Weak in prayer?

It’s Ok to be weak in the flesh, in the natural, but it’s not OK to be weak in prayer.

Even feeble prayers are mighty in God, bcos the Father hears.

Received

is a very important word for our understanding how we should live.

The true Christian life is about walking IN and WITH what you have freely received. This always has to be settled, and when it’s settled we are settled and can act in faith.

Nothing we are called to be or to do is outside of, or apart from, what we have received.

For who makes you to differ from another? and what do you have that you did not receive? now if you did receive it, why do you glory, as if you had not received it? 1 Cor. 4:7

Ohr, this note’s for you

It’s a pretty big claim the claim that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead after 3 days and nights, and that He was seen by more than 500 Jews at one time, 1 Cor. 15:6.

If it was a scam, as i presume you believe, would such a scam succeed if it happened today? If there was a ‘Fred of Bethlehem’ or whatever who appeared in Israel and thousands of Israelis brought their sick, crippled, blind and lame to Fred for healing, and he couldn’t actually heal any of them, but he had the ability to make the Jewish people think that he healed them, were deceived into thinking that miracles took place when they didn’t : the lame walking, the blind seeing, the lepers cleansed, limbs growing back, dead people getting up…   all a mirage, an illusion manufactured by a very clever man?

And finally poor ol Fred get’s capital punishment for making the Jewish people believe that the blind received their sight and the cripples walked, when they didn’t, which would be a wonder in itself if Fred could get thousands of devout Jewish people to believe that miracles happened when nothing happened :  And to cap it all off, he died and did not rise again : his followers pulling off an amazing scam that they got so many to believe a lie that they saw Fred and met with him, touched him, after he rose from the dead. Talk about genius to be able to get so many to believe such a blatant lie, and there’s more, all of these con men were willing to be tortured and executed for this lie. None of them made any money out of the scam, rather, they lost everything bcos of it.

When faced with a dreadful agonizing death all they had to do to escape was to confess that it never happened. None of them cracked under pressure and spilled the beans on the scam.

Wouldn’t ‘Fred’ be pretty amazing if he could pull all that off today? What i’m saying is that it would be ridiculous to suggest that someone could succeed in pulling off a scam of that magnitude; to go out and enlist and coordinate so many liars to all speak the same lie without breaking ranks, knowing they will get nothing out of it and most probably end up being killed for that lie: therefore to say that Jesus did not physically rise from the dead is to suggest the most ridiculous scenario.

Another note on anonymity

When a person hides their identity and refuses to disclose it, then there’s not the basis of trust where we could even begin to believe anything they say.

It’s not a matter of being suspicious of anonymous people, or prejudiced, but simply,  i would be a fool to believe anything they say to me as there’s no basis of trust to begin with. They don’t trust anyone with their identity, so why should they be trusted?

Btw, i’ve come to know a number of believers thru the internet who used pseudonyms in public, but their real names and disclosure in private communications.

Do you see ‘The Day’?

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as you see the day approaching. Heb. 10:25

We should see the day, and see it approaching. To see the day means we see what that day entails according to Scripture. We see the reality of that great and dreadful day of the LORD which is coming, we are not asleep nor deceived about what that day entails, we are ready.

Every new day we  wake up to is exactly that, the past has passed and something new is ready to unfold. But the day that’s coming will be a day like no other and marks the end of this present age. Whatever one thinks they or their organization has achieved on this earth, it all comes to an abrupt halt on that day, it’s going to be all over, it will be finished, never to be remembered again for all eternity : all that comprises Christianity today : the names, the ‘churches’, the movements : it will all be forgotten forever.

On that day the LORD Jesus Christ will bodily return and stand upon this earth, upon the Mount of Olives, and judge and rule the nations. Every eye shall see…

To see the day is to see Him now in His glory and to live before Him now, just as it will be declared on the last day when every hidden thing is revealed. If we truly see Him, then we see the day, and we long for it.

People who say that this world is being transformed into the Kingdom cannot see the day, nor do they see it approaching, they are blind to it, and perhaps blind to Him, and it will be a day of terror for them.

Luke 21:34  And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.
35  For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.
36  Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.

Knocking out the prayer defences

is a cunning scheme of the enemy.

