will of God.”

How shocked are you that the God who searches men’s hearts is interested in the prayers of the Holy Spirit when He clearly understands an immature disciple’s life of prayer, if there is one, is ‘selfish praying’ of ‘fleshly convenience’? Do you just, maybe, think that Jesus Himself witnessed and understood the prayers of many when He said, “My house shall be called the house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves.” (Matthew 21:13).

We need a yieldedness to the Holy Spirit as we pray! And learning to pray, we learn from men like Paul who said to us in Philippians 4:6-7, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” I’m convinced it’s going to be a shocking day when professing disciples, pastors, missionaries, teachers, dads and moms, governmental leaders locally and nation-wide, have their daily prayer calendars, if there is one, of their intercessory prayers for all!

I find it alarmingly mind-boggling to read a statement, I don’t know who, who nailed my concerns about “prayerless Christians, men and women, husbands and wives, even, yes, children, who never pray”! The statement? “If Christians spent as much time praying as they do grumbling, they would soon have nothing to pray about.” Do you understand? Prayer is the precious privilege of laying hold of God’s desire to willingly release His longing, His passion, His desire, His, yes, willingness, to bless you – your prayerless life is a broad wall in you that God sees as your lack of desire in having Him truly involved in your life!

From the editor of the very old Des Moines “Register”, a letter written in to him said: “To get nations back on their feet, we must get down on our knees.” And that’s a true God-blessing position for any man! If the Holy Spirit represents us before the Throne of God, does He do so out of the hearts of men and women who desire nothing but answered prayer to the glory of God? I have no doubts! W.W.Walford and William B. Bradbury wrote together an old hymn together entitled “Sweet Hour of Prayer.” I close with these words:

“Sweet hour of prayer! Sweet hour of prayer! That calls me from a world of care, And bids me at my Father’s throne Make all my wants and wishes known; In seasons of distress and grief, My soul has often found relief, and oft escaped the tempter’s snare By your return, sweet hour of prayer.

Sweet hour of prayer! Sweet hour of prayer! Your wings shall my petition bear To Him whose truth and faithfulness Engage the waiting soul to bless; And since He bids me seek His face, believe His Word and trust His grace, I’ll cast on Him my every care, And wait for You, sweet hour of prayer.

Sweet hour of prayer! Sweet hour of prayer! May I your consolation share, Till, from Mount Pisgah’s lofty height, I view my home, and take my flight; This robe of flesh I’ll drop, To seize the everlasting prize; And shout, while passing through the air, Farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer.”

Don’t you believe it’s time to resurrect prayer lives, prayer families, prayer churches, prayer disciples who faithfully grab the Throne of God and don’t let go? “All Our Hope Is In Christ Alone!” Do you believe it, receive it, walk in it?

By: J. Farrell Fisher, July 17-19, 2017

“Your life-journey”? There is no doubt all ‘life-journeys’ begin in the ‘natural’ necessitating the need of “blood Redemption” through the Cross of Christ to transform, natural, fallen humanity into sons and daughters of Father-God! Natural man in his highest form of fallen humanity never nears the mind, heart, spirit of Almighty God or the Son who came to be the sacrifice and Savior of the fallen! Natural journeys travel different highways than the Highway of God! Natural journeys, in the majority of lives, are lived to refute the need of God’s intervention in their lives at all!

To ‘trust’ natural abilities is to “step” into the footprints of men very proud of their natural abilities, never considering reconciliation with the eternal purpose of God that Adam and Eve never considered important, in fact, they bought the “lie” of Satan that one can sin and not die!

In Romans 3:23-26 the Spirit-anointed words of Paul must enlighten us all: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, BEING JUSTIFIED FREELY by His grace through the redemption (the “blood redemption”) that is in Christ Jesus, WHOM GOD SET FORTH AS A PROPITIATION BY HIS BLOOD, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

Dare I say it? I believe I will! Major religions of the world that by-pass, ignore, and seek to negate Christ’s shed blood through His Cross are nothing more than “religious demons” out to uplift ‘natural man’ to ‘godlikeness’ which denies Jesus Christ in every way, other than, “just add Him in as a compliment to what we’re religiously all about,” which is nothing more than “spitting” in Jesus’ face as they led Him to His crucifixion, proving their ‘justification’ of one’s religious “best”!

“Life-journeys” that flow out of unrepentant, unbelieving hearts are the journeys of wanderers who’ve been blinded by the powers of darkness to God’s amazing grace and unending love, wandering in the regions of worldly, fleshly, and demonic activity, like a ‘desert-journey’ with no shade, no springs, striving to make it through to a ‘comfortable place’! “Nature-lovers” ought to be God-lovers, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they are re-born sons and daughters of God, though one would hope, pray, and desire that they truly be “Mastered by the Master”!

