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Posts Tagged ‘Spirit of Man’

Beginning Created to Match the End

Posted in Christian Walk, tagged , , , on December 26, 2022| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Genesis 1:26-31

Many times I ask God, why He made us spirit, soul, and body. If we were just a spirit, then we would be all right, we would be perfect. If we were just a soul, then we would be like animals, we would have no use but to eat, drink, be merry, and die. If we were all body, it would be the same. God, however, said that He made us after His image, and He is making us in His likeness. That means, we were made and we are being made. We are not yet completed.

The one marvelous and wonderful thing about God that we can rejoice in is that God sees the beginning and the end together. He actually creates the end before He creates the beginning. That is, the result that He wants here, He creates a beginning to match the end. So, looking at your whole life, God has the beginning and the end right before Him, and He is looking at it! God knows where all of us are going to end up, and yet, because He is God, He still ministers to us; and He gives us the opportunity to change our course and change our lives, change our ending, although He knows what we are going to do. That is crazy (but wonderful), isn’t it?

Therefore, we are dealing with a God Who knows us in a way that we do not know ourselves, and He said that one day we will know as we are known (1 Corinthians 13:12). That is, we will know ourselves as He knows us.

He says that we are coming to a place spoken of in the book of Revelation as the “sea of glass.” Have you ever wondered what the sea of glass is in the tabernacle, or the temple? We are coming to the sea of glass wherein there will be nothing hid. Where, if you are at the bottom, you can look right through to the top! We will be able to see all through each other!

I think of Jesus, and as I think of Him, my heart goes out to Him as a man. He must have really suffered! Do you know that? Imagine, He is talking to a person and He sees what is in the person’s mind. He can see that the man is talking to Him one thing with his mouth, but his mind is saying another thing! Jesus had to bear it. Praise God. You talk about bearing our infirmities!

We go to pray, “Oh God! Help us please, Lord God…” and then we go to sleep, or other things begin to come across our mind. He sees all kinds of trash coming across the mind. He is preaching the Word to people, and while He is preaching the Word, they are saying, “Yes, yes! Amen!” Yet, their minds are saying, “I forgot the pot on the fire at home.”

God showed me that the men He has called are prone to distractions and to being turned off track because of the various cross influences that are like waves of the sea washing over them night and day. Can you see the fragility? Can you see how fragile we are in the presence of a God who knows all things? Then I went and said, “Thank you, God! Thank you that You did not tell me what tomorrow will be. Thank you that I am foolish and do not know what next year is going to bring, because I would start suffering from this year for the suffering of next year! I would start suffering today for the suffering of tomorrow! But, today I am glad because I am ignorant.”

God is glad, not because of tomorrow, but because of the end. When God made Adam, He said, “It is good!” (Genesis 1:31). He looked at him and His heart rejoiced, “This Adam is good!” He made him good. He knew that the man was going to fall the next day, but He did not tell Adam. He was just being good with him, and Adam was rejoicing and being good. Do you know why God rejoiced at the goodness of Adam? He rejoiced because He saw the Adam at the beginning and He saw the Adam at the end, and there was an improvement. So He said, “It is good!” He did not care too much about what happened in between, for the Adam that God made is good.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, July 2000, pg. 26-27)

Thought for today: Let us remember that God continues to ministers to us and give us the opportunity to change our course and change our lives, change our ending. Let us make use of this opportunity and reach the end that He has in mind for us.

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Likened unto Ten Virgins – Part 1

Posted in Christian Walk, tagged , , , , , on April 5, 2022| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Matthew 25:1-7

Let us go to Matthew 25 today. Starting in verse 1, Jesus said, “Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins.” I want you to keep in mind that the kingdom of heaven is talking about where we live now. It is talking about where we live! And the kingdom of heaven is likened unto ten virgins. But there is a problem we have. Five of the virgins were wise, and five were foolish. Why five? Couldn’t it be three wise and seven foolish, or six and four? Why did Jesus say five wise and five foolish? Because your Bible is written in such a way that you are not supposed to make any mistakes in understanding what God means. Five is the number of grace, five is the number of ministry and God is saying there is a wise ministry and there is a foolish ministry. Now, you have to make up your mind as to where you are going to be. Are you going to be listening to the wise ministry or to the foolish ministry? The foolish ministry are leading people into a certain direction. The wise ministry are leading people in another direction. You have to decide which direction is the one in which God is leading you. Amen.

