Gold Tried in the Fire: Book Four

GOLD TRIED IN THE FIRE: BOOK FOUR

Anyone who chooses to do so may use up to twenty-five of the proverbs in the Gold Tried volumes without notifying me. It is not necessary to attribute them to me.

Here are a few reflections after a long pilgrimage as a Christian. Hopefully they will help the young reader grow in wisdom and discernment. It is good to seek the wisdom and understanding that come from the Holy Spirit. God always is glad to reward us with wisdom and provides us generously with that which we ask for.

Foreword

Jewels of brilliant color and luster are formed by a process of time, pressure and heat. Precious metals such as gold and silver are made under similar circumstances.

Symbolic of virtue and character, these natural elements reflect the manner in which believers are transformed into obedient disciples, and over time into witnesses of the resurrection life of Jesus Christ.

The making of a saint is no small matter. As we respond correctly to the daily pressures of life, Christ is formed in us. If we choose to pick up our cross, lay down our life and follow the Master’s will, He transforms us into His image.

When we resist, forcing our own will and way, misinterpreting things meant for our good, we corrupt God’s purposes.

Edward J. Reiter
November 2013
Escondido, California

GOLD TRIED IN THE FIRE: BOOK FOUR

Religion makes proselytes. Divine Glory creates the Kingdom in people.

When we deny our fervent desires for Christ’s sake and the Gospel’s, we lay up treasures in Heaven. We shall receive back everything of true value many times over.

The Lord Jesus came to forgive people and transform them. The forgiveness apart from the transformation is useless, for the person will only sin again.

Being forgiven through the blood atonement, and being baptized with the Holy Spirit, are the tools we need to press into the program of salvation. The program of salvation consists of a daily putting to death our first personality and the emergence of a new Christ-filled personality.

The father of the prodigal is not going to permit his son to return home and then make everyone else miserable! Neither is God going to permit unrepentant believers to enter His righteous kingdom and destroy it.

To disobey God is unthinkable. Whoever chooses to disobey God loves confusion and pain.

There are no degrees of justification. We either are justified in God’s sight or we are not. But there certainly are degrees of sanctification. God justifies us when we place our faith in Jesus Christ. But then we have to follow the Holy Spirit in the work of sanctification, that is, the work of cleansing us from all that is unclean.

The question is: Once we have been justified, is it possible to lose our status in God’s sight? Once we have pleased God by faith, is it possible to displease God by our actions? The answer, according to the Scriptures, is yes. The only people who are eternally secure are those who are serving the Lord.

That which is born in us has neither beginning of days nor end of life.

If you would have love, joy, and peace, place everything in God’s hands.

We know so little, and God knows everything, it really is best to just trust His wisdom and goodness.

All that matters is the new creation. There is a place for evangelism, miracles, music, gifts of the Spirit, other religious experiences and activities. But in the end, all that matters is bringing forth in the individual the new creation of righteous behavior. All of the universe has been planned to this end.

We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, including angels and people. “Listen, O heavens, and I will speak; hear, O earth, the words of My mouth.” Rather than merely tell angels and people what is profitable and what is not, God is permitting them to watch the results of their words and actions as they are played out in the earth. Sometimes we observe the results now. Perhaps after we die we will be able to see the continuing results more clearly.

The tree of life bears twelve manner of fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, courage, obedience to God, and the knowledge of the Lord.

No person will ever experience true and lasting love, joy, and peace until he is in the center of God’s will for his life.

The grace of God in Christ is intended to make us more righteous, not less righteous, than the Law of Moses. Not by ascribed righteousness but by actual righteousness of behavior.

I am afraid that today we are emphasizing building churches when we ought to be building people. Hopefully God will cause this emphasis to change appropriately in the near future.

The world would have us believe that it is the aggressive, the cunning, the ones who are willing to run over other people, who succeed. But the Bible says the meek, the gentle will inherit the earth. Their strength is in the Lord, whom they trust implicitly for their welfare.

Our goal should be to please God. If we please God, we will please people. But if we attempt to please people, we will end up pleasing neither God nor people.

Christians are born at the right hand of God. Christians are formed in the wilderness of tribulation. We are given Christ at the beginning. Then we have to gain Christ.

Have you ever tried to imagine John the Baptist, or the Apostle Paul, jumping up and down in preparation for the “rapture”? Kind of ridiculous!

The great lie of current Christian teaching is that we can be saved and have fellowship with the Father and the Son, and yet behave wickedly because we have made a profession of belief in an orthodox Statement of Faith concerning Jesus Christ.

It is in the period between the vision and the fulfillment of the vision that the saints are made. Let patience have its perfect work in you.

If we truly believe in Christ our behavior will change.

How wonderful to pray through to contentment right now! We can imagine the future as we will. But we must never clutch what we imagine, because we do not really know what will bring us joy. We must press forward in faith that God is bringing us to perfect joy. Anything else is idolatrous and disastrous.

There is the state of holiness, and then there is the practice of holiness. God called out Israel from the nations to be holy to Himself. Yet, in many instances they were not holy in practice. The Tabernacle of the Congregation was holy, but the Tabernacle did not practice holiness.

God calls us to Himself to be a holy people. This places us in the state of holiness. Then the Holy Spirit guides us into actual holiness of behavior. God is holy. If we are to be in His image we must practice spiritually clean behavior in our thinking, our speech and our actions. The program of delivering us from spiritual filth is termed “sanctification.”

God Himself is our Law. He exercises His will through the Holy Spirit.

God cannot give the world the good things of which He is capable and desirous, because once the pain of people is lifted they turn immediately to sin.

When a Christian leader uses his gifts of life and light to call attention to himself, his life becomes death and his light becomes darkness.

The Gospel of the Kingdom is the best there is, and it keeps getting better!

Don’t confuse Jesus and religion. Religion is scaffolding. Jesus is the Kingdom of God.

Foolish talk is sin. Are the angels making clear sense of what you are saying?

If you are an unfaithful person, use money to make friends with unrighteous people. Then, when the riches of this world are no more, the unrighteous will welcome you into the eternal dwellings.

If at any point, you refuse to do the will of God you come under condemnation. Do God’s will at every moment. If you fall, get up and press on. God expects your best.

Redemption begins when Christ first comes to you, and ends when you stand full and complete in all the will of God.

When I ask the Lord what I should be doing, and He says “resting,” and I feel relief, then I know I am not ready to renew my workload.

I believe that “salt,” as used in the Scriptures, often speaks of single-minded devotion to God.

Religion may blind us to the truth. The Pharisees sneered in the presence of the One who gave the Law of Moses.

Righteousness is a matter of relationships.

It is a good idea to keep praising the Lord about everything. There are many little things that go right each day. Each one of these is an opportunity to praise the Lord. And in those times when it seems everything is going wrong, it is well if we pray for deliverance, and then ask the Lord to show us something to praise Him for.

The greatest honor of all is to be the friend of God. If we are to be the friend of God we must practice righteousness, holiness, and obedience to God. Faith in Jesus Christ is necessary for salvation. But faith in Christ is never a substitute for actual righteousness, holiness, and obedience to God.

The greatest gift of all is to be able to delight in righteousness, holiness, and obedience to God.

It is one matter to be married to religion. It is another matter to be married to the Lamb.

It is not that the world spirit merely includes lying; the world spirit itself is one huge lie. The Ten Commandments do not include “You shall not lie,” because to commit any of the prohibited acts is itself a lie. The world spirit is of antichrist and is the opposite of the Ten Commandments.

Someone asked me: “Why has God given us a brain if He does not expect us to use our brain to plan our life?” I answered: “God has given us a brain so we can understand His eternal moral law as well as His will for us personally; and a heart so we will delight in His law and His will.”

Someone said it is better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven. Perhaps this is why people today are pursuing liberty rather than righteousness.

Have we not made belief in Christ a substitute for righteous behavior? Have we not made the Word of God of no effect by our traditions? Can we deny that by doing so we have destroyed the Christian testimony?

To believe in Christ is to acknowledge the theological facts concerning Him. To have faith in Christ is to depend on Him utterly for every aspect of life. We are living in the Kingdom of God when we have true faith in Christ. The righteous live by faith.

Every true Christian is a Jew of the Seed of Abraham.

It is the burning desire itself that has the potential for triumph or destruction. It is the desire, not the object of the desire, that is the adversary.

Reality often reveals our hopes to be ashes; but the hopes that come from the Lord are fulfilled under the clear light of reality. “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”

The reason it is such a great honor to be the friend of God is that God is so utterly righteous.

All that God has made is good and useful, wise, created in love, filled with good fruit. Our problem is not with the things of the creation but with desiring something that is not God’s will for us. Sin is a shortcut to the fulfillment of our desires.

It does not please the Lord when we seek to use God to get money, or to use faith to get money. The practitioners of demon religions do this.

God wants us to seek the wisdom and power to behave righteously, holily, and obediently to God; and above all to seek the Presence of God Himself.

The purpose of the Christian religion is to change us from unrighteous to righteous behavior. When it does not do this, the Christian religion is destructive and the enemy of Jesus Christ.

God may have winked at the ignorance of the past, but now He is requiring that we keep the commandments of Christ and His Apostles.

The main thing is to practice righteousness. This message appears to be missing from the Gospel of our day. Yet it is the righteous behavior that comes from Jesus Christ through us that is the witness of God’s Person and will to the nations of the earth.

For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations. (Isaiah 61:11)

The Lord Jesus Christ came from Heaven to show us how to behave in a manner pleasing to God. He is going to come again so that through us He can fill the whole earth with the Presence and will of God.

Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. (Isaiah 2:3)

At the Last Supper, Jesus said He would not eat the Passover again “until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.” “I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” After this Christ spoke of the Passover bread as His body, and the cup as the new covenant in His blood.

There is an inner kingdom and an outer kingdom. Perhaps Christ was referring to His return when He sits at the great banqueting table and drinks wine with His saints in the outer kingdom of God. However, thinking in terms of His promise in the Book of Revelation, that if we would open the door He would come in and eat with us and we with Him, I wonder if He might also have been referring to the inner kingdom in our heart where we learn to live by eating the flesh of Christ and drinking His blood.

Those who act like Hell will go to Hell when they die. Those who act like Heaven will go to Heaven when they die. The worst lie ever told is that we can act like Hell and inherit Heaven by accepting Christ. The fruit of this doctrine is multitudes of Christians who reveal in themselves the nature of Satan.

The purpose of accepting Christ is to forgive us and then change our behavior from that which is of Hell to that which is of Heaven. You can tell a Christian’s destination by the way he behaves.

Because God in His mercy grants some sinner on his deathbed the gift of repentance and forgives his sin does not change the fact that the Hellish belong in Hell and the Heavenly belong in Heaven.

Prayer certainly includes asking God’s help in matters that concern us. But the primary purpose of prayer is to get us in harmony with God, so we are thinking, speaking, and doing what God desires of us.

Whoever is making the pursuit of money the goal of his life has the mark of Antichrist on his head and hand.

There is an uncrossable chasm between attempting to figure out what Christ wants, what help the Kingdom needs, and abiding in Christ. The first is the work of religion, and we are able to preserve our own will. The second, in which we reflect the desires of Christ, is the marriage of the Lamb. In this case, God’s will becomes our will.

The Kingdom of God and His righteousness exists when the thinking, speaking, and acting of the Father are reflected in the Lord Jesus Christ, and then through Jesus Christ are reflected in us.

Never interpret God’s patience to mean He is willing to accept sinful behavior.

True salvation occurs as we take up our cross of self-denial and follow Christ every moment of every day and night. This is how we show our love for Jesus, not by repeated statements that He is our Lord and Savior. Jesus wants to be our close friend, not a distant God concerning whom we make theological pronouncements.

When we think of aging, of growing older, we ordinarily are considering the decomposition of the body because of original sin. This is not true aging. True aging has to do with our knowledge of the Lord. It occurs as we are made aware of our sinful nature and exchange it for the Personality of Jesus Christ. There are people who are elderly in terms of the body but are children in terms of actual growth.

The expression “The Ancient of Days” does not indicate God has a wrinkled, weakened body. It means He has grown in wisdom and understanding. He is as “young” and powerful as ever. I think in the new world to come we can appear as young as we wish, but never older than we actually are.

Fools get paid in bitter currency. Therefore we should seek wisdom.

The words of James (if we consider his writing to be inspired text) are sufficient to reveal that those who insist on “faith alone” are deluded. Not only are they deluded, they are contributing to the moral decline of the Christian churches. For it is certain that in a demon-oppressed culture, such as that of the United States, England, Germany, and other Western nations, teaching that maintains righteous, holy behavior is desirable but not essential to our salvation will leave the believers vulnerable to the fiery passions of their demon-provoked sinful nature.

The eleventh chapter of the Book of Hebrews, the “faith chapter,” is a record of obedience to the revealed will of God. This chapter uses people of pre-Christian times to illustrate the saying of Habakkuk, “The righteous will live by his faith.” The fact that members of the pre-Christian elect are employed to show that the righteous live by faith proves that pleasing God by faith is not a unique feature of the new covenant.

God’s will is His determination to do what He knows to be right. Our will is our determination to do what we believe to be right, or what we believe to be wrong, or what we are not certain or have no opinion as to its rightness of wrongness. The person who desires love, joy, and peace will pray concerning every issue of life: “Not my will but Yours be done.”

If you always are there when the Lord calls, the Lord always will be there when you call.

God has given us a powerful sexual urge that in its primary or sublimated forms dominates most of life. To those who use this gift only in the will of God will be given the true riches. They will rule with Christ throughout the ages to come.

Pure, wholesome beauty is to be enjoyed, but never, never worshiped.

All God asks of any man is that he acknowledge his sin and foolishness, and ask God to help him improve.

It isn’t the things the Apostles did, their missionary methods, that we are to imitate. Ours is a new day. Rather it is their godly life, their patience in tribulation, and their obedience to the revealed will of God.

If you wait and hope for people to come to their senses and do the right thing, you may become disappointed and frustrated. Look to the Lord Jesus instead and He will give you wisdom how to proceed.

The Lord Jesus told us that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. But in order to gain this easy yoke and this light burden we have to take His yoke upon us and learn from Him. This is where the problem lies. We kick and jump around at the sight of the yoke, and we don’t want to learn from Him.

Ordinarily scrolls are to be read. God’s scrolls are to be eaten. Sometimes believers have only a head knowledge of God. The Word of God does not profit us until it reaches into our inward nature and reveals the holy demands of the Lord.

To trust God totally is to be in total peace.

I believe we need a greater vision of the power and authority of God. At the same time we need to diminish the emphasis we currently are placing on the power of Satan and the Antichrist.

It is God’s will that His saints think, speak, and act in the Spirit of God at all times. We ought always to pray to this end. Speaking in tongues is intended to be an entrance into this rest.

Man has a body, soul, spirit, and a will. His will is responsible to God for what it does with his body, soul, and spirit.

The only One whose opinion matters is God.

It may have been true in time past that God wanted to put His people in kind of a holding pattern until He was ready to release them from the chains of sin. I cannot say for certain because I was not alive then. All I know is that today the Holy Spirit is ready to release us from the bondages of sin, so the old teaching no longer is marching along with the Lord.

Holiness is what God Himself is. Righteousness is what God does. Righteousness is God’s response to each and every situation. Holiness will always act in a righteous manner. Sin is disobedience to God.

One human being who is walking with the Lord Jesus is worth more than all the religious instruction in the world, as far as benefiting God and man is concerned.

There is a payback time for everyone, depending on how he or she has treated the Lord Jesus. Some will receive incomprehensible riches, for they have given everything to Jesus. Some will receive indifference, just as they have treated the Lord. Some will receive fiery torment, for they have been wicked.

Faith is trust in the faithfulness of God, and includes both the fear of God and love for God. Faith always leads to obedience to God. Apart from obedience to God there is no genuine faith. It is impossible to have faith in God and not obey God; but it is possible to have no faith in God and obey God, although this is not satisfactory from God’s point of view who desires that His children love Him.

I asked the Lord what kind of faith are Christians referring to when they say they are saved by faith apart from works. The answer came quickly and in one word: “indulgence.” They believe God is indulgent, or lenient, toward His children. After reciting how every disobedience of the word spoken by angels received its just punishment, the Book of Hebrews asks: “How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?” We see therefore that the contemporary understanding of “faith” as indulgence on God’s part is unscriptural.

Because we conceive of grace as an alternative to growth in the image of Christ we are overemphasizing God’s mercy, viewing Him as indulgent. This attitude has removed the fear of the Lord from the Christian people in America. It is typically American to try to make God one of us. We will serve Him, perhaps, but on our own terms.

The newer translations appear to favor reverence over fear, or terror. This is because reverence keeps us in the saddle. Our self-will “chooses” to obey God. Reverence and fear are not the same emotion.

The fear of the Lord is delightful, wholesome, much to be desired and sought. To not have the fear of the Lord is to be lacking in wisdom. Our unwillingness to fear the Lord is a sure sign of our essentially rebellious nature.

To fear the Lord is to realize fully that the consequences of not accepting His will in place of our own are dreadful beyond our ability to cope. The Lord Jesus warned us to fear God, because God has the power to cast us into Hell. Therefore the fear of the Lord is based on reality.

“The angel of the Lord camps around those who fear Him and delivers them.” “Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name?” “Knowing the terror of the Lord we persuade men.” The right kind of fear brings us closer to God; it does not drive us away from God.

It is our typical American arrogance and rebellious attitude that hinders us from having a proper fear of the Lord.

Fear mixed with the right kind of love and understanding of God’s mercy always leads to joyous obedience.

God loves us when we tremble in His Presence. When we do not, He holds us afar off.

God redeems us in His love and in His pity. But we would rather rule in the cardboard shacks of Hell than serve in the courts of Heaven, as someone said.

Man is in rebellion against His Creator. Mankind yet shall shake its fist at God.

Alcohol is a substitute for the Holy Spirit.

Life is difficult enough. Without the Lord it is impossible.

In human thinking, the important aspect of Passover was the release of the Hebrew tribes from Egyptian slavery and their start toward the land of their inheritance. In God’s thinking it was not the release from Egypt but the lamb that was of primary significance; for the lamb speaks of Christ who is to come. Only Christ can bring true, eternal release to the Jews and Gentiles.

The Apostle Paul did not preach Divine grace as an alternative to righteous behavior but as an alternative to the Law of Moses.

When God sees we are determined to do what is right, He guides and strengthens us.

The purpose of the blood shed on the cross of Calvary is to forgive our sin and then cleanse our behavior; not to hide from God what we are doing!

It is God’s will that man not dwell alone in his body. The body of man is made to be the house, the booth, the tabernacle of God.

The “just shall live by faith” has nothing to do with belief in doctrine or a Statement of Faith. It has to do with obeying God and with surmounting life’s problems, doubts, and dreads by trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. “The just shall live by faith” means the righteous live in terms of a vision of God and of the future.

Christ did not come primarily to forgive us. He came to deliver us from the bondages of sin, to break the chains of Satan in our life.

“O God, cause me to reflect perfectly and completely your will, at all times, in my thinking, speaking, and acting. Make me the incarnation of your will.” Remove from me all that is not of you, and fill me with all that is of you. In Jesus’ name.”

God is creating us in His image that we may be His eternal dwelling place.

All that really matters in this present life is how you respond to your many trials, because you are being groomed for your true life, which will be in the next world.

Everything you have thought, said, and done, you will meet in the Day of Resurrection. It is best to get all questionable behavior taken care of now, by confessing your sins to the Lord as the Holy Spirit prompts you, and turning away from them diligently.

If you are wise you will thank the Lord for your daily lessons, because He then will be encouraged to work with you further.

Eternal life is another name for the Holy Spirit.

An “impossible” situation is an opportunity for God to reveal His glory.

Sometimes we have to choose between comfort and honor.

We injure the personalities of adults when we seek to control them; but love releases the potential of people.

Present-day Christianity often is too superficial and giddy to serve as a sculptor of saints.

God will never cover a sinful, immature inner nature with a body of incorruptible resurrection life. Before the outer resurrection occurs there must be an inner transformation. We must attain to the resurrection experienced by the members of the governing priesthood.

