BY:J.FARRELL FISHER,APRIL 28-29

THE AMAZING “CREATION OF GOD” OF BOTH THE BEAUTIFUL WORLD,PLANETS,STARS,PLUS BIRTHING OF FLESHLY HUMANITY WITH “FREE WILL” TO CHOOSE WHETHER TO SERVE GOD OR NOT, IS TRULY, BOTH SAD AND GLAD – SAD, BECAUSE SOME “FREE-WILL MEN AND WOMEN” CHOSE THE PATH OF “ME, MY, AND MIND” RATHER THAN THE PERFECT, PERFECTING, PRECIOUS PRIVILEGE OF THE WINSOMENESS, THE WILL, THE “WORD”, AND THE WAYS OF HOLY GOD!

FALLEN HUMANITY’S FAILURE, IN CHOOSING SELF-WILL FOR SELF-PLEASURE, (FROM A NATURAL MIND AND NATURAL HEART!), WERE “BIRTHED”- ‘BRAIN-DEAD’, ‘FLESH-DEFILED’,‘HEART-DARKENED’,AND WILLFULLY ‘DELIRIOUS’, WITH THE ENEMY OF MANKIND, SATAN, ‘DEMONSTRABLY ACTIVE’ IN ‘DECEIVING MANKIND’, SAYING, “IF YOU SIN, DISOBEY, OR DEFY GOD, YOU WON’T DIE”, WHILE THE SPIRIT OF HOLY GOD SPEAKS TO YOU, CONVICTS YOU, SAYING, IN JOSHUA 24:15,“AND IF IT SEEMS EVIL UNTO YOU TO SERVE THE LORD,CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY WHOM YOU WILL SERVE; WHETHER THE ‘gods’ WHICH YOUR FATHERS SERVED,OR THE ‘gods of self-willed peoples’, IN WHOSE LAND YOU DWELL;BUT AS FOR ME AND MY HOUSE, WE WILL SERVE THE LORD.” (AND THE REWARD ‘of self-willed peoples’? ROMANS 6:23, “FOR THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH” –NATURALLY & ETERNALLY, IF THERE’S NO REPENTANCE, BELIEF, TRUST, & YIELDEDNESS TO THE KING OF KINGS & LORD OF LORDS!).

NATURAL MANKIND BIRTHS NATURAL CHILDREN, AND WHETHER NATURAL MANKIND OR NATURAL CHILDREN, BOTH MUST KNOW TRUE REPENTANCE BEFORE HOLY GOD, AND FULLY AWARE THAT REPENTANCE WITH TRUE BIBLICAL FAITH, GIVES BIRTH WITHIN TO PURE HEARTS WASHED CLEAN BY THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB, AND THEN THE ETERNAL BLESSING OF HIS PRESENCE, (CHRIST JESUS!), ENTERING THEIR HEARTS, MAKING THE HEART THE TABERNACLE OF HIS ETERNAL DWELLING, HIS ABIDING,EARTHLY RESIDENCE,AND,YES,THE “THRONE” BEING YOUR HEART AND LIFE THROUGH WHICH YOU ALLOW KING JESUS TO AGAIN GRANT EARTHLY PRESENCE, SOVEREIGN RULE, AND MERCIFUL OUTREACH TO YOU & THROUGH YOU TO OTHERS WHO NEED “BLOOD REDEMPTION” & “RECONCILIATION” WITH HOLY GOD, THEIR, YES, LOVING FATHER! AND UPON CONVERSION, FROM THAT DEATH FORWARD, ALL BELIEVERS ARE TO BE HIS “WITNESSING ARMY” TO SHARE “HIS TRUTH OF THE REALITY OF NEW BIRTH” TO ANY EARTHLY RESIDENT AROUND YOU!

(BUT THE SAD TRUTH? MOST CHURCHES AND PREACHERS AROUND YOU ARE ‘DEVOTED TO GOOD SUNDAY MORNING CLASSES & MESSAGES’ WITHOUT A PENNY’S WORTH OF CONCERN OR COMPASSION FOR THE LOST CITIZENS LOCALLY OR NATIONALLY OR NATIONS THAT SURROUND THEIR BORDERS, OR NATIONS OVERSEAS!)

MY GREATEST CONCERN TODAY, JUST A FEW WEEKS BEFORE MY 83^RD BIRTHDAY ON JUNE 12, 2019? THAT TOO MANY CHURCHES, TOO MANY PASTORS, TOO MANY MEMBERS, TOO MANY DENOMINATIONAL LEADERS, ARE GROWING “SO FAT” ON CHRISTIAN NEWS OF SATISFIED ‘TO BE CHURCH MEMBERS’, THAT THEY WILLFULLY BLIND THEMSELVES OF BEING TOOLS IN GOD’S HANDS TO EXTEND HIS KINGDOM, EXPRESS HIS LOVE, OR PROVE HIS POWER!

THE PSALMIST,KING DAVID, IN PSALM 8:4-9, WROTE: “WHAT IS MAN, THAT YOU, GOD, ARE MINDFUL OF HIM?AND THE SON OF MAN,(KING JESUS), THAT YOU VISIT HIM? BUT YOU BIRTHED “HIM” A LITTLE LOWER THAN THE ANGELS, AND HAVE CROWNED HIM WITH GLORY AND HONOR.YOU,GOD, MADE HIM (CHRIST JESUS!) TO HAVE DOMINION OVER THE WORKS OF YOUR HANDS; YOU PUT ALL THINGS UNDER HIS FEET:ALL SHEEP AND OXEN,YES,AND THE BEASTS OF THE FIELD; THE FOWL OF THE AIR, AND THE FISH OF THE SEA, AND WHATSOEVER PASSES THROUGH THE PATHS OF THE SEAS. O LORD OUR LORD, HOW EXCELLENT IS YOUR NAME IN ALL THE EARTH.”

‘FALLEN HUMANITY’S FAILURE?’ ‘FALLEN HUMANITY’S SIRITUAL BLINDNESS? FALLEN HUMANITY’S SHAME OF SELF-WILL OR SELF-GOVERNMENT? FALLEN HUMANITY’S HARDNESS OF HEART BECAUSE OF THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN?FALLEN HUMANITY’S STUPIDITY IN BOWING TO THE FOREFATHERS WHO SOUGHT ONLY TO BE SELF-RELIANT AS THEIR OWN SELF-INSTITUED ‘master’, ‘ruler,’ and ‘savior’ lifestyle and explanation of ‘good living’ rather than “GOD-BIRTHED, GOD-BLESSED, GOD-ANOINTED LIFE-IN-CHRIST JESUS”?

ACROSS THE ‘CHRISTIAN WORLD’,YES, WORLDWIDE, MY GREATEST CONCERN TODAY FOR THE DAYS BEFORE US? DAYS THAT SHOULD BE DAYS THROUGH US WHICH GOD THE FATHER USES TO EXTEND HIS KINGDOM, EXPRESS HIS LOVE, AND PROVE HIS POWER, BUT,”SADLY” MUCH OF ‘PROFESSING CHRISTIANITY, PROFESSING CHURCHES, PROFESSING LEADERS’, LIVE UNDER, SERVE UNDER, PLAN UNDER, PROVIDE UNDER, PERFORM UNDER, ‘RELIGIOUS PLANS’ RATHER THAN “HOLY-SPIRIT-POWER AND ANOINTING AND INSPIRING” THE, YES, SPIRITUAL PLANTING, TENDING, AND HARVESTING OF THE FRUIT OF MEN’S LOST, SEPARATED SOULS, TO BECOME SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF TRUE FAITH EXPERIENCING DIVINE, DRAMATIC CONVERSIONS THAT SIT TO EAT AROUND HIS TABLE (HIS HOLY WORD!), AND SERVE IN HIS FIELDS FOR NEEDY, SIN-SICK, SATAN-DELUDED SOULS”!

FALLEN HUMANITY’S FAILURES? LOOKING IN, THEY ONLY SEE THE NATURAL, THE EARTHLY, THE FLESHLY, THE ‘LESS OF WHAT THEY ‘WANT’ AND NOT WHAT LOVING GOD PLANNED’, THE SHALLOWNESS OF WHAT ‘SIN-NATURE’ WANTS AND NOT THE “DEEP WATERS” OF GOD’S GRACE, MERCY, AND LOVE, THE ‘SOULISH’ SATISFACTION OF ‘SELF-INDULGENCE’ THAT DROWNS THEM IN THE SHALLOW WATERS OF FLESHLY INDULGENCES, WORLDLY,WILD PLEASURES, AND SATANIC & DEMONIC, HELL-BOUND SCHEMES AND ‘WILD DREAMS’!

FALLEN HUMANITY’S FAILURES? “CROWN ‘YOU’ (ME,US- THE ONLY ONES WHO NEED TO REIGN!” “BE ‘FALLEN WORLD’S PARTNER’ UNITING WITH WHATEVER BLINDS YOU SPIRITUALLY WHEN YOU WALK ‘HERE’! BE ‘NOBLE’ IN THE WORLD “YOU” CHOOSE; AND YOU DON’T HAVE TO KNEEL BEFORE A ‘god’ TO SUCCEED–you’re your own man!”

