NOTHING BETWEEN

"Nothing between, like worldly pleasure:

Habits of life, though harmless they seem,

Must not my heart from Him ever sever--

He is my all! There's nothing between."---Tindley

If we are a follower of Jesus, this is the only way we can live a victorious Christian life that will please our heavenly Father. We are now a child of God, and a member of His earthly family. This decision we have made to follow Jesus, has angered our enemy and former master, Satan, who is the avowed enemy of God, and hates Him and everyone or anything connected to His Kingdom! We can be sure Satan will do everything within his power to destroy our new found relationship with God. The first letter of John is a good place to review our position as a follower of Jesus. John exhorts his readers to "walk in the light", with God and fellow believers, to "confess our sins", to "love one another", and to "love not this world nor the things it offers you", among other various commandments. Let us just consider two things that the author of this poem mentions.

The first thing mentioned is "worldly pleasures", which can cover a wide range of activities that often attract the attention of believers. The scriptures have much to say about our relationship with the "world". Two scriptures that speak clearly to this issue are (James 4:4) "---I say it again if you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God"! We can't possibly be both at the same time! Remember Jesus said "No one can serve two masters----" (Matt 6:24). Today we see many people trying to do this impossible task, either because of ignorance of God's Word, or else just plain rebellion! The other scripture is (1 John 2:15-17), both give a very clear message "love not the world"!

The other thing mentioned is "habits of life, though harmless they seem". We all struggle with habits of one form or another. Some are undoubtedly worse than others, but all are hard to break! Right? Some we consider to be quite "harmless", as the poem says, but are they really? Anything, no matter how harmless we may consider it to be, can come between us and Jesus. The Bible calls these things "Idols", and we are told to flee from them! (1 Cor 10:14) Let us obey God's Word today!

Sincerely submitted.

Gramp

NO CONDEMNATION

These words, taken from Rom 8:1 should resound in our ears like the words “you are pardoned” must sound to a prisoner on “death row” in prison who has just received the word that at the last minute the Governor has granted him a full pardon! Paul begins this chapter with the words “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus”. Every one of these words is important, and we need to look at each one carefully, if we are to really understand the full meaning that Paul had in mind.

Whenever we see the word “therefore”, we need to look back a few verses to find out why this word is used. In this case the reference is to the last two verses of the previous chapter. Here we see that Paul asked a question, and then answered it. This set the stage for this profound and awesome statement, “there is therefore now no condemnation”. Notice the little word “now”, this means right now, in our present situation, as long as we are “in Christ Jesus”. Paul uses this same phrase in (2 Cor 5:17) “Therefore if any man (woman, boy or girl) be in Christ he is a new creation----“. In this case he is referring back to verse 14 “if one died for all, then all died”. This is certainly the theme that Paul has been dwelling on in chapters 6 and 7, and wants to reinforce here in chapter 8. This brings us to the words “no condemnation” which we will explore now in a little more detail.

Who among us has never felt “condemned” at one time or another? Usually it is our guilty conscience that will condemn us for some wrong thought, or action! Even after we have been forgiven by God, when we repent of our many sins and receive Jesus as our personal Savior, we often still feel condemned. This is because we have an enemy called Satan, sometimes referred to as the “accuser of the brethren”. Not only is he the one who tempts us to do wrong, but then makes us feel condemned when we yield to his temptation. We have learned from our study of Rom 6 and 7 that our old sinful Adamic nature that we were born with, died with Christ on the cross. However we all have what Paul refers to as our “flesh”, that part of us that wants to protect “self”, and fights against the Spirit who now dwells in all believers. The Holy Spirit will “convict”, but never “condemn” us when we do something wrong! Condemnation always comes from our enemy. We need to learn to distinguish between his condemning voice, and the affirming still small voice of the Spirit of God! This is part of the process of “sanctification” that comes with maturity in our walk with the Lord daily! There is no shortcut, or easy way that I know of, thank God that (1 John 1:9) is still in the Book! Use it every time we fall into the enemy's trap of condemnation.

