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Posts Tagged ‘God’s Order’

The Stranger – Part 1

Posted in Christian Walk, tagged , , , , , on November 2, 2012| Leave a Comment »

By Mavis M. duCille

Scripture reading: Proverbs 5:20

Our first responsibility when reading Proverbs 5:20 is to establish what a stranger is: a stranger is essentially one who does not belong to the household or community in which he finds himself. In other words, an outsider is one who does not fit into the order of things in a particular place.

The Bible speaks much about the stranger, but though God gave commands regarding the love and care for the stranger, yet He warns against being in union or league with a stranger. There are so many Christians today who are under a sentence of unhappiness, because of being unequally yoked in marriage; therefore it is right and reasonable to take time to look into this matter.

Looking back into the Old Testament, we see God’s order from the beginning. God made a man (Adam), then He made a helpmeet for him, who he called Eve. She was helper or complement to him. Things went pretty well in the garden until the serpent tempted Eve and caused her to disobey. It is wonderful, however, that Adam stood with his helpmeet, choosing to die with her, rather than to be separated from her. They were one. Her disobedience brought separation from God. That union could not be broken, therefore, Adam could do nothing else but cast himself upon God, in hope.

Taking a few examples might bring greater clarity to the subject:

1st Kings 11:1 – Solomon ruled very well, but he had a weakness: he loved many strange women. This clouded his glorious reign, because some of these strange women were idolatrous. It is not possible for one to be in union with an idolater, and not be affected or infected. They were daughters of heathen priests. These were strangers to God’s laws and commandments; of different culture and upbringing.

Ezra 10:2-44 – The people, mainly those among the leadership of Israel, departed from God’s laws and married the strangers of the land. This was the cause of Israel’s captivity and suffering. Ezra prayed, confessed and wept before God, and the people saw themselves and their apostasy. They confessed to their broken faith, their need of making a covenant with God, and then they put away their strange wives. The measures were severe but effective – their blessings returned.

Nehemiah 13:27 – Here again, Israel was in trouble. The leaders married strange women. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” (Proverbs 9:10a) – not to be afraid of God, but having a healthy desire to do His will. Apostasy causes complacency, and complacency, familiarity, and familiarity breeds contempt. Thus, pleasing God is no longer a joyful pleasure. Being aligned with people who walk in the ways of darkness can dim one’s light and sight, because the people who abide in darkness have not allowed the light of the world, who is Jesus, to shine in their hearts and to change their lives. They delight in doing evil and delight in frowardness. Their ways are crooked; they use flattering words; they care not about the covenant of God; their path leads to destruction.

Proverbs 5:20, “And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?”

Apart from the deep spiritual meaning of these words, there is much truth on the surface. A child of God can be ravished by a stranger (one who cannot embrace understanding or walk in the ways of the Lord). Consequently, instead of a help meet, there is a terrible weight of discord, disharmony, etc. One cannot take coals into one’s bosom and not get burnt. Strangers desire not the things of God and His kingdom.

“My son, keep thy father’s commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother.” Proverbs 6:20.

There is the tendency for young people to rebel against parents, especially in the matter of marriage. Young people, beware of this, especially where parents are walking in the fear of the Lord. I have yet to see a marriage based on such rebellion and total disregard for (the) parents’ blessing, that is blessed of God and doing well. Now, do not forget that there are people of God who are not delivered from the carnal eyesight – where earthly wealth and beauty is the criteria and not the will of the Lord. Such people are in trouble with God, the Body of Christ, and their family. The carnal mind cannot please God.

YOUNG PEOPLE, AS MUCH AS LIES WITHIN YOUR POWER, LISTEN ATTENTIVELY to your parents. God will honor your love and respect for them. There are many men and women today who, looking back, will say to themselves (very rarely to those who need to hear), “If I had only listened to that parent or minister, I would not be in this mess today.” Some are able to give the troubled situation to Jesus, and have Him issue forth His love and bind up their wounds, healing the union and causing it to increase in His love.

