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The Weapons of Our Warfare

Posted in Body of Christ, Spiritual Warfare, tagged , , , , on August 23, 2022| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: II Corinthians 10:1-5

I want to give you a revelation that God has given to me. Many of you know how we have walked through many dark places and have overcome many evil spirits. But what you do not know is that we had been trained by God step-by-step over these years on how to build a foundation in order to be able to stand in the storm. I will explain it to you; I am going to share with you about “The Weapons of Our Warfare.”

Every man who goes to war must be equipped with weaponry and he must be practiced in handling his weapons, or else he has no right in a war. There are different types of weapons and there are different types of people who use the different types of weapons. In war, you have men who fire the big guns; then, you have men who fire small guns and men who use explosives. Each man has his particular department wherein he is an expert. When you need explosives, you do not go fooling around putting explosives together. You call in the group of men who are used to handling explosives. We are talking about the Body of Christ. You do not go to war without all the people and the equipment you need. You do not go to war without the explosives men, without the gunners, without the bombardiers, without the airplanes and the pilots that fly the planes, without the ships. All these are absolutely necessary in a war and no one man is going to handle all that equipment. Therefore, God is calling a body of people together. In order to survive and to overcome, this body of people must recognize one another. When there is a situation where I need bombardment, I must call in the gunners, give them the coordinates of where to drop the shells, because that is where the enemy will be hurt the most. I must know what kind of a battle it is and I must have a knowledge of my own capabilities.

“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they are mighty….” If these weapons are so mighty, why is it that so many of us are being chewed up by the enemy? Why is it that so many of us are being knocked down, or hurt, or destroyed by the enemy? Why is it that so many of us cannot see where we are now in time? Why is it that so many of us cannot perceive the goodness of God and see what God is doing at this hour? How come, if our weapons are so powerful, so many of us are going to miss it?

OUR WEAPONS ARE ONLY POWERFUL WHEN WE BELIEVE IN THEM. Yes! You have to trust the man in the bomber to come and drop the bombs in the right places. You have to trust the man who is firing the missiles over your head. You have to trust him that he is going to fire over your head and hit the enemy. You have to trust the other men. Your life is in the hands of all the others and their lives are in your hands.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, January 1997, pg. 2-4)

Thought for today: Let us trust our fellow soldiers and pray that they as well as us use the weapons of our warfare effectively.

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Walking in the Body of Christ

Posted in Body of Christ, tagged , , , , on August 22, 2022| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Romans 12:1-9

We have been on the road for God from when we were in our twenties and we have spent a full life for God. We have made our share of mistakes—a lot of mistakes. It is so easy to make mistakes in the human realm. It is so easy to get someone upset when you had no intention to do so. We had to be on our P’s and Q’s in order not to upset people. They did not understand some of the ways we had and we were amazed at some of the ways they had.

I know that anyone who does not function in the Body of Christ ministry is going to make some severe mistakes and his mistakes are not going to be corrected. They are going to grow and grow. And as they grow, the mistakes will grow with them. A man will be walking with a big baggage of mistakes on him and he will be as big as the mistakes; and he will never get over them. Sometimes, God has to call His servants home because they have no more hope, for they will not get away from their errors.

Now remember, it is human to err and it is divine to forgive. Though it is human to err, you do not have to err, but if you make an error, there are several ways of getting the error fixed. I am determined not to walk with an error. So I began to tell the Body of Christ to pick up my errors. Anywhere you see an error, pick it up. Whenever you do not correct me, I feel that I am all right. I have been getting a few corrections these days and I want to correct every one of them. I do not want to be wrong. I want to be perfect. Did you know that? I want to be perfect, but, brethren, our only hope of walking this walk with God is to walk in the Body of Christ.

For forty-odd years I have been preaching this gospel and I have seen many men fall. Mighty men! I mean, men whose shoes I could not walk in because of the power of God that they walk in. And they fell. It bothered me so I asked, “My God, why should so and so fall if he has such a high walk? He is walking in such power of faith—why should he fall?”

I found out a secret. It is very simple: if you walk alone you are a dead man. There are none of us who can survive by going alone. If you have a revelation and you say, “This is my revelation and no man is going to take it away from me, I am going with my revelation,” then you are a loser! You are a loser before you even begin to fight, because the devil knows that and he is going to put a little kink in your revelation. It is a good revelation, a beautiful revelation, but there is a little kink in it. And that little kink will grow and grow like a seed in the concrete and will bust the whole thing open!

There is another thing I learned. A man who is deceived does not know that he is deceived. If he knew, then he would not be deceived! To be deceived means that you do not know. “Deceived” means that you think you are right when you are wrong. You think you are strong when you are weak. You think you are able when you are not able. So, let us humble ourselves before God and walk softly. When you get a word from God and you think it is a big word, walk very softly, because there is always a word against your word. Let me repeat that. For every word of God that you get, there is a word against that word. If you do not handle it right, you will be defeated with the word of God in your hand.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, January 1997, pg. 1-2)

Thought for today: Let us walk very softly in the Body of Christ so that in case we fall into error, the Body will correct us and we will stand.

