Matthew 16:18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

This morning the above verse came to me and caused me to wonder, what does the word translated as ‘Church’ really mean? We know that the original was translated centuries ago. We know that the Word is the inspired Word of God, preserved by Him down through the ages. One of the greatest tools employed today in support of beliefs held, is that of finding the translation that agrees with one’s preconceived beliefs.

If we are truly seeking to know HIM, and to know what He said, we have to seek the Holy Spirit for understanding, for He alone is the Spirit of Truth. We know all too well what man thinks and how man has interpreted. Man’s truth is subject to change with his whims and desires, according to the lusts of his heart. We are living in the last days. We are seeing the fullness of times unfold before our very eyes.

So what is the Church that Jesus is speaking of?

Is it one or all of the denominations built by men?

Is it a physical building or place?

Is it a set of values and beliefs?

Is it even seen in today’s world?

Is there a membership roster our name should be on?

If what we believe is right, then are the rest of the millions of people alive today all wrong? How are we supposed to equate our beliefs with the rest of the world? How can we know what truth is? Have you ever seen a greater emphasis placed on belonging?… on compromising to ‘get along?’… on the accumulation of material wealth as evidence of being right?

Continue reading here – Building God’s Church .

Link to – Lethal Stones | Bread for the Bride, by Cheryl McGrath

“Seeking the Kingdom” by; B. Keith Chadwell

Entering into  full participation with God the Father and coming under His  complete dominion  is not an event for Christians, it is a process.  And, we must SEEK this.  That is….SEEK God’s dominion in our lives….or in other words SEEK His King-dom. 

We are instructed regarding Jesus, our pattern Son in Hebrews  Heb 5:8  “Though he were a Son, yet …learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; So, like Jesus, our pattern Son, we, also, must, learn obedience through the things we suffer.

As a born again Christians, we may agonize, to one degree or another, over the choices we must make to die to self and the unrighteous desires of our old nature However, we are in good company.  Remember, Jesus in the garden?  He agonized over His choice to either; submit to Fathers will, which was to allow the Romans to crucify him or to live without the suffering the Father had set before Him.   Aren’t we glad he said…..” Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.

We are, also, told by the writer of Acts that…” we must, through much tribulation, ENTER INTO the Kingdom of God.” Chapter 14, verse 22.  If you want to see what this kind of  “Tribulation” looks like, when faced with choosing to enter into that place where God the Father has complete rule or  dom-inion… or going your own way, then look to Jesus and this account of His tribulation, as he struggled to enter into the will of the Father, in the garden:

Luk 22:42-44  Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: Never the less not my will, but thine, be done.  And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening Him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground. “

Notice here, that just after Jesus made the, conscious, audible choice to do the  will of the Father, an Angel showed up to STRENGTHEN Him.  He choose to do the right thing and come under Fathers God’s rule or do His will and immediately He received Strength and help from heaven.

The thing to see here, is that; all we need to do is make the choice to be obedient, to the rule or government of God and then Heaven will rush to strengthen us.  See  what Jesus had to say to us about this;

Joh 14:15-18  If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

I am reminded of another scripture  from  Phil. 2:13;  “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”

to continue reading – click here

My brother has been doing an in-depth Word Study on the Psalms, from which I am being richly blessed. I had never realized that they were so powerful. I share here a brief excerpt from the study on Psalms 17, which consists of rob’s note…                             

Psalms 119:10 With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments.

This also can only be true of Yeshua Jesus the Messiah, the Christ of God. We are commanded to, “Love the LORD our God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength,” and this seems impossible. We see our failures and weaknesses, and fear being rejected by the Father Who loves us. And so we dance in and out of His presence, based upon our perception of our right standing with Him. If we have been prayerful and in the Word, we feel emboldened to come before Him.

