Lift up Your Heads
Posted onLift Up Your Heads because Your Redemption is Drawing Near
Catastrophe
The Holy Spirit persistently warns that catastrophic events are about to come upon the whole earth
Category: BODY RELATEDNESS
Knit together in the love of God, being of one mind and with one intent. Following the leading of the Holy Spirit in exercise of spiritual gifts to build up the body of Christ. Accepting all who love Jesus as He has accepted us.
The Precious Produce of the Soil
Posted onActs 1:13-14. When they had entered the city, they went up to the upper room where they were staying; that is, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.
James 5:7-8. Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains.
Luke 10:2. And He said to them, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few; therefore, beseech the Lord of the harvest that He would thrust out workers into His harvest.” Recovery Version.
The Lord is utterly consistent in all His ways, in the types that represent His truth and in the patterns He has established for mankind to follow. If we examine an event or process that God has set in motion, it will reveal something significant about how He works. Such is the case when we read the account concerning the clothing with power of the around a hundred and twenty on that long ago day of Pentecost. The pattern of Pentecost is a defining one.
Those gathered together, awaiting the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, had been born again when Jesus had breathed into them and said, ‘receive the Holy Spirit’. Prior to that, the faith of each one of them had failed during the time of Jesus’ greatest trial. However, it was through their experiences of failure that they had been prepared and approved by God to receive the outpoured Holy Spirit. They no longer put trust in themselves, and the key was that ‘These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer‘. On the great day of Pentecost, after they had been clothed with power from on high, there was the beginning of a great harvest and the church, the body of Christ came into being.
The Days of Noah and Lot
Posted onStage 1.
I was on my way to lead a Bible study which would be focusing on the church in Philadelphia described in Revelation 3 verses 7 to 13 when the Lord brought to my mind ‘the days of Noah and the days of Lot’. The Lord showed me that Noah and his family and Lot and his family represent two contrasting categories of Christians. Noah with the support of his family was engaged in constructing an ark designed by God, while Lot and his family were enduring a life of compromise and frustration in a wicked city.
Here are some of the characteristics of Noah as described in the Scriptures
When You Meet Together
Posted on1 Corinthians 14:26. Well, my brothers and sisters, let’s summarize what I am saying. When you meet, one will sing, another will teach, another will tell some special revelation God has given, one will speak in an unknown language, while another will interpret what is said. But everything that is done must be useful to all and build them up in the Lord. NLT
Colossians 3:16. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
1 Corinthians 14:31-32. For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all may be exhorted….
If these Scriptures don’t describe typical meetings that you or I are attending today it should come as no surprise. Central within almost all church communities today is a leader or leaders to whom others must defer and submit. This seems to be an essential feature even of meetings conducted in private homes.
The Corinthian believers to whom Paul was writing included many who had come from very loose and unruly backgrounds; see 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. Yet Paul could describe their meetings as permitting and enjoying great freedom in the Spirit. At first sight does that not seem to have been risky? Where was the safeguard against those who were not speaking under the anointing of the Holy Spirit?
Partakers of the Divine Nature
Posted on2 Peter 1:2-4. Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. These verses describe unique blessings bestowed by Almighty God upon those who have come to Jesus in repentance and faith. Yet the high point of ‘His precious and magnificent promises’ is surely ‘that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature’. Jesus partook of human flesh for us so that He might procure for us the right to become sons of God. He as Son of God made Son of man that we as sons of men might be made sons of God.
John 14:16-17. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever – the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. NKJV. We partook of the divine nature when the Holy Spirit came into us at our new birth. The Spirit, who is one and co-equal with the Father and the Son, will abide with us forever.
Genesis 1:26-27. Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Adam was far more than just another creature. He bore the image of God’s one and only Son Jesus. When God created man on the sixth day He ‘saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good’. After that God rested,
The Earth is the Lord’s
Posted onMatthew 18:18. “Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” Satan must be bound on earth so that he will have been bound in heaven. Then only can he be bound for a thousand years at the return of Jesus.
Revelation 12:3-5. Then another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child. And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God and to His throne. Satan, the great red dragon, waits to devour the child of the woman as soon as he is born. However, the male child is composed of those who have bound him on earth. Thus Satan cannot touch this child and he is caught up immediately to heaven. God now has what He desired from the time of man’s creation, a representative from the human race who has overcome Satan and stood in the victory that Jesus obtained through His sacrificial death and victorious resurrection. Now God directs Michael the archangel and his angels to cast Satan and his angels out of heaven. Satan, the accuser, is cast down to the earth where he gives his power and authority to the beast and the false prophet and the great tribulation of three and a half years begins.