It was George B. Cheever, in “The Encyclopedia of Religious Quotations,” (P.316), who wrote: “The man who can really, in living union of the mind and heart, converse with God through nature, finds in the material forms around him, a source of power and happiness inexhaustible, and like the life of angels. – The highest life and glory of man is to be alive unto God; and when this grandeur of sensibility to Him, and this power of communion with Him is carried, as the habit of the soul, into the forms of nature, then the walls of our world are as the gates of heaven.”

Did YOU receive it? “The highest life and glory of man is to be alive UNTO GOD”, and, of course, with Heaven’s Gates widely opened “to the repentant heart whose faith is in Christ alone”!

One of the sad words in the New Testament is found in 2 Timothy 4:16-17 when Paul wrote: “At my first defense no one stood with me, but all forsook me. May it not be charged against them. BUT the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that the message might be preached fully through me, and that all the Gentiles might hear. Also I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.” Didn’t David write in Psalm 22:21, “Save Me from the lion’s mouth and from the horns of the wild oxen”? You are aware that ‘animals’ often represented physical and religious enemies of divine truth. Enemies often appear ‘domesticated’ when in reality they are only waiting on their opportune moment to shame, defame, or lead one astray from his/her devotion to Christ Jesus!

But my deep conviction? To be Heavenly relevant is to be earthly radical in willing obedience to all our Lord Says! In Luke 6:46 Jesus said, “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’, and not do the things which I say?” True disciples, deeply convicted, openly honest before Holy God, willfully trusting the words of Christ Jesus, breaking the bonds of fleshly obedience in the sinful way, full confession, full confidence that Christ Jesus means what He says, convicted and convinced by the Holy Spirit, a man, a woman, boy or girl, “confesses, surrenders, and rests in Christ alone for eternal life now and in the hereafter”, even ‘leaning not to their own understanding (fully), but “trusting” the Lord with all their hearts, leaning not to their own understanding, but in all their ways giving Jesus His rightful place in their hearts, yes, to direct every step, with the Proverbs author saying in Proverbs 3:7-8, “Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh, and strength to your bones.”

The beloved John really hit a strong ‘home-run of faith and obedience’ when in 1 John 3:7-10 he wrote: “Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as Christ the Messiah is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. FOR THIS PURPOSE THE SON OF GOD WAS MANIFESTED, THAT HE MIGHT DESTROY THE WORKS OF THE DEVIL. Whoever has been born of God (“New birth”, birthed of the Spirit, second birth!) DOES NOT SIN (Present tense, continuous action! Doesn’t sin and keep on sinning!) Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.”

Do you understand or realize that every day of a disciple’s life there are huge choices of “doing sin like the rest of the fallen world” OR “doing righteousness as your chosen way of Life in Christ Jesus”? And didn’t John say in 1 John 3:7, “Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as Jesus is righteous.” In fact, in 1 John 2:29, John had said, “If you know that He (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, the ‘three in One’!) is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him.” In Christ we are no longer ‘slaves’ to one’s old sin nature but “servants” of the “Master of Service” who didn’t come to be served but to serve and to lay down His life as the ransom for many!

Man in a fallen world, under the domination of Satan himself, under the powerful influences of godless men, men in a fallen world who will, for some, ‘profess’ allegiance to religious trends which are feeble imitations of “Resurrected Life, Resurrected Power, and Resurrected Hope” that comes only through the Resurrection Presence of Christ in his/her “new-born Life in Christ”! It’s the “burning bush” of Old Testament fame that has come in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ! It’s the same voice of God speaking to Jeremiah who calls each of us by name, knocks on our heart’s doors, illumines our minds in the glow of His grace, telling each of us as He did to Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:8), “Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you to deliver you”, says the Lord.

And, certainly, our major enemy is Satan himself, along with his well-deceived ‘demons of darkness’ trained by your enemy, Satan, to influence you to “the best of your natural life”, to immerse you in the ill-advised life-influence of ‘self-assertiveness’, self-independence from any ruling authority but your own mind, your diseased ‘flesh’, and your darkened ambition of making sure any sinful thought in you comes to full fruition’! A godless world, a rebellious Satan, and a natural sin-nature blinds unbelievers in the world and even some ‘compromising’ individuals in the church, in attendance, every time their church doors are open so they can camouflage their darkened, demonized, and undisciplined ‘walk of faith’!

