Monday, November 26, 2012

The Spirit of Criticism - A. B. Simpson

Nothing will more effectually arrest the working of the Spirit in the heart than the spirit of criticism. At the end of a meeting, a young minister came forward and told me of the great blessing he had received that afternoon and of the baptism of the Holy Spirit that had come into his heart and being, setting him free from the bondage of years. And then he added, "it all came through your answer to that question, 'Will a criticizing spirit hinder the Holy Spirit from filling the heart?'"

As the question was asked and answered, he said, "I was sitting in the church criticizing much of what was going on, objecting to this thing and to that thing, finding fault with the expressions of praise and testimony and feeling thoroughly unhappy. The Lord brought the answer home to my heart and convicted me of my sin. There and then I laid it down and began to see the good instead of the evil. Blessing fell upon me, and my soul was filled with joy and praise. I saw where my error lay-that for years I had been trying to see the truth with my head instead of my heart."

Scripture
Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come—1 Corinthians 4:5

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Evangelism should lead to Discipleship by Zac Poonen

The purpose of evangelism (as commanded in Mk. 16:15) can be understood only as seen in the light of the commission to make disciples in every nation of the world (Matt.28:19). This is the whole plan of God for the unconverted.

The convert must be made into a disciple. Unfortunately today, even the so-called convert is not often a true convert, for in many cases he has not repented properly. In the evangelistic meeting, he was told only to believe, without even a word being mentioned about repentance. Most of today's converts are therefore like premature babies, pulled out by impatient midwives ('evangelists') in their lust for statistics, when the babies were not yet ready to be born. These premature babies then either die, or live as problem cases for the rest of their lives. The angels rejoice over sinners who repent, not over sinners who merely believe (Lk. 15:7,10).

But even where there has been a thorough repentance, and a person has been truly converted, he must then be led on to discipleship, to fulfil God's will for him. Evangelism that does not lead on to discipleship is an incomplete job. Often, it is the evangelist's desire to build his own kingdom that prevents him from working together with those who can make his 'converts' into disciples. We do not have to judge such preachers, for we are told not to judge. But they will certainly have to answer to the Lord for hindering their converts from becoming disciples.

Let us look at the commission in Mk. 16:15 along with the one in Matt. 28:19,20, and try and understand the whole purpose of God.

The first step of leading people to repentance and faith must culminate in water baptism (as Jesus made plain in Mk. 16:16). Those evangelists who do not preach water baptism for fear of offending unconverted bishops, etc., are not preaching the way Peter preached it on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:38).

Further, in Matthew 28:19, the Lord commands us to make disciples. This involves leading these converts to be detached from an inordinate love for their relatives that hinders them from following the Lord (Lk. 14:26), to be detached from material possessions (Lk. 14:33), and leading them to take up the cross daily for the rest of their lives (Lk. 14:27). These are the three minimum requirements for becoming a disciple.

Matt. 28:19 then repeats the necessity of water baptism. Although baptism is repeated in both commissions, it is rare indeed to find an evangelist today who has the courage to preach it. They fear men more than they fear God; preferring to be interdenominational and thus great in the eyes of men, rather than preach the whole counsel of God and be great in His eyes.

Matt. 28:20 goes on to say that this disciple must then be taught every single thing that Jesus commanded - and not only that, but be taught to obey and practice every single command of Jesus. One has to only look through Matthew chapters 5, 6 and 7 to see some of the things that Jesus commanded - which most believers do not even bother to obey.

So we see what a tremendous task it is to fulfil both commissions together. The need now is for those who have been gripped by the necessity of proclaiming the whole counsel of God, and who are wholeheartedly obedient themselves (as far as they have light) to all that Jesus commanded, and who passionately desire to build the body of Christ.

Jesus said that His disciples would be identified by one mark - their love for one another. Mark that! It is not by large numbers that the disciples are identified, or by their wealth; but by their fervent mutual love. The evangelistic healing meeting that draw thousands to hear the message must lead on to the establishment of a local church in that locality, where the disciples love one another.

Yet, the sad thing is that in the places where repeated evangelistic, healing crusades are held year after year, it is difficult to find even one church about which it can be said that the members therein do not fight with one another or backbite against one another, etc., leave alone love one another. One can understand if the new converts are still unable to live a victorious life. But what shall we say if strife and immaturity characterise even the elders of the churches in our land?

