BY:J.FARRELL FISHER,April 24, 2019

Sinners, willing to remain as they are, but pleased to ‘acknowledge’ Jesus Christ, profess ‘faith’, and join a ‘church’ ARE ‘flawed professing disciples’ asserting their ‘completion’ “in Christ”, when HE, the Resurrected, Reigning King of kings and Lord of lords, ‘knocked’, but wasn’t allowed to enter with the gifts of a “new heart” and “new Spirit” with the ‘professors of faith’ continuing on deceiving and being deceived! “Christ (alone) in you IS the hope of glory”, but, IN truly “Repentant minds and hearts”, willing to indeed be dead to themselves daily, IS His Resurrection Life manifested in mortal flesh!!

I’m sure you’ve heard it said: “Oh, I ‘believe’ in Jesus, as long as He allows ME to be myself. I want to be with Jesus, but if I must die to myself, to my old sin nature, and to my devotion to my world philosophies, and even enjoy it at times, and yes, my devotion to Satan’s false assertions, and to the desires of fleshly demons in me to remain themselves, I guess I’ll just have to pay the price for a stubborn heart, mind, will, and life, and say: ‘good-by, Jesus’!”

Sinners, willing to be believers remaining as they are, but pleased to acknowledge Jesus, ‘profess faith’, and join a ‘church’, ARE ‘flawed disciples’ asserting their ‘completion in Christ’ when He is not around to “bless and claim as His own the ‘pretenders’”!

Are you aware that there are ‘pretenders’ who are not “servants in and through and by Christ Jesus”? Are you aware of many who ‘join a church’ yet never died to the old ‘self-nature’ that His Resurrection Life might find a ‘temple’ or ‘tabernacle’, but live ‘professing’ apart from being possessed by Christ Himself through His “blood purchase” at the Cross?

There is such a vast difference between ‘world-followers’, deceived by the powers of darkness and, yet “religious believers”, who’ve declared allegiance to a ‘pretending savior’ but know nothing of the “Prince of Peace who, yes, sacrificed His divine life that fallen men could be reconciled to Holy God through His shed blood, merciless death, then burial, but resurrected on the third day as reigning Lord over sin and death and separation from Holy God, ascending to Heaven’s Throne where He still reigns!” But ‘pretenders’ know nothing about “taking the sentence of death daily to themselves (knowing crucified with Christ)”, that Jesus’ Resurrection Life could, would, was, is, after true repentance and “rest-filled faith”, reconciling them to Him with, in, and through His Resurrection Life, Resurrection Hope, and Resurrection Power, and His Life then expressed daily in the life now ‘dead to self, dead to their old sin-nature, dead to the unbelieving world around them, and dead to Satan’s impotent armies of fleshly deceit, fleshly expression, and fleshly control, living only to, yes, please the Lord in a daily ‘laid-down-life’ to LET HIM BE JESUS IN THEM AND THROUGH THEM!’

In Matthew 10:1, Verses 7-8, 16-20, 22-26, 28-34, 36-40, we read about “sent ones loyal to the Savior and Lord”! Matthew 10:1 says, “And when He had called unto Himself His twelve disciples, He gave them power against unclean spirits to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.

Verses 7-8 says, And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons; freely you have received, freely give.

Verses 16-20 follows, Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be you therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues;

And you shall be brought before governors and kings for My sake, for a testimony against them, and the (unbelieving Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what you shall speak; for it shall be given you in that same hour what you shall speak, For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaks in you.

Verses 22-26, “And you shall be hated of all men for My name’s sake; but he that endures to the end shall be saved. But when they persecute you in this city, flee you into another: for verily I say unto you, You shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come. (His Resurrection Presence!! Glory!!).

Verses 28-34 then says, “And fear them not them, which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him, which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without the Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

Fear you not therefore; you are of more Value than many sparrows. Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess before My Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to send peace on the earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword.

Verses 36-40 then says, And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he that loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he that takes not his cross, and follows after Me, is not worthy of Me. He that finds his life shall lose it; and he that loses his life for My sake shall find it. He that receives you receives Me, and he that receives Me receives Him that sent Me.”

What an awesome, challenging, enriching ‘Life-changing Word’ for every repentant heart and soul, but, yes, a scary, ‘fear-full Word’ for every unbeliever, every pretender, and, yes, every ‘kingdom’ of man’s building that wants no part of Holy God and His merciful Savior and Lord!!