A boil is permitted to come to a head, and then it is lanced and the poison is discharged and dealt with. There was a rebellion in Heaven. God is permitting the wicked spirits to fully develop their evil desires and ways. In the fullness of time God will lance the boil. Then the poison will be discharged and dealt with. All wickedness shall finally be imprisoned in the Lake of Fire. Now the creation will be free from rebellion, ready to begin an eternity of righteousness, peace, and joy.

It is not true that the more grievously I sin the more God’s grace is glorified in forgiving me. The truth is, the more grievously I sin the more pain Christ suffered in order to forgive me.

The Protestant reaction against the Catholic works designed to buy salvation, has been an unscriptural, destructive view of grace. The Protestant concept is that the grace of forgiveness is God’s supreme work. The idea is that the new covenant primarily is one of forgiveness rather than what it is in actuality, the bringing forth of a new creation of righteous behavior. Thus God’s intention under the new covenant has been successfully thwarted; the true work of Divine grace aborted.

Can you imagine one of the gods of the other religions saying we are to be conformed to the image of His Son that we might be His brother? Yet this is exactly what God is saying to us.

Do not be troubled about the other religions. The day will come when every one of these gods will bow the knee and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, and there is none other. He is the only one whom God has appointed Lord of all.

Until the rod of iron is created in our personality we cannot govern with Christ. Iron righteousness is mined from the hills of resistance to sin and stern obedience to God.

Sometimes the Lord has to strike us down, as it were, because we are married to our ministry and not to Him. Our ministry, our work for the Lord, is important. But it is more important that we have a close relationship with Him.

The guilt of sin is our legal state before God. Guilt is not a thing. Sin itself, however, is a thing, a compulsion, an action. The Lamb of God came to take away not just the guilt of the sin but sin itself.

Unbelief and disobedience are virtually synonymous. The same may be said of faith and obedience.

It is one matter to be married to our ministry. It is quite another matter to be married to the Lamb.

Can we walk with princes and still hear and obey the voice of Christ?

The Bible primarily is not a record of man seeking God but of God seeking man. It appears that in most instances the outstanding people were those who obeyed God’s intervention; not so much believers who demonstrated an aggressive pursuit of God. We think of Abraham, Moses, Gideon, the Prophets of Israel, the Apostle Paul. These are examples of God taking the initiative. “You have not chosen me; I have chosen you.” Is it time today for God to take the lead?

There are contemporary plans and strategies for church growth and the spread of the Gospel. A close look at some of these may reveal that while they appear to benefit man, they do not benefit God. It is not true that if man is benefitted God automatically is benefitted. However it is true that if God is benefitted, man automatically is benefitted.

Like the human body, the Messiah is composed of many members. While the believer may be the valued member of the Christian religion, and of a local church, his or her eternal significance is that of being a member of the Body of the Messiah, an integral part of the Anointed Deliverer who is to come and bring justice to the nations.

God’s grace is shown to us Jews and Gentiles whom He has called: first, by releasing us from the authority of the Law of Moses; second, by calling us out from the ranks of mankind that we might receive Jesus Christ and become heirs of the Kingdom of God.

Many, perhaps most, of the people who profess to be Christians and are members of Christian churches, do not change morally. In some instances they are as malicious, unforgiving, dishonest, and immoral as is true of the people of the world. Consider, for example, the hatred between the Catholics and Protestants in Ireland. Why do believers not change? It is because they do not perceive their baptism in water as being an entrance into the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Do you wish to be delivered from a sinful bondage? Pronounce your sinful behavior to the Lord. Denounce your bondage as an evil, filthy thing. Renounce the sin, declaring forcefully you want no more to do with it. Pronounce, denounce, renounce, and then draw near to the Lord for continued fellowship.

Can we earn true salvation by striving to perform righteous works? Absolutely not. Does true salvation always result in a new creation of righteous behavior? Absolutely and eternally yes.

The blasphemy of the members of the synagogue of Satan is their teaching that people can live in sin and rebellion and still have fellowship with God through grace.

“Daddy, Daddy, we missed our turnoff back there.” “Don’t worry, Honey, just sit back and enjoy the ride and the beautiful weather. Perfect for our trip!”

“You shall not surely die” was the beginning of the insane howling debauchery known as world history. “You shall not surely die” is being preached today in the great majority of Christian churches to “believers” who are not serving the Lord.

When we by have faith been sprinkled with the blood of atonement we are eligible to receive the Holy Spirit. The blood comes on the oil. Now we have the authority and power to enter the rest of God, to life lived in the fullness of the Presence of God through Jesus Christ. The rest of God is the spiritual fulfillment of the Jewish feast of Tabernacles.

The current teaching of grace states that God is willing to forgive us and remove our sinful nature with a minimal effort on our part. Our only task is to say we “accept Christ.” If this is true, why did the Apostle Paul say if we continue to obey our sinful nature we will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Why did Paul beat down the desires of his flesh so as not to be disqualified?

We are like divers in the depths of the sea. Our air supply is the Holy Spirit. The more of the Spirit we have, the better able we are to withstand the pressures of sin and death that always are on us; that seek to invade and crush us.

We do not receive Christ so we may be able to do bad things and then receive good things after we die. We receive Christ so we may be forgiven and then begin to do good things. It is certain that we will receive good for the good we have done and bad for the bad we have done. God cannot be mocked.

It is not that we pay a price to become a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is true rather that we have to let go of that which is destructive in order to receive the blessing.

People always will be able to sin—even in the new world of righteousness. This is why God is creating a kingdom, a system of government. This is why there is a massive wall around the new Jerusalem.

The operation of Divine grace commences when God calls us out from the world, without reference to our goodness or badness, and then proceeds to transform us into a new creation of righteous behavior, holy personality, and stern obedience to God. The current definition of grace, which is God’s willingness to bring us to Paradise apart from any significant change in our personality, is a fiction produced by the mind of religious man.

It is true that we are saved by faith. But genuine faith in Christ brings us to Him, and then He commands us, through His Apostles, to live righteously. This is the trap into which believers fall when they are told they are saved by faith alone. They say they have faith in Christ, but then they do not obey His commands written in the New Testament. Therefore they are disobedient; and there are no disobedient people in the Kingdom of God, because the Kingdom of God is the doing of God’s will in the earth.

When we receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, God forgives our sins for eternity so that our conscience remains perfect and undefiled. Now He is making us holy by writing His eternal moral law in our mind and heart. Once this process begins we are never to sin deliberately. How are we to refrain from sinning while God’s law is being written in our personality? We refrain from sinning by praying and living by the Spirit. When we live by the Spirit we do not gratify the desires of our sinful nature.

To be conscious in the spirit world after we die physically is not eternal life. There are multitudes of God’s creatures in the spirit world, righteous and wicked alike, who are conscious. Of course, none of the wicked have eternal life; but they are conscious in the spirit world. Where we are located, whether on the earth or in Heaven, has nothing to do with eternal life.

Eternal life is the Life of God. The Substance of the Lord Jesus Christ is of the Holy Spirit. The body and blood of Christ are our eternal life because they were formed from the Holy Spirit. Today our inner nature, not our body and blood but our inner nature, is being formed from the Holy Spirit if we are living by the Spirit.

In the Day of Resurrection it will be true also of our body, that it is formed from the Holy Spirit, provided we have chosen to live by the Spirit at the present time.

John on the island of Patmos saw the great figure of Jesus Christ, the High Priest of God. I think it is likely that Christ looked like this while He was ministering on the earth, but John’s eyes were not opened at that time to see Him as He always is.

Predestination is not inevitability. Every aspect of redemption is an opportunity.

According to the New Testament, the Apostles did not use the expression “accept Christ.” Rather, the Apostles warned people of the coming resurrection and judgment, and exhorted people to turn from their wicked ways so that Christ would accept them. Paul spoke to Felix about righteousness, self-control, and the Day of Judgment. Paul did not say “accept Christ and you can forget about righteousness, self-control, and the Day of Judgment.” But that is what we preach today! We are false prophets and teachers!

We find in the Book of Ezra that when the people were confessing their sin of marrying non-Jewish wives, they did so during the rainy season. So it is today. We are entering into the time of the harvest rain, and the Lord Jesus is convicting us of our sinful behavior. However, we are to rejoice as the moral law of God is brought to us, for the joy of the Lord will give us the strength to endure this period of judgment.

Should I rest in Jesus and wait for Him to live the Christian life in me, or should I obey the numerous commandments in the Gospels and the Epistles, praying always to God to help me overcome the love of the world, the love of sin, and the love of my self-will?

Must I overcome or did Jesus do all the overcoming for me?

Inside the Ark of the Covenant were the Ten Commandments, Aaron’s Rod that budded, and the memorial pot of Manna. God is creating in us His eternal moral law, a willingness to abide in our own calling, and a simple trust that looks to God every moment of the day and night.

The Holy Spirit is not romantic in soulish terms. The love that God puts in us for Him and for one another is far above adamic romance. It is more substantial, more lasting, more intense.

The moral change that occurs as we follow Christ is far more profound than the outward trappings of religion. It is not merely a case of don’t do this or don’t do that. All such prohibitions often are necessary at the beginning of our discipleship. Rather it is a profound restructuring of our entire personality from the ways of the flesh to the ways of God.

We are put on the earth to be tested. God has enough resources to give every person all he or she wants without having to work. The test is to see if we will take what we want apart from God’s will.

Pray to know God’s will in all matters. Being outside of God’s will brings pain.

The reproductive urge warps judgment and seduces us into entanglements that result in our perfecting, if we have integrity.

Gaining eternal life is the converting of our life force from what is rebellious, lustful, and perishing to that which is obedient, holy, and eternal.

The problem with the world is self-seeking government. The best government possible is a just, compassionate, incorruptible king with absolute authority. That is what the Kingdom of God is, with Jesus Christ as the King, compassionate, righteous, incorruptible, with absolute authority and power to enforce righteousness. This is the only government that can bring justice, peace, and righteousness to all its citizens.

Transforming grace must be added to pardoning grace.

Here is the great Christian error—the belief that “accepting Christ” does away with the warnings of the New Testament.

If Jesus asked you to do something, would you say to Him “I don’t have to obey you because I am saved by faith alone”? The New Testament contains a list of His requests. Today the Christian people are telling the Lord Jesus that they do not have to keep His commandments because they are saved by faith. Poor Jesus! No one loves Him!

We have been saved through the blood atonement; we have received God’s Spirit; now we must learn stern obedience to the Father. This is the Kingdom of God and the issue facing the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

God’s eye is on the sparrow. This means He is able and willing to direct the smallest detail of the life of everyone who asks Him for direction.

The power of Jesus Christ creates holy, righteous people. Membership in a religion, including the Christian religion, often does not do this.

Those who wait on the Lord for every detail of life are the wisest of mortals.

We are eternally secure as long as we are abiding in Christ.

Hi Lord! Just checking in. Do you pray this every hour?

As for the “four steps of salvation,” they are worthless unless they bring us into a living relationship with the Lord Jesus.

The profession of belief in Christ is worthless to the purposes of God unless it is accompanied by a transformed moral character. One is the repeating of a religious formula. The other is a lifelong experience of taking up our cross and subjecting ourselves to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Anyone who teaches that a religious belief is of relative importance in the eyes of God when weighed against the development of a pure and holy character is inviting delusion on himself and his hearers.

We have a clearer picture of reality when we realize there is only one world. Part of the one world is visible to us, while the larger and more substantial part is invisible. Heaven and the world of spirits, and of deceased people, is not far above us. It is all around us. We have come to Mount Zion. “Lord, open our eyes!”

Because of the rebellion of the angels, God formulated in His mind a tremendous plan. He would create a new race and make the angels servants to it. He would make the people he created a living revelation of His eternal moral law, and they would judge the angels and put an end to rebellion. This is why it so utterly important that we bear the fruit of Christ’s moral Nature.

To be in the rest of God is to think, speak, and act in harmony with God’s will. The fullness of God’s grace is required along with our most diligent application if we are to enter God’s rest.

Don’t blame the pastor or evangelist because you have not understood God’s will for your life. God will not accept your blaming others. It is up to you to make sure you are on the right path. God is not pleased when we blame anyone for our spiritual condition.

Do Christians worship the one true God? Yes, we do. There is none other. This fact alone does not make us holy; it is what we do about our belief that brings the reward.

You have all eternity in which to grow in Christ. But if you would please God you must take full advantage of every flying moment.

Cease your endless reasons! The demons love to reason. God speaks truth in a few words.

We Christians have a tendency to think of our religion as a culture separate from the world and somewhat hostile to the world. The truth is, God intervenes in the affairs of all people to a far greater extent than we have any idea. “The earth is the Lord and all its resources, the world and all who live therein.”

It is not helpful to dwell on the past. It is better to press forward in Christ with our eyes fixed on the future glory.

I wonder sometimes if the doctrine of the Trinity does not detract from the simplicity of the concept that the Lord Jesus Christ is God’s Son. Perhaps this idea, that there are three equal Gods abiding in Unity, makes Christ less approachable to those who rejoice at the thought of being His brothers. Then too, I notice that Jesus appears to favor the name “Son of man” over “Son of God.” I think He likes to be among us.

I am not aware of a passage in the New Testament that states when we die we will be joined together with our loved ones in Heaven. Rather, the Word is that after people die they are judged. But there is a day coming when we will be joined with our deceased loved ones, and that is at the coming of the Lord. This reunion shall take place on the earth. But in order for this to be true, we and they must be “in Christ.” This means we and they are abiding in Christ, not just that we have made a profession of belief in Christ.

Be sensitive to what God is seeking to do in your life. We now are entering the third day of redemption, the period when sin is to be removed from us. We also are entering the sixth day, the great day of creation when God is making man in His image. Listen carefully to the Lord. He wants to form you into His image.

According to the Old Testament, when we die we are “gathered to our people.” The question is, who are our people? The Lord Jesus taught us that our people are those who do the will of God.

We human beings are mammals. We are intelligent animals possessing a spirit that can communicate with God. The Lord Jesus Christ is infinitely more than an intelligent animal. As soon as we receive Christ into our personality we start on our way toward becoming infinitely more than a mammal—toward becoming a child of God.

In the Scriptures, silver symbolizes redemption, that is, the freeing of us from the possession of Satan. Gold symbolizes Divinity. The Divine Life, the gold that is placed in us when we receive Jesus Christ must be refined by suffering.

It is very important to be content with one’s place. Sin originated when Satan was not content with his own place. Some of the angels abandoned their own home and now are kept in darkness. The Apostle Paul told us he was content in the situations in which he found himself. Godliness with contentment is great gain.

Talk to the Lord continually in a normal way, out loud or silently. There are times for more forceful, structured prayer. But it is pleasant to just converse with the Lord in a natural way, as you would to any friend.

If you want a curse on your life, then don’t go out to do battle in the time of the Lord’s war. Remember Meroz!

As we press forward in the rewards to the overcomer we can see the difference between the Divine pardon of the sinner, and the spiritual development of the saint.

Is there any greater error in Christianity than the teaching that the Divine redemption is the everlasting pardon for our sins, but that as long as we live on the earth we must continue to sin?

The saint will be clothed in the Day of Christ by that which he has practiced in this life. Here is the perfect justice of God.

The saint will be clothed in the Day of Christ by that which he has practiced in this life. Here is the perfect justice of God. Our house will descend from Heaven and clothe our flesh-and-bone body that has been raised from the dead. We will be clothed with the white raiment that is the result and expression of walking with Christ in white during our life on the earth.

God is not impressed with our intelligence, talents, creativity, or accomplishments. What is highly esteemed of God is our obedience, faithfulness, and worship, in that order.

I have seen believers who understood the doctrine of the Kingdom of God; of what is next after the spiritual fulfillment of the Jewish feast of Pentecost. They desired to press forward to the fullness of the experience typified by the feast of Tabernacles. In every instance, as far as I know, those who failed in their quest did so because they did not enter the necessary death to their own will. They read the scroll but did not eat it.

When people prayed toward the Temple of Solomon, God heard them and answered prayer. God desires to make us His Temple, His covenant with the peoples of the earth, His Presence and Person among people. We yet shall represent God to the saved peoples of the earth, and represent them to God. This is our role as members of the royal priesthood.

Grace is everything God gives us that we do not earn by keeping the commandments of the Law of Moses, which is its primary meaning in the Epistles of Paul, or by any other religious striving. Today it is taught that through grace God will bring us to Heaven even though we have not obeyed Christ’s commandments. The desire to live righteously, and the ability to live righteously, are given to us through Divine grace. Therefore to say that we go to Heaven by grace and not by keeping Christ’s commandments is a misunderstanding of grace, of the goal and the process of the Christian salvation. Our very calling as saints is an act of Divine grace toward us, just as was true of the Divine calling out of Abraham.

Having a holy, righteous personality and behavior does not earn us salvation. Rather, a holy, righteous behavior is the effect, the fruit of Christ being formed in our personality. Apart from our change into holy, righteous personality and behavior there is no salvation. It is the change itself, the deliverance from Satan and the forming of Christ in us, that is salvation.

The goal of salvation is not residence in Heaven. The goal of salvation, of redemption, is change. It is the removal of our sinful nature and the forming of Christ in us. The removal of our sinful nature and the forming of Christ in us enable us to have fellowship with the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit. This is the ultimate attainment.

“Search me, O God, test me, see if there is any wicked way in me.” Lead me in the way everlasting, in the way of eternal life. The way of eternal life is a way of living, not merely or even primarily a guarantee that we will live forever apart from moral transformation. I believe King David would agree with this.

Do you want control of your life, or do you want Christ to control your life? If you want Christ to control your life, then tell Him so continually throughout the day and night. Christ is a Gentleman and He will not force Himself upon you.

The churches on earth are composed of forgiven sinners. The Kingdom of God consists of new creatures.

We must be a lamb, and we must be a lion, if we are to be in the image of Christ. But the “little boy” of our personality must lead us or else we can never enter the Kingdom of God.

Our life here is a vapor, as James says, a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. The real, substantial world is invisible to us at this time. Hopefully we will be able to see reality some day.

Current Evangelical theology has fallen into the condition that it has because of deductive reasoning. A few “key verses” removed from their contexts have been employed as axioms. From these a “plan of salvation” has been constructed that falls far short of the Divine program of redemption. Biblical truth is arrived at by inductive reasoning. As the Holy Spirit emphasizes passages of the Scriptures, Old Testament and New, the temple of Divine truth arises, understanding upon understanding, precept upon precept, each unveiling placed as a brick into the structure by the Spirit.

We will not say, “The Kingdom is here or the Kingdom is there.” The Kingdom of God, of Heaven, is Christ in us.

The goal of the Christian redemption is not to bring us to another place, there to live forever in idleness. The goal of the Christian redemption is to transform us into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ so God in Christ can dwell in us. When God in Christ is reigning in us in untroubled splendor, then we will bring Heaven wherever we go.

Jesus is not coming to hurry us off to the spirit realm. He is coming to rule the nations of the earth.

One of the greatest mistakes that can be made by a believer in Christ is to view his salvation as a ticket to Heaven, and then just wait for the day he dies so he can “retire” in Heaven. To neglect the daily lessons of the Holy Spirit, to shun the life of cross-carrying obedience to the Lord Jesus in the hope we will be saved by “grace,” is to miss the process of redemption. When we die we will be dealt with according to our folly.

The spiritual Heaven, the Paradise above, is not our eternal home. It is a place of waiting until the next great act of redemption takes place—the return of Christ to the earth and the redemption of the bodies of the victorious saints.

God shall open the political doors for us and He shall confirm the Word with signs following, just as soon as we are prepared to preach Christ and not ourselves.

We may ask, “Who is this King of Glory who is appearing now to the Christian people? We have not known this Person.” The answer comes, “He is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of Armies.”

We have to keep on stirring up the gifts that are in us. It is easy to settle back or to become so involved in the things of the world that there is little time left to spend waiting on God.

There is no greater joy than to seek the will of God for our life. As we do, God gives us enough faith to accomplish that for which we have been called. As we move ahead our eyes are lifted up to behold a horizon of glory that exceeds all we could ever ask or think.

The greatest blessing that can come on any human being is the heartfelt, earnest desire to perform the will of God. The Kingdom of God is the doing of God’s will. Redemption works toward this end—that the will of God may be done in earth as it is in Heaven.