Sincerely submitted.

Gramp

THE DANGER OF DECEPTION

We have seen various moves or "revivals" in church circles in recent years that many people have claimed were a genuine work of God, by His Holy Spirit, while other people have considered them to be false, and not powered by the Holy Spirit at all! We need to have a close look at any of these moves, and make sure they line up with the Word of God before we become involved. We know from scripture that we have an enemy called Satan, who was once an archangel named "Lucifer", who rebelled against God, and wanted to take over His place ruling the universe. We can read about this in (Isa 14:12-17), and (Ezek 28:12-19). We see that God banished him from Heaven, but apparently allowed him to make his headquarters in the "heavenly places" referred to by Paul in (Eph 6:12). Satan hates God and all He stands for, so naturally he hates the True Church that is the Body of Christ on earth at this time. History shows us that every time God initiates a true "move of the Holy Spirit" in His Church, then Satan will try to counter it with a "false" or counterfeit move, empowered by his spirits of darkness. We are warned about this possibility by scriptures such as (Matt 24:4,5,11), or (2 Cor 11:12-15), and probably the strongest warning against deception is given by Paul in (2 Thess 2:9-12). This last scripture makes it clear that we must know, and love the "Truth" if we expect to be safe from deception by the "man of lawlessness"!

We know that Jesus is "the way, the truth and the life", (John 14:6) and the man of lawlessness is none other than the Antichrist, or the incarnation of Satan during the time of the "great tribulation" just before Jesus returns to destroy him, and put an end to his persecution of the church. (Matt 24:21-31). We have nothing to fear in these perilous times ahead if we know Jesus as our personal Savior, and stay close to Him. The Holy Spirit was given to us when we repented of our sins, and received Jesus as Savior, and part of His job is to make Jesus real to us by the power of His presence in our lives! Beware of the false "signs and wonders" that often accompany these so-called revivals. Remember the warning given by Jesus in (Matt 24:24) "For false messiahs and false prophets will rise up and perform great signs and wonders so as to deceive, if possible, even God's chosen ones". For this reason we who know Jesus must be on guard against this type of any false "so-called" revivals, and warn others to carefully check out the background, or "track record" of those involved in promoting these revivals. Remember miracles, and signs and wonders, can come from more than one source! Jesus tells us in (Matt 7:15-20) how to distinguish between the true and the false prophets by checking the fruit in their lives!

Sincerely submitted.

Gramp

ABRAHAM'S BLESSINGS

The law of inheritance is greater than the law of possession! Abraham's blessings are ours by reason of a covenant promise God made to Abraham (Gen 12:3), (Gal 3:16-18). This promise found it's fulfillment in Christ, and those who are united to Him by the "new birth" into God's family. (Gal 3:29) Since God never breaks a covenant He makes with anyone, this one is still in force!

There were three parts to this covenant between God and Abraham, 1/ the tithe, 2/ walking blameless before God, 3/ offerings. We should take a closer look at each one.

1/ The tithe---In (Gen 14:17-20) we read about Abraham giving a tithe (10%) of the spoils from his victory over his enemies, to Melchizedek, who is a type of Christ. (Heb 7:15-17). This was over 400 years before the law was put in place by Moses. The main scripture on tithing is found in (Mal 3:6-12), where God states His displeasure with His people for not paying their tithes and offerings, and thus bringing a curse upon themselves. As a contrast to a curse, He promises to pour out a blessing on them if they will honor God by bringing the tithe into the storehouse. Our God is Holy, His Word is Holy, and His tithe is Holy. The tithe is God's own personal property, and is not ours to do with as we please. We don't give, or "pay" the tithe, we "return" it to the Lord because it is His. We then have the 90% to live on, and dispose of as we see fit. Our offerings are to be given from this 90%, and can be directed wherever we wish them to go, but the tithe is to go to the "storehouse". In our day this refers to the local church we attend, where we are fed spiritually.