FALLEN HUMANITY’S FAILURES? “SATISFIED WITH SOULISH LIVING, SATISFIED WITH SELF-WILL, SATISFIED WITH EARTHLY,MAN-INSPIRED EDUCATION APART FROM HOLY GOD’S INSPIRATION,SATISFIED IN THIS FLESH-LIFE AND MY SELF-INDEPENDENT-DETERMINATION TO MAKE IT HERE WITHOUT ‘YOUR GOD’S HELP’; ‘I, MY PERSONAL, MY ‘GLORIFED’,STOIC SELF, DO NOT NEED YOUR SAVIOR!”THAT’S LIKE A STATEMENT I READ SIMILAR OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN IN “THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGIOUS QUOTATIONS”,(P.396, PUBLISHED BY FLEMING H.REVELL COMPANY, WESTWOOD,NJ),THAT SAID: “GOD HELPS THOSE THAT HELP THEMSELVES.” A THOUSAND TIMES, “NO!” GOD HELPS THOSE FINISHED WITH THEMSELVES, BECAUSE THE “OLD MAN” CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST ON THE CROSS, IS NOT TO HAVE EVEN A FRACTION OF AN INCH IN THEM OF “TRYING” TO BE SAVED, BUT, YES, “RESTING IN CHRIST’S FINISHED WORK ON THE TOMB OF THE HISTORIC CROSS, AND THOUGH DEAD IN A TOMB THREE DAYS, GOD RAISED HIM!”

AND GOD “RAISES YOU” IF YOU REPENT! GOD “RAISES YOU” IF YOU ‘REST’! GOD “RAISES” YOU WHEN YOU’RE FINISHED WITH YOUR OLD MAN AND OLD NATURE AND SATANIC DECEPTION! FINISHED IF YOU’RE “FINISHED” WITH MAN-INSPIRED DREAMS AND VISIONS, AND “READY” FOR THE CHRIST IN YOU TO CONTINUE HIS ETERNAL EARTH-JOURNEY TO TOUCH OTHERS WITH HIS PROMISES AND HIS ETERNAL WORK BY HIS PRESENCE IN YOUR HEART & LIFE LITERALLY!! “CHRIST IN YOU THE HOPE OF GLORY”!!!!****

HAVE “YOU” CLOSED THE DOOR ON FALLEN HUMANITY’S FLESHLY DREAMS AND “RESTED” IN “THE FAITHFULNESS OF COMPASSIONATE GOD?”

I CHALLENGE YOU THIS VERY MOMENT AS YOU READ: “REST IN”, “WILLFULLY RELAX”, “WISELY REPENT”, AND IN “HOLY SPIRIT CONVICTED HEART, MIND, AND WILL OF GOD”, WHY NOT, YES, SIMPLY “TRUST AND OBEY”? IN JAMES 1 THE BROTHER OF JESUS WAS INSPIRED TO WRITE BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, VERSE 18, (GET READY! DON’T BE DECEIVED!!), “OF HIS OWN WILL GOD BIRTHED US WITH THE WORD OF TRUTH…”, WITH SIMON PETER TELLING US IN 1 PETER 1:2-5, “ELECT ACCORDING TO THE FOREKNOWLEDGE OF GOD THE FATHER, ( PAUSE! DID IT SAY: “FOREKNOWLEDGE”? YOU MEAN BEFORE HUMANITY EVER EXISTED, GOD KNEW WHO, HOW MANY, HE THEN “YES”, SOVEREIGNLY CHOSE THEM TO BE HIS HEAVENLY FAMILY OF SONS AND DAUGHTERS THROUGH THEIR GIFT OF FAITH IN THE FINISHED WORK OF CHRIST AT CALVARY AND THROUGH HIS EMPTY-TOMB RESURRECTION, HIS ASCENSION, AND HIS HEAVENLY REIGN! BEFORE CREATION GOD THE FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT CHOSE THE “FAMILY OF FAITH” AND SAW TO IT THAT THEY WERE, ARE, AND WILL BE “BORN AGAIN”, ADOPTED INTO THE HOLY FAMILY, HAVING BEEN “RECONCILED THROUGH THE BLOOD OF THE CROSS AND HIS RESURRECTION, ASCENDING TO THE RIGHT HAND THRONE OF GOD TO WATCH AFTER GOD’S PRE-ORDAINED, ETERNALLY PROGRAMED SPIRITUAL BIRTHS, AND AFTER A LIFE OF EARTHLY SERVICE, UPON THEIR SPIRITUAL DEATHS, HE “CALLS THEM HOME” TO THE THRONE-ROOM, WHERE AT THE THRONE THEY’RE WELCOMED BY KING JESUS, AND, YES, GIVES ALL SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF “BORN-AGAIN FAITH” TO BE HIS FOOTWASHERS, SERVANTS, TABERNACLE-TENDERS, CHOIR SINGERS – A BLESSED, ETERNAL, THRILLED FAMILY OF NEVER-DYING, NEVER-ENDING MINISTRY TO THE “LORD OF GLORY”!

OH, BACK TO 1 PETER 1, VERSE 2A, “ELECT…”, BUT NOTICE ALSO 2B, THERE’S “SANCTIFICATION OF THE SPIRIT (THE HOLY SPIRIT) UNTO OBEDIENCE, AND SPRINKLING OF THE BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST”..FOR GRACE THROUGH YOU TO BE MULTIPLIED!!”

Verse 3 EXPLAINS: “BLESSED BE THE GOD AND FATHER OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, WHICH ACCORDING TO HIS ABUNDANT MERCY HAS BEGOTTEN US AGAIN UNTO A LIVING HOPE BY THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST FROM THE DEAD, VERSE 4, TO AN INHERITANCE, INCORRUPTIBLE, AND UNDEFILED, AND THAT FADES NOT AWAY, RESERVED IN HEAVEN FOR YOU, VERSE 5,‘WHO ARE KEPT BY THE POWER OF GOD THROUGH FAITH (OR TRUST) UNTO SALVATION, READY TO BE REVEALED IN THE LAST DAYS.”

IF CHRIST JESUS SAID ON THE CROSS RIGHT BEFORE HE DIED: “IT IS FINISHED!”, I TELL YOU, SUMMED UP IN THE STATEMENT OF JESUS IS THE DETERMINATION OF THE ‘WHO’ WILL BE SAVED, AND THE GUARANTEE THAT HIS WORK “FOR THEM” IS OVER! ON THE CROSS, BEFORE, IN HIS EARTHLY MINISTRY, BEFORE MANKIND WAS EVER CREATED, JESUS KNEW WHO, WHERE, AND WHEN THEY’D BE BORN, THEN RE-BIRTHED SPIRITUALLY THROUGH HIS MERCY AND LOVE, SERVED HIM FAITHFULLY, AND THEN, UPON EARTHLY DEATH, READY TO BE RAISED CELEBRATING HIM AND HIS ETERNAL “KINGDOM OF GOD REIGN” IN HEAVEN AS HE DID ON EARTH!

“THE FAITHFULNESS OF COMPASSIONATE GOD?” THAT’S WHO GOD IS;THAT’S WHAT FLOWS IN YOU AND AROUND YOU; IT’S WHAT “HE DOES” IN CHOOSING YOU, AND IN CALLING YOU, AND IN CONVERTING YOU, AND COMPASSIONATELY INDWELLING YOU; AND BECAUSE YOU RESPOND TO HIS PRESENCE, YOU CHOOSE DAILY TO YOUR ‘OLD MAN’, YOUR ‘OLD SIN-NATURE’, DEATH TO IT & YOURSELF, THAT THE RESURRECTION LIFE AND SPIRIT OF CHRIST MAY HIMSELF FLOW FREELY, FULLY, AND FAITHFULLY THROUGH YOU DAILY! & YOU LIVE SINGING:

“EVERY DAY I LIVE IN HIS GLORY, EVERY DAY I SHARE HIS STORY: ‘GOD REDEEMS BY THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB’, NEW CREATIONS REJOICE AS A CHOIR, LOUDLY SINGING: ‘IT’S IN ME CHRIST JESUS’ HOUR; PURCHASED BY HIS BLOOD, RE-BORN IN HIS FLOOD, A REPENTANT MEN NOW SHARES HIS LIFE & HIS MISSION, FULLY FORGIVEN, AMAZINGLY ASSURED: CHRIST MY SAVIOR IS NOW MY LORD”.

WALK IN OBEDIENCE YOUR LORD TO PLEASE, KNOWING LIFE IN HIM IS NO LONGER YOUR DISEASE, BUT A LIFE OF PEACE FREED FROM DISTRESS, BECAUSE IN JESUS YOU SHARE IN HIS ETERNAL REST; NO LONGER SHAMED IN SIN AND UNBELIEF, BY FAITH IN CHRIST’S SACRIFICE, I’VE BECOME HIS DELIGHT! “CHRIST IN ME MY HOPE OF GLORY, CHRIST THROUGH ME MY WORLD’S REDEMPTION STORY. POWERED BY THE SPIRIT AND AWAKENED TO MEN’S “LOST”, I GLADLY SHARE JESUS AT ANY COST.

