Overcoming Sin

I am posting this quote from Zac Poonen from a message that he preached a while back titled “Faith When We Have Failed” (Look under Sermons, Zac Poonen). I appreciate the quote and want to make sure that the context is clear. He is not, in any way, allowing for sin in the statement but rather showing that God is doing a work of bringing people to the end of themselves, where they will learn to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit and not be proud walking in their own strength. It is when we are in total humility that we can then receive the true power of the Holy Spirit and it is there that grace can be received.

James 4:6 But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.

1 Peter 5:5 Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.

6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:

7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

Quote as follows;

“I don’t think that Peter ever forgot that he denied the Lord three times. And when God breaks a man that’s what He does. And that’s when such a person gets victory over sin, he can never be proud of it, number one, and he can never despise another person who doesn’t have victory. I know in my own pursuit of victory the Lord had to take me through failure, failure, failure; bring me to rock bottom. And I never knew the reason for that. I thought all hope was gone at one point in my life. But now I see that God had to take me there, so that, when he did give me victory, when he did keep me from falling, I could never be proud of it. I could never think that I did this. I could never think that it was through some effort of mine that I could overcome depression and “rejoice in the Lord always”. That it was in some spirituality of my own that I overcame bad moods, or anger… No. He keeps me from falling. I could never think that it was me. Even the ministry of the word; I know that if the grace of God departs from me, my tongue will be dumb, I will fall into the most horrible sins the next moment, no matter how many years I have overcome. See that recognition comes because God has allowed me to fail so many times in the years that I was seeking for victory. So, dear brothers and sisters, if you’re failing, don’t get discouraged. Let God do a thorough work. He’s trying to bring you down to 0. It took 20 years with Jacob. It took 40 years with Moses. It doesn’t have to take so long. It can be a very quick work as it was with Peter and Paul. But we can’t dictate that period because it is different with different people. “

Hope you find this to be an encouragement.

David

Beholding Him

Heard this hymn and thought I would share it. Not a too popular one but this was written by John Newton and is called "How tedious and tasteless the hours". Hope you are blessed by this. Consider as you read this whether these things are true in your life. If not, consider that faith needs to be perfected. 

John Newton, 1779, from Olney Hymns, vol. 1, hymn 46

How tedious and tasteless the hours,
When Jesus no longer I see;
Sweet prospects, sweet birds, and sweet flow'rs,
Have lost all their sweetness with me:
The mid-summer sun shines but dim,
The fields strive in vain to look gay;
But when I am happy in Him,
December's as pleasant as May.

2. His name yields the richest perfume,
And sweeter than music his voice;
His presence disperses my gloom,
And makes all within me rejoice:
I should, were he always thus nigh,
Have nothing to wish or to fear;
No mortal so happy as I,
My summer would last all the year.

3. Content with beholding his face,
My all to his pleasure resigned;
No changes of season or place,
Would make any change in my mind:
While blessed with a sense of his love,
A palace a toy would appear;
And prisons would palaces prove,
If Jesus would dwell with me there.

4. Dear Lord, if indeed I am thine,
If thou art my sun and my song;
Say, why do I languish and pine,
And why are my winters so long?
O drive these dark clouds from my sky,
Thy soul-cheering presence restore;
Or take me unto thee on high,
Where winter and clouds are no more.

I believe?

Ok, a bit of a picky blog but something that has always bothered me is the use of "I believe" and "I think" in preaching and teaching today. 

First of all, lets look at a couple of verses surrounding the use of these two phrases to see if the use so often heard today fits with Scripture; 

Mark 9:24 And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.

John 9:38 And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.

John 11:27 She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.

Acts 8:37 And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

Acts 27:25 Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me.

Just to be sure I did a search on "I think" and found that there was nothing implying anyone writing Scriputre based on knowledge. The closest thing you could find in that regard is that of Paul speaking in 1 Corinthians 7:40 where he states "and I think also that I have the Spirit of God" which by no means implies that Paul is basing his understanding of whether he is filled with the Spirit on his own human reasoning but is rather stating that the things which he spoke can be safely taken due to the fact that he is filled with the Spirit.  Verses are (Job 31:1; Jer 29:11; Ac 26:2; 1Co 4:9; 7:40; 2Co 10:2; 2Pe 1:13)

Ok, me being picky. How often do we hear someone expounding on some Scripture followed by "I believe" which really tells me that I am getting something that has been derived from their mind rather than having revelation from the Lord on this verse or section of Scripture. If this is based on reasoning, why then is it being stated? 

Oh dear brothers and sisters please let us be careful that we don't try to present things outside of what the Lord has made clear to us. AND for those of you who are listening to these things being spoken, please be careful that these things that are spoken from the intellect of man are not held as authority from God. 

It would be good for us to consider a writing by Watchman Nee called "The Latent Power of the Soul". 

Open to correction on this as well as any other thing that is posted here. 