It says “virgins.” The word “virgins” in scripture means “Christians.” So, although you are born again, although you are saved, you can be foolish. I mean, I am born again, I am saved, I have done so many foolish things in my life that it is a good thing God didn’t make feet that you can kick yourself! I would be kicking myself! So, you can be foolish, and you can be foolish in a spiritual sense. You know, it is all well and good if you are foolish in the natural, waste money and do things wrong in the natural sometimes. But God is saying that these virgins, these Christians, were foolish in a spiritual way. He was telling us the meaning of foolish. He said in Matthew 25:7 that the virgins took their lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom. Now, you cannot meet the bridegroom without your lamp shining bright. Your lamp must be bright and burning in order to meet the bridegroom. Do you know what your lamp means then? It means your spiritual life.

I am going to explain something to you that you probably never heard before. When we sit in a meeting and a spirit comes in, he looks at us and sees each person’s lamp burning bright or burning dull, burning faint. If he wants someone to tempt, he would be able to go to the one whose lamp looked dullest. So when Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like virgins with lamps,” he meant virgins with lamps, naturally. Spiritually the lamps are there, only we don’t see them with our eyes.

Now, the scripture describes what the lamp is. The spirit of man is the lamp of God, working in the soul (Proverbs 20:27). Do you remember that? The spirit of man is the lamp of God, working in the soul. So what God is saying is that some peoples’ lamps are bright and burning and some peoples’ lamps are running out of oil. Remember now, we are coming towards midnight. We are coming towards midnight. I’m saying to you, midnight is just down the road. I cannot tell you an exact time when midnight will be, because things seem to be progressing much faster than I even thought. Therefore it is not for us to even guess when the midnight will be, but it is for us to be prepared!

(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, April 28, 2002)

Thought for today: The foolish ministry are leading people into a certain direction. The wise ministry are leading people in another direction. You have to decide which direction is the one in which God is leading you.

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God’s Order: Spirit over Soul over Body

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

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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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The Secret Coming of Jesus Christ

Posted in Time of the End, tagged , , , , , on July 29, 2021| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Revelation 16:15

Revelation 16:15 is another one of the warnings that there is going to be a secret coming of Jesus Christ. He will come secretly without fanfare, without noise, quietly, and many men will not know. As a matter of fact, some of the Christians today will not know that Jesus comes because He is coming to a prepared people at a special time.

Remember the parable of the wise and the foolish virgins? The bridegroom came and the foolish did not see him because they were gone to seek oil. May God help us to be part of that bride class so that we will be ready and waiting for the bridegroom, having oil at midnight. The oil represents the Holy Spirit, and the wise had oil in TWO PLACES. One place was in the vessel, and the other place was in the lamp. The vessel replenishes the lamp. The vessel is the SOUL (Acts 9:15), and the lamp is the SPIRIT OF MAN. Proverbs 20:27, “The spirit of man is the candle (lamp) of the LORD…”

The thief-in-the-night coming of Jesus is well established in Scripture that it is going to be a secret coming. There are also many scriptures that say He is coming, “and every eye shall see him,” Revelation 1:7. There is no way that He could come secretly, “and every eye (shall) see him.” These are two separate things. He is coming in the church, to the church, inside of humanity, to fill those who are prepared with His presence. That is why Jesus taught His disciples to pray, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” The will of God will be done in my earth, and in your earth, before it is done in the earth outside. Jesus is speaking of this secret coming, when He will be coming in the believers, in those who are ready, in the wise virgins.