IN CHRIST OUR “NEW LIFE” GLOWS, AND FREED IN THE SPIRIT GOD’S WORD NOW FLOWS! IT’S THE SEED OF HIS WORD PRODUCING FRUIT, EVEN “NEW-BORN LIVES” AS HIS GREAT DELIGHT! FROM THE GRAVE OF SIN AND DEATH, FROM THE LIES OF RICHES IN ‘FLESH’S WEALTH’, THE TRUTH OF GOD’S MERCY AND GRACE FULLY ABIDE, AS A REPENTANT HEART FAITHS ONLY: “I WANT TO BE ON GOD’S SIDE!”

SO I DIE TO MY SIN, I REST IN HIS GRACE, AND AMAZINGLY SEE, “I’M NOW PART OF HEAVEN’S RACE, EXTENDING HIS LIFE, EXPRESSING HIS LOVE, UNVEILING HIS PRESENCE, I’M LIKE A HEAVENLY DOVE!” I REJOICE IN MY SAVIOR, I REST IN HIS LOVE; I’VE BEEN RAISED UP, SEATED ABOVE! ABOVE SIN AND DEATH, I GLOW IN HIS GLORY, AS LOVINGLY I SHARE REDEMPTION’S STORY; “I AM HIS, AND HE IS MINE, AND IN HIS ABIDING I SHINE.”

IN MATTHEW 16:24 JESUS SAID: “IF ANY MAN WILL COME AFTER ME, LET HIM TAKE UP HIS CROSS, AND FOLLOW ME!” ARE “YOU” FOLLOWING? ARE “YOU” SHARING REDEMPTION’S STORY? DOES YOUR LIFE “GLOW” WITH HEAVEN’S GLORY? I TELL YOU: “SELF-DENIAL” TO SHARE GOD’S GLORY IS NOT AN INCLINATION BUT THE “REVELATION” AND INSPIRATION OF DISCIPLESHIP DUTY, OVERFLOWING FROM THE REALITY OF CRUCIFIXION WITH CHRIST TO THE REVELATION OF RESURRECTION LIFE IN CHRIST, RAISED UP, IN-FILLED, AND OVERFLOWING WITH HIS HOLY PRESENCE TO BE HIMSELF, TOUCHING MEN AROUND YOU WITH HIS “GREATER LOVE”, HIS “HEAVENLY GLORY”, AND A “NEW LIFE” WILLING TO SHARE HIS STORY! ARE YOU “NEW IN CHRIST WITH THE GREATER LOVE WHICH SHARES HIS STORY”? THAT’S HEAVEN’S LOVE FOR LOST MEN’S EARTHLY NOTHINGNESS THAT HONORS GOD IN THEM, EXCEPT “CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST, BURIED IN HIS TOMB, BUT RAISED IN 3 DAYS IN ETERNAL GLORY”! IS THAT “YOUR STORY”?

FALLEN HUMANITY’S FAILURE OR “THE FAITHFULNESS OF COMPASSIONATE GOD?”

J.FARRELL FISHER, JUNE 1-2, 2019

QUANTITATIVE CHOICES OF MANKIND? THE DICTIONARY DEFINITION OF ‘QUANTITATIVE’ IN THE RANDOM HOUSE COLLEGIATE DICTIONARY OF 1975 BY RANDOM HOUSE INC. SAYS OF THAT BIG WORD, “THAT IS OR MAY BE ESTIMATED BY QUANTITY”; & WHEN IT COMES TO “QUANTITAVIVE CHOICES OF ‘FALLEN’ MANKIND”, ALIENATED & SEPARATED FROM GOD BY THE WILLFUL CHOICE OF THE MIND & HEART, ALL MANKIND WAS BIRTHED WITH THE CHOICE OF ‘SELF-WILL’ OR “DIVINE WILL”, & FROM ADAM & EVE ONWARD THROUGH ALL HUMAN HISTORY THE CHOICE HAS BEEN ‘SELF-WILL’, ‘SELF-RULE’, ‘SELF-MASTERY’, ‘SELF-INDULGENCE’,& ‘SELF-PLEASURE’, “AS I OR WE DETERMINE FOR OURSELVES”!

HOLY GOD WAS NOT INTERESTED IN MANUFACTURING “ROBOTS” WHO, WITHOUT CHOICE, WOULD AUTOMATICALLY DO WHAT HE DESIRED; SO “FREE WILL” CAME INTO PLAY, & WE ALL KNOW ADAM & EVE’S CHOICE & YOUR CHOICE & MINE! DO YOU REMEMBER JOSHUA 24:14-16 WHEN JOSHUA SAID TO THE TRIBES OF ISRAEL, “NOW THEREFORE FEAR THE LORD, & SERVE HIM IN SINCERITY & IN TRUTH: & PUT AWAY 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 DWELL; BUT AS FOR ME & MY HOUSE, WE WILL SERVE THE LORD”?

THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY GOD BLESSED TO ENLIGHTEN THE “CHOSEN PEOPLE” BECAUSE, ALREADY, IN HUMAN HISTORY THE “GREAT FALLING AWAY” FROM GOD CONTINUED! IN DEUTERONOMY 10:8 WE READ, “AT THAT TIME THE LORD SEPARATED THE TRIBE OF LEVI, TO BEAR THE ARK OF THE COVENANT, TO STAND BEFORE THE LORD TO MINISTER UNTO HIM, & TO BLESS HIS NAME, UNTO THIS DAY.” THEN IN VERSES 12-13 WE READ, “AND NOW, ISRAEL, WHAT DOES THE LORD REQUIRE OF YOU, BUT TO FEAR THE LORD YOUR GOD, TO WALK IN ALL HIS WAYS, & TO LOVE HIM, & TO SERVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART & WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, TO KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS, & HIS STATUTES, WHICH I COMMAND YOU THIS DAY FOR YOUR GOOD?” (BUT THAT’S OPTIONAL?).

TO AMERICANS TODAY, I ASK YOU, “WHAT DOES THE LORD GOD REQUIRE OF YOU?”, AND A LOST, PERISHING, DYING HUMANITY, LIVING FAITHLESS KEEPS DIGGING A DEEPER HOLE TO BE BURIED IN! BUT COMPASSIONATE GOD DIDN’T CHANGE THEN & DOESN’T CHANGE NOW! IN DEUTERONOMY 11:26-28 WE READ, “BEHOLD, I SET BEFORE YOU THIS DAY A BLESSING & A CURSE; A BLESSING, IF YOU OBEY THE COMMANDMENTS OF THE LORD YOUR GOD, WHICH I COMMAND YOU THIS DAY: AND A CURSE, IF YOU WILL NOT OBEY THE COMMANDMENTS OF THE LORD YOUR GOD, BUT TURN ASIDE OUT OF THE WAY WHICH I COMMAND YOU THIS DAY, TO GO AFTER OTHER GODS, WHICH YOU HAVE NOT KNOWN.”

HOW SERIOUS-MINDED ARE YOU WHEN YOU HEAR HOLY GOD SPEAK ABOUT “TURNING ASIDE, OUT OF THE WAY, WHICH I COMMAND YOU THIS DAY, TO GO AFTER OTHER ‘gods’, WHICH YOU HAVE NOT KNOWN”? IN THE END OF ISAIAH 45:20 THE PROPHET EXPOSED THOSE “WHO PRAY UNTO A ‘god’ THAT CANNOT SAVE”! THEN, OF COURSE, THERE ARE THOSE WHO NEVER PRAY BECAUSE THEY DON’T NEED “FALSE GODS” & THEY SURE DON’T DESIRE TO TRUST THE GOD WHO MADE THEM, LOST THEM, BOUGHT THEM WITH THE PRICE OF HIS OWN SON’S BLOOD, BUT THEY REFUSE HIS MERCY, HIS GRACE, & HIS LOVE – “WE’RE OK WITHOUT YOU, BIG GOD!”