There come times in the history of the Kingdom of God when God is ready for a major step forward. In order to be prepared for God’s move we must sanctify ourselves. We must set ourselves apart as holy to God’s Person, purpose, and ways. If we prepare ourselves we will be ready for the worldwide harvesting of souls that is at hand. If we do not prepare ourselves we will fall into the snares of the devil, because tribulation and temptation are at hand.

Pilate asked, “What is truth?” God Himself is Truth. Because the Lord Jesus Christ is the exact Representation of God, Christ Himself is Truth. Christ is the Word, the Expression of God. That Word is Truth.

Christ Himself is Truth because He portrays in His words and actions what God thinks; what God says; what God does. Truth always has been, is now, and eternally shall be. Truth is unchanging.

Truth can be expressed in words. But truth actually is the Person and actions of Jesus Christ.

What God is and what God reveals in His Person and actions always bring us to righteousness, love, peace, and joy. Truth always brings us to righteousness, love, peace, and joy.

Truth is infinitely more than what is true. Air is made up in part of oxygen. This is true but it is not truth. This fact does not lead us to righteousness, love, joy, and peace.

Satan is the universal lie. Satan is the opposite of truth. What Satan is and does and expresses in word always leads to unrighteousness, hatred, misery, torment, unrest.

Satan and all who are of Satan are temporary. Jesus Christ and all who are of Christ are eternal.

As Christ is formed in us, we become the truth, the covenant of God with mankind. O God, make us truth!

Since actual works of righteousness necessitate a denial of man’s pleasures, actual righteousness is regarded by the “Laodicean” (man-centered) believers as the “works” against which Paul warned us. The Laodiceans distort the Scriptures to their own destruction.

There is no greater error in Christian thinking than the concept that the purpose of the Christian salvation is to excuse the wicked so they are not sent where the wicked belong.

The compulsions of our sinful nature, the wicked tendencies with which we were born, might be referred to as alien sin. We did not choose them and do not want them. But when we refuse to cooperate with the Holy Spirit as He seeks to give us victory over the alien sin in us, then we are guilty of original sin. We have chosen to align ourselves with Satan.

The people who insist, “as long as we are in this world we have to sin,” and inform us that “nobody is perfect,” either are afraid God can’t help them or else they want to leave a little room for sin in their life. They are ignorant of the promises of Christ and His Apostles.

According to Isaiah, God plans to make man more precious than gold. Revelation tells us that on the new earth there will be no more sea. My understanding of these two passages is that after God has judged the world, He will change mankind from being a sea of people, that can be moved as a unit, into highly esteemed individuals. Today in the large cities of the world, crime and the abasement of people are out of control. This is because of the folly of gathering large numbers of people into cities. The world of the future will consist of valued individuals, not of mobs who can be swayed by those who seek to control them.

You can’t judge the worth of a church by the number of people who attend. To judge a church you must go to one of the services. If you are walking with the Lord you can tell whether the church is alive, deceived, asleep, or dead.

If we choose our own way now, we may be satisfied and content. But later we will be in misery. If we follow Christ now, denying ourselves, taking up our cross and following Jesus, we may be miserable now. But later we will rejoice. Those how mourn now shall be comforted in the time to come.

The Kingdom of God is not a place, it is a group of people who, through the Lord Jesus Christ, govern the works of God’s hands. The United States government is not a place. It is not Washington D.C. Rather it is the people who govern from that place.

The eleventh chapter of the Book of Hebrews is clear that faith follows, not precedes, the expression of God’s will. Faith is not a matter of deciding what we want and then commanding God to give it to us.

O Lord, I choose to not think about the works of Satan and His demons. I will fix my mind on the wonders of Heaven.

The Kingdom of God comprises the best of Heaven and the best of the earth.

The truly significant events in this world take place with and in individuals, not with nations.

It is not unusual for workers in an establishment to attempt to push the boss, the chief executive officer, up and out of sight if possible so the workers can develop their own plans and programs. I think the Christian churches through the centuries have done this with the Lord Jesus Christ.

What we Christians must come to understand is that the Lord God is interested in righteousness and obedience. We do not accept Christ in order to avoid punishment for our behavior but in order to gain the opportunity to repent and begin to do the things that are pleasing to God.

The Law of Moses deals with the behavior of people, telling them what they can do and cannot do. The new covenant deals with the sinful nature itself, commanding our adamic personality to submit to crucifixion that the Holy Spirit may destroy our sinful nature, form Christ in us, and guide us in righteous behavior.

The more clearly the true Christian realizes his kingdom is not of this world, the more effectively he is able to serve mankind.

Do not permit yourself to be driven by fear, or dread, or trying to please someone, or a desire to achieve something or be someone of importance, or by the lusts and passions of your personality, or pessimism, or unbelief, or an attraction to the deliciousness of that which is mystical, or a habit, or a need to be perfect, or enthusiasm, or a clutching of a relationship or situation, or a discipline that you have laid on yourself. Abide in Christ in every detail of life and flow with His Presence. This is the goal. This is the rest of God. Nothing else is fruitful or necessary.

If we are not careful, we get into the habit of following spiritual principles instead of seeking the Lord Jesus.

Satan will work on those areas that are our greatest strength, our appointed destiny. God has placed great joy ahead of us because He plans on giving us the desires of our heart. But first God has to make certain we will obey Him if we never receive what we desire so strongly.

To walk with the living Jesus, to be guided by him in every detail of life, is the highest form of law and righteousness.

The one who gains pleasure at the expense of another person’s misery will not be blessed by the Lord.

It appears that today the American people are divided into the sheep and the goats; into those who fear God and those who do not.

There is a difference between mentoring believers and making disciples. The person who serves as a mentor for Christian believers helps those individuals overcome the problems of daily living. The person who makes disciples serves as a master under the great Master. He orients people to the Lord’s discipleship program, showing them how to keep counting themselves crucified with Christ and how to press forward into Christ’s resurrection life. Eventually they too will become masters and disciple other people. We are to go into all the world and make disciples. This program is similar to that of the printing, carpentry, and other trades. He who is perfect shall be as his master.

Living by the Spirit of God is an art. It requires daily practice, faith, and courage.

In our Father’s house there are many rooms. If this were not to be the case, Christ would have told us. He has gone to the cross, then to Heaven, and now back to us in the Spirit that we may be with Him where He is—in the heart of God.

The massive error today is to view imputed righteousness as a new way in which God relates to man. The bypass has become the main highway.

It is we who must prepare the way of the Lord today. We do this by seeking God’s help as we bring down the high places in our life; bring up the depressed areas; smooth out the rough spots and straighten out that which is crooked.

When you have been praying and doing God’s will diligently, and the obvious does not take place, you can be quite sure that something wonderful is on the way. In the accounts in the Bible, some marvelous births occurred in barren women.

The seven thunders of power do not speak until our self-will has been put down. We don’t see the Lord high and lifted up until the year King Uzzah dies.

Ahimaaz may outrun the Cushite but it is the Cushite who delivers the message. The mountains of Bashan lift themselves up in vain. God dwells only in Zion. This is the resting place God has chosen.

To not give up Isaac when he is called for prevents the most extraordinary inheritance.

Don’t throw that which is holy to the dogs. Keep the treasures the Lord gives you. Hide them in your heart until you know what you are to do with them.

Saints are not formed in a milk bath but in the fire.

Be patient and pray. Stay with it, unless God clearly shows you otherwise. God will give you victory right where you are if you don’t run away.

To enter the road that leads to eternal life is to pass through the small gate. The small gate is that of counting ourselves crucified with Christ and raised with Christ.

Unlike the physical world, light and darkness are distinct, separate forces in the spirit world. The program of redemption exercises one specific technique to remove wickedness from us and another specific technique to implant righteousness in us.

In our satanic wisdom we have altered a covenant that was meant to free us from the Law of Moses so we could follow the Holy Spirit without being guilty, until it now means that no matter how we behave we are guiltless before God and can have fellowship with Him and with demons at the same time.

We pray for more of the Holy Spirit that we might have more of the Spirit to give to other people.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the Expression of God. We are being made an integral part of that Expression.

To be in the image of God is to think, speak, and act in harmony with God’s will at all times. To be in the likeness of God is to have an outer appearance like that of God.

The Church is the government of the Kingdom of God, the government of the world to come. Everyone who is governed by the Church is a part of the Kingdom of God, just as everyone who is governed by the government of the United States is a part of America. The government of the Kingdom is being developed now. The citizens of the Kingdom will come later. The government of the Kingdom of God is God in Christ in the saints ruling the works of God’s hands.

Whoever is praying to be in the fullness of the image of Jesus Christ is asking to be the perfect expression and representation of the Father. If this were not possible, the Bible would not tell us we have been predestined to be in the image of Christ, and to be His brothers. If such were not our goal, it would not be recorded in the Scriptures.

Satan had that goal of being in God’s image, but he was seeking power and prestige rather than the moral image of his Creator. Satan’s motive was to compete against God rather than a loving desire to emulate and glorify His Creator.

First we are made sorrowful, then we are made fruitful. It is the barren who bear the fruit of God. First we mourn, then we are comforted. First we weep, and then we rejoice. Weeping endures for a night but joy comes in the morning. Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire comes it is a tree of life. God wounds and then heals. This is the Divine order.

The river of God always is full of water. It is not possible to exhaust the supply of eternal life.

What is the Word of God? Is it not Truth? We have been called to be truth, in the image of our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Jesus Christ we are being made the way to God for all people. Through Jesus Christ we are being made the truth that will enable all people to distinguish between what is true and beneficial and what is false and destructive. Through Jesus Christ we are being made the Life of God from which all people may drink and receive eternal righteousness, love, joy, and peace.

People do not need as many things as they think they do. Whoever has righteousness, love, joy, and peace has everything of true value. They come only from Jesus Christ, from nowhere else.

I have observed that all spiritual truth can be seen in the everyday occurrences and relationships that take place around us. The big surprise when we die may be that things will be more like what we have been accustomed to rather than different and novel.

Death is the great common denominator. In death we see the weakness and folly of the adamic creation. All flesh is grass; it profits nothing. It is the spirit of God who gives life.

The rest of God is that state of being in which our will and God’s will are the same. It is worth every pain, every denial, every frustration, to attain to that rest.

The greatest disaster that can befall any human being is to have a will contrary to the will of God. The greatest blessing any human being can have is to have a will that is in harmony with the will of God.

Perhaps the greatest misunderstanding in current Christian thinking is that once we “accept Christ” we possess ninety percent of the Divine salvation. The truth is, making a profession of belief in the Lord Jesus Christ is but the merest beginning of a lifelong effort to enter the rest of God, into that state of being in which our will and God’s will are in perfect agreement.

In fact, sometimes “accepting Christ” is not even the beginning, because we have not truly come to Christ; rather we have subscribed to a set of doctrinal positions.

Maybe it is not so much a question of our accepting Christ but of Christ accepting us. “Depart from me, I never knew you.”

“O Lord, I dwell with you at the right hand of God. While I serve you in this valley of the shadow of death, open my eyes that I may enjoy the real world, the spirit realm, the world of righteousness, love, joy, and peace.”

If we give God our best, God will give us His best.

The individual who is willing to do God’s complete and perfect will makes things possible that ordinarily would not be possible.

It seems God always is looking for someone to build up the wall and stand in the gap before Him on behalf of the land so he would not have to destroy it. Sometimes He finds no one. Let’s you and I resolve that as long as we are alive on the earth, it cannot be said that God could not find someone who will build up the wall and stand in the gap before Him.

The Christian life is conducted as we diligently seek the Lord’s will at every moment, and then obey Him sternly and promptly. There is no other true Christian discipleship.

The Lord Jesus told us that when a spirit comes out of a person it goes through arid places. It seeks to return to the body from which is was expelled. This suggests to us that spirits have “fleshly” cravings when they no longer are in a human body. If such is the case, when a person dies who still is bound with lust or other unclean appetites, the fact that he has died and left his body does not mean he no longer is bound by these lusts. His desires are still present but he cannot fulfill them.

We do not have to struggle frantically to be released from a bondage of one sort or another, such as cigarettes, or eating too much, or alcohol, or profanity, or any other problem. Remember that the Lord Jesus Christ spoke the universe into existence. He has more power than enough power and wisdom to deliver each one of us.

The approach to deliverance, therefore, is to is to confess to the Lord our need, and pray for strength and wisdom to be delivered from whatever is troubling us. In addition we should use any other resources we have, such as the prayers of the elders of our church or the members of a support group. Then we are to live the life of a Christian disciple, praying, reading our Bible, and gathering with fervent believers as we have opportunity.

We are to remind the Lord each day of our need, whether for physical or moral deliverance, and listen to Christ carefully as He provides the wisdom and power to set us free. The Word of deliverance may come to us in the moment we pray, or after a season of waiting. But it shall come. The written Word of God cannot be broken. “You shall ask what you will and it shall be done to you.”

A Christian is a disciple. A disciple is someone who denies himself, takes up his cross, and follows the Lord. This is no great exercise in asceticism. It means merely that we remain patiently in our circumstances, no matter how painful, denying ourselves the right to break out of our prison if it means going against God’s moral laws, whether written or His will expressed to us personally.

“Lord Jesus, I thank you for carrying me this day. I do not have to worry or fret because underneath are the everlasting arms.”

God’s intentions toward us are good. This was the question raised in the beginning. Is God seeking our good? God knows the details of our life. God is bringing us to joy. God has the power and the wisdom to bring us to complete and perfect joy. Faith insists this is true.

When we are working for the Lord and obeying Him diligently we lack no good thing. The Lord takes care of His employees.

God is faithful to a degree we cannot comprehend. We should pray always that God will make us just as faithful; having the same integrity; being in His image in our character.

There are at least three attitudes one can take toward the numerous commandments written in the New Testament. First, the commandments can be ignored safely. Second, they can be regarded as showing us how impossible it is to please God so we then will see our need to be saved by grace. Third, we can realize God means for us to keep them and that we indeed can keep them by asking the Lord continually to give us the necessary strength and wisdom to do so. Only the third attitude is acceptable.

For true Christians there are no eternal good byes. There may be temporary separations, such as in death, but true Christians are united for eternity.

The question is not whether you and I are going to be a slave, the question is whose slave we are going to be—Satan’s or Christ’s?

With the faithful God shows Himself faithful. With the pure God shows Himself pure. God deals with us according to our righteousness.

God can make a way through the darkest of nights.

We were put in this world so we would have an opportunity to choose what kind of person we want to be and to be with after we die. The purpose of coming to Christ and receiving Him is so we can be made in the image of God in our character.

If we make a profession of belief in Christ, but our character does not change into the image of God, then when we die we will be placed where the kind of person is that we have chosen to be and to be with. Accepting Christ enables us to be transformed in character. Accepting Christ is not a religious device that enables us to maintain a wicked, self-seeking, lying, perverse character; and then, when we die, go to live among the righteous in the Paradise of God.

I think the American people are worshiping freedom instead of God.

If Christ delivered you all at once you would be a house swept and decorated and worse demons would enter you. Just as Israel entered the land of promise a city at a time, so must you enter your own land of promise one city at a time.

Quit hanging on to your sins, your pride, your self-will. It is all death. It is all interfering with your progress toward the Glory of God. The Bride must become without spot, wrinkle, or any other blemish. Let the fine needlework continue. Be as cheerful as you can. Look to Jesus alone.

If we continue to live in the flesh, counting on “grace” to “bring us to Heaven,” we are going to be cruelly disappointed when we see how we have injured our resurrection. We have destroyed our greatest hope—that of being like Jesus when He appears.

When Paul spoke of attaining to the resurrection that is out from among the dead he was speaking of attaining to the fullness of inward resurrection life. It is only as we attain to inward resurrection life that we are eligible for the redemption of our physical body.

If you are called to a high rank in the Kingdom you are going to endure the process of death and life, death and life, death and life, over and over again as Christ’s Glory is formed in you.

Repentance and forgiveness remove the man from the cesspool. Deliverance removes the cesspool from the man.

By inventing a gospel of forgiveness that brings us to Heaven we have managed to avoid a radical change in our personality—a radical change that is necessary if we are to be able to hold Paradise once we gain it.

Life on earth is a minefield. If the Lord is not guiding our steps we may blow up ourselves.

If we will diligently cooperate with the Spirit of God as He forms the Light of Christ in us, the Spirit will bring people whom He has chosen to the Light He has developed in us.

The efforts of righteous people to do good in the world accomplish much of value. Their works come up before God as a memorial, as did the alms of Cornelius. Because the problems of the world are caused by spiritual forces, and because there are incorrigibly wicked people, the solution to the distress of the world can come only with the return of the Lord Jesus Christ and His holy ones to drive spiritual darkness from the earth.

The world is a nursery for the little gods that have been born from God. Each of the little gods must become an integral part of God, always doing God’s perfect will as His Life is expressed through them. Otherwise they become devils in the universe and must be destroyed for the good of all. Who knows what Christ-glorifying universes the holy ones might create in the unimaginable eons to come.

It is the business of a man of God to describe the invisible forces that cause the things of the world to be as they are. Too much emphasis on the incidents and forces we can see can result in impotent fretting. The Bible shows us how to cope successfully with the things that take place in the world by instructing us concerning the underlying spiritual realities. The weapons of our warfare are not those of flesh and blood but they are mighty through God and are able to tear down strongholds.

God could force any person at any time to do His will. But God’s desire is to find people who love Him enough to persevere through the often painful operations that result finally in their will being identical with God’s will. Those who attain to this blessed state of oneness in God’s will are wealthy beyond all others. They shall rule the works of God’s hands for eternity.

There are those whom God has called to be flaming bushes. They always are on fire with the Glory of God; yet they are not consumed. At one time their heart was leprous with sin. Then God spoke and their heart was free from the uncleanness of sin, being made pure with the holiness of God Their wisdom, their “snake,” as it were, when confronted with the wisdom of the world, overcomes it.

Our reward is great in the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is not a place, it is a realm of authority. In the Kingdom of God we have Divine acceptance, fellowship with the Son of God, spiritual authority, access to the Father, power to overcome evil and harm, resurrection life, love, peace, and glory.

If God wants to use you He will make it known. It does not matter whether or not you consider yourself worthy or unworthy; prepared or unprepared. All that matters is God’s will. If you are obedient you will be blessed. If you are disobedient you will come into a dry place indeed.

Some have commented on the price one must pay to serve Christ with a perfect heart.

What about the price we pay when we do not serve Christ with a perfect heart?

The victorious saint chooses death to his own will every time his will and God’s will are in conflict.

The man or woman who “cannot stand what I am doing for one more day” may be required to put up with these grievous conditions for several more years. We must remain in the Lord’s prison until we “die.” This is death to our first personality. This is the manner in which Christ overcomes rebellion in us.

The Gospel of the Kingdom of God is that Christ and His saints are coming to the earth to put down all rebellion against the Father, to enforce with a rod of iron God’s will in the earth as it is done in Heaven. This is the meaning of Christianity. When we cast out devils by the finger of God, the Kingdom has come.

God’s purposes in Christ are not accomplished when men are brought to Heaven but when Christ-filled men conquer Satan so Michael and his angels can remove Satan from the heavens. This is Mahanaim—two armies, the army of saints and the army of angels. It is “the dance of a double camp” (Rotherham).

The hammer of God beats blow after blow until it strikes hard and clean on the anvil of our soul. It is in such a furnace of affliction, denial, and thirst that we come to know God. There is no other way. The adamic nature in us screams like a pig being slaughtered! But there is no other way.

The old covenant provided for the forgiveness of sin on a repeating basis. The new covenant is directed toward the forming of a new individual who does not sin.

The jasper wall does not stand shining and clear in our day. The mixture of the world and the churches presents little danger to the kingdom of Satan. When men and women of God arise to build the wall and gates of Jerusalem we can expect an uproar in both the religious and the secular sectors.

Our God is the Consuming Fire. He calls us and then seeks to “slay” us.

God is not merely a philosopher or a kindly teacher who guides us into a happy life. God is a fiercely possessive Spirit who makes a covenant with us by blood, by the sword of His Word, by fire.

We are eternally secure as long as we are abiding in Christ.