Satan enjoys joining people, because he gets not just the two, but sometimes the children to do his evil bidding. Also, when one is joined to an unbeliever, such a one has weakness and problems, instead of strength and help in the Spirit to bring up a family in the fear of the Lord. Though, sometimes, in God’s mercy, the faithful believing partner becomes the saviour of the unbelieving.

A stranger carries into the marriage all the things that pertain to this life; a way of life to which he or she is accustomed (the traits of the land from which he or she comes). You wonder why he/she cannot see, accept or appreciate the things of God; no, (it is) because he/she is a stranger, and must resist the truth as if it were an enemy.

(Excerpt from Nuggets for the Needy, 1997, pages 36-39)

Thought for today: YOUNG PEOPLE, AS MUCH AS LIES WITHIN YOUR POWER, LISTEN ATTENTIVELY to your parents. God will honor your love and respect for them.

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Everybody Must Have a Head

Posted in Body of Christ, tagged , , , , on August 14, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Scripture reading: Matthew 23:8-11

Jesus called some fishermen and a few learned men. He selected twelve of them and called them the “apostles of the Lamb.” These twelve people were people who God chose from the foundation of the world to become apostles for all time and eternity. Anytime anything would happen to one of these apostles, God would put in another apostle. We find out that when Judas betrayed Jesus, God called Paul and put Paul into the apostolic ministry. The brethren didn’t get the message because they had a ballot, voted and put in a man named Matthias. And from the time that they put in Matthias, we never hear another word about him. But God selected Paul and put him in as an apostle to fill the place of Judas. So, that apostolic thing was closed. You cannot have an apostolic ascension that is like, when the king dies, his son takes over. Therefore, when the church begins to appoint their own apostles, they are going against God’s divine order.

I want to make it scripturally clear. Turn your Bibles to Matthew 23:7-8, And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. 8 But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. We don’t really call anybody Rabbi in English, but we do call them Master. And what about Doctor? Nowadays, all the preachers are Doctor So and So, and Doctor So and So. It means that these people are saying that they are Doctors of the Word of God. When you are sick, you go to a doctor, sure. And there is no problem about being a Doctor of Philosophy, but a Doctor of Theology is an offense before God. Therefore, you don’t call anybody Master. And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven(Matthew 23:9). Now, I had a father, and you have a father, and I called him father, but that was my natural father. It wasn’t an offense before God. But if I began to call Brother John, “Father John” or “Father Smith,” then you would know that we are way out of God’s order. So, one of the problems is not only of those who are called Father, but also for those who call them father.

Now, what about the Great Father? In other words, it is wrong to call a man Father, spiritually Father So and So. But what about calling him the Great Father? Papa? Pope? That is entirely out of God’s order. So you must not call anybody Father; you must not call anybody in the church, spiritual Father or Pope. So, what about those that do call themselves Father and Pope? It means that they are not hearing from God, and it means that you cannot hear from them.

At this hour, the Body of Christ is being put in order. Everybody must have a head, and Jesus Christ is the Head of the Body of Christ. When we gather together, we gather together to hear Jesus and we recognize Jesus Christ as the Head. We want to hear what Jesus says. If someone gets up and prophesies in the name of any other name besides Jesus, he is a false prophet.

Now, how do you identify a false prophet? Can you figure it out? How would you identify a false prophet? The main identification of a false prophet is that he has a false spirit. He does not speak from the Spirit of God. His spirit is not of God, it is of the devil. His duty is to deceive, to disrupt, and to destroy. What does God say about true prophecy? It is given for exhortation, edification, and comfort (1 Corinthians 14:3). So you have to learn to recognize true prophecy – true prophet, different from false prophet.

When we look at Ephesians 4:11, we see that it says that God has set in the church apostles, prophets… Now, if somebody else sets a ministry in the church, then it is not the Body of Christ. It is the ministry that makes the Body either the Body of Christ or not the Body of Christ. Let us look at the departure, when we began to depart from being the Body of Christ to be different denominations. We departed with the appointment of ministers that were appointed of men. The seven churches of Asia rejected Paul as a minister of God. From the time that they rejected the ministry of Paul, they began to get into false doctrine. Let us make sure that we are not among those who reject the ministry that God has set in the church.

