Charles Spurgeon Movie

Look unto me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. Isaiah 45:22

The imagination of your own heart

They say still unto them that despise me, The LORD has said, You shall have peace; and they say unto everyone that walks after the imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you. Jeremiah 23:17

What does it mean to walk after the imagination of your own heart?

We all know the imagination is the ability to mentally imagine things, but what is this imagination of their own heart?

Note, it doesn’t say an evil imagination, but simply the imagination of their own heart.

A sapling grows the way you bend it

You must start training your children one year before their first birthday, because if you don’t, they will be trained without your input. A sapling grows the way you bend it. But if you don’t bend it, it will grow and take shape just the same, though not as you would have it. It will be shaped by the prevailing winds, which, you can be sure, never blow in the right direction.

From day one, every conscious moment of a child’s life is training; every event, and non-event, is schooling, preparation for the rest of life. If a child’s eyes can see, tongue can taste, nose can smell, hands can feel, or ears can hear, training is in progress. Parents don’t need to initiate a program, set aside a time, or confront the child in some special way for training to occur. Training and schooling never cease, never rest. A child develops with or without you. If you are not deliberately leaving your imprint on every stage of his development, know that someone is.

From here

All bringing to the table, rather than all coming to one man’s table

The assembling of the Church was always supposed to have been a bringing to the table of the Bread of Life by several members of the body of Christ – that more than one would serve up the Living Bread, the Word of God (see 1 Cor 14).

There are several reasons why God ordained this to be so.

One fundamental reason is that by doing so the pressure is not on any one person to have all the answers : neither the expectation that one person has to be everything, know everything, do everything, and shoulder all the responsibility, like an OT prophet or priest.

The order in 1 Cor 14 is that each one shares as he receives something from God. This takes the pressure off the individual, and also prevents the church from looking to one man for the truth or for guidance. The Divine order excludes an individual from taking such a place for a very good reason, and that is that one man doesn’t have everything, and is not always right. Individuals always have to function within a context of submission to the body.

But that is the problem with the religious system. It puts too many eggs in one basket – it invests too much in one man, and it ignores the plain Apostolic commands not to do so.

This is not healthy for the congregation and neither is it good for that man. If he is scheduled to preach for one hour, then, even if he doesn’t have a word from the LORD he has to make it up anyway, to fulfill the role. He is trying to fulfill a role which is unbiblical.

We should never ask and expect someone to speak for God, as the oracles of God, for one hour, every Sunday, on cue.

If we followed the NT pattern then there would be no such unrealistic expectation. Less would be said in the flesh. More would be said by the Spirit. More a redeeming the time, than wasting our time. More meat and less fluff. More Word and less opinion.

So much error springs simply from this man-made tradition of looking to one man. He may have some very good things to bring to the table, and may truly be gifted, but due to the unrealistic expectations put on him, he goes beyond what is edifying, beyond what he has received from the LORD, and into things which don’t profit.

It also tends toward his natural personality, charm or charisma, rather than his gift. When you have to keep people’s attention for a length of time then you are naturally drawn into fleshly techniques to try and hold their attention. The focus will naturally shift to the personality of the speaker, and not the content of his message. And such invariably spend more time selling themselves than pointing people to Jesus.

And, when various gifts are functioning, there is not the tendency to become a personality cult. There is no star. People are not taught to look to men that way, the way they are in the system.

And of course, while one man is blowing his trumpet, the other gifts are being suppressed. The Holy Spirit is being ignored.

So many good men have gone into error, or have been stunted in their spiritual growth, by trying to fulfill an unbiblical role and to function that way. They are products of an unbiblical system.

It’s supposed to be all bringing to the table, rather than all coming to one man’s table.

A discussion on ‘Lordship salvation’

http://preachingjesus.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/why-lordship-salvation-is-not-biblical/

Searching out His greatness

Created things are placed before us as clues or pointers to instruct us as to what we should be searching for.

Every created object we see is a clue, a witness, a signpost, a piece of evidence with the fingerprints of its Creator on it, pointing to Someone, to a Person. Thru these pointers this Person is calling, Seek my face! Know me! Consider how great I AM!

That’s why these objects have been placed there before our eyes.

Most don’t get the clues. They don’t take the hint. They don’t know who’s greatness it is they should be searching out and proclaiming, and go about searching out their own greatness, or the greatness of some other man, who is just like them, which is an exercise in futility.

God wants us to search out His greatness. It is right that we should be occupied with this, and encourage others also to do it.

The Cross is the greatest witness and the last word He has given us of His greatness and of who He is.

My peace I give unto you

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world gives, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. John 14:27

That’s what we need: the peace that Jesus has, and freely gives to us. His peace.