But if we have missed the mark, and see our failure we have no confidence, and may even draw back from His attempts to reassure us and correct us. It is good that we be prayerful and in the Word. For the Word of God is our very life. But it is not good that we should believe our standing with Him is changing moment by moment based upon the frailties of our existence. We have only one thing that makes us presentable before the Holy God. And it is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The truth of the Gospel is we have been given the righteousness of Christ. My friends if you begin to believe the Gospel, not only superficially, but press in and hold fast to the Gods Word, to His truth. If you begin to believe you are now seated with Christ Jesus in heavenly places, it will change your behavior. When You are in front of your beloved mother in her aged years do you rant and rave and behave unseemly? Not if you love her, you don’t. And we know there is ample Scriptural support that God see’s everything we do. But when we walk after the flesh, we tend to push that knowledge into the background, because the flesh can never be satisfied, it must be mortified. And in Christ Jesus it was. He nailed it to His cross, “Sin shall not have dominion over you,” period. Jesus said, “don’t you know whosoever you obey, He is your master?” We are no longer debtors to the flesh, to live after the flesh. Christ in you is the only hope you have of glory. Jesus said if you lose your life you will find it. You lose your life in His life, and then you begin for the first time to live. You find yourself, and unlock the full potential of who God designed and created you to be. Let us hide His word in our hearts. And invite His life-giving correction. Let us forsake the pointing of fingers in accusation. And be corrected ourselves. That He may live in us, and be lifted up in our living and in our dying. [end quote]

For the entire study in pdf format click here

Sometimes, it’s the Little Things     

Oftentimes we have a natural tendency to look for big moves of God in our lives. Grand interventions are wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but they are not necessarily the norm as we go through the daily grind. Some years ago I was working in a small restaurant, doing nine to nine shifts. As dinner hour was approaching, I was looking  in the cooler at how much salad I had prepped, wondering if it would be enough or if I should make more.

This kitchen served a small casino, and some nights there might only be 3-4 tickets come back, you just never knew. As I was standing there pondering, I was strongly impressed to ‘make more.’ I kind of wondered, but it was slow and if I made it tonight I wouldn’t have to do it in them morning, so I set about washing, cutting, and mixing the greens. I had no more than gotten it all done, put away and cleaned up, when the ticket machine took off like a machine gun. For the next half hour or so I was so busy putting out orders that I didn’t even have time to think. When they were all finally out, it hit me.

That ‘impression’ to ‘make more,’ was the Lord! He knew that I was going to get hit with a big rush, and that I would have run out of salad half-way through the orders. And He let me know to prepare. In the grand scheme of things, this may not sound like a big deal. But to me, it was enormous. Because it made me to know in a way that I had not previously been aware of, that God knows and cares about every, single, aspect of our lives. He was with me at my work place! He was there to help me when I wasn’t even thinking about Him. It opened a whole new awareness and dimension of communication that I had not previously recognized. I learned to watch for and heed those little promptings, and it made my life so much easier.

I had never imagined that God, the Creator of all things, would be interested in the mundane tasks that we have to perform in our daily lives. I guess I had assumed that we just had to slog through the drudgery stuff, and look to God for the spiritual things. Boy was I wrong.

For me, this realization made me feel more loved, more confident as to Who is in control… it just blew me away! And gave … “do all things as unto the Lord,” … a whole new meaning. Sometimes we learn the greatest lessons, by the littlest things. His loving watch-care over us is real! Being made secure in that knowledge, however it comes, is priceless!

 Cathy Morris

Silent Praise                                                   

In silence I wait for the song of the morning
Fresh life arrives as a new day is dawning
The birds cry out for the impending arrival
Calling attention for all to receive the light of survival.

Things below and above cannot contain the praise
To the high and holy Ancient of Days
All the rocks cry out and waters roar
Of the majesty and wonder of the Lord.

So what is man that you are mindful of Him?
A lump of earth so stained with sin
You gave him dominion over all things made
And he squandered it all for selfish gain.

So the songs of life have been turned to death
Because man uses all to steal praise for himself.
Drinking from wells that cannot hold water
His days are all wasted and void of God’s power.

As creation awaits the new day that is dawning
And adopted sons hear the Spirit that’s calling
For men everywhere to come and die
By faith in the Christ who ascended on high

He suffered beneath all the pains of the fall
Through His obedience God sends forth the call
That men everywhere would look upon Him
And be free from the bondage of self and sin.