(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, September 17, 2006, pg. 4-5)

Thought for today: At this hour God is putting the Body of Christ in order. Make sure that you are not among those who reject the ministry that God has set in the church.

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Divine Order or Man’s Order?

Posted in Body of Christ, tagged , , , on August 13, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Scripture reading: Ephesians 4:1-6

Let us talk about the Body of Christ today. How do we become the Body of Christ? How do we know that we are in the Body of Christ? There is only one God, one Church, one Body. When you read Ephesians 4:1-6, you will find out that it is very dogmatic. Anyone who tries to change these scriptures is not of God. If we do not belong to the one Body, then we are not of God. We were not of God before we were of God. Therefore, if we find out that we are not of God, we only have to repent, and be of God. There are many bodies in the world, so what makes us so sure that we are in the right Body?

The church was captured by the Roman Catholic system, back in the second century. The Catholics took the church and they immediately created a hierarchy. That means that they had to reject the ministry that God had set up in the world. We call the ministry that God set up in the world divine order. The order that was set up by the church is called man’s order. Now, let’s look at the difference between divine order and man’s order. Divine order is in Ephesians 4:11. And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers. It says here pastors, but in my Bible, it is crossed out and it says the word shepherds and teachers as it is in the Greek original version. You know, the Word of God is correct, but the translations are not correct. So, the Spirit of God in the people of God will correct the translations of man. Amen.

Now, we don’t have the order of man in the Bible, but we can at least talk about it. In the Roman Catholic Church there is a Pope. The Bible says that we should not have a Pope. Let us turn to Matthew 20:20-26, Then came to him the mother of Zebedee’s children with her sons, worshiping him, and desiring a certain thing of him. 21 And he said unto her, What wilt thou? She saith unto him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom. 22 But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They say unto him, We are able. 23 And he saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with: but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father. 24 And when the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation against the two brethren. Here we see a rivalry begin to take place. They wanted position now. They were about to start church politics.

25 But Jesus called them unto him, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. The word dominion means having a big boss. So, it means that Jesus is saying that is a thing of the world. In the world you have the big boss and the little ones coming right down in the hierarchy position. 26 But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister. Those of you who are reading the King James Version of the Bible, if you have a pen on you, cross out the word minister and put servant. The Greek says diakonos (Strong’s Concordance #G1249) and it means servant. The minister is the man with the collar and the head of a church. In Latin, minister means servant, but the church changed it to mean the man who is the head of the church. And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your slave (Matthew 20:27). I am reading the Greek. It says doulos (Strong’s Concordance #G1401). Doulos could not be anything else but slave.

We can therefore see very clearly that God is saying you must not have a hierarchical system in the church. So, if you are going to take charge of a church, the first thing that you would have to do is to break God’s divine order that He has put in the church and put in your own order. I am saying this to you, brethren, because if you are subject to any other order but God’s order, you are not in the Body of Christ. God has His order established in the earth in spite of all this confusion that we have in church business.

(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, September 17, 2006, pg. 3-4)

Thought for today: It is necessary, especially at this time, for the people of God to find God’s order.

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Creeping Birds and Creeping Things

Posted in Spiritual Food, tagged , , , , on July 20, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Scripture reading: Leviticus 11:20-22

Let us look at Leviticus 11:20, “All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you.”

The analogy here is bringing to our notice the unnaturalness of a flying creature which cannot fly. This is the type of the Christian which should be spiritual, but is not. He cannot defy the law of gravity and rise above the earth, because of some defect in his nature. God says such a Christian is an abomination. In the category, we find all the carnal Christians who have a doctrine for their carnality, so that they say they are good and fine without any spiritual life. This includes those who say God is a spirit, yet they refuse to admit the infilling of the Holy Spirit, and deny the supernatural in their lives and behavior.

In verse 21, there is a qualification, and it would be good for us to take a note of this.

“Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth.”

Verse 22 names the locust, the bald locust, the beetle, the grasshopper after his kind.

