Gold Tried in the Fire: Book Six

GOLD TRIED IN THE FIRE: BOOK SIX

Anyone who chooses to do so may use up to twenty-five of the proverbs in the Gold Tried volumes without notifying me. It is not necessary to attribute them to me.

Here are a few reflections after a long pilgrimage as a Christian. Hopefully they will help the young reader grow in wisdom and discernment. It is good to seek the wisdom and understanding that come from the Holy Spirit. God always is glad to reward us with wisdom and provides us generously with that which we ask for.

Foreword

Jewels of brilliant color and luster are formed by a process of time, pressure, and heat. Precious metals such as gold and silver are made under similar circumstances.

Symbolic of virtue and character, these natural elements reflect the manner in which believers are transformed into obedient disciples, and over time into witnesses of the resurrection life of Jesus Christ.

The making of a saint is no small matter. As we respond correctly to the daily pressures of life, Christ is formed in us. If we choose to pick up our cross, lay down our life and follow the Master’s will, He transforms us into His image.

When we resist, forcing our own will and way, misinterpreting things meant for our good, we corrupt God’s purposes.

Edward J. Reiter
November 2013
Escondido, California

GOLD TRIED IN THE FIRE: BOOK SIX

We understand there is holiness that has to do with God’s statements concerning people, buildings, or locations, and then there is actual holiness of personality. Holiness of personality means unclean spirits have been removed from us, and Christ has been formed in their place.

For example, the spirit of rage must be removed from us if we are to be holy. In another sense, holiness depends on God’s decision. God can declare any circumstance or thing to be holy if He so chooses. At one time pork was not holy. At another time pork was holy. Holiness has to do with what we are. Righteousness has to do with what we do.

Holiness is the ability to distinguish that which pleases the Lord from that which displeases the Lord, and the power and willingness to embrace the good and denounce and renounce the evil.

Using filthy language, while it may not offend people, offends God. Therefore using filthy language has more to do with holiness than with righteousness. We are holy before the Lord. We are righteous before people.

The closer we draw to the Lord Jesus the more that holiness becomes an issue; the more we understand what is clean and unclean for us personally.

God will not do what He alone can do until we do what we can do.

If you do what God wants you to do you eventually will become a happy person.

Would you rather get a house from God or be made the house of God?

The idea of entering the Kingdom of God by naked faith is a tantalizing concept, a seductive idea. However, hundreds of passages of the New Testament drive a spear into the heart of this delusion, a delusion that effectively prevents intelligent people from perceiving what actually is written in the Scriptures.

Entering the Kingdom of God involves a response on the part of our entire personality. True faith, a genuine grasp on God’s Character and will, of necessity produces action on our part. We must obey, with Christ’s help, the commandments issued by Christ and His Apostles. To not do so, trusting in our naked faith to satisfy God’s requirements, is a deception. It will never bring forth the new creation, which itself is the Kingdom of God.

Our great salvation always remains an opportunity; it never is a foregone conclusion. We must match God’s calling with a corresponding zeal if we expect to attain fully to the inheritance to which we have been called in Christ.

The Church is in a travail to bring forth Christ, not to bring forth expert Christians.

I have heard of people saying they are mad at God. Mad at God who alone is good? This must mean they feel God has treated them unjustly. If God at any time, in any manner, treats any individual unjustly it would be well if none of us had ever come into existence. Who knows who would be next to be subjected to the actions of a capricious, all-powerful Divinity?

God doesn’t always make our testings easy; but He always makes our testings possible of complete victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

God always give us enough time to do His will.

It very well may be true that we are standing before the Judgment Seat of Christ right now, during our present lifetime; and we are being evaluated according to our decisions and our behavior.

How long, how long will it take us to learn that ultimate satisfaction, love, peace and joy, can be found only in Christ and the Father, and not in another human being.

Legitimate power includes authority. Authority without power is useless.

Deliverance from unclean spirits is our reward for seeking Christ’s help in obeying the commandments found in the New Testament.

Righteous outward behavior flows from holiness in the inward nature. But holiness is not formed in our inward nature until we learn to act righteously in our outward behavior. Thus do righteousness and holiness interact.

Relationships are everything of importance. All else is environment. Salvation has to do with our relationships. Environment eventually follows relationships.

God examines us when we are miserable and denied what we desire. God examines us when we are joyous and have the desires of our heart. God looks to see how we respond to failure and success, to see if we will follow Him faithfully in every circumstance.

The more we turn aside from our own way that Christ’s purposes may be fulfilled in us, the more fruit we bear. We travail in spirit as we press forward in Christ. The result is that iron righteousness, fiery holiness, and stern obedience to the Father are created in us and in other people.

The Kingdom is not brought into being through words but through a spiritual travail. When we travail in Christ, the Kingdom is formed and our words become spirit and life.

What fabulous wealth, what unimaginable treasures greater than ever possessed by an oriental monarch, have been traded for a glass of beer, a dollar, or a woman without integrity. We cannot have both. We will have eternity to reflect upon the choices we have made during the present life.

Where Christ is, there is the Kingdom of God.

It appears to me from the fourth chapter of the Book of Peter that we are passing before the Judgment Seat of Christ now, as is true also of those who have died physically and are living in the spirit world. All of us are being brought into experiences that reveal what is in our heart. Then we are judged on the choices we make, that everyone may receive that which that which he or she has done, whether it be good or bad. Those in the spirit world are judged as though they were alive in the body.

Darkness cannot overpower the light. The smallest light will overpower the greatest darkness. No matter how dark things become, this will only increase the power of the smallest light to illuminate. The final, total victory of the Lord Jesus Christ is assured.

Faith is moment by moment interaction with the living God.

We know that if Christ is our life we are going to return with the Lord Jesus Christ and establish the Kingdom of God, the doing of God’s will, in the earth. Since this is the case, every day of our life is one of preparation for this most awesome event. Also, we realize that the type of resurrection we attain to depends on our behavior today.

When people realize they are going to be raised from the dead and live on the earth in a sensible world, and that their position will be one they have reaped from what they have sown, and not a fantasy land they enter with their “grace ticket,” they may change from their casual attitude toward their religion to one of fervent application to what is written in the New Testament.

The image of God is not a copy of God. It is a living portrayal of the living God—of His thinking, His speaking, and His acting. This is a true image because He clothes Himself with us so we become His image and His throne, His Presence among His creatures for eternity.

Satan will do all in his power to coax us down from our high place in God. Satan does not possess the power required to tear us from the hand of God. If Satan is to gain control over us he must persuade us to love the world, or yield to the lusts and passions of our flesh, or follow our self-will and personal ambitions. We need the full armor of God if we are to remain with Jesus Christ at the right hand of God.

We can spend our life in religious work, having thousands of people whom we lead and influence, only to find in the Day of Judgment that little or nothing of eternal value has been accomplished. We are on safer ground when we wait until we are certain what God wants us to do, even though many years pass while seemingly nothing is being accomplished.

Love without integrity is worthless. If love does not proceed from integrity it is without merit. When the Lord comes His name is Faithful and True, not love. I think the modern near-death experiences of people who report love, love, love, were not the result of contact with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is my opinion at this time. What is needed in the Christian churches, particularly in the Christian ministry, is faithfulness and truth. And I say, no liar ever will eat at Christ’s table no matter how much Christian work he has accomplished, or how much he talks about or seems to reveal love. If he has not integrity, he is a destroyer.

The Ten Commandments are an abridged version of the eternal moral law of God. They tell us what sin is. The Holy Spirit interprets and expands the Ten Commandments, and guides and empowers us so we can be delivered from sin. The blood of the cross provides the authority for this deliverance.

Love is expressed in action, not primarily in emotion.

It is the flood that shows us the relative wisdom of our choices.

Going to Heaven to live as a conscious spirit is one matter. Having Christ formed in us is not at all the same thing. No doubt it is true that there are multitudes of conscious spirits in Heaven waiting for the Lord to return to the earth and raise their bodies. However, the growth of Divine Life in us begins while we are on earth and perhaps continues to develop for eternity. Those in whom this process is continuing are on their way to becoming the full image of Jesus Christ, which is the image of God. Dying physically and losing our body for a season has nothing to do with this transformation; it is independent of whether we are on earth or in Heaven.

Of all people who have lived on the earth, Jesus Christ was treated the most unjustly. He went about doing good. Yet His good was spoken of as being evil. We who have a sinful nature may do something good once in a while. But then to have someone refer to our good intentions as evil is difficult to bear. In this case we are to look to the Lord because He—and perhaps only He—understands that we were seeking to do His will, and He will deal with us accordingly.

There shall be stars who have led many to righteousness who will shine as guiding lights for generation upon generation. Musicians, playwrights, artists, singers, musicians, historians—every sort of person from majestic lords of nations to gentle friends and neighbors will compose the eternal Kingdom of God.

The older the disciple gets, the more he has to give to the believers. He began as an adamic individual. When he is at the age when most people retire he is becoming a prophet. He walks with the Lord. Sometimes he is under an open Heaven and can see dimly the people and angels dancing and rejoicing before the Throne of God.

The believer seeking to live by faith goes from moment to moment with his eyes on the Lord Jesus. It is a dance, a romance, full of surprises. Indeed there may be years of the patient endurance of various problems and dreads. But in the end the years of discipleship will prove to have been the mounting of a golden stairway that leads to a glorious new world of righteousness.

Can we by faith build our house on the rock apart from keeping the commandments of Christ and His Apostles? Is not this idea of faith apart from obedience to Christ the supreme delusion? How can we maintain that this concept is not the religion of schizophrenia?

Some Christian teachers are advising us to command angels so they will bring to pass our desires. In this the teachers are grossly mistaken. Angels obey only the Father. They obey the Son because the Father speaks through Him. They will obey us only when the Father through Christ is speaking through us. They are the angels of God. They are not on our side or Satan’s side, only on God’s side, as the commander of the Lord’s army informed Joshua.

There is a desperate courage. call it faith if you like, that does the will of God in difficult and dangerous circumstances. We see this kind of courage in the three Hebrew young men who said to Nebuchadnezzar, “We do not know if God will deliver us; but we are not going to worship your idol.” We see this courage in the Apostle Thomas when Jesus decided to go where Lazarus had died. Thomas exclaimed to the other disciples, “Let us go with Jesus that we also may die.” God grant us such desperate courage.

We Christians will be the army of judges when Christ appears. The coming Day of the Lord will be a battle to drive sin from the earth. We must prepare ourselves to fight in that day by cooperating with the Holy Spirit as He helps us put to death the spiritual darkness in our personality.

“The Lord knows those who are His. Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.”

If God does not pour out His spirit on America pretty soon we will have a generation of young people who do not know the Lord but are lost in the worship of themselves. And if God does pour out His Spirit, and we do not change our doctrine from grace as a substitute for living righteously to grace as the Divinely given ability to live righteously, the wonderful effects of the revival will soon deteriorate, as it has in time past.

No prophet should ever be looking to people for approval. The true prophet thinks, speaks, and acts under the approval of God alone, of none other.

Paul’s point in stressing that Abraham was declared righteous by his faith in the promise was to prove that it is possible to be righteous apart from the Law, not to prove it is possible to be righteous without obeying God!

The key is obedience, not belief. When God commands us to believe, then we are to believe, not adding our own works so as to attempt to earn righteousness. Then when God commands us to obey the Holy Spirit, we are to obey the Holy Spirit, not refusing to do so on the basis that we have been declared righteous “by faith alone.”

If it comes to our attention that we are prone to be critical of people, to gossip about and slander our fellow believers, to make spiteful comments, then we need to recognize there is little or no eternal life in us. Our very salvation is in doubt.

The reason Christian people seek material wealth is that they are not living by the Word of God, by the Life and wisdom that always are coming from God. They are living in their fleshly appetites, and so it appears reasonable to them that they should try to use God in order to become wealthy.

If you don’t have time to pray, ask God for time to pray.

When we finish the work assigned to us we are permitted to return home to Christ. There never is a time on this earth, in this world, when we are to stop our single-minded, utterly fervent pursuit of Christ. If we do, we rapidly lose the touch of God on our life. We return to the filth of the flesh. By our example we cause others to lose their zeal also. The end of this is the rebuke and chastening of the Lord.

Prophets are wrong-way lemmings.

Salvation without a change in the character of the individual is not genuine salvation, only vain religion.

We have the blood atonement that satisfies God concerning the guilt of our sins. We have the baptism with the Holy Spirit that gives us the necessary wisdom and power. We have been born again of the Seed of God. Now it is time for God to make us in His image, which will require eternal changes in our personality such that the darkness is driven from us and Christ comes to maturity in us.

The first Man in the image of God to appear on the earth is the Lord Jesus Christ. Now Eve, so to speak, is being formed in Christ’s inner image and shall be in His outward likeness. Together they are “Man.”

Today the Bride of the Lamb is in tatters. From this point forward the Lamb will begin the process of removing the tatters and imparting to the Bride His Divine Character. When the Lamb is finished, the Bride will be without any blemish whatever.

We are not being created to live in Heaven forever. We are being created to be an integral part of the Lamb forever. God knows better than to entrust the works of His hands to someone other than Himself. God has entrusted everything to the Lord Jesus Christ because Christ is an integral part of God. When we become an integral part of Christ, then God will entrust us with the works of His hands and we shall judge and govern all.

If we are not with God, Christ, the saints, and holy angels now, we won’t be with them when we die. We will be as close to Christ then as we are now. Our doctrinal position will not affect our relationship to Christ now or then. We may be interested in the correctness of doctrine. Christ is interested in the character of people.

The purpose of the salvation which is in the Lord Jesus Christ is to make us righteous in character so we can have fellowship with God, and bring and maintain Paradise wherever we are—especially on the earth. This is the Kingdom of God. It is not, as is currently taught, to ascribe righteousness to our unchanged nature, so we can live in bliss forever in Heaven with the angels.

The current doctrine must have been conceived in the dark minds of spirits who desire that people remain as they are, that is, unrighteous in behavior, unclean in their inward nature, and disobedient to the Father and Christ.

How long will we quibble over the manual and not grow a garden? How long will we argue about the menu instead of ordering something? How long will be fuss about the details of the cookbook and not produce delicious food for God and man? The knowledge of the Bible without the fruit of righteous, holy behavior leads only to pride.

If Christ is not living His Life in us, we are not a true Christian. We may be an ardent fan of our church, but we are not a genuine Christian. Ask Jesus to live His Life in you. You were born to be His dwelling place, you know.

Whether Joel’s army primarily is grasshoppers, or Christ at His return riding at the head of His warrior-saints and driving sin from the earth, will be revealed in its time. What is important is that the saints do not thrust one another. If your heart is as my heart, let’s step up into the chariot with Christ and ride with Him as He brings righteous behavior into God’s creation.

If I am correct, the current loss of spiritual and moral strength has occurred simply because the marvelous revivals of the past have not been accompanied by a return to the doctrine of the early apostles concerning iron righteousness, fiery holiness, and stern obedience to God. We are chopping with a borrowed axe. The head of the axe has fallen off. It is time for the prophets to throw the stick of cross-carrying obedience to Jesus Christ into the water. Then the iron will float—that very iron by which we will govern on the earth during the coming Kingdom Age.

Scholarly inquiry into the meaning of justification does not always result in a change of character into the image of Christ. Perhaps it is true more often than not that such an emphasis and precise examination of Paul’s doctrine of justification leads to intellectual pride rather than moral transformation.

Salvation is God reaching out to man through Jesus Christ. Religion is man by means of his own mind and efforts trying to find God and use God for man’s own purposes.

Religion cries out, “Let’s get busy and get everyone saved and on his way to Heaven.” God cries out, “What house will you build me?”

A prophet thinks as God thinks; speaks as God speaks; and acts as God acts. Thus he is a true prophet of God.

Some say there is no hell except the hell we make for ourselves. But the rich man was in the place called “Hell.” Some say there is no heaven except the heaven we make for ourselves. But God, Christ, the saints and holy angels are in the place called “Heaven.”

Some say we do not have to keep His commandments, just love God. This is one of the supreme errors of Christian thinking. Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” Yes, or no? The truth is, it is only as we read the New Testament and seek the Lord’s help in obeying what Christ and His Apostles wrote that Christ is formed in us. It is not until Christ is formed in us that we will keep His commandments naturally and perfectly.

We must be wholly inhabited by God and Christ. This is the only freedom there is. If God’s will and our will are not totally synonymous, we are in bondage; we are not completely free and in the rest of God; we do not have perfect love, joy, and peace; we are immature as a brother of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The hunger for God is the most precious gift anyone can possibly have. If you have a hunger for God and His righteousness, you are blessed indeed. Turn the full powers of concentration of your life on developing and nourishing the hunger for God and His righteousness that has been given you.

We have been predestined to be in the image of Christ. This means we must think as Christ is thinking; speak as He is speaking; act as He is acting. We must be changed into His outward image, having a body like His. We must be filled with the Fullness of God; and there is to be no darkness whatever in our personality. This is what God has in store for us if we love and obey Him.

Trouble and suffering are the carburetor of life. Suffering enables us to enter the Kingdom of God by causing us to cease our sinning.

There are areas of spiritual darkness in us that are not of the image of Christ. An example of such spiritual darkness is lack of self-esteem. We see this inward disfiguration manifested at the time that God called Moses and Gideon. God desires that our lack of self-esteem be replaced with Christ’s confidence in His Father. Otherwise our lack of self-esteem, and other personality disfigurements, will cause us to disobey God.

We do well and wisely when we attend diligently to the things of the Kingdom. To not do so is to create for ourselves an exceedingly grim future. However, we will find one day that it was God who determined all things in advance, according to His own desires.

The true worth of a watch is not found in its jeweled form or gold casing, but how accurately it keeps time. So it is true that the worth of a Christian life is not found in its religious pronouncements or activities but in its willingness to obey God accurately.

It seems that in our day the teachers of the Bible are reluctant to announce clearly to the believers the awful consequences of not obeying God. There is far too much emphasis on God’s love. The idea seems to be that we are to love God passionately, and this will make up for any lack of obedience to His commandments on our part.

The idea that we can love Christ without keeping His commandments is certainly not of God. Its source is Satan, who forever is promising “You shall not surely die.”

To state we can love God passionately apart from keeping His commandments is to project an illusion. The truth is, the only manner in which we can love God passionately is by faithfully obeying the commandments found in the New Testament.

The feeling or emotion of love depends upon appropriate action to assure its validity.

Flesh and blood cannot possibly inherit the Kingdom of God. The race of Adam was never meant to be permanent. Although it sometimes retains a few good traits, the adamic personality has been hopelessly corrupted. Salvation does not consist of a repair of the corrupt adamic nature. Salvation consists of a replacing of the adamic nature with the Nature of Jesus Christ.

Just as an ape cannot become a human being, so an adamic human being cannot become a member of the Bride of the Lamb, of the Kingdom of God.

The eternal Temple of God, the Kingdom of God, is composed of the resurrected adamic frame covered on the inside and the outside with the gold of Divinity. Dwelling in the glorified human frame will be the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the saint.

Sometimes we are frightened and dismayed. But then we look to You, and are made aware that all is well.

Will we keep on going around the mountain of our dead religious experience while the Glory of God is moving toward the land of promise?

Beauty that is pure and wholesome is to be enjoyed. But beauty never, never is to be worshiped.

I believe the truest mark of a noble character is the willingness to suffer loss so that someone else might receive gain. This is an action the person who lacks integrity will never take.

Ordinarily scrolls are to be read. God’s scrolls are to be eaten. Sometimes believers have only a head knowledge of God. The Word of God does not profit us until it reaches into our inward nature and reveals the holy demands of the Lord.

The forming of Christ in us does not give us power; rather it transforms our personality so we behave righteously. If we desire a powerful ministry, then that is what we should pray for. But to know God is more important than this.

The wise person obeys God implicitly. Only an individual who loves pain and sorrow disobeys God.