2/ Walking blameless---(Gen 17:1-2) God said to Abraham "serve Me faithfully and live a blameless life" in order to qualify for His blessings. This same qualification applies to us today. To live a blameless life before God means to keep His commandments as outlined in the NT, realizing that this can only be done in the strength of the Holy Spirit who indwells us. We will never be "faultless", or without sin in this life, but we can be "blameless"! These two words have completely different meanings. Thank God, He has made provision for our failures, see (1 John 1:9)

3/ The offering---(Gen 22:1-2) Remember the word "offering" means "to present for acceptance or consideration". In this case Abraham offered his son freely in obedience to God's command, in faith believing that somehow he would be restored to him by God. This is the type of faith toward God that we should be operating in!

Here we see the three requirements for receiving the blessings of Abraham that we are promised as God's children. Remember the requirements must be fulfilled before we can expect to receive the blessings! There are always conditions attached to all of the promises of God. He is not some sort of a heavenly "Santa Clause", just waiting to fulfill all of our selfish requests!

Sincerely submitted.

Gramp

THE BODY OF CHRIST

I am presently reading a book by Derek Prince entitled "Rediscovering God's Church", and finding new ways of describing the Church, that I have never before heard. I have studied about the Church for many years, and thought I had heard all there was to hear about it, but I was wrong! The thing that he pointed out about the "Body of Christ", which as you know, is one of the terms used in scripture to refer to the true Church that Jesus said He would build (Matt 16:18), that I had never heard before, is what I would like to share with you. Just in case you had never thought of it like this either!

Several scripture passages compare the Church to the human body, with our head Jesus Christ, from whom we get our directions, located in heaven at the right hand of the Father. And of course we who have accepted Jesus as our own personal Savior make up the various parts of His physical Body here on earth. (1Cor 12:12-28), (Rom 12:4-10). We have spoken about that many times, but Derek brings out the fact that just as a human body rests upon our two legs, so does the Body of Christ! When God designed the Church He set it up in this manner, but then man's structure took over, and this simple truth was lost. One of these legs is the "Apostolic Teams", which we see clearly in the book of Acts by studying the ministry of Paul. These were the mobile, or traveling part of the Church which planted new churches, and the other is the "Presbyteries of Elders" that these Apostolic Teams always set in place in every local church they planted. (Titus 1:5). In other words one was meant to be the outreach to localities where the good news of the gospel had never gone, and the other was the permanent leadership team that governed the churches that were established by the Apostolic Teams. Notice these men always worked as a team of at least two, and often three or more. The only time you see an apostle mentioned alone is when he was in prison!

The title of Elder is an OT term that was carried over into the NT Church. They are always mentioned as "Elders" (plural), and functioned as a team. Local Elders could also be prophets or teachers, but then become "Apostles" when they were sent out by a local church. (Acts 13:1-3). Here we see the first case of prophets and teachers in a local church being sent out as apostles at the direction of the Holy Spirit. Elders always sent out apostles, who reported back to the church that sent them. Then when new churches were formed, the apostles always set in place elders. These Elders in turn would later on, at the direction of the Holy Spirit, send out apostles. So in this way we see God's "Reproduction Cycle" in action! All this has been lost because man decided he could come up with a better system of structuring the church! As I see it the church today needs a complete restructuring, and a restoration back to the original plan! But are our present church leaders willing to implement such a change, which might affect their security, by way of current position, pensions etc? These are questions that need to be seriously addressed, in my opinion!

Sincerely submitted.

