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Posts Tagged ‘Blood of Jesus’

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Scripture reading: Psalm 1

We understand that there is a different level of righteousness at this time. God is saying that at this time He is calling a righteous people and He is calling a people to come out of sinning and into righteousness. No man, no woman who continues to behave in a way of self-motivation is of God. Did you hear me? No one who continues to move in self-motivation is of God. The average American woman is a woman who loves to rule her husband. It’s unfortunate for me to say this in a world-wide sense and let the people in the world know that is how we Americans are. The average American woman is taught to have her own way, to have her own bank account, to have her own business going. She does not go in accordance with the scriptural description of a “Proverbs 31 woman.” But we are calling to the average “son of God” woman: turn from the natural trait of your generation, turn to God and do God’s work rather than that of your generation or your nation. There are others all over the world who have the same kind of a concept, not just American women. Men and women, stop doing your own thing. If you want to do what you want to do, you must realize that you are not doing what God wants you to do. Then, somebody, after he goes and does his own thing, gives a good tithe or a good offering to the church. God doesn’t care for your offering. God wants your soul. When He gets your soul, He gets everything.

1 John 5:18 says, “We know…” We who? We who are in Christ and believe God. “We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not (does not continue in sin); but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself (continues to keep himself), and that wicked one toucheth him not. 19 And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.”

Some of us take advice from worldly friends. However, Psalm 1 warns us against doing so. Psalm 1:1, “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. 2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.”

Brethren, we are talking about sin and righteousness. We are the children of God, bought and paid for by the precious Blood of Jesus Christ, the energy and life of God Almighty from heaven. We are admonished of God to live under the righteousness of God so that we are not caught up by the sin of the world and of the children of the devil. Please, brethren, I plead with you: Change course! Change course! For I know that some of the people who are reading this article are people who have their own way. In everything that you are going to do, ask God, “Lord God, is this my way or is it Yours? Do You want me to do it this way?”

In 2 Corinthians 6:14, it says, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers…” You say, “We are not yoked together with unbelievers.” Yet unbelievers give us advice. Friends who are unbelievers will say that you cannot do so and so and so and give you advice contrary to God. “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness…” What fellowship hath the voice of God inside of the soul of man with unrighteousness? Or, the voice of the devil coming from others? And what communion hath light with darkness? Light cannot have communion with darkness. You, the children of light, cannot accept the word of darkness from friends and others (some Christians give the wrong advice, too). They pick up advice from somewhere, a little piece of darkness from here and a little piece of darkness there; but what communion hath light with darkness? Verse 15, “And what concord (con with accord) hath Christ with Belial?…” Baal, Baalism, which is worship of idols, worship of another god. “Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel (an infidel, an unbeliever)?”

Now, sometimes it is hard for us to believe that our own children are unbelievers, but sometimes our children are unbelievers. Their only deliverance is for us to walk in righteousness. Do you hear me? Anytime you turn to God and begin to walk according to that covenant that God has given you, walking it in righteousness – look at your children and you will see that it has an effect upon them. The devil cannot stand your righteousness and whenever you speak a word, it rebukes Satan from your own children if you are in righteousness. If you are not in righteousness and you speak a word, it does not rebuke Satan from your children. Therefore, your children are dependent upon you for life. If you think that you can save them by giving your time and your attention to them, you are making a very sad, sad mistake. Your time and attention to God will save them more than anything else.

(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, September, 2009)

Thought for today: We are admonished of God to live under the righteousness of God so that we are not caught up by the sin of the world and of the children of the devil.

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Scripture reading: Romans 6:1-11

When we look at the word “sin,” we notice that is it always contrary, opposite to righteousness. If we define the nature of God as being that of righteousness, then it would follow that that which is unrighteousness (sin) is therefore the nature of the devil. So, we find that there is an opposite pole to every thought, every action, every desire, as well as every plan. What this means is that anything and everything outside of what is God/Righteousness must be sin. Now, thoughts, actions and circumstances, can be of man or of the Devil but we understand from the scriptures that anything that is not of God, that is of the flesh or of the Devil, is sin. Therefore, when we try to find out what sin is, we find that the very fact of our redemption by the Blood of Jesus Christ means that we were redeemed from sin, we were redeemed from sinning and continuing in sin. So, whatever is not of God is sin. Now, this concept brings a very, very sharp distinction. That is to say that if I should say that I am a free moral agent – I am free to think my thoughts and to do my thing and to walk as I please and to help my family and everything like that – it would mean that I would be living in sin, because I am excluding God from my environment.

Living in sin is the opposite of living in Christ. If a man obeys Christ, he is living in Christ, but how can we obey someone whom we cannot see? And how can we obey one whom we cannot hear? And how can we obey one in whom we don’t believe? First of all, to obey Christ we must believe Christ – not only to believe that there is a Christ, but to believe IN Christ so that we know that every thought, every action, every plan is motivated, delivered, sent and executed by the Christ in us and not by the selfish thoughts of our own imagination. So, when it comes to the gifts of the Spirit: there is no space for imagination; there is no space for human conjecture; there is no space for our reason.