Some are teaching today that the only commandment is love, and if we love Jesus Christ we need not concern ourselves with the commandments written in the New Testament. Can you imagine someone coming to Jesus and saying, “I love You so much I do not have to obey Your commandments or those of your Apostles”?

Man-driven religion with its obligations can be found wherever there are people, from the village witch doctors to the highest prelates of the Christian religion. The salvation that is in Jesus is different in that it is not man-driven. It is a relationship between a human being and the living Jesus.

First the Lord pours out the Spirit of God on all flesh. This is the Pentecostal “rain.” Then the Lord creates His Throne within us. Thus we become a well of water from which people who need God’s Life can drink.

Faithfulness and truth are another name for integrity. Faithfulness and truth are another name for righteousness. The Lord’s banner is faithfulness and truth.

This present world is filled with treachery and lying. If faithfulness and truth are not to prevail, if Christ is not to be crowned king on the Throne of David in Jerusalem, then God grant me that I cease to exist.

When Christ is born in us He ascends to the right hand of the Father in Heaven. This means a firstfruits of our personality already is on the highest throne. Our discipleship therefore is an effort to maintain and nourish the position freely given to us when we received Jesus Christ, so that the remainder of our personality also may abide in Christ in the center of God’s Person and will. This is the rest of God, the place of rulership; and we must be diligent that no person take our crown.

Whenever the Spirit of God moves, the custodians of the previous revival, the denominations, the seminaries, the authors of texts, view the new move with suspicion, fear, and hatred. The work of the Holy Spirit is seen as coming from Satan.

The reason for this is that the entrenched believers are working for the Lord instead of abiding in Him and working with Him. They are working when they should be listening. Therefore they are not aware when God moves in a new way. We cannot work in and with the Lord unless we are listening to Him carefully moment by moment.

It is only as we live a righteous, holy, sternly obedient life that we are able to receive truth from the Lord. We have a nation filled with deceived believers! They refuse to believe that God would ever permit them to suffer or deny them anything they really wanted, and so God has deceived them because they did not receive the love of the truth.

It is not a good idea to determine what God will do and what He won’t do, and then set forth religious boundaries. The king of Moab hired Balaam to curse Israel; so God decreed that no descendant of Moab could enter the assembly of the Lord down to the tenth generation. Yet Ruth was a Moabitess and became part of the lineage of Christ.

God never makes exceptions to His eternal moral law, but sometimes modifies His pronouncements. It is our hardness of heart that insists on developing religious directives and casting them in iron until the Holy Spirit is unable to guide us. “Whatever you do, do not heal anyone on the Sabbath no matter how grievous his or her condition! Throw anyone out of the assembling who speaks in tongues more than three times—and make sure the women wear a covering on their head and do not speak in church.”

The state of grace which is preached in Christian churches is not a scriptural concept. It is a state of imagination. We are imagining that God sees us through Christ. True Divine grace by its nature always brings forth the observable fruit of righteousness, holiness, and obedience to God.

Are the Christian churches to be relevant primarily to the needs of people or to the needs of God? God needs a living temple; a bride for the Lamb; brothers for His Son; a body for Christ. God has need for mature saints. When we focus too much on the needs of people we may lose sight of the needs of God. Are we worshiping God or people in these days?

It appears today that people are desperately trying to prove that the God of the Bible does not exist. There is the preposterous doctrine of evolution. There is the huge expenditure of money to investigate the possibility of life on other planets. There are the various theories of the origin of the universe. Thus all of these theorists make themselves fools. They are unwilling to go to God and ask Him if He indeed is the Author of the Bible.

The evidence for the existence of the God of the Bible appears in front of us every time we observe the design of the world.

There are many “palace prophets today.” They triumphantly are proclaiming how God is ready to shower blessings on the believers. But the true prophets are warning that God is requiring sincere repentance on the part of all who wish to stand before Christ throughout the age of moral and physical horrors that even now is on the horizon.

It appears there are two basic views of the world. One is that God created all things and the Bible is His Word to us. The other is that God may or may not have created all things; but in any case, the Bible is not His Word to us. We are forced to adopt one or the other of these world views and then live as we think best.

Some of us are betting our life on the first view and are living our life under these conditions. The remainder of the world has chosen the other view, whether purposely or ignorantly. However, what we choose will not affect the future of the present world or the new world of righteousness to come. But our choice and consequent behavior certainly will affect most dramatically our own future.

We live in a real world. We make real decisions. Our decisions have real consequences. It is true that God knows the end from the beginning. But the past, present, and future are the result of the real choices we make. There is no place in the Christian life for a sense of inevitability.

Let the Ark fall in the mud. Don’t touch it. The mud and the animal droppings were more holy than Uzzah, and God would have accepted them without a problem. Who among us in a day when men are attempting to seize control of the Kingdom will keep his hands off the Ark and let Christ build His Church in His own way?

Speaking in tongues is a gift given to us to help us live in the Spirit, not a sign that we are filled with the Spirit. We can speak in tongues and continue in sin. Numerous believers do!

When we do all things through Christ, He strengthens us.

When the Lord is our Shepherd, goodness and mercy follow along with us bringing blessings to numerous people.

The Apostle Paul set winning Christ as His supreme goal. A friend told me that some person had translated Paul’s goal as “winning others to Christ.” Paul did not serve Christ as an apostle because he felt an obligation to win others to Christ; Paul served Christ as an apostle because Christ called him and set him aside for this work.

What is the name of this spirit that pervades Christianity, the spirit that tells us our goal is to win others to Christ? Whatever it is, it probably is the greatest of all the enemies of Christ. Such a goal simply is not presented in the New Testament. Why is the goal of winning others to Christ such an enemy of Christ? It is because it turns the eyes of the believer away from the Lord and focuses them on his responsibility to act. His goal becomes that of converting people to his religion rather than gaining in the knowledge of Christ.

All Christ asks of any of us is to practice righteousness, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with Him. But we will not do this. We choose to occupy ourselves with the responsibility of “winning others to Christ.” Yet most of us find this to be an impractical assignment, and so we live our life in guilt. We refuse the gently flowing waters of Shiloah, preferring to worship at the altars of religion.

How many believers are willing to abide in Christ and look to Him for whatever type of fruitfulness He plans for their lives? During sixty years as a Christian I have not met more than a few who have ever heard of such a thing. It is as though simply abiding in Christ apart from “winning others to Christ” were the greatest heresy of all. The truth is, setting “winning others to Christ” as our goal may prove, after all is said and done, to have been Babylon.

There will come a time of definition. The lukewarm will be removed until only the cold and the hot remain. Those who are righteous and holy will remain that way. Those who are disobedient and morally filthy will remain that way. There will be no opportunity to change then.

It was not Heaven that was lost in the beginning but fellowship with God. Redemption does not restore us to Heaven but to fellowship with God.

We have known Jesus Christ as our Savior. We may have continued in sin believing He would receive us anyhow. The time has come for us to accept Jesus Christ as King. Receiving Christ as King means we must be absolutely obedient to His commands.

Embrace thoroughly and give yourself totally only to that which is of God and eternal. Otherwise you are pursuing corruption.

Before any saint is fully reconciled to God there must come a period during which God’s anger toward the sin and rebellion in his personality is demonstrated. Thus we of today who are looking to the Lord for all things are going through the spiritual fulfillment of the Old Testament Day of Atonement, of Reconciliation.

The Christian’s sins were forgiven by the blood of the cross. We have been reconciled to God in this legal sense. The actual reconciliation of our personality to God takes place after we have been forgiven and filled with God’s Spirit.

The higher your building is destined to be the deeper the foundation will be dug. Those who are to be on the left and right hand of Christ must be baptized with His baptism and drink from His cup. They must share His sufferings.

There is a part of man’s personality that is to be soft, loving, compassionate. There is another part that must be as hard as the hardest basalt, the hardest granite, the hardest flint. When God calls for the sacrifice it is to be made promptly though it tears the heart out of us. Up the side of the mountain we go with Isaac by the hand. There is to be no questioning, no complaining, no drawing back if we would attain to what God means by “man.”

Each chariot of God is to be immersed in the Spirit of God at all times. There is to be no area of our life whatever that is not under the guidance of the Spirit. The Spirit of God is our law. He replaces the Law of Moses. The Spirit of God is our rest, our refreshing.

Small is the gate and narrow is the way that lead to eternal life. Numerous people believe they are “accepting Christ” when they really are accepting a theological position. Christ Himself is the small gate and Christ Himself is the narrow way. If we would pursue eternal life we must come to Christ Himself, and then interact with Him each day.

Love for God is not a suitable replacement for keeping God’s commandments, although it is being presented as such these days. “This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome.”

“Lead me not into temptation but deliver me from the evil one.” It is a good idea for us to pray this prayer each day, asking God to keep us from being deceived by the cunning traps set by Satan and his accomplices.

If we are living “in the flesh,” if we are choosing to emphasize our animal characteristics of eating, playing, working, sleeping, and reproducing, all affected by the uncleanness of sin, and are paying minimal attention to the Spirit of God, then Christ is withering in us; eternal life is withering in us; the resurrection from the dead is withering in us; the way, the truth, and the life are withering in us; salvation is withering in us; the new covenant is withering in us; grace is withering in us.

We are looking for Paradise but God is looking for righteous people.

The new covenant is not fulfilled by the fact of our dying and going to Heaven. The new covenant is fulfilled when Christ is formed in us and we are in the moral image of Christ. It is to this transformation we have been predestined, and it is the transformation of our personality that fulfills the purpose of God in calling us out of the world.

The new covenant is Christ: as our blood atonement, as our Divine Substance whose body and blood we eat and drink, as our Lord whom we serve at all times, as our good Shepherd, as our Baptizer with the Holy Spirit of God, as our Healer, as our Example in all things, as our Redeemer who will return to receive us, as our resurrection Life who will transform our mortal body, as our Hope, our Wisdom, our Sanctification, and as our heavenly Bridegroom who will come for us so we may be with Him where He is forever.

The most important virtue of all of existence is perfect obedience to God. Obedience to God is more important than faith, hope, love, and all forms of worship and religion. If you have a fervent desire to do God’s will you are blessed above all people. Perfect liberty and fulfillment are found only when God’s will and our will are one and the same. But to find God’s will you have to present your body a living sacrifice and seek God continually.

If we wait for the Lord to move us to righteousness we will be treated as a disobedient child. We must do what the Scriptures command. If we do not, if we continue to practice sin, we will die spiritually. We will slay the eternal Life that was given to us when we accepted the atonement made by Christ.

If our behavior is not, over a period of time, obviously being transformed into what is pleasing to God, then it is not possible that Christ is in truth dwelling in us; for what is born of Christ does not commit sin.

The promises to the overcomer are not directed toward entering Heaven when we die. None of the promises to the overcomer have to do with mansions in Paradise. Rather, the promises are transformations of what we are in personality coupled with our ability to function in our designated position as a king, priest, prophet, teacher, witness, and servant of God.

If we would please God we must conduct our ourselves responsibly and with integrity. But if we would have proper perspective we must keep in mind that this present world is nothing more than a device God is using to create His eternal kingdom. We are wise when we do not place more significance on this life than is necessary for us to do God’s will, as we understand it.

The universe is filled with things, circumstances, and relationships, that are useful and enjoyable. But the person who is not living in continual interaction with the Lord Jesus Christ has not found the purpose, the significance, of his existence.

It is only when we are living in continual interaction with the Lord Jesus, speaking to Him and looking to Him, at all times, that we bear fruit that is of eternal worth. Our works apart from Christ may appear to bear worthwhile fruit, but that fruit actually will prove to be misguided and corrupt.

A man has only that which has been given to him from Heaven. We can give only that which we have been given. So it makes sense to give freely what we have been given. God honors this attitude.

If you enjoy being deceived, then do not look to Christ continually to guide your every thought, word, deed, circumstance, and relationship.

“The just shall live by faith” means the righteous lean wholly on the Lord Jesus for every relationship, every circumstance, and every other aspect of their being and doing.

If we do not employ all we have been given in the work of building the Kingdom of God, we will be held to account. Our future in this case will not be desirable. We may be placed in the outer darkness and our gifts given to another.

What begins as human ends up being divine, provided it is obedient to Jesus Christ.

No individual can ever be married to the Lamb until that person has joyously consented to receive Christ as his or her absolute Lord, willingly and continually obeying His will in every area of life.

There is a generation that shall praise the Lord. Perhaps in our day the individuals will be born who shall be of first rank in the Kingdom of God.

“Lord, I understand that I know nothing. I want to learn everything You desire to teach me.”

It requires faith to receive that which is bitter from the hand of God, and it requires faith to receive that which is sweet from the hand of God.

God’s will for us as an individual is not in Heaven above such that we cannot do it until we die; nor is it found in Hell beneath that we have to suffer agony before we are forced to perform it. God’s will for us as an individual is simple and direct day by day. There always is wisdom and strength to do it. It is accompanied by and produces love, joy, and peace.

We have institutionalized disobedience with our teaching of sovereign grace.

We must understand that God does not expect our adamic nature to meet the standard set by the Lord Jesus. God has assigned our adamic nature to the cross of Calvary, to extinction. God is giving us a new nature, the Nature of Christ, that meets God’s standards because it is Divine and not human.

Righteousness, holiness, and obedience to God come to us from Heaven as we faithfully keep the Word of the Lord.

Christian scholars far more learned than I have concluded that the Christian redemption has to do primarily with our obtaining righteousness in God’s sight by having faith in Christ, that He is our Lord and Savior. I disagree, believing this conclusion is a destructive error.

It is my point of view that faith in Christ as our Lord and Savior is the necessary orientation to the work of redemption, but the redemption itself consists of the forgiveness of our sins and then the transformation of our personality until our first personality has passed away and Christ has been formed in us and is dwelling in us. I believe further that the work of redemption does not take place as we merely believe in Christ but as we actively cooperate with the Holy Spirit in the removal of the old personality and the installation of the new personality.

If after having placed our faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, and then do not proceed to become a new creation of righteous behavior, we can say truthfully that the work of redemption has been aborted.

Sometimes when you are for God you end up being against almost everyone else. “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

The original Divine fiat is that man be made in the image of God. This fiat is not fulfilled by studious observance of the statutes given by Moses; nor by doing penance; nor by faith alone; nor by reckoning ourselves dead; nor by any other exercise of religion. Man is made in God’s image only as he places his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and then follows the Spirit of God in the work of redemption. The work of redemption consists of removing the sinful nature of man and transforming his entire personality by filling it with the Lord Jesus Christ.

After God’s children have been fed the candy of grace-rapture-Heaven they do not have a healthy appetite for iron righteousness, fiery holiness, and stern obedience to the Father.

When we stress numbers of people in attendance in the assembly the leadership may resort to fleshly means of attracting people. When we stress bringing each member to the stature of the fullness of Christ, the Lord will build His Kingdom.

Current doctrine teaches that by faith in Jesus Christ, God will count us righteous and bring us to Heaven when we die. However, bringing us to Heaven is not God’s purpose. God’s purpose is to create brothers of Jesus Christ in His image who can govern with Him the works of God’s hands.

In addition to faith there must be continual obedience to the Holy Spirit as He removes us from the image of Satan and transforms us into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The faith-alone doctrine results in spiritual immaturity, because God’s purpose is to create us in the image of Jesus. This work of creation simply does not occur apart from a behavioral response to the Spirit on our part.

Every act of selfishness and every act of selflessness is in God’s memory.

We may think we know the Lord, but does the Lord know us? If we are not behaving in a righteous manner the Lord does not know us even though we may be ministering in His name.

It is as ill-advised to make a molehill out of a mountain as it is to make a mountain out of a molehill.

Perhaps the greatest surprise of all in the Day of Judgment will be that there are no surprises. What the Bible states will come to pass accurately and in detail.

We may have a sense now that everything will work out well for us in the future. This will be true of us only if we have done God’s will to the best of our knowledge.

It is as true of life in the spirit realm as it is true of life on the earth. The wicked are punished and the righteous are rewarded, although we may not see this take place immediately. Life continues as always. This fact of existence never changes. The monumental error of religion is that religious confessions or practices make it true somehow that the righteous are punished and the wicked are rewarded, especially after death. This error is as true of Christianity as it is of any other religion.

I asked the Lord how I should view the enormous tragedy that has happened recently in Asia—the earthquake that caused the tsunami. We think of death as a tragedy. This may not be the case. It may be true in fact that the dead are better off than the living.

The issue is not environment. In Christian mythology we point toward Paradise as being our goal. Paradise is an environment. God can create ten thousand paradises at any moment, just as He has stretched out the countless galaxies of stars. The issue is what kind of person we are. Are we in God’s image? We will be placed in an environment suitable for what we are, and “accepting Christ” does not change this eternal fact.

It is well in the beginning to imitate someone whom you admire for their spiritual diligence and progress in the Lord. But eventually your behavior must come from your own response to the Lord Jesus Christ. Otherwise you are merely a proselyte of a human being or group of human beings.

To go about filled with a desire to avenge yourself on someone who has harmed you is to destroy your own personality. God has perfect recall. Sooner or later, if you really have been treated unjustly, you shall be avenged.

It is small wonder that the “faith alone” doctrine has attracted so many people. Just think! God will view them as being righteous and give them all the rewards of the righteous. Yet, they are not required to take up their cross and follow Christ diligently each day. They do not have to obey God, just believe in the facts concerning Christ. Such a deal!

To be holy is to be free from that which is not of God and to be filled with that which is of God. To be righteous is to be and to do that which is pleasing to God at every moment. Holiness is a state of being. Righteousness is found in behavior.

One of the major errors of Evangelical thinking is that imputed righteousness is a ticket that we hold after we once are given it. The truth is, righteousness and holiness are dynamic. We grow in holiness each day as the Spirit of God removes the darkness from us and replaces it with Christ. Righteousness is dynamic because we are presented at all times with God’s will. When we do it we are pleasing to God. When we cease doing God’s will, our former state if righteousness is not remembered. Righteousness, being pleasing to God, is always what we are doing right now.

Abraham was viewed as righteous when he believed God. Then he was viewed as righteous when he walked blamelessly before God. Later he was viewed as righteous when he obeyed God in the matter of sacrificing Isaac. At any point along the way Abraham could have behaved unrighteously and lost God’s approval. So it is with us. There is no such thing as a ticket to fellowship with God.

Christians who are waiting for a “rapture,” or to die and go to Heaven, are pursuing an unscriptural goal in an unscriptural manner. The scriptural goal is to enter the Kingdom of God today by turning away from our sins and receiving the fullness of Christ. If we are waiting to go to Heaven we very well may miss what God is doing right now.

It is said that Christ is the answer. This is true. It is true also that Christ is the question. “What will you do with Jesus?”

We need to get our eyes off Satan and onto Jesus Christ. If we are a believer our life is being directed by the Holy Spirit. We need not be afraid of Satan. Our concern must become that of pleasing the Lord Jesus Christ at all times. Christ, not Satan, holds the keys of hell and death, and also of the Kingdom of God.

There is no need for anyone to fear Satan or Antichrist. No one enters Hell or death, or leaves Hell or death, or enters eternal life or leaves eternal life, apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. He holds the keys. God is not pleased when we fear Satan. God alone has the power of death, of life, of love, of joy, of peace.

When you received Jesus Christ the Son of God as your personal Savior and personal Lord, did you come to a doctrine or theological position, or did you come to the Man?

Christ has experienced our grief, pain, sorrows, and so He can understand us. We are called to share His sufferings. When we do, we have more understanding of Him. This shared knowledge is important for the Lamb and for the Bride.

We cannot be close to Christ on a permanent basis until we have been purified by Divine fire.

There is nothing else as important as strict obedience to God. When we live in obedience to God, His angels bear us up in their arms all the while.