Revelation 11:15. Then the seventh angel sounded; and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever.” At the sound of the seventh trumpet the great tribulation is instantly at its end and the feet of Jesus stand once again on the Mount of Olives.
My Mother and My Brothers
Posted onMatthew 12:47-50. Someone said to Him, “Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to You.” But Jesus answered the one who was telling Him and said, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, “Behold My mother and My brothers! “For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.”
John 7:3-5. Therefore His brothers said to Him, “Leave here and go into Judea, so that Your disciples also may see Your works which You are doing. “For no one does anything in secret when he himself seeks to be known publicly. If You do these things, show Yourself to the world.” For not even His brothers were believing in Him.
Luke 14:26-27. “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.”
Galatians 2:20. “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”
‘Someone said to Him, “Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to You.” The pressure of family to be given first consideration by individuals in our western society is particularly evident at Christmas time. It seems to be a cultural imperative. The homes of believers are often invaded at this season of the year by an odd assortment of voices, opinions and beliefs – all waiting to be heard.
The matter of first importance is who is the focal point inside our home? Even if we are the one who invited this company of family members, whose authority and significance will be evident? Human or divine?
That They May All be One
Posted onJohn 17:20-21. “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.”
When we place ourselves in a special category and we look upon others as outside of that category then we create distance between ourselves and them. For instance, as believers in Jesus who have been baptized according to the Scriptures by immersion we may feel that those who also believe in Jesus but were simply baptized as babies are lacking in obedience to the Lord. There can be no real fellowship between us and them because we have deliberately set ourselves apart. The so-called Pentecostal experience is perhaps an even more prevalent example of what may cause separation.
Everyone in whom resides the Holy Spirit of God is my brother in Christ. To live that out is to experience the true and real body life that Jesus died to bring about and maintain forever. The ultimate expression of this eternal truth is ‘the bride, the wife of the Lamb’ in whom all who love the Lord Jesus will participate. If through His death and resurrection this unity is a fact now, why should we wait to experience and enjoy it only in the life hereafter?
The Precious Produce of the Soil
Posted onActs 1:13-14. When they had entered the city, they went up to the upper room where they were staying; that is, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.
James 5:7-8. Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains.
Luke 10:2. And He said to them, “The harvest is great, but the workers few; therefore, beseech the Lord of the harvest that He would thrust out workers into His harvest.” Recovery Version.
The Lord is utterly consistent, in all His ways, in the types that represent His truth, and in the patterns He has established for mankind to follow. If we examine an event or process that God has set in motion, it will reveal something significant about how He works. Such is the case when we read the account concerning the clothing with power of the around a hundred and twenty on that long ago day of Pentecost. The pattern of Pentecost is a defining one.
Those gathered together, awaiting the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, had been born again when Jesus had breathed into them and said, ‘receive the Holy Spirit’. Prior to that, the faith of each one of them had failed during the time of Jesus’ greatest trial. However, it was through their experiences of failure that they had been prepared and approved by God to receive the outpoured Holy Spirit. They no longer put trust in themselves. On the great day of Pentecost, after they had been clothed with power from on high, there was the beginning of a great harvest and the church, the body of Christ came into being.
One is Your Leader
Posted onCan you imagine a defense force in which there were Field Marshalls, Generals, Colonels, Majors, Captains and Lieutenants, all of whom knew a good deal about withstanding enemy attack, yet their troops were largely stay at home civilians? In this example, the troops are expected to put on their uniforms and assemble on the parade ground at the army base once a week. For most of the time while they are on parade, they are simply required to stand ‘at ease’ listening to accounts of bygone battles and army regulations. At the end of each lecture they are brought to ‘stand at attention’ before they are marched off the parade ground, dismissed and allowed to return home, remove their uniforms and resume their civilian life? If this description bears some resemblance to the organization and operation of much of the church on earth today it is the intention to do so.
So let us open our New Testament and take a look at how God really does intend that His church should operate and act as the testimony of Jesus Christ on earth today.
In the example above, only the Field Marshalls and Generals would have direct access to the Supreme Commander, whereas every member of God’s army, His church, is given the right to direct access to their Supreme Commander, at any time of day or night. Through Jesus we ‘have our access in one Spirit to the Father’. Ephesians 2:18.
Built Together
Posted onJohn 11:49-52. But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all, nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.” Now he did not say this on his own initiative, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but in order that He might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.
Ephesians 2:19-22. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.