…We are not ignorant of his devices. 2 Cor. 2:11b

We should be very sensitive to not quench the Holy Spirit and the  ‘spirit of prayer’ which He manifests in us for His purposes among our brethren.

Life from the dead

We were once dead in our sins. Now in Christ Jesus we live and have life eternal. We can face this life, we can move ahead by faith while living in this present world; even though we are weak we can be overcomers : simply bcos Jesus lives and we live in Him. Bcos He lives we live also. He is the strength of my life.

Understanding

Following on from the previous post :  Any understanding we have about the Christian life which we have not come to understand PRIMARILY by simply reading the Bible, or would not or could not have come to understand by simply reading the Bible, is probably not worth having.

True teachers of the Word speak on these terms, and point people to understanding the truth of  Scripture in a way that they do themselves out of a job and deflect attention away from themselves to the Word.

And, if what i’m saying here is true, then most of what people know as Church and the Christian life today is unscriptural.

This post came to me after i recently read an article on being the NT church today. Concerning the main points the guy was making, i asked, Would the believers who are a part of that group have come to believe those things just by reading the Bible? Or do they believe those things ONLY bcos that guy teaches them that way?

I thought, there’s things these people believe and therefore do, which they would never have gleaned from the Bible alone. The Bible would never have taken them there.

It’s fair to say that most of Christianity works this way: things are the way they are bcos people are led astray by carnal preachers, bcos they did not really take the Scriptures as the authority over their beliefs.

Sure, God uses men and women for His gospel.

Yet, the nature of the true Kingdom of God is that God, whilst using people as His instruments, has a kind of sieve, and over time He sifts out everything that is not His Word and only His Word remains.

It aint necessarily so

There was a dreadful song back in the 60s, “It aint necessarily so”, which said that what’s written in the Bible, aint necessarily so.

The truth is exactly the opposite : anything not written in the Bible aint necessarily so.

I want you to honor me LORD

thru my children, i prayed last night when i woke up in the middle of the night. That they will be men and women of God is the only honor i want in this life.

Many preaching a false hope

that this present world will be filled with Jesus and that He will transform society into his Kingdom and renew the earth. God is not going to transform this present world in this age while we are here, just the opposite, he is going to judge it and His wrath will be poured out on it.

Our hope is not in this present world, our hope should not be in the transformation or renewal of this world, for our blessed hope is the glorious appearing of our LORD:

Titus 2:13  Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;

And He will take us up into the air to meet Him, He will catch us away and take us out of this present world.

So much for having our hopes set in this world and hoping that “God fills it with Himself” , when one third of it is going to be destroyed, and His wrath will be poured out and most will not repent, Rev. 8 & 9.

What happens after Jesus returns is out of our hands, it is not our concern now, but it will be truly wonderful for us. It is useless, a waste of time, and a diversion of the enemy, to pray for things which can only happen after Jesus returns. It’s a distraction from the real work of evangelism and discipleship we are called to now.

“All things in Christ” , “the transformation and renewal of the creation”, applies only after this present age is over, when Christ bodily returns and judges the nations, and the majority of mankind is sent to a burning hell forever. Therefore it is totally irrelevant to the Church and a false hope to expect and pray for these things to happen now bcos they aint going to happen. There isn’t going to be any revival the way many are painting it. Who knows, maybe its an escapist reaction to the hard scenario which prophecy paints of the very last days before Jesus returns? What neurotic people want to hear?

As for the gravity of believing such error? All I would ask is, where does it lead to? Where does someone end up when much of what they believe is a lie? When they’ve been seduced by a lying spirit, or given over by God to believe a lie? Someone may say it’s harmless as it doesn’t deny Christ, but where it ends is what concerns me.

This false hope, as opposed to the blessed hope,  often comes as a companion to the false Gnostic type teaching that everything has already been reconciled to God, so there is no sin anymore, no separation from God, bcos Christ has already reconciled everything  : That they are already reconciled, they just don’t know it. This is nonsense. If a person is outside of Christ and not a partaker, then Christ profits them nothing. They have no part in His reconciliation and the wrath of God remains on them, it was never taken off them.

