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Horseshoes and Hand Grenades

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John 14:9 Jesus replied, Have I been with all of you for so long a time, and do you not recognize and know Me yet, Philip? (AMPC)

You’ve heard the phrase, “Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades!” Horseshoes is a popular game where points are scored by tossing a horseshoe close to a stake 40 feet away. Grenades, when they detonate, send shrapnel into any object close-by. The clichéd phrase is often spoken by a bystander after listening to someone complain that he was not quite close enough to do something or win something. Philip was close to Jesus – but yet in his heart, so far. Imagine being that close to the Creator of the Universe – and still a stranger. Yet, this happens everyday. God draws near to us, whispering through all creation, circumstances, other believers, Scriptures, sermons and church worship services – and we snooze right through it. Many who claim to be born-again are so close to Jesus yet so far. They are like those who have gone looking for their car keys, or sun glasses only to discover they are right where they began their search (or on top of their head). Jesus is calling during this season but many are missing His call. They are so close yet still so far. Asleep in the light we fail to awaken from our slumber of comfort, and complacency continuing life as usual. We are under the spell of the satanic lullaby found in our Laodicean Church age. With our mouths we say one thing but our actions affirm that we think we are fine – just the way we are. We mouth the creed of the Laodicean Church, “We have no need.” Yet over the centuries God’s call has reached the hearts of those who became aware that something was missing. One of those awakened from the lullaby was a man by the name of John G. Lake. Lou Engle describes his awakening in the following excerpt:

John G. Lake operated in one of the most powerful and awe-inspiring gifts of healing that the world has ever seen. In a single ten-year span, Lake saw over 250,000 confirmed physical healings. In 1918, Spokane, WA, was declared the healthiest city in the U.S. because of Lake’s Healing Rooms. His congregation fondly called him “Dr. Lake” because he saw more people get healed than the local physicians.

Lake was saved at the age of 16, learned about sanctification around the age of 20, and then entered into a ministry of healing after experiencing the power of healing in his own family through the ministry of John Alexander Dowie in Chicago. Lake continued to operate in the gift of healing for the next 10 years and saw hundreds healed. 

At the end of those 10 years, Lake was more hungry for God than ever. Although he walked in the miraculous, he claimed that he had not yet experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He would often walk the streets and spontaneously cry out loud to God, surprising all those around him. Lake said, “It was the yearning passion of my soul, asking for God in a greater measure than I then knew. But my friends would say: ‘Mr. Lake, you have a beautiful baptism in the Holy Ghost.’ Yes, it was nice as far as it went, but it was not answering the cry of my heart. I was growing up into a larger understanding of God and my own soul’s need. My soul was demanding a greater entrance into God, His love, presence and power.”

Driven into the wilderness by his hunger for more of God, Lake fasted and prayed for 9 months, waiting on God. Several months into his fast, the Spirit spoke to Lake and said, “Be patient until autumn.” Lake was encouraged and kept going. He prayed, “God, if you will baptize me in the Holy Spirit, and give me the power of God, nothing shall be permitted to stand before me and a hundred-fold obedience.”

At the end of nine months, Lake was weary. He later recounted, “I prayed for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit for nine months, and if a man ever prayed honestly, and sincerely in the faith, I did. Finally one day I was ready to throw up my hands, and quit. I said, ‘Lord, it may be for others, but it is not for me. You just cannot give it to me.’ I did not blame God.” 

Shortly after this, a man named Pierce invited Lake to join him and a group of other believers at his house who had been praying for the past year for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. None of them had yet received the Baptism. Lake accepted the invitation. Five minutes into prayer, Lake was overcome as “the light of God began to shine around me, I found myself in a center of an arc of light ten feet in diameter, the whitest light in all the universe. So white! Oh how it spoke of purity. The remembrance of that whiteness, that wonderful whiteness, has been the ideal that has stood before my soul, of the purity of the nature of God ever since.”