As sure as the cycle of the sun through the skies
The Lord will effectively open the eyes
Of those who were in Him before the foundation
And through our adoption, set free all creation.

So I sit and I wait for the song of the morning
As sorrows become joys and laughter becomes mourning
And darkness flees from the incoming light
Of the gospel of God in our Lord Jesus Christ.

 Bobby Auner

What do we love more? Our doctrines – or God?

This is not such an outrageous question, especially when we take into consideration how many religions, beliefs, and different doctrines there are in the world today. In christianity alone, they number in the thousands. That is not even touching on the multitude of other religions there are, and the different tenets held within each one of them. There are few things that are more divisive than religious ideologies. Each one claiming to be right, to be holders of the ‘truth,’ while everyone of a different persuasion are the ones in error. Yes, we develop very strong feelings and opinions concerning our religious beliefs. While those who reject religion completely can display equally strong attitudes and reasonings.

Just about every religion sets noble aims for their followers to strive toward. They all speak of loving others, being kind, doing good works. Yet past and present history reveal that for all the religious rhetoric being bantered about we have to acknowledge that some of the greatest atrocities the world has ever known have been birthed out of people fighting over religious differences.

I guess I just don’t ‘get it’….

I don’t get it… how exchanging one doctrine of men, for another doctrine of men… is growing spiritually?

I don’t get it… how cutting ourselves off from others because we don’t see eye to eye on every single thing… is walking in love?

I don’t get it… why we feel such a compulsion to be able to explain what’s going to happen in eternity… when we don’t know what’s going to happen five minutes from now?

Yet we’ve all done it. When it comes to our spiritual growth and development, the religions of the world present us with a veritable smorgasbord of choices. We start out with what we were raised in, dependent upon our family, friends, culture, etc., and as we get older we learn about the many other ways of viewing spirituality that religion offers. We are very adept at becoming religious; while we are incapable of entering into LIFE by an act of our will, or any means other than the shed blood of Jesus Christ. We can make a good facsimile of being changed, but it is only skin deep.

We place such emphasis on getting our doctrines right, that we neglect the most important part, which is giving the Lord Jesus Christ … absolute preeminence in our lives. I was recently introduced to a concept that I never learned in church, and it blew me away. That being: You can only carry with you, what God builds in you, during this period that we call “life down here.” I don’t know about the rest of you, but I was led to believe that we would be perfected in the next life, as we couldn’t be perfect here in this one. It was more of a universal assumption really. Have you ever considered that the relationship you have with the Lord on the other side, is developed right here and now? We can talk till we’re blue in the face about walking in the Spirit, and yet never actually do it. We can make a doctrine out of any and everything, without ever partaking of the ‘new life’ we have been called to walk in.

Consider this short quote taken from a little book titled, “God Calling”…

Way of Happiness

Complete surrender of every moment to God is the foundation of happiness, the superstructure is the joy of Communion with Him. And this is, for each, the place, the mansion, I went to prepare for you.

My followers have misunderstood that, and looked too often upon that promise as referring only to an After-Life, and too often – far too often – upon this life as something to be struggled through in order to get the reward and the joy of the next.

Seek to carry out all I say, and such understanding, insight, vision and joy will be yours as shall pass indeed all understanding. The plans of God are very wonderful – beyond your highest hopes.

[end quote]

We need to really examine whose banner we are carrying and why…

Do we genuinely believe all that we claim, and are we acting on it?…

We in fact are… ‘living epistles, read of all men,’ whether we realize it or not.

Are our words and actions bringing ‘Glory to God?’…

Are we full of ‘religious knowledge’… but lacking in ‘spiritual life?’