Jesus Christ learned obedience to God from the things He suffered. By His perfect obedience we will be made righteous, be restored to fellowship with God, and be given eternal life. Who knows what God will do if He can find someone else who will obey God completely? “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one Man the many will be made righteous.”

In these last days Satan will approach people and offer them Satan’s wisdom, power, and authority. These individuals may be Christians by profession. They then may yield and receive into themselves the fullness of that which is being offered by the rebellious cherub. The only defense we as Christians have of not yielding to this temptation is to deny ourselves, take up our personal cross, and follow Christ.

Once a deceived individual is endued with such supernatural wisdom, power, and authority there is no way another believer who has not been filled with the Presence of Christ, who has not overcome and been seated with Christ on His throne, will be able to withstand him or her. Our spiritual experiences in the present hour, such as having been forgiven through the blood atonement and baptized with the Holy Spirit, are not sufficient if we are to stand in the spiritual confrontations that are at hand.

It absolutely is true there is a Father, a Son, and a Holy Spirit composing the triune Godhead. It also is absolutely true that the Godhead has chosen to dwell in Their fullness for eternity in human beings. This clearly is scriptural. They then will constitute the Bride of the Lamb, the new Jerusalem, the eternal Temple of God. They then will be able to emerge victoriously from all confrontations with the enemy.

We could think of grace as being a bypass while our “road is under construction.” But when the construction is finished the bypass is closed and we come out onto the King’s highway.

The trouble today is, the roads are not under construction. The bypass is considered to be a permanent highway. Grace is conceived of as a new way of pleasing God rather than what it is—a dispensation of mercy that serves while we are washing the robes of our behavior and making them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Stern obedience to God and integrity are the only matrices in which faith, hope, and love are formed. Apart from obedience and integrity there can be no faith, no hope, and no love. If the Word is to bear permanent fruit it must fall on good soil.

We can approach revival in two different ways. We can draw up our plans carefully, hire ministers who are talented in music, a well-known evangelist, an outstanding teacher. Then we can organize our budget: how much are we going to spend on advertising, on door hangers? After we get all our plans laid we can ask God to send His Holy Spirit upon us so our choices and efforts will be blessed. In other words we may attempt, as much as possible, to make the Holy Spirit, who is God, our servant.

Another way to approach revival is to come before God in prayer and repentance, to search our hearts to see if there is a wicked way in us. Then if we ask Christ for revival and listen carefully, our prayer becomes a two-way street as we pray and listen for direction. We endeavor to get the mind of the Spirit; and, above all else, to be totally obedient to all that the Spirit emphasizes to us.

Praying, watching. Praying, watching. When we believe the Spirit has told us to do something we take a small step and observe the fruit, the results of our small step. If the fruit is good, we take another small step and watch the fruit. Meanwhile, we keep fixed in our mind that revival comes from Heaven, not from our efforts. We are to ask largely.

We need a great revival of repentance in America. Our country is becoming increasingly immoral. No resolution on our part will alter this slide into the cesspool, because it is sponsored by the fallen cherub—Satan. So today we must come before the Lord, watching Him carefully, and doing whatever He says to us. We must observe to see if He points out any wickedness in us, any area of disobedience. God gives His Spirit to those who obey Him. We always are to be listening, praying, listening, praying, listening, praying.

He said if we shall ask anything in His name He will do it. “Lord we are asking right now for an unprecedented outpouring of your Spirit from Heaven.” We are to pray until we have the desire of our heart.

We need—we desperately need—another Pentecost.

I think sometimes churches point people to themselves rather than to Jesus. “Look at my building, Watch my program. Learn to know and love all the people. Give me your money, your service, your attention.” Can we imagine how disappointing this is to the Lord Jesus?

The mother brings the child to church and keeps ordering the child how to respond. “Say ‘Good morning, Pastor.’” Of course, such an introduction is in order. Sometimes it might be possible to bring a person directly to Jesus and let Him take that individual to Himself. Whether he is a small child or elderly person or a gross sinner, just bring him or her to Jesus and let Jesus come to know the person and the person to know Jesus. It was sort of like that with children when Jesus was here, wasn’t it?

This is our job, isn’t it? to bring people to Jesus, not to our church or to ourselves. When we bring people to ourselves instead of to Christ we give them chaff to eat rather than the wheat and honey of Christ and His word.

If we are to sit on the highest throne with the Lord Jesus Christ, everything in our life must die and then be raised in Christ.

If God does not have absolute integrity, is not absolutely, faithful, it would be best we never had come into existence—our future would be so precarious. We Christians are called to be in His image. However, the Christian churches are filled with leaders and people who do not have integrity; who are not faithful and sincere.

The work of sanctification, that is, the making of us in God’s moral image, is accomplished by the removal of that which is not of God, and the insertion of that which is of God. It is the Holy Spirit who accomplishes the work of sanctification. Our part is to cooperate with the Holy Spirit.

The purpose of sanctification is to make us holy as the Lord is holy. The purpose of justifying us, declaring us righteous, is to provide a foundation for the program of sanctification. If the program of sanctification does not follow justification, then the work of redemption has been aborted.

The Kingdom of God is a kingdom, a genuine kingdom, with a King, a queen who is part of the King, and lords and officials of all kinds. The Kingdom is fierce, although it has a heart of compassion. It is fierce in enforcing God’s will throughout the universe, and shall do so for eternity.

The rulers govern with a rod of inflexible iron. That iron is being created in us now as we overcome every force that seeks to remove us from the Presence of Christ. The overcomers are the rulers because during their diligent pursuit of Christ they have had the governing iron created in them.

The saints have had God’s own compassion created in them. They also have had God’s own inflexible will concerning righteousness, and Christ’s own obedience to the Father, formed in them.

There is much talk today concerning love. This is true in the world and also in the Christian churches. But it is not God’s love; it is human sympathy and sometimes is influenced by Satan. Human love always will seek to keep a little space available for sin and disobedience to God.

The Temple of God, who is the Lord Jesus Christ, must be formed in us. Then the Father and the Son come through the Holy Spirit and make Their eternal abode in the temple that has been formed in us.

There are two factors that determine our destiny. One factor is Divine election. The other consists of our decisions. How these two can interact to produce our destiny is not known to me. However I am assured from the Bible that such is the case. How this can be true must be left to the incomprehensible (at this time) wisdom and power of God. Apparently God’s foreknowledge makes the synthesis possible.

Prayer always is a major player in the shaping of our destiny. A sense of inevitability, that our life will just run its course no matter what decisions we make, no matter what prayers we offer, has no basis in truth. The thought that “what I do doesn’t matter, I cannot really change things,” must be renounced by the diligent servant of Jesus Christ. To not always keep before us that “with God, all things are possible,” is to ensure that our dreams will accompany us to the nursing home and then to the grave.

The great sewer pipes of pictures and words that originate in California from the various studios carry every form of depravity and violence to many nations. These productions bring the image of Satan, and bear witness of his person, ways, and will, to peoples of the whole earth. How long will it be before Almighty God avenges Himself of these attempts to debase His image in the people He has so lovingly created?

Divine grace is God in Christ enabling man to do God’s will.

The Kingdom of God is God in Christ in the saints governing all the works of God’s hands.

If we have been crucified with Christ and now are living in His resurrection life, in order to conquer us the enemy would have to overthrow the resurrection of Christ.

A true Christian is revealed by the godliness of his or her personality and conduct.

In order to break out of God’s prison you have to break God’s laws. If you force your way out of your unpleasant circumstances by sinning and rebelling against God’s Word and way, no matter how attractive the future you have made for yourself may seem now it will turn out to be unpleasant and barren.

If there were no God, no Christ, no Bible, it would be best we never had been born. Only a fool would desire to live in the midst of futility, corruption, pain, and self-seeking if there were no hope beyond the grave; no final meaning to the struggles of existence.

Christ will solve every problem, great and small; but you will have to keep on asking as each problem arises.

You should warn Christians in your church against marrying an unbeliever. But if a fervent believer does marry an unbeliever, you do not have to rebuke the Christian or cast him or her from you. Pray for the distressed saint, for he or she will have an abundance of trouble. You do not have to add to the believer’s problems.

In the Kingdom of God, might does not make right. In the Kingdom, authority always summons power. Power does not summon authority. The most important aspect of the Kingdom is God’s will. The saints are the judges who respond to that will. The angels exert the power to enforce the judgments made by the saints. The saints represent Divine authority. The saints direct the power that enforces the judgment as they are guided by the Spirit of God.

God has marvelous foresight. He can be trusted to take care of the details of your future, if you are looking to Him continually.

The new covenant is not primarily a covenant of forgiveness but a covenant of change, of a transformed moral nature.

We Gentiles have taken Paul’s arguments against the Judaizers to mean God’s grace is not related to righteous conduct, that righteous behavior is not an essential factor in our redemption. This would make Divine grace a substitute for righteous, obedient behavior.

“Dear Lord, control this day, this new day, to the inch, to the second, so that Your will is done perfectly and completely. I am unable to do this in my own ability, but you have the power to make it so.”

Today we are offering the wicked a free trip to the eternal Paradise apart from his demonstrating repentance by his works. Thus we are declaring the wicked to be righteous. This is an abomination to God. God says the wicked shall die. We say the wicked shall live by a mental assent to Christ apart from any change in his behavior.

Our blessings are upon her whom the Lord is chastening so severely. Yet she is maintaining an attitude of faith and hope in Christ.

It is worse than useless for us to fret about the wickedness and self-seeking of people. If we will do faithfully and diligently what Christ shows us to do, and enables us to do, the Spirit of God will take care of wickedness and self-seeking and usher in the new world of righteousness.

God has given some people intelligence, talents, and money for the purpose of helping the less gifted people live out their lives in peace and safety. The gifted often become political rulers, administrators, and employers. Because these talented people are self-seeking, the world of today is in chaos. The main purpose of the two-thousand years of the Christian Era has been to draw out from mankind a governing priesthood who will, at the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, bring justice to the multitudes of people whom God intends to save from wrath. Remember the rich man and Lazarus!

The God of Israel spoke, the Rock of Israel said to me: “When one rules over men in righteousness, when he rules in the fear of God, He is like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning, like the brightness after rain that brings the grass from the earth.” (II Samuel 23:3-4)
Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.” (Mark 10:42-44)

The Lord Jesus informed us we can ask anything in His name and He shall do it. This is the Word of God and it cannot be broken. Perhaps the main reason why our prayers do not seem to be answered is that we do not keep on asking and keep on waiting. We run off in another direction before God has a chance to prepare us to receive the desires of our heart.

There have been instances in America where mothers have deliberately kept their children sick so the mother would feel needed. The Lord Jesus Christ does not leave us in frustrating circumstances so He will feel needed. He delivers us from every bondage that our joy may be full.

When we emphasize our wretched condition and then keep remarking how wonderful the Lord is, “I am not worthy but He is worthy,” His response is, “Why do you call me Lord! Lord! and not do what I command? I am disgusted with this attitude! If you are not found worthy you will not walk with Me in the white robes of the royal priesthood. Awake to righteousness and quit your sinning. Your nation is wallowing in moral filth because of your sinful behavior!”

The believer who forces his way out of God’s prison may gratify his flesh for a season but his end will be grief, disillusionment, anguish, disappointment, loss of fruitfulness, loss of authority, loss of the Kingdom of God. He who saves his life surely shall lose it.

Our first personality is a living soul. It never was meant to be anything more than stock on which God grafts Christ.

Paul’s frequent expostulations about not being declared righteous by works but by grace has nothing to do with our inability to do what God has said. Paul’s purpose was to lift our eyes from the temporary restraints of the Law of Moses so we could receive without hindrance the grafting of Christ onto our personality.

These are serious words I have written to you. But then, these are serious times in which we live. The conflict of the ages is at hand. God is ready to shake earth and Heaven so all who have the tiniest bit of rebellion and disobedience in them will be shaken down from the place of power. The Divine Throne is being purified. The Kingdom of God is at hand and will drive all sin and rebellion from the creation.

Sin is disobedience to God. At one time eating pork was sin. Today eating pork is not sin. So sin does not reside in specific activities but in obedience to God at any point.

The Gospel of the Kingdom has become a plan for self-improvement instead of deliverance from the wrath to come.

Our personal cross keeps us off balance. That is its purpose—to keep us calling upon the Lord for wisdom and strength.

The atomic watch is more accurate than the more expensive watches because it derives its signal from a master clock that is more accurate than conventional clocks. So it is true that the individual who has Christ being formed in Him will become more godly in behavior than the most upright person whose righteousness proceeds from the human nature.

To enter the rest of God we must resolve that Christ direct every detail of our life. It is a question of whose will is determining our behavior. We are to approach life by seeking Christ continually to find out what He wants. In contrast to this is asking Christ to help us do what we want to do.

We keep on every moment asking, “What is your will now? What should we do now? Where are we going now?” It is a whole different way of looking at how we are to live.

We ask for wisdom and strength only within the framework of Divine guidance. When we are beginning as a disciple we should be asking for wisdom and strength to do what we desire to do. But as we mature we seek the Divine framework of guidance. Then within that framework of guidance we ask for wisdom and strength to accomplish what we are being guided to do.

Sometimes the guidance is not apparent. In this case we have to proceed carefully, meanwhile asking for guidance even though we do not perceive it. We are to acknowledge Christ in all we think, say, and do. We are to become the expression of God’s will. “For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.”

Sometimes it seems as though our physical body is a person in and of itself, separate from our soul and spirit. The Holy Spirit will help us prevent our body from destroying itself, us, and those around us. It is likely that the new body we gain in the Day of Resurrection will, if we have controlled our present body, join with our soul and spirit as we seek to do God’s will in every aspect of life.

“Dear Lord, help me relax and take life as it comes, being guided and enabled at all times by the Spirit of God.”

The desire for sexual intercourse is a fierce hunger that God has designed to ensure the addition of people into the world. The craving for sexual intercourse is similar to the hunger for food, and is no more significant than such hunger. True love, joy, and peace are found only in the Holy Spirit, and will be ours forever after death if we in this world control our bodily passions.

A desire for sexual intercourse alone is not a satisfactory basis for marriage, and may lead to a troubled, painful relationship.

Sexual lust can lead people into destructive, grotesque, perverse behavior. The person who does not control himself regarding sexual lust plays the fool in the sight of the angels. He enables the demons to satisfy their burning desires while he himself pays the price for such ungodly foolishness. He is victimized by his own body!

To be fully in the image of Christ we must have all the spiritual darkness removed from us and all the fullness of Christ placed in us. We always must pray and obey to this end.

If we who believe are perfect in Christ, what is the basis for repentance? Yet we know that we Christians in America must repent before our land is destroyed. It is obvious, therefore, that until we realize our doctrine of grace apart from works is unscriptural, we have no sound basis for the necessary repentance to take place. The Holy Spirit may bring repentance, but we will lose it because of faulty teaching.

I have come to the conclusion after sixty years as a disciple of the Lord that only a few believers actually attain to the goal of being a king-priest of God. The requirement is that we, like the Apostle Paul, spend our life attempting to gain Christ, counting all else as garbage. Whoever will believe in Christ and be baptized shall be saved from the wrath of God. But those who actually carry their cross after Christ, dying to their most fervent desires. shall attain to life and glory not describable in the present hour.

God opens His hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing. How much more, then, those who patiently have looked to Him throughout the years of their discipleship on the earth.

The purpose of religion is to make us a better person, more in the image of God. When it does not do this it is worse than useless, because it serves as an alternative to the desired change in us.

Is it possible the majority of the Christian preachers and teachers are destroying, with their traditions, man’s normal association of righteous behavior with God’s favor? Are we, with our teachings, working against the helpful warnings of conscience?

The principle of reaping what we sow is an immutable law of the Kingdom of God. It cannot be abrogated without leaving a path of destruction. Divine grace does not violate the Kingdom principle of sowing and reaping. Rather grace helps us change from sowing to the flesh to sowing to the Spirit of God so we can reap eternal life. Eternal life is the Life of God. It is a kind of life that we reap, not a legal state in which we exist forever.

“Daddy, Daddy, we missed our turnoff back there.” “Don’t worry, Honey, just sit back and enjoy the ride and the beautiful weather. Perfect for our trip!” So it is true that American believers often are not terribly concerned about truth, just as long as they are comfortable.

When we are living in the rest of God we ask the Lord to tell us what our desires should be. “O God, put your desires in me so I pray according to your will.” We are not entirely free until our desires are God’s desires.

A prayer upon awakening. “Lord Jesus, what wonderful thing are you going to do today? I know it will be marvelous. Lift all concern from me that I may focus on the work you have given me to do.”

The atmosphere is filled with foolishness. Our adamic nature responds to the demons readily.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the Priest of God after the order of Melchizedek. He is God’s Priest by the power of an indestructible life. We who are being fashioned in the image of Christ are also members of the governing priesthood, and are pursuing the crown of indestructible life. This means that under the Lord Jesus we will be kings of righteousness and of peace.

As kings of righteousness we shall, under Jesus, govern all the works of God’s hands. As priests, under Jesus, we shall represent God to people and people to God.

The purpose of the Christian Era has been to create the members of the royal priesthood. All of the people, activities, and circumstances of the world have been for the purpose of developing these brothers of the Lord Jesus. All works together to this end. God has permitted all the corruption that has taken place in the world because of this treasure He is forming. Once the full number of the king-priests has been attained, the Lord Jesus will return and install His Kingdom on the earth.

All good things shall come to him who loves and trusts God, and waits patiently for God’s blessing.

It is righteousness, not democracy, that brings God’s blessing and exalts a nation. Righteousness and democracy are not the same thing. We can see this in America where democracy is our philosophy of government; however, America is the source of the sewer lines of the moral filth that is corrupting the peoples of the earth.

If we do not have the Presence and will of Jesus, if we are attempting to use the authority of His name and the power of His gifts apart from His Presence and direction, if we are not abiding in union with Him, trusting Him and resting in Him in every circumstance, we are in danger of becoming part of the False Prophet. Divine Glory and satanic exaltation can be confused when we are not living in Christ as we should. The two forms of power and revelation, Christ and Satan, are separated from each other by the personal cross of the believer.

There will be people in whom has been created the inflexible will to rule in God. They will serve eternally as a glorious wall of defense against any spirit that would contemplate behavior contrary to the will of God.

If a person goes through life and does not begin to be changed into God’s image, does not enter union with Christ and with others to whom God directs him, does not give of himself in aiding the formation of Christ in other people, and does not learn to rule in Christ, it is of the greatest consequence. He has not made any progress in becoming “man”!

God has given us everything in Christ. All that people could desire, and eternity in which to enjoy it, are ours the moment we receive the Lord Jesus as our Savior and Lord. But we must lay hold of our inheritance, maintaining it, developing it, perfecting it. The Scriptures are clear that to neglect our great salvation is to risk disaster.

The objective of the true saint is to enter God’s perfect will and to rest in it while the fire of his passions burns itself out under the supervision of the Holy Spirit.

We must cooperate with the Holy Spirit as He enables us to maintain, develop, and perfect what has been so freely given to us. To not follow the Holy Spirit is to draw back to destruction, losing our gift.

Resurrection life was given to us when we received Christ. Resurrection life, the “oil” of the Holy Spirit, is in us now. But we must maintain, develop, and perfect the inner resurrection life. If we do not, when the Lord comes the door will be shut against us.

We have been given all things in Christ. Now we are required to follow the Holy Spirit until we are able to possess all things, circumstances, and relationships without their becoming gods to us.

Race, the color of skin, gender, membership in a religion, do not tell God or us anything about the worth of an individual.

Surely everyone who has had the opportunity to be made in the image of God, and chooses instead to follow his own miserable path, may be regarded as so foolish as to be unworthy of the Kingdom of God.

For man to be made in the image of God is an unbelievably glorious prospect. It is enough to make the highest orders of Heaven tremble in anticipation.

By the end of our life we have to admit: “He has done all things well!”