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God Is Creating a People

Posted in Body of Christ, tagged , , , on May 30, 2022| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Colossians 2:9-12

I have heard God speaking in our congregation in our songs, and in prophetic words. We thank God that there is prophesy in the Body of Christ in the midst of us; that God is speaking through the Body in prophesy. You see, God created a prophetic ministry so that the prophesy would be given to the Body. I don’t know if you understand it. The minister ministers to the Body and then the Body ministers. The end result of the ministry is for the Body to minister. The prophetic ministry will be abolished one day. The apostolic ministry will be abolished. All of the other ministries will also be abolished. But guess what we will be? When God abolishes the ministry, the WHOLE BODY will become the ministry, and then you will turn around and minister to the world. This is what God is training you for – to minister to the whole world; to bring the world alive! Because death will not triumph over God’s creation; God’s creation must triumph over death! So that there is no way that Satan is going to have anything near a victory, and we are the people who God is training to use. Now when I say, “We are the people”, please believe me, that WE ARE THE PEOPLE! I didn’t mean us, I mean WE.

In other words, God is creating a people to finish the job that Peter, Paul, James, John, and the apostles began. He is using a people to finish it. When God made Adam, He knew all the trouble that was going to come. He knew all of the destruction, but He looked at Adam and He said, “It is good.” (Genesis 1:31). It was a prophetic Word. God said that ‘it was good’, when it wasn’t good, but He saw things that are not as if they were. God saw that we would come forth and be victorious. So when we sing our songs about Zion, I wonder if we know what we are singing. We are singing about Zion, the very heights of God’s creation, that God is creating within you. You sing, “Create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10).

God has not only given us the prophetic ministry, but He has also given us prophets. Prophets are people whose duty it is to prophesy. They have a job, and their job is to prophesy. But then the daughters of Philip prophesied, yet they were not prophets. But there was a prophet named Agabus. (Acts 21:9-10) So God is creating a prophetic nation, a prophetic body. He is creating an apostolic Body. You don’t have to worry about trying to be an apostle now. It is not your time. Your time will soon come when all the ministry of God will be incorporated in the Body, when God incorporates the Body with the fullness of Himself. The Scripture says that Jesus Christ was the “Godhead bodily” incorporated (Colossians 2:9); a walking, talking, God-man. He was the prototype of what God is making us to be.

You have to understand that I am not perfect, BUT I have a Spirit that is perfect. If I can only keep my ears and my heart to follow that Spirit, I will deceive you that I am perfect. I will act like I am perfect and some of you actually believe it. But it’s not true! NEVERTHELESS, I have a perfect Spirit and that is what you are seeing. Do you understand that I am talking about you? The same pertains to you!

(Excerpt from Breaking Through the Veil, a message given in July 2006 in Illinois)

Thought for today: God is training you to minister to the whole world, to bring the world alive.

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Rise up and Do

Posted in Body of Christ, tagged , on May 16, 2022| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Psalm 40:7-8

As the days go by, we find God changing the word that comes forth. This is one of the reasons we cannot preach “canned” sermons, because the “can” would be producing the same thing that it produced last year. But we find the word changing and the clarity of it is increasing. Even the same old word is coming more alive. I believe you are finding the same thing: that there is liveliness about the word of God that is coming forth in the body of Christ.

The body of Christ must be alive. The body must minister. God does not have a class of people called ministers. Did you know that? He does not have a class of people called ministers. God has set in the body apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers. But where is the ministry? The ministry is in the body. This means there is no one who can come and say, “God sent me to minister to you,” unless he is a functioning part of the body. We are only different parts of the body of Christ. The finger is as alive as the toe, but the finger cannot do what the toe does; neither can the toe do what the finger does; but it is just as much alive.

God is directing us to an even more detailed understanding of what the body of Christ really is. He wants us to begin to walk in the body and live in the body. That is, if you cannot live as a body member, you are not of the body. We have too many dead members. Or, let’s put it a little better: members that will not exercise their rights to move and to live and to do what God wants us to do. In other words, God is feeding us more energy now; more life is coming forth now into the body than there was before, because this is the time when we are going to have to rise up and do.

(Excerpt from “Led of the Spirit”, Foundational Teachings #F077)

Thought for today: This is the time when we are going to have to rise up and do what God wants us to do.

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Keep Climbing up

Posted in Body of Christ, tagged , , , , on March 15, 2022| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Obadiah 1:21

We have to understand that we are not going to overcome without the Body of Christ. Without the Body being with us, we have no chance to reach the heights of God. There were many mighty men of God who fell because they didn’t have the Body of Christ behind them.

Some of you do not realize your value before God. You see, you are the mainstay of God’s business. Not the ministers who go forth, you understand. The shaft of the arrow is the thing that drives the arrow and keeps it straight. Amen. The point of the arrow is only the one that pierces, but it is the shaft that does the job. You are the shaft, and God is shooting straight these days. Things are happening amongst us and many are falling. But you know something else, the people will fall, but God has ordained us to save them. Yes. The Ark of the Covenant is a Savior. When the Ark of the Covenant came into the battle line of Israel, Israel began to win. You can imagine how much sin was in those people of Israel, but the Ark of the Covenant made the difference. The seventh church is the Ark of the Covenant, the church that God is training now to save the rest of the church and the world. He said, “But for the elect’s sake, no flesh would be saved” (Matthew 24:22). So you are Saviors, in a sense. God is bringing you up to be Saviors. Your children are falling, all that are around you are falling, but you are ordained to go up there because without being up there, you won’t be able to save them. If someone is drowning, the best way to save him is to throw him a line, stand on firm ground, and haul him in.

So, God is saying to us, don’t worry about the children falling. Don’t worry about the condition of the church you see out there, even the Pentecostal, even the nominal church, because we are the people God has ordained to deliver them! If we get distressed about them and get all hyped up about their condition, we won’t be able to save them. God wants you to keep climbing up. It is when you reach the height that you can speak the Word of deliverance and not before. Amen.

(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, May 25, 2003)

Thought for today: God wants you to keep climbing up. It is when you reach the height that you can speak the Word of deliverance.

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