Consider this powerful excerpts from -

The Holy Spirit in Relation to the Glorified Christ and the Believer

by T. Austin-Sparks

 It is a far greater thing to raise the spiritually dead than the physically dead; a far greater thing to open spiritually blind eyes than the natural. The physically raised from the dead will die again, those who are blind physically may have their eyes opened and be given their sight, but it is only for three-score years and ten “and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow.” The opening of spiritually deaf ears is greater than opening naturally deaf ears. “Greater works than these shall ye do because I go to the Father.” ‘The Holy Spirit is coming to do in the spiritual realm what I have been doing in three and a half years as only a sign.’ Well, they passed from that realm to a realm where everything was heavenly, everything spiritual, where God was no longer going to do things to judge and condemn doubly an unbelieving race…

…It will take a spiritual inner man to have a spiritual outer man. “And to every seed its own body.” The seed of the resurrection body is the New Man, the Christ within, and that man is being formed now. As Paul prayed, “My little children for whom I travail again till Christ be fully formed in you.” That forming of Christ within, and that conforming to the image of Christ is the Spirit’s movement toward clothing that inner new man with the heavenly body. “To every seed its own body.” And the forty days represent that full model, pattern of God’s glorified humanity towards which the Holy Spirit’s incoming and activity is directed for every man…

…We never get salvation as some thing, but as some One. The whole of salvation in every part and fragment is bound up with Christ in Person and you cannot separate the thing from Him. It is Christ, and not salvation as something in itself…

Now as we have just said, everything for us from that time depends upon whether we are going to be utterly, absolutely surrendered to and governed by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, and let Him so work in us and we so co-operate with Him in His working in us that the mind which is the mind of the Lord, the heart which is the heart of the Lord, the will which is the will of the Lord, the disposition which is the disposition of the Lord, grows, transcending all the time the old mind, heart, will, disposition, and Christ thus being fully formed in us. That is new creation in Christ Jesus.[end quotes]

There was a good reason why Peter admonished us to ‘work out our own salvation with fear and trembling,’ that we might be conformed to HIM in every thought and deed.  Being made into vessels of honor, that when we see Him, we shall be like Him, because we have submitted to Him now, in this life.

They Want Your Mind” by Tricia Tillin of Banner Ministries.

Practical Guidance on How to Discern Spiritual Error

The Holy Spirit in Relation to the Glorified Christ and the Believer

Part 1

Readings: John 16:5-15; 7:38-39.

“He that believeth on Me as the scripture hath said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake He of the Spirit which they that believe on Him were to receive: for the Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified.)”

Beloved of God, for some considerable time my heart has been growingly exercised concerning the Holy Spirit. I believe that the Lord has something that He wants to say to His people in this connection, and something that He wants to do in and through His people in this connection in some new way in this end-time. If one has not misread the leading of the Spirit, we are right in gathering at this time for the Lord to speak to us on this matter. I am quite sure that we, with a great many more of the Lord’s people, are deeply conscious, and increasingly conscious, of the need for some fuller expression of the life, power, and work of the Holy Spirit in the Church; which of course means in ourselves as members of Christ. And while it is not my thought at this time, or the leading which I have, to seek to present a system of doctrine concerning the Person and work of the Holy Spirit, I do feel that the Lord has some things within that compass that He really does want us to take heed unto. We are not going, for instance, to discuss whether the Holy Spirit is a Person or not. I think we can all take that as settled. If it is not, well, let us get it settled outside, for that is not the matter which concerns the majority of us here, who have, I am sure, settled that matter long ago. There are other similar matters in relation to the Holy Spirit which we will take as settled and for granted, but there are some things which, while we may be well acquainted with them, we need to have renewed as a serious matter of quest and enquiry before the Lord.

Continue reading here:  Austin-Sparks.Net – Part 1.

To me, to live is Christ. (Philippians 1:21)           

[Quote] I wonder very often if the fact that our tremendous knowledge about Christ, our tremendous doctrinal apprehension, failing to lead us into triumphant joy, failing to result in something of this contagious spirit of triumph that was about Paul, does not imply that it is something which is not Christ personally with which we are occupied and taken up. We are getting to know Christ purely by a book knowledge, and a Conference knowledge, an address knowledge, an historic knowledge; that really, apart from our Conferences, our books, our studies, our addresses, and all these things; in the secret place, in the secret history back of it all, we are not living on Christ Himself, and out from Christ, and knowing Christ. So much of our Christian life is a matter of teaching, of things about Him.