The only manner in which we can overcome the antichrist who is in us is by setting aside the whole of our life and seeking the Life of Christ. Only by entering into perfect, complete union with the Lord Jesus can we escape being deceived by Antichrist.

The lust for pleasure is revealed in the abortions taking place. God records every abortion as an act of murder unless God accepts the surgery as being necessary for some vital reason. Every murder of a human being must be accounted for in the day of reckoning. None is forgotten. “The earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.”

Either we are choosing to be like Christ or we are choosing to become part of Christ. Either we are attempting to gain power, success, prosperity for ourselves or we are choosing to die in the Lord, to decrease continually in order that He may increase. Either we are seeking to persuade Christ to serve us or we are seeking to lay down our own life so Christ may be exalted in us.

The protection God has provided for the enormous deception of the last days is the “Tabernacles” experience, that is, the filling of the believer with the Presence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We are kept from the deception of man making Himself God by becoming a branch that is abiding in the Vine, in the one true Christ.

Many that are last will be first. The door to glory is open and neither man nor devil can close it. But the individual believer indeed can choose not to go through that door, judging himself to be unworthy of the Kingdom of God, by neglecting that which God is offering to him. Fearful indeed is the fate of the person to whom God has entrusted much but who chooses to neglect His Divine calling and follow his own path.

Remaining in the Lord’s prison, carrying our cross and following after Christ, requires a lifetime of patience accompanied by a considerable amount of tribulation. Satan studies our personality. He sees where our areas of strong desire are. Our areas of strong desire are often the gifts of God to us, and are the places in our personality of the greatest danger and also the greatest opportunity for fruitfulness in the Kingdom.

The Kingdom of Heaven is not accepted by the world. The Lord Jesus warned us that the world will hate the saint as it hates Him. All attempts to make the Christian churches acceptable to the world are an abomination to God. The moment we try to reconcile the Church to the world the power of God will leave. The Church of Christ is not of the world. It is not a social institution. It is the prophet of God among men.

We need to have a deep realization of the mighty resurrection power of Christ that is saving us. When we put our faith in Him, calling on the name of the Lord, as David did, the power that works in us lifts us far above all the works of Hell, of darkness, of Satan. They cannot stand in His Presence. They flee in disarray. He is too strong for them.

Why can’t we enjoy the Tabernacles experience and still maintain our own will and way? It is because in the Tabernacles experience we become the throne of God and of the Lamb. We cannot maintain our own will and way and still be the throne of God and of the Lamb.

The Christian teaching of today presents salvation as eternal residence in a mansion in Heaven. We are saved when we assent to the fact that we are a sinner, that we cannot save ourselves, and that Christ died for our sins so we can receive His righteousness. While this is true it is not the Divine salvation, it is an orientation to the program of redemption that will work each day in our personality until we are in the image of Christ, and at rest in Christ in the Person and will of God.

This is what the Christian salvation is all about. First, God’s love, working through the atonement, pulls the man out of the garbage. God’s grace helps the individual to repent. Then God’s power and Divine Nature cast the garbage out of the man.

Current Christian understanding is that Christ has come to forgive Adam and Eve and to bring them back into Paradise on the basis of His (Christ’s) own worthiness. This is not the case. Christ has come in order to perfect in Adam and Eve a spiritual nature that no longer will rebel against God. Only after Adam and Eve, through Christ’s virtue, have been able to overcome sin will they be permitted back into Paradise—regaining access to the tree of life.

It seems not unlikely that in the future we will be able to see the demons, the fallen angels, and perhaps Satan himself when he is cast from the heaven to the earth. In that hour, people will be terrorized beyond anything we can imagine. Only those who have learned to live in Christ will have the spiritual strength and confidence needed to not fear or obey the demons, or the fallen angels, or Satan himself.

Any ritual that we perform automatically without looking to the Lord, such as an exercise routine, or practicing a musical instrument, tends to take our eyes off the Lord while we are pursuing this activity. This is the problem with endeavoring to keep the Law of Moses, or with treating the New Testament like the Law—as a set of rules. The purpose of the commandments found in the New Testament is to keep us from sin until we are able to walk before the Lord in the Spirit, looking constantly to Him for everything we do throughout the day and night. This is the rest of God, and we have to make every effort if we are to enter it.

When you pray “Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven,” are you believing that God will work His perfect will in you right now, while you are living on the earth? It is perfectly possible, you know, that the Lord’s prayer can be answered right this minute in you and me. God’s Kingdom can come, God’s will can be done, today in the earth if we are willing to look continually to Christ for the necessary wisdom and strength.

The purpose for life on the earth, particularly for the problems we encounter, is to show God clearly how we will behave in the next life. Those destined for high rank in the Kingdom must suffer long periods of thirst, so to speak, so God will be assured of their total obedience in every situation.

The reason God subjects us to pain is that we might become humbly obedient to Him. We must bear our sufferings patiently; but we also must pray for relief continually if we are to profit from the pain. Otherwise we curse God and people, and die.

Only those who have experienced pain know what a blessed relief it is to be free from pain. We learn to give thanks for relief when it comes.

Perhaps the greatest damage that the current teaching of grace does is the substitution of a profession of faith in Jesus Christ for a growth in character, a character that obeys God under the most difficult, trying circumstances.

The disciples worried continually about having enough to eat; about drowning in a storm; about Jesus going up to Jerusalem. So it is today, isn’t it? But the Lord always takes care of every detail. How utterly marvelous!

The first duty of a man is to accept the lordship of Christ over his life. Once he does this, everything else will fall into place. “This is My beloved Son. Hear Him.”

There is no salvation apart from the doing of God’s will in every circumstance; in every location; at all times.

God will remove painful memories from us if we ask Him to.

I do not know where wicked Christians go when they die; but unless they repent they will not inherit the Kingdom of God!

People sometimes speak of a “devil’s Hell.” Why do they say this when only Jesus holds the keys of Hell. How can it be the Devil’s Hell when Jesus has the keys?

The utter wickedness of behavior that prevails in the world of today is due to the fact that people are seeking their own will instead of God’s will. God wants His will to be done in the earth as it is done in Heaven. The only solution to the prevailing wickedness is the Presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other solution. However, the Lord will be present only where there is righteous behavior, prayer, and repentance on the part of His saints. Righteous behavior, prayer, and repentance, do not proceed from the man-centered, unscriptural Christian teaching and preaching of the present hour. We must cease presenting Divine grace as an alternative to righteous behavior, prayer, and repentance.

If we are living as part of Christ’s crucifixion and part of Christ’s resurrection we can abandon ourselves to Christ and be without care, knowing we are invulnerable. To overcome us, Satan would have to overthrow the resurrection of Christ. This he cannot do.

Genuine faith always results in a change in our behavior. We change our behavior because we fear the consequences of not obeying the commands of Christ and His Apostles. The proud American believer will have a problem with this.

The greatest gift God gives to any of us is the determination to do His will.

Do you know, all of us are Gadarenes. We have so many bondages their name is Legion. The Lord does not remove our chains in a moment. But if we follow Him diligently, the time will come when we are clothed with an unspotted robe of righteous behavior and are in our right mind.

If you have the desire to do God’s perfect will, do not boast that you have a better character than other people. Your desire to do His will is His gift to you.

How many occasions do you have each day to give thanks to God? I have thousands.

A democratic form of government is commendable when it delivers us from the tyranny of a despot. However, the encouraging of the rights of the individual tends to strengthen self-will, which is the source of all sin. The only solution to the problems of the world is the crucifixion and resurrection of the individual in Jesus Christ. The Kingdom of God is not a democracy, it is the absolute rule over all creatures by the Lord God of Heaven through Jesus Christ through saints who have been crucified with Christ and have been resurrected with Christ.

Part of the guiding philosophy of the American government is the pursuit of happiness by the individual. This is a fatal flaw and will lead to the destruction of our nation. It is God’s will, rather, that we pursue righteousness, which sometimes leads to unhappiness; but in the end brings us to the highest goal, which is love, joy, and peace in Christ.

One of the consequences of wicked behavior is to be thrown into Hell. There is another consequence of wicked behavior, and that is what kind of person we become when we practice wickedness. If God brought a wicked person into Paradise he would turn Paradise into Hell. Receiving Christ as his Savior forgives the sins of the wicked person, but it does not make him a righteous person unless he cooperates with Christ in becoming a new creation of righteous behavior. This ought to be preached more than it is.

In spite of current Christian belief, dying and passing into the spirit realm does not change what we have become as a person during our life in this world. Why would it? After all, sin and rebellion began with Satan and his angels around the Throne of God.

Because I am crucified with Christ and resurrected with Christ, Satan cannot harm me. In order to harm me, he must deceive me so that I come down from my high place in God.

We do not earn righteousness by righteous behavior but we do exhibit the Life of Christ in us. God’s righteousness is the Life of Christ in us.

Our righteous behavior cannot possibly produce the Divine salvation. But the Divine salvation always produces righteous behavior. This is its purpose.

It is always correct to ask God, in Jesus’ name, for more of His Holy Spirit. Why don’t we do this more often?

As part of the self-seeking spirit of our times, we Christian believers are looking for some prayer, some formula, some scheme, some confession, some religious device that will cause God to move in a certain way. This is more of Antichrist than it is of Christ. God is our Father. When we seek to please Him, by keeping His commandments, He will search our hearts and grant us the desires He finds therein.

When someone kills another person in order to gain an advantage, or because of rage, or jealousy, the murderer may not realize that the person he murdered will, in the Day of Resurrection, stand in front of him and accuse him in the Presence of God. The same is true of the abortion doctor who has prevented the development of an infant. That individual will accuse the doctor of preventing him from living on the earth. It is thus with anyone we harm deliberately. Unless we have made amends in a manner that satisfies the Lord, the injured person will stand and accuse us in the Day of Judgment. There is no way in which we can prevent our being singled out for vengeance in that hour.

We may be looking to do “great things” for God. God, however, is looking for great obedience.

Wicked people hate those who are seeking to live righteously and will do everything in their power either to seduce the righteous to live wickedly or else to give the righteous a bad name. This is why Satan is the accuser of the saints. It is of great importance to the wicked to justify their behavior.

Every challenge, every trial, every lesson, every humiliation, every pain we are enduring has as its purpose our preparation for eternal service in the Presence of Almighty God.

The first people, Adam and Eve, were driven from Paradise. Jesus has not come to forgive Adam and Eve and bring them back into Paradise. He has come to destroy sin, rebellion, and unbelief from their personalities by filling them with His own virtue and Life. As soon as Adam and Eve have been conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus they will be permitted to eat of the tree of life. Paradise will be regained. This is the true Gospel of the Kingdom of God. It is the way to eternal life.

It is no marvel that numerous Christian believers do not become enthusiastic over the concept of the perfecting of the Church, and of themselves as individual members of the Body of Christ. They do not believe the goal actually is attainable. Why try?

Speaking in tongues is an entrance into the way of life that is governed by the Holy Spirit. Christians are governed by the law of the Spirit of life rather than by the Law of Moses.

I wonder at what point in history the Christian salvation became a matter of taking four steps of belief and confession, and then resting on these as though we had purchased a ticket to Heaven. Was it ever true in the Christian Era that the believers understood salvation to be a long process of moral transformation as we develop an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ? We really need in our day to stress that we are not saved until we endure the dealings of God to the end of the travail imposed by the requirements of redemption.

We have been made perfect in holiness when there is nothing in us that is not found in God, and when everything that is found in God is found in us, although not mature as yet. When such is true of us we behave righteously by nature, just as does the Lord. Then we are in the image of God.

God knows the thoughts of all people at all times, whether alive on the earth or living in the spirit world.

Words come from God’s mouth continually. Some of those words are directed to each one of us as individuals, and we live by these.

Christ placed the goal of the disciple, which is possession by Himself, at the end of the program of redemption. This is because we are not ready, when we first come to Christ, to surrender our “right” to live, move, and have our being independently of Him. A young woman marrying a man might resent the idea that her purpose after marriage is to be the glory of the man, and to assist him that he might fulfill God’s purposes in his life.

We Americans regard becoming an outstanding person as a worthy goal; but such personal ambition is not esteemed by the Lord. The truth is, godliness with contentment is great gain. The whole duty of man is to fear God and keep His commandments. Industry and diligence indeed are worthy values. But personal ambition, even in the ministry of the Gospel, will cause us to pursue our goal by means of our adamic, fallen nature and abilities; and this is not of God.

God demands righteousness of all people, holiness of His priesthood.

It is one matter to be in church. It is another matter to be in Christ. Sometimes these two states of being are quite different.

The donkey which Jesus rode into Jerusalem had a wonderful testimony after that and was greatly admired by everyone. She was wildly popular and much sought after as a convention speaker.

Faith is a firm grasp on God’s Character.

The natural way for a man to live is by the words proceeding from God’s mouth concerning him. When the individual is motivated by he spirit of the world, or the lusts of his flesh, or his personal ambition, he is not at rest and God is not at rest in him. All of his motivations, desires, prayers, hopes, directions, are to be proceeding from Christ, the living Word, in him.

As all false motivations are removed from him, Christ, who was conceived in him when he first received Christ, grows to maturity, until the individual is in the image of the Lord Jesus Christ and motivated solely by Him. This to say, the believer is becoming the word of God made flesh. Here is the problem with drugs and alcohol—they pervert the pure flowing of God’s word in the individual.

When we receive Christ for the first time our sins are forgiven through the blood of the cross. Christ, the living Word, is conceived in us. From that point forward, we are to be receiving Christ every moment of every day and every night. Otherwise that which has been conceived in us may perish for lack of nourishment, as in the parable of the sower.

Conflict and the development of character occur in the physical world. Also, our inheritance is found in the physical world.

Satan has no fear of church people who are vital, living in the paths outlined in the New Testament—the righteous paths that people everywhere approve. But when someone is willing to take up his personal cross of self-denial, allowing the Spirit to put to death his first personality, Hell trembles.

Hell does not love a righteous person and will flee from him when he resists temptation. But Hell trembles and is destroyed when someone is willing to be crucified with Christ that Christ might live in him.

The Kingdom of God is not found in the philosophy of Christianity, a philosophy which espouses the welfare of all people. Rather, the Kingdom of God is found only in the power of the Holy Spirit. The one proceeds from the natural human desire to be a better person and to help make a better world. The other proceeds from Divine election as the individual struggles with God. The reproach of the cross is on him.

He cries out as the Divine surgeon cuts away all that he treasures and replaces it with Christ. The world will approve of the good, righteous person, and such God accepts. But the Kingdom of God is installed when someone turns away from his own life, takes up his cross, and receives moment by moment the Person of Christ. The world will never understand or accept that individual or approve of him or her. He has chosen to cross the Red Sea of the life of Adam. Satan and the world spirit cannot follow him in his journey toward resurrection life.

There are three deaths and three resurrections we are to experience:

The first death is death to the world. The first resurrection is into the Kingdom of God.
The second death is death to sin. The second resurrection is into spiritual freedom.
The third death is death to self-will. The third resurrection is into the fullness of fruitfulness and dominion.

It has been pointed out by investigators that the behavior of Christian people is no different from the behavior of the non-Christian people. This would be predicted by any intelligent person, given the fact that the churches are preaching only forgiveness, very little about righteous behavior. In the future, hopefully, God’s ministers will begin to preach forgiveness through God’s grace to the unsaved, and righteous conduct by the power of God’s grace to the saved. Only then will the Christian people be the lights of the world.

One way of determining God’s ultimate will for you is to think what you would like to be true if there were no pressures on you. This will reveal what God has put in your heart. However, in order for you to perceive what truly is in your heart, the Lord will have to strip away your love for the world spirit, your bodily passions, and your personal ambition.

When these have been removed by Christ’s power you will know what it is you really want. Then God, as you wait patiently for Him, and do not take a shortcut, will give you the desires of your heart. Sin is, after all, a shortcut. The problem is, it may be a shortcut to what is not truly your heart’s desire—that which will bring you lasting love, joy, and peace.

We read in the newspaper how someone murders his children or his family members, or rapes a helpless individual, or performs some other heinous deed. We wonder, “How could he do that?” But the truth is, such foulness could be true of any one of us if the Lord Jesus Christ doesn’t prevent the demons from entering him or her. In the future the bizarre crimes we see today will be multiplied greatly as the demons—and finally Satan himself—are given free reign on the earth. In that day, only Christ can prevent us from performing some gruesome act.

When we show our love to God by obeying Him, He rewards us by setting us free from the bondages of sin. This is what salvation is—release from the bondages of sin, that we might have eternal fellowship with God.

When inquiring about the worth of a church, we should not be asking how many people attend but what is being preached and taught there. The number of people who attend is not a valid measure of the worth of a church.

It is a church’s responsibility to hold forth the truth. If it does not, it is worthless no matter how many people are in attendance, be they few or numerous. It is salt without flavor.

There are churches today with thousands in their congregation who are teaching how God can benefit man rather than how man can benefit God and bring glory to Him. Therefore they are not doing the will of God and are worthless in the Kingdom.

There are programs today that teach us how to be successful ministers and believers. It reminds me of an old song: “Green means go and red means stop. Be your own little traffic cop.” I believe some of these programs may really help people live better lives. But they are not related to the galactic power of almighty God, who is not asking us to conduct our own program of redemption but to take our place on the cross with the Lord Jesus and learn to live by His resurrection life, wisdom, and power.

Any individual who does not give all of himself or herself to God is extremely shortsighted.

First Timothy 2:15 maintains that women shall be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness. If we adopt the current definition of salvation, that is, eternal residence in Heaven gained by Divine grace, the verse is difficult to understand. But if we adopt the true definition of salvation, which is the change of the woman from a romantic, self-centered young lady to a caring individual who is giving her life for the betterment of another person, the passage becomes quite understandable.

Predestination is not inevitability.

God told Adam he was dust. We being the children of Adam are dust—somewhat intelligent dust perhaps, but dust nevertheless. Our only wisdom and power are found in the Lord Jesus Christ as He chooses to bring us into His Kingdom. We, the children of dust, can become the very revelation of Christ if we are willing to cooperate with the Holy Spirit as He brings us through the crucifixion of our soul.

To overcome does not mean to “accept Christ.” Accepting Christ is the authority and power to begin to overcome. To overcome is to emerge in victory over the forces of sin and death that war against us.

Because of my age I do not have energy to spare; so my prayer is that God will take this dust and use it as He will, making it an expression in the earth of His thinking, desires, saying, and doing.

Jesus prayed for the nations and the farthest reaches of the earth as His inheritance. Jesus prayed also that those whom God had given Him would be one in Him as He is one in the Father. Then Jesus prayed that if it were possible the cup of suffering would be taken away from Him.

The first two prayers shall be answered. The third was not answered because it was necessary for the third not to be answered in order that the first two might be answered.

So it is with us. God gives us a vision, and then we pray for what He has shown us. When things happen to us that we do not want to happen, we must keep firmly in mind that the things we do not want to happen to us do so in order that the things we do want shall take place.

Mark tells us that the Lord worked with the Apostles confirming the word with signs following. But my desire is that I will work with the Lord. It seems to me that this is what Jesus did. God did not work with Jesus, Jesus worked with God. Jesus said He watched what the Father did, and then he did the same.

Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.” ” (John 5:19,20)

It seems that today there are so many plans advanced to build the Kingdom of God, one wonders what would happen if some of us ceased from our own plans and just watched Christ as He watched the Father. Do you suppose if we did that, Christ actually would do something and we could come along for the ride, as it were? The elephant pulls the Log while the mouse accompanies Him, chirping merrily.

Yet I know it has to be the sword of the Lord and of Gideon; but I think we must make certain that it is mostly the Lord who is doing the work, while Gideon blows the trumpet and the jar of his earthly personality is broken so the Light of Christ within may be revealed. It must not become Gideon and the sword of the Lord. Gideon blows the trumpet of God’s Word; but it is the Lord who kills the Midianites.