The only thing we can take with us after we die is our character. Therefore we are wise if we do not ruin our eternal future by making money the centerpiece of our existence.

To deny ourselves and patiently bear our cross after the Lord Jesus is a life of discipline. Such a life brings true eternal freedom. All else is chaos, misery, and destruction.

The worship of the freedom to behave as we choose, in the United States of America, rather than the worship of God and His righteousness, is changing our country into a nation of homosexuals and the practitioners of abortion. This will lead to intense, prolonged national suffering as we are baptized with Divine fire. God will not permit His world, His earth, to be corrupted morally.

One of the primary characteristics of the religious spirit, the spirit that crucified Christ and to this day warps the desires of God, is an absence of the sense of God’s timing.

One of the primary characteristics of the religious spirit, the spirit that crucified Christ and to this day warps our efforts to do God’s will, is an absence of the sense of God’s timing.

The local church is to be the pillar and foundation of the truth. For this reason, we must never water down what the Bible says for the purpose of swelling our ranks with people. The emphasis always must be on bearing a true witness of God, His Person, His way, and His eternal purpose in Jesus Christ.

The Lord Jesus Christ has all authority and power in Heaven, on the earth, and in the dark prisons under the earth’s surface. You do not have to solve your own problems or deliver yourself from the bondages of sin. Christ can and will solve your problems and deliver you, but you have to keep on asking throughout every situation.

“Lord Jesus, I pray that you will remove from me totally all torment, all fear, all dread, and fill me completely with the prospect of eternal righteousness, eternal love, eternal joy, and eternal peace.”

The Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. The Kingdom is real peace and real joy, not peace and joy that merely have been imputed to us. The Kingdom is real righteousness of behavior, not righteousness that merely has been imputed to us.

It may be true that the most powerful force contributing to the present spiritual and moral weakness of the Christian churches is the desire to attract large numbers of people to our membership rolls and the consequent modifying of the services to accommodate the desires and understanding of unsaved people. Our motive may be “to minister to a lost and dying world.” We are focusing on the needs of people rather than on the need that God has for consecrated saints. The result of this humanistic endeavor is that the Presence of the Holy Spirit is minimal if present at all. Therefore neither God’s needs nor the needs of mankind is served.

As a Christian, always be ready to bestow forgiveness and to receive forgiveness.

“Lord I will cheerfully carry a burden of prayer for as long as necessary. But I will not accept fear or dread for one second. Help me to distinguish between a God-given burden and the oppression of the enemy.”

We Christians place far too much emphasis on religion and not nearly enough on what kind of person we are. It is the purpose of religion to make us better people, not more fervent, more accurate religionists.

I have come to the conclusion that the difference between religion and true salvation is that religion is a relationship with an organization of people and true salvation is a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Just because God has kept you in prison, don’t become a prisoner in your heart. Remember Joseph who one day was in prison and the next day second only to Pharaoh of Egypt.

The purpose of sexual intercourse is to affirm our devotion to another person. The purpose of eating and drinking is to maintain our health and energy so we may continue to serve God. The purpose of speaking is to give to or receive from another person something of value. Whenever sexual intercourse, eating and drinking, or speaking is practiced apart from its proper purpose because it “feels good,” we are living in the fleshly, sinful nature—and there is a price to pay!

Apparently the spirit world has many components, many areas of activity and industry. One of the most significant of these may be an area devoted to education. This is necessary if we all are to come to the stature of the fullness of Christ; if we all are to come to know the Lord, from the least to the greatest.

Sometimes Christians will cling to an adamic trait, such as a violent temper or a romantic spirit, in the belief that they may have need at times for such behavior. This is similar to the practice of the Israelites of making subdued peoples work as servants to draw water and chop firewood, instead of putting them to death as the Lord commanded. Over a period of time, as the Lord warned, the Israelites were destroyed from within by being seduced into worshiping the idols of Canaan.

The Bible is the rule book. The Holy Spirit guides us in the application of the rule book.

The victorious saint is as a sea of glass mixed with fire. He is transparent because the Divine fire has judged every aspect of his personality. He always is exalting God and singing the song of Moses and of the Lamb, deriving his maturity from both covenants.

One of the main purposes of life on the earth is that God may be able to see what we will do when we are brought into various situations. He wants to determine this before He entrusts us with true love, joy, and peace, and the authority and power of the Kingdom.

I have a watch that gets its time signal from an atomic clock located in Colorado. It is as accurate as the atomic clock, which is extremely accurate. Thus my watch is more accurate than a watch that operates from its own mechanism. So it is true that a Christian who has died to self and is operating from the Life of Jesus Christ will eventually reveal more righteousness, holiness, and obedience to God than is true of the most disciplined believer who is living a religious life in his own strength. He is on the way to becoming the expression of the thinking, speaking, and acting of God.

We are not saved to the uttermost until we have been delivered completely from the thinking, speaking, and acting of Satan.

There is no place in God’s army for retired soldiers.

God is not religious. Religion works with groups. God works with individuals. Disciples and victorious saints are made one at a time.

When God wants the wicked to prevail, they shall prevail. God uses the wicked to perfect the righteous.

Jesus told us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation.” Does God lead us into temptation? No, He assuredly does not. But there are snares all around us; and if we pray faithfully, God will help us avoid falling into them.

If we ask the Lord to do so, God will remove dread, terror, and worry from us. Only the true burden of the Lord will remain.

Pray about everything that concerns you. Take absolutely nothing for granted!

God always is speaking. There is a continual flow of words from His mouth. Some of them are directed to us as individuals. We are to live so as to hear and respond to every one of those words.

The personal cross of the believer is the mainspring of the Christian discipleship. The secret of carrying our cross successfully is to not concentrate on it. When we focus on what we cannot have at this time, or what we do have and don’t want, we soon become discouraged. We must ask the Lord to set joy before us, ignore our cross, and follow the Lord where He is leading us.

The current interpretation of the Apostle Paul’s doctrine of salvation by grace through faith has warped God’s intention under the new covenant until it no longer is recognizable. God’s intention under the new covenant is to make people in His image. This intention has been altered into a free ticket to Heaven unrelated to change into His image.

We fulfill the Sabbath commandment when we seek the Presence and will of Jesus Christ every moment of every day. This is the rest of God. All other works of redemption act to achieve this end.

“O You who inhabit eternity, transfigure our dust with your Divine Presence and Person.”

We may get tired of praying, but the Lord Jesus never gets tired of hearing us pray.

It appears that most Christian people do not realize they can be set free from the power of sin if they will look to the Lord Jesus.

Christ has something to say to the angel of the Christian churches of our day: “Because you are teaching that My people do not have to keep My commandments, I will come and fight against you with the sword of My mouth.”

Any fool can start a fight but a person of character brings peace. Any fool can blow up a building but it takes skilled, industrious people to construct a building. Any fool can injure someone but it requires years of training before a person can heal an injury.

When there is too much emphasis on the rights of the individual, an orderly society is impossible.

Internal conquest must precede external conquest. We must gain victory over the sinful impulses in our own personality before we will be eligible and competent to ride behind Christ in the Day of the Lord.

When there is a task to be performed, the Holy Spirit will use whoever is available. This is an entirely separate matter from being someone whom the Lord knows.

It is best to go through judgment now, as the Lord leads, and get it over with. Then the good part will come later.

The homosexual spirit tells an individual, “This is what you are. You are homosexual.” But this is a lie.

In the beginning, God created man male and female, each in his established role. He called their name Adam in the day they were created. They together are the image of God. Together they bring forth after their kind, and have dominion. This is not possible for two people of the same gender. Therefore God never created a homosexual person.

If people were created homosexual, then homosexual behavior would not be condemned as sin in both the Old and New Testaments. Is God fighting with Himself? Through the power of the Lord Jesus Christ an individual with homosexual desires can be set free.

Many problems are best handled in prayer. Oftentimes we disquiet ourselves, attempting to work things out; when all that is necessary is to go to God in prayer and wait on Him. God then will move people, things, circumstances, and us also, in order to solve the problem perfectly. Sometimes God shows us a need, and it is best to pray and let God bring the answer rather than trying to do it ourselves.

Satan comes and looks to see what is in us that is of himself. If there is nothing on the inside, Satan cannot tempt us on the outside. The problem is, we have, even as Christians, spirits dwelling in us that affect our desires. Our will either chooses to go along with our desires, or else seeks deliverance and resists them. In the Day of our Judgment, we will be judged on the basis of what our will chose to do about our ungodly desires.

If we persist in seeking the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, the time will arrive when Satan comes and finds nothing in us.

There are numerous voices that speak to us audibly, and also in our thoughts. We need to pray always that we may know what voice is speaking to us. No one, no matter how godly, is above being deceived.

Something that is partially true often is totally false.

If you want to know something or how to solve a problem, in any area of the arts and sciences, ask Jesus. In Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

The Lord Jesus Christ is a Person, not a belief system. All salvation and life are in Him. It is continual fellowship with Him, eating His flesh and drinking His blood, that transform us. It is this transformation that itself is salvation.

Believing in correct theology and doctrine is important only if such belief leads us into continual interaction with the Lord Jesus Christ. The knowledge and belief themselves have no saving power. Only the immediate possession of Christ brings eternal life and salvation.

Just think! Just think! People have been tortured and murdered over the issue of correct theology. Yet there is no salvation in correct theology. The devils know that Christ is Lord and someday will confess the same, if they haven’t already. But they will not be saved as a result of their belief and confession.

The thief on the cross professed faith in Christ. His reward, the result of his faith in Christ, was to be with Jesus. It is being with Jesus that saves us. The Apostle Paul was striving to know and gain Christ, not just to be in Paradise. In Paradise we hear unspeakable words; but all salvation and eternal life are in Christ Himself.

When we hear the voice of Christ we are raised from the dead. But it is the unwrapping of the graveclothes that is deliverance and salvation.

It does us no good to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of men if we then do not obey and follow Him continually.

There are those who seek keep on sinning but in their heart they want to serve Christ. God may afflict them or even take their life in order to keep them from destruction.

There is no salvation in Paradise as such. Salvation is in Christ. He is the Tree of Life.

If we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God has raised Him from the dead we shall be saved. This is not a ticket to Heaven, it is the entrance to a lifelong discipleship in which we must turn aside from the world and carry our cross as Jesus leads us every step of the way.

Sometimes God does not make sense until after the fact.

Don’t worry about what Satan, evil spirits, and wicked people can do. They all will conspire, without realizing it, to do God’s will—like making a blood atonement that takes away the sin of the world. They will do the same for you if you follow the Lord Jesus closely.

Ask the Lord and He will set a table for you; but it may be in the presence of your enemies.

As far as I know, the offerings made by Cain and Abel were not sin offerings. The problem with Cain’s offering probably was that it was not presented in faith. The lack of faith in Cain is revealed in his response to the Lord’s rebuke. Cain should have asked the Lord what he could do to please God; but Cain was not teachable!

Can you imagine the Apostles of the Lamb jumping up and down next to their pews in anticipation of a rapture?

It seems to me the idea behind the “seeker friendly,” or “seeker sensitive” church, is to turn one’s attention from what God wants to what people want.

It seems that in the mercantile aspect of our culture the issue is not whether an action is right or wrong but whether it made a profit. If such is the case, how can we deny the charge made by Eastern nations that the United States is decadent?

Grace is Divine assistance, not an alternative to righteous behavior.

We do not seek to acquire the likeness of God in our life, or fruitfulness, or dominion, so we may become spiritually proficient or a powerful person. We seek to acquire union with God through the Lord Jesus Christ so the Divine image, fruitfulness, and dominion, which are the true goals of every person, may be given to us lawfully and enable us to please the Father.

We do not wrestle ineffectually with sin or self-will. We declare we have died with Christ and have risen with Him. Then we look to God for grace each day to act according to our declaration. This is what it means to “overcome.”

Do you even believe that God is bringing you to joy? This was the question that Satan raised with Eve. Faith in God means we believe God sees us, He cares, He is bringing us to joy, and He has the power to do this. You have to hang on to this faith through every trial, every suffering, every frustration or else you will fall by the wayside.

God does not want us to look for formulas that will “work.” This is to put the head of man on the Body of Christ. God desires people who will walk each day as little children, holding His hand, looking up to Him in complete trust; not metaphysicians who know how to “believe” something into existence or how to “speak the creative word.”

In the process of moral deliverance, the Lord brings us to one city at a time, so to speak. We firmly denounce and renounce the behavior as the Holy Spirit reveals to us the particular darkness. We denounce it as evil. We thoroughly renounce it, turning away from it with the determination God gives us.

We then stand on our forgiveness, according to God’s promise. We embrace our fellowship with God and press forward. We deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Christ. We firmly resist Satan as he seeks to reintroduce the specific behavior into our personality.

We occupy one city at a time. If we try to move forward before gaining victory over the designated behavior, our progress ceases. We cannot move ahead into a new area of deliverance while the prior area has not been dealt with thoroughly. Such moral deliverance, step by step, constitutes our advance toward the resurrection unto life and glory.

If we do not submit each detail of our thinking, speaking, and acting, to Jesus Christ, how can we expect to live, move, and have our being in the power of Christ’s resurrection?

If you are diligently doing what Christ has commanded you to do, who has the power or authority to move you? Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? When a man’s ways are pleasing to the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.

I have served Christ all my adult life. I have made many mistakes, but then have repented and pressed forward when the errors were made known to me. Christ has never let me down.

God’s firstfruits are free from “marriage” to all persons, things, and circumstances. They are virgins in this spiritual sense.

It appears to me that there are not many true Christians in the world; not many who deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Christ.

Why be envious concerning the people of the world or upset by their behavior? They only are exhibiting the spiritual death in which they are bound.

Why are you worrying about tomorrow? When tomorrow comes there will be new grace, and solutions that perhaps you never have thought of.

Don’t focus on what the Devil is doing. Focus on the Lord Jesus Christ. He sits as King of the flood of your life. You will yet sing and dance in the heights of Zion when the lawlessness surrounding you is creating desolation.

Be encouraged in the Lord! Think only about what is pure, peaceable, and lovely. Refuse to pay attention to Satan as he bangs on his pots and pans seeking your attention. Ignore the evil unless the Lord directs you to do something about it.

We are not to fret ourselves concerning the evil. To do so only destroys our confidence and trust in Christ.

Look at Jesus and walk on the water. Look at the waves and sink.

There was a time when the Arameans had laid siege to Samaria. The siege continued until the people inside the walls of the city were starving.

During a certain night the Lord caused the Aramean army to panic and flee. One thing led to another until the inhabitants of Samaria found out that the enemy had gone, and then were able to go and gather as much food as they needed.

It is this way today. The Christian churches have been shut up in captivity to the bondages of sin. The Holy Spirit is telling us that if we will confess our sins and turn to Christ we can be delivered from our chains. The enemy has fled in disarray.

Ours is a new day, and the Kingdom of God is at hand.

The Jews are looking for Messiah to appear. Wait until they find out that a multitude of Jews and Gentiles are going to appear with Him to govern and bless the peoples of the earth!

The prayer of relinquishment is not a prayer of resignation. We learn by experience how to let go and place everything in the hands of the Lord, and yet keep on presenting our requests to God, along with our thanksgiving.

If God is with you, who can be against you?

The end of the study of theology is knowledge. The end of the process of salvation is a change of personality and behavior. The knowledge of theology without a transformation produced by salvation leads only to pride. Better to have one small change of personality and behavior into the image of God than a mastery of orthodox theology.

A master of theology is termed a theologian. A morally transformed believer is referred to as a saint.

There are problems God can solve so easily, if we will pray. We are foolish when we worry and attempt to bumble through to some solution of our own making.

The wise person learns to live for the moment. He realizes that all there is, is now. At the same time he recognizes that one day he or she will be withered with age, no longer attractive, no longer able to ignore his body or do as he likes. He prepares for death, knowing he can bring with him only his character.

People remain spiritually dead until God draws them to Jesus Christ, the Tree of Life. They are, as the Scripture says, like grass and flowers which today make a fine show but tomorrow wilt and die. We turn into dust.

The person who is living by the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ never dies. When his physical frame weakens and dies his soul marches triumphantly into the Presence of the Lamb, there to be greeted by God, the saints, and the elect angels.

Life begins when we pass into the spirit world. What we experience on the earth is the prelude to actual life.

Sometimes we wish we had known, when we were younger, what we know now. We could have avoided so many mistakes. Well, that is what God has planned for us. We make our mistakes in the present world. Then we begin again in the next world, having wisdom that we gained during our pilgrimage on the earth.

It seems we can receive nothing of value until we have gained it under difficult circumstances. What we are given so freely we often lose. We do not appreciate it. This is the story of the prodigal son, of Samson, of mankind itself.

“Jesus, You have set me as a witness in an awkward, difficult place. I ask for grace that in this situation I may be not only a survivor but more than a conqueror. I pray this in Your name. Amen.”

We were born in rebellion, in spiritual darkness. Then the Light of Christ entered us. From this point forward the Spirit of God endeavors to separate the light from the darkness, the precious from the vile, the wheat from the tares in our personality.

If when you awaken in the morning you ask God in Jesus’ name to choreograph every step of the day, He will do so.

The Character of God and the consequences of obeying Him; and the character of Satan and the consequences of obeying him; are being revealed clearly to angels and humans by means of the history of the world.

If everyone, including the Christians, would do God’s will, this world would be a paradise.

The emphasis of the true Sabbath is not on our not working. It is on not working according to our own desires. God rested on the seventh day. Now we are to enter that rest by ceasing from our own works and looking to God for every detail of life.

Our goal as Christians is not to go to a place such as Heaven. Our goal is a state of being: to be in the image of Christ, and to be living in untroubled rest in the center of God’s Person and will.

When we speak of paradise, referring to the place, where all tears have been wiped away, where there is no more death or pain, where the leopard will lie down with the goat and a little child will lead them, we are referring to the earth, not to the spirit world.

We have an extensive mythology concerning Heaven; but God is revealing to us that our destiny will be found in the earth—in the present earth when the Lord returns, and then in the new earth after the present earth has been discarded.

The righteous always are with God. The wicked always are with Satan. The great error of Christian thinking is the idea that being a member of the Christian religion qualifies the wicked to walk with God. The purpose of our coming to Christ is not so we can remain wicked and at the same time have fellowship with God. The purpose of receiving Christ is that we may change from wickedness to righteousness and thus be qualified to have fellowship with God.

We can obtain righteousness in the sight of God by professing faith in Jesus Christ. But that ascribed righteousness soon is withdrawn if we then do not cooperate with the Holy Spirit in the work of moral transformation. God never, never will have fellowship with wickedness; but He is willing to assist the individual who desires to change his behavior from wickedness to righteousness.

To believe that the wicked can continue to dwell with God on the basis of a profession of faith in Jesus Christ, without seeking to be changed in character, is to be fatally deceived. We ought to know better than this!

There are numerous Christian people who are proficient in religious service and who minister to the people of the world. But there is no most holy place in them. They know all the ways and furnishings of the house of God, but they do not know the God of the house of God.

It is required of all Christians that we purify ourselves by reading the Word and praying. As we study the Word and pray we begin to be aware of what is spiritually clean and what is not. When we discover we are practicing uncleanness we are to confess the unclean behavior as sin and denounce and renounce it as evil. As we do this the power of Christ cleanses us from all that is unclean in God’s sight.

Without holiness no person ever will see the Lord. Only the pure in heart see God.

We are going to reap what we are sowing whether or not we are a Christian.

If we yield to our sinful nature, not purifying ourselves by the power of Christ, we will be raised in the Day of the Lord with a body of corruption, a body that shows in itself what we have practiced while living on the earth.

Flee, flee, flee from any teacher of “grace” who tells you that you can practice sin and reap eternal life and joy. He is a false teacher. He is leading you to agony of body and soul.

The Lord Jesus advised us to build our house on the rock. According to the Lord, we do this by obeying His teaching.

The Kingdom of God is forcibly entered and violent people take it by force. This means we gain the Kingdom by an unrelenting pursuit of Christ, overcoming every enemy, every hindrance, as we press forward in faith, in prayer, in righteousness, in holiness, in patience, in stern obedience to God.

