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Posts Tagged ‘Obey’

The Four Basic Beast Natures of Man

Posted in Overcoming, tagged , , , , on June 28, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Scripture reading: Ezekiel 1: 4-12 

THE SOUL OF MAN HAS FOUR BASIC BEAST NATURES. The mind is symbolized by the eagle, always flying, restless. The emotions are symbolized by the lion, terrible. The will is symbolized by the ox, stubborn. The face of the man is a symbol of the desires, human. Man is a creature of desire. A change must come forth in man’s soul.

JESUS CAME AND DIED TO SAVE MAN’S SOUL. Jesus did not die to save your spirit. Your spirit goes back to God in any event. Your spirit did not need to be saved. You were born in sin and your soul was in iniquity. IT IS THE SOUL AREA THAT NEEDS TO BE SAVED. See Hebrews 10:39.

The nature of the mind is joined to the nature of the emotions. The nature of the emotions is joined to the nature of the will. The nature of the will is joined to the desires. Whatever part of this nature is affected by any circumstance or outside influence then it will affect the other natures. A man gets upset in his emotions and it changes his thinking. He thinks differently. His thinking becomes intoxicated by the madness of his emotions. His will is then changed. Instead of having a will to do probably the right thing, he sometimes finds himself willing to do the wrong thing.

The mind, or the eagle, had a face of the man on one side (desires), the face of the ox on the other side (will), and the face of the lion on the other side (emotions). The mind then has a will of its own, desires of its own, and emotions of its own. There could be an emotional charge coming from the mind. The way you think about things could affect your emotions. This emotional charge comes from the mind and strikes the emotions and the emotions, being stronger, pick it up and affect the will and the whole being of the man. Thus God gave us a spirit, without which we would be just like the brute beast. The spirit, therefore, affects the whole process, to bring some temperance and some moderation to it. If they (the mind, the will, the desires, the emotions) will accept the pleading of the Spirit of God or the moving of the Spirit then this area will be changed to do God’s will. God comes through the spirit of man. “The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly,” Proverbs 20:27.

The mind of man can be influenced by outside influences. Therefore, God plants the Holy Spirit into man’s spirit which has a stronger effect upon the soul nature of the man than any other outside spirit. After a man is saved and brought back from the dead (he was a dead soul and became a living soul), he wants life. A living creature must have living food so he cries out to God and God sends the Holy Spirit into his spirit. HIS SPIRIT MEETS OUR SPIRIT and testifies that we are the children of God. We BECOME THE SONS of God WHEN WE OBEY the Spirit of God (see Romans 8:14). The Holy Spirit, therefore, begins to charge the human spirit which becomes bright, and sends this radiation of power into the natures of the soul.

This soul area is a most complicated area because it has the bombardment of the world, the flesh, and the devil. There is a certain amount of bombardment of influence that comes through a man’s physical, carnal feelings. This is why Satan said in talking to God about Job, in Job 2:4 and 5, “Skin for skin…and he will curse thee to thy face.” In other words, Satan thought if God would let him work Job over (touch his skin, his flesh), then Job would curse God. GOD knew better. God had a relationship with the man. Job was not baptized with the Holy Ghost, but God knew Job had a character like a stone wall. Job was going to hold on. God said to Satan, “Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life.” Job was hit by the devil. His children were killed, his cattle were stolen away, his sheep burnt up, his wife turned against him, and he was covered with sores. For three years the man lay on his side in sores and God watched him. Job was down and God withdrew from him that the man might stand alone. JOB STOOD AGAINST SATAN, BEAT HIM AT HIS GAME, and won a victory for all times for humanity IN THE NAME OF GOD, without much help or much strength.

The soul, therefore, is bombarded from the body – from the mind, from the will, from the emotions, and from the desires. God plants life in the soul to overcome death. John 1:5, “And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” The translation of the verb “comprehended” is a little bit weak. It could say “the darkness could not overcome, or overthrow, or have the victory over light.” Light shines in the darkness and the darkness flees. The soul has these four areas from which it is bombarded, but the chief area is the mind. If the mind is won for Christ, then it will radiate power and actually stop the bombardment from the other areas.

(Excerpt from The Book of Revelation, Volume 1, pg. 77-78)

Thought for today: Are you (your soul) accepting the pleading of the spirit of God in order to be changed?

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What Do You Get Blessed of God for?

Posted in Christian Walk, tagged , , , , on June 21, 2011| 1 Comment »

Scripture reading: I Corinthians 3:6-15

Let us look at another important subject. This time it is “works.” All the men that have the big works, the big hospitals, the big colleges, the big churches with thousands and thousands of members – they will be getting all the crowns from God because they are ministering to millions of people. There will be hardly any crowns left for the poor us, right? You can look, for example, at the 700 Club which has a viewing of many millions of people. So, it would be difficult for any of us to get any of these crowns if all the brothers that have all this equipment can send their voices over the whole earth and reach so many people.

But that is not true!