JOB HAD ‘FRIENDS’ WHO MADE ‘LIGHT’ ABOUT SERIOUS-MINDED FRIENDS LIKE HIM, YES, DEVOTED TO HOLY GOD. IN JOB 13:1-11 JOB RESPONDED REPROVING “HIS FRIENDS”, SAYING, “LO, MY EYE HAS SEEN ALL THIS (FABRICATION OF FAITH!), MY EAR HAS HEARD & UNDERSTOOD IT. WHAT YOU KNOW, THE ‘SAME’ DO I KNOW ALSO; I AM NOT INFERIOR UNTO YOU. SURELY I WOULD SPEAK TO THE ALMIGHTY, & I DESIRE TO REASON WITH GOD. “BUT”, YOU (IN THE FLESH) ARE FORGERS OF LIES (PRETENDERS), YOU ARE ALL PHYSICIANS (OR DOCTORS) OF NO VALUE (HAVING NO PRECRIPTION FOR YOUR RELIGIOUS PRETENSE!). O THAT YOU WOULD ALTOGETHER HOLD YOUR PEACE! & IT SHOULD BE YOUR WISDOM. (BUT SADLY MANY ‘WORLDLY-MINDED’ ARE MORE IN TUNE TO THE FALLEN SIN-NATURE THAN SAVING GRACE, BUT DESIRING BOTH, THEY STILL “SING PRAISES TO GOD AS, YES, AT THE SAME TIME THEY SHAME THE SACRED NAME OF THE KING OF KINGS & LORD OF LORDS!!). JOB CONTINUED:

VERSES 6-11, HEAR NOW MY REASONING, & HEARKEN TO THE PLEADING OF MY LIPS. WILL YOU SPEAK WICKEDLY FOR GOD? & TALK DECEITFULLY FOR HIM? WILL YOU ACCEPT HIS PERSON? WILL YOU CONTEND FOR GOD? IS IT GOOD THAT HE SHOULD SEARCH YOU OUT? OR AS ONE MAN MOCKS ANOTHER, DO YOU SO MOCK GOD? IS IT GOOD THAT HE SHOULD SEARCH YOU OUT? OR AS ONE MAN MOCKS ANOTHER, DO YOU SO MOCK HIM? HE WILL SURELY REPROVE YOU, IF YOU DO SECRETLY ACCEPT PERSONS. SHALL NOT HIS EXCELLENCY MAKE YOU AFRAID? & HIS DREAD FALL UPON YOU?

QUANTITATIVE CHOICES OF MANKIND? ARE THEY STILL ALIVE ON GOD’S ‘PLANET-EARTH’? PAUL LEFT TITUS IN CRETE TO CONTINUE THE MINISTRY OF FAITH & IN TITUS 1: 9-16 HE CHALLENGED THE LORD’S AMBASSADOR OF THE TRUE FAITH, SAYING, “HOLDING FAST THE FAITHFUL WORD AS (A BISHOP) HAS BEEN TAUGHT, THAT HE MAY BE ABLE BY SOUND DOCTRINE TO EXHORT & TO CONVINCE THE GAINSAYERS (A DISPUTER OF BIBLICAL TRUTH WHO WOULD CONTRADICT THE HOLY WORD!) FOR THERE ARE MANY UNRULY & VAIN TALKERS & DECEIVERS, SPECIALLY THEY OF THE CIRCUMCISION (LEGALISTIC ‘JEWS’): WHOSE MOUTHS MUST BE STOPPED, WHO SUBVERT WHOLE HOUSES, TEACHING THINGS WHICH THEY OUGHT NOT, FOR FILTHY LUCRE’S SAKE.

ONE OF THEMSELVES, EVEN A PROPHET OF THEIR OWN, SAID, THE CRETIANS ARE ALWAYS LIARS, EVIL BEASTS, SLOW BELLIES. THIS WITNESS IS TRUE. WHEREFORE REBUKE THEM SHARPLY, THAT THEY MAY BE SOUND IN THE FAITH; NOT GIVING HEED TO JEWISH FABLES, & COMMANDMENTS OF MEN, THAT TURN FROM THE TRUTH. UNTO THE PURE ALL THINGS ARE PURE; BUT UNTO THEM THAT ARE DEFILED & UNBELIEVING IS NOTHING PURE; BUT EVEN THEIR MIND & CONSCIENCE IS DEFILED. THEY PROFESS TO KNOW GOD; BUT IN WORKS (WALKS) THEY DENY HIM, BEING ABOMINABLE, & DISOBEDIENT, & UNTO EVERY GOOD WORK REPROBATE.” WOW!!

BUT RATHER THAN THE “QUANTITATIVE CHOICES OF FALLEN MANKIND”, WHAT ABOUT EXAMINING “THE ETERNAL, QUALITATIVE CHOICE OF GOD FOR MAN?” WHAT DID JOSHUA SAY? “AS FOR ME & MY HOUSE, WE WILL SERVE THE LORD!” AND “YOU” HAVE A CHOICE! I PRAY IT’S FULL REPENTANCE BEFORE HOLY GOD & TRUE FAITH & FULL SURRENDER TO THE LORDSHIP OF CHRIST JESUS!!

IN 1 KINGS 18:21 WE READ, “AND ELIJAH CAME UNTO ALL THE PEOPLE, & SAID, HOW LONG HALT YOU BETWEEN TWO OPINIONS? IF THE LORD BE GOD, FOLLOW HIM; BUT IF BAAL, THEN FOLLOW HIM. & THE PEOPLE ANSWERED HIM NOT A WORD.”

RATHER THAN HOUSES OF NATURAL ‘BEASTLINESS’, HOW ABOUT HEARTS & HOMES OF DIVINE PRESENCE, DIVINE POWER, & DIVINE PRIVILEGE, EMPOWERING MAN & WIFE & PARENTS & CHILDREN HONORING THE KING OF KINGS & LORD OF LORDS? ‘HOUSES’ “CHOOSE” AS WELL AS “HOMES”, BUT ‘FLESHLY’ BEST HAS NEVER HONORED HOLY GOD! IN ECCLESIASTES 11:5-8, POSSIBLY AUTHORED BY SOLOMAN, WE READ: “AS YOU KNOW NOT WHAT IS THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT,NOR HOW THE BONES DO GROW IN THE WOMB OF HER THAT IS WITH CHILD:EVEN SO YOU KNOW NOT THE WORKS OF GOD WHO MAKES ALL.

IN THE MORNING SOW YOUR SEED, & IN THE EVENING WITHHOLD NOT YOUR HAND: FOR YOU KNOW NOT WHETHER SHALL PROSPER, EITHER THIS OR THAT, OR WHETHER THEY BOTH SHALL BE ALIKE GOOD. TRULY THE LIGHT IS SWEET, & A PLEASANT THING IT IS FOR THE EYES TO BEHOLD THE SUN; BUT IF A MAN LIVE MANY YEARS, & REJOICE IN THEM ALL; YET LET HIM REMEMBER THE DAYS OF DARKNESS; FOR THEY SHALL BE MANY. ALL THAT COMES IS VANITY.” FLESHLY BEST IS VANITY & DARKNESS! HOMES OF DIVINE PRESENCE ARE VICTORY IN JESUS, FULL OF HIS ETERNAL LIGHT!!

ALSO, RATHER THAN HOLLOW HEARTS, WHAT ABOUT VIBRANT HEARTS WITH THE PRESENCE OF THE LIVING CHRIST? IN COLOSSIANS 1:27 WE READ PAUL SAYING, “TO WHOM GOD WOULD MAKE KNOWN WHAT IS THE RICHES OF THE GLORY OF THIS MYSTERY AMONG THE GENTILES, WHICH IS CHRIST IN YOU, THE HOPE OF GLORY.” ALSO, EXAMINE FOR YOURSELF 1 JOHN 3:16-24!!! “HEREBY PERCEIVE WE THE LOVE OF GOD, BECAUSE, HE LAID DOWN HIS LIFE FOR US; & WE OUGHT TO LAY DOWN OUR LIVES FOR THE BRETHREN. (AND THAT’S “SAVED BRETHREN OR LOST BRETHREN”!)

BUT WHOSO HAS THIS WORLD’S GOOD, & SEES HIS BROTHER HAS NEED, & SHUTS UP HIS BOWELS OF COMPASSION FROM HIM, HOW DOES THE LOVE OF GOD DWELL IN HIM? MY LITTLE CHILDREN, LET US NOT LOVE IN WORD, NEITHER IN TONGUE; BUT IN DEED & IN TRUTH. & HEREBY WE KNOW THAT WE ARE OF THE TRUTH, & SHALL ASSURE OUR HEARTS BEFORE GOD. FOR IF OUR HEART CONDEMN US, GOD IS GREATER THAN OUR HEART, & KNOWS ALL THINGS.

BELOVED, IF OUR HEART CONDEMN US NOT, THEN WE HAVE CONFIDENCE TOWARD GOD. & WHATSOEVER WE ASK, WE RECEIVE OF HIM, BECAUSE WE KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS, & DO THOSE THINGS THAT ARE PLEASING IN GOD’S SIGHT. & THIS IS THE COMMANDMENT, THAT WE SHOULD BELIEVE (TRUST IN,RELY UPON,ADHERE TO)ON THE NAME OF HIS SON JESUS CHRIST, & LOVE ONE ANOTHER, AS HE GAVE US COMMANDMENT. & HE THAT KEEPS HIS COMMANDMENTS DWELLETH IN HIM, & GOD IN HIM. & HEREBY WE KNOW THAT HE ABIDES IN US BY THE SPIRIT WHICH THE FATHER HAS GIVEN TO US.”