“Lest he walk naked, and they see his shame” means on that day many Christians will be ashamed of the doctrines they preach. One of these doctrines is definitely the rapture doctrine – that we are going to fly away. God wants us to overcome the world here. We cannot fly away and at the same time overcome. We must overcome at the darkest part of time. This is what God is training us for – TO OVERCOME EVERYTHING. First of all, we are to overcome the sin that is within us, the devil that is within us, to cast him out completely, to overcome the flesh, to overcome the mind, the emotions, the will, and the desires. We must be an overcomer, then we will begin to overcome the devil himself, until finally we will overcome death.

(Excerpt from The Book of Revelation, Volume 2, pages 110-111)

Thought for today: Jesus is speaking of a secret coming, when He will be coming in the believers, to those who are ready.

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Beginning Created to Match the End

Posted in Christian Walk, tagged , , , on March 24, 2021| Leave a Comment »

[Printable version]

Scripture reading: Genesis 1:26-31

Many times I ask God, why He made us spirit, soul, and body. If we were just a spirit, then we would be all right, we would be perfect. If we were just a soul, then we would be like animals, we would have no use but to eat, drink, be merry, and die. If we were all body, it would be the same. God, however, said that He made us after His image, and He is making us in His likeness. That means, we were made and we are being made. We are not yet completed.

The one marvelous and wonderful thing about God that we can rejoice in is that God sees the beginning and the end together. He actually creates the end before He creates the beginning. That is, the result that He wants here, He creates a beginning to match the end. So, looking at your whole life, God has the beginning and the end right before Him, and He is looking at it! God knows where all of us are going to end up, and yet, because He is God, He still ministers to us; and He gives us the opportunity to change our course and change our lives, change our ending, although He knows what we are going to do. That is crazy (but wonderful), isn’t it?

Therefore, we are dealing with a God Who knows us in a way that we do not know ourselves, and He said that one day we will know as we are known (1 Corinthians 13:12). That is, we will know ourselves as He knows us.

He says that we are coming to a place spoken of in the book of Revelation as the “sea of glass.” Have you ever wondered what the sea of glass is in the tabernacle, or the temple? We are coming to the sea of glass wherein there will be nothing hid. Where, if you are at the bottom, you can look right through to the top! We will be able to see all through each other!

I think of Jesus, and as I think of Him, my heart goes out to Him as a man. He must have really suffered! Do you know that? Imagine, He is talking to a person and He sees what is in the person’s mind. He can see that the man is talking to Him one thing with his mouth, but his mind is saying another thing! Jesus had to bear it. Praise God. You talk about bearing our infirmities!

We go to pray, “Oh God! Help us please, Lord God…” and then we go to sleep, or other things begin to come across our mind. He sees all kinds of trash coming across the mind. He is preaching the Word to people, and while He is preaching the Word, they are saying, “Yes, yes! Amen!” Yet, their minds are saying, “I forgot the pot on the fire at home.”

God showed me that the men He has called are prone to distractions and to being turned off track because of the various cross influences that are like waves of the sea washing over them night and day. Can you see the fragility? Can you see how fragile we are in the presence of a God who knows all things? Then I went and said, “Thank you, God! Thank you that You did not tell me what tomorrow will be. Thank you that I am foolish and do not know what next year is going to bring, because I would start suffering from this year for the suffering of next year! I would start suffering today for the suffering of tomorrow! But, today I am glad because I am ignorant.”

God is glad, not because of tomorrow, but because of the end. When God made Adam, He said, “It is good!” (Genesis 1:31). He looked at him and His heart rejoiced, “This Adam is good!” He made him good. He knew that the man was going to fall the next day, but He did not tell Adam. He was just being good with him, and Adam was rejoicing and being good. Do you know why God rejoiced at the goodness of Adam? He rejoiced because He saw the Adam at the beginning and He saw the Adam at the end, and there was an improvement. So He said, “It is good!” He did not care too much about what happened in between, for the Adam that God made is good.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, July 2000, pg. 26-27)

Thought for today: Let us remember that God continues to ministers to us and give us the opportunity to change our course and change our lives, change our ending. Let us make use of this opportunity and reach the end that He has in mind for us.

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