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Posts Tagged ‘Body of Christ’

The Weapons of Our Warfare

Posted in Body of Christ, Spiritual Warfare, tagged , , , , on May 24, 2024| 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 May 23, 2024| 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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Christ in the Soul

Posted in Growing in God, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 15, 2024| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: John 12:20-26

When we accepted Jesus Christ, we received life. The Blood of Jesus Christ is the life of God. This is what we received in our souls which were dead in trespasses and sins. This life had to help us die to the alien life of sin which had occupied the soul. Then, we had the self-life, which also had to die. So we see that when we accepted Christ as our Savior, it was a matter of submitting to death in order to receive life. When that process is completed, then we begin to enter into Christ. Paul, speaking to the Corinthian Christians in I Corinthians 12:13, declares, “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body.”

We are not baptized into the body of Christ until the body of sin and self is given a death-blow. If sin is still reigning in our members, then it was not fully dealt with. The grain of corn cannot bring forth a new life until it has given up its own life. We must die to live and that life does not begin until the death is complete. This is all done by faith.

The divine order of the entering into Christ is shown in the tabernacle of Moses by the three veils. The first veil is called the Gate, the second is called the Door, and the third is called the Veil. The door is Christ, and the entering in is preceded by the washing at the Laver, which is death to self and a complete surrender to Christ. Self cannot be on the throne and, at the same time, Christ be crowned as King. One King must depose the other. Even more than being deposed, ONE KING MUST SLAY THE OTHER so that there is no further possibility of a coup to regain the throne.

THE ENTERING IN OF CHRIST INTO THE SOUL of man is a conscious act of man’s will, which is preceded by the three BAPTISMS of death.

There must be a death before there can be a resurrection. The three baptisms are:

  1. Baptism in water, the baptizer being human
  2. Baptism in the Holy Ghost, the baptizer being Jesus Christ
  3. Baptism into Christ, the baptizer being the Holy Ghost

Christ enters into us, then we begin to enter into Christ. Just as the Holy Ghost enters into us, then we begin to live in the Spirit.

When Christ enters the soul as King, He begins His rule on earth within the individual. HE MUST REIGN TILL ALL ENEMIES ARE PUT UNDER HIS FEET, even death. We see, therefore, that He brings life and immortality to light by the gospel (II Timothy 1:10). The beast nature of man is being changed to the nature of the Christ.

We can see then that we can have Holy Spirit occupying our spirits, but not our souls as the five foolish virgins had in Matthew 25. This stands to reason why, although we receive the Holy Spirit, we still have the power to reject His counsel and have our own way. It also is the reason why we still fall into sin though having the Holy Spirit of God within us. The process of the Kingdom of God gently seeps into every area of our lives with our own free will consent, just as the leaven that leavens the whole three lumps of the woman’s meal in Matthew 13:33.

(Excerpt from The Pattern, pg. 148-149)

Thought for today: Let us give way in our souls to the Holy Spirit so that He may fill our vessel and conquer every sin in our lives.

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My Vision of the Lord Jesus Christ – Part 2

Posted in Time of the End, tagged , , , , , , on April 23, 2024| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Revelation 11:3

Let us look at Brother Hicks’s vision from our previous devotional in more detail. The Scriptures declares that when a vision is repeated three times, it is a sure sign that it will surely come to pass. I believe this is the case with this vision of Brother Tommy Hicks.

  1. The vision begins with what I believe to be a past condition of the Body of Christ: lying in the dust, covered with the debris and myriads of demons. The body began to quiver and convulse, which is the first sign of awakening. This vision was given in July of 1961, and I believe that the body commenced its convulsions from somewhere around 1948.

You will note that there was first a trembling before the convulsions. The trembling began way back at Azusa Street in Los Angeles, somewhere around 1907. But in 1948, God anointed many ministries, and each one was given the opportunity of preaching the message of the Kingdom or whatever else was chosen. We saw men like William Branham, who is the first man I heard preach a word against the denominational system and make a clear call to humanity to turn from the Babylonish denominations to Christ as head of the Church. It was necessary for a man like Branham to make mistakes, or else men would worship him; therefore, we will not think about the mistakes or faults of these men, but let us think of the ministry which God brought to the Body.