AND THAT, MY FRIENDS, IS THE HOLY SPIRIT WHO ALSO KNOWS ‘WARPED SPIRITS’ WERE CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST, & THAT THROUGH REPENTANCE & TRUE FAITH, THE “BORN-AGAIN HEART & LIFE” THE HOLY SPIRIT WANTS IT TO BE HIS EARTHLY TEMPLE, TABERNACLE, WHERE HE LIVES IN RESIDENT-LIVING & PROVIDES OVERCOMING POWER FOR THE “TEMPLE” THAT FACES UNCEASING CHALLENGES FROM ‘THE POWERS OF DARKNESS’! THERE CAN BE, IS, & MUST BE “YIELDEDNESS” TO THE WILLFUL SPIRIT OF HOLY INTENT!

OH, THEN CONSIDER: “BUSINESSES ONLY FOR PROFIT” OR “LIFE-BUSINESS FOR THE PRAISE OF THE LORD”? EXAMINE THOROUGHLY YOUR OWN HEART & MIND BEFORE HOLY GOD AS YOU LISTEN TO, RESPOND TO, & REST IN COLOSSIANS 1:16-29!! PAUL WROTE: “FOR BY HIM WERE ALL THINGS CREATED, THAT ARE IN HEAVEN, & THAT ARE IN EARTH, VISIBLE & INVISIBLE, WHETHER THEY BE THRONES, OR DOMINIONS, OR PRINCIPALITIES, OR POWERS:ALL THINGS WERE CREATED BY HIM, & FOR HIM. AND HE IS BEFORE ALL THINGS, & BY HIM ALL THINGS CONSIST.

AND HE (CHRIST JESUS!) IS THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH:WHO IS THE BEGINNING, THE FIRSTBORN FROM THE DEAD; THAT IN ALL THINGS HE MIGHT HAVE THE PREEMINENCE. FOR IT PLEASED THE FATHER THAT IN HIM SHOULD ALL FULLNESS DWELL; & HAVING MADE PEACE THROUGH THE BLOOD OF HIS CROSS, BY HIM TO RECONCILE ALL THINGS UNTO HIMSELF; BY HIM, I SAY, WHETHER THEY BE THINGS IN EARTH, OR THINGS IN HEAVEN. & YOU, THAT WERE SOMETIME ALIENATED & ENEMIES IN YOUR MIND BY WICKED WORKS, YET NOW HAS HE RECONCILED IN THE BODY OF HIS FLESH THROUGH DEATH, TO PRESENT YOU HOLY & UNBLAMEABLE & UNREPROVEABLE IN HIS SIGHT: IF YOU CONTINUE IN THE FAITH GROUNDED, & SETTLED, & BE NOT MOVED AWAY FROM THE HOPE OF THE GOSPEL, WHICH YOU HAVE HEARD, & WHICH WAS PREACHED TO EVERY CREATURE WHICH IS UNDER HEAVEN; WHEREOF I PAUL AM MADE A MINISTER;

WHO NOW REJOICE IN MY SUFFERINGS FOR YOU, & FILL UP THAT WHICH IS BEHIND OF THE AFFLICTIONS OF CHRIST IN MY FLESH FOR HIS BODY’S SAKE, WHICH IS THE CHURCH: WHEREOF I AM MADE A MINISTER, ACCORDING TO THE DISPENSATION OF GOD (GOD’S ‘STEWARDSHIP’!) WHICH IS GIVEN TO ME FOR YOU, TO FULFILL THE WORD OF GOD; EVEN THE MYSTERY WHICH HAS BEEN HIDDEN FROM AGES & FROM GENERATIONS, BUT NOW IS MADE MANIFEST TO HIS SAINTS: TO WHOM GOD WOULD MAKE KNOWN WHAT IS THE RICHES OF THE GLORY OF THIS MYSTERY AMONG THE GENTILES: WHICH IS CHRIST IN YOU, THE HOPE OF GLORY: WHOM WE PREACH, WARNING EVERY MAN, & TEACHING EVERY MAN IN ALL WISDOM; THAT WE MAY PRESENT EVERY MAN PERFECT IN CHRIST JESUS; WHEREUNTO I ALSO LABOR, STRIVING ACCORDING TO HIS WORKING, WHICH WORKS IN ME MIGHTILY.”

“THE ETERNAL, QUALITATIVE CHOICE OF GOD FOR MAN”? I WANT TO SHARE HERE WORDS FROM ERIC METAXAS IN HIS BOOK “7 MEN & THE SECRETS OF THEIR GREATNESS.” HE WROTE IN THE INTRODUCTION,(PP.19-20) THE FOLLOWING: “BUT BECAUSE MEN HAVE SOMETIMES USED THEIR STRENGTH SELFISHLY, THERE HAS BEEN A BACKLASH AGAINST THE WHOLE IDEA OF MASCULINE STRENGTH. IT HAS BEEN SEEN – & PORTRAYED – AS SOMETHING NEGATIVE. IF YOU BUY INTO THAT IDEA, THEN YOU REALIZE THE ONLY WAY TO DEAL WITH IT IS TO WORK AGAINST IT, TO TRY TO WEAKEN MEN, BECAUSE WHATEVER STRENGTH THEY HAVE WILL BE USED TO HARM OTHERS. THIS LEADS TO THE EMASCULATED IDEA OF MEN. STRENGTH IS DENIGRATED BECAUSE IT CAN BE USED FOR ILL. SO WE LIVE IN A CULTURE WHERE STRENGTH IS FEARED & WHERE THERE IS A SENSE THAT – TO PROTECT THE WEAK – STRENGTH ITSELF MUST BE WEAKENED. WHEN THIS HAPPENS, THE HEROIC & TRUE NATURE OF STRENGTH IS MUCH FORGOTTEN. IT LEADS TO A WORLD OF MEN WHO AREN’T REALLY MEN. INSTEAD THEY ARE JUST TWO KINDS OF BOYS: BOASTING, LOUD-MOUTHED BULLIES OR SOFT, EMASCULATED PSEUDO-MEN. WOMEN FEEL THAT THEY MUST BE “EMPOWERED” & MUST NEVER RELY ON MEN FOR STRENGTH. IT’S A LOT LIKE A SOCIALISTIC IDEA, WHERE “POWER” & “STRENGTH” ARE REDISTRIBUTED – TAKEN AWAY FROM MEN & GIVEN TO WOMEN, TO EVEN THINGS OUT. OF COURSE IT DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY. EVERYONE LOSES.

THE KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR WHO DOES ALL HE CAN TO PROTECT OTHERS, THE GENTLEMAN WHO LAYS DOWN HIS CLOAK OR OPENS A DOOR FOR A LADY – THESE ARE CHRISTIAN IDEALS OF MANLINESS. JESUS SAID THAT HE WHO WOULD LEAD MUST BE THE SERVANT OF ALL. IT’S THE BIBLICAL IDEA OF SERVANT LEADERSHIP. THE TRUE LEADER GIVES HIMSELF TO THE PEOPLE HE LEADS. THE GOOD SHEPHERD LAYS DOWN HIS LIFE FOR HIS SHEEP. JESUS WASHED THE FEET OF THE DISCIPLES. JESUS DIED FOR THOSE HE LOVES. THAT IS GOD’S IDEA OF STRENGTH & LEADERSHIP & BLESSING. IT’S SOMETHING TO BE USED IN THE SERVICE OF OTHERS. SO GOD’S IDEA OF MASCULINE STRENGTH GIVES US THE IDEA OF A CHIVALROUS GENTLEMAN TOWARD WOMEN, NOT A BULLY OR SOMEONE WHO SEES NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HIMSELF & THEM.” SO TRUE!

“THE ETERNAL, QUALITATIVE CHOICE OF GOD FOR MAN?” WHAT ABOUT 1 SAMUEL 3:10? “AND THE LORD CAME, & STOOD, & CALLED AS AT OTHER TIMES, ‘SAMUEL, SAMUEL’. THEN SAMUEL ANSWERED, “SPEAK, LORD; FOR YOUR SERVANT HEARS.” BUT DOES GOD COME, DOES HE STILL KNOCK, DOES HE STILL CALL AS HE HAS FOR SO MANY MULTITUDES & YET WHEN THE “WISDOM OF GOD CALLS, THERE ARE THOSE WHO REFUSE TO ANSWER OR RESPOND TO HIS PASSIONATE INVITATION! IN PROVERBS 1:22-33 WE READ, “HOW LONG, YOU SIMPLE ONES, WILL YOU LOVE SIMPLICITY? & THE SCORNERS DELIGHT IN THEIR SCORNINGS, & FOOLS HATE KNOWLEDGE?

TURN YOU AT MY REPROOF, BEHOLD, I WILL POUR OUT MY SPIRIT UNTO YOU, I WILL MAKE KNOWN MY WORDS UNTO YOU. BECAUSE I HAVE CALLED, & YOU REFUSED; I HAVE STRETCHED OUT MY HAND, & NO MAN REGARDED. BUT YOU HAVE SET AT NOUGHT ALL MY COUNSEL, & WOULD NONE OF MY REPROOF; I ALSO WILL LAUGH AT YOUR CALAMITY; I WILL MOCK WHEN YOUR FEAR COMES; WHEN YOUR FEAR COMES AS DESOLATION, & YOUR DESTRUCTION COMES AS A WHIRLWIND; WHEN DISTRESS & ANGUISH COMES UPON YOU.