‘World-followers’, ‘imitating, pretending, church followers’, possessors of ‘fervent lips but divided hearts’, willing to ‘hear the Word of God without obeying’, even making long prayers, but according to 2 Timothy 3:5 have ‘a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof; from such turn away’, because You will be in danger of ‘getting scorched’!

“Remaining ‘flawed’ though ‘professing faith”? How ‘strange’ that some disciples are seen as ‘professing faith in Christ’ yet holding on to a past life of the world, the flesh, and Satan himself, sadly, with no desire to be ‘sanctified ‘wholly’ rather than fully freed in Christ’s Indwelling Life’ victorious over the powers of darkness!

I was so impressed recently when reading Oswald Chambers’ book entitled “My Utmost For His Highest”:, (which I read regularly with the Word, yes, over and over again and again – a ‘wise, Spirit-anointed preacher!’ from England a long time ago’!),majoring on a disciple’s ‘fleshly exhaustion’ by quoting Isaiah 40:28, “The everlasting God…faints not, nor ever grows weary,” saying, (p.29), “Has the way in which you have been serving God betrayed you into exhaustion? If so, then rally your affections. Where did you start the service from? From your own sympathy OR from the basis of the Redemption of Jesus Christ? CONTINUALLY go back to the foundation of your affections and recollect where the source of power is. You have no right to say ‘ “O Lord, I am so exhausted.” He saved and sanctified you in order to EXHAUST YOUR JOY IN YOURSELF. Be exhausted ‘for God’, but remember that your supply comes from (and “in Him”!), “All my fresh springs shall be in You.” Amen?

The continuing, disappointing, ‘falling-short’ philosophy, of many ‘trying-disciples’ is, “Do your best”! NO!! Ten thousand times, NO!!” True disciples DAILY “take the sentence of death daily that the Resurrection Life of Christ may be manifested in them and through them as they yield to the Holy Spirit to continually guide and express “Jesus Only”” through them!!”

Self-assertiveness in a ‘professing disciple’ is a big nail that gets stronger and stronger in place of their “hope of glory”! One “in Christ” doesn’t need the ‘nails of devotion to his/her old flesh-nature’, but the “new-life” only in and through His Resurrection Presence, being Himself eternally the same, even in opposition to the demons and Satan himself who hang around!

Tell me! “Why do some ‘professing believers’, crucified WITH Christ, still ‘think’ that they are ‘the ones able’ WHEN He nailed their ‘sinfulness and able-ness to His Cross’ thousands of years ago?

‘Self-consciousness’ and ‘self-awareness’, living as ‘professing disciples as servants of Christ but in, of, and for themselves, ignoring His Resurrection Presence if truly ‘born-again’, ‘think’ that their ‘self-obsorbed- life’ that they hold onto can adequately unveiled Christ’s presence, when all it does is ‘shame’ Christ’s completed work through the Cross and His empty tomb!

‘Self-consciousness’ professing Christ is a curse, not a blessing! ‘Self-consciousness’ is a ‘noose around the neck’; not the “new creation reality of His indwelling Presence”! ‘Self-consciousness’ of ‘professing believers’ never gives ‘confidence’ in a compromised believer’s walk, but only a ‘leaking life of limited expression’ of the True Christ! Again, “Christ IN YOU IS the Hope of Glory!”

If Christ Jesus “gives ‘rest’”, why do so many “try-ers” live unfulfilling lives as ‘professing disciples’, yes, unaware ‘possessed disciples’ ARE viewers of God’s amazing grace as Jesus is Himself in them and through them even conscious that it’s Him, not them that honors God the Father?

Again, Isaiah 40:31 says: “But they that wait upon the Lord, (letting Him be Himself in them and through them!), shall renew their strength (which IS their faith in His bodily presence and bodily participation THROUGH THEM, not by them at all!); they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

WHAT AN AMAZING TRANSITION FROM ‘SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS’ INTO “CHRIST-AWARENESS, AVAILABILITY, AND HEAVENLY ACTION” THROUGH “CHRIST-RELEASE OF HIS RESURRECTION –PRESENCE THROUGH YOU”!! Are YOU the “poor in spirit” who know HOW to let, “Jesus, BE Jesus in me, no longer me but Thee, Resurrection Power fill me this hour, Jesus, be Jesus in me”?