“Father, we pray in Jesus’ name that Your perfect will shall be done in all matters. Make us, who are but dust, the revelation throughout Your creation of your Person, will, ways, and eternal purpose in Christ Jesus. Amen.”

There is a great multitude of people who have received Jesus as their Lord and Savior. From this multitude has been drawn a smaller number who have received the Lord Jesus but also have become acquainted with the Holy Spirit.

From this small number is being drawn a yet smaller group who have denied themselves, taken up their cross, and are following the Lamb wherever He goes.

I believe our passing from one group to another depends on our Divine calling, and also on our willingness to be pruned.

Religion kind of runs parallel to salvation. Sometimes religion assists our salvation, sometimes it hinders it. But we must never permit religion to interfere with our walk with God or our knowledge of God.

We must beware of overemphasizing the external dimension of the Kingdom of God, such as a place or Paradise to which we can go. The Kingdom of God is not a change of where we are but of what and who we are. The Kingdom of Heaven is not a change in location but a change in us. The Kingdom is not a saving of what we are but a slow, painful transformation of what we are.

The Kingdom of God is not the bringing of forgiven people to the spirit realm to live forever but the bringing of transformed personalities in transformed bodies to a new earth to live here forever—in a new world filled with righteousness.

The Kingdom of God, then, is the Lord Jesus coming to us individually with the sound of the trumpet, seeking out His enemies and removing them from our personality. The way is made straight in our hearts for the establishing of the Throne of God. We are becoming the Ark of the Covenant, the place of God’s eternal glory. Out from our heart will proceed the law of God to govern the nations, and the waters of eternal life to make the nations alive in God.

The way of faith, of righteousness, of holiness, came from eternity and proceeds into eternity. The Lord Jesus, the Word of God, never changes. The entire Scriptures speak of one God, one Spirit, one Christ; of loving mercy, of practicing righteousness, of walking humbly with God.

The part of our personality that has been re-created in Jesus is of the Kingdom by nature. The part of our personality that offends God will be removed from us in the last days. If we do not permit Jesus to remove from us that which offends God, we ourselves shall be removed from the Kingdom.

The Wife of the Lamb will be made holy and without blemish, not only in an imputed (ascribed) sense but also in an actual sense. We know from the Scriptures that this is a fact. We have labored in the bondages of sin for so long that it seems to be beyond the power of God to actually cleanse us from sin. But it is not beyond God’s power to cleanse us or heal us from any sin or sickness. God is ready today to begin the work of purging us from all sin and unrighteousness.

It may be true that we are going to bring more of what we have become into the spirit world than is commonly believed. The idea that once we “accept Christ” our troubles are over, and by grace we will enter Paradise when we die, does not appear to be scriptural. For this reason we ought to be concerned about what we are becoming, with God’s help, in the present hour. This may be a truer understanding of the Divine redemption than the idea that all God requires is a statement of belief in Christ.

I believe many of God’s people do not know the difference between excitement and good feelings, and the Spirit of God.

Sometimes it seems as though God has lost His watch. Actually, He always is on time—to the second. But it must be said that He does love dramatic, last-minute entrances.

I believe the Lord spoke to me recently. He said there is coming a revival of repentance in America in the midst of much tribulation. He said that after that revival there will be a war and much blood will be shed. From that point forward America no longer will be the world leader. The leadership of the world will pass to an Eastern country. Let the prophets judge.

As we reckon ourselves dead with Christ and risen with Christ, the Holy Spirit begins the lifelong work of changing our desires from the things of the flesh to the things of the Spirit. As the Spirit does this, and we cooperate with Him, the blood of Jesus Christ continues to cleanse us from all sin. This is the true Christian life.

Many of us realize that the most precious aspects of life cannot be purchased with money. So fabulous mansions in the spirit realm are not that desirable after all. The only worthwhile inheritance is people.

Because of the teaching of lawless grace, Christians—sad to say—are not known for having integrity, for behaving righteously. Their excuse is that they are not perfect, only forgiven. They appear at times to boast about this!

God is not interested in religious viewpoints, only in righteous behavior. God sent Jesus Christ into the world to turn people to righteousness, not to start another religion.

The monumental error of Christian thinking is that the initial forgiveness we receive, a forgiveness designed to make it possible for us to start on the path of moral transformation, is a new way in which God relates to man. “God used to require righteousness but now we are saved by grace,” we exclaim. I do not think it possible a more successful method of destroying the purpose of the new covenant could be devised.

We Christians have constructed a superstructure of error on the sure foundation of the blood atonement and the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. We have come up with a system of interpretation that encourages us to ignore the commandments of the Apostles in favor of a nonexistent, unscriptural “state of grace,” a state of which the Apostles of the Lamb knew nothing.

Learning to look to Jesus constantly will be of critical importance throughout the spiritual warfare that is upon us. There can be no letup at any time or for any reason. A wise officer posts a guard twenty-four hours of every day even though every aspect of the environment appears free from threat. The one time you do not post a guard will be the one time you get your throat cut.

We are lacking in intelligence and are shortsighted when we go through life without having benefitted other people. When we live only for our own security and pleasure we forget that life goes on after death. How will we feel when we are in the next world, surrounded by people with whom we have lived on earth, and have done nothing during our lifetime to help anyone else?

God governs all people and their attitudes. He brings to Christ those whom He chooses. He works in us to will and to do according to His own pleasure.

We can never fully enter the rest of God until we understand that God is in control of the world. The whole earth is filled with His Glory. This does not mean we are not to pray or to do what is set before us; but it does rule out personal ambition and fear.

We are not marching from the earth to Heaven, we are marching from eternal death to eternal life.

Would some believers live differently if they truly believed their personal spiritual growth is their salvation?

It is important for Christians to understand that the victories in Jesus being gained now will affect our lives for eternity.

It has been said “I think, therefore I am.” It would be better said, “I will, therefore I am.” The identifying characteristic of an individual is his or her will. Our will is demonstrated in our choices.

A wedding may be an expensive, gala affair with all sorts of trappings. A marriage is altogether different from a wedding. In a true marriage, two individuals in two bodies become one person in two bodies. The two shall become one, the Scripture says. This means they have one will between them.

The Father and Christ are one Person in two forms, but not the same individual. They have one will—the will of the Father. So it is that for us to attain to the rest of God requires that we become one person, one will, with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Our will is to be made one with the Father’s will through Jesus Christ. Thus all our choices come from the Father, whose wisdom, love and joy are perfect.

There is no eternal life apart from such oneness. The Kingdom of God consists of one Person, one will, in a multitude of forms. We must, if we desire to enter the rest of God, seek God through Christ until the Father’s will, the Father’s choices, are identical with our will and choices at all times throughout eternity.

Wisdom is the ability to predict what will bring love, joy, and peace to us. We are driven by many idols. We may not realize it but these things, relationships, and circumstances are not our actual goal. Our actual goal is love, joy, and peace.

The only path to the supreme goal, which is love, joy, and peace, is to be in the image of Christ; to be one with God throughout Christ; to multiply the image of Christ in ourselves and in other people; and to govern rather than be governed by the things, relationships, and circumstances of the creation.

It has been said, “What a world this would be if no one cared who received the credit.” Perhaps it would be better to say, “What a world this would be if everyone gave God the credit.”

Our Christian pilgrimage consists of a continual dying to the world, sin, and self-centeredness and a continual living to Christ. Our task is to maintain our confidence in Christ as the Holy Spirit brings us continually through death and resurrection.

If Adam and Eve merely were forgiven they would return to Paradise and eat of the tree of life—for it still is in the midst of the Paradise of God. Now they would be immortal but they themselves would not have been changed. The danger of another rebellion would be present. The Kingdom would have come externally before it had been set up internally.

The blessings of the Kingdom Age will not be poured from Heaven on the nations. The Kingdom Age will be brought to the saved nations through those in whom the Kingdom Age has been created. The righteousness, peace, and joy of the Kingdom will come through those in whom righteousness, peace, and joy are being created now.

The works of Satan cannot survive where the power of Christ is present, the power that enables a human being to practice true righteousness, true holiness, and stern obedience to God. This power enters the individual in whom Christ is being formed, and then inhabits.

Every philosophy, every religion, every doctrine that Satan advances has as its purpose to prevent people from being filled with that true righteousness. With the Jews, Satan’s device is to keep them struggling over adherence to interpretations of the Law of Moses while neglecting judgment, mercy, and faith. With the Catholics it is the doing of penances rather than repenting.

With the Protestants it is trusting in a profession of faith in Christ rather than prayerfully keeping the commandments of the Apostles. With other religions it is the adoption of any number of beliefs, practices, liturgies—sometimes including a religious kind of holiness that operates through human will power. Swing the incense. Ring the bells. Repeat the sacred phrases. Wear the special apparel on the appointed occasions. These are Satan’s substitute for righteous behavior.

In the world Satan encourages doctrines that remove God from human thinking and behavior.

Anything! Anything except behaving righteously, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God, and doing this through the Lord Jesus Christ rather than through our own efforts. The next time you consider a religion or a philosophy, see if it emphasizes the practice of righteousness through the power of Christ. If it does not it is an effort of Satan to sidetrack people from the simplicity of Christ-filled righteous behavior.

Sin is a shortcut.

A prayer: O Lord, destroy totally my sinful, rebellious nature. Fill me with the Life of God. Make me part of Your new, transcendent humanity.

Sometimes the victorious saints act like bullies toward the weaker believers. God would rather have us act kindly and helpfully toward those who have trouble gaining victory over worldliness, the lusts of the flesh, and self-will.

As we follow the Lord Jesus Christ, the bondages in our personality are revealed and dealt with over a period of time. Sometimes it is twenty or thirty years before the great kings of darkness in us reveal themselves. As they do, we now have the strength to judge and renounce them successfully. But there may be a severe wrenching of our personality and a painful death to self, as the last strongholds of Adam are given up to the Holy Spirit so they may be destroyed and replaced with the Spirit of life from God.

At the time of the Exodus the Lord made a distinction between Egypt and Israel. In spite of the commotion, “among the Israelites not a dog will bark at any man or animal.” What a miracle!

It is not unusual today for church members to slander and gossip about those who truly are serving the Lord. When God arises in our day, and He certainly is going to visit us in America, the wicked no longer will be able to criticize and slander God’s faithful saints, as they are in the practice of doing. Then it will be clear who is serving God and who is not.

Whatever you will not give back to God is an idol. God is your Creator. Don’t forget that. He can do as He will with or without your permission. He asks your permission because He wants sons, not robots, in the future.

Remember, Job was a righteous man. When we speak of God giving us our inheritance twice we are not speaking just of the destruction of sin out of us. It goes far, far deeper than the removal of sin. All we are, the good and the bad, must die in Christ and be raised in Christ. Not one mote of our personality is exempt from the process. Anything we hold back is loss for us and loss for Christ. Anything we are or possess apart from Christ is garbage—relatively worthless!

Joseph died the death before he governed Egypt. First Joseph died to the world (the pit). Then he died to sin (Potiphar’s wife). Then he died to self-will (the prison). These three tests are administered to each of God’s rulers. They must die to all three realms of the flesh and soul in order that they may receive the fullness of the inheritance.

If the cup is before you, then you are a chosen vessel. God has something great for you in His Kingdom or He would not be requiring this of you. Make up your mind and drink the cup. Cast yourself on God. Scream if you want to but not where the neighbors can hear you. Let God have it all. You will feel that your soul is sorrowful to the point of death. This is how Jesus felt.

Only the Lord knows how many hundreds of thousands—if not millions!—of Christians are professing their confidence in the Word of God but are sitting in Egypt. They are not following the Spirit of God toward the land. They have confused mental assent with a living, vital faith in God.

There can be and often is a great difference between membership in the Christian religion and personal salvation. The fundamental nature of salvation, of the Kingdom of God, of eternal life, is change in the human personality. The Bible refers to this personality change as “fruit.” Apart from the bearing of “fruit” there is no salvation, no Kingdom of God, regardless of membership in one of the forms of the Christian religion.

The goal of the Christian plan of redemption is not to “save” as many souls as possible and admit them to Heaven. The goal of the Christian redemption is to conform people to the moral image of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to bring them into untroubled rest in the center of God’s will, so they can install the Kingdom of God on the earth.

The churches have made the goal that of gathering many people under one roof and getting them to make a profession of Christ. Therefore the churches continue to persevere in their inefficient, sometimes destructive manner.

When any system has a wrong goal, a goal that has not been authorized by the founders of the institution, there will be confusion and a loss of cost-effectiveness all down the line. Also there can be no valid way of administering quality control procedures.

Because the churches are pursuing unscriptural goals they are using unscriptural means. The end result is babylon.

How sadly lacking in our nation is the virtue of nobility. We have become a people steeped in the slick lies of the con artist. Each individual talks overmuch because he or she is attempting to prove the righteousness of his way, or to deceive others in order to gain advantage over them. The person who seeks to live honorably and nobly, behaving with unchangeable integrity, is sometimes scorned as a loser, so debauched has our society become.

People are continually nourished with every conceivable portrayal of murder, fornication, drunkenness, violence, witchcraft, covetousness, unfaithfulness in marriage, rebellion against authority, and so forth. Then when the young people (as well as other ages) act out what they have been dosed with practically from babyhood we are amazed. If anyone attempts to suggest that perhaps the murderer derived his plans from contemporary music, or the television, or the Internet, the cry is raised immediately: “We must not interfere with freedom of speech.”

Huge trees die very slowly. America is dying because its original source of life, the moral values of the fundamentalist Christian, is scorned as a menace to society.

The person who teaches or believes he can live according to the appetites of his body and soul and remain without condemnation on the basis of his profession of belief in Christ, is bringing spiritual death on himself and on those who are following his example.

The purpose of the eternal pardon is that we may be able to enter the transformation into righteous behavior. This is the new covenant. To walk in sin is to choose death. To walk in the Presence and will of Christ is to choose eternal life.

The wise person does not accept the first, apparent solution to a problem, that presents itself. He waits and prays for wisdom. The first solution may be a trap.

Wisdom is the ability to choose that decision which accomplishes our goals. Power is the ability to enforce our decisions. The Holy Spirit is the wisdom and power of the saint.

We may desire to live in Paradise. God desires that we first become filled with eternal life so we practice iron righteousness, fiery holiness, and stern obedience to Himself. We shall enter Paradise as soon as the life and laws of Paradise have been created in us.

Christ could have asked the Father for, warrior angels to be placed at His disposal. But He did not. What does this teach us? It teaches us that we need to know when to pray for deliverance and when not to pray for deliverance.

To believe something into existence “by faith” is not faith at all. It is witchcraft. Such an attempt to use spiritual power apart from patient, cross-carrying obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ, will lead finally to participation in the False Prophet.

Antichrist is self-will in the political realm. The false prophet is self-will in the spiritual realm.

The spirit of Babylon is the spirit of religion, of man seeking God apart from obedience to the Spirit of God.

When we do God’s will, everyone benefits. God benefits. We benefit. Everyone else benefits. When we do not do God’s will, God loses. We lose. Everyone else loses.

O make my bones like the bones of Elisha so when the dead touch me they live!

It is written that if we delight ourselves in the Lord, God shall give us the desires of our heart. Therefore we are wise when we pray that God will fill us with the desire to meet God’s approval in all matters and to dwell in love, joy and peace; and that God will remove from us all desires that lead away from God’s approval and love, joy, and peace.

How close to the furnace of Israel do you actually want to be? The fleshly nature cannot survive the burning. God delights in us when we pray to be in the center of His Person; to dwell eternally in His glorious Presence.

We can think of God having a Father’s love for us. However it is a far stronger, superior quality of parental love than is possible to any human father. It is far more intense and yet far stricter. It is the sternness of the Father’s love that often is not understood by the American believers of our day. The Christian martyrs are more aware of the nature of God’s love than is true of most of us.

God wounds us and then heals us. Every person whom God has called to be close to Himself shall experience this process. He is angry for a season, and then returns to us for eternity.

The most important thing in our existence ought to be God’s approval.

Faith and fear cannot dwell in our heart at the same time. Where there is fear and dread, faith is lacking. We always are to pray in every situation that God will remove all fear and dread from us.

Women are saved through the bearing of children. Abortion apart from sound medical necessities is murder and shall be treated as such before the Judgment Seat of Christ.

The Lord Jesus Christ did not leave Heaven and enter this world in order to give us pointers on how to live a successful life; or even to die so we may make Heaven our home. Christ left Heaven and entered the world for the purpose of telling us we are spiritually dead; that our adamic personality is not redeemable. We must be crucified if we are to have true life and eternal fellowship with God. Christ is not the way to merry living or to Heaven. He is the Way to the Father.

I woke up with the following thought this morning. I thought it might prove to be a blessing to other believers:

So much of the richness of God’s Word has been lost in today’s preaching!

Instead of the idea of a firstfruits to God and the Lamb we have the teaching that everyone receives the same reward through grace.

Instead of the exhortation to press forward to the stature of the fullness of Christ we have the assurance that we have been saved from Hell.

Instead of the goal of attainment to the resurrection from the dead we have the unscriptural doctrine of the “pre-tribulation rapture.”

Instead of the hope of the coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth we have been taught to expect the Lord Jesus to carry His Church to Heaven.

Instead of faith for victory over sin we are issued lawless grace.
Instead of the vision of a new creation of righteous behavior we have eternal forgiveness.
In place of fellowship with God and Christ we have the pressure for “church growth.”
Instead of looking forward to being filled with all the Fullness of God we are presented with backyards filled with diamonds, with the possession of harps and golden slippers.
Instead of faith in Christ we are taught presumption and magic.
Instead of the new covenant we have another Gospel.
Instead of godly fellowship we have parties.
Instead of songs in the night we have a false assurance based on our unscriptural traditions.
Instead of the Body of Christ we have denominational loyalty.
Instead of the Wife of the Lamb we have charismatic ministers seeking power with God.
Instead of patient, cross-carrying obedience we have a state of grace.
Instead of keeping Christ’s commandments we have imputed righteousness.
Instead of lifting up Christ on the cross we emphasize our theological position.
Instead of behaving in a righteous manner so people can see our good works and glorify God we whine that we are not perfect, only forgiven.
Instead of coming to Christ we take the “four steps of salvation.”
Instead of holiness we have the works of the flesh.
Instead of obedience to God we have “liberty in Christ.”
Instead of an omnipotent Father in Heaven we have Santa Claus.
Instead of the Consuming Fire of Israel we have unconditional love.
Instead of the Temple of God we have Babylon the Great.

But what is the chaff to the wheat? We are in need of a reformation of Christian thinking.

If the husband insists that his wife sin in order to satisfy him, God will not be pleased. The man will be judged and the family broken up. If the wife forces her will on her husband by making his life unpleasant until he yields, God will not be pleased. She will lead her family into error. A weak husband and a strong, determined woman who dominates her husband compose a spiritually confused household.

Then there is the brutish man who seeks to conform his wife to the image of what he thinks she should be. In the process he crushes her creativity until she is a beast of burden, bearing many children perhaps, the song she was as a little girl silenced. Her hope now is that God will receive her in the spirit world where she can sing and dance once again.

It is not uncommon in America for a wife to idolize her children and find her satisfaction in them instead of in her husband. The children become “my children” rather than “our children.” The husband is left out in the cold, so to speak, not being permitted to discipline his children properly. Are we becoming a matriarchal society?

It appears to me that there only are two basic ways in which to live. We can live in material things, striving to gain as much wealth as we can, hoping to find comfort and security in the world. Or we can involve our lives in God, seeking Him in every aspect of our being and behavior—and more and more as we walk with God. I have been at this walk with God for sixty years, and I am able to evaluate now the relative worth of each pursuit. I can see that I have made the wise choice.

Holiness is spiritual cleanliness. This is why sinful spirits are referred to as “unclean.”