Do you know a secret? You only get blessed of God for what God tells you to do. Isn’t that terrible? You go to all the trouble, brother, to have a school to teach Christians; you bring up ministers and send them out to preach; you do this, you do that, you do the other, and you get paid for nothing. Unless God told you to do it – you are a loser. Oh my, God it is terrible! When you think of it, it is really terrible.

Here comes a man who says, “Lord, I have got a million souls in heaven.” God replies, “…Wood, hay, stubble” (I Corinthians 3:12).

On the other hand, here is a little old lady, a sister that is burdened with the housework. All she can do is pray. She has no time to go out and win souls. She has no time to do this, to do that, or to do the other. The only thing she has is her little time to pray. When God calls her to pray, she goes in to pray humbly.

God says, “Gold, silver, precious stones…” (I Corinthians 3:12).

Don’t you see where God brings the equilibrium, where He balances out the whole deal? Unless God tells you to do it, your work is in vain.

God may tell you, “Sister, sweep the floor. I want you to sweep the floor.” And you get your broom, go down, sweep up, and mop up everything. God says, “Gold.”

But God goes and tells the other man, “Travel across the United States to Los Angeles and preach to a thousand (or ten thousand) people.” The man gets the same pay as you do for sweeping the floor. For God is paying you for obedience.

God tells somebody else, “Go and stand in the street over there.” The person stands out in the street corner. He doesn’t see anything, he doesn’t hear anything, and he doesn’t do anything. But lo and behold, God says, “Gold.” He went there because God told him to do so. Because of his obedience, God had His spirits out there doing what they had to do in order to build His Kingdom with one man standing in that particular place.

Don’t you understand that this is like an army with a General directing His troops? The troops don’t know where they are going; they are not seeing what is going on out there. The troops only know that they are being directed by somebody who is seeing the battle and knows what is best to do.

(Excerpt from The Contract with God, an audio message #1983-03-06)

Thought for today: Obey God in what He tells you to do so that you may receive your crown of glory.

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The Manifestation of the Living Word

Posted in The Living Word, tagged , , , , , on May 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Scripture reading: John 15:1-11

“…and the Word was God.” The Word is still God. He is still walking among us and living with us; and every utterance of God is God whether spoken through the Christ within or the Christ without; it will create or destroy as God Himself.

The person of Jesus Christ is alive and living with us in our daily operations. He says in Matthew 28:20, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” 

In our salvation experience, it is not just the will of God to give us the Blood of Jesus and the attributes of Jesus Christ, but He is creating in us the person of Christ Himself. Even as Mary became pregnant with the Christ child, so it is that God is impregnating our womb (soul) with Christ Himself in order to take us out of the human and incorporate us into the divine. Some of my readers might have some difficulty with this, but I am not speaking to you of some grandiose theory, but lessons which have been taught me by the Lord and which I have experienced. There is a Living Word, “Christ,” which the believer is destined to receive within his soul before he can enter into Christ. The Holy Ghost does this work. Even as He planted the seed of Christ in Mary, so the process is being repeated in the church. The apostle Paul confirms this in one of his letters to the Galatian church. Had they not been in a spiritual position to understand this, he would not write it to them:

“My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you” (Galatians 4:19).

This speaks of the forming of Christ in the believer as a fetus is formed in the womb; as Jesus was formed in Mary. It would be safe to say that the church is pregnant at this moment. Revelation 12 speaks of the woman being pregnant and in travail to bring forth the man child. This man child is none other than the fullness of Christ as the head and the Church as His Body, which is destined to rule (shepherd) the earth with a shepherd’s staff of iron:

“And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule (shepherd) all nations with a rod of iron…” (Revelation 12:5).

This door is already open to us, but even as the tree of life was awesome to Adam, so that he did not eat of it when he could have done so, even so it is for us. The tree of life, which is Christ, is wide open to us at this time, but it is a dreadful and awesome place for us to enter. The Word in Genesis 3:24 says that an angel with a flaming sword was placed in the Garden to prevent man from returning into Eden:

“So he drove out the man: and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”

The flaming sword that bars the four entrances of the soul will destroy anything human and carnal which tries to enter. The burning at the altar of incense must be complete before we can enter through the veil. Note that the veil has cherubim all over it. This is a symbol of the cherubim in the Garden of Eden. Anyone who dares to enter in will lose his life. If you think I mean he will just die, you are sadly mistaken. I mean he will lose himself totally and immediately would be persecuted by his own. He would be dubbed as absolutely crazy and his goods and estate would be taken and shared up among his family and friends as if he were dead. We had a friend who was so touched of the Lord that he began to give away large sums of his vast riches to the church. A restraining order was brought against him by his son and he nearly got himself thrown into the asylum as being demented.