Every place where we set our foot treads is our possession when we faithfully and patiently are following the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Lord of Hosts is our Commander in Chief. The time has come for Him to gain His inheritance, to put all of His enemies under His feet. He has purposed to do this through those who follow Him faithfully.

When we reveal Christ completely in every aspect of our personality, then God the Father is seen. The invisible God becomes evident.

Only Jesus Christ is the true Revelation of the Almighty God. When Christ lives in us the Almighty God is seen clearly for who He is, in our thoughts, our words, and our behavior.

Mankind, and the angels as well, are all waiting to behold the heretofore invisible God. When we are willing to set aside our own life that Christ may live in us, the desire of the world and of the angels to behold God is fulfilled gloriously and completely.

People, including God’s elect, are deeply rebellious by nature. It is the role of the Holy Spirit and the ministries and gifts He has given to work patiently with people until they are reconciled fully to God.

Israel, God’s elect, always must struggle with God until their natural strength is weakened. They must pass from knowing Bethel, the house of God, to knowing El Bethel, the God of the house of God. Such knowledge entails fires that consume what is adamic and yield what is of God.

We are defined by our memories. God controls our memories. Our eternal reward includes joyous, healing memories, or tormenting, destructive, memories.

We need to lose our adamic inertia, being able always to move here and there as the Spirit chooses; and yet be established on the Rock Christ Jesus.

To behave righteously, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God—there is nothing greater than this in God’s sight. The current concept of Christian thinking, that grace somehow changes this pattern such that God is pleased with our professing faith in Christ and there no longer is need for behaving righteously, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God, is a monumental and destructive error.

The best prayers come from the burden of the Spirit in us, when God says “Ask Me.” Speaking in tongues is one way in which we learn to pray according to the burden of the Lord.

Speaking in tongues is an action assisted by the Spirit of God. It is God’s way of bringing us into His rest.

God will send angels today to assist and guide those who are serving Christ diligently. Indeed we are entering perilous times, morally and physically. It appears the demons of physical lust and perversion are increasing in America and also in the rest of the world.

The pressures on us to engage in lustful, filthy moral practices may increase until only the most determined believers will be able to resist them.

It is well that we seek God until we are filled with the Life of Christ. If we do not do this we will not be able to keep from yielding to the demons of lust.

It may be true that upon his or her death, the wicked individual adds to the army of demons that surround us. Perhaps this is why the demonic forces are increasing rapidly.

God according to His own decisions and through the Holy Spirit sends angels to assist those who are doing God’s will diligently. We see this in the incident in the Garden of Gethsemane in which an angel was sent to assist Christ.

Because our need for spiritual help will increase in the coming days, God will send angels to assist those who are serving Him. However, we never are to seek to invoke, guide, worship, or otherwise attempt to communicate with angels. They are the Lord’s servants, not ours.

It never has been true under any covenant that a person can take a certain action and from that point forward regardless of his or her behavior dwell with God in God’s righteous Kingdom. It is not true now and shall not be true for eternity.

God does not strike us down in a moment when we sin. He is patient with us and gently works to bring about righteous behavior in us. But the person who remains defiant, who will not yield to God’s Spirit as He seeks to change our behavior, will be cut off from God’s Presence.

The Bible teaches that there are righteous people and there are wicked people. The Bible teaches also that an individual can change from wickedness to righteousness, or righteousness to wickedness.

The reason God can speak of the wheat and the tares is that He knows in advance the decisions we will make. However the choice is ours at every point.

When the Bible speaks of election it is referring to God’s Church, His family, not to the saved individuals of the nations of the earth. This does not mean, however, that once we have been elected we can never choose to defy God and thus be cut off. Then too, there are ranks within the elect; for many are called but few are chosen.

Divine election is a powerful force that operates in the affairs of mankind. However, nothing is inevitable. It always is possible to surprise God by our determination to serve Him and have Him multiply our talents. It also is possible for His elect to disappoint God and lose their appointed inheritance.

Nothing is inevitable. If it were determined in advance that some people were to be saved into God’s Kingdom, and other individuals were to be cut off, people no longer would be people. They would be puppets. If such were the case the essential nature of mankind would be different from what it is. The very concepts of love and hate involve choice. Otherwise love and hate, obedience and disobedience, would be mechanical acts not satisfying to God or to us.

The world is filled with people who will lie, steal, usurp, push others aside that they may be preeminent or have luxuries that others cannot afford. Their seeming gains are temporary. There is coming a new, eternal earth and the meek shall inherit it.”

The sons and daughters of the King must be arrayed in royal robes. Are you ready to have your old clothes removed from you by the King’s servants that you may be arrayed in iron righteousness, fiery holiness, and stern obedience to the Father? How glorious you will appear when your transformation has been completed!

Religious fervor proceeds from the ambitions and lusts of man. It is not of the Spirit of God.

The goal of every person of sound mind is love, joy, and peace. Our idols tell us that they will bring us to love, joy, and peace. They all are liars. Only Jesus Christ can bring us to love, joy, and peace, because only He is the Way to the Father.

Every time we obey the Lord, doing what He says, we are fed with His body and blood. In this manner the Kingdom of God is formed in us. In this manner we are married to the Lamb.

God’s answer to the rebellion of the angels is to take the dust of the ground and from this form His eternal throne.

Grace and mercy have little to do with the law of sowing and reaping. If we do not use our talents we shall be thrown into the outer darkness, and grace will not save us in that hour.

Total deliverance depends on our being diligent and faithful in confessing the sinful actions of our personality as the Holy Spirit makes us aware of them. The sons of God are those who are led by the Spirit to put to death the actions of their sinful nature.

The blood of the Lamb protects, pardons, purges, and nourishes the believer, guiding him in the way of righteousness. Continually feeding on the atoning blood keeps us in the Presence of God without condemnation of any kind. This is the Way of the Lamb, and through it we are able to overcome the accuser.

The word of our testimony overcomes the accuser. The word of our testimony is the Truth that Christ is, and overcomes the lie that the accuser is.

By loving not our life to the death we enable God to change us from an adamic soul to a life-giving spirit. The Divine Life being formed in us overcomes the sin, rebellion, and death that Satan is. This is the Life that Christ is.

When we are willing to give up our own life, the Life of Christ is separated from the darkness of our personality and our environment. In that Life is Light, and the darkness cannot overcome it. No matter how dark a room is, the tiniest light of a penlight or a candle will prevail against it.

True optimism does not prevent us from perceiving reality. Rather, it rejoices in the sure hope that God is bringing us to complete, untroubled joy in Christ.

We endure our prisons but we never are to adopt a prisoner mentality. We understand that we are a king in the making, like Joseph. One day with and through Christ we will govern all the works of God’s hands.

It is necessary that we strive against sin. It is not acceptable for us to strive against or attempt to supplant or overcome another person and not be content in the role and situation in which God has placed us. The original sin was discontent with the role and situation in which God had placed a cherub.

Those of other religions must see integrity in Christian people and feel the Presence of God that is in them. before they will receive Christ. It is vain for us to rail about how correct our doctrine is if people do not see integrity in us or feel the Presence of God.

God desires to remove from us all that is not of Himself and to clothe us with all that is of Himself. We are His offspring and God wants us to be like Himself in every way.

I think we have to walk with Christ a fairly long time before Christ knows us. When Christ knows us He blesses and helps us and also punishes us for all our iniquities.

If we confess our sins and turn away from them God may heal us physically. There is a danger that this procedure will become a technique for gaining physical healing rather than a means of bringing us into fellowship with the Father and the Son.

We must be careful when we go for years suffering one perversity after another that we do not become pessimistic about the future. We must keep in mind that God is bringing us to total joy. One day in prison. The next day on the throne.

Keeping in mind the story of Gideon, we must remember that after winning a great victory we may be tempted to enter idolatry. Satan watches us carefully when we are successful to see if we may have grown careless.

The reason so many American couples live together without being married is that they want pleasure without responsibility.

Homosexual behavior cannot possibly lead to love, joy, and peace, because it is condemned by the Scriptures. The New Testament as well as the Old condemn homosexual behavior as being worthy of death.

To abort a fetus is to murder a human being. God will judge this practice as such. It is not a light matter.

To find our joy and security in money is to have the mark of Antichrist on our right hand or on our forehead.

Those who treat others violently shall themselves be treated with violence. Those who live by the sword shall perish by the sword.

Jesus said to the thief on the cross, “This day you shall be with me in Paradise.” This incident often is used to prove that God saves us by an unconditional grace, unrelated to our living a victorious life in Christ. But Jesus’ parables were not about Paradise but about the Kingdom of God. The Lord did not say, “Today you shall be with me in the Kingdom of God.”

The Kingdom of God is the creating of Christ in us resulting in a transformed personality. It is not a place one can go to. Our goal as a Christian is to enter the Kingdom of God. In order to enter the Kingdom of God we have to cooperate with the Spirit of God every moment of every day and night; and we do so through much tribulation.

If our goal as a Christian were to go to Heaven when we die, our discipleship would be altogether different from what it is. Actually our goal is to inherit the Kingdom of God. This requires that we endure hardness and follow the Lord through much tribulation.

Those who are teaching that the purpose of being saved is to obtain eternal residence in the spirit Heaven, and we quality for entrance merely by professing belief in Christ, know neither the Scriptures nor the Lord.

The current teaching of salvation often results in a passive belief in Christ as we wait to die and go to Heaven. But rugged discipleship requires that we change from our fallen adamic nature to the shining robes of the Divine salvation.

The robes of salvation with which the true disciples of Christ are being clothed include forgiveness of sins; freedom from all condemnation; destruction of the old, sinful nature; the creation of a new Christ-nature; the fullness of the indwelling of the Father and the Son; and a body that is suitable as a habitation for God and His saint.

As I have grown older in the Lord I notice that when I am facing an unpleasant day and pray about it, the day proves to be more pleasant than usual.

A prayer upon awakening: “O Lord, what marvels of Your loving kindness await me today?” As David said, “I shall walk within my house with a perfect heart.” I will see the King in His beauty and view the land that stretches afar.

Given the aborting of children, the increase in sexual lust, the violence against people, the worship of money, trusting money for security and survival—given these things, our country will not last much longer because of the wrath of God on all who practice such behavior.

The Babylon of the Bible is man-driven religion. Laodicea is the Church, the Lampstand of God, when it is filled with its own ways. Antichrist is expressed when we worship ourselves, use money as our power and education as our wisdom. The False Prophet consists of Christian people who seek to use the power of the Lamb but who refuse to take up their personal cross and follow the Lamb in self-denial.

According to the Book of Lamentations, Israel was sent into captivity “because of the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests.” So it is today God’s people are in the chains of sin because of the leaders who are teaching that Divine grace is an alternative to righteous behavior, and that the believers will be caught up to Heaven in their carnal state in order to escape Antichrist and the Great Tribulation.

The hope of the Church and of the world as well is not that the Church will be carried to Heaven but that the Kingdom of God will come to the earth. Can you imagine the joy, the splendor, the love and peace that will fill the earth when the Lord Jesus Christ returns to earth with His saints and holy angels?

The Lord Jesus Christ shall return to the earth as a righteous King. His return will be a horrible agony for the wicked of the world and the hypocrites of the churches, but an incredibly joyous event for His victorious saints and the meek, righteous people of the earth.

It is the Church that is the government of the Kingdom that is being formed now. The salvation for the world will come when the Church has been made one in Christ in God.

Are Jesus and the Father the same Person? No, this is not scriptural. But the Father and the Son exist in perfect, complete unity. Each member of the Body of Christ has been called to be an integral part of the Divine Unity.

Realizing the spiritual and sometimes physical impoverishment of so many millions of people in the world, we would be of all people most despicable if we did not devote our life to sharing what has been given to us so freely.

How perfectly wonderful to live in the same house with God. If we dwell contentedly with God in our house at this time, when the Lord come He will give us a new house so we all can dwell together in love—the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and we ourselves.

If we are cooperating with the Holy Spirit each day, the Spirit already is living in us for eternity. The Spirit is preparing the way for two other Guests to live in our house with us—the Father and the Son.

We are to repent and believe the Good News. The Good News is that the Kingdom of God is coming to the earth. “Your Kingdom come. Your will be done in the earth as it is in Heaven.” The teaching that the Good News, the Gospel, is that the Church will be carried off to Heaven is misleading and has a weakening effect on Christian discipleship.

The explosion of knowledge on the Internet appears to be one of the significant aspects of the twenty-first century. If only we had a corresponding explosion of wisdom! But wisdom accompanies the fear of the Lord, and the fear of the Lord is unacceptable to us at this time.

Today the Christian Church is encountering a paradigm shift from Heaven-thinking to Kingdom-thinking. Because our goal has changed from entering Heaven to entering and inheriting the Kingdom of God, we must needs be conformed to the Kingdom laws governing righteous behavior, holiness of personality, and stern obedience to God.

To be entirely acceptable to God we must be righteous in behavior, holy in personality, and sternly obedient to God.

Jesus Christ Himself is the only Way to God. Jesus Christ Himself is the only Truth of God. Jesus Christ Himself is the only Life of God.

A cheerful optimism is pleasing to God. It is a manifestation of faith in God’s goodness.

The coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth is a marvelous hope. The Old Testament in particular has descriptions of the wonderful Glory of God filling the earth; safety for the children; justice for the oppressed of the nations. Why then do we insist on talking about going to Heaven? Why do we perversely ignore the Gospel of the Kingdom of God coming to the earth?

The Kingdom of God is beginning to be preached. The current concept seems to be that if we try to do good, then this is the promised Kingdom. The truth is, doing good is the result of the Kingdom being formed in us through the several operations of redemption. The Kingdom of God cannot be brought into being by our fallen nature.

There are two great dimensions of the coming of the Kingdom of God. One is the forming of Christ in us, and the coming of the Father and the Son to dwell in that which has been formed in us. The second dimension is the coming of Christ from Heaven with His saints and holy angels to enforce on the peoples of the earth the doing of God’s will.

What perversity is it that maintains Heaven is the eternal home of the saints when there is no scriptural basis whatever for such a belief? Our home is the earth. Heaven is coming back to the earth, we might say, as was true in the beginning.

What perversity is it that maintains Christ is coming to take His Church to Heaven, when there is no passage of Scripture that supports such a belief?

What perversity is it that maintains Christ will rapture His saints from the earth to Heaven in order to deliver them from Antichrist and the Great Tribulation, when such deliverance has no support in the Scriptures?

What perversity is it that maintains grace is an alternative to righteous behavior, when the Scripture declares if we continue in our sinful nature as a Christian we will die spiritually and not inherit the Kingdom of God?

What perversity is it that maintains once we have received Christ we never can be removed from Christ? Christ said if we do not bear fruit we will be cut from the Vine.

What perversity is it that maintains we can have fellowship with God while we are continuing to sin? The Scripture states we must come out from among sinful people and not touch what is unclean if we desire that God receive us.

The sinful nature which is within us keeps us from obeying the laws of the Kingdom of God, which are found in the Sermon on the Mount. It is only as the sinful nature is destroyed and replaced with the Nature of Christ that we have any hope of practicing righteousness, of having a holy personality, of obeying God in every aspect of our life.

We will fail to meet God’s standard of behavior and personality until our sinful nature has been replaced with the Nature of Christ.

Our sinful nature is replaced with the Nature of Christ a little bit at a time, as we pray, meditate in the Scriptures, and obey the Holy Spirit each moment of each day and night.

As the work of redemption proceeds in us we are amazed to discover how much ungodliness there is in our personality. But by this time we perceive how able the Lord is to destroy our sinful nature. This knowledge give us confidence that what Christ has begun so splendidly in us will be carried through to perfection.

We Christians look forward to going to Heaven when we die. God wants us to look forward to the return of Jesus Christ with His Kingdom. This is the true blessed hope of the Church.

If the people of the nations would enter the Kingdom prepared for them, they not only must not hurt Christ’s brothers, they must assist Christ’s brothers when they are sick, or in prison, or have some other need. If they do not assist Christ’s brothers when they have need they will we sent into eternal fire.

If we are following Christ closely there is no pain we experience that is not necessary for our change into His image.

We may go through a season of travail while Christ, who has been with us, is now ready to appear in us. We are not to cease serving the Lord during this dark period. If we continually look to Christ, the time will arrive when we realize that He and the Father are making Their home in us.

Christian believers are like sacks of seed in a barn. When God is ready to select one of the seeds to know Him and to bear fruit, He plants that seed in the ground. Now it is separate from the other seeds and begins the journey that at first is dark and lonely, and then emerges into the light as a son of God; as a member of the Kingdom of God.

To die in Christ each day and to have Christ raise us each day is the essence of the Christian salvation.

“Salvation” appears to emphasize being spared from destruction in the Day of Wrath. The idea of “redemption” is that of releasing us from the person of Satan and bringing us into the Person and works of God. We are “saved” so we may be “redeemed” into God’s image.

Christ always is with us. Now He is appearing in our personality. We see Him in us after a period of darkness.

The travail to bring forth Christ, the Ruler, in us, can be intense. But afterward we do not remember the pain because Christ has been born in us. The male Son of the twelfth chapter of the Book of Revelation is Christ who is born in us.

It is given to us to govern all the works of God’s hands. We can exercise this authority only as long as Christ is formed in us and is directing us.

There may be demons who are active in the dens of filthy behavior. But Satan himself stands before the Church in order to devour Christ before He is brought forth in the saint; before He can be caught up to God and to His Throne.

There are many good, righteous, honorable people in the world. God knows every one. In His time He will fill them with Christ.

If flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, and we do not make the transition from flesh-and-blood life into the eternal Life of God now, in what condition will we be in the Day of Resurrection? All other enemies must be destroyed before we will be entrusted with an immortal body.

The Christian religion is different from all others, as far as I know, in that the master of the religion changes his disciples into the personality and behavior He desires by being formed in them and dwelling in them.

I suppose the main problem with religion is that it is unnatural. The Son of God upon being born was laid in a feeding trough for a cradle. How easily and naturally God can walk among people and talk with them. But they hide behind their special religious garments, activities, and systems of thought.

It is not the righteous behavior of people of integrity that is “filthy rags,” it is the smugness, arrogance, and hypocrisy of many Christian people. They exert every effort to make a proselyte, informing the hapless individual that if he tries to live righteously God views his efforts as filthy rags.

Those who teach that a person will be sent to Hell because he or she has never heard the Gospel do not know God or Christ. Such teachers are ready to assign a baby to the Lake of Fire because the little one has never “accepted Christ.” They are not bearing a true witness of God.

I think that in some instances, religion destroys the natural integrity and common sense of ordinary people.

The Lord Jesus Christ is a very humble, ordinary Person. He enjoys being among ordinary people with no religious mannerisms.

In modern corporate life they speak of booting someone upstairs, meaning the individual no longer is effectively performing valuable service. So they place him in a higher but useless administrative post so he no longer will be a hindrance to the company. We have done this with the Lord Jesus Christ viewing Him as equal to the Father. We have made Him incomprehensible and no longer available to us as an elder brother, except in some meaningless, religious sense.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the Firstborn of God. Now God is giving birth to a number of sons, of brothers of Jesus. We will never be as highly ranked as the Lord Jesus; nevertheless we are true sons of God the same as He, in this respect.

The Lord Jesus wants us to be His true friends, His true brothers. We have the same Father. When we make Christ one aspect of an incomprehensible God we are not able to relate to Him in the natural, ordinary manner of brother to brother. He remains a stylized religious icon.

Did the Lord Jesus pray that we would be one with Him and with each other as He is one with the Father? If so, we can say in truth that God is enlarging Himself.

When the Lord Jesus Christ said, “I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God,” was He really saying that the Father is His God? Is He really saying we are His brothers in a genuine, familiar sense?

In our theology we have made the Lord Jesus Christ the same Person as the Father, or equal to the Father. Our intention is to exalt Christ. But by so doing we have made several passages of the Scriptures meaningless and our elder Brother unapproachable.

It appears to me that the purpose of religion, including the Christian religion, is to bring people to God. But in actuality, all religions, including Christianity, because they are artificial, being put together by the human mind, have a tendency to separate us from the normal fellowship with Him that God desires.

If Jesus Christ in His Glory were to walk into one of our Sunday-morning services, would we keep on with the service? Would we fall on our faces in terror? Or would we gather around Him as happy friends and children of the Father?