Ephesians 4:11-16. And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
Caiaphas the high priest cannot have been aware of the true significance of his prophecy, because his motive in uttering those words was murder. However, the statement added by the Holy Spirit informs us of God’s purpose in allowing this deed to be carried out, ‘and not for the nation only, but in order that He might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad’. In these words also lies the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham so long before, “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” Genesis 22:18.
We cannot doubt that God’s great purpose to gather together all who believe, both Jew and Gentile into one, will indeed be fulfilled. Jesus died for this. We Gentiles, who have found faith in Jesus, ‘are no longer strangers and aliens, but….are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household’.
Our Gathering Together To Him
Posted onColossians 1:18-19. He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him….
Colossians 3:16. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.1 Corinthians 14:26,31. What is the outcome then, brethren? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification….For you can all prophesy one by one , so that all may learn and all may be exhorted;
The Lord Jesus as the Head of His body, the church, is the sole director of its operation and coordination. Thus, every true gathering together of the saints will be orchestrated in heaven. In the mind and will of God there is no such event as a meeting of God’s people that is pre-planned as to order and content.
Within the saints, who are gathered unto Jesus, exist all the riches of divine life and wisdom available to be expressed as the Holy Spirit shall prompt utterance. Every contribution shared, under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, will blend together to glorify our Lord and Master and rejoice the heart of our Father in heaven. If all who are assembled were to speak and act perfectly and precisely in accordance with the leading of the Spirit, then their symphony of testimony, exhortation, admonition, revelation, teaching, worship and praise offered would bring such gladness to our Father’s heart as would, for all those present, be an experience never to be forgotten. Perfection of obedience to the leading of the Spirit may not be possible in this earthly sphere, yet if all those gathered will yield to the leading and direction of the Holy Spirit, then their meeting together will be in such contrast to a regulated religious meeting that those who have experienced it may never want to return to restricted conditions again.
One Flock with One Shepherd
Posted onJohn 11:49-52. But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all, nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.” Now he did not say this on his own initiative, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but in order that He might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.
John 10:16 “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.”
Ephesians 2:14-16 For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.
Can the high priest Caiaphas have known the real significance of the words he was given to prophesy? Almost certainly he did not. His prophecy was incomplete however, for the Holy Spirit through the apostle John added these words, ‘and not for the nation only, but in order that He might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.
There exist countless divisions within the Christian church on earth today. Will it then be impossible for those who have believed unto salvation to ‘become one flock with one shepherd’ until eternity future, or is this Satan’s gigantic lie?
In Your Presence
Posted on2 Thessalonians 1:1-2. Paul and Silvanus and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Psalms 16:11. You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore. NKJV.
The opening greeting of the first and second letters to the assembly in Thessalonica, from ‘Paul and Silvanus and Timothy’ is identical apart from one word. At the opening of 1 Thessalonians it reads ‘in God the Father’ as opposed to ‘in God our Father’ in 2 Thessalonians. But it is the great significance carried by these opening statements that is vital to our understanding. What Paul is conveying to us is that the one and indivisible body of Christ, His church, does not have its real location in this world. It is located, not simply in heaven, but now and forever ‘in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ’.
We may perhaps tend to think of the presence of God in terms of it descending mysteriously upon us as we meet together, or in our hope that it may. However, the Holy Spirit assures us in the verses quoted above that His people, as a unified and indivisible company, are already located in the Person and presence of God. The assurance is given us in John chapter 3 that, at the instant of being born anew of the Spirit of God, each one who believes enters into the kingdom of heaven and, thus, has forever been afforded a new habitation.
When You Meet Together
Posted on1 Corinthians 14:26. Well, my brothers and sisters, let’s summarize what I am saying. When you meet, one will sing, another will teach, another will tell some special revelation God has given, one will speak in an unknown language, while another will interpret what is said. But everything that is done must be useful to all and build them up in the Lord. NLT
Colossians 3:16. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
1 Corinthians 14:31-32. For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all may be exhorted….
If these Scriptures don’t describe typical meetings that you or I are attending today it should come as no surprise. Central within almost all church communities today is a leader or leaders to whom others must defer and submit. This seems to be an essential feature even of meetings conducted in private homes.
The Corinthian believers to whom Paul was writing included many who had come from very loose and unruly backgrounds; see 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. Yet Paul could describe their meetings as permitting and enjoying great freedom in the Spirit. At first sight does that not seem to have been risky? Where was the safeguard against those who were not speaking under the anointing of the Holy Spirit?