And you’ve often wondered why Jesus said what He did in Matthew 16:24-26? “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross (The “sentence of death daily”?), and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life (for self-indulgence?) will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake (living to honor Christ only!) will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?”

Oswald Chambers, in his book “My Utmost For His Highest”, wrote: (p.256), Galatians 5:24-25, “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” Chambers wrote: “It is the things that are right and noble and good from the natural standpoint that keep us back from God’s best. To discern that natural virtues antagonize surrender to God, is to bring our soul into the center of its greatest battle. Very few of us debate with the sordid and evil and wrong, but we do debate with the good. It is the good that hates the best, and the higher up you get in the scale of the natural virtues, the more intense is the opposition to Jesus Christ. ‘They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh” (Daily!!) – it is going to cost the natural in you everything, not something. Jesus said: “If ant man will be My disciple, let him DENY HIMSELF,” i.e., his right to himself, and a man has to realize Who Jesus Christ is before he will do it. Beware of refusing to go to the funeral of your own independence.”

Do you remember what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 1:9-10? “Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves (actually saying in 1 Corinthians 15:31, “I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus, I DIE DAILY”) – that’s, yes, DAILY taking the sentence of death to one’s old sin nature and fleshly desires in order that RESURRECTION LIFE IN CHRIST MAY BE MANIFESTED IN MORTAL FLESH MOMENT BY MOMENT, not when you get to heaven someday!

I hate to disappoint many ‘professing believers’ but Christ’s TRUTH can never be hidden – He spoke with eternal intent to turn men away from Satan’s deceptions to bring men into the Light of His eternal Truth! He said in Luke 14:27-33, “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, whether he has enough to finish it – lest, after he has laid a 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 against him 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.”

Have you ever heard it? “I’d be a disciple of Christ IF…”, or “I’d like to be a part of kingdom living under Christ’s Lordship IF..” or “It’s inviting and alluring, but there are parts of my personal desires I want to hold onto,” or “My vision for my earthly existence doesn’t include taking that sentence of death unto myself”, or “God’s vision for me is not what I desire to satisfy my own inner self” – on and on and on, unbelieving men will choose ‘self’ over the Savior, ‘my will’ over the eternal divine will of God, ‘my fleshly ambitions’ over Holy God’s eternal intent for my life, with some even determining “satisfying my earthly dreams over any eternal purpose of your Holy God”!

Again, Oswald Chambers wrote, (p.92), “All that we build is going to be inspected by God. Is God going to detect in His searching fire that we have built on the foundation of Jesus some enterprise of our own? These are days of tremendous enterprises, days when we are trying to work for God, and therein is the snare. Profoundly speaking, we can never work for God. Jesus takes us over for HIS enterprises, HIS building schemes entirely, and no soul has any right to claim where he shall be put.” IS THAT CLEAR?

There’s an old hymn entitled “The Haven of Rest”, (copyrighted in 1889 by John J. Hood) – it says: “My soul in sad exile was out on life’s sea, So burdened with sin and distrest, Till I heard a sweet voice saying, “Make Me your choice,” And I entered the haven of rest.

I yielded myself to His tender embrace, And, faith taking hold of the word, My fetters fell off, and I anchored my soul: The haven of rest is my Lord.

The song of my soul, since the Lord made me whole, Has been the old story so blest, Of Jesus, who’ll save whosoever will have A home in the haven of rest.

Oh, come to the Savior, He patiently waits, To save by His power divine; Come, anchor your soul in the haven of rest, And say, “My Beloved is mine.”

I’ve anchored my soul in the haven of rest, I’ll sail the wide seas no more; The tempest may sweep o’er the wild stormy deep, In Jesus I’m safe evermore.”

Has that been sealed in your heart? “Safe evermore – in Christ alone?” Dallas Willard, in his writing “The Great Omission” closed out his book saying: (p.228), “Those who think that the cultivation of inner Christ-likeness through personal discipleship to Jesus amounts to a “privatization” of our faith in Him (“quietism” and “pietism” are words often used in that connection) simply do not understand how the spiritual life in Christ works. You CANNOT privatize the fire of God that burns through the life of a disciple of Jesus. This was Jesus’s point in saying that “a city built on a hill cannot be hidden,” and that one does not “light a candle and put it under a bushel.” (Matthew 5:14-15; Mark 4:21; Luke 11:33).

Be assured! Man-made inventions of ‘religious faiths’ may survive through men’s earthly pilgrimages, but not before the Throne of Almighty God! His question to you in that moment before His Throne? “What did you do with Jesus called the Christ?” That determines your destiny in the here and now AND before the Judgment Throne of Holy God!