Christ would have us fear Him as one should reverence the Divinely appointed King; but love Him and have fellowship with Him as our Divinely appointed Friend and Brother.

The Father through Jesus Christ created man. It pleases the Father when a person becomes a friend and brother of Christ and embraces Him in the intense union prefigured in human marriage. The Father wants Jesus to have friends, brothers, and an eternal counterpart and helper suitable for Him and in whom He is enlarged.

God is making us a helper suitable for Christ. Because of this, total demands are made on us in the process of changing us into Christ’s moral image and finally His likeness.

When we are in the throes of the travail necessary to bring forth Christ in us, it is helpful to remember that God is in control of all aspects of our life. What He is forming in us indeed shall be brought forth into the clear light of day. He shall not fail to do this!

If every pastor and evangelist in America proclaimed unceasingly that no person can be a Christian unless he denies himself, takes up his cross, and follows Jesus, how many professing Christians would be left in America do you suppose?

Are we preaching discipleship in America or are we preaching going to Heaven? Is there a difference between being saved and being a disciple? Is there a difference between being a Christian and being a disciple?

To be saved from wrath we must believe and be baptized. To be a disciple means we must deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Jesus at all times. How are these two aspects of redemption related?

The desire to be a disciple of the Lord means we have been called to govern with Christ and to be raised when He next appears. To fulfill our calling as a disciple we absolutely must deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Christ at all times.

If, after having received Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you do not begin to bear the fruit of righteous behavior, you will not enter the Kingdom of God. You may be trusting in “grace” to keep you righteous; but you have misunderstood the proper role of grace in the plan of redemption.

Are you allowing your body to be a playground for demons, or are you maintaining your body as the temple of God? The choice is yours; but God will help you if you ask Him.

The demons are walking through dry places. They continually are seeking a body through which they can express themselves. Are you going to permit them to use yours?

We are surrounded at all times by spirits of mental, moral, and physical illness. It is only as God gives us mental, moral, and physical vitality that we are able to overcome these spirits. This is how we attain to mental, moral, and physical health.

When an inroad has been made in our personality, God has the power and shall remove the mental, moral, or physical illness if we ask Him in Jesus’ name; but we must be patient and keep on asking until He answers. The illness will remain removed unless we weaken in some area.

Whoever does not follow Christ with all his strength is unwise. Only in Jesus Christ can be found the path of life, the way that leads to total love, total joy, total peace—to all that is desirable and will fulfill the individual’s unique inheritance.

Salvation is always from the Lord. He does whatever pleases in the heavens and upon the earth.

There is coming a fearful Day of Judgment of the works of men, angels, and demons. The angels and demons realize this, and perhaps some of the people who have died also are aware of the terror of the Day of Christ. But the Christians of today have been taught they are exempt from any inconvenience and that the Day of Judgment will be for them a day of high revelry. They are dreadfully, woefully mistaken.

Salvation comes from God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Religion is man-made. Babylon is the name the Bible gives to the spirit of religion, including the Christian religion.

Living in the world of today is like being a deep-sea diver. If we do not keep in contact with Jesus through prayer, it is not long before moral temptation or mental, emotional, or physical sickness crowd into our personality.

There is a body of sinful desires dwelling in each one of us. This body of sinful desires can be removed from us. If we ask God to remove the sinful desires from us, and keep on praying every day, He will do so with our cooperation, one step at a time.

We only can have fellowship with God to the extent we are willing to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in removing the sinful nature from us. Anyone who teaches differently from this is unscriptural and is leading people to destruction.

The removing of the weeds from the Kingdom of God has begun. Let us rejoice! The promised Day of Redemption is here.

“Lord Jesus come and remove all rebellion from me that I may be quiet and peaceful, abiding in Your love.”

The United States has set personal liberty as a value greater than righteous behavior. This is a formula for disaster. It certainly shall bring God’s judgment upon us as a nation.

When the Bible says God is our righteousness it means He is leading us in paths of righteous behavior for His name’s sake. Imputed righteousness is for Jews so they can turn away from the Law of Moses. It is not an amnesty for Gentiles so they can live as they please.

It seems to me that people in America do not understand what it means to be a Christian. Americans love pleasure. When believers are brought to a crisis in which they have to deny themselves and take up their cross of delayed gratification, they often fail the test.

Why don’t we ask God in Jesus’ name for all of our needs and desires, so that our joy may be full?

Can we pray to the Father in Jesus’ name? Yes! Can we pray directly to the Lord Jesus? Yes! Can we pray to the Holy Spirit? No! There is no scriptural basis I know of for praying to the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is not to be directly invoked, prayed to, or worshiped. But we do baptize into His name, and He is to be obeyed.

A believer in Christ is not necessarily a Christian. A Christian is a disciple. A disciple is someone who denies himself, takes up his cross, and follows Jesus.

A believer in Christ who thinks only of himself must be cared for by others. In the next world he will be ruled by more mature people. He never shall govern with Christ.

To love someone does not mean merely that the individual makes you feel good. To truly love someone is a gift from God. If you truly love someone you would give your life for that person.

When the Lord does a special work in a saint, as He did with Job, He sets aside the benefits that ordinarily would accompany a righteous life. Job was treated as though he were wicked. But after his ordeal he knew the Lord, and wealth and a new family were given to him.

The believers in Christ who choose to live according to their sinful nature, rather than to pray and gain victory over the deeds of their sinful nature, are forsaking their own mercy. They shall go from corruption to corruption. Who knows what their end will be?

At the time of the reformation, the theologians decided that man is hopelessly corrupt. While he should try to do good, his efforts are hopeless. He must be saved by forgiveness alone. This position is a formula for disaster. The truth is, Christ will enable everyone who calls on Him to overcome the lusts of his flesh and spirit.

We are unscriptural, unrighteous, and ignorant of God’s way when we claim that a person who never has heard the Gospel will be thrown into the Lake of Fire because he did not accept Christ. What blindness! What hardness of heart is produced by the religious spirit!

Many practitioners of the Christian religion are still preaching grace-rapture-Heaven. Those who are hearing from the Spirit of God are preaching the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.

The wonderful, joyous, peaceful world we think of as Heaven as being in the spirit world above us, is actually the Kingdom of God. It will be on the earth and it will be the spiritual clothed with the physical, as it is today.

The wonderful new world or righteousness will be brought into being and maintained by people who are learning righteousness, holiness, and obedience to God today.

As it says in the Book of Revelation, those who through Jesus Christ overcome the world, sin, Satan, and their own sinful nature, shall inherit all that God is making new. Their inheritance includes a world more splendid than can be imagined in the present hour.

The victorious saints shall receive the love of the people of the new world. The love of people is the greatest inheritance of all.

It appears there will be a big difference in the Kingdom of God between those merely have been saved from wrath, and those who have endured many years of cross-carrying obedience. It will be a difference in strength of righteousness. The one will rule. The other shall be ruled. And all shall be in love, joy, and peace.

We need, through the Lord Jesus Christ, to regain our self-control so that we do not say or do things we know to be improper.

Our problem in America as Christians is that we are complacent. We do not love righteousness passionately or hate lawlessness passionately. We are lukewarm. We shall be vomited from the Lord’s mouth, even though we profess faith in Christ.

The Lord Jesus Christ loves righteousness passionately and hates lawlessness passionately. All of His brothers must learn to love righteousness and hate lawlessness. Those who are complacent about righteousness and lawlessness shall never rule in the Kingdom of God.

There is no way that a human being can come to know the Lord other than through death and rebirth. Job is our example in this.

It pleased God in His infinite wisdom when He first created man to not reveal His intention to dwell in man, to make man His eternal house. Yet, man being fashioned as a room in the house of God is a central part of God’s purpose in creating man.

Flesh and blood cannot enter the Kingdom of God. It is only as our soul dies and is raised in Christ as a new creation that we can be part of the Kingdom of God.

When a human being chooses to set aside his own life and embraces the Life of Christ, there is a mutual benefit. God benefits in that He has a new expression of Himself. The person benefits in that he or she becomes an eternal witness of God.

As the Lord Jesus said, “The flesh profits nothing.” The flesh serves only as a receptacle for true life, true love, true joy, true peace—all of which are found in eternal form in the Person of Christ.

God will save anyone who comes to Him through Christ. But this salvation often includes a drawn out period of suffering, which the believer must work out with fear and trembling.

When we pass into the spirit world we will leave our body, with its “endearing young charms,” behind. What we actually are in personality will be seen clearly. This is good news for those who have lived a righteous life. This is bad news for those who have indulged the lusts and passions of their sinful nature.

The leper said, “Lord, You can make me clean, if You are willing.” The Lord said, “I am willing. Be clean!” It is not a lack of faith when we pray for healing or anything else, and say, “Your will be done.”

Every prayer we pray should include the condition: “Your will be done.”

I started to ask the Lord what this new year of 2006 holds for us. Then I withdrew the prayer. I think change is coming and there is grace for only one step at a time.

The longer I live and think about how the Lord deals with me and with others, the more clearly I realize that what is of true importance is the new world of righteousness that is ahead. Our life at that time, our roles in the Kingdom, are determined by the way we conduct ourselves today.

It is a mistake to overemphasize the present life and forget we are being prepared for eternal existence in God’s new world of righteousness.

My body is old. My spiritual nature is in its infant stage, just becoming aware of the new world of righteousness on the horizon. With righteousness comes love, joy, and peace. These are the greatest gifts we can have, barring the Person of God Himself.

There are things I desire. The greatest desire of all is that God’s will be done in my life. I refuse to have any idols.

In the beginning the Lord separated the light from the darkness, the precious from the worthless, so to speak. When the light comes to maturity, God will separate the remains of the darkness from the light until the complete Person, way, will, and eternal purpose of God in Christ are revealed.

If when we pray in Jesus’ name we sense that God has heard us, there no longer is need to worry. Our petition has been granted.

The Lord Himself is becoming my wisdom, my strength, my health, my desires. It is not just that He gives me these things, He Himself is them. This is the spiritual fulfillment of the Jewish feast of Tabernacles.

I have observed that in numerous instances professing to be a Christian does not change the behavior of people. Now we have come in God’s timetable to the work of redemption that actually will change believers into God’s image. This work of redemption is the spiritual fulfillment of the Jewish Day of Atonement, which comes after Pentecost.

There are personality characteristics and behaviors which are not against the law of God. They are not sin, in that sense. But neither are they of the image of God. Fickleness, for example. All of these have to be replaced with Christ’s character if we are to be in God’s image and bear a true witness of Him.

Ever since Bible school, in 1948, I have been thinking about, teaching, and preaching the spiritual fulfillments of the last three feasts of the Lord. These are, war against evil spirits; reconciliation to God in all areas of our personality; and making us the eternal house of God.

God’s way of saving us is to crucify us. Flesh and blood cannot possibly enter the Kingdom of God.

Christ had faith on our behalf before we had our own faith for salvation. We are saved by the faith of Christ. In like manner, there come times when we are to have faith on behalf of another person until he has enough faith to stand on his own.

In these days God is giving us a wonderful opportunity to gain a splendid inheritance. We need to make very sure we do not permit any other pursuit—money, in particular—to distract us from the single-minded pursuit of that which God is offering.

Blaming others for our lack of peace and joy is an evidence of immaturity. If we live in Christ, we will have peace and joy in every situation.

If you stop to think about it, it is of supreme importance for an individual to consider what will happen to him after he dies.

Which do we love, freedom or righteousness? These are not the same thing. Would we cry, “Give me righteousness or give me death”?

The greatest adventure any person ever will have is that individual’s relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. He does not have to travel to another place to have this wonderful relationship take place within him.

Scientists examine God creation from the farthest galaxies of stars to the nucleus of the atom. But an examination of far greatest importance takes place when God brings the person on a journey into that individual’s personality.

The Scripture does not promise us love, joy, and peace in Heaven, in the spirit world. Love, joy, and peace are the result of having Christ formed in the human personality.

We may think we have wisdom and knowledge. The truth is, we know nothing at all until Christ Himself becomes our knowledge, our wisdom, our understanding, our strength, our peace.

During our discipleship, we encounter many difficulties, many complexities. If we remain faithful, patiently pressing through all these, we emerge into a simple, clear relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

There are many peculiar doctrines that become mixed in with the Gospel. An example of this sort of thing is that the Christian should find out what tribe of Israel he belongs to. There are several other such distractions. It is best to avoid all these for they are not found in the New Testament. We can have a simple relationship with Christ as we press forward in Him.

Because Jesus said, “I and My Father are One,” theologians have reasoned in their natural mind that somehow Christ and the Father are the same Person. As we become one with Christ we understand clearly that our life has become an eternal part of His Life. Nevertheless, we are not the same person as Jesus Christ. Now we understand by experience, and not by reasoning, the Nature of the Godhead.

The higher we climb up Mount Zion, the more it is true that passages of the Scriptures that once appeared contradictory are now revealed as essential aspects of the same truth.

There are passages of the Scriptures that appear to be contradictory, it is tempting to seize one aspect of truth and ignore the other. Predestination and the exercise of our choice are one such seeming contradiction. Evangelical theology is off course in several areas because of the practice of choosing one aspect of truth and ignoring the other.

It is not enough that we be fashioned into the perfect image of Christ in thought, word, and deed. We also must be brought into untroubled rest in the Person and will of God.

We humans have a tendency to resist the ordeals through which the Lord brings us. We must watch our spirit constantly that we do not rebel, but as cheerfully as we can, embrace every dealing of Christ with our personality.

Abraham is our example. When we offer our life as a sacrifice we have to beat off the birds, the demons that smell blood. Then a terror of great darkness descends on us. This is the Lord!

After we die and pass into the spirit world we still will have to obey Christ and make righteous choices. Remember, sin began in the spirit world with those who rebelled against the Father’s will.

All that takes place in the physical world is the Father’s response to the rebellion of the angels. Part of His response includes the creating of brothers for His Firstborn; a wife for the Lamb; also, many people who shall reveal in themselves throughout all the creation God’s eternal moral law.

It is characteristic of people to desire to go to another place where there is love, joy, and peace. The truth is, however, that love, joy, and peace must proceed from within the person as Christ is formed in him. Moving him from one place to another, such as from earth to Heaven, does not in any manner change the hatred, misery, and unrest that come from his untransformed nature.

A beautiful young girl presents her body, the works of her hands, and her personality. At first glance, she may appear to be desirable. But whether or not she truly is desirable, will be brought forth after a while.

A handsome young man presents his body, the works of his hands, and his personality. At first glance, he may appear to be desirable. But whether or not he truly is desirable, will be brought forth after a while.

God placed a powerful sexual urge in human beings. First, to bring people into the world. Second, to demonstrate the individual’s self-control; his willingness to do God’s will in the midst of powerful temptations.

God is looking for rulers for His new world of righteousness. We shall judge angels, the Bible says. But we cannot judge angels while we are bound with sin and are not sternly obedient to God in every aspect of our personality and behavior.

Christian people are hoping to rule the world with the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a vain hope unless the believer is willing to undergo the ordeals, the frustrations, the denials, that are required for the creation of the ruling personality.

When the throne of God has been created in us, it will be the source of an endless supply of eternal life with which to bless mankind. The river of God eternally is full of water.

Christ is not willing to be Lord of only a part of our life. He will be King of kings to us, or we will suffer because of our rebellious nature and idolatry.

God gives people, the wicked and the righteous alike, gifts of music, art, invention, industrial design, and other abilities and accomplishments. Why then don’t we worship God who gives these abilities rather than viewing the people in wonderment at what has come forth through them.

All gifts, abilities, and accomplishments of the human race belong to those who obey God, even though the individual who was given the ability and the accomplishment was wicked.

When the Lord gives us a gift it may benefit many people. But we ourselves may not profit from our own gift unless we faithfully do God’s will in the earth.

Love, joy, peace, and righteousness of personality of behavior are all related. One cannot have enduring love, joy, or peace if he is unrighteous in personality and behavior.

Because Christ, who Himself is the Resurrection, is being formed in me, I never shall die. I shall walk from this life into the next, serving the Lord as I have for sixty-one years. The same can be true of you if you will make the effort.

We need to be patient with people while Christ works with them. Sometimes we are very surprised to see how Christ can change those whom we have viewed as hopeless.

Sometimes it is best when we find a Judas in our midst to let God deal with him. Give him enough rope, and he will hang himself. This is how Christ worked with the wicked person.

Beware of a desire for money. Wealth is deceitful. Judas was deceived by it, and Jesus said it were best that Judas never had been born. What a terrible fate!

I have met intelligent people who do not make a success of the victorious Christian life. What virtue do the overcomers have in common? I would say it is a faith that is given by the Lord to whomever He will. Therefore the saints do not have reason to boast about their zeal for the Lord.

There are some believers who, it appears, are immovable rocks. There are others who are like chameleons. They change into the likeness of whatever background they are placed in. But God has a place in His Kingdom for the weak believer if the individual will call upon Him.

More than one Christ-rejecting, defiant atheist has finally come to the Lord. I think God delights in this sort of thing. It teaches us to not make final judgments about people.

Refusing to stand up for Christ when the need arises is sufficient to bar an individual from the Presence of God.

People have all sorts of admirable personality traits, varying from individual to individual, such as friendliness, truthfulness, patience, courage, and honesty of character. But no trait is part of the Kingdom of God in its adamic form. It must be reborn in Christ.

Our love for Christ must be greater than our love for any other person, except for God Himself. If it is not, and we are following Christ, God will work with us until Christ is first in our heart.

No doubt the things God does with people and with the material creation is a continual surprise to the angels and other heavenly creature. But God is just getting started!

The Spirit of Babylon is the spirit of all religions. It is not faithful in all of God’s house. “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves.” This is the spirit of religion, including the Christian religion.

If you see wicked behavior, and look at the individual who is practicing it, and do not see Satan working through the person, you will lose the battle.

It is difficult for the Lord Jesus to find someone who will rest in His will. There are any number of people who are rushing about, seeking to build the Kingdom of God according to their own plans and ambitions.

If an individual actually has been born again in Christ, his personality is being transformed. He is learning to love righteousness and hate wickedness.

Christ is not going to command his warrior angels to establish His Kingdom on the earth while we are filled with our own religious ambition.

When you think your sin is too great for God or people to forgive, think of David and Bathsheba and how totally God forgave and restored him in the sight of God and of people.

Our life takes on significance and fruitfulness only to the extent that Christ, the one Seed of Abraham, is formed in us.

Sin and confusion are closely related. Righteousness, holiness, and obedience to God drive away confusion.

What is confusion, if it is not lack of a clear of God’s will for us?

The world spirit is one mammoth lie. Only the Lord Jesus Christ, who Himself is Truth, can overcome the lie that the world is.

Obedience to God is better than sacrifice to God.

It is in our day that the tail of the fiery dragon is pulling down a third of the host of saints. They are at the right hand of God. They are being pulled down by pornography, money, personal ambition. Will you be able to stand before the Lord? Will I?

The wheat and the tares are coming to maturity. Let us cooperate with the Holy Spirit as He removes every tare from our personality.

Don’t be complacent about your position in Christ. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. “Let him who thinks he stands be careful lest he fall!”

Self-centeredness may be the worst of all prisons and the most destructive of all personality traits. The wise person will pray to be delivered entirely from self-centeredness. The answer to his prayer will be death that he may live.

The humanistic, “liberal,” spirit, that which elevates human welfare, and, “love,” above the Bible and common sense, may represent itself as Christian, or merciful and kindly; but it originates in Hell. There is no attitude more destructive than this!

I think the current warping of Christ’s teaching of love and forgiveness to mean that the criminal justice system should not punish too severely the perpetrators of heinous crimes, is coming from Satan. He may be attempting to enlist mankind on his side so God will forgive him and not throw him into the Lake of Fire. We should forget about the unbelievable agony Satan has caused the creation, just as we should forget about the horrors the criminal has brought to others.

To receive spiritual power apart from the sufferings of the cross is to invite the worst possible forms of deception and spiritual bondage.

As we walk with the Lord Jesus we learn to not assume anything. The Lord keeps surprising us if we remain open to Him and not take anything for granted. We are to pray about everything. Then we will not lose sight of Him and his directions as we otherwise would.