Spiritual Education

I was reading the book "The Ultimate Issue of the Universe" from T. Austin Sparks and there were a couple paragraphs that really stood out to me. The first one is as follows; 

"What lies behind spiritual education? Look at every fragment and phase of your spiritual education, the way the Lord deals with you, and leads you; the history that there is with God lying behind. What is the outcome of it all? Suffering, trial, perplexity, adversity, and all that which goes to make up our Christian experience - and there is so much of it - what is the outcome of it all - God has His way? Let us look at ourselves, the way we have with God, the way He has taken us through the depths; through suffering, affliction, trial and difficulty, sometimes to the point almost of despair, like Paul, despairing of life, having the sentence of death. But what is the result? If the Lord has His way, is it not that He has a larger place, and the enemy a much smaller place through it all? That is the marvel of it all. Sometimes when you are going through it, you come to a rock-bottom experience, as you think, and you feel the devil is going to gain, the Lord is losing. But when you come up out of it, the Lord has much more ground, He has something more that He can work upon. What He has done is to get rid of a lot that was in His way. Suffering is a great purger. Christian experience is all with one object in view, where the Lord is concerned, in His dealing with us as He does. It is worship, worship in this sense, that God is coming into His own and Satan is losing ground. We have often feared that it would be just the opposite, while we were going through it, but God is faithful and it does work out to a larger measure of the Lord."

The whole book can be read HERE.

Hope that you are encouraged by this. 

Persecution

This is an excerpt from a message by Art Katz. You can listen to this segment along with other pieces of other messages by others by listening to this link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsaINMpnvww

 

The above link is definitely worth watching and is safe. Quote as follows; 

"The greater number of Christians will not be able to be satisfied with conventional Christendom. That merely to sit in a church that speaks a correct word or doctrine is not enough. Things that are merely correct are not enough. Merely to be phraseologically correct is not enough. There needs to be an awesome, a power, an authenticity in our words and in our life. And there is going to be a restlessness in many Christians who have been able to be satisfied this long in situations like that. But the very issues that are taking place in the world will be a factor that will move saints to look for a deeper quality of faith and relationship than what they now know in their conventional and predictable "Christian" situations. 

And so we have the very formative factors by which a minority of the Spirit will increasingly be called out to be the remnant people of God who are willing to pay the price of true relationship and true faith. Whereas the majority who do not see the need or have not the stomach for the cost and the sacrifice of it and who remain in these normative "Christian" situations will be increasingly deceived, having the words that are appropriate to the faith but not the power thereof. But what's more, they will be irritated by that minority of the Spirit who have moved on to a more authentic existential quality of faith and look upon them not only as being strange but perhaps even being heretical and even threatening to what is considered normal or a  normative Christian. 

In a word, we are going to see formed the very elements that make up the church that is persecuted and the church that is its persecutor. And we need to know now that we are moving toward the one or the other. There will not be as I said before a neutral ground. That the logic of true faith is persecution and that the Scriptures will be fulfilled that says "and they will kill us and claim that they are doing God a service". We are going to see the  re-enactment of the persecution of the Anabaptists in the 16th century, even persecuted by the major reformation churches. Again to be the distinguishing character of the struggle at the end of the age again. "

The Word becoming flesh

"The tragedy today in Christendom is that the vast majority of Christians cannot discern between what is religious and what is spiritual. A lot of people think that if they have a lot of Bible knowledge they are spiritual. No, they are not, they're just religious. The devil is the most religious person in the universe, he knows more of the Bible than anyone else. It doesn't make him spiritual. We need to know this brothers and sisters. I see so many Christians meeting together for Bible studies and if that Bible study doesn't make you overcome your nature all that Bible study, I tell you in Jesus name, will only make you more like the devil. You can sit with your weekly Bible study meetings, Study Romans, Ephesians, Philippians, Hebrews, everything, study the Old Testament tabernacle, everything and you will only become more like the devil. You will still have a long way to go because he will still know more than you. The Word has to become flesh and I would rather have one word of Scripture become flesh in me than know all the scriptures and know where this reference is and that reference is and what this Old Testament thing symbolizes and the deeper meaning of Romans and Ephesians. That's not what I am interested in. It's Christ! The whole Scripture is meant to show me Jesus. And the Holy Spirit is come to make me like Him. Unless that becomes the passion of our heart we are not going to be able to build the type of church that God wants."

Quoted from a message titled "Secure in God our Father" by Zac Poonen that can be downloaded from this site. Look under Sermons and the series titled "A Heavenly Church". 

The thought is clear and I can only say Amen! 

He that believeth

All things are possible

Mark 9:23  Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.

Is not condemned

John 3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

Hath everlasting life

John 3:36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

John 6:47 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.

Shall never hunger and shall never thirst

John 6:35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

Shall live

John 11:25 Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:

Believes not only on Him, Jesus Christ, but on the Father which sent Him

John 12:44  Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me.

Hath no part with unrighteousness

2 Corinthians 6:15 And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?

Shall not be confounded

1 Peter 2:6 Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.

Overcomes the world

1 John 5:5 Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?

….and now comes the hard part. The other stuff most will say, Amen to pretty readily. However, we really should look at all of Scripture to see what the promises are to those who believe.

Out of his belly shall flow RIVERS of living water

John 7:38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

Shall do greater works….

John 14:12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.

You see, we need to ask ourselves the question, if God has given all grace unto us, if He has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, if His desire is to redeem a people, a holy people, a bride for His Son; is this being manifest, or made plain, in our lives? If not, let us ask the question why and be honest about it before God, in repentance and turning in faith to believe the promises that He has for us and abide in Jesus Christ wherein, and only in Him, will fruit abound.

Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

John 15:1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.

4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.