Gramp

THE ETERNAL CHURCH (part 7)

In this final segment of this series of teaching on the Eternal Church, I will attempt to review some of the main points as I see them. Please bear in mind that this has been a very brief look at the overall plan of God for His Church, which is the earthly "Body of Christ". One day soon this body will reach maturity and be ready for Christ to come back and claim her as His Bride, to rule and reign with Him as His eternal companion. As we have mentioned, when we look at the Church in her present condition of immaturity, we can easily see that much more restoration must take place to bring the Church back to where she was before the period of deterioration known as the "dark ages". We took a brief look at some of the Restoration movements that have occurred in the past decades since the time of Luther, but realize that (Acts 3:17-22) has not yet come to completion!

What Brother Hamon refers to as the "Structural Church", which came into being under the reign of Constantine, will have to give way to the "Spiritual Church", which is the true Body of Christ. This will have to be the work of the Holy Spirit, and will require a time of "Repentance" on the part of the complete Body of Christ. At the present time the Church has been so infiltrated by the spirit of "humanism", "materialism", and various other "isms", especially in the West, that this will not be an easy task for the Spirit! Possibly the only way for Him to bring the Church into a place of maturity, so that it will be ready for the return of Jesus, is to "start over" again as at the beginning that we see in the book of Acts. This would require a complete "Restructuring" of existing Church Denominations, which have been structured after the "Religious System" set up by Constantine centuries ago. Personally I can't imagine this ever happening in the near future, but we know that with God all things are possible. Right?

One encouraging development on the church scene, is the growth of the so-called "House Church Movement", or as some have termed it "The Church That Meets At-----home, or----address". This sounds like NT terminology like we see in (Rom 16:1-16), and other places. Whether the Church meets in homes or some other type of buildings, the meetings should follow the guidelines laid down by Paul in

(1 Cor 14:26), and should be under the supervision of a "Plurality of Elders", as I have come to understand scripture. Under these guidelines, no two meetings would necessarily be the same, because our God is very creative! I believe this type of structure would facilitate spiritual maturity in believers, and would hasten the end-time harvest of potential Kingdom residents!

Sincerely submitted.

Gramp

THE ETERNAL CHURCH (part 6)

We ended the last segment in this series by mentioning the "religious system" which has always opposed the true Church that Jesus has been in the process of building for some 2000 years now. This religious system was in force through the Jewish leaders during the time of the earthly life of Jesus, and then during Paul's ministry. They were afraid of losing their position of power, and fought hard to prevent the Kingdom of God from being established. Later we saw that the Church of Rome did the same thing, trying to protect their position of power. History proves that this same type of opposition occurred whenever God revealed some truth that had been lost during the dark ages of the Church. The former group always felt they had received the final word from God, and severely persecuted those with the most recent revelation from God!

After Luther restored the truth about "Justification", many other men were given further revelations of truths that had been lost, such as "Sanctification", or "Holiness Teaching" by groups like the Wesley brothers. Then the teaching on "Divine Healing" by men like A.B. Simpson and others. The "Pentecostal Movement" brought back an emphasis on the Baptism of the Holy Spirit in the early 1900's, and was not well received by the holiness groups. Then in 1948 a move of the Holy Spirit was poured out on a group of students and teachers in a newly formed non-denominational Bible school in North Battleford Sask. in Western Canada. The truth restored in this move centered around the "Gifts of the Holy Spirit", and how they were to be received by the laying on of hands, by a "Presbytery" of Elders. Also "Singing in the Spirit" by an entire congregation was restored to the Church at this time. With each new restoration of truth came some fanatical teaching that was a "counterfeit" of the real truth, and brought some confusion. This always caused some people to reject this new truth, for fear of getting mixed up with the counterfeit. And of course others followed the counterfeit and ended up in extreme error. Jesus warned us to beware of false prophets and teachers that would come in the last days. (Matt 24:4-5, 11) Paul cautioned us in (1 Thess 5:19-24) to beware of false prophecy or teaching, and to test everything we hear with the help of the indwelling Holy Spirit! God is faithful to lead us into all truth, because He wants a Church that is "without a spot or wrinkle, or any other blemish" (Eph 5:27), and moving in "Present Day Truth"

Sincerely in Him.

Gramp