The promised ‘life in Christ’ was never intended to be the new believer trying and trying! No! Every day, as your days begin “in Christ”, must be days when the “It is finished” proclamation includes “finished with myself so Christ Jesus can be, is, and forever will be, “my ALL IN ALL”!!

“REMAINING FLAWED” OR, “FAITHING THE FINISHED WORK” BY CHRIST JESUS ALONE! Are YOU “crucified with Christ”, and the life in Him you now live is the daily dedication of ‘death to self’ that His Resurrection Presence might be expressed through you?

It was P.P. Bliss, in the old “Broadman Hymnal”, that wrote the words to the hymn, “That Will Be Glory For Me”. It says:

“I know not the hour when my Lord will come To take me away to His own dear home; But I know that His presence lightens my gloom, And that will be glory for me.

I know not the song that the angels sing, I know not the sound of the harp’s glad ring; But I know there’ll be praises to Jesus our King, And that will be glory for me.

I know not the form of my mansion fair, I know not the name that I then shall bear; But I know that my Savior will welcome me there, And that will be glory for me.

And that will be glory for me, Oh, that will be glory for me; When I stand in His presence, and like Him shall be, Oh, that will be glory for me.” In Luke 24:32, as the true disciples had been with Jesus, and then He was gone, say: “Did not our heart burn within us, while He talked with us by the way, and while He opened to us the Scriptures?”

Question! Do YOU live with a “burning heart” in you because of His Abiding Presence that never leaves you? Are YOU ‘professing Him’ but living without expressing His promise, “I’ll never leave you nor forsake you?” “Burning hearts”? Is that the testimony of your earthly existence as a redeemed disciple of King Jesus? Sadly, many live countless lives of unawareness, not “shining lights” rejoicing in His abiding presence! Again, Oswald Chambers, in his book “My Utmost For His Highest” wrote: (pps. 58-59), “Much of our distress as Christians comes not because of sin, but because we are ignorant of the laws of our own (spiritual) nature. For instance, the only test as to whether we allow an emotion to have its way is to see what the outcome of the emotion will be. Push it to its logical conclusion, and if the outcome is something God would condemn, allow it no more way. But if it be an emotion kindled by the Spirit of God and you do not let that emotion have its right issue in your life, it will react on a lower level.

That is the way sentimentalists are made. The higher the emotion, the deeper the degradation will be, if it is not worked out on its proper level. If the Spirit of God has stirred you, make as many things inevitable as possible, let the consequences be what they will. We cannot stay on the mount of transfiguration, but we must obey the light we received there; we must act it out.”

SO…. When the temptation, the ‘testing’, the ‘trial’, comes by the demons, LET THE KINDLING SPIRIT OF THE HOLY GHOST be loosed in you to ward off any satanic, worldly, OR fleshly desire! CHOOSE DAILY TO HONOR KING JESUS!! AMEN?

“TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES!”

Troubling Tombs? Troubling Tombs of Godless lives, like self-centered lives striving in a Godless existence, even striving to find meaning to life without God but assured in self, worldly, demonic deception that your life will work it out and find meaning, a sense of peace and purpose without Him, though for most with godless minds, they never consider what or who or why life has to be a struggle finding any sense of blessing or peace or satisfaction as they see it, doing so without eternal identity and eternal purpose!

Troubling Tombs of Godless Lives? When in James 1:8 the brother of Jesus said, “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways,” you get a true picture of a godless life that has a hint of a God-filled life as a possibility, but has no desire to die to the ‘flesh’, the old sin-nature, or devotion to a world of unbelief – he, she desires, though troubled, because their greater allegiance is satisfying the ‘fullness of the flesh’ rather than experiencing “New Birth” in and through the Holy Spirit!

Troubling Tombs of Godless Lives? How clear do you find the words of Christ Jesus in Luke 11:34 when He said: “The light of the body is the eye: therefore when your eye is single (Settled in on God alone in His love, grace, and mercy!), your whole body is full of light; but when your eye is evil, your body also is full of darkness.” Some say Jesus was “too strong” in His words about lives that choose to accept, visit, remember, hold on to, indulge in a false confession of faith with one foot stepping forward in Him and the other foot yielding to the world, the old sin-nature, and, yes, to Satanic, demonic deception! Haven’t you crossed paths with, yes, many ‘religious’ (?) people who want the best of both worlds?

