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Open My Eyes, Lord

Posted in Christian Walk, tagged , , , on November 30, 2021| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: John 9:1-7

Did you know that it is not everybody who believes the message of the Kingdom that is in the Holy Place? It is not everyone who has the Holy Spirit that is in the Holy Place. When you get into the Holy Place, the Holy Place has to get into you in order for you to be in the Holy Place. Can you understand it? In other words, if you are in the Holy Place and you are acting like a tramp, do you think God will say, “You are in the Holy Place, therefore I will just take you in.”? No, no. You have rejected the Spirit of God that makes you holy. We cannot be holy without the Spirit of God. If you are acting like John Brown, you can’t claim to be holy. You cannot act like your mother or your father and expect to be holy. You can preach like Paul, you can sing like angels, you can do anything else and bless God’s people, too, but remember: to be holy you have to follow the Holy Spirit.

There were two blind men in the New Testament. There was blind Bartimaeus and there was the other blind man that God made the spittle, put on his eyes and sent him on. Praise God. I want to talk about those two. The eyes of the one man were gone, clean gone. He was blind because he probably had no pupil, but Jesus Christ created eyes right there. He used the power of creation; He took spittle, made clay, put it over his eyes and said, “…Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash…” (John 9:11). When the man washed the clay off of his eyes, his eyes were perfect, 20/20 vision. Let’s take Mark 10:46 first and then we will go to Luke 18:35.

Mark 10:46, “And they came to Jericho: and as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number of people, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the highway side begging. 47And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, and say, Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me.” Now, Jesus cannot disregard that kind of a plea. You know, when God says sometimes, “Command Me,” that is what He means. If you work according to God’s plan and God’s law, God must. Jesus could not pass him. “Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me. 48And many charged him that he should hold his peace: but he cried the more a great deal, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me.” The words “Son of David” have a special meaning; it means that He was the Messiah. That is what it meant in the Hebrew. He was saying, “Jesus, Messiah, the One that should come, the promised Son of David have mercy on me.” Verse 49, “And Jesus stood still, and commanded him to be called. And they call the blind man, saying unto him, Be of good comfort, rise; he calleth thee. 50And he, casting away his garment, rose, and came to Jesus. 51And Jesus answered and said unto him, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? The blind man said unto him, Lord, that I might receive my sight.”

We are talking about the optometrist. Do you understand? You are to go to the optometrist and you must ask for what you want. He is not going to give you sight unless you ask for it. Tell Him what you want and it must be from your heart, brethren. This man was hollering. They couldn’t shut him up because he knew that God was passing him by and he did not want God to pass him by. He wanted his eyes healed.

Verse 52, “And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way.” Do you understand what happened here? Jesus never touched him. It wasn’t necessary. He touched Jesus with his faith.

When you look at John 9:1-7, you see another case. In this case, God wanted that blind man as a minister. God wanted him so He made him born blind, then He sent Jesus to heal him. Isn’t this a wonderful God? That is a different case. That man didn’t ask for anything. He was just made by God, set there, punished, suffered blindness all his life so that God might glorify Himself in him. Some of you are like that, but don’t count on it. You go and ask God to open your eyes.

(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, May 2009, pg. 28-29)

Thought for today: Remember: to be holy you have to follow the Holy Spirit.

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“I Want to Be Like Jesus!”

Posted in Christian Walk, tagged , , , , , on November 29, 2021| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Romans 8:29

Did you know that we feed through our eyes? When we enter into the Holy Place of the Tabernacle, there are twelve loaves of bread set on the Table of Shewbread. We can eat from whichever loaf we prefer, but we must know that we feed with our eyes, we feed with our ears, we feed with our minds by feeding from the Word and from others. God wants the children of God to feed from the twelve loaves that He has provided, the apostolic teaching. However, oftentimes we feed on other things: we see something in the world there; something there; something attractive there; something attracts us and all that feeding goes into the mind and it disrupts the power of God from taking charge of the mind.

Brethren, we are at the hour when the power of the living God is going to take charge of the mind of man. Do you hear me? The power of God is going to take charge of our minds. Begin to offer up your mind to God. “Oh God, I bring You this offering this morning. You need to cleanse it. I don’t want to think evil of my brother. I don’t want to think evil at all. I don’t want to do this and that and that.” Faith is the substance of whatever you hope for. If you hope to be like Jesus, tell God. “I don’t want to be like Mary, John or Tom. I want to be like Jesus. This is my cry, Oh God. I want to be like Jesus. Break down every separating wall, pull down every fence, wreck all my plans, but make me like Jesus, my God.” Oh yes! Thank You, Jesus.

