LOVE

A voice calling out in the wilderness
"Prepare the way of the Lord"

Love is the way
The fire of Lord goes before Him
The hills melting like wax
At His presence

The Glory of the Lord
is His all consuming love
Why do we run?

Instead cry out
Fall on us fire of God
Spirit of God
Melt our hearts
Make straight the path

Destroy all the lies
that stand in opposition
Flow river of fire
From your throne
So Poor
So Pour

Burn our hearts
Kindle the flame
Dross removed
By the fire of Your love

Burdenlifter

Satan, our spiritual adversary, has a ministry. I think that it would be best described as a 'ministry of condemnation'. He seems to take pleasure in administering condemnation to us folk who just like to rest in the love and graciousness of God.

Jesus isn't out to condemn us. He's out to save us from ourselves, right? So, Jesus isn't about to condemn us for anything. In fact, it is written that all things become brand new in Christ. So, if everything is given over to him - all our stupidity, all our sin, all our failings, then they aren't ours anymore. That makes sense to me at the moment. However, Satan would have us believe that we can't give everything to Jesus, that we can't hand over our guilt, our mistakes, etc.

That would be old Satan, the liar, deceiver, destroyer. . .
So, I guess all that I am trying to say here is that it is true that 'all things are possible with God'. So, there is hope no matter how much we do what is wrong etc. It's not on us anymore. It's on Jesus Christ. We give it all to him, because we are hopeless in our own strength. And that encourages me when I realize this. It is too easy to forget and take on all the burdens that Jesus had taken for us. That's what His shed blood has done for us. . .

Believe

It is refreshing to hear what David says in one of His Psalms for he reminds me not to lean on my own understanding or strength:

“You are my King oh God! Through you we will push down our enemies, through Your name we will trample on those who rise up against us. For I shall not trust in my bow. Nor shall my sword save me.”

It's so simple! Just believe! In Christ. In what Christ has done. He told us it is finished. He has overcome the evil one. As I just read, ‘That which is overcome has no more power.’ Do we believe that Jesus Christ overcame our sins and the evil one by shedding his blood on our behalf? Unbelief denies the power and truth of God. Christ never denied. God cannot deny Himself. That's how He created! He spoke creation into existence, because HE never doubted Himself. That's why He calls Himself I Am. That's why if we had faith the size of a mustard seed we could speak and send a mountain into the sea. The name of Jesus! All we are called to do is believe. Belief works! How do we believe? By acknowledging that what Christ did on the cross paid for our sins and overcame the evil one. By not going with the deception and denying that God is and can do anything! Unbelief is of the world! We must recognize Who God is and what He has done. Our own ways are unbelief because our ways deny God! Apathy denies God, therefore in that we deny Him. Selfish ambition and lust denies Him, therefore when we move in that we deny Him. His will is perfect. His will is that we believe in Him. Belief moves mountains! There is no such thing as faith without works because faith in itself is that which works. That's why we cannot question the Lord. He is unquestionable. That is why we cannot lean on our own understanding. He is the peace that passes our understanding. We just believe as we move one foot or 5,000 miles. We look to Him, knowing that Christ has filled all things! That the enemy is defeated! That Christ is the end of the law! We look to the things unseen for the things seen were created by that which was unseen!

Isn't that incredible! I am only beginning to truly believe.

Oh, consider this! Abraham took Isaac and was ready to sacrifice him cause the Lord told Him to. Nowhere does it say that Abraham had any worry concern or sadness about sacrificing Isaac. Now why would he worry if He had faith in God and God could easily raise Isaac from the dead? That's how we are to move! There is no fear or worry in trusting God. God keeps His promises. He can't do anything else, but keep His word - WORD - He has spoken through Christ. Christ is the AUTHOR and FINISHER of our faith. 'Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words alone will remain'. In Him we live and move. . . Remember the song 'The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run into it and they are saved'. The name of the Lord!