THEN SHALL THEY CALL UPON ME, BUT I WILL NOT ANSWER; THEY SHALL SEEK ME EARLY, BUT THEY SHALL NOT FIND ME: FOR THAT THEY HATED KNOWLEDGE, & DID NOT CHOOSE THE FEAR OF THE LORD; THEY WOULD NONE OF MY COUNSEL; THEY DESPISED ALL MY REPROOF. THEREFORE SHALL THEY EAT THE FRUIT OF THEIR OWN WAY, & BE FILLED WITH THEIR OWN DEVICES. FOR THE TURNING AWAY OF THE SIMPLE SHALL SLAY THEM, & THE PROSPERITY OF FOOLS SHALL DESTROY THEM. BUT WHOSO HEARKENS UNTO ME SHALL DWELL SAFELY, & SHALL BE QUIET FROM FEAR OF EVIL.” THE ETERNAL,QUALITATIVE CHOICE FOR MAN?” FANNY CROSBY & W.H.DOANE, IN THE OLD “THE AMERICAN HYMNAL”,(PUBLISHED IN 1933, BY THE BROADMAN PRESS, NASHVILLE, TENN.) WROTE A HYMN ENTITLED “SAFE IN THE ARMS OF JESUS”. IT SAYS: “SAFE IN THE ARMS OF JESUS, SAFE ON HIS GENTLE BREAST, THERE BY HIS LOVE O’ER-SHADED, SWEETLY MY SOUL SHALL REST. HARK! IT’S THE VOICE OF ANGELS, BORNE IN A SONG TO ME, OVER THE FIELDS OF GLORY, OVER THE JASPER SEA.

SAFE IN THE ARMS OF JESUS, SAFE FROM CORRODING CARE, SAFE FROM THE WORLD’S TEMPTATIONS, SIN CANNOT HARM ME THERE. FREE FROM THE BLIGHT OF SORROW, FREE FROM MY DOUBTS & FEARS; ONLY A FEW MORE TRIALS, ONLY A FEW MORE TEARS!

JESUS, MY HEART’S DEAR REFUGE, JESUS HAS DIED FOR ME; FIRM ON THE ROCK OF AGES, EVER MY TRUST SHALL BE. HERE LET ME WAIT WITH PATIENE, WAIT TIL’ THE NIGHT IS O’ER; WAIT TILL I SEE THE MORNING BRREAK ON THE GOLDEN SHORE…..SAFE IN THE ARMS OF JESUS,SAFE ON HIS GENTLE BREAST, THERE BY HIS LOVE O’ER-SHADED,SWEETLY MY SOUL SHALL REST. AMEN?” ARE YOU AT REST?

By: J. Farrell Fisher, July 24-25, 2017

A craving, fleshly heart is because of all lives birthed in the ‘natural’ world void of the “new creation miraculous birth” through the free gift of God Himself through the shed blood of the Redeemer! Didn’t Jesus say to the ‘religious’ Nicodemus, in John 3:3, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is BORN AGAIN, he cannot see the kingdom of God”?

In fact, in John 3: 5, Jesus unveiled the process of redemptive faith! He said: “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,” saying also in Verse 6, “That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Peter amplified the eternal ministry of “blood redemption through Christ” when in 1 Peter 1:22-23 he wrote: “Since you have purified your souls IN OBEYING THE TRUTH through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the Word of God which lives and abides forever.” Are YOU SPIRIT-BIRTHED by the living and abiding Word of God?

A craving, fleshly heart? A life lived independent of the Word, satisfying the impulses of a fleshly mind and heart, fitting in to the natural world of sin, deceit, and fleshly indulgences, yes, disobedient to the revealed Word of God, consumed by fleshly lusts warring against one’s soul and God Himself, living in the biblical ignorance of foolish men, camouflaging devilish hearts with “beautiful and handsome appearances”, embracing one’s appearance in its sinful nature as the height of fleshly wisdom, even openly and willingly denying the revealed Word of God, accepting of fornication, uncleanness, covetousness, even disobedience to the revealed will of God while stating “I’m a believer”, but drunk on the ‘wine’ of self-will and self-pleasure assuming falsely, “God understands”! Really?

Craving, fleshly hearts for the most part live in opposition to the good, acceptable, perfect will of God, ‘satisfied’ that as they disobey, “God understands and continually forgives,” as if in all our ‘fleshly dispensations’ or understanding, God just wipes, wipes, keeps on wiping, because forgiving through the blood of Christ is capable of changing ‘my nature’ – No! He crucified your sin nature with Christ!

Holy God was not fashioned, nor ever needed to be, because God IS Holy God – always has been and forever will be, but men birthed in the image, likeness, and nature of Adam, Jesus says, “These MUST be born again, born of the Spirit, born in and through His revealed Word”!

Mortal men are not like God, nor God like mortal men! God is not flesh but Spirit, not sin-natured but divine holiness and perfect righteousness, not striving but speaking who and what He is, always has been, and forever will be, the Way, the Truth, and the Life! But mortal men too often rest in themselves and lose out on the eternal blessing of “Christ in them the hope of glory”! And how many do you know or have heard speak about their own abilities, and how blessed God must feel to have them on His team, with no consideration of what and who Christ took to the Cross with Him!

If God made us for Himself, making us free to choose how and in whom we choose to live, having been created ‘free to choose’, sadly many choose to live independently of God, reasoning, “my best effort should be acceptable to God”, but reconciliation is by His terms, not fallen men’s terms! Fallen men announce from the mind and heart of “fallen flesh”, while Holy God announces His “finished work” and only way of reconciliation in and through the “shed blood” of Christ alone! It is dangerous grounds on which men stand if they fail to heed the voice of God: “Only guiltless blood redeems, regenerates divine life within, or restores men to My eternal will, plan, and power, in overcoming the world, the flesh, and the devil!”

It was J. Wilbur Chapman who wrote years ago these words: “I know of a name that is sunk in shame, where hearts often faint and tire; But I know a Name, a precious Name, That can set that world on fire: Its sound is sweet, its letters flame. I know a Name, a precious Name, It’s Jesus!”

But, how many really live unashamed in Christ Jesus’ Name? Are there still a few “Judases” who will sell Him for a “few pieces of silver” or a “few indulgences in my fallen flesh” or a “few transgressions understanding there is no consequence for a ‘believer’”? In the “modern-day” of “church life” the modern-mind of “professing Christians” must be reminded: “The wages of sin IS death”! When did that change? Or how many ‘church folk’ do you hear refuting that Biblical declaration? Fallen human natures ‘professing faith in Christ’ are more likely than not what the Duke of Wellington said: “Men who have nice notions of religion have no business to be soldiers (of the Cross of Christ)!” So true!

A craving, fleshly heart, baptized or not, has no business declaring their dependence upon God when they live with a declaration of independence from Holy God as they willfully choose to indulge the “flesh” He crucified! It was John Bunyan, in “The Pilgrim’s Progress” (Pt.11), who wrote: “One leak will sink a ship; and one sin will destroy a sinner;” and, I add, “One sin will sink a ‘saint’ if there is no repenting and forsaking of sin and the sin nature Christ took to the Cross”! How many “Christians” do you know who truly possess a repugnance about sinning “after choosing to be Christ’s disciple” yet excuse their ‘sinning tendencies’?

1 John 3:5 says, “And you know that He (Christ Jesus) was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin,” understanding that a ‘good tree’ birthed by Christ Jesus, according to Matthew 7:18, “cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.” It certainly doesn’t mean a full tree of fruit cannot witness even “one bad apple” – it happens! If you examine studiously I John 3:5, you’ll discern at least four truths:

• Jesus was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is no sin.”
• Christ within you is the eternal presence and manifestation of Holy God who is senseless, only abiding and never changing in eternal Truth.
• Being one with Christ means, yes, we’re to live senseless lives.
• It is the height of absurdity to profess allegiance to the Sinless Savior and Lord but believe it’s OK without any awareness of or conviction about sinning as an evidence one never knew Him! “in Him is no sin.”

If that is true, and it is, what does Paul tell us in Romans 6: 5-11? “For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, KNOWING THIS, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that WE SHOULD NO LONGER BE SLAVES OF SIN. For he who has died (were YOU crucified with Christ?) has been FREED FROM SIN. (Has YOUR body of sin been crucified with Christ?).

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, DIES NO MORE. Death no longer has dominion over Him. FOR THE DEATH THAT CHRIST 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.” Dare I tell you that Jesus not only took our sins and sin nature upon Himself to wipe out the disgrace of sinful hearts and minds, but through His shed blood also to vanquish sin’s grip – and if we’re “joined to Christ by grace and mercy”, what spirit is it that has deceived us if we ever get to the place we say, “sinning is Ok as long as we ‘believe’ in Jesus”, when ‘belief’, true belief, true scriptural evidence, doesn’t introduce an ‘OK’ to sin!!