We recognize the simplicity of that word, but we are quite sure that you understand what we mean, because you have known a very great deal about Christ in doctrine, and then you have discovered something of the Lord Himself, and you have discovered the tremendous difference. There is nothing more uplifting than to come into a personal experience of the Lord, a knowledge of the Lord, in a living way, to have Christ ministered to your heart by the Holy Spirit. Then you discover that there is something there which is more than all your suffering, and which makes suffering worthwhile, and which robs suffering of its deadly sting. It is Christ. Paul lived on Christ: “For me to live is Christ.” Now, what might have been put afterward? For me to live is to be able to go to meetings! For me to live is to be able to have fellowship with other believers! If I am cut off from them I cannot live! If I cannot go to the meetings I cannot live! You can put in anything else: For me to live is to have encouragement in the work, to see results for my labors! You can cover a great deal of ground, if you are going to cover the ground of our demands in order to be triumphant. But Paul looked out, and he saw his work being injured, damaged, outwardly destroyed, his old friends being alienated and led to doubt and suspect him. Oh, he saw enough to take the heart out of any man at the end of such a life, but he did not say: “for me to live is to see my life work standing as a monument, intact; to have all my old friends faithful and around me; to know that my message has had universal acceptance and appreciation!” No! “For me to live is (when all these things, and many others, have gone) Christ!”

By T. Austin-Sparks from: The Excellency of the Knowledge of Jesus Christ – Chapter 2 [End Quote]

One of the saddest things I see happening, is when we become so ensnared by all of our ‘things about’ God, to the exclusion of manifesting the ‘Life of God’ in our own lives, and we don’t even know it. Our vision gets skewed, we become fixated on one aspect to the exclusion of all else, and are deceived by our own perception. I am coming to believe that ALL of the doctrines of men are an abomination in the eyes of God. We can have the noblest of intentions, and still be deceived. We have to be deceived in order to say it is because of our love ‘for the brethren’ or our love for ‘God and His truth,’ that we can think we are being ‘led’ to shun, criticize and attack others. I have been as guilty of this as anyone. We cannot ‘clean up our act,’ or ‘keep it together,’ in our own strength, or from our own understanding. As Bro. Sparks brings out, there are so many things that can occupy us, that basically are ‘our demands in order to be triumphant.’ Well, doesn’t it stand to reason, that if our focus is on ‘our demands,’ we are failing to see ‘God’s demands?’ Didn’t He basically say, “love them no matter what?” “Be kind to them no matter how hatefully they treat you?” “Don’t return evil for evil?” Yet there is that thing in us that wants to be applauded, recognized, appreciated… it is impossible for our natural man to rejoice over perceived destruction of all of our hard work. Then we realize, it was never ours to begin with… we ourselves are HIS workmanship. HE alone is molding and shaping us into what HE would have us become. All these ‘things’ will pass away. May we come to that relationship place where we too can say, “For me to live is Christ.” Amen.

The last message to the Church is from the One who selects for Himself from His many titles and designations the one that embodies everything that is affirmative, positive, and definite.

“Amen” is not only an ejaculation or form of assent, it is a Divine title, and in the title there is – as always – a character, a definition. In Isaiah 65:16, “the God of truth” is literally “the God of Amen”. When Jesus so often said, “Verily, verily”, He used this very word, “Amen, Amen”, thus conveying the meaning that what He was and said was of the character of absolute certainty, perfect assurance, and unmistakable positiveness.

Eventually He gathered all into the personal title – “the Amen”. This, alongside of its definition, “the faithful and true witness”, gives a forceful significance to the message of the context, and becomes the message itself. It stands in vivid contrast to the conditions existing.