The Lord has nothing to do with our own understanding। That's why we could study the bible all day long and know nothing! Love your neighbour. Move out in the power of Jesus name, with His authority and shatter the obstacles! Sometimes shattering those obstacles might cause pain. Especially if that obstacle was apathy. Shatter the walls of religion at that place! Shatter the mountains of intellect and leaning on their own understanding. Make the path straight and lead others to the eternal water. We don't point the finger or condemn. We say 'Here let me show you a better way, let me remove that hindrance, that ignorance which causes fear and blindness, so that you might see and know the power of the love of the Risen Lord! We have all authority in His name to do that. We rely on Him alone!

Dan was sharing with me the part in ‘The Call’ about praising our Father in the midst of adversity, for that is what gives Him such joy. I read it this morning and I nearly wept. That is faith in the greatest sense of the meaning. That's where we truly please the Lord. It's definitely not the easiest, but that would be the refining fire now, would it not!? We recognize that we have nowhere else to go and we praise Him for we recognize it as such and therefore run to him. Oh, how I long to be so burnt as gold, that in it's purest form it is as clear as glass and stronger than anything. And, as a result of that longing I am confronted with my petty ways, my selfishness and all He asks us to do is to look to Him, not ourselves. We have nothing to justify! It's been finished for us. We move forward. And it is not without wounds of all sorts. The pain can be phenomenal. But just to stand on the truth in the midst of adversity, as Daniel did. Knowing that there is nothing that can come against us in Jesus Christ! There is no safer place to be.

Revelatiom

Gal 1:11 Now I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel preached by me is not of human origin।
Gal 1:12 For I did not receive it from a human being, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ।

Is Jesus Enough?

Is Jesus Enough?

Is His Blood enough? Is what He did on the cross enough to cover us? Or do we need to throw in some good works as well? Who do we think we are?! The issue here is not so much lack of repentances as it is knowing what to repent from. What is our focus here? The blood of Jesus or ourselves? The fact is we need to know what Jesus has done. And it seems that in order to know what Jesus has done we need to know that we need what He has done. Now, it appears that it is the arrogance of man that stands in the way of receiving the FINISHED power of the cross. All these “sins” that we are being told to repent from are merely symptoms of a condition. If we focus on “repenting “ from these sins without having a revelation of our condition of self we will merely enter into the stage of self righteousness. And it seems the majority of conservative and charismatic churchgoers are moving under the burden of self-righteousness, not to mention many other burdens. Why is it that we keep trying to put people who have apparently repented and believed in Jesus back under the law? Did Christ die for us so that we could become “good” people: do the right things, say the right things etc. No. That is merely an external thing. He looks to the heart. He is looking for people who seek hard after Him, who long for fellowship with Him, who know they are nothing without Him.

Just as it was in the garden when He told Adam and Eve the results of their disobedience. Just as it was when he gave the law through Moses, stating the results that their disobedience would incur. Those results were merely cause and effect. The fact was Adam and Eve could no longer have access to the tree of life because their eyes had been opened and they were now partaking of the fruits of disobedience. Had they had access to the Tree of Life in that State, it would have kept them in that state forever. So, they had to be cast out of the garden. That was the result. It wasn’t as though God was yelling at them after they had eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. No, He was merely stating the consequences of their actions.

I can’t do it.

And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.


I can’t do it.
I can’t do it.
I can’t do it.
I cannot do it.
I just can’t.
I am not able.
No, I can not.
Who thinks that they can do it?
Who has the arrogance to think that they can do it.
Tell me the man who thinks He can do anything.
Nonsense!
We are deceived!
We think we can do it!
We think that we are the “one”.
I cannot change my heart.
Tell me the man who can.
I can’t
I cannot do it!
I am not the propitiation!
I am not the sinless one.
I am helpless.Within my self there is no good thing and I can NOT change my heart!
I am not able.
I cannot overcome sin.
I am useless.
There is no way that I can do anything good.

I am not my own. I have been bought with a price.
I am not my own.

IT IS FINISHED ENOUGH IT HAS BEEN DONE FOR US

You cannot do it

You thought you could do it.

WE so often think we can do it. Who has bewitched us?

That is the lie, the deception, that which has ensnared the world.

So, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of the fruit and ate. Ensnared.

Self Denial

Deny your self
Self denial is not so much an action as it is the realization that our self is actually deceived and our self can do nothing. Only Christ. Christ and Christ alone. Do not deny Christ. Deny your self. No flesh can glory.

FREE!