We do well when we look to the Lord Jesus for everything we think, say, and do. We grow in this kind of following of the Lord as we keep endeavoring to practice it.

There are numerous commandments to be found in the New Testament writings. However, the new covenant is not a covenant of the letter but of the Holy Spirit. We have to look to Jesus at every moment if we are to properly interpret and respond to the written Word.

The written form of the new covenant is to be studied and lived as the Lord directs us. As we follow Christ, the written word becomes the living Word in us, the Day Star, and we do God’s will by nature.

What is the Word of God? The Word of God was made flesh. His name is Jesus. As Christ is formed in us, we too become the living Word, the flesh made the Word.

The most powerful force in the universe is the Word of God. It creates all things. Christ Himself is that Word, and in Him we are becoming that Word.

Jesus Christ Himself is the Way, the Truth, the Resurrection, and eternal Life. It is not just that He shows us the way or tells us the truth. He Himself is the Truth. He Himself is the Way in us. We do not attain to such union with Christ in a moment. It is a program that takes place as we patiently carry our cross behind the Master.

It is God’s desire that we become His will, His covenant with man. We are to reveal in ourselves God’s thinking; God’s speaking; and God’s acting. Thus we become part of the living Word; part of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We are learning to live by the body and blood of the Lamb of God. These are given to us each time we choose to turn away from our corrupt nature and obey what the Apostles have written, and what we perceive God is requiring of us.

If we do not remain available to the Lord and employ all He has given us as He directs, what we possess shall be given to another; and we shall enter ever further into spiritual darkness.

“Help me, Lord, to be totally obedient to you at every moment. I do not trust my own ability or willingness or strength to be obedient.”

Some insist that the commandments found in the New Testament were given so we would have to keep looking to the Lord for the grace of forgiveness. This is not true. The commandments were given so we would keep looking to the Lord for the willingness and strength to obey them, thus being formed into God’s image.

In the beginning, God declared that man is to be in His image in character, and in His likeness in appearance. All we experience is for the purpose of making us in God’s image and likeness.

God’s path for us is clear and simple. It is Christ Himself. However, numerous obstacles and complexities appear as we strive to follow Christ completely and perfectly. The problems and complexities are designed to remove the sin from us, and eventually from our environment.

There are some religions that require their adherents to eat the flesh of dead people, or drink their own urine. No weird practices such as these, which go against common sense, are of Jesus Christ. His way is reasonable and sensible and produces wholeness and soundness in body, soul, and spirit.

We need not be ashamed to do what Christ requires of us. His way is found, sometimes deeply hidden, in the conscience of all people. His way is not one of weird religious practices or beliefs.

To love and serve God through Christ is not a weird religious practice, it is the sensible, constructive way of living. Some of the tenets of our salvation may not make sense to the unbelievers, but rightly acted upon they produce sensible, wholesome behavior.

Why don’t you ask Christ to help you in all matters? Do you wish to keep on making mistake after destructive mistake?

The Ten Commandments reflect the eternal moral law of God. The eternal moral law of God always is in force, except that under the new covenant it is expanded to include our whole being at all times. We keep it by means of the fullness of the Divine Person and Presence of God given us through the Holy Spirit and the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It appears that in many cases, the redemption we have today in Christianity is silver-plated with a very thin layer of silver. True redemption is sterling silver, solid through and through.

What makes life on earth meaningful is that God is making man in His own image; and in the resurrection, after His likeness.

There is no scriptural support whatever, in either the Old Testament or the New Testament, for the concept that Christ will return and carry His Church to Heaven. At the Lord’s return He will gather His victorious saints to Himself so they may descend with Him as His army, His Body, who then shall work with Him in the establishing of the Kingdom of God upon the earth.

There may have been no more destructive doctrine to enter Christian thinking than that of the “pre-tribulation rapture” of the believers in Christ. This unscriptural teaching has caused numerous Christian people to neglect to prepare themselves for the time of trouble.

Satan and his followers are bound with a curse. God has condemned them to eat dust, to crave the flesh of human beings. This is why so many people—even believers in Christ—are bound with the fiery passions of lust.

It is not true that there is a Jewish church and a Gentile church. There is only the one olive tree, the one elect of God. Would we Gentiles be part of a Gentile church of which Peter, James, John, and Paul are not a part?

The concept of a Gentile Church is unscriptural and impractical. It would be a difficult task to determine who is pure Jewish and who is pure Gentile. Are people who have some Jewish blood and some Gentile blood part of the Jewish church or the Gentile church?

As far as the Kingdom of God is concerned, once we are born again we are a new creation which is neither Jewish nor Gentile. Thus there is no “Jewish” church or “Gentile” church. This concept is not scriptural.

If you wish to know if Christ is alive, go directly to Him. Ask Him to reveal Himself to you, and then do what He says.

God will forgive our sins if we ask Him to. However, premeditated, willful sins are not forgiven but bring us into the danger of Divine condemnation whether or not we profess belief in Christ.

The “right” of the individual to say what he pleases, whether in the name of democracy or the freedom of the press, will result in blasphemy. The Muslims object to blasphemy and the Christians should also. Given the sinful nature of man, the only permanent solution is the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to govern the world.

There is an important difference between love and desire. We can desire someone but not love him or her at all. Desire can be a very self-centered emotion. Desire seeks to please itself. True love is sacrificial.

Our desires must be controlled by the Lord, working in us to will and to do what pleases him. If they are not, we are in bondage to people, circumstances, or things.

There are things Jesus said to us in the Bible, and still is saying to us. They may come to us as bad news. actually they are good news—the Gospel to us.

God wants us to possess all things but to be in bondage to nothing. He wants us to be kings. God desires that we rule with Christ and not be in bondage.

Peace is the absence of unrest, fear, anxiety, dread, worry. Joy is the fulfillment of desire. Love is concern for the well being of another person.

Sexual lust and perversions are nothing more than inflamed desires. They have nothing at all to do with love.

We are to be in untroubled union with all who are doing God’s will from the heart. But we are not to be in bondage to anyone except Christ.

Patience works a perfect work in us and shall be rewarded. Sin is a shortcut to the fulfillment of our desires. Therefore sin and impatience are related.

“The Lord has made everything for its own purpose, Even the wicked for the day of evil.” (NASB)

God is not making all things work together for good in order that we may be delivered from trouble and inconvenience. God is making all things work together for good so He may have more sons like the Lord Jesus Christ.

To argue about Christian doctrine is useless and destructive. When two people have Christ coming to maturity in them they are in the unity of the faith. The theology in their brain will pass away when they are in the Presence of Christ.

The idea of “accepting” Christ as a ticket to Heaven is not a biblical concept. If we place our faith in the living Christ and interact with Him each day, He forgives our sins and we grow in eternal life. Eternal life is produced by and produces righteous, holy behavior. Righteous, holy behavior deliver us from Hell and bring us into God’s Kingdom.

If you give yourself wholly to the Lord at all times, seeking His will in every matter of the day and night, you will reap Christ a hundredfold. If you sort of drift, and just pray when you are in trouble, you will reach a minimum level in Christ, or lose Christ altogether, because you did not respond properly to the call on your life.

“Many are called but few are chosen.” God does the calling. The way you respond to His call determines if you will be counted among the chosen.

People desire to go to a place where there is love, joy, and peace. But love, joy, and peace are not found in a place. They are the fruit of living continually in the Spirit of God.

When Christ leads His sheep to us, we are to feed them.

We cannot have fullness of joy or pleasures forevermore until God gives us His desires for us, and then fulfills those desires.

If we wait patiently with Christ, God will bring all of our enemies under our feet.

Our optimism is based solidly on the eternal assurances in God’s Word.

A pessimistic attitude reveals a lack of faith in God.

An attitude of self-pity shows that we do not have our eyes fixed on Christ.

If we are to be one with the Lord Jesus Christ we must be changed into God’s image, as Christ directs. If we are not willing to be changed into God’s image, we cannot be in union with Christ.

Salvation is change from what we are into the image and likeness of God.

If we are not diligent in serving Christ with what we have been given, then that which we have been given will be removed from us and given to another. We will enter spiritual darkness. This begins to happen while we are living in the present world.

Many voices are speaking to us today. In order to know which voice is of Christ, we have to present our body a living sacrifice.

There is no rest to be found in the person who is striving to succeed in the world, who places a high value on the things of the present world system.

American parents often drive themselves to distraction in order to ensure that their children will be able to engage in every aspect of the culture. There is no rest in this.

The best gift we can give our children is not the material wealth of the American culture but the knowledge of how to live in daily interaction with the Lord Jesus.

“Follow me as I follow Christ,” Paul exhorted. Until we can say this to others, we cannot make disciples from every nation. We cannot fulfill the Great Commission.

Miracles wrought in Christ’s name, apart from a transformed, obedient, cross-carrying personality on the part of the worker, is the False Prophet.

Health workers who do not take into account that some infirmities are caused by unclean spirits are rowing with one oar. Any native in the bush can point out to them the activities of spirits.

Each member of the royal priesthood is responsible for specific people, to enable them to live successfully in the Presence of Christ. He or she can fulfill this responsibility only as God through Christ provides the love, wisdom, and strength. Their responsibility may endure throughout eternity.

Why do you want to go to Heaven? Is it just to escape Hell? Are you sure you want to be where there is no sin—not even your favorite sin? Do you wish to be among holy, righteous people right now and live as they live, not being permitted to sin? Perhaps you should give some thought to this.

“Salt,” as used in the Bible, speaks of the gracious Presence of God through Jesus Christ. All we think, say, and do must be sprinkled with the Lord’s “salt.”

The heart of all religious systems is the desire to systematize, control, and grasp the theology and work of the system. The true salvation that is in the Lord Jesus Christ is not a system; God is in control; and we are not to grasp anything, but exclaim continually: “Not my will but Yours be done.”

The Apostle Paul spoke of his desire for the redemption of his body. Truly, to have a body like that of the Lord Jesus, endlessly powerful, filled with righteous inclinations, totally at rest in the Person of God, is an inconceivably glorious, wonderful hope! We have to contend for this!

We need to pray that we will have ears to hear, because the Lord Jesus is speaking to us all the time. Listen and be obedient, and you will hear what He is saying to you.

Eating, working, playing, reproducing, and sleeping. If this is all you do, and do not have the Life of Jesus Christ being formed in you, you might as well be a horse.

If you would be healthy, pray that God will bring your appetite into line with your hunger. God will help you do this if you ask Him and use what determination you have. If you do not have enough food, ask God for what you need.

God is ready to give you what you need and what you desire. However, you have to ask Him to fulfill your desires, and then wait patiently for the answer.

When God speaks, the rooster crows.

In the beginning God said, “Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.” God did not say, “Let him be obedient to me.” The one is the Divine decree. The other is our choice.

The purpose of the Passover blood protection is not to cover sin. The purpose of the Passover blood is to protect the Christian and his family from judgment when God judges the sin of the world. The blood of the atonement, on the other hand, forgives our sin while we are obeying God: not covers our sin, but forgives our sin.

We are in the sixth day of creation, so to speak. This is the period when God is making man in His image. As we cooperate with the Holy Spirit, He shows us everything in our personality that is not of God’s image. We are to ask Jesus to help us renounce this trait so it no longer is part of us.

We do well when we do not move according to a sudden feeling or a voice we think we have heard, especially if we are passionately desirous of something. When we wait, matters will be clarified and we will be thankful we were not hasty.

If you are living hand in hand with the Lord Jesus at all times, you have nothing truly bad to worry about, and a great deal to rejoice about!

Our worship and praise will not be accepted if we are behaving unrighteously. We are do what is right, as Christ helps us, and then return to the Lord with holy hands.

We believers are like Lazarus. The voice of Christ has called us forth from spiritual death. But we are bound with graveclothes. The people around us rip them off, one bandage at a time.

When we repent and are baptized, the Passover blood covers and protects us in the Day of Wrath. While we remain under the covering, the Holy Spirit begins to uncover the sin that is in our personality. We then are required to confess our sins and turn away from them.

People are as sealed scrolls written inside and on the back. Some of our sin is concealed in us and some is revealed in our behavior. Only Jesus Christ, the Lion of Judah, is worthy to break the seals and look into the book.

The initial meaning of the expression “to be saved” is to be spared during the Day of Wrath. The full meaning of “to be saved” is to be removed from all that is of Satan and brought into all that is of God.

I want to be the slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. The most destructive bondage of all is to be the servant of my own will.

When we do not love the truth, God sends a powerful delusion upon us. This is why we always must pray: “Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver me from the evil one.

Satan tempted Jesus with rulership over the kingdoms of the world. This shows us that what is desirable is the earth and its nations, rather than Heaven. In fact, when the final trumpet blows, the kingdom of the world indeed will become the Kingdom of God and Christ.

Christian discipleship is the only road to God. Christ is the Way of this road. Christ is the Truth of this road that leads to the Father.

It seems life consists mostly of details. God will help us take care of each one if we keep on asking Him to.

While listening for the Lord’s voice we have to be careful as to what messages we receive. To avoid deception we must pray carefully about what coming to us, meanwhile denying ourselves and carrying our cross as we follow Christ.

God is in Christ who is in us who are in Christ who is in God—all dwelling together in perfect rest. This is the new Jerusalem, the governing city of the Kingdom of God.

God is not found at the beach or in the mountains, or in any other of nature’s settings. God is found in the assembly of the believers, though one may find bitter, unforgiving, malicious people there.

It is given to some to march along the highway of holiness, removing the stones as they go. There are a multitude of others who will follow them to the splendor and majesty of God’s Presence.

There may be difficulties as our personality is being shaped into God’s image. However, the inheritance of those who obey Christ is the fullness of love, joy, and peace.

Do not misinterpret the fact that the world is filled with moral and physical chaos of every sort. The Lord Jesus Christ sits as King of the flood. He is in total control of every situation from the smallest to the greatest.

Since the earth is spherical, for Christians in America and Christians in China to be caught up to the Lord would mean going up in opposite directions. The “upwardness” of Heaven is only for our perception. Actually Heaven is not “up.” Heaven is all around us. We “have” come to Mount Zion.

At the coming of the Lord, God’s witnesses, His saints, will appear to be caught up to Heaven. Actually they will pass into the spirit world to be with the Lord as He prepares to appear with them on the earth. “Up” in America and “up” in China are opposite directions.

The worth of any Christian church is not measured by the number of people who attend, but by its obedience to Christ.

Perhaps it is helpful for a Christian preacher to be kind and loving. However, more often than not, he is an adversarial relationship with his listeners.

I do not want to live my own life. I want to live God’s life.

Righteous behavior is the fruit of salvation.

The “pretribulation rapture” doctrine, while it is unscriptural, is merely mischief compared to the mammoth error of making belief in Christ an alternative to righteous behavior.

The New Testament sets forth seven goals that we are to pursue: to be changed into God’s image; to rest in God’s Presence and will; to attain to the resurrection from the dead; to grow into the stature of the fullness of Christ; to be crucified and live with Christ; to hold forth the Word of life; and to make disciples who keep Christ’s commandments.

Divine revelation and the traditions of men are like oil and water. They never can blend.

People are not innately good. This is why democratic government, although formed with the best of intentions, eventually results in chaos.

We are wise when we face our fears and then ask God to remove all fear from us.

The nation that legalizes sin will not endure. It soon will be taken over by a more disciplined culture.

Wisdom and knowledge are important. Understanding is greater yet. Above all are mercy and compassion.

When the human mind applies the Scriptures, they no longer are the sword of the Spirit. The Scriptures were given by holy men who were moved and guided by the Holy Spirit as they wrote. But the sword of the Spirit must be wielded by the Spirit, or it brings death. However, the commandments of the New Testament are to be obeyed, as the Spirit helps us.

We must put off the old man and put on the new man. These are the two basic actions required by the new covenant.

The Spirit of God always brings us to the cross, where Christ was crucified. We also are crucified that we may die and live with Him. Pray always to Jesus that this may be so in your life.

Everything God has created is clean. The problem arises when we are influenced by unclean spirits. Then the very thoughts of our heart and words of our mouth become unclean. The only way we can be protected from the influence of unclean spirits is by patiently carrying our cross as Jesus directs us.

All that God is making new in Christ is the inheritance of those who are obedient to God in every matter.

No person in his right mind disobeys God Almighty. The very thought of disobedience to the Father is an utter abomination that no true saint will allow to enter his or her thinking.

God knows so much more than we do, and is seeking our good, that it is sheer folly to disobey Christ. The result of disobedience always is pain and remorse.

“Try my very thoughts, O Lord, to determine if they are of the Spirit of God or of the sinful flesh.”

That which is of the Spirit of God is eternal love, joy, and peace. That which is of the flesh is hatred, misery, and unrest. The two are alien one to the other.

We will live for eternity by the continual provision of God’s Word. Meanwhile the manna of the gifts and ministries of the Spirit of God will continue to build us up in Christ until the old corn of the Divine Nature has been established firmly and eternally in us.

What delight, what love, joy, and peace, are ours when we press through to the perfect will of God for our life. With Christ’s help we refuse to obey our fleshly passions with their hatred, misery, unrest, impatience, harshness, evil behavior, unbelief, arrogance, and lack of self-control.

Enduring inconvenience now may avoid a huge problem in the future.

I easily become confused. When I look to Christ He gives me wisdom and understanding.

It is time now for the members of the Body of Christ to confess their sins and turn away from them by the power of Christ. While we are confessing and renouncing those behaviors the Holy Spirit points out to us, we remain protected by the Passover blood of the cross.

If we are faithful in confessing and renouncing our sins, the Holy Spirit will grant us inner purity. At the return of Christ, our body will be made immortal by being clothed with the heavenly house that has been prepared as we have confessed and turned away from our sins.

When all has been said and done, there are only two kinds of people in the world: the truly righteous and the truly wicked. You can find both kinds in Christendom. One kind is destined for the Kingdom. The other is destined for the fire.

The perfect power of the seven thunders, mentioned in the Book of Revelation, will not be released until Christ has driven from His saints, His witnesses, all worldliness; all the lusts of the flesh; and all self-will.

No believer will be accepted as a member of the Body of Christ, of the Bride of the Lamb, until he or she has been changed from a living soul to a life-giving spirit. The Lord Jesus Christ cannot be joined to that which is unlike Himself.

No greater honor can be given to a human being than to be a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ and be permitted to do His will in the earth.

The modern doctrine that an individual need only to profess belief in Christ, and after that is not required to obey Christ, frustrates the plan of God to produce righteous people; to make man in His image.

“In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33). Since we know God said this, how many true Christians are there?

Satan enters us, just as he entered Judas, when we do not keep our heart right before the Lord.

He knows the number of hairs on our head. He knows the sparrow that falls. He is the God of details.

As for the overemphasis on grace and the concept that the judgment of Christians was completed on the cross, the truth is our sins were forgiven on the cross, but our salvation consists of a baptism with fire that burns away our worldliness, our sinful lusts, and—most importantly of all—our self-will and self-centeredness.

“I haven’t found the way. I don’t know the truth. And I am dead spiritually. Lord Jesus, give me Yourself that I might walk in the way; know the truth; and live in God’s Presence.”

When men achieve money and preeminence by usurping the place of another, they gain nothing of lasting worth. In the next world they will be revealed for the knaves that they are. Shame and everlasting contempt will be their portion.

When most of the members of a Christian church are not being changed morally over a period of time, a change that can be seen, then the assembling is existing merely for its own pleasure. It is accomplishing nothing in the Kingdom. It is salt that has lost its saltiness. It should be abandoned.

Sometimes there is a strong call of Christ on one member of a family and not on the others. If this family is to endure, the members must recognize the spiritual division and work around it as lovingly and peacefully as possible. By a strong call I am not referring to the zealous religious worker who abandons his or her domestic responsibilities.

It is important that the pastor and elders of every assembling of believers follow Christ in the adding of members, and pray much that Christ will build the church, meanwhile, doing what He commands. Otherwise people whom the Spirit did not bring in will remain unchanged. People possessed with various lusts will remain untransformed until they leave, or die.

When a believer remains unchanged throughout his Christian experience he has not entered the Kingdom of God.

It happens frequently that a believer who has a strong adamic impulse is deceived into believing he is being led by the Lord.