Wigglesworth, Finney, Howe (The builder of Zion City, Chicago), Tommy Hicks, Jack Coe, A. A. Allen, Oral Roberts, Miller (Argentina), McPherson, Seymour—I could fill this page with names. These were genuine miracle workers who God used to bring not only the Church but the world to a new consciousness of His power.

  1. The right arm being lifted up—I am convinced that some of the people of God are His right arm in the earth. The right arm of the Body of Christ is being lifted up in our time, and I believe we will soon see it reaching up into the heavens. The thundering from heaven is the blowing of the Fifth Trumpet (or message), which calls humanity to total surrender to Christ, and the giving up of every other head which rivals the headship of Christ in our lives. This precedes the raising of the left hand, which speaks of the awakening of the people of God who did not catch the first vision, but will recognize the moving of God among one segment of the Body and will repent of their laxity.
  2. The pouring out of the Spirit of God upon this generation is imminent. There is absolutely no doubt that the revival of all revivals is about to break upon us. This great pouring out of the Spirit will bring to pass the rest of the prophecy of Joel, which Peter said commenced with Pentecost. It did not end with Pentecost, but it will end with TABERNACLES. “BEHOLD, GOD HAS TABERNACLED HIMSELF WITHIN MAN” (literal translation of Revelation 21:3).
  3. The pouring out of the liquid light upon the people of the Body is certified by the Word of God in Revelation 11:3, “And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and three score days, clothed in sackcloth.”

The two witnesses are the Spirit and the Word being manifested in human beings—the power of the living Christ Himself with the Firstfruits Company. These will move and walk in the Christ ministry for three and a half years. Even as Jesus Christ ministered in His flesh and blood body for three and a half years, so will the Church. What follows then in the vision is only a description of the Man Child ministry being caught up into the heavenlies, yet ministering here on earth, pushing back the forces of Satan.

  1. It is noteworthy that at one point, some of the brethren turned back from this anointing, because they had lost their positions of pastors, apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers; because the Body of Christ had risen up in maturity and was doing everything and more than these ministries did before.
  2. THE FINAL STAGE OF THIS VISION SAW THE RESURRECTION OF THE SAINTS, AND THEIR BEING CAUGHT UP TO THE THRONE OF GOD. IT IS TRUE THAT WE SHALL BE EXALTED TO THE HIGHEST HEAVENS, AND THAT WE SHALL REIGN AND RULE WITH HIM ON EARTH.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, August 1989)

Thought for today: Behold, God has tabernacled himself within man.

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Who Are the Dead in Christ?

Posted in Christian Walk, tagged , , , , , , on April 11, 2024| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: I John 3:23-24

In our previous devotionals we have talked about dying to sin, but what are the signs of being dead in Christ. Those who are dead in the natural have no feelings, and are not involved in the things of the living anymore. So it is those who are dead in Christ – they are not involved in carnality and sinfulness. They do not willfully sin, would be more specific.

I John 3:23-24, “And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment. And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.”

Those who abide in Christ are dead – dead to sin. If sin calls, they will not answer because they are dead, but if righteousness calls, they will answer and be ready to obey. It is like a machine that is tuned to one frequency and will not be stirred by another.

2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

The terminology “in Christ” means “under the headship of Christ”, or in other words, “be in the body of Christ.” The beginning of the New Creation Man therefore is In Christ. When Christ becomes the head of the individual, then that person is in Christ. Christ comes into the believer in order to take the believer into Christ. The believer has Christ within his spirit when he is baptized with the Holy Ghost and not before then. This is clearly stated in John 14:17 that there are two operations of the Holy Spirit – with and within.

The dead are those who have crucified the flesh:

Galatians 5:24, “And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.”

God hides those who are dead in Christ:

Colossians 3:3, “For ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God.”

Jesus heals us spiritually, not just naturally by His stripes:

I Peter 2:25, “Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes we were healed.”

The believer is being asked of God to attend his own crucifixion every morning he rises. Being dead to sin is not one mighty act of sacrifice and it’s all over with, but a daily uphill task of bringing the members of one’s body under Divine Control. The man whose eyes are used to roving will find that his eyes will, even without his conscious participation, BUT when he submits this condition to God, he will as it were catch up himself just before he commits the crime.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, August 1984)

Thought for today: Let us attend to our own crucifixion today and bring the members of our body under Divine Control.

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