Troubling Tombs of Godless Lives? Is that a “downcast life”, a life that seldom, if ever, looks UP toward the King of kings and Lord of lords, as He sits on His throne ready to respond to the needy, empty, sin-sick soul, though they mentally, at times, at least ‘wanting’ to be religious without being ‘dead to the old sin-nature’, but they never ever consider being made ‘alive’ in the Resurrection Presence of the Reigning Lord and Savior?

Troubling Tombs of Godless Lives? How easy is it for Godless lives, even some modern-day ‘religious profess-ors’, to ‘profess’ but never “POSSESS” the fullness of the blessing of the Resurrected Christ? There are ‘religious-cave-dwellers’ that are not just prehistoric men but modern-day-religious pretenders dwelling in the cave of self-determination, “saying” one thing about their ‘faith’ (?) but “living” still in their ‘godless life’, though they sing about “blessed assurance” as they practice their “cursed existence”!!

Troubling Tombs of Godless Lives? How aware are you of the disease of “the reverence of a man’s self-nature”, so in love with his/her ‘fleshly passions’, that he/she never looks to the eternal Truth of, yes, “crucified with Christ”; or, as some, they profess allegiance to the false expression: “God helps those who help themselves, saying “I try”, rather than truly trusting in Christ’s finished work at the Cross”, or, “Do your best”, as religiously they bow at the altar of ‘self-control’ rather than “resting” in Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope IN “Christ Only, One’s Only Hope of the Glorified Life”!!

Troubling Tombs of Godless Lives? Oh, how easy it is for far too many people to live in a false pretense of faith rather than the “blessed assurance” in and through Christ alone! Alexander MacLaren once said, “All along the Christian course, there must be set up altars to God on which you sacrifice yourself, or you will never advance a step.” This is why in Galatians 2:20 Paul said, “I AM CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in this fleshly body I live by The Faith of The Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me,” adding in Verse 21, I do not frustrate the grace of God!”

In the short but sensational word of Jude you find him writing about “pretenders”, though they ‘dressed’ daily in imitation garbs! In Verses 3-5 and Verses 8-15 Jude exposes not only those in his day but also those in modern centuries and in our current century who live the “victimized life of religious pretense” filling some church pews!!

Jude said, Verses 3-5, “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

For THERE ARE CERTAIN MEN CREPT IN UNAWARES, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God INTO LASCIVIOUSNESS, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

I will therefore put YOU in remembrance, though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.

Verses 8-15 then says: Likewise also these filthy dreamers (who) DEFILE THE FLESH, DESPISE (CHRIST’S) DOMINION, AND SPEAK EVIL OF DIGNITIES. Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke you.

But, these speak evil of those things which they know not; but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. Woe unto them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.

These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear; clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withers, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;

Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints,

To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds, which they have committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”

It was Sir Francis Bacon in his writing, “New Atlantis”, who said: “The reverence of a man’s self is, next to religion, the chiefest bridle of all vices.” Have you ever crossed paths, in a local church, with ‘active’ church members who are ‘brain and heart dead’ to “taking the sentence of death daily to the mortal sin-nature that the Resurrection Life of Christ may be manifested in and through their mortal flesh?”

Oh, and reflect upon the startling, shocking, awakening words of Charles Caleb Colton, (The Enclypodia of Religious Quotations, p.397, Fleming H. Revell Company, Westwood, New Jersey)!! “Heroism, magnanimity, and self-denial, in all instances in which they do not spring from a principle of religion (and, I say, “Biblical Faith”!), are but splendid altars on which we sacrifice one kind of self-love to another.”

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES ARE DARKENED HEARTS SADLY DENYING RESURRECTION LIFE IN AND THROUGH CHRIST ONLY!

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES ARE DARKENED HEARTS DOMINATED BY FLESHLY “WARPED WITS”!!

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES ARE DARKENED HEARTS STILL SATISFIED WITH HIGHLY EDUCATED WORLDLY WILLS, YES, CELEBRATED BY SATAN AND HIS DEMONIC DECEIVERS!!!

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES ARE INDIVIDUALS VICTIMIZED BY THE POWERS OF DARKNESS RADIATING THE “FLESHLY LIGHTS OF SEIF-IMPORTANCE AND SELF-INDULGENCE” WITH NO NEED OF BEING RESCUED BY GOD!