Eternal Paradise, the goal of our quest, is the place in which Heaven and earth are one.

Christ (and His Body) is a ladder reaching from the earth to Heaven (God’s answer to the Tower of Babel). The angels of God ascend and descend on this ladder, revealing that the point of origin is the earth.

The Scriptures are not a record of people “stepping out in faith.” They are a record of God revealing Himself to people, and of those people demonstrating their faith by obeying God.

We are not to have faith in faith. We are to have faith in the Lord Jesus and to ask the Father in Jesus’ name for the things we need and desire. Imaging is not a form of prayer but of “positive thinking” and it has no place whatever in the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.

Unless God brings tribulation upon us, the present generation of “Christians” in America is lost to the purposes of Christ. They are not abiding in Christ, they are not walking in the Spirit, and they are not obeying God—all because of the teaching that God’s forgiveness is unconditional. It is not reasonable or practical to teach people that it is not critically important how they behave and then expect them to meet the stern demands of the Christian discipleship.

There is much talk during the “day,” when everything is bright and sunny. But knowledge comes during the “nights” of God’s dealings.

There always is a multitude of words in the prophetic realm; but when God speaks, the rooster crows.

Heaven has not been designed to be the eternal home of people. Rather, Heaven is a place where people can be perfected so they may be able to enter and maintain Paradise when Paradise is restored to the earth. The present earth, and particularly the new earth, are the proper domain of mankind.

Now it is time for the God of Heaven to bring judgment on evil spirits. If we are willing and obedient the judgment will fall on the spirits. They will be cast out and we will be brought into spiritual freedom. It is an eternal judgment on the enemies of God.

The spiritual deliverance experienced by the victorious saints is the coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth and the beginning of the redemption of the material creation.

The major reason for the prevailing disobedience may be that people living on the earth are too occupied with their security, pleasures, and self-glorification to make the effort to find what God has commanded and to do it.

Often the fulfillment of our most intense desires is withheld from us, or it may happen that we are obligated or forced to remain in situations that are distasteful to us. To get out of God’s prison we have to break God’s laws.

It is one matter to profess obedience to God with our mouth. It is another matter to have obedience beaten so deeply into our personality it is instinctive. Our obedience to the Father must be thorough, consistent, immediate. Nothing short of stern, total, instant obedience is accepted from the future rulers of the Kingdom.

When we keep our eyes fixed on the Lord Jesus we begin to notice that the whole earth is filled with His Glory.

The Kingdom of God is in us. It is an inner kingdom although it does have an outward manifestation. It is a kingdom of the heart. God through Christ rules from within us. He governs us, and through us those whom we govern. He rules and blesses from within us.

There are those who believe that in Heaven we ought to try to do good but grace will cover our sin and self-will. God will see us only through the Lord Jesus. This is a horrible thought. Let us pray that such never takes place because the believers would soon turn Paradise into Hell with their gossip, slander, jealousy, self-will, arrogance, haughtiness, pride, bitterness, immorality, love of pleasure, covetousness, love of money, seeking preeminence, and so forth. It would not help us at all if God ignored such behavior and saw only the righteousness of Christ.

In these days, as the Holy Spirit moves upon you, you will discover that several parts of your personality are not reconciled to God. They rebel against God. They become angry with the Lord. Every trace of rebellion in you must be put down. You must be reconciled to God, not just legally through the blood of the cross but actually in your being and behavior.

The Lord God never planned that we should continue in unrighteousness after we have received the gift of forgiveness. God cannot have fellowship with unrighteousness. It is impossible for light to have fellowship with darkness (II Corinthians 6:14).

The righteous behavior of the new world will be behavior in harmony with God’s law of moral-social behavior. God has left it to men to discover the laws of physics, of chemistry, of biology. But God has not left it up to us to discover moral-social laws. People attempt to formulate moral-social laws according to their own ideas but always fail tragically. Moral-social behavior must be practiced according to God’s Word.

People are not motivated by truth nearly so much as they are by their lusts. Their reasonings are not a search for truth but a device to justify their undisciplined behavior.

The extraordinary protection of the “rights” of criminals in imitation of the compassion of Jesus is an attempt to utilize those aspects of the Gospel that appear to promote the welfare of the individual. Without the iron strength and clear wisdom of the Spirit of God, such efforts lead only to chaos.

Never hesitate to ask the Lord if what you are hearing is from Him. Ask a thousand times if you wish. Christ will never become impatient with you while you are testing the spirits.

Building churches and building cross-carrying disciples of the Lamb are often not the same thing.

There is not one instance in the New Testament of an effort to build up a church in numbers. Rather the emphasis is on holding forth the Word of life; on bearing witness of God’s Person, will, ways, and eternal purpose in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Can it be true that the Holy Spirit would prefer we turn our attention from attempting to gain numbers of people to finding out what Jesus is saying today, and bearing faithful witness to that?

A behavior is righteous when God deems it righteous. Our behavior and attitude are holy when God regards them as holy. It is the inability to flow with the flowing of the Godhead, in the matter of righteousness and holiness, that is the death that lies at the heart of religion and causes us always to err in our heart. Only the life of Christ is the light that gives us true understanding of righteousness and holiness. Religion usually operates in terms of mental understanding rather than in terms of spiritual understanding.

It may be true that our prayers continue to be answered after we die physically. For example, if we pray that God will give us desires that meet His approval, that bring us love joy and peace, it well may be true that this prayer may be answered in this world; and follow us when we die and continue to be answered in the next world.

I suppose the practical application of this is that we should pray for that which we truly desire to be answered in this world and the next also.

Frustrations make us more like God, if we approach them with prayer, patience, and a sense of humor.

Logic informs us that redemption certainly must include more than the forgiveness of our sins and a favorable attitude of God toward us. Salvation must include deliverance from the presence of sin and the effects of sin. If this were not the case, think of the consequences! The new world of righteousness would be one of ascribed (imputed) righteousness while the madness of the sinful nature continued to be exercised.

We are to live always and only to the Lord Jesus. He receives us in our foolishness, lust, and disobedience. He forgives our sins. But it is not possible that foolishness, lust, and disobedience can remain in His Body. Therefore day by day Christ changes us. He purges out from Himself, out from the members of His own Body, the foolishness, lust, and disobedience that are present when He receives us. He is transforming His Body by means of His own Divine virtue.

Are we being changed in order that we may be able to live acceptably in Heaven? No, we are being changed that we may live acceptably in Christ wherever we are.

The Christian salvation results in a new creation. That which is mortal and corruptible passes away. That which is of Christ enters in and grows to maturity. The new creation inherits all the good of the heavens and all the good of the earth. The new creation is an eternal part of God through Christ. This is the Kingdom of God.

What a thing fellowship with God and Christ is! I wonder if we really appreciate the privilege we have of walking with our Creator.

We must develop the habit of walking with Jesus. Instead of saying “I will do this or that,” say, “the King and I will do this or that.” Enoch walked with God quite successfully!

It appears to me the premier god of America is money. The premier god of England is freedom to do as one pleases. The premier god of France is physical lust. By worshiping these gods the people hope to obtain survival, security, pleasure, and achievement. But in actuality they end up as a shrub in the desert.

We can pursue life, liberty, and happiness; or we can pursue the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. These two goals are not only not the same, they often are directly opposed.

The prophets that hear from God often say things that are not pleasing to people. This is the reason they are persecuted. Such has been the case throughout history.

We are not to attempt to make the Gospel of Christ beautiful or attractive. Jesus never did. Neither are we to present a harsh, religious program that reflects our own bitterness.

I asked the Lord one time about the current emphasis on “positive” preaching. I believe He said, “The person who preaches only that which is positive is seeking his own glory. The person who preaches only that which is negative is emotionally ill.” Then Christ pointed out to me that the Bible from the beginning is both positive and negative.

One can notice in today’s Gospel preaching a tendency to attempt to make the Gospel attractive to people. There is talk about a “beautiful Jesus.” We must say nice things, and keep any negative references to an absolute minimum.

We can see in the newer translations an attempt to soften the impact of the wrath of God. The new Bible may speak of a “fearful responsibility” instead of the “terror of the Lord.” Fear becomes reverence. Why? Because of our pride!

Why are we attempting to sell the Gospel? Because the measure of success in the Christian ministry is the number of people who gather in our building or who are counted in the records of our denomination. The result is, we are bearing a false witness of God. The blood of those who will be punished because of our willingness to shield our listeners from the Words of Christ and His Apostles is on our hands.

Believe me—the minister who faithfully declares that no person is a Christian until he denies himself, takes up his cross, and sets out to follow Christ each day will be accused of not having love. So far have we fallen from the Presence of the Lord.

It appears to me that many believers in America are detracting from what could have been their inheritance, by occupying themselves with the things of the world rather than with Christ.

Jesus is a King. He is not asking that we attempt to assist Him with our pitiful resources. He is waiting to see who is intelligent enough to realize the Body is to respond to the Head, not the Head to the Body.

We cannot possibly participate with Christ in the coming resurrection until we readily and gladly surrender to Jesus Christ our stubborn determination to do as we please. We still are part of the problem, not of the solution. Actually we are the enemy of God until we place His will above our own. We are disobedient, rebellious children, although we may consider ourselves to be saved and filled with God’s Spirit.

The mystery of God that is to be accomplished is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” For two thousand years the Christian churches have emphasized “Christ with us.” Now the emphasis is on “Christ in us.” There is a vast difference between having Christ with us and having Christ in us. Christ in us is the Kingdom of God, and the demands on us are total if we are to receive and develop this particular Divine gift.

It always has been God’s will to form Christ in the believers. But the Scriptures seem to emphasize the last days as being the time during which the Body of Christ suddenly will come to maturity.

It may be true that the two most commonly expressed viewpoints concerning the removal of sin from God’s people are that we are freed from sin by physical death, or the Lord Jesus will remove sin from us when He appears at His second coming. It seems neither of these solutions is scriptural.

God will never work against our will, you may have noticed. If God worked in us so we were unable to sin we no longer would be His sons, but puppets. We always will be able to sin—throughout eternity. If Christ is formed in us we will not sin, because of the Divine Nature which has been formed in us. But we always will be able to rebel against God if we choose to do so. This is why the saints will govern the creation forever. They will prevent sin from multiplying.

The fundamental story of mankind is that of the prodigal son. We cannot maintain that which is given to us freely, and so we lose it. We must gain it back through the most arduous labor. But when we do get it back it is ours to keep; for now we know what it is like to lose it. Things that come easily go easily.

Divine grace is God in Jesus Christ enabling man to do God’s will.

To be “saved” is to be completely free from Satan and to be filled with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We are not “saved” in order to go to Heaven but so we may have fellowship with God wherever we are. Salvation does not move us from earth to Heaven but from Satan to God.

We are abiding in the rest of God when God’s will and our will are identical. It is only then that we are free and can play in the Presence of God.

Every son of God is tested in three ways. Three branches of sin are examined: living by bread alone; obeying the lusts of the flesh; personal ambition.

Divine grace is not an alternative to righteous behavior. Divine grace is God in Jesus Christ enabling people to do God’s will. To view Divine grace as an acceptable alternative to moral transformation is to be deceived.

When we sin we are the slave of Satan.

We of today are in great deception concerning how God views the sins of the believers!

It never is the will of the Lord Jesus Christ that a Christian continue in known sin. But there may be a prolonged battle over some issue in our life, and we may have to ask for the help of other Christians as we seek deliverance.

You and I have been slaves of Satan, and Satan is not pleased when one of his slaves is attempting to get rid of his chains. We have to fight our way into the land of promise; and God will help us if we keep looking to Him.

The whole duty of each one of us is to fear God and keep His commandments. When we begin to strive to be rich, famous, successful, we are sinning. This is the third great branch of sin; and as long as we are bound by the need to prove we are important, or even worthy, in the eyes of people, we are not able to play—that is, to delight ourselves and be content in the Lord.

American ministers often seek power with God. Perfect power will be issued to God’s witnesses in the last days, but only to those who are without personal ambition.

We overcome the temptation to fulfill our personal ambitions by waiting patiently in the situation where God places us, in the meanwhile praying for what it is we want. When we delight ourselves in the Lord He grants us the desires of our heart.

It often is said that as long as we are in the world we must sin. But this is not scriptural. By going to the Throne of Grace when we have need we can gain victory over each temptation. God always will make a way of escape so we can bear whatever comes against us.

True faith obeys God and then waits patiently for the promises to be fulfilled.

None of the saints of the Bible ever attempted to manipulate the supernatural realm by saying, “I believe.”

As we abide in Christ His godly image begins to appear in our personality and also in the personalities of those to whom we are ministering.

True faith is a trust in God through Christ that causes the believer to live in and by the Lord Jesus.

How we respond when we are placed in a situation where in order to help someone else, we must suffer ourselves, reveals much about our character.

When sins against God no longer are crimes against the state, then the state is failing in its duty.

Today’s fascination with ghoulish creatures is Satan preparing the way for the coming of him and his demons, as soon as he is overcome by the saints, and thrown into the earth by warrior angels. That kindly dragon!

When we do God’s will, the atonement follows. When we walk in the light, the blood cleanses us from all sin. The issue is not that of receiving the atonement, it is that of doing God’s will!

The state of being we Americans treasure most is independence of thought and action. This state Is not suitable in the Kingdom of God, where God’s will and not ours is the highest good.

If you don’t wish to put God’s will above your will, fine. Enjoy the darkness!

When God says, “Be holy for I am holy,” He obviously is not referring to imputed holiness but to actual holiness of character and behavior. He can do this in us!

When the Bible speaks of “the Lord our righteousness,” it means our behavior is actually righteous because the Lord Himself is changing us.

It appears that every religion, including Christianity, regards adhering to its unique beliefs and practices as more important than acting righteously, showing mercy, and walking humbly with God.

The covenant must be written in the mind as well as the heart. But it is not doctrine that is written, but the truth that is the understanding of God’s Way in Christ. This must be the street of gold, the way of faith.

Are you living a poised life in which you can hear the voice of Jesus? Or are you being driven here and there by enthusiasms or fear? Pray!

Godliness with contentment is great gain. Sometimes we are bound with chains of covetousness that drive us to keep pursuing that which never will bring love, joy, or peace.

In America, many of us have enough money to go from one toy to another, without realizing that we are being driven so we will not stop and think about what it will be like when we die and face Christ.

The wise person thinks often about when he will be raised from the dead. What rewards of love, joy, and peace will be his inheritance at that time?

There are those who have excellent life and health insurance; but they ignore the certainty that they will die and face God!

The world of Antichrist is one of intense concern for the needs of people. But the needs of God often are ignored.

Great multitudes of people working together cannot accomplish anything of eternal value. But one individual who is obeying God can bring forth lasting good.

How many geniuses have there been, such as Bach and Mozart, whose contemporaries did not realize the value of their contributions. Do you suppose they can see, from the spirit world, their success?

The one important question we will face after death is: “Did we do on the earth what we believed God would have us do?”

It is better to walk humbly with Christ and to live forever, than to possess great wealth and houses and lands, and then discover all this is worthless.

Our relationships with people are of supreme importance, while things and circumstances are of relatively trivial importance.

What searing pangs of conscience and agony of mind will torment those who betrayed the individuals who trusted them!

It is better to walk humbly with God than to be the wealthiest and most powerful individual in the world. There is no rest in wealth and power.

Anyone can live a perfect life in Christ, five minutes at a time.

We begin life as intelligent animals. If we walk with Jesus, as we should, we finish life on earth as prophets.

If we learn our lessons during our life on the earth, we will have a glorious inheritance in the next world.

There is a “beautiful delicacy” when applied to humans that is not of God. It is unclean. It is related to the spirit of romanticism. Nature is rough, harsh, brutal!

If someone tells you they are sorry they hurt you, and they will not do it again, forgive them immediately. Otherwise, you will not be shown mercy by the Lord.

Marriage is between a man and a woman. It is a wonderful institution, although accompanied by many difficulties. These are sent to perfect our character.

When crime figures, such as members of mobs, die, and are not wicked enough to be placed in the lowest Hell (with Adolph Hitler), they are assigned to communities of people like themselves. Their circumstances are drab. The angels record their responses, to be brought forth in the Day of Judgment.

Although I have made mistakes, I have sought God for more than sixty years. When you realize you are doing what you are supposed to be doing, there is a sense of well being. I wish that blessing for everyone who reads my words.

Sometimes Christians tell “evangelistic” stories in order to persuade people to “accept Christ.” They are lying, and this is not acceptable.

The Lord Jesus Christ is faithful and true. It appears we need a lot more faithfulness and truth on the part of Christian people.

I do not know where this pressure comes from that commands every Christian to go out and get people “saved.” It is not coming from the Spirit, nor is it scriptural.

If the Christian ministry spent time teaching people to take up their cross and follow Jesus, instead of ordering them to get the world saved, the ministry would make a greater contribution to the establishing the Kingdom of God.

Evangelistic fervor often drives people away from Christ. But godly behavior wins souls to Christ.

It is taught that beliefs in Christ saves us from Hell. Rather, that true belief in Christ changes our behavior. It is this change that saves us from Hell.

If you wish to know the truth about what is taking place in our chaotic world, you will not find it in the newspaper, but as you pray and look to Christ.

It is not wise to rebel against God’s will in any manner, because His will is leading us to love, joy, and peace.

The punishment of the wicked is that they behave wickedly. The blessing of the righteous is that they behave righteously.

Rebellion against God’s will produces wicked behavior. Obedience to God’s will produces righteous behavior.

If you break God’s laws in order to amass money, you will discover eventually that you have acted foolishly.

Our role is to build up people into the image of God so they may inherit eternal life in the Kingdom of God.

Isn’t it God’s purpose to create people in His image? Why, then, do we teach them that all they need to do to satisfy God’s requirements is to believe in Jesus Christ?

In the present world, self-serving people are often found in families whose members sacrifice themselves to help others. In the spirit world, self-serving people are placed with other self-serving people. Then the angels evaluate their progress.

Anyone can do God’s perfect will five minutes at a time. To know we are doing God’s perfect will is the best feeling in the world.

Sometimes the dutiful habits we have acquired interfere with the mind of the Spirit, and we cannot hear and obey as we should.

The way we live our life on the earth displays our character, and directly affects our assignments in the next world. We bring our character with us!

We may win our battles and be a great success. But if we cheated and lied, our victories count for nothing in the end.

It is not who wins or who loses a contest, it is the memory of their character that lives after them.

There is only one dependable refuge in this present world, a world that is becoming increasingly chaotic each day. It is the Lord Jesus Christ and His Kingdom.

The Lord Jesus Christ and His Kingdom are the only dependable element in our increasingly troubled world.

It pleases the Lord Jesus when we continually are thinking how we may benefit those with whom we come in contact.

If we are faithful to the Lord Jesus, He will be faithful to us. If we are not faithful to Jesus, He is under no obligation to answer our prayers.

It is necessary that we receive Jesus Christ as our personal Lord. If we do not accept Him as our personal Lord, He will not be our personal Savior.

People have become so humanistic, so self-centered, that many are willing to accept Christ as their personal Savior, but not as their personal Lord.

Sometimes we must seek to benefit other people when it is to our own hurt. But we must never seek to benefit ourselves when it will hurt other people.

The Lord could enjoy us more if we weren’t so determined to do things, even Christian things; or to grasp things, even Christian things.

How many Christian people are joyful at the thought of living by Christ’s Life, ceasing from their own works, rather than how to use Christ to accomplish their own ends?

My prayer is that I will think God’s thoughts, speak God’s words, and perform God’s works. I desire to cease from my own works and enter the rest of God.

If you would be perfect and entire, in want of nothing, then walk patiently hand in hand with the Lord Jesus.

Geologic time is as nothing; it is but the merest song in the night to the Lord Jesus.

A day is as a thousand years to Jesus, in that it is filled with such detailed wisdom and love.