These creeping, flying things show that there are those who are not able to stay aloft in God or in things of the Spirit, but we should not reject them, because these will be able to survive spiritually when they are absorbed into the body of Christ. The reference to the body of Christ is not a reference to a group or a church organization, but a body of people which have entered into Christ through death to self and death to sin, whom the Spirit of God has baptized into the body of Christ. This is NOT WATER BAPTISM, NOT THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST, but the immersion of the man into the mystical body of Christ, by the Holy Spirit.

All creeping things are a type of fleshly, carnal, unsaved man. Christians should not marry an unsaved person. Even in the different levels of Christianity, it is not the perfect will of God for marriages. We find that a sheep is a clean animal, but it does not have union with a cow, nor does the dove with the chicken. To have the perfect will of God, we must obey His orders in all things. Disobedient people will never know the right people to fellowship with, neither will they know the right doctrine, because you have to obey the will of the Father before you know the truth (John 7:16-17).

This does not mean that we cannot talk to sinners, and even love them, but it does mean that we are not to become one with them, but lead them unto Christ.

(Excerpt from The Pattern, pg. 103-104)

Thought for today: We are to talk to sinners, and even love them, however, we are not to become one with them, but lead them unto Christ.

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God’s Order: Spirit over Soul over Body

Posted in Christian Walk, tagged , , on February 27, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Scripture reading: Revelation 18:10-13

The soul of a man is the very personality of that individual. He has a spirit to lead his soul back to God. He has a body through which he expresses and manifests his soul. However, just like a person who lives in a house and becomes so involved with the house that it becomes his master and begins to drive him towards doing certain things, so also the soul can become the master of the man.

God set a spirit in man, and this spirit should bring man to God. When man receives the salvation of God, his soul is quickened and brought to life and his spirit is enlightened. The spirit begins to show the soul a great dimension of light and glory because the soul is now alive. As the living soul demands life from the spirit, the spirit will continue to pull life from God until the Holy Ghost comes and dwells in the man’s spirit.

Once a believer is baptized with the Holy Spirit, the power that comes forth from his spirit into his soul is great, bringing deliverance. He finds he cannot be discouraged easily because the power of God is so great that the life coming from the Father is enlivening his very soul. His thoughts and emotions are changed. There is an action within his emotions that will enable him to control them.

God has set the spirit over the soul over the body. One of the problems with humanity is that sometimes we get the order of God turned around; the body makes the demands and the soul goes along with it and shuts the spirit out. The Spirit is supposed to be in charge. When a man allows the Spirit of God to take a hold of his emotions and his mind, it means that his emotions begin to respond to God’s emotions. As this begins to happen, then the emotions of the man begin to be controlled and begin to die because he no longer is pleasing his emotions, but he is now pleasing God Himself. There is a control over his emotions that the man of God has, that the average person does not have.

After salvation, some people will give way to God and to His control more than others. Therefore, they will have more of what they need than the others although they are both Christians. It depends on how much you open up to the Spirit. If you can find a way to open up to God, then it means that your soul will be strengthened and enlivened.

In the soul there is another nature that we call the will. This nature is generally like an anchor to a ship. When a ship gets into harbor, the anchor is cast and hooked down onto the floor of the ocean (or the bay) and it holds the ship, so that it cannot be tossed to and fro. The ship will not drift but will remain at the spot where the anchor was cast. The will is an anchor to the soul. However, here lies a potential problem: if the will is anchored in the wrong place, then the soul is held in the wrong position. If the will is anchored in the right place, then the soul is held in a right position.

The next part of the soul is the desires, and the desires of man are something that are never the desires of God. Man always desires something else besides what God desires. When God allows you to receive what you desire, very often, it is only God’s way of allowing you to a point, giving you enough rope in order to bring you around to show you how bad your desires were. If ever we desire the same thing as God desires, then it is God’s desire and not our desire by which we are going, because in man dwelleth no good thing, except when the Holy Ghost comes in. Every good thing in man is of God.

(Excerpt from The Book of Revelation, Volume 2, pages 198-199)

Thought for today: God set a spirit in man, and this spirit should bring man to God.

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