But some ‘compromising believers’ disavow victory in and through Jesus concerning their old sin natures! In 2 Corinthians 4:2-7 Paul tells us: “But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending every man’s conscience in the sight of God. But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age (Satan and/or the ‘false religious leaders of the day who are ‘tools of the devil’!’) has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus.” Counterfeit lights in ‘self-made followers of Jesus’ are not the Salvation Light of the Indwelling Disciple who has lived with a truly repentant heart toward God and faith only in the Christ within them, not their cheap imitation!

A.W. Pink wrote in his book “An Exposition of 1 John”, (p.115), commenting about “whoever sins has not seen Him, nor known Him,” saying: “Between abiding in Christ and sinning there is such an absolute incompatibility, that whoever sins (And keeps on saying, I JFF say!) is for the time not merely in the position of not abiding in Christ, but in the position of not having seen or known Him. In so far as he is sinning, his is virtually the very same case with that of the man who has never either seen or known Christ. The statement is very emphatic and very categorical. It is more than a mere assertion of a sort of moral inconsistency or incongruity, a certain manifest unsuitableness, in the view of common sense and right feeling. It is an assertion of absolute incompatibility, in the nature of things; and it is a very strong assertion of that, put in two forms, positively and negatively, to make it all the stronger.”

Did YOU “die with Christ”? And are YOU “abiding in Christ” through the conviction of the Holy Spirit, confession of your sin and sin nature through the Spirit, and guided by the Holy Spirit that Christ Jesus only is YOUR WAY, YOUR TRUTH, and YOUR LIFE? You “live resurrection life” because of the Spirit of the Resurrected Christ in you, yes again, “the hope of glory”! It’s not “servile pretense” but “Spirit of Christ presence”, being Himself in and through your convicted, broken, cleansed heart by the Blood of the Lamb, washing you, resurrecting you to be Christ’s resident Temple of Holiness! If you live with a faithful heart, you live your life of faith apart from sin and your old sin nature! It’s clear, at least in the Word! “If YOU are Christ’s child of faith you’ve offered your life to be dead from and in sin so the Victorious Christ will have an earthly home to be Himself! And, IF SO, “Go and sin no more!”

Again, John, in 1 John 3:7-10, in a convicting declaration states: “Little children (which can include 80-year-olds who’ve just believed!), let no one deceive you. He who practices (and keeps on practicing!) righteousness is righteous, just as He 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. (It’s extremely sad that some choose Satan’s works over God’s grace and mercy, but they do!). Whoever has been born of God (in the spirit-realm) does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.”

And, some just laugh, saying: “Well, I guess I’ll just have to show Jesus!”, as they rebel, deny, AND choose to do as they please rather than as God decrees and declares: “The wages of sin IS death, but the gift of God IS eternal life in and through Christ Jesus only!!”

Sadly, around you flourishes a ‘society of sinners’ under the rule of Satan that see their sin-tendencies as blessings not curses, because of sinful mind and heart, dictated to by Satan, yes, desires to satisfy their ‘flesh-nature’, failing to understand it exposes their true identity of godlessness! Yet, at the same time, “confession booths” are open doors for many to ‘feel’ forgiven as they walk out, but intent on doing the same things over and over! There isn’t a ‘heavy-heart’ of brokenness about how their sin breaks God’s heart, but a ‘confession’ without any desire to be delivered from their bondage!

“Natural, worldly, self-centered, Satan-influenced individuals,” are spiritually bankrupt when it comes to understanding, receiving, reaching out to, or resting in the Word of God – they are part of societal madness, void of spiritual discernment, and blind to the grace, mercy, and love of God demonstrated in and through Calvary’s Cross!

Is it for you a craving, fleshly, God-forsaking heart or are you willing to be another “new creation miracle” out of the overflow of God’s heart and out of the abundance of Christ’s promises and fulfillment in millions and millions of lives?

There is: A new blood-covenant, the promise of a “new name”, the eternal miracle of a “new heart”, a “new door or new gate of entrance into the fullness, the brightness, the glory of God’s presence in you, the hope of glory,” a “new drink of eternal blessing – the wine of Truth, mercy, and love”, a “new spirit, attitude, outlook, and fulfillment”, a “new creation”, a “new man”, a “new and living way”, “all things made new by His eternal creative powers”, a “new vision, a new dream” not figments of one’s sleepy dreams but the formulated plans of God for your destiny as clay in the hands of the Master-Potter!

The prophet, Joel, wrote in Joel 2:28-29, God speaking: “And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.”

Dare I tell you that apart from God’s visions and dreams for every individual soul, mankind lives only with the best or worst of fallen men’s fleshly ambitions apart from eternal intent! It was James Russell Lowell who once said: “The wicked and the weak, by some dark law, have a strange power to shut and rivet down their own horizons round us, to unwing our heaven-inspiring visions.” So absolutely true, but then I came across Peter Marshall’s word in “Mr. Jones, Meet the Master,” when he said: “Give us clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to stand for, because unless we stand for something (and I say, FOR SOMEONE EVEN CHRIST!), we shall fall for anything.”

But how many do you know who willfully and intently stand, yes, opposed to God’s heavenly vision unveiled in and through Christ alone? But we have the Word of God in Christ – and it is not an old Aladdin’s lamp with ‘flickering, dying flames”, but eternal Truth “setting the captives free” and appointing them to extend His Kingdom and express His love, and exercise and prove His eternal power in bringing Heaven and the Kingdom of God to earth in the repentant, believing, trusting hearts of His disciples! ARE YOU ONE OF HIS DISCIPLES?

Milton Littlefield and E.M.Wren, in the old “American Hymnal” of 1933, wrote this hymn entitled, “Follow Me, the Masrter Said” – it says: “Follow Me”, the Master said; We will follow Jesus: By His word and Spirit-led, We will follow Jesus. Still for us He lives to plead, At the throne He does intercede, offers help in time of need: We will follow Jesus.

Should the world and sin oppose, We will follow Jesus; He is greater than our foes; We will follow Jesus. On His promise we depend, He will succor and defend, help and keep us to the end: We will follow Jesus.

Though the way may dark appear, We will follow Jesus; He will make our pathway clear; We will follow Jesus. In our daily round of care, As we plead with God in prayer, With the cross which we must bear, We will follow Jesus.

Ever keep the end in view; We will follow Jesus: All His promises are true; We will follow Jesus. When this earthly course is run, And the Master says, Well done!” Life eternal we have won: We will follow Jesus.”

Tell me! Who or what has your heart and on what path are you following? Are YOU “following” Jesus, anywhere, everywhere, any time, any place, any battle field He’s already fought and won for His glory, His honor, His praise alone? Dare I tell you, “the way of the Cross leads home”!

By: J. Farrell Fisher, July 23-25, 2017

Would you describe a created world as an unexplainable, freak event of nature OR the handiwork of God who is able to create as He pleases? Would you also describe human beings with free wills to choose whether they want to rule over their own minds and hearts or be surrendered willfully to the God who ordained their human existence for His heart-plans of rescuing the perishing as their Heaven-ordained ministries?

There’s a huge difference between men who speak of the positive awareness of and availability of the God who made them, birthed them, and calls them to join Him in world redemption or join the crowd of negative spiritual intents, always leaning strongly on their ‘mindfulness’ of self-ability to rule over self even if, at times, they, yes, do question if their rebellion against God is justified!

And, certainly, there are strong-willed dads and arrogant, self-centered moms who unitedly or dividedly teach, promote, insist on “our children, our sons and daughters” walking their paths or ‘my path as a dad or mom’ of ‘wondering if God really exists’! Sadly, those parental premonitions, for some sons and daughters, births within them even ‘half-truths’ about unbelief, but for many sons and daughters under stiff-necked moms and dads, it’s full-bore because they were ‘cut’ from the ‘same cloth’ of demonic, worldly, and self-centered overseers!

Wondering? Is it really true? Does God exist? Is it inevitable that fallen mankind, or some of them, may open the wrong door and choose ‘godlessness’ why some never bend, bow, or give in to unbelief about God’s reality! In fact, in Psalm 14:1, out of a ‘song’ of David, we read: “The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” But ‘the fool’ who denies God’s existence often is only standing up for his right to do wrong, sure, “if there is a God, He isn’t concerned about what I choose to do”! It’s more likely than not that the ‘foolish unbeliever’ is “sure” if there is a God, “that God isn’t concerned about what I choose to do – I’m a free man,” which is true that he/she is free to destroy their lives rather than choose to live by the Life of Another – “even your God, Messiah, or Savior and Lord”!

