The Daily Word of Righteousness

Once To Die, continued

"I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.<R> His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire." (Matthew 3:11,12—NIV)

The fires of Divine judgment fall on our love of the world. We have to confess our love of the world, judge it as sin, and ask God to remove it from us. It is an eternal judgment of our love of the world.

The fires of Divine judgment fall on the lusts and passions of our flesh and soul. We have to confess these lusts and passions as the Spirit directs us, judge them as sin, and ask God to remove them all from us. It is an eternal judgment of the lusts of the flesh and soul.

The fires of Divine judgment fall on our personal ambition, our desire for achievement and importance, our lust for preeminence, our self-will, self-centeredness, self-love. We have to confess our self-seeking, rebellion against God's will, and stubbornness as sin. We have to ask God to burn them out of us. It is an eternal judgment of the core of our adamic nature.

We must through the Spirit of God put to death the deeds of our body. We do this a step at a time. Each day the Lord God presents us with a challenge concerning some area of our personality. Each day the Lord God gives us grace to overcome the evil. All the promises of power and authority in the Kingdom of God are made to the overcomers, the conquering saints.

If you will follow the Lord diligently and carefully through the program of eternal judgment you will then be ready for the first resurrection from the dead, the resurrection the Apostle Paul was pursuing.

To be among the Lord's firstfruits, to be raised from the dead in the day of His appearing, to be caught up to be forever with Him, are prizes well worth your seeking.

Notice the following verse:

Then I heard a voice from heaven say, "Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on." "Yes," says the Spirit, "they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them." (Revelation 14:13—NIV)

"From now on" refers to the time begins when Antichrist and his image are worshiped. From that time those who "die in the Lord" will be blessed, for their deeds will follow them.

Our opinion of the meaning of this extraordinary verse is that when the pressures of the world order become too great for Christians (or anyone else) to resist, the only people who will be able to show forth deeds of righteousness will be those who have counted themselves dead with Christ and risen with Christ—I mean who really have done this. Many churchgoers will say they are dead with Christ and risen with Christ but they merely are making an assertion of belief, they are not truly living in such a manner.

To be continued.