You may call it the travail of the church, the burning at the altar of incense, or the great tribulation. All of these names would suffice, but our souls must be stripped of the body of this death (human thinking, feeling, hoping, and desiring) before we can receive the full power of the life of the Divine God in the soul. At present this power is in our spirits and by various means He is bombarding us to make the life (or, the Christ) come forth in the soul. The Word says that tribulation worketh patience, but I know now that it is not just patience that it works, but every grace given us of the Spirit. It is the fire that is promised by the Holy Ghost as a baptism of fire, which burns the dross out of the silver and the gold. Upon feeling the slightest sickness or pain, we run to the doctor, and our terror is complete as we hang upon the word of the doctor for his diagnosis. We are afraid of fire; we are afraid that God might burn us to cinders. In our trust and confidence in God, let us trust Him to burn the dross out of us so that when the prince of this world comes, he will find nothing in us.

At this time, just before the end of time, the Lord has begun to bombard all the souls of His people at once. This is called the great tribulation, or the travail of the Church. This bombardment has been continuing for a number of years now and it is getting worse every year. Finally, even as the plagues of Egypt got worse and worse until the culmination of the death angel being loosed at midnight, so shall it be for the world and the Church. The Church is being given the power to overcome just as Israel was in Egypt. In Egypt, they overcame the death angel with obedience to the Word and the blood. At this midnight hour, we will be overcoming with the power of the Word and the Blood:

“And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death” (Revelation 12:11).

In concluding this part of the word, let me say that the Living Word, Jesus Christ, is in our midst, among us and within us; and when He speaks, it is the obedience to Him that brings the results. In the first miracle of Jesus after His baptism, Mary told the servants at the feast that whatsoever He tells them to do, they should do it. Jesus told them to fill the water pots with water. They did. Then He told them to take the water to the master of the feast as wine. The moment the word went forth from Jesus Christ and the men obeyed, the water became wine:

“If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you” (John 15:7).

Here is the formula for spiritual authority: 

1.  Abide, abide, abide in Jesus Christ.
2. Let the Word abide in you.

The Word in you as a living person and you in Christ as a living organism – when these come together in divine unison, then every agent of God and nature must obey, for it is the Word of God.

 (Excerpt from The Omega Message, December 1993, pg. 7-9)

Thought for today: The Living Word, Jesus Christ, is in our midst, among us and within us; and when He speaks, it is the obedience to Him that brings the results.

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Planting the Seed of Life

Posted in The Seed of Christ, tagged , , , , on May 11, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Scripture reading: Luke 1:26-38

The great work of the Holy Spirit is to plant the seed of life into the womb of the church, which is the soul of the believer. It is far more important to God to change the NATURE of the believer, than to endow him with power. No matter how much power the individual has, if he or she is not changed from within, God has not yet brought forth a SON. God wants to multiply, just as we want to multiply. It is within HIS DIVINE nature to bring forth children. This nature of God is expressed in everything He makes. The grass, the flowers, the trees, the birds, the animals; all things bring forth abundantly.

God’s order of bringing forth is the same everywhere. The scripture declares that everything brings forth after its own kind. Therefore, if we desire corn, we plant corn. If we must bring forth Christ in the earth, then we must plant Christ. What the ministry has been doing for hundreds of years is planting themselves in people and expecting to bring forth Christ.

God’s divine order is revealed in Luke 1:28, 30-33. God first sent the angel Gabriel to Mary with a message. This message of the angel was absolutely positive. He skipped 2,000 years in one sentence to bring all the good news concerning Jesus. Not a negative note – nothing was mentioned of the death and suffering. The intention was clear to bring faith in Mary to receive the Holy Ghost and the work He should do within her. Mary cried, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word (Luke 1:38). The angel left. His work was done.

The minister of the gospel is the angel, the messenger who carries the word of the Lord to the maiden, the church. The church is not the wife of the minister. The minister is not the husband of the church, he is the husbandman; he is not planting his own seed, but the seed of the word to invoke faith in the maiden. When the faith is invoked in her, then she receives the Holy Ghost. He it is that plants the seed of the Christ within the soul, which is the womb of the church. The overshadowing of the Holy Ghost is the overshadowing which is necessary to bring forth the change of the human nature to that of the divine nature.

This obedient nature can only be planted within man when he obeys the Spirit of the Lord. John 14:23 shows this plainly. In verse 22, Judas, not Iscariot, asks the Lord a most pertinent and direct question:

Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? 23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

This shows that the coming of the Christ is first within the believer, BUT only the believer who obeys the Holy Ghost.

The further explanations here show that every man who loves God keeps His sayings. The ministries and believers who go about freely expressing their love for God, yet continue to “do their own thing,” are only deceiving themselves that they love God. In short, love is obedience.

We can see here that no amount of effort or labor on the part of any son of God can bring him into the NATURE OF GOD. Only obedience to the Spirit will allow him to plant the CHRIST SEED within the soul, which will change the soul nature to God-nature, the mind to the mind of Christ, the emotions to the emotions of God, the will to the will of the Father, and the desires to the desires of God. This work, when it is completed, will bring forth a change from mortal to immortal.

(Excerpt from The Pattern, pg. 109-110)

Thought for today: It is the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit that one needs so that his/her soul may be changed into the nature of Christ.

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