What this really means is that we become prisoners to truth and righteousness, if we can put it that way, because righteousness, therefore, is no longer just doing right things. Under the law, righteousness was doing right things. You gave to the poor, you gave your body to be burnt; basically, you sacrificed yourself for others. All that looks very good and it is, in a sense, righteousness, but in Christ it cannot be righteousness unless it is motivated by the Spirit of Christ. If, for instance, I give to the poor because I believe that the Lord said that he that giveth to the poor shall receive blessing, and I am motivated to give to the poor in order that I might receive a blessing – then it means that I am not serving God, I am serving a law of giving and receiving.

Over the radio or the television sometimes you hear the ministries that preach that “if you give you will be blessed” and how many people were blessed because they gave so and so and how when one gives so much, he receives back so much in return. I can well see Satan working with this law to capture people. It becomes a psychological trick to capture you. So, one can actually be in sin yet think that he is in righteousness.

We can see, therefore, that we must walk in righteousness, obey Christ, in order to be righteous. What is righteousness? Righteousness under the law was one thing: a set of do’s and don’ts and the adherence to those rules that made you righteous. But under Christ, righteousness is obedience to the Holy Spirit.

(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, September, 2009)

Thought for today: Righteousness under Christ is obedience to the Holy Spirit.

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Scripture reading: Romans 4:5

I wonder how many of you realize that in order for you to overcome the spirits in your life, you have to take two steps. First, you have to believe for faith is the substance of everything you hope for (Hebrews 11:6). Then, you have to speak the word. Do you realize that many of us have problems because we speak the wrong things? You are in trouble, somebody is bothering you, you have a distress, you let certain words come out of your mouth, and the devils crowd around. The moment the words come out, the devils take them as a command, and they can do things in your name that you never intended to do. You must learn to speak the positive word! It is looking dark, it is looking hopeless, but you speak the word, and say, “I shall live and not die. I shall overcome this thing.” Keep speaking it every day. “I shall overcome this thing.” You fall down flat on your face, “I am going to overcome this thing! By the grace of God, by the Blood of Jesus Christ.” The moment you speak the words, God sends His angels to be with you. The next time you will have a better chance, you will find the strength to do it. Amen.

I am talking about 50 years of learning. Fifty-odd years of learning from God. I am giving it to you free. One day, I put my finger on the welding iron. I smelled the flesh burning even before I realized that my finger was on the iron. I grabbed the finger and said, “In the name of Jesus, it shall not hurt me!” I don’t know where the words came from. I didn’t contemplate it before, but I just said it. And no pain! I got happy, and bold, and wanted to show my wife, Mavis, the finger burnt. I didn’t want the finger to be healed right away, I wanted to show her! So I ran inside with the burnt finger, and said, “Look here!” I was ashamed. No burnt finger at all! I am talking about the power of creation that God has put in every little one of you. Don’t go around thinking, “Lord, how sinful I am, how poor I am.” Don’t think about that! God knows that! Begin to speak the Word of life and life will come forth. Amen.

When you have an infirmity, get before the mirror in the mornings and say, “By the grace of God, this infirmity shall be healed. I shall overcome.” You must overcome it. Do you know why? Because you are speaking what God wants. God doesn’t want you to be sick. God doesn’t want you to have infirmities. God wants you to be well, God wants you to be happy. Amen! Don’t you understand? Because you believe God, He said, He will count it for righteousness (Romans 4:5). You try your best, but you are not righteous. But God says, if you believe Him, He will count you just like a righteous person. He will do everything for you like He would do for a righteous person. Can you understand? Look at all these men – Abraham, David… God said David was a man after His own heart (Acts 13:22). A man after God’s own heart going out and committing adultery and murder? But he was a man after God’s own heart. His heart was belonging to God. The devil took hold of his flesh. He didn’t have Jesus, so don’t believe I am telling you that you can do that. He didn’t have Jesus. But then, even those of us who have Jesus and fail, God is still saying to us, “All power is given unto me, in heaven and on earth. Now, you go preach the gospel” (Matthew 28:18-19).

Do you understand what that means? It means that if you turn your mind to believing God, the things that you believe will come to pass and it will make you righteous. Oh, yes! We believe God that we are going to be perfected while we are alive in this flesh. That’s what I believe in God. I believe God that I can stay ten minutes without sin. Do you think that you could do that? Stay ten minutes without sin? If I can stay ten minutes without sin, then I can stay twenty. And if I can stay twenty, I can stay an hour. And if I can stay an hour, then I can stay a day without sin. He will keep them in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Him (Isaiah 26:3). So then, it means that we sin with our minds. The body only manifests what is in the mind. We sin, therefore, with our minds. So, God is saying that if you keep God in your heart, in your mind, you will be free from sin.

(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, September 8, 2002, pg. 11-13)

Thought for today: You must learn to speak the positive word! It is looking dark, it is looking hopeless, but you speak the word, and say, “I shall live and not die. I shall overcome this thing.”