Although not universally, yet quite widely, the interpretation of the messages to the seven churches is thought to be historical and future: that is, that they not only relate to the first Christian century, but cover the whole Church dispensation and represent phases and stages of the spiritual life of the Church at certain given times. Thus, such an interpretation gives to “Laodicea” an end-time application and describes the condition which will obtain at that time. It is not necessary to accept that interpretation, for whether it be right or not so, the message holds a test and a challenge for all time. It is important to get the whole significance of this challenge, for undoubtedly it indicates an ever-present tendency.

Continue reading here:

Austin-Sparks.Net – The Last Message to the Church.

Powerful message for each one of us today!!

The Lord’s Mountain Is Within

I recently received this share from a precious brother overseas. We met on-line, and have maintained email exchanges for the past several years. This observation pertained to Kriston’s revelation shared in the posting of June 21, 2012…

“The Lord’s mountain is within. It cannot be bound by an external system, nor a non-system. When the Lord gives a vision, there is a tendency for us honestly to think that He is speaking about the other group, not knowing the Lord deals with men in their hearts. When he gives a message, he is speaking to every man with a heart. Every being with a heart has that which can have union with Christ Jesus. Personally I have seen less of the Life of Jesus, in the many so called “come-outers.” Yes, I have seen revelations and knowledge, but Life… I see so little of it. It is like our knowledge is far more than our possession of Life. One of the surest signs is; it is very, very difficult, even to those who have come-out, to have a simple, mutual, online fellowship. That proves our immaturity, honestly. We excuse bitterness, unforgiveness, hatred; and still think we are the new spiritual elite, not knowing that we are the most deceived religious bunch. Deceived by our professed “non–religiosity.” This word keeps ringing in my heart these days, “JESUS IS THE DOOR.” Some have made their own doors “in the system,” some others “out of the system,” but none of those doors will lead to Life. The door that Leads to Life is Jesus in the heart. I keep saying this, it is a change of perception. “We do not care where you are physically, but where you are spiritually, by the fruit and the Life you live.” When the Lord gives us a vision… Wait, don’t rush. First, check to see if you understand it by what is within. It may give life, and yes, He will lead us to share; but not in a prejudicial spirit towards another group.”

This is an astute observation. This brother has been very instrumentally used by the Lord to open my eyes to a lot of things. We have vast differences in our lives… I was raised in a AOG church, while he was raised Muslim. I live in a America; he lives in Gambia, Africa. I am a 60 year old, widowed grandmother, he is a young single man in his mid-twenties, but the Lord of Glory has joined us together through the internet. It is a fellowship in Spirit, for our growth, edification and instruction. I have learned so much from/ through this young man,

I have learned that God can speak truth to me through anyone He chooses; it is up to me to have my ears tuned to hear. I cannot judge by the ‘outside of the cup’… who I will listen to and who I will dismiss as being too young to know what he’s talking about. Because of our history thus far, I know some of the things he is referring to by his honest statements. I cannot imagine anyone trying to find fellowship online that have not run into some pretty hateful people, claiming to be righteous. Sometimes we can be hurt and discouraged by how other believers treat us. We have the same kind of thing operating outside of organized religion, as inside. Different denominations criticize and bad-mouth one another for their differences, all the while fueling their own self-righteousness, each seeing themselves as right and the other as wrong; themselves as the elect, called out, while the other are the ones in error. The same thing exists among those who have come out of organized religion. We talk, talk, talk about love, but let a little rejection come our way, a conflicting point-of-view, and the gloves come off. Would that God open our eyes to see our own reflection. I’m quite sure that if we could see and hear ourselves through the eyes of others, any self-righteous facade we held in our mind would be quickly shattered.

Would that we could see beyond our own perspective, that we might see with the eyes of the Spirit. Would that our hearts and minds be fully renewed, that we be cleansed in the inward parts, that we be truly conformed to the image and likeness of His Son. None of us have a corner on knowledge, or the mind of God, or His purposes in our lives and the things that are transpiring around us in the world today. We need to continually examine our own hearts, not our neighbors, and see if there be any root of pride or self-sufficiency hiding within. Would that we all had a willing servant’s heart…

A Jesus Heart | The Beauty of She.