This is the clearest indication that the great commission of Matt. 28:19,20 - discipleship and total obedience to the commandments of Jesus - has been totally ignored. The commission of Mk. 16:15 (faith and water baptism) alone is obeyed, and that too in many cases only partially (water baptism being left out).

In Mk. 16:15-20, the emphasis is on evangelism, the message being confirmed by signs and wonders done by the Lord. In Matt. 28:19,20, the emphasis is on discipleship, the disciple's life being manifested by total obedience to Jesus' commandments. Multitudes of Christians are taken up with the former; very, very few with the latter. Yet the former without the latter is as incomplete and worthless as half a human body. But who has eyes to see this?

In Jesus' ministry, we read that great multitudes followed Him, because of His evangelistic, healing ministry. He immediately turned around and taught them about discipleship (Lk. 14:25,26). Would that today's evangelists would do the same, either themselves or along with apostles, prophets, teachers and shepherds who can complete the work they have begun.

When Jesus preached discipleship to the multitudes, it soon dwindled down to a handful of eleven disciples (Compare Jn. 6:2 with Jn. 6:70). The remaining folk found the message too hard, and left (Jn. 6:60,66). But it was with those eleven disciples that God accomplished His purposes in the world and carried on the work that Jesus began.

Today we are to carry on the same ministry as His Body on earth. After the evangelist has gathered the multitude, we are to lead the converts to discipleship and obedience. Thus and thus alone will the body of Christ be built.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Being Full of Faith - Zac Poonen

Avoiding Hasty Actions - Zac Poonen




In 2 Samuel 6, we see how even good intentions cannot save us from missing God’s will, if we are not exact with God’s Word. David was taking the ark back to Jerusalem - which was a good thing. But he didn’t do it the way God had commanded in the Law. God had commanded the Levites to carry the ark on their shoulders; but David modified that command and placed the ark on a cart and let the oxen pull the cart. There he was imitating the Philistines who had adopted that method a few years earlier (1 Sam.6:8-12).

There are Christian leaders doing the same thing today. They run their churches according to the management techniques of worldly businesses rather than according to the teachings of God’s Word.

As the oxen carried the ark, they stumbled. When Uzzah saw that, he reached out his hand and held the ark to prevent it from falling. And God killed Uzzah, immediately, “for his irreverence” (v.7). It is sad, but true, that when God’s shepherds make a mistake, the sheep suffer too. David had made a mistake and Uzzah suffered for it. And David learnt there that God is very strict with His servants. Uzzah had the best of intentions. Yet “the anger of the Lord burned against Uzzah” (v.7). Uzzah had been taught from childhood that only the Levites could touch the ark; but he took God’s commandment lightly in that moment and suffered for it.

The error of Uzzah can be repeated today. When we see things going wrong in our church, we can reach out our hands “to steady God’s ark”; and God may smite us, because even though our intentions may have been good, we went outside our “boundaries”. We may have done what our reason told us was right; but we did not wait on the Lord to find out His will. We acted in haste.

Jesus said, “I will build my Church” (Matt.16:18). Building the church is the Lord’s business, not ours. He has never delegated that task to any of us. So when we say, “I am building the church in such-and-such a place”, that is arrogant conceit. If ever we begin to think that the Body of Christ is our own private business, we will certainly make the mistake that Uzzah made, one day or the other. If we see the church shaking, let us go to God and tell Him, “Lord, YOU are building the church, not me. Preserve Your church.” And when we feel that things are not going as they should, let us ask ourselves whose work it is and who is in charge of it. Is it the Holy Spirit or we? At times, we may feel that something has to be done immediately. But if we act without listening to the Holy Spirit, we will always act in the flesh. And our actions, even if done with good intentions, will cause more confusion than if we had done nothing. So we must say, “Lord, You are in charge here. The government is on Your shoulders. And I want to listen to You. Tell me what YOU want me to do.”

There are many types of fools described in the book of Proverbs. But finally, the greatest fool of all is described thus, “Do you see a man who is HASTY in his words (or his matters)? There is more hope for a fool than for him” (Prov.29:20).