I am so blessed. You know, every night the Lord comes to me in the early morning hours and teaches me. Sometimes I forget the lessons. Sometimes I don’t remember it until I am speaking and then something flashes in my mind. Sometimes one message will go over and over for hours and hours and that is for you. But when He gives me a message for you, I am not fool enough to believe that I am exempt, because, you see, you must divide/separate the man or the woman from the gift. You are two different people and the gift of God is trying to make you like Christ. So, you are not like Christ yet, but the gift of God is working on you to make you what God wants you to be. Therefore, we are fellow travelers, except that one day He is going to stop the traveling and put everybody who wants to go one way on one side and who wants to go the other way on the other side. That is why He said that those who come in the morning get the same pay as those who come in the evening. The thief on the cross spent his entire life killing and murdering. He had a lowdown mind. But bless the Lord, he had eyes to see Jesus. The other man could see nothing but another thief hanging on the cross with him. But this man saw Jesus and he said, “Remember me, Oh God.”

Don’t you understand, beloved brethren, that righteousness is not how many times you pray or read your Bible, but it is how you submit to the Spirit of the Living God? Anybody could surpass all of us in righteousness tomorrow morning by just saying, “Yes, Jesus.” You know, sometimes, the poor little ones, those who we look at as weak and poor in the congregation, they are the ones that will be able to submit, because it is hard for the mighty big people who want to rule to submit. Thank You, Jesus.

It is such a pleasure to have Jesus using you. You know, sometimes I hear the music and I feel like dancing. There is something to dance about. Yes, sir. To know that God Almighty has forgiven my sins, my errors, my weaknesses. When I look at my weaknesses, I say to myself, “A wretched fellow you are.” Yes. I look at my grandfather and I look at my father and I feel like them. My mother would shake her finger in my face and say, “Don’t be like your father. He is a nasty man.” How would you like that? You would pretend that you didn’t understand and cover up your face but you well knew what she was talking about. Blessed be God Almighty.

It is good to obey the Holy Spirit. It is good to have the Spirit of the living God in you and to obey Him. When you feel rebellious and bad and the Spirit comes, it is good to straighten up and say, “Yes, Lord Jesus Christ. I am wrong.” A little song says:

Violent, full of sin I am
Thou art full of truth and grace
Plenteous grace with Thee is found
Grace to cover all my sins
Let the healing streams abound
Make it pure within

Praise God Almighty. Sometimes you sing those songs and they really bring a blessing. When I get up in the morning or in the night singing one of those songs, I know God is talking to me. And I know He is talking to you, too. Amen.

(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, May 2009, pg. 28-29)

Thought for today: If you hope to be like Jesus, tell God. “I don’t want to be like Mary, John or Tom. I want to be like Jesus. This is my cry, Oh God. Break down every separating wall, pull down every fence, wreck all my plans, but make me like Jesus, my God.”

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“Get Rid of Delilah!”

Posted in Christian Walk, tagged , , , on November 26, 2021| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: 1 Thessalonians 5:5-6

God Almighty has been speaking to us, His people, that our eyes are not in good condition. He showed me how we should repair our eyes. I look at the prophets, the prophets God has given us. Now, I am not talking about the two men that you know as prophets. I am talking about you. You know that the index finger represents the prophet. But all the sinews that go towards making this one finger move are in the prophetic ministry. The dreams and the visions and the thoughts that God is bringing through His people should channel a clean word of God’s intention, in this hour, to the world. But it seems that all our prophets are seeing is the dog in the back yard. Local. We are local. Do you know why we don’t see what God is doing? Because we can’t even see our own, how are we going to see out there? If you can’t see close/near, you are farsighted, but God is saying, “I do nothing unless I reveal it to my people.” Paul was saying that Jesus said, “No man knoweth the day nor the hour, but you are not like those that sleep in the night.” You are not like those who can’t see or can’t hear; God will let you know. He said, “It shall not come upon you as a thief in the night.” God will tell His people what He is doing.

Our situation is like Samson’s and how he got involved with Delilah. That was the bottom line, you know. He had been going down, going down, going down. He judged Israel for twenty years without being involved. Then he couldn’t take it any longer. He got Delilah and she took him down in the valley. There is so much of Delilah in so many of God’s people but we need to get the Delilah out of us. The Delilah was in Samson’s heart. Yes, it’s not Delilah that was bad. It’s Samson that was bad because he wanted a Delilah. Is your heart pulling you towards a Delilah? He was steady for twenty years, had no problem for twenty years and then he must have been looking at Delilah, watching her and finally he capitulated. Dagon is the god of erotic behavior (to be less explicit). That is where they took him. That is where he was going to make his grave.