The ‘wonderers’ are usually extremely busy people, enthroning their ‘jobs’ or ‘occupations’, highly committed to ‘stay busy’ because “who needs relaxed time to consider whether God is real or not”! And enthroning their work means little time to wrestle with, “What about God”? “Self-reasonable, self-explainable men” understand they don’t have to busy themselves concerned about God because “our sensibleness is our argument God doesn’t exist” but blinded to Satan’s deceit, “Did God really say if you sin you will die? You won’t die!”

Yet the Holy Word declares: “The wages of sin is death!” So ‘wonderers’ live in their doubts, buy the devil’s lies, and darken their minds and hearts to the reality of God’s amazing love and grace and mercy! It was Spurgeon who once said, “It is never worthwhile to make rents in a garment for the sake of mending them, nor to create doubts in order to show how cleverly we can quiet them.” So true! Your doubts never cloud the reality of God’s eternal existence, but open wide-doors to an invitation to live one’s life without God! And doing so, many choose to live with nature’s goods with no desire to live under nature’s God! That’s like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s writing entitled, “Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz”, saying: “Come, wander with me,” she said, “Into regions yet untrod; and read what is still unread in the manuscripts of God.”

That’s why Psalm 19:1 says: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.” Few earthlings, if any, see what ‘space pilots’ see as they fly to realms most of us only get a small glimpse at, but ‘space pilots’ who do come home, upon arrival, are still AWED by Creator-God!! Most of them are not ‘wonderers’ (?), but worshippers of God and adoring what they viewed in His awesome Creation!

Wonderers? “Is there a God? Should I know Him? Am I accountable to Him for what He has entrusted to me? How should I respond to what I see Him do?” In Mark 1:25-28 you’ll find Christ Jesus casting out a demon (or unclean spirit)! The unclean spirit had said to Jesus, “What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Did you come to destroy us? I know who You are – the Holy One of God!”

But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be quiet, and come out of him!” And when the unclean spirit had convulsed him and cried out with a loud voice, he came out of him. Then they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? What new doctrine is this? For with authority He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him.” And immediately His fame spread throughout all the region around Galilee.”

Questioners are more often than not ‘wonderers’ who are consumed by ‘fleshly intelligence’ only without little, if any, spiritual discernment! Would it shock you for me to say that I sincerely believe, yes, even fallen men are, at least at times, aware of the reality of Holy God?

And the ‘wonderers’ who are aware of God’s presence will turn more inward to their continuing destruction or upward to their “Rescue”! Paul’s description in Ephesians 2:1-4 is so on target: He spoke in Verse 1 about those “who were dead in their trespasses and sins, Verse 2, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we ALL once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and WERE BY NATURE children of wrath, just as the others.”

In Ephesians 2:11-12 He heightens what ought to be greater conviction of living without Christ as Lord, Savior, Healer, and Deliverer! “Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh – who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands – that at that time YOU WERE WITHOUT CHRIST, being ALIENS from the commonwealth of Israel, and STRANGERS from the covenant of promise, HAVING NO HOPE, AND WITHOUT GOD IN THE WORLD.” Does that description break your heart? Are you stirred at all about how Holy God sees you without Christ in your ever-darkening world??

Oh, but then, beside the chasm ‘wondering’ digs in you, ARE YOU AWARE THAT WONDERING WILL LEAD TO “WANDERING”, SADLY, EVEN FURTHER FROM THE GOD OF THE CROSS AND EMPTY TOMB!

I’m not sure if you’re aware of Biblical history as it related to the Israelites and their journeys from the ‘wilderness’ into the Promised Land, but the Word tells us that there were those Israelites who wandered away, even after “spying out” the Promised Land! In Numbers 14:27-38 we read: (The Lord speaking to Moses and Aaron), “How long shall I bear with this evil congregation who complain against Me? I have heard the complaints which the children of Israel make against Me. Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the Lord, ‘just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will do to you:

The carcasses of you who have complained against Me shall fall in the wilderness, all of you who were numbered, according to your entire number, from twenty-years old and above. Except for Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun, you shall by no means enter the land which I swore I would make you dwell in. But your little ones, whom you said would be victims, I will bring in, and they shall know the land which you have despised.

But as for you, your carcasses shall fall in the wilderness. And your sons shall be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and bear the brunt of your infidelity, until your carcasses are consumed in the wilderness. According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for each day you shall bear your guilt one year, namely forty years, and you shall know My rejection.

I the Lord have spoken this. I will surely do so to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against Me. In this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.’” Now the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation complain against him by bringing a bad report of the land, those very men who brought the evil report about the land, died by the plague before the Lord. But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive, of the men who went to spy out the land.”

Would you say that following the directions of the Lord is essential and necessary? Well, of course, you’ll hear verbally from a lot of pulpits or Sunday School classes, “Well, of course, obedience is an option in the age of grace,” when the Lord Jesus said, “Why do you call Me Lord, Lord, but you do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46!).

Many ‘believers’ in churches today across America will ‘profess faith in Christ’ and willfully then choose to do as they please, without a word of, “Lord, what would You have me to do?” Pretending is not lending any credibility to one’s “profession of faith”! I’m sure the angels of Heaven are shocked by “deaf-eared professors” in a lot of churches professing faith while they willfully and consistently disobey divine revelation! Often in New Testament Scriptures the “wanderers” are referred to as the “anti-christs”!!

In 1 John 2:15-19 the “beloved John” wrote: “Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in Him. For all that is in the world – THE LUST OF THE FLESH, THE LUST OF THE EYES, AND THE (BOASTFUL) PRIDE OF LIFE – is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.

Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, EVEN NOW MANY ANTICHRISTS HAVE COME, by which we know that it is the last hour. (Immediately, just a few years later it was the destruction of Jerusalem by invading armies!). John continued:

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with is; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.”

And John went on to say, “But you, true disciple, you have an anointing from the Holy Spirit, and you know all things.” The Spirit of God guides you into all truth, and you know it’s Truth by the very witness of the Holy Spirit!

In the spiritual world, as well as the natural world, it’s affirmed: One knows the difference between wild wolves and peaceful sheep, except for some in the church who have no discernment biblically but only personal opinions; and there are those in the church who’ll call sheep wolves or wolves sheep – doesn’t matter to them as long as they are not bitten by ‘wild animals’, though at times because of poverty of spirit, they’ll affirm wolves who attack innocent sheep! Our “last days” of modern-day ‘Christianity’ is being invaded by “the wild side”!

BUT, LAST OF ALL, THERE ARE THOSE WHO LIVE A LIFE OF REDEMPTIVE FAITH WILLFULLY WORSHIPPING! In Colossians 3:1-12 Paul builds a strong foundation defining the “true worshippers”! He said: “If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, (which, sadly, rules out a lot of ‘church folk’!),not on things on the earth. For you died (Did YOU?), and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. THEREFORE put to death your members which are on (and of) 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 NOW you yourselves (professing faith in Christ!) are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another (all liars go to Hell!), since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.

Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering…”, eternal evidences of a reigning Savior and Lord! A “dill pickle” ‘believer’ is so opposite of a “sweet pickle” unveiling the Christ he/she knows they trusted in! Oh, I know our ‘salvation walk’ is a process, but from infancy, through childhood and teen years, to young adults, maturing adults, and mature “seniors of faith”, every person is not to lean upon himself/herself but learn to let Christ “reign” in and through your journey of maturing in your faith-walk to honor Christ by the daily sentence of death to ‘self’ that He might reign supremely and superbly through you!

Redemptive reality is not a ‘reflection’ of Jesus but a release from within of His abiding Presence since through “new birth” He established His “Holy Temple” IN YOU! What did Paul say in Galatians 6:14-15? “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.”

Tell me about your personal awareness of your life “crucified with Christ” and how His Resurrection Presence is easily identifying for you ‘death without Him’ OR “eternal Life and Holy Presence in you”! What did Joshua say? “Choose for yourselves whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we choose to be His earthly temple or tabernacle” through which He extends His LIFE, expresses His love, and proves His power!

Have YOU died? Is your life hidden with Christ in God? Are YOU His “new creation”? Do YOU live for the glory and honor of Christ ONLY, or are you determined to “make a name for myself”? In Christ we do not live to elicit fleshly obedience to human inclinations – but day by day taking the sentence of death to ourselves that His presence will be manifested in us and through us for the glory of God alone! Can YOU say with Paul, 1 Corinthians 10:31, “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, OR whatever you do, do all to the glory of God”?

Fanny J. Crosby wrote an old hymn entitled “I Am Thine, O Lord” that says: “I am Thine, O Lord, I have heard Your voice, And it told Your love to me; But I long to rise in the arms of faith, And be closer drawn to Thee.

Consecrate me now to Your service, Lord, By the power of grace divine; Let my soul look up with a steadfast hope, And my will be lost in Thine.

O the pure delight of a single hour That before Your throne I spend, When I kneel in prayer, and with You, my God, I commune as friend with friend!

There are depths of love that I cannot know Till I cross the narrow sea; There are heights of joy that I may not reach Till I rest in peace with Thee.

SO…Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord, To the cross where You died; Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer, blessed Lord, To Your precious, bleeding side.” Amen?