The one who is hasty - hasty to say something or to do something - feels absolutely confident that he knows what is best for any situation. He doesn’t have to consult God at all. He can act on his own. Such a man is the greatest fool in the world.

It was prophesied about Jesus that, “He will delight in the fear of the Lord and He will not judge by what His eyes see or His ears hear” (Isa.11:3). Jesus could not avoid seeing many things because His eyes were not blind. Neither could He avoid hearing many things because He was not deaf. But He feared His Father so much that He would never make a judgment or form an opinion merely on the basis of what He saw or heard. As He once said of Himself, “The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father doing” (Jn.5:19).

When the Pharisees came to Jesus with the woman caught in adultery, Jesus did not reply to their question for some time. He was waiting to hear from His Father. When He heard, He spoke. It was just one sentence: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone” (Jn.8:7). That accomplished more than an hour-long sermon would have done!

When someone comes to us with a complicated problem, if we give him advice based on our cleverness and our past experience, the problem may only become more complicated. But one word of wisdom from the Father can work wonders.

And so, the next time we see “the oxen stumbling and the ark about to fall”, let us not be eager to put our names at the top of the list of fools!! Let us not be quick to judge by what our eyes see and what our ears hear, and act in irreverence. Instead, let us put our faces in the dust before the Lord and say, “Lord, I lack wisdom here. What do You want me to do?”

It is so difficult to acknowledge that we lack wisdom, especially when we know that the others in the church are younger and more immature than us. But if we humbly acknowledge our need, God will give us wisdom in abundance.



Thursday, November 15, 2012

Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ - Madam Guyon


"Oh my God, let me be wholly Yours."

"Let me love You purely for Yourself,, for You are infinitly lovely."
"Oh my God, be my all! Let everything else be as nothing to me."



Sometimes you may bear the cross in weakness; at other times you may bear the cross in strength. But whether you bear it in weakness or in strength, bear it! Both weakness and strength should be the same to us since we bear the cross in the will of God.



If you love Him, you will love everything about Him.



What is there for you to fear? Dear Child of God, why do you not instantly cast yourself into the arms of Love?
The only reason He extended those arms on the cross was so He might embrace you. Tell me, what possible risk do you take in depending solely upon God? What risk do you run by abandoning yourself completely to Him? The Lord will not deceive you (that is unless to bestow on you more abundance than you ever imagined). 
However, those who expect all of these things from the Lord by self effort will hear the Lord's rebuke" You have wearied yourselves in the multiplicity of your ways, and have not said, Let us rest in peace." (Isaiah 57:10)



"Oh my God, let me be wholly Yours."
"Let me love You purely for Yourself,, for You are infinitly lovely."
"Oh my God, be my all! Let everything else be as nothing to me."


Madam Guyon 1685 Grenoble, France
Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ vol 2


Source - http://www.sermonindex.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=47440&forum=34

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Fellowship in the Gospel - Oswald Chambers


. . . fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ . . . —1 Thessalonians 3:2
After sanctification, it is difficult to state what your purpose in life is, because God has moved you into His purpose through the Holy Spirit. He is using you now for His purposes throughout the world as He used His Son for the purpose of our salvation. If you seek great things for yourself, thinking, “God has called me for this and for that,” you barricade God from using you. As long as you maintain your own personal interests and ambitions, you cannot be completely aligned or identified with God’s interests. This can only be accomplished by giving up all of your personal plans once and for all, and by allowing God to take you directly into His purpose for the world. Your understanding of your ways must also be surrendered, because they are now the ways of the Lord.
I must learn that the purpose of my life belongs to God, not me. God is using me from His great personal perspective, and all He asks of me is that I trust Him. I should never say, “Lord, this causes me such heartache.” To talk that way makes me a stumbling block. When I stop telling God what I want, He can freely work His will in me without any hindrance. He can crush me, exalt me, or do anything else He chooses. He simply asks me to have absolute faith in Him and His goodness. Self-pity is of the devil, and if I wallow in it I cannot be used by God for His purpose in the world. Doing this creates for me my own cozy “world within the world,” and God will not be allowed to move me from it because of my fear of being “frost-bitten.”