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Scripture reading: Ephesians 4:11-13

When I think of God, I cannot think of Him as a man, as a person. All I can think of is a BIG being, filling the whole space, and filling us. But I can think of Jesus as a man. Do you see how God is good for us? He gave us Someone Whom we can relate to. Now, if Jesus is a person, if Jesus is a man, you must approach Him as a person. I’ll never forget what happened when I prayed the first time, asked Jesus to come into my life and felt the quickening. That means that His blood had touched me; it touched my mind and touched my consciousness. Before that, I was not conscious of God, but now I am conscious of His presence.

The next thing that happened to me was that I said, “Jesus, why don’t You come and talk to me?” Now, I am not telling you to say that, because the devil might come and talk to you and you could believe that it was Jesus. That is, however, not supposed to be. The devil is not supposed to be able to talk to you and you believe it is Jesus. Do you know why? The Christ in you will not be happy. Amen. But the relationship between you and Jesus Christ must be such that you know that Jesus is a man, you speak to Him as a resurrected man, and you deal with Him and expect Him to respond to you as a man would respond to you. What kind of doctrine is that? That you would expect Jesus to respond to you as a man would respond to you?

You see, we have made a step backward. Let me tell you why. We were going upward to believe that God has a five-fold ministry in the heavenlies, in the spirit. Jesus Christ is in the five-fold ministry or the left hand, in the natural, among us. But what I have noticed is that we have started not to believe in the five-fold ministry any more. We have started to believe in our abilities to do.

Now, if you have a pastor in your midst, immediately you would have rejected the five-fold ministry, because the five-fold ministry doesn’t have any pastor in it. Those who occupy the place of the shepherd would be too busy shepherding to be able to be fooling around and doing anything else. There is a problem that I see and I don’t know if it is as if you have forgotten, or if you want to be like another church or something, but I don’t see the function of the five-fold ministry. I don’t see the function of the prophet in your midst. As a matter of fact, if the prophet should function, you probably wouldn’t believe it. I don’t see the function of the evangelist. I don’t see anybody evangelizing anything. If the evangelists had the spirit of the evangelist, they would be praying and God would be sending people into your fellowships. Amen. “But why should I leave my church over there with my pastor and come to your gathering with the same function?”

I don’t see the function of the five-fold ministry. You don’t function in the five-fold ministry anymore. I don’t know if you understand what I am talking about. Every ministry of these five-fold has branches in the church among the people. In other words, Christ is working in you. Amen. As Christ is working in you and among you, He will give one a vision; He will give another a dream; He will give somebody something to uplift the brethren. But if I dream that you become a dog and start barking and bite up everybody in the place, what profit is that to everybody? God is telling us to run for our lives, the dog is coming. Don’t you understand? The ministration of the Spirit is to profit withal. If the Spirit of the prophet is in you, you will find that as you begin to function, there will be many more that will be functioning and together it will bring life and not death.

(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, December 2007, pg. 9-10)

Thought for today: Let us believe in the five-fold ministry that God has in the Earth and not in our abilities to do.

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Scripture reading: Romans 3:24-25

Praise the Lord. One of the greatest things about getting old is that there is a change in what you used to believe was the reality of your environment. The things that were absolutely real to you in your youth fade, and a new reality comes in that is absolutely real. I am trying to explain something here. The young people have a reality that is different from the reality that we who are older have. It is God that becomes more real to me than the things that I used to look at as precious and real. Those things fade away. They don’t have that value any more. The basis for your value changes, but it changes so gradually that you do not notice that it is changing. One day you wake up to find out that you have an altogether different perspective. It is like when you talk about the Blood of Jesus Christ. As young people you believe it, but somehow the reality of God and the Blood is not as tangible as it is now.

The Blood of Jesus Christ has become the basis of my life. I remember when I was young, one day Jesus took me and showed me the Blood and it laid a foundation in my life, that as long as I live, I will never forget it. You have seen the show that is called “The Passion of Christ.” It is a very gruesome thing, but then, what happened to me with Jesus when I was your age is that He took me through this with Him, and I was there. Do you understand? It did something to me and after that, my whole concept of when you say, “The Blood,” was changed.

So, the reality of God becomes more real. In other words, God is no longer a shadowy person out there that will come when you call Him, but He is someone that fills up the whole place. Amen. It is like you are walking into God; you are sleeping into God; you are talking into God, and then God is into you. It is difficult to explain. But what I want to say to you is: If you think of God, Who is He? Who is this God? You call Him God. Sometimes you must say Elohim; sometimes you must say Jehovah; sometimes you must remember that He is not any one person who you can call by one name that means all of Him because sometimes He is El Shaddai. Oh yes. When your soul is hungry, when your life is hungry, when you need God more than anything else, He is El Shaddai, the great Father/Mother God. He is both Father and Mother together, giving you milk to drink, giving you suck, satisfying the soul. Unless you have been in real trouble, you really won’t know God. I don’t want to tell you to pray to God to put you in trouble, but I am telling you that when you are in a really tight spot and you call out to God from the depths of your heart and your soul, that is the time you prove God to be more real than the very breath that you breathe. Praise God.

(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, December 2007, pg. 3)

Thought for today: When you are in a really tight spot and you call out to God from the depths of your heart and your soul, that is the time you prove God to be more real than the very breath that you breathe.

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