It may seem a little hard to understand how Jesus can give us His own peace, but He can. He can share His peace with us. We can experience the peace that is His.

He says here that the world also offers a kind of peace, but His is altogether different.

God causes us to triumph in Christ

Now thanks be unto God, who always causes us to triumph in Christ, and makes manifest the fragrance of His knowledge by us in every place. 2 Corinthians 2:14

God always causes us to triumph in Christ. Our faith must be fixed on the cause – that which causes us to triumph, and He is God. If we have triumphed over sin, the world and the devil, and even over ourselves (self control), then that must have been God who caused us to triumph. Only He can cause us to triumph. Always be mindful there is a cause – always aware there is One who causes us to triumph. Yes, there is our faith, yet deeper than our faith is the One who is the cause of our faith.

This is always, meaning, in every testing and trial of our faith He causes us to triumph in Christ. Every test is a triumph.

And, His knowledge coming to others thru us is likened here to a fragrance that is diffused out from us, by Him.

Are we expecting Him to cause us to triumph in 2012?

Jesus chose His mother

Jesus is the only man who ever lived who chose His own mother. He also created His own mother. He’s the only man to have lived before He was born.

Santa warmly received in India

Here

Ladies, what do your clothes (or lack of them) say about you?

Take, eat

And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. Matthew 26:26

The LORD’s Table is a picture of our salvation.

Jesus hands us bread to eat. He says, Here, take this and eat it. This is on me. I want you to have this bread. Here, i’m giving it to you, and you really do need to eat this.

He extends this bread to us. All we can do is accept His gift and do as He says, and take it from His hand and eat it. Then He explains that this gift is Himself : This is my body. It is He, Himself we are to take hold of and eat.

Take, eat. Are you spiritually starving? Take, eat. Are you doing OK? Take, eat. Don’t wait till you’re starving.

We have to take Jesus. Whatever your condition, take Jesus now.

Christmas Eve Message

Was asked to give a short speech on the radio (All India Radio, a gov station) on the meaning of Christmas, and it is airing tonight, here in India. Please pray the LORD will use it for the salvation of many. Thanks.

It comprises two questions: Who is Jesus Christ? And why was He born?

Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God

...Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God… 2 Timothy 3:4

Paul warns that this will be the condition of many professing Christians in the last days.

It’s a simple equation: Something is very wrong when a person’s love for pleasure becomes greater than their love for God. Heaven registers that something is very wrong with that equation.

The Word doesn’t say here that pleasures are not to be enjoyed, but that we must enjoy God more than any other pleasures. Right thru the Scriptures we’re warned not to make too big a deal about our personal pleasure and enjoyment – to take even the good things of life, and the legitimate enjoyments and pleasures of this life, lightly, so as not to begin to love them more than we love God.

A true attitude of thankfulness for all good things helps to keep us loving God more than the things He gives.

Have you enjoyed God today?

Notes on ‘The Church’

This is a teaching series we are doing at City Church in Shillong:

Please see Comments

Tim Tebow interview

Jesus bought you to set you free

Paris Reidhead tells a true story from the 1800s of a man who bought a slave for a high price in order to set her free. After she was freed, then she wanted to be his slave.

Salvation is a Person. Salvation is Christ. He is our Life. He is our Salvation. He didn’t die to send it, He died to become it.

– Paris Reidhead

Maybe you can’t pray

….but you can wait on God, and as you take the time just to sit before Him, His Spirit will birth prayer inside your spirit, and direct your mind to whom He wants you to pray for.

Then king David went in, and SAT BEFORE the LORD, and he said, Who am I, O Lord GOD? and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far? 2 Samuel 7:18

You are my glory, LORD Jesus

But you, O LORD, are a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of my head. Psalm 3:3

Why do anything?

When you feel like it’s just not worth trying to preach the gospel anymore – when you feel like giving up – and you’re discouraged – when you feel you’re getting nowhere – that what you do seems to amount to nothing………

Then ask yourself, Why do I do anything at all? Ask yourself, Self, what motivates you? Why do you do anything? What’s in it for you?? Self, give me a reason!

It’s gotta be love.

Love keeps us going when we come to the end of everything else.

For the love of Christ CONSTRAINS [Sunecho] us... 2 Corinthians 5:14

This means the love of Christ has arrested us! His love has taken hold of us in a way that we are compelled to preach the gospel, we cannot keep silent. His love won’t allow us to be silent.

Like, you were seeing people about to walk over a cliff and you felt CONSTRAINED to say something. The love of Christ for these people constrained you to speak to them. If you didn’t have the love of Christ then you wouldn’t care enough to warn them.