Sunday, November 4, 2012

God's Word Sustains the Inner Man - Paul West



An ever-increasing conformity to Christ in the inner recesses of the heart and mind – this is the only asset worth clinging to in this ruined world. It is surely the only thing worth fighting for; transcending the interests of politics, wealth, power and sex. There is nothing in the world the devil can use to bargain an exchange for the partaking of Christ’s divine nature. Gold becomes ridiculous; money is worthless trash; the finest palace on earth is a slum; the most seductive women are to be pitied on account of their lost souls. If you aspire to make anything out of your life for God, and to live at a level as never an earthly king dreamt, then allow the Holy Spirit to sculpt the image of Christ into your soul by yielding to His mortifying chisel day after day.

Let him correct you, and bow to His correction. Bow to it immediately when God convicts you of sin in the inward parts. Every wayward thought; every impulse of lust; every critical thought; every selfish motive must be garnered and then diffused through God’s grace. Intentions – no matter how noble – must come under the microscope. A yielding must take place to where our thoughts are first run through a filter of grace before they are verbalized and released. Power is offered to us by God for this! But this power must be asked for, and the application is accomplished by importunate prayer. If you begin this prayer today, you will have put something in motion so tremendous that it makes even the angels in heaven peer at God’s children in awe.

The nature of Christ living through redeemed man is the greatest treasure in the entire universe, and, even more amazingly, it is but the down-payment of something even greater that awaits us: the earnest of glory in a perfect, sinless body and mind with our Father for all eternity. He affords us a foretaste here. Many are the afflictions of the righteous on earth, but God delivers us out of them all. We get sick, our loved ones die, we are mistreated by unbelievers, we are maligned by false brethren, and, above all, we are attacked daily by spiritual evil through our flesh and the world's system. But despite all this, we are still more than conquerors and need never lose the joy of the Lord, for He alone has overcome the world; He alone has risen from the dead; His Spirit breathes life into ours and animates the life of God within our vessels of clay.

God’s grace is given unto us to fight and win the race. The true grace of God is employed through the Holy Spirit so we make no fleshly provision, or become unequally yoked with the subjects of darkness. Grace is waiting to be won by our prayers to protect our hearts and minds from the inauguration of strongholds. The victorious life of God is rejuvenated and renewed in our own spirits through prayer. Pray, then, often for this power; pray throughout the day in your heart with spontaneous desire, with thirst and craving, as the single most coveted blessing you can possible ask for. From the overcoming ocean of God's grace in your life, all the other rivers of life will automatically flow: rivers of ministry to bless others; rivers compassion for the small and weak; rivers of gentleness and humility toward your neighbor; and rivers of unfeigned love for a lost world.

Perhaps you have been taught that full victory over the lusts of the heart, over anger and critical thinking is not possible in this life, but I want to tell you in Jesus’ Name that victory is assured if you can but lay hold of God’s New Covenant promise through faith. Victory, however, does not mean that there will not be a struggle. You will still fight the flesh and devil every day, but you will begin to battle them from inside the strength of God and gain the victory through the power of grace. You will be blessed in enduring temptation, where in the past you were accustomed to yielding and defiling your conscience.

The Word of God is like a grain factory where seeds are made available for the baking of Bread. This Bread is Christ, and it is His Life in us which sustains the inner man. The holy grain is gathered and brought into our hearts for baking through meditation and our inward obedience to the light of the Spirit’s voice. This baking process produces Bread which nourishes and protects our spirits from the entrapments of wickedness through the impartation of Christ’s glorious nature. This is why we should read the New Testament slowly; we need to take our time with the baking; we must give the Bread of Life allowance to rise within our hearts and season us with grace.

The power of God is given to overcome sin at the heart-level and become progressively conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. This is His ultimate will for you. This is what He wants you to pray for. It is far greater than any conceivable item of creation; it is the pearl of great price, and it is worth your entire life to aspire toward. Do not waste another day! Ask God to begin the process of fostering Christ’s divine nature in your life today. Come with all your weakness and failure and misery. Your only requirement is poverty in spirit and a thirst to have your heavy burden removed. A river is waiting to burst forth from your bosom, and God is impartial as through whom it proceeds.