God is talking to us. The same Spirit that is in your spirit, that makes it so we can function in the Spirit, is the same Spirit that God wants in our souls, that our minds should function normally in the mind of Christ, clean. God is saying to us, “Get rid of Delilah.”

Sisters, do you know what it means if a woman wants to wear pants? It means she wants to take over the house and rule. That is one part of the spirit of Delilah. The other part of it will follow. But God is saying that we, brothers and sisters, must get rid of the spirit of Delilah, for Samson had the spirit of Delilah as much as Delilah had the spirit of Delilah. We should probably not go too far with that. We will just leave it at that and leave the Holy Spirit to deal with His people.

(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, May 2009, pg. 27-28)

Thought for today: God is saying to us, “Get rid of Delilah.”

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No More Curse

Posted in Christian Walk, tagged , , , , on November 22, 2021| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Revelation 22:3

What is the meaning of this “curse” as mentioned in Revelation 22:3? Let us look at Genesis 3:17. “And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: CURSED is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.” The first curse was put upon the ground. No longer would the earth produce abundantly, mightily, as it had done before, but it was now going to produce less, and it would bring forth thorns and thistles and all manner of evil weeds. Today we are affected by a lot of these evil weeds. There is marijuana. Heroin is made from the poppy. Many other things (poisons) which destroy humanity come from the ground. Before this curse, there was no such thing.

In Genesis 4:11 and 12 we see another curse, the curse that God put upon Cain after he had killed his brother Abel. Actually, it was something that Cain himself had caused. “And now art thou CURSED from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand; When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.” God was only telling Cain what was going to happen because of his action. The earth would not obey him, would not give him its strength, because he had shed innocent blood. Think of how much innocent blood has been shed since Cain! No wonder we are going into a time of great drought.

The Scriptures speak of great famines that will be in the earth, because the earth will produce less and less. As man sheds more blood, the earth will revolt against humanity. We have seen things happen across Africa. Great famines came wherein thousands and tens of thousands of people have died because of famine and drought. Lands that used to bring forth beautiful crops have ceased to produce. The war in Ethiopia caused a drought. The war in Eritrea caused a drought and terrible consequences. People were being killed by hunger and thirst because of mankind’s wickedness. The earth refused to produce.

Deuteronomy 11:28 speaks of the curse for not obeying the commandments of the Lord. Deuteronomy 27:15, “Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image, an abomination unto the LORD, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and putteth it in a secret place. And all the people shall answer and say, Amen.” When it comes to disobedience, the nations of the world are not in obedience to God. All the nations of the world are under the judgment of God, because the nations have wholesale gone into rebellion against everything that is God or that is godly. What is holding the world together from total judgment are the Christians in the different nations who are holding on to God and praying. For their sake, God is holding back the judgment, but it will not be held back too long.

(Excerpt from The Book of Revelation, Volume 3, pages 160-161)

Thought for today: Disobedience brings the curse in our lives. Let us be those Christians that will hold back total judgment for a season through prayer.

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Seeing the Face of God

Posted in Christian Walk, tagged , , , , on November 19, 2021| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: 2 Corinthians 3:18

The verse in 2 Corinthians 3:18 means that the more we see the glory of God, and the more the brightness, the light, the blessedness of God encompasses our beings, the more we see Jesus. This is “His face.” “His face” is the riches of His glory, the goodness of His nature, the blessedness of His presence. The more we see it, “WE…ARE CHANGED…from glory to glory” to be like Him.

Matthew 5:8, “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” The purer the heart is, the clearer the vision will be. Matthew 6:23, “But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” We are talking about spirit vision and not natural vision. Matthew 15:14, Jesus said, “Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.” We are talking about seeing the face of God (seeing the face of Jesus) and about those who are blind and cannot see the face of Jesus.

2 Corinthians 3:13-17, “And not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which veil is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” This “veil shall be taken away” when men “turn to the Lord” Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 4:4, “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” We are talking of the mind being blinded, for it is with this mind that one is going to see the face of Jesus.

John 16:14 and 15, “He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.” It is the Holy Spirit that gives us this vision, so that we can see the face of Jesus. The Bible tells us here that the Holy Spirit shows us Jesus. He is the revealer of Jesus, so that as we walk in the Spirit, we get more and more the vision of the face of Jesus Christ, and we become what we behold.

(Excerpt from The Book of Revelation, Volume 3, pages 164-165)

Thought for today: As we walk in the Spirit, we get more and more the vision of the face of Jesus Christ, and we become what we behold.

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