When you are tormented with fear, it may be because you are clutching something. Let it all go and rest in Christ.

Our life and our will are closely related. Are we willing to lose our life, our will, in Christ?

When we say, “Not my will, but Yours be done,” we are saying, “Not my life, but Yours be lived.”

There are several aspects of life, such as breathing, moving, speaking, body temperature. But the aspect of life that must be presented to Christ is our will.

People suppose that death will remove their record of misbehavior. Actually, they will meet the people they have wronged, and it will be very embarrassing, or far, far worse!

Atheists and materialists do not think clearly enough about the conclusion of their position. Their death will be as though they never shall exist again. This goes against our deepest instincts.

As we see the moral collapse, and along with it common sense, in America, we should thank God that His will is being done in Heaven, along with common sense. We can look forward to righteous behavior in the next world.

We do not fret ourselves, because God will triumph over evil in the end. We have God’s promise!

There are Christians who are denominational leaders. You can talk to them about the business affairs of their denomination; but they do not seem to have much of a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Lord Jesus does have a playful side of His personality. But He is deadly serious in all He says and does.

The Lord Jesus Christ gave freely of what God has given to Him. He did not stress being paid for His services. This is the economic model of the Kingdom of God.

If everyone gave freely of what God has given him or her without expecting to be paid for his or her services, there would be no wars or rumors of wars. May God hasten such a day.

The good things of God always are an opportunity. We continually must declare our faith, and move forward in God’s Spirit. We overcome Satan by this word of our testimony.

To attain to the first resurrection is to enter life at the appearing of the Lord. Those who do not attain to the first resurrection will be judged, at the end of the thousand-year Kingdom Age, and may or not enter life at that time.

The greatest words in any language are found in the first chapter of the Gospel of John. “All things were made by the Word, and the Word was made flesh.”

All religion is the invention of man, and often is destructive. Eternal life is found only in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Do you want to go to Heaven, or do you want to be with Jesus? He is coming back to rule on the present earth; and He will rule throughout eternity on the new earth. Where do you want to be?

Get rid of your involvement in the world system by reading your Bible and praying every day; spending time with fervent disciples; and by minimizing your television and internet watching.

Get rid of your lusts by naming them specifically, and then denouncing and renouncing each one with all your might. Ask Christ to help you confess, denounce and renounce the uncleanness in your personality.

Get rid of your self-will by staying in the prison where Christ has permitted Satan to place you. Suffer patiently the deferral of your most fervent desires until Christ releases you.

We overcome the accuser of the brothers by continually, relentlessly asserting that God’s Word is true and faithful.

Adam and Eve knew little about God’s Character. Mankind has had six thousand years to learn that God is utterly dependable and means exactly what He ways.

I didn’t fully realize how far off the track modern Christian teaching has gone until I compared in my mind the modern prosperity, faith and “rapture” doctrines with the scenes of the Christians in the arenas of Rome.

I am learning to live by every word that continually is coming from the mouth of God throughout every day and throughout every night. This is the eternal Sabbath we are to enter.

We are not to use the uncleanness in our personality to help us succeed. We do not use unclean spirits to be our hewers of wood and drawers of water, so to speak. Eventually these spirits will turn on us.

Did you ever think much about the fact that Jesus actually is God’s Son, and God loves Him and is proud of Him? God’s willingness to give His Son as an offering for sin reveals God’s love for people.

“Let every sacrifice be salted with salt.” When you exhort someone with one of Christ’s commandments, be sure you “salt” the Word with gentleness, compassion, and kindness.

A sincere Christian may accept pain needlessly, thinking he must bear this pain for the Lord. Always pray and hope for love, joy, and peace. Be patient but not passive.

A profession of belief in the Christian religion often is used by believers as a substitute for integrity.

The Christian salvation is the only religious experience that actually has supernatural power to break the chains of sin. But it appears such power is not always employed.

With Christ, nothing is too good to be true.

If you have tried everything, and nothing has worked, why don’t you try Jesus? You might be surprised!

I will lay down and sleep in peace and safety. The Lord is watching over me.

Religion has been created by people. God has not been created by people. There is a very great difference between religion and God.

True revival occurs when an individual who is bound in sin gains the desire and power to begin to live righteously.

I do not know how Christian leaders became seduced into believing that salvation primarily is forgiveness, and does not have the power to overcome the sinful nature.

If the Christian salvation does not have the power to overcome the actions of our sinful nature, it is worthless to God and man.

God does not prevent anyone from walking in light. Rather, it is the individual himself who chooses to not walk in the light of God’s Person and will.

We need have no fear of war or death. The fear that has a basis in reality is that we will not have pleased God by our life.

Sin is a shortcut to your desires—desires that in many instances have been placed in you by the Lord. Don’t take shortcuts! If you do, you may lose everything.

Solomon’s Temple was built on Mount Moriah, where Abraham offered Isaac. If we are to build God’s Temple, the House of God, we must surrender our “Isaacs” to God.

Doing God’s complete will is the sure foundation of all work in the Kingdom of God that will endure.

The scientists of the nations measure the artifacts of civilization. They say, “Now we have truth.” In actuality, all they have are several measurements and conclusions. Only Jesus is the Truth, because He tells us what everything means.

No one can know true love until he or she is set free from spirits of lust.

People do not cherish democracy because they want to serve God, but because they want to do as they please.

Freedom of speech in America has not led to love, joy, and peace, but to moral filth and blasphemy.

In the current struggle for the office of President of the United States, I think we are beginning to see the nature of the rise of Antichrist.

The only government that will bring love, joy, and peace, to people is that of an absolute monarchy, and a righteous king who fears and obeys God.

Why do people want a democratic government and freedom of speech? Is it because they wish to serve God more fervently? Probably not!

We were not created to be saved. We were created to be the eternal house of God.

We have to be careful that we do not talk ourselves into doing, or not doing, something. We must learn to wait for Christ.

Sometimes we are forced to act. We have to pray that Christ will guide us.

Think how much you know about everything. Then think how much you do not know about everything. It should make you humble, and enthusiastic to learn more.

The will of the victorious saints is razor-sharp, having been honed through years of resisting the passions and lusts of sin.

God gave the gift of prophecy to the Christian Church so that we would not get off onto one program or another but would be in tune with what Jesus is saying at any given moment.

Knowing the facts concerning the Lord Jesus Christ is worse than useless if that knowledge does not cause us to obey Christ diligently every moment of our existence.

God prevented the people of Babylon from achieving unity, not because He doesn’t want man to learn the secrets of the universe and build a wonderful world but because God knows if man does build without God’s Presence and direction, man will destroy himself and his environment.

God has put the world in our heart so we can’t see truth, and has made us subject to frustration so one day we might be free in the Spirit of God.

Because some people go and fight wars to defend their county, it leaves other people free to dither about how wrong war is.

Pride is the opposite of faith. It is the desire of man to follow his own path instead of walking humbly with Christ.

After living as a disciple for years, I perceive that the main problem in the world and in the churches is that people prefer to conduct their own lives rather to listen to Jesus.

The leaders of Christian organizations often do not encourage the operation of the Spirit of prophecy. The leaders wish to implement their own ideas and plans.

The earth is subject to cycles of warmth and cold. If the scientists would ask the Lord Jesus, He will show them how to cope successfully with the extremes of temperature.

The Bible says, God will wipe away all tears. This must mean a good part of our memory will disappear. We will remember only that which is loving, joyful, and peaceful. We will have a new start in life.

The main point of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God is not facts about the Lord Jesus, but obedience to him at all times in every detail.

In God’s House, which is Jesus Christ, there are many dwelling places. What kind of dwelling place we become depends on how obedient we are to Christ.

When we consider the size, number, and distances of the heavenly bodies, and then that He knows the number of hairs on our head, we realize God can do anything He desires.

The Christian Gospel is supposed to make us a better person. Because of the way “grace” is preached, this change sometimes does not take place.

The Kingdom of God is not a matter of belief about certain facts but about a change in our behavior.

He who is least in the Kingdom of God is greater than any of the old-covenant prophets, because of the inner creation of Christ formed in us.

God was with the people of the old covenant. God is in the people of the new covenant. This is the main difference between the covenants.

When Christ is formed in us and is dwelling in us, the angel of the Lord always goes before us to remove the obstacles.

The Lord Jesus told us He must always be about His Father’s business. Let us exercise the same diligence.

When someone is dying, and we have prayed and have the sense the Lord is taking him or her, we should not resist. Remember Hezekiah and Manasseh!

“Give us this day our daily bread.” Our daily bread is to do the will of Christ.

God loves your loved ones more than you do, and has the power to protect and help them.

What happens to the individual when he or her is raised from the dead, is the most important event of his or her existence.

Each fully mature Christian is a great house for the Fullness of God, and his or her inheritance of people.

As the Father loves Christ, so Christ loves us. In the same manner, we love others as Christ directs.

The maturing Christian seeks to enter union with God, which, properly entered, will lead to union with other people.

“God is love. He who dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him.”

I don’t know what the day holds, but I know who holds the day. The Mighty One is on my side because I have chosen to be on His side.

No one can come to Christ unless the Father draws him or her. This is true at every level of redemption. Our task is to cooperate with the Spirit of God.

It is easy and inviting to criticize the weaknesses of people. Instead we should pray for people, as the Spirit of God directs us.

There is no eternal life except in the Lord Jesus Christ. In America we are free politically to not believe this, but we then are in error.

John:1 means if we choose to live in the Presence and will of Jesus Christ, then, in the Day of Judgment, He will raise us up and we will continue to live in His Presence and will for eternity.

There are so many useful examples in history and in the world to guide us, it is quite obvious a loving God created them all.

To dream the impossible may be commendable; but outside of Christ, dreaming the impossible may turn out to be unrealistic and impractical.

We often try to create people in some image of our own making. Doing so brings both of us into bondage.

For a person of conscience, the most important issue, when we are ready to leave this world, is: “Was I true to those who trusted me; who counted on me?”

To realize one has not remained true to those who counted on him, is an agony of conscience not easily relieved.

In the spirit world, everyone is transparent. There is no means by which someone can conceal either a wicked or a righteous motive.

The best prayers are those God gives us: “Ask of Me, and I will give you….”

The best form of prayer is communion. We are to commune with Jesus without ceasing. This is how we can understand the will of Christ at every moment.

If you permit the desires of your body to govern you, you will end up in misery.

Dust we are, and to the dust we shall return, unless we receive Jesus Christ into our personality.

A person is not “saved” until he or she is willing to let God direct his life. What the Bible means by the term “salvation” is eligibility for the change from our will to God’s will.

When we are governing our own life according to our own desires, abilities, experiences, and talents, we are a rebel against God and are lost to His purposes, even though we have accepted Christ as our Savior. We must hasten to the Lord and without delay tell Him we will do His complete will in every circumstance of our life.

We may think being saved means we are going to Heaven and not to Hell when we die. It is true rather that to be saved means we have been dealt with by the Lord until we are willing to walk humbly with God.

Once we make up our mind not to save our own life, not to trust in our own desires, we then are ready to be formed in Christ’s image both internally and externally. We also are in a position to dwell forever in the center of God’s Person and will.

There is no higher goal for any person in the universe than to walk humbly with God.

If we are wise we will ask our Father in Heaven to hold our hand and to keep and guide us throughout the eternal ages that are to come.

The most destructive of all possible practices in which a human being can engage is to pursue his own way without looking to the Lord Jesus Christ for guidance and strength.

Jesus experiences sorrow when the Father has to send suffering on us. But then He rejoices, because He sees our end as a purified saint, as we pass from the animal to the heavenly.

When Christ receives us, we bring a lot of “baggage” with us. It must be removed, if we and Jesus are to live together in harmony.

Those the Father brings to Christ, Christ is willing to receive into Himself. Then Christ knocks on the door of the heart of the individual, hoping that individual will receive Christ.

Strong desires have to be watched very carefully. They can lead us into deception.

Many times during our discipleship, some of our fervent desires will be deferred. If we do not wait patiently for Christ, we will not receive the rewards that are given to the overcomer.

It really is simple to die in the Lord. Just let go of all your idols.

God is with people who pray in Jesus’ name. Sometimes it seems as though nothing is happening, but it is!

A true Christian is an individual who is dying to self and in whom Christ is living and growing larger each day.

The only possible way to get evil out of a human being, or out of a world, is to fill the person or the world with Christ. There simply is no other way!

The only manner by which God can use a person to remove evil from the world is to first fill that individual with Christ.

Evolution can never be a legitimate science until the origin of energy and mass can be determined. Something cannot come from nothing!

What possible reason could officials have for forcing the doctrine of evolution, other than the fear of being held accountable for their actions?

The order found in nature testifies to intelligent design.

Our experience teaches us that energy, mass, and the order found in nature, must have come from somewhere at some time.

If a person were to go out at night and consider the earth and the starry heavens, he would be a fool if he concluded there is no God. His intuition will inform him there is a Creator.

The only true and truly important thing in life to me is my Lord Jesus, my family, and my friends. You can have everything else!

If a person has Jesus, he has all he actually needs. Everything else easily can become an idol.

Some are claiming today that Satan is good. Unless Christ has mercy on such a deluded individual, his or her future will be filled with unimaginable horrors.

No amount of evil can overcome the good that is in the Lord Jesus Christ.

How wonderful it is to live in the wisdom and power of Christ. It sure is better than the old adamic way, waiting fearfully for the axe to fall!

if we reject our intuition concerning God, and must have data printed on paper before we will believe, a native in the bush has more understanding than we do.

Live in the prophetic realm as much as possible, by talking to Jesus and listening to Jesus continually. Your human mind will betray you.

The angels are God’s servants, not ours. It is not proper to attempt to send an angel on an errand.

It is scriptural to pray for more of the Spirit of God. However, we are not to endeavor to direct the Spirit. Jesus is the One who pours out the Spirit.

To stand before Christ is not to go to Heaven. Rather, it is the ability to lift up our head in the Presence of God and Christ because all of our sins have been confessed and turned away from.

The “rapture” into Heaven of the believers is not scriptural. It proceeds from the philosophy of humanism in that it is intended to please people and not to please God.

If you desire to live in a prophetic environment, in which you communicate continually with the Lord Jesus, then make as few assumptions as possible.

Because of the increase in the intensity of violence and illicit sexual episodes, I believe the demon population that surrounds the earth is increasing.

The increasing corruption of the American society and government is God’s way of destroying our nation because of its promotion of abortion, homosexual behavior, and gender confusion.

You can pray without ceasing or worry without ceasing. The choice is yours.

Why are you not praying? Are you waiting for Satan to lead you into a trap? Talk to Jesus all the time!

God always is thorough, on time, wise and dependable. Have you ever noticed that?

Picture in your mind Sodom, Gomorrah, the other cities of the plain, and Lot’s wife. This destruction portrays God’s attitude toward homosexual behavior. Will America be next?

There is no one right way to win spiritual battles. We have to be led by the Lord in each detail. Sometimes mulberry trees; other times, “Be still and know that I am God.”

When we are obedient and faithful there always is victory, although sometimes we do not understand the way God is leading.

There are spiritual gifts given to the members of the Royal Priesthood. Then there are talents given to ordinary people. We are required to be faithful and diligent with what has been assigned to us.

If you are diligent and faithful to Christ, you will arrive at your goal perhaps before you know what it is.

Why is it so difficult to live one moment at a time and not worry about the future? I don’t know, but it is!

No individual is born a homosexual. There are people, however, who are bound with this spirit. Christ has the power to set us free. We need only ask.

If you have tried sincerely to stop your homosexual activity, why don’t you ask the Lord Jesus to help you? He has the power. He created the starry heavens!

I have gained much from the information people have put freely on the Internet. I have contributed my share at wor.org/book. Again, the material can be read free of charge. “Freely you have received, freely give.”

We can look to Christ and be healed, unless we are disobedient; or He is working something special in our life.

Sometimes a person will injure another individual because he is of a different race. Yet, the person attacked may have a kindly attitude toward the attacker and his race. This is stupid!

The demons love to reason but I refuse to reason with them. My prayer is that Jesus will lead me in the paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake.

When a person’s ways please the Lord, the Lord will make even his enemies be at peace with him. Try it and see. You will find the Scripture is true.

God did not put us on this earth to be happy but to learn about Himself.

God wants us to be happy. But He has to bring us through much misery before we can enjoy true and lasting happiness.

Pleasure and joy are two different states of being. One cannot experience joy when he or she is not obeying God. But individuals can experience pleasure when heading toward destruction!

The goal of man appears to be democracy. But the goal should be righteousness. These are not the same at all. America, a representative of democracy, is filled with unrighteous conduct.

The government that will not enforce God’s moral laws shall not be permitted to continue. God shall remove it!

It is my sincere prayer that every aspect of my life without exception shall be wrought in Christ.

Christ turned aside from His own desires, thoughts, words, and actions in order that the Father might be revealed. Now we must do the same in order that Christ may be revealed.

Only God can torment you, imprison you, confuse you, reward you, heal you, bring you to Paradise. An ignoramus does not fear God.

One of the reasons God created us, I believe, is that He might have fellowship—-someone like Himself, someone of understanding to talk with.

The greatest mystery of all is that our Creator has become our Friend and Brother.

When we do not do the things that Jesus taught, we will find sooner or later that we are building our house on the sand!

Only one thing in life really matters, and that is God. All else is ignorant children playing games. To please God with one’s life is worth more than all the gold in the universe.

I have learned by years of experience that when I get up in the morning there will be enough, wisdom, power, and comfort to cope with the problems of the day.

The greatest gift any individual can receive is an intense desire to do the will of the Lord Jesus Christ promptly, accurately, and completely. The wise person will pray for this gift.

Everyone is a victim in one way or another. The most wicked individual in the world is a victim of Satan and his demons.

Today is a wonderful day because I am dying and Christ is living.

To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Not absent from the earth, but absent from the body.

We overcome Satan by the word of our testimony. My testimony is that Jesus Christ is Lord of all.

We never can find our true life until we embrace the Life of Christ, yielding up our own life.

The doctrine of the “rapture” is a false vision of the future. The twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth chapters of Matthew present the true vision of the future.

We are not to be merely waiting for an unscriptural “rapture.” Rather, we are to be putting on the whole armor of God that we might stand in the evil day.

The Lord Jesus is my friend. He is the greatest gift anyone possibly can have. I recommend Him highly!

Sin is nothing more and nothing less than disobedience to God. Once we know what God wants, and we do not do it, we are sinning.

God is pleased when we joyfully are doing His will.

If there is anything more pleasant than doing God’s complete will, I do not know what it is.

We have to die the death God requires of us if we are going to gain the desires of our heart.

I love to do God’s complete will. It is the joy and rejoicing of my heart.

There is no place in the new world of righteousness for Adam. Every inhabitant will have died and been raised in Christ. Some thirty, some sixty, and some a hundredfold.

There is a new world of righteousness on the horizon. Let us hasten toward it and enter into it with all righteousness, love, joy, and peace.

We have to be patient with God. Time in the spirit world is different from time on the earth.

I believe God brings us into simulated situations in our dreams so He may test and teach us. No doubt this sort of judgment takes place in the spirit world after people die.

If you want to secure your future, you had better make a friend of the Lord Jesus Christ. He Himself is the Future. No other power can change this one whit.

The deplorable situation in the world today is the result of the self-will of the political leaders. They do not appear to look to God for the solution of problems.

Christ Himself is the Future toward which we are moving. Any other future will lead to misery and destruction.

It is my belief that I will be able to continue writing after I die. Eventually every person, as Christ directs, will be able to read the understanding that I think Christ has given me.

“I will be careful to lead a blameless life,” King David said. Has “grace” changed this? Should this be the attitude of a Christian? How has grace changed this, or has it?

“He whose walk is blameless will minister to me,” King David stated. Is this true also of Christ? How has “grace” changed this, or has it?