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES ARE LIVES JOHN MILTON ONCE DESCRIBED AS: “HE WHO REIGNS HIMSELF AND RULES HIS PASSIONS, DESIRES, AND FEARS IS MORE THAN A KING,” and, I say,- “HE, SHE IS A DECEIVED SINNER WITHOUT ANY NEED OF A SAVIOR SINCE “SELF-RULE” STUPIDLY REIGNS!!”

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES ARE LIVES RADIATING THE ‘DARKNESS’ OF CAGED SELFISHNESS THOUGH ‘PROFESSING’ A RELIGIOUS FAITH!

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES? OH, THERE IS FOR MANY A TROUBLING AWARENESS OF THEIR ‘SIN-NATURE’ BUT IN THEIR DARKENED HEARTS AND BONDAGED-SELF-WILL NO AWARENESS OF THE NEED OF GOD’S INTERVENTION – THEY CAN HANDLE THEIR ‘MENTAL MISTAKES”! REALLY?

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES? HAVE YOU EVER CROSSED PATHS WITH,YES, CROWDS OF PEOPLE WHO ARE APPRECIATIVELY INFORMED ABOUT CHRIST’S “BLOOD SACRIFICE” IN THEIR BEHALF BUT SEE AT AS AN UNNECESSARY EVENT BY GOD SINCE THEY SEE THEMSELVES AS RELIGIOUSLY “OK”?

TROUBLING TOMBS OF GODLESS LIVES? “BELIEF” THAT IS DARKENED UNBELIEF THAT DESTROYS BECAUSE, THOUGH “CONFESSING CHRIST”, ONE’S WALK- HIS PATH, HER PILGRIMAGE-IS AN IMMORAL DESERT WHERE ONE CONTINUES TO WALK DEAFENED TO THE PRECIOUS VOICE OF GOD AND BLINDED TO HIS FOOTSTEPS TO CALVERY, OUT OF THE TOMB, BUT HIS CONTIUNUING WALK WORLD-WIDE TO KNOCK ON THE DOORS OF MEN’S HEARTS! HAVE YOU OPENED THE DOOR TO THE SAVIOR’S LORDSHIP AND SOVEREIGN REIGN OVER YOUR WALK, YOUR PATH, YOUR PILGRIMAGE TO HONOR HIM DAILY? It was Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in her writing “The Cry of the Human”, who wrote:“There is no God,” the foolish says, But none, “There is no sorrow”; And nature oft the cry of faith In bitter need will borrow. Eyes which the preacher could not school, By wayside graves are raised; And lips say, “God be pitiful,” Who never said, “God be praised.”

Sadly, yes, across many ‘Christian paths’, people walk and talk and pretend but are blinded in unbelief by the mind of religious human reasoning, superficial in religious thoughts and pretense, but void of Resurrection Presence – Christ knocked, but they didn’t answer because their pretense was sufficient rather than His Presence!

How clear and convicting was Paul when in 1 Corinthians 13:11 he wrote, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” Are You ruled by ‘self-love’ or fully embraced and overflowing with your love for Christ Jesus who suffered, bled, and died on the Cross of Calvary as He, yes, carried YOU with Him to be “crucified with Christ”? In Mark 8:34 Jesus said: “Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, AND TAKE UP HIS CROSS (DYING DAILY!), AND FOLLOW ME.” For YOU? A TROUBLED TOMB OR TRIUMPHANT IN JESUS?

In the old “American Hymnal” of 1938, Broadman Press, Nashville, Tennessee, is a hymn entitled, “O For A Faith That Will Not Shrink.” It says:

“O for a faith that will not shrink Tho’ pressed by many a foe, That will not tremble on the brink Of poverty or woe.

That will not murmur nor complain Beneath the chastening rod, But in the hour of grief or pain Can lean upon its God.

A faith that shimes more bright and clear When tempests rage without, That, when in danger, knows no fear, In darkness feels no doubt.

Lord, give me such a faith as this, And then, whatever may come, I taste even now my hallowed bliss Of my eternal home.”

Can YOU say Amen to that Truth? Are YOU settled and cemented in Christ alone, or do you ‘rest’ in your fleshly self?

Are YOU a TROUBLED TOMB OR HIS TRIUMPHANT TEMPLE OF ETERNAL PRESENCE REIGNING VICTORIOUSLY THROUGH YOU?