Mixture

is a word to understand what is going on in charismania.

Many of Jesus’ own are caught up in mixture; they heed the Holy Spirit in part AND also entertain demons, and often can’t tell the difference.

The Holy Spirit abhors a mixture. Light and darkness cannot mix. There is no communion between Christ and belial, satan.  2 Cor. 6:15

I could have really helped ‘me’ 20 years ago

If i had someone, like the person i am now, to counsel me 20 years ago it would have been great.

Get alongside young believers, pray for them and counsel them in the Scriptures.

Remember the early years of your walk with Jesus : what kind of friend in Christ could have helped you in your walk then? We should be ‘that kind’ of friend to our younger brethren.

Stand up

and be strong in the power of the LORD, and make the rest of your short time down here COUNT. Take HOLD of that for which Christ Jesus took a hold of you.

/ This just came out of my spirit, then i remember that it’s in the Bible/

Sharing the Temple Mount

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Espousing a dream of harmony that may stretch credibility among even the most fervent believers in dialogue among the great religions, clerics in Jerusalem launched a project on Thursday aimed at finding a way to share the city’s holiest, and most fought over, site.

Even the Jewish religious scholar promoting it acknowledges it might need divine intervention before a peaceful remapping of the area where Muslims built the 7th century Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque on the site of the biblical Jewish Temple.

“We offer this vision for a long and deep discussion, and of course want to continue with a parallel research from other religions,” said Yoav Frankel, director of the project promoting a vision of “God’s Holy Mountain” (www.godsholymountain.org).

Invitations to Thursday’s launch conference depict a sunlit imagined future for the area Jews call Temple Mount. Happy Muslims and harp-playing Jews mingle between the Dome of the Rock and a new Temple, as Christians walk over from the nearby Sepulchre Church, traditional site of Jesus’s resurrection.

The project, headed by Jewish members of the Interfaith Encounter Association (www.interfaith-encounter.org) encourages all three faiths to re-examine the complex and perhaps foster a new theological outlook, making room for all to worship there.

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE55H3U220090618

Learning Through Failure

Failing God, after the fact : failure can be a powerful teacher, if we are still before the Lord and are teachable. It teaches us that we are not as great as we thought we were before we failed. And it teaches us a 100 other things. It shows us just how deceived we all are about ourselves, for…

…truly, every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah. Surely every man walks in a vain show…  Psalm. 39:5,6.

May our failures drive us deeper into Jesus, and make us realize how much we need Him.

From 2002

http://www.youareallbrothers.com/current/show_article.php?id=008,20020808

The Reason, the Purpose, not The Secret

Popular TV celebrities are promoting “The Secret” ; it seems that the world is looking for answers.

Why search for answers when you’re ignoring the facts?

With the whole created cosmos, the universe, either there is a reason for it, and it exists for a reason and a purpose, or else it is a meaningless event which somehow just mysteriously happened by itself, and there’s no purpose or meaning to it, and therefore people have no purpose or meaning or reason for their existence : they just exist, each man for himself; just eat, sleep, reproduce and die,  and there’s nothing more. Each individual’s selfish pleasure, prosperity and happiness is all that matters.

Like a beast. Like an animal.

The Book of Revelation describes the final world leader as ‘The Beast’.  When God calls a man, made in the image of God, a beast, an animal, its not a very flattering title.  A modern english synonym would be ‘idiot’, but not a simple fool, a very bad fool. He’s like a donkey, but a very vicious donkey.

Being

a child of the Father, one of the Father’s sons. The essence of the LORD’s prayer is sonship : being a son, being a dear child of the Father, in His own dear Son, Jesus Christ, as joint heirs with Him.

Just BEING, not achieving. To pray the LORD’s prayer by the Spirit of Truth is an expression of one BEING a child of the Father, the same Spirit by which we cry out, Abba! Father!

For Jesus

John 21:15  So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.
16  He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep.
17  He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.

For Jesus. Will you feed His sheep? Do it for Him, do it for Jesus.

Discouraged? Get up, lift up the hands that hang down, do it for Jesus.

Be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man

Ephesians 3:14  For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
15  Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
16  That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;
17  That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
18  May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;
19  And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
20  Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,
21  Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.