David said, “I will cut off every evildoer from the city of the Lord.” Can an evildoer claim, “I am saved by grace,” and enter the city of the Lord?

I am absolutely determined I shall think, speak, and act in harmony with God’s will for me.

The Christian salvation is one of having God’s eternal moral laws written in our mind and heart. Forgiveness is worthless apart from such change in our behavior.

All of us are liars, as we read in the world news. Only Christ is Truth. We tell the truth and are the truth only when Christ is living in us.

Righteousness leads to more righteousness and the heights of glory. Wickedness leads to more wickedness and the depths of corruption and death.

It is a good thing for us that God behaves like God, isn’t it? Where would we be if He were not utterly faithful and true?

My desire is to be an interested observer while the Lord Jesus lives His Life in me.

We have not when we ask not.

People miss out on good things when they don’t obey the Lord.

In the end you either will be rejoicing that you are obedient to Jesus, or you will be in the worse torment possible to man.

Psalms 119 speaks of rejoicing in the Law of Moses. Philippians 4:4 encourages us to rejoice in the Lord. This is the difference between the two covenants.

Romantic love is the worship of people. It is temporary, unlike Christ’s love for us and our love for Christ.

Life without Christ is no life at all, only a protracted exercise in corruption.

Should we worship the Law of Moses or should we worship Christ? Which one is God? Which one is the Resurrection and the Life?

Under the new covenant, is the Sabbath fulfilled when we do not do our own work on Saturday, or is the Sabbath fulfilled when everything we do is of the Life of Christ?

Butter and honey he shall eat until he knows to choose good and reject evil. A child does not learn moral purity by being immersed in moral filth!

Unclean spirits are those spirits who transgress the righteous laws of God.

Jesus always does what the Father tells Him to do. In like manner, we also should always do what the Lord Jesus tells us to do.

The Father is greater than Jesus. It is the Father who has given Jesus the authority and power to be our God and Lord.

There is a great deal being done today in the Divine redemption. Believers who are waiting to die and go to Heaven are missing this last great work that will bring us to maturity.

It is better to know Christ and be His friend than it is to observe all the rules of a religion.

Because we have died with Christ we are free from the Law of Moses—free to follow Christ and be obedient to Him.

I believe we do not say enough in America about pleasing God. I would rather please God than myself. Wouldn’t you?

We are to live by the Life of Christ as Christ lives by the Life of the Father.

We are one in Christ in God. This relationship is a mystery. In the same manner the relationship of Christ to the Father is a mystery.

Are you holding God’s hand and attempting to lead Him? God would prefer that He hold your hand and lead you.

When we truly are living by the Life of Jesus, there is a new creation. God and Christ will come and live in that new creation.

We have to keep on asking God to bring us into His rest, because abiding in God’s rest is contrary to our adamic nature.

The United States is giving a bad moral testimony to the world. Therefore God is in the process of reducing the influence of our country.

During the days of moral horrors that are confronting the United States, it is up to each Christian to see to the survival in Christ of himself and his loved ones.

If we are to survive in the coming days of chaos, we will have to be at rest in the center of God’s powerful Person.

I would rather have God hold my hand than to hold God’s hand. I would rather have God be the Pilot and me the co-pilot. This is called the rest of God.

The dead may be closer to us than we understand. The Book of Hebrews says they are witnesses. This suggests to me that they may be looking to see what God is doing with us.

Righteousness, love, peace, and joy are all in the Lord Jesus Christ. Whoever has Christ has them all but must keep pressing forward to the fullness.

What is important to me is that God’s will is being done through Christ. Nothing else truly matters.

There are many “takers” in the world. I believe they must have been put here to perfect the righteous.

In Christ is contained all that is desirable, including all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Why, then, do we insist on looking elsewhere?

“Now that Your Spirit is upon me, I must think, speak, and act according to Your Presence.”

God did not create man to die and go to Heaven but to be in His image; to be a place of rest for Him; and to be His throne.

Soak up all the Presence of Christ you possibly can. “Bring your vessels not a few.” You are going to need His wisdom and strength in the days to come in America.

Yesterday’s manna was not edible. So it is that our profession of Christ must be renewed each day. Otherwise it will breed worms and be repulsive.

You are not to expect deliverance and Paradise when you get there. Rather, you are to bring deliverance and Paradise wherever you go.

It is difficult to imagine a static population. In some manner children will be born or created in the new world of righteousness. Imagine a world without children!

The Bible teaches that in the last days, all evil and evildoers will be removed from the Kingdom and burned in the fire. That is our hope.

Are we willing to lose our own life that God and Christ may have Their unhindered way in us? This is the true goal of the Christian disciple.

The Lord Jesus Christ is coming from Heaven with His saints. Then will occur a marvelous time of fellowship as we, the living, are gathered together with them.

The great cloud of witnesses in Heaven are regarding us carefully, because they are going to be made perfect along with us.

Satan will be cast down from his throne in the air. Then the Lord Jesus will take Satan’s place in the air and call up to Himself His victorious saints.

Our goal as a Christian is to press into the rest of God, meaning we think, speak, and act in the manner planned for us from the beginning.

God needs a house, a resting place, and a throne in us. We must be strengthened in righteousness and faith if we are to meet God’s needs.

There is no second chance after death for the person on earth who knowingly and wilfully disobeys and rejects Christ. But everyone gets a first chance.

The Lord Jesus and His Apostles never preached that we are saved to go to Heaven. Rather, they taught that the Kingdom of God is coming to the earth.

When Christ is born in us, that is the Kingdom of God being born in us. We cannot see or enter the Kingdom until Christ is born in us.

The grace given under the new covenant is incomparably greater than the grace of any other time. The requirements placed on the participants are vastly more demanding. The rewards and opportunities for glory truly are staggering. The punishments for not meeting the requirements are as severe or more severe than those suffered under the prior dealings of God.

We have been saved through the blood atonement; we have received God’s Spirit; now we must learn stern obedience to the Father. This is the Kingdom of God and the issue facing the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The purpose of government is to enforce God’s rules of morality. The government that refuses to enforce God’s rules of morality, regardless of the reason for its refusal, will not remain in control.

God restrains His wrath because of the Virtue of Calvary. But God has not changed. The Lord Jesus and His Apostle warned us again and again that if we continued to live according to our fleshly lusts we would suffer at His coming.

The Lord Jesus is not a feeble “do-gooder” who cannot exercise wrath when it is called for. He is more loving than any other person. He is more capable of wrath than any other person. This last fact has been concealed from the current generation of American churchgoers.

While we do not suffer to make an atonement for sins we certainly do suffer as Christians. Christ paid a terrible price for our redemption. All those who would be victorious saints must understand they too will suffer, they will share Christ’s sufferings. We are required to love not our lives to the death.

The saints of all ages have more in common than they have differences. This is why the Spirit of God, in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, uses Old Testament personalities, beginning with the second son of Adam, to teach Christians the meaning “of the just shall live by faith.”

We have made the Word of God of no effect by our traditions. Christ has become the justifier of an unholy, unrighteous, disobedient, self-centered, pleasure-loving, spiritually careless, worldly church.”

Grace is not a new method for achieving sainthood. New-covenant grace is not a method of making saints by using Christ’s righteousness instead of ours. It is not true that we can substitute a belief in Christ for the obedience of Abraham, the meekness of Moses, the consecration of Daniel, the holiness of Elijah. Grace is not a device for calling sinners saints. If it is, God has defeated Himself.

Often the impression is given that the Christians, the disciples of Christ, the brothers of Christ can continue in indecision, lukewarmness, refusal to do God’s will, self-centeredness, foolishness, prayerlessness, and still be approved of God, still be brothers of the Lord. Their behavior does not matter because Christ’s righteousness is imputed (ascribed) to them.

Much more has been given to us than was given to the saints of the old covenant. Much more is required of us than was required of the saints of the old covenant.

There is a common faith that exists among all the saints of God no matter under what covenant they learn to walk with God. All of them were and are declared to be righteous because of their trust in the Lord, their hope of a better world wherein dwells righteousness, and their continual seeking of the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, of a city that has foundations.

The emphasis of the new covenant is not on God forgiving our sins, although the forgiveness of sins is an important part of new-covenant grace. The emphasis of the new covenant is on the forming and abiding of Christ in us so the Life of the Son of God becomes our life. It is God working in us both to create the desire and to fulfill the desire of His good pleasure in us.

Crucifixion and resurrection are the fundamental nature of the new covenant. They are grace, under the new covenant. This is how God writes His laws in our minds and in our hearts.

The new covenant contains grace of such Divine Virtue, of such power and breadth, that righteous conduct is made possible.

The purpose of freeing us from the requirements of the Law of Moses is to bring us into total, complete union with Christ in order that we may bring forth unto God the fruit of righteous behavior.

It is impossible to receive the fullness of the grace of the new covenant, or to enter the opportunities and rewards of the new covenant, until we make up our mind to give all we are to Christ. Until we are determined to die in Christ and to live in Christ we cannot participate fully in the new covenant.

Burning passions lead to deception.

It’s not Christ for you unless it is Christ in you.—Randy Magel

Are you willing to give up “everything” to inherit “all things”?—Randy Magel

There are two great heads of redemption. The first consists of the sovereign plans and works of God. The second consists of the human response to God’s sovereign plans and works. When we ignore the necessity for the human response, or ignore the fact that salvation always is directed by the Lord, we exclude ourselves from the Divine salvation.

There are two major eras. The first extended from the creation of the spirit and physical worlds to Calvary. The second began with the resurrection of Jesus Christ and extends to eternity, ages without end. Our first birth was into the first era. Our second birth, in Christ, is into the second era.

The purpose of the grace of God in Christ is to convert sinners from lawlessness to godly behavior.

* * *

As I awakened this morning, the thought came to me that the adamic race is but the merest beginning of what God has in mind for His Kingdom. We human beings are little more than intelligent dust. Our actual value is as a host on which can be grafted the eternal Divine Nature. This is why we must be born again if we are to enter the Kingdom.

If I am correct, it will be during the thousand-year Kingdom Age (Millennium) that our actual change into true man, the transcendent humanity that God has envisioned from the beginning, will take place. In order to be joined in eternal union with Him who is very God and very Man, we ourselves must become of the true Divine Nature and true humanity, and filled with the fullness of God. In God’s economy like must marry like.

Perhaps the spirit realm, that we term Heaven, is in a great measure a school. For those who are diligent with what they have been granted in the present life, the opportunity will be given to gain the knowledge of the Lord and transformation into His image.

Jesus Christ is the perfect representation of the Father, in that He thinks, speaks, and acts as the Father thinks, speaks, and acts. This also is our destiny, having been predestined to be the younger brothers of our Lord. We can begin to experience this transformation today if we will press forward in Christ.

If we are waiting to die to go to Heaven, instead of preparing ourselves to be God’s house, we may not be pursuing our salvation with sufficient vigor.

The “lawless grace” and “rapture” doctrines are founded on the notion that our goal is to go to Paradise and do nothing of significance for eternity.

We have been created to be in the image of God, not by imputation or identification with Christ but by actual transformation of personality.

The memorial Jar of Manna in the Ark of the Covenant speaks of how the righteous live by the faith of depending utterly on the Lord Jesus.

Aaron’s fire-hardened staff that bore almonds illustrates that we are to live by the resurrection Life of the Lord Jesus.

The tablets of the covenant placed in the Ark bring to mind that every member of the Body of Christ must have God’s moral law inscribed in his mind and heart.

God desires a house. God desires a place of rest. God desires a place other than Heaven for His Throne.

Our destiny as Christians is to be the eternal Tabernacle of God placed among the citizens of the new earth. Let us press onward to this goal.

The wall surrounding the new Jerusalem is beautiful to behold. So it is true that God’s righteous commandments are the joy of the true Christian.

God is not requiring that our adamic nature attain to perfect righteousness of behavior. Perfect righteousness of behavior is acquired as we live by the Life of Jesus.

God is not asking you to do the impossible. Rather He stands ready to assist you as you determine to obey what He is requiring of you.

When the plan of redemption has been brought to the full, God’s people shall be free from all sin and rebellion for eternity—actually free, not free by imputed righteousness.

It is not at all true that God “sees us through Christ.” God sees us as we actually are. All things are “uncovered and laid bare” before His eyes.

Lasting compassion, kindness, mercy, patience, self-control, moral purity, joy, peace, will never grow from the adamic nature, only from the Spirit of God.

The Bible does not teach that we are doomed to sin. The Lord Jesus Christ who created the galaxies can create you and me in righteous behavior.

“The Four Steps of Salvation” is a manmade covenant. It can be mischievous in its consequences. God’s new covenant leads to righteous behavior.

It remains eternally true that there is no sin or disobedience in the Kingdom of God.

To not obey the Lord Jesus when He speaks to you is to rush headlong into the Lake of Fire. You are, like Satan, a rebel against God.

To be conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus, which is our calling, means that we behave as He behaves.

If we are to be the light of the world, we will have to be actually righteous in behavior, not righteous by imputation.

The end result of the Divine program of redemption is a believer who, through Jesus Christ, has overcome sin and self-will.

Christ will bring you to perfect righteousness of behavior if you do not quit. Do not focus on yourself, focus on Christ. Keep your eyes on Christ in every circumstance!

The Bible says we are not a debtor to our sinful nature, that we have to live according to it.

God has decreed that you shall be in His image. He will not fail you. He shall make your behavior like His.

Each day we receive the grace that is needed for that day. We never get tomorrow’s grace today. The manna will come in the morning. Let us live by faith in God.

God tells us we must give that treasure over to Him. To do this results in the death that God desires we endure. Resurrection life comes from this.

You will not have much time to take naps in your mansion if you are willing to participate in the Kingdom roles and tasks God has appointed for you.

It appears to me that the Father, the Son, and each member of the Body of Christ will live together for eternity in one grand shining coalescence of the Spirit of God.

Salvation includes total deliverance from the person and works of Satan.

Our spirit, soul, and body are to be made one with the Spirit of God and created from the Spirit of God.

Our task is to count our soul as dead and to live our discipleship in that manner.

Our personal cross works throughout our lifetime putting our soul to death. As our adamic nature dies, the resurrection Life of the Lord Jesus takes its place.

As we pursue Christ our soul is choosing to die with Christ and live with Christ. It is contributing to its own demise.

What then should be taking place in the Christian as he or she grows to maturity? We should be learning to live by the Life of the Lord Jesus.

Little by little we learn to obey Christ in every detail of our life. Mastering such obedience means we set aside our own desires.

Every time we choose to turn away from temptation and do what we feel God would want, we are fed in the spirit world with the body and blood of Christ.

In order to be transformed into a life-giving spirit we must temporarily lose things we care about deeply.

The Lord Jesus cannot put an incorruptible body on this untransformed soul.

It appears there are not many people who will be ready to become a life-giving spirit when the Lord Jesus next appears.

We must be fed with the body and blood of Christ until those who come to us can receive eternal life. This shall be our role for eternity.

The purpose for the exhortations of the New Testament is to bring us to close fellowship with God and the Lord Jesus.

The purpose for the written commands of the Bible is to guide us until we are able to hear the commands of the Spirit of Christ and obey them.

From God’s point of view, the goal of our redemption is to create us in God’s image so God may settle down to rest in us.

We must learn to live by the Life of Christ. This is the eternal Sabbath. It is the “rest” of God, set forth in the Book of Hebrews.

When the individual counts himself crucified with Christ, and lives that way, the Law of Moses no longer has jurisdiction over him.

There is an uncrossable gap between the Law of Moses and the Law of the Spirit of Christ.

Christ will live in every aspect of our life if we will permit Him to do so. This is what it means to live by faith in Christ.

We are to pray without ceasing that we may overcome the lusts of our flesh and remain obedient to the Spirit of Christ at all times.

Christ is God’s eternal House, and in Christ there are very many rooms that the saints occupy.

The Seed is the Olive Tree. The Seed is the Kingdom of God. The Seed is the Word of God, now made flesh. That one Seed is Christ and all who belong to Christ.

The individual who is presenting the Gospel of the Kingdom of God is sowing the Divine Seed, Christ.

It is people with honest and good hearts who patiently guard the Seed that has been planted in them, and bring forth the image of Christ.

The new covenant is a “better covenant” from God’s point of view because it will enable the believers to keep God’s commands.

If we endeavor to mix the Law of Moses with the new covenant we are performing spiritual adultery.

The new covenant does include the forgiveness of our sin, but only as we continually seek to obey the Law of the Spirit of Christ.

Theologians have reasoned that since we are unable to keep God’s laws we must be saved by “grace,” that is, by forgiveness. However, that would make the new covenant inferior to the Law of Moses.

God declared in the beginning that man is to be in His image. Obviously there must be more steps in the plan of redemption so that God’s Word may be fulfilled.

If you confess and turn away from the sin that has been pointed out to you, Christ will forgive you and help you put it behind you.

If you keep bringing more and more of your life under the control of the Lord Jesus, the time shall arrive when you are living completely in the eternal sabbath.

It is not primarily our rest, it is God’s rest. God is seeking a house in which He can dwell and have fellowship with His creatures. We are being redeemed that God might find rest.

The Law of Moses is a servant who brings us to Christ. When we become part of Christ, the Law has done its job and is removed.

America is sinning grievously, with its worship of sexual activity and money, as well as the practice of abortion. God is going to diminish America until it no longer has a powerful voice in world affairs.

Why do we have to strive to enter God’s rest? Because we have a variety of things, forces, and circumstances that seek to turn our eyes away from the Lord Jesus.

If you are obedient and follow the Spirit, you will stand and help others to stand in the dark days on the horizon.

The physical Ark of the Covenant will be seen no more, as I understand it. The Ark will be replaced by the saints, in whose hearts the Throne of God will be established.

The Tabernacle at the High Place, minus the Ark of the Covenant, speaks of the Christian churches practicing their customary services without the power to set people free from the bondages of sin.

If we follow the desires of our body, while reciting that “Jesus did it all,” we will never come to maturity in Christ.

We cannot save ourselves by any sort of self-punishment, such as saying so many “Our Fathers,” or by crawling on our knees to venerated statuary. Atonement was made once for all on the cross of Calvary.

Some Christians do not believe in hearing from the Lord. Any emphasis on the Holy Spirit communicating with us is viewed with disdain. They are missing much joy.

The important leaders of Babylon the Great will not be in touch with the living Jesus, just as is true of some of the ecclesiastical leaders of our day.

Christ has come in the Spirit in our day to declare war on His enemies, beginning with the enemies dwelling in the most fervent of His disciples.

The Lamb today is standing on Mount Zion, which is the Church of the Firstborn, the Christian Church. He is ready to put His enemies under His feet.

By speaking in tongues we cease from our own works and enter the image and destiny God has foreordained for us from the beginning of the world.

Speaking in tongues by the Spirit of God is the God-ordained manner of enter His rest.

How are we to be led by the Spirit? By constantly looking to the Lord Jesus as we perform our daily tasks.

Christians with the spirit of the Pharisee may be honest, hard-working people. They miss the greatest joy of the Christian discipleship, which is to walk in intense fellowship with our Lord Jesus.

Heretofore God’s Throne has been in the spirit world. Now God plans on bringing His Throne into the hearts of people who are in His image. It is as simple as that.

Those who will see Jesus in advance of the coming of Revelation 1:7 are the believers who are learning to live by His Life and are looking for Him.

Once we receive the Passover blood by faith, we are no more of the world than the Lord Jesus was part of the Roman Empire.

Jesus thinks as the Father thinks. We are to think as Jesus thinks. Jesus speaks as the Father speaks. We are to speak as Jesus speaks. Jesus behaves as the Father behaves. We are to behave as Jesus behaves. This is the eternal righteousness.

Anyone who chooses to do so may use up to twenty-five of the proverbs in the Gold Tried volumes without notifying me. It is not necessary to attribute them to me.

(“Gold Tried in the Fire: Book Six”, 4280-2, proofed 20220112)