Friday, November 2, 2012

Mastery of the Subject - Paul West



Very often, a believer will fail a test of God and hesitate in getting back up. The believer was perhaps living a life of victory, clean before God and enjoying the resources of Christ’s Life, when a temptation of some sort hit and suddenly took them down. They thought they were strong; they thought they could stand up to it and resist. They had been walking in the Spirit that morning; by the evening, however, they are cast down and find themselves once again in the dregs of a besetting sin. Because they loathe themselves to such a degree, they have a great reluctance to be recovered before God. This is because they feel their Christianity is just not “working” and therefore any continuation of it is futile.

These children, in their depression, must be encouraged with the truth of all-loving, all-wise Father who allows certain things to happen for the furtherance of their good. This is not to say that God condones or causes sinful acts. We know from scripture that God will allow the tempter of souls to strike at the hearts of His children – and always for a specific purpose. The Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness specifically to be tested by Satan; Jesus foretold of Peter’s allowance to be sifted by request of Satan; Satan asked to destroy all which righteous Job held in possession, and God granted it. If the enemy had asked to sift someone like Peter (who was strong in the faith, but weak in the flesh), the enemy will also ask to sift someone like you and me. And God may allow it in time. When He permits the enemy to strike, a strong presentation to engage in evil will suddenly come to your mind. It will come as a rebellion against the light God has already given you on the matter. Previously, you could hold your ground against it and resist it with power – but suddenly it’s coming in like a tsunami and you’re not ready. Your mind is weak; the flesh is howling for release; the voice of your conscience is quickly fading.

When you fail God, you fail against the will of your inner man. If you could push a button to stop the temptation, you would do it in a heartbeat. You don’t want to sin, but in those dire moments you feel yourself helpless, overpowered and flesh-dominated. It is never the Lord’s will that we fail during these times of testing, but if we are going to fail, He already knew it and still permitted our testing. It is hard for us to wrap our minds around this concept because we are so used to processing information in patterns of human logic. It’s difficult for us to compute God allowing something to happen to us knowing it will cause us to sin. Didn’t God already know Peter would deny the Christ, yet allowed the ordeal to happen all the same? Yes. The Lord is not an earthly teacher. An earthly teacher, when she gives a test, does not know her pupils’ results until after the test is taken. But God knows the results beforehand, and still administers the test in order to teach His children the subject matter in a much more effective way.

The reason He allows such tests is to show us that only Christ can pass them. When we fail a test, it is because we took the test ourselves. The great end of all God’s testing in allowing the devil to sift us is to show that only Christ can pass. When we take a test and fail, our eyes are usually blind to the fact that we took the test ourselves. There is a reluctance to look up to God because of our sense of hopelessness. A defeatist mindset encompasses us and we begin to see ourselves as worthless subjects. Ah – but this is precisely the reason this Teacher of teachers gave us the test! To foster within us this very understanding of our inability to master the subject matter. An earthly teacher introduces the subject matter to her students for them to display it comprehensibly on the test; God, in contrast, uses the test’s incomprehensibility to demonstrate the subject matter to His children. And the subject matter is the grace of Jesus Christ.

The problem is when the failed student stays down when God would have him get up and continue on. God wills that after each test-failure we would approach the blood of Christ through confession of our failure and be restored. He calls us to look into His Word to see where we had gone astray. In this regard the Word of God is like a mirror which sits upon a wash-basin filled with Christ’s blood. Our loving Father’s only requirement for His failing child? Look, confess, and wash. That is His remedial program. When you fail any test, you return to this basin. The more you come to it, the more you will be transformed with the wisdom which comes from above.

So, my dear reader, never stay down after you flunk a test in God’s school. Pick yourself up after you fall and go to the mirror of God’s Word and wash in the fountain of Christ’s blood. There was a purpose God allowed the enemy to tempt your heart and wound your soul. Perhaps you had been growing too proud; perhaps you were beginning to leave your first love; perhaps you had forgotten how God had cleansed you from your former sins. Whatever the case was, do not stay down. Come up and confess. Get cleaned up! The subject matter you were unprepared for was the employment of the grace of Jesus Christ. The test’s purpose – as with every one of God’s tests – is to teach you that you cannot pass any of them but for the grace of the life of Jesus in you.

May the mastery of this subject be a consuming passion in our daily life.

Brother Paul