A few years ago, while I was attending a Missions College, the Lord began burning on my heart the desire to KNOW Him, not just about Him. I also really wanted to know what Jesus had really done on the cross. I knew my sins were forgiven, but I knew there was far more to that than I had yet come across. Of course I was taking all sorts of bible classes and I was attaining much knowledge, but it was intellectual and I just was not satisfied. I was just being taught someone elses “theology”, someone elses “experience” with the Living God. There was such a hunger burning in me and yet I thought that I would never be able to attain what I desired. Soon a verse started coming into my head that I could not get away from: ‘Lean not on your own understanding’.

A few months passed and I found myself just being completely honest with a friend and admitting that my motives, a lot of the time, were not pure. A few days after that I went out to coffee with a couple friends who I’d just begun to get to know at the College. We ended up at a Denny’s like restaurant called Embers. It was midnight and there were prostitutes and transvestites and drunkards all around us. And in that place my friend Dan was sharing something that the Lord had shown a few of them a few days ago. It was a picture of what Jesus had done on the cross. But it was a picture I had never seen before.

It was a picture of an endless tunnel of light that shot through the universe. And that Tunnel was Jesus, what He had done on the cross when He cried out, ‘It is Finished’. It was a tunnel of light that had no beginning and no end. And what made up the tunnel was righteousness, holiness, sinlessness. . . And we saw that when we put our faith in Jesus we were instantly transferred into this tunnel and immersed in it. We became part of that tunnel. And we partook of every aspect of that tunnel, every aspect of Jesus and what He had done FOR us.
I saw (truly saw – not intellectually) that I was totally Holy, totally pure, totally righteous only because of what Jesus had done FOR me. That I was FREE! Free from my self. Free, free, free. . . Free from striving to be sinless and holy and righteous in my own effort.

They overcame him (adversary) by the blood of the Lamb.

They overcame him (adversary) by the blood of the Lamb.

By what did they overcome the adversary?

The Blood of the Lamb.

Why the blood of the Lamb?

How does the Blood of the Lamb overcome the adversary?

What did the Lamb do?

Took away the sins through a sacrifice of shed blood.

Life given up to take on the sins of the world.

So, the taking away of sins is how the adversary is overcome.

Think about that for a minute.

Why would the adversary be overcome, overwhelmed, crushed, engulfed, overpowered, prostrated, devastated, staggered, confounded, by the sacrifice of the Lamb?

Because the sin is taken away, covered, removed, gone, sin is no more.

Thus the power of the adversary must lie in the sin of mankind.

If the sin has been taken away, then the adversary would be stripped of his power.

“Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”

Our sin has been removed from us as far as the East is from the West.

It has been taken away

We have boldness to enter the Holy of Holies because of the blood of the Lamb.

We are sinless because of the Lamb of God who has removed the sin from us.

We are cleansed from sin. We are clean and free from sin.

The adversary has nothing against us.

Our faith does not rely on ourselves, on our efforts, on our goodness, on our ability to feel victorious.

Our faith relies only on what Christ has done: taken away the sin of the world.

Our faith lies in Jesus Christ and we testify alone of the shed blood of Jesus.

That is why Jesus Christ is the author and finisher of our faith.

A living testimony of those who believe in the power of the blood of Jesus Christ: true prophecy.

This is it! All we need to know is Christ and His death that took our sins away!




And I heard a great voice saying in Heaven, Now has come the salvation and power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ. For the accuser of our brothers is cast down, who accused them before our God day and night.
Rev 12:11 And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony. And they did not love their soul until death.


The Deceiver

We heard a story from a friend of ours the other night about a type of snake that they have in Ontario. He thinks that it might be called a ‘mud’ snake. Anyway, if you were to tread anywhere near the snake it would quickly rise up off the ground and blow up its face just like a cobra would. Upon seeing it most anyone would assume it was a cobra and quickly make their escape. Now, if you had been forewarned about this particular snake, you would have been informed that this snake actually had no venom, that it was completely harmless, and it’s whole rising and face blowing up was just a façade and nothing more. The fact is, is that if you were to continue to come closer to the snake it would fall down to the ground and play dead. It appears dangerous, but it is actually completely harmless.