The purpose of the coming of the Kingdom of God to us is to change us from the image of Satan to the image of God. When such moral change is not taking place we are not entering the Kingdom.

To judge the worth of an assembling by the number of people in attendance is to judge a book by its cover.

It is true that the Lord Jesus helps us in every area of life, when we ask for His assistance. But know this: when God is ready to claim you for His own, He will remove all that you trust in. You will be stripped bare, for God will have no other gods in your life. His name is Jealous, and He wants you for His own.

Religious beliefs and practices that do not change the worshiper morally and substantially so that he or she is brought each day into the image of God, are worse than nothing. They attract unclean spirits who always rebel against the Lord Jesus Christ.

God visits the individual who is doing His will with blessings of every kind. God visits the person is rebelling against Him with trouble and pain of every kind. Do not be deceived with the current teaching of unconditional love. All of God’s promise are based on our response.

Satan may cast you into prison. Satan hindered the Apostle Paul. All of these actions of Satan are permitted by Christ to accomplish His will and our good. Do not be drawn into a wrestling match with Satan. Fix your eyes on Christ and go about your business peacefully and joyfully.

Christ is my righteousness, not by identification but by transformation.

I believe we should give some thought to the fact that the spirit Heaven is not at a distant place but is in another dimension. We have come (past tense) to Mount Zion. Our born-again spiritual nature is now at the right hand of God in Christ. Apparently distance does not mean the same in the spirit world as it does on the earth.

To be properly understood, Divine grace must be thought of as an alternative to the Law of Moses, in addition to denoting the blessing of God. “The Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” We Gentiles have made “grace” an alternative to righteous behavior, to a moral change in our personality. Thus we have destroyed God’s intention under the new covenant.

There is a balance that is to be sought, between striving, and true rest in the Lord. We are to trust Christ and rest in His faithfulness each day as we press toward perfect rest in His Person and will. The right kind of striving, striving to find God’s will and to do it completely and accurately, is necessary if we are to attain to perfect rest, for there is much resistance.

The incident concerning the rebellion of Korah, and the manner in which God answered the question of whom He had chosen, who is to be regarded as holy, shows us that spiritual ambition has no place in the Kingdom of God. We are to remain and be content in our own calling.

Only those who have overcome, through Christ, the spiritual darkness that has resisted them, will be qualified to receive immortality and rule with Christ when He appears,. The majority of believers will not be given back their bodies until they have met the Lord’s conditions for them as individuals.

Victorious saints, those who attain to the first resurrection, will, through Christ, clothe themselves in the radiant garments of righteous behavior. The majority of God’s elect will be dressed by the victorious remnant.

We ought not to eat and drink what we crave. We should be looking to the Lord for our daily diet.

There are some Christians who are too worthy to be permitted to languish in a personality deficiency. They must be prayed for resolutely, although our natural tendency may be to be repulsed by the darkness in them that we feel.

Not everyone who calls Jesus “Lord” will enter the Kingdom of God, only those who do what He teaches and commands.

We are not saved by a grace that is lacking in obedience.

We are not to pay too much attention to the antics of Satan in the world. We should pray and do what we can to help, but we must not fret about the evil God uses to accomplish His own purposes in His elect.

Because of the resistance of sin, righteous behavior always requires spiritual power. It is Divine Life, the Life of Christ, that is the power that enables us to choose to live righteously at every moment. As we live righteously we receive more Divine eternal life. Thus the cycle continues upward for eternity.

I am not overly concerned about what happens in this life. I am making my plans for eternity.

The world is like a game of musical chairs. One day God suddenly will stop the music. When He does, you want to make sure you have a chair.

If we are in the pursuit of eternal life, we are in the pursuit of Christ. Christ Himself is eternal Life. Eternal Life is a person!

The sincerest form of worship is obedience to God.

The notion that God sees us through Christ is unscriptural and destructive. If such were the case, there never would be a need for repentance.

Did you stumble? Confess your sin, make restitution if God so leads, and press forward. If you were perfect you would not need a redeemer.

So you fell. Are you going to wallow in self-pity, or are you going to confess your sin, make restitution as God leads, and press on in Christ?

Did you turn away from Christ and now wish to come back? Read your Bible, pray every day, and go to church as often as you can. It may take years before you once again feel the joy of salvation; but this is better than resigning yourself to eternal separation from God!

When we claim that Christ and the Father are one Person in two forms we leave the Scripture. We make Christ’s prayer in Gethsemane a farce, and other passages incomprehensible.

When we claim that Christ and the Father are one Person in two forms we make the concepts of the Body of Christ and the Wife of the Lamb religious terms rather than the genuine, approachable reality they are.

When the Lord Jesus is revealed from Heaven in blazing fire with His powerful angels, He will punish those who do not know God. This will happen on the day He comes to be glorified in His holy people (II Thessalonians 1:6-10)

There is no affliction spiritual or physical that the Lord Jesus cannot heal.

The faith, prosperity, speaking into existence, name it and claim it, imaging doctrines are institutionalized presumption.

Nowhere in the Bible did any of the heroes of faith “step out in faith,” as we use the term today. Rather they stepped out in obedience to the perceived will of God.

To be in “Heaven” is to be with Jesus wherever He is.

All that we associate with Heaven was on the earth at one time, in Eden. Heaven shall be on the earth again when the Lord Jesus returns.

How rare is the individual who desires to be what God wants him to be and to do what the Lord wants him to do.

There is a difference in kind between busy church activities and the solid works of the Kingdom of God.

God always gives us enough faith to do what He wants us to do. To push beyond this is to engage in presumption.

The Lord Jesus in the wilderness was tested in the three ways that is true of all the sons of God: a willingness to use our spiritual gifts and power to satisfy our physical needs; a willingness to worship Satan by engaging in the lusts of the world; and a willingness to be presumptuous by endeavoring to realize the promises of the Scripture before we hear from God.

Before we become aggressive in prayer we first need to perceive what it is God actually desires.

Many motives are buried in the heart of a man. It is when he speaks and acts that the buried things become visible and are judged.

Many of us believe in our heart we are a good person, but our behavior reveals the truth.

The eternal walk of faith is that of stern obedience to God, not a battering of the spirit world as we endeavor to accomplish our own desires.

If we would “speak the creative word,” then let us say what God is saying, not just what we imagine, desire, or have read in the Scriptures.

There is a rest for the day that leads to the perfect, eternal rest in Christ. There is a perfect walk for the day as we are being perfected in Christ.

It is necessary to be a citizen of two worlds, the physical world and the spirit world, if we are to survive throughout the moral and physical horrors of the coming age.

If, as is preached currently, “accepting Christ” is a ticket that admits us to Heaven, why did the Apostle Paul exhort Timothy to persevere in his life and doctrine in order to save himself and his hearers?

In order to understand what is written in the Bible we have to have the same spirit as the writers, and be holy in personality and behavior, as were the writers.

The more righteous, holy, and obedient to God we are, the further and more clearly we can see in the Kingdom of God.

A faith that does not obey God is dead. It is not faith at all but a system of belief.

To say we are saved by the merits of Jesus Christ, and then not do what Christ and His Apostles have commanded, is a religious delusion. We show our faith in Christ by obeying His commandments.

We are not transformed into the image of God in character and behavior in order to go to Heaven but in order to have fellowship with God.

No individual who knowingly continues to practice sin has fellowship with God, knows God, or is known of God.

If we say we love Jesus Christ, and do not do what He has commanded, we deceive ourselves. The truth is not in us.

Christ’s servant is blind to the world that he may see God; deaf to the world, that he may hear God; dumb to the world, that he may speak God’s words as an oracle.

Man’s quest is for joy of some sort. The greatest joy of all is the joy that Christ lives in, and into which we can enter if we have been a good an faithful servant of His.

When we become old we may have little strength and ability of our own. But if we serve Christ faithfully, He will share with us His strength and abilities.

It absolutely is necessary that we forgive those who have harmed us. But it is neither wise nor desirable to allow ourselves to be burned again by the same people.

God chooses whom He will forgive. God never shall forgive Satan, now or when Satan is in the Lake of Fire. To do so would be to expose the creation again to the same agony.

The Holy Spirit is calling today to God’s people to repent, as He reveals their sins. If all they hear preached is grace, rapture, Heaven, they are not going to be able to hear the Spirit or to cooperate with Him as He endeavors to prepare the Bride of the Lamb.

We press into the rest of God by learning to watch the Lord carefully, and to wait for Him every moment of every day and night. We do not rush about seeking to carry out our own plans, no matter how righteous or worthy they may appear to be.

The will of God is not found primarily in religious or church activities but in the daily knocking about in the problems of life.

As we are now, so shall we be after death; except that the righteous shall experience unimaginable joy and the wicked shall experience unimaginable pain.

God is fully as much a consuming Fire as He is boundless Love. Whoever does not realize this is in a state of delusion concerning the result of rebelling against God’s will.

By “saving” individuals God means making them better people. Today our idea of “saving” people is that of making them members of our religion and admitting them to Heaven. What we have today is a caricature, a travesty of God’ plans and hopes.

If you want the 11 o’clock news, don’t go to the television. Go to the Lord at that time and you will hear the truth.

If we would be spared from destruction in the Day of Wrath, we must receive Jesus Christ as our Lord when He is presented to us. In addition, we must walk with God, as did Enoch and the patriarchs, if we would gain eternal life.

Conversion to Christ is not only, or even primarily, a matter of the mind. Conversion is the change from living our own life to living in Christ in every aspect of our personality and behavior.

Religious conversion consists of changing one set of beliefs about life to another set of beliefs about life. True conversion to Christ is a change from living according to our own will and desires to living in Christ at all times in everything we think, say, and do.

Not all of those who profess belief in Christ abide in Christ. To abide in Christ is to be conscious of His Presence and will in all we think, say, and do, at all times and in all circumstances.

We have entered the rest of God when Christ is our strength, health, wisdom, motivation, joy, our life, our resurrection.

It may be true that the greatest enemy of the Christian is his own mind.

In order to abide in Christ we must have our head cut off, so to speak, and the mind of Christ installed in place of our own mind.

God did not give us a mind so we could plan our own way, our own life. God gave us a mind that we might be able to learn how to walk humbly with God.

The Divine covenants all have one goal—that we might practice righteous behavior, love mercy and kindness, and walk humbly with God.

Enoch, Noah, Job were saved by their faith in God. We too shall be saved if through Christ we learn to walk humbly with God, as did Enoch, Noah, and Job.

Religious teachers have made salvation a matter of believing about the things of Christ. True salvation is Christ Himself as He becomes our Life.

Eternal life is not merely endless existence. The demons have endless existence. Eternal life is life lived in the Presence and will of Christ.

Belief in the existence of the Lord Jesus Christ does not save us. If it did, Satan would be saved.

Why should we seek the wisdom of Christ? Why not rush about in our pursuits until we have destroyed ourselves and possibly those around us?

The American people seem to be divided between the liberals and the conservatives, or between those who are members of the Christian religion and those who are not. The significant division is between those who live in Christ and those who do not.

Christ divided mankind between the wheat and the tares, the righteous and the wicked. We church members divide mankind between those who are members of the Christian religion and those who are not.

God is not interested as much in what we believe but in what kind of person we are, how we behave.

Christ did not come to earth to start another religion but to make better people.

The human personality, having been created in the image of God, is a vast area populated with numerous desires, motives, and sometimes personalities, and has the potential of being filled with all the fullness of God.

The first chapter of Ezekiel portrays the glorified outer form of the saint when he has been created in the image of Christ. The Temple portrays the inner personality of the perfected saint.

Let us not limit the Holy One of Israel. God has set out to create His saints in the express image of Jesus Christ—great mountains of glory and of infinite capabilities.

Do we stagger through unbelief at the Word, which declares we have been destined to be born the brothers of Jesus Christ and created in His image? Let this truth cause us to rejoice when we are brought low.

We Gentiles can be counted among the princes of Judah; but we must humbly be willing to suffer many things at the hands of our Creator.

Run with all your might toward the goal of Christ’s image. Every obstacle, every enemy before shall be swept aside as you plunge forward.

Any thought, word, or deed in our personality that is not in the express image of Jesus Christ is our sworn enemy.

Being cured is an acceptable synonym of being saved.

It does not appear that many American wives perceive their role to be that of helping their husband fulfill his Divine calling. Therefore they are open to deception. Why did Eve desire to be wise?

We Christians do many foolish, hurtful things while we are coming to know the Lord. If we are not being changed into Christ’s image, we are not being saved.

To be saved is to be changed from Satan’s image into Christ’s image, and to be filled with the fullness of God.

Before God can find rest in a human personality, Christ must be formed in that individual.

To fear God and keep His commandments is the whole duty of man. But you would not think so, after hearing modern preaching.

I have been young and now am old. I perceive that the righteous are never forsaken. They and their seed are blessed.

It is an observable fact that promotion comes from the Lord. He often places wicked people in positions of authority.

To fret about the wickedness in the world is to deny that God knows what He is doing.

It is well if we exert a righteous, peaceful influence on those around us. However, we always must keep in mind that our kingdom is not of this world.

Whoever does not keep before him that all of his deeds will be judged after his death is unwise and ignorant of the truth.

It is not unusual for a church member to die, who has been a believer most of his life, and yet demonstrate jealousy, anger, and bitterness instead of the Nature of Christ. There has been little growth in eternal life. The adamic nature remains intact.

Why do we Christians believe that when we die we shall be changed for the better? There is no scriptural basis for this widely held idea.

Why do we Christians believe that when we die we shall change from being lukewarm in our love for Christ into a fervent disciple of the Lord? There is no scriptural basis for this idea.

We Christians suppose that the act of dying will change what we are. The truth is, it will reveal what we are and have done. It is appointed to man once to die and after this to be judged.

Believing in Jesus Christ makes us eligible for the work of redemption. However, the belief itself is not the redemption. It is a transformed personality that is redemption.

If we remain close to the Lord Jesus Christ and completely obedient to Him, we will be more like him after a million years have passed.

No man understands what is in his own heart. God knows the heart of every individual.

Eve did not desire wisdom so she could be a more suitable helper for her husband but for her own aggrandizement.

Jesus Christ is the truth. Satan is the father of lies. Those who tell the truth are of God. Those who tell lies are of Satan.

People lie when they are seeking their own will rather than God’s will.

We may be telling many lies as we pursue our own path. One thing is certain: we will tell the truth when we stand before Christ. No lie can survive in His Presence.

It is impossible to be self-centered and self-directed, and then always tell the truth. Life on earth will not permit this.

The adamic nature has been wounded in the heel. It cannot stand uprightly. This is why we must be born again, and Christ must come to maturity in us, if we are to stand in the Presence of God.

When you stand before God your very thoughts shall be revealed. How then shall you tell your lies in such a Presence?

Your lie you thought you had concealed so carefully shall be shouted from the housetops. Make no mistake about this. There is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed.

There are Christian leaders who lie in order to “serve God.” But they shall never eat at Christ’s table unless they repent of their lies.

There are self-seeking Christians whom Christ loves and desires to bring into His Kingdom—sometimes because of the prayers of more fervent disciples. But they shall pass through intense fires designed to save them.

Man looks on the outward appearance. God looks on the heart. Many marriages would not take place if people had that ability.

Suffering purifies our spirit if we don’t let it harden our heart.

Sometimes it is taught that if a person never hears the Gospel he will be assigned to the Lake of Fire. This is not scriptural, it goes against man’s innate sense of justice, and defies common sense. It reveals that the teacher does not understand the Divine salvation.

It is not true that we are saved merely by believing in the name of Jesus Christ. It is true, rather, that believing in the name of Jesus Christ should cause us to obey Him at all times so he can save us from sin.

It is difficult to see how the present evangelical teaching that claims Christ did it all with no effort on our part could be a more deadly, more destructive formula.

A while back being a Christian meant that someone believed in Jesus and lived a godly life. What has happened to that simple faith?

Paradise can exist only where God’s will is performed completely by everyone.

Christ is not coming to take His saints to Heaven but to enforce God’s will on the earth—and we shall be with Him!

Doing God’s will perfectly at all times is the key to Paradise.

Doing God’s will perfectly at all times is the key to the fullness of love, joy, and peace.

Doing God’s will perfectly at all times in every circumstance is the rest of God.

Doing God’s will perfectly at all times is the key to the fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore.

To be saved is to have the desire, the strength, and wisdom to do God’s will perfectly and completely at all times.

To do God’s will perfectly in every circumstance is the key to the fullness of the inheritance to which we as an individual have been predestined.

To fear God and to do his will at all times is the whole duty of man.

Christian people often do not do God’s will during much of their life, nor do they even know what it is. They have been told they cannot do it and must be saved by grace. Rather, they attempt to follow the directions of their religious institution.

I was told, when first converted to Christ, that the world was waiting for the person who would do God’s will perfectly. Such talk is nonsense. I am resolved, by God’s help, to perform His will perfectly and to influence others to do the same. Anything else is unthinkable.

I truly believe that if we give God all we are and have, God will give us all He is and has.

When we say to God, “All I am and have is Yours,” then God says to us, “All I am and have is yours.”

At one point God looked for a man to stand in the gap before Him that He not destroy the land. He found none. Let this never be the case as long as you and I are living on the earth.

To do God’s will at all times is the highest goal any human being can set before him.

If we want to obey God perfectly, all we need do is ask the Father in Jesus’ name to make it so in our life.

It is a satanic liar who claims it is impossible for us to do God’s will completely while living on the earth.

It is a satanic liar who insists we have to sin while we are alive upon the earth.

Any individual can gain victory over each and every sin by continually looking to Jesus for help and guidance.

If you wish to live forever in love, joy, and peace, and do God’s perfect will from your heart at all times and in every circumstance without exception, then ask God in Jesus’ name to make this true in your life.

Performing religious duty, no matter how well intentioned, is not a substitute for doing God’s will.

As was true of the Pharisees, religious duties can lead us to murder God’s Christ.

One of the most powerful of the forces that turn aside religious people from dwelling in the center of God’s will, is personal ambition.

Personal ambition, as is true of the lusts of the flesh and spirit, can deceive well intentioned religious people and lead them away from God’s will for their life.

The nature of spiritual deception is such that we are not aware we have been deceived. Only a willingness to remain in our personal prison, to carry our personal cross, can prevent our being deceived.

Today will be a wonderful, productive day, if Jesus is with me; a miserable and unproductive day if He is not.

The hour will come when the Lord Jesus lifts the cross from our shoulder. At that time we will say, “I don’t mind bearing my cross for one more day if it will please you.”

When we first take up our personal cross and follow Jesus, the cross we are given to bear is not pleasant. As time goes on the cross becomes less unpleasant until we hardly notice it.

If we succeed in breaking out of the prison in which we have been placed, we lose part of our eternal inheritance.

To not seek the will of Christ each day and perform it is to be monumentally foolish and shortsighted.

Our life on earth is a probationary period. Will we conform to the terms of our probation, or will we flee from that which would have been of eternal benefit to us?

If we walk with Christ each day we will bear much fruit—an inheritance that will bring eternal joy to us.

If we influence one person such that he chooses to live his life in the Presence of Christ, our whole time on earth has been worthwhile.

Why do we teach that “accepting Christ” is an instantly obtained ticket to Heaven, when our whole life is to be lived in His Presence?

There are multitudes who make a profession of belief in Christ, but it appears there are few who find the path of life and walk in it.

How can making a profession of belief in Christ be an instantly obtained ticket to salvation when the Lord said, “He who endures to the end shall be saved”?

When we first receive Christ, the peace and joy He will bring to us may be preceded by years of trouble and pain. But the peace and joy surely shall come if we do not turn back into the world.

No person who sets out to seek the Kingdom of God, and then turns back, is fit for the Kingdom. Harsh words, but it is God who spoke them!

I have heard it said that God will come to us and fill us with His love, and thus remove all imperfections from us. But Jesus said, “He who overcomes and keeps My commands shall inherit the nations.”

There is a false Christian teaching that speaks only comforting, affirming, inspiring words. The true prophet stands alone and warns people of God’s expectations concerning us.

Anyone who chooses to do so may use up to twenty-five of the proverbs in the Gold Tried volumes without notifying me. It is not necessary to attribute them to me.

(“Gold Tried in the Fire: Book Four”, 4278-2)