After this experience, Lake was invited to pray for a woman suffering from rheumatism and bound to a wheelchair. As he prayed with her, suddenly “the Spirit said, ‘I have heard your prayers, I have seen your tears. You are now Baptized in the Holy Spirit.’ Then currents of power began to rush through my being from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. The shocks of power increased in rapidity, and voltage. As these currents of power would pass through me, they seemed to come upon my head, rush through my body, and through my feet into the floor… Even at this late date, the awe of that hour rests upon my soul. My experience has truly been as Jesus said that He shall be within you ‘a well of water, springing up into everlasting life.’ That never-ceasing fountain has flowed through my spirit, soul, and body day, and night, bringing salvation, and healing, and the Baptism of the Spirit in the power of God to multitudes.”

Lake sold all he had and entered into full-time ministry. God spoke to him that he would soon go to Africa.“One morning when I came down to breakfast, I found my appetite had disappeared. I could not eat. I went about my work as usual. At dinner I had no desire to eat, and no more in the evening. This went on till the third day. But toward the evening of the third day, an overwhelming desire to pray took possession of me. I wanted only to be alone to pray. Prayer flowed from my soul like a stream. I could not cease praying. As soon as it was possible to get to a place of seclusion, I would kneel to pour out my heart to God for hours. Whatever I was doing, that stream of prayer continued flowing from my soul… On the night of the sixth day of this fast, that the Lord had laid on me, while in the act of washing my hands, the Spirit said, ‘How long have you been praying to cast out demons?’ and I replied, ‘Lord, a long time.’ And the Spirit said, ‘From henceforth, thou shalt cast out demons.’ I arose and praised God.” 

Within a week, a violently insane man was brought to Lake. Lake commanded the demon to come out of him in the name of Jesus and the man was instantly delivered. Two days later that same man was released from the institution where he had been confined.

Within the next year, Lake and his family were called by God to South Africa. Over their next five years of ministry in South Africa, Lake saw over one million people give their lives to Jesus, 625 new churches planted, and 1,250 preachers raised up. By the time Lake returned to America, the work in South Africa continued through the hands of those Lake had trained. Lake’s five short years of ministry in South Africa were so impactful that Lake was given the title, “Apostle to Africa”. Gordon Lindsay stated that Lake was “engaged in a ministry which in some respects rivaled that of the Early Church.”

Lake always knew there was something more, but it was the keys of fasting and prayer that opened the door to satisfying his hunger for more of God. By giving up physical satisfaction and hungering in his flesh, he satisfied the hunger of his soul and the world was blessed by it. 

You Can’t Fake This

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Sunday, October 20, 2019

What’s the one thing in Christianity that can’t be faked? Did New Testament Christians actually experience hearing and seeing Jesus? Can Jesus actually be heard and seen today? If this is true what are the implications for those who attend church and have done neither? How are modern day Christians being built into a table of showbread?

1 Corinthians 10:16 The cup of blessing [of wine at the Lord’s Supper] upon which we ask [God’s] blessing, does it not mean [that in drinking it] we participate in and share a fellowship (a communion) in the blood of Christ (the Messiah)? The bread which we break, does it not mean [that in eating it] we participate in and share a fellowship (a communion) in the body of Christ?

The Greek word for communion is the word koinonia. The Bible will often translate this word as fellowship. This identical word is used in several passages of the book of 1 John and for good reason. 1 John 1:3 states: What we have seen and [ourselves] heard, we are also telling you, so that you too may realize and enjoy fellowship as partners and partakers with us. And [this] fellowship that we have [which is a distinguishing mark of Christians] is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ (the Messiah).

There are many things an unbeliever can fake regarding popular Christianity in the west. You can fake worship, reverence, love for the Word, love for Jesus, love for the Father, and prayer. But the one thing you cannot fake is true, Jesus-centered, koinonia. Why do I say this? Because true koinonia is based on a personal interaction with the Godhead. A relationship of common union, conversation, co-sharing. The crazy thing? You are doing all of that with the Creator of the Universe. Those who have had communion or fellowship with the Godhead know about it. You don’t guess or even hope you’ve had it – you know it. And once Heaven has touched your earth you can’t get enough. (I’m just smiling typing this up and thinking about it). The passage in 1 John really emphasizes this personal interaction when it states: What we have seen and [ourselves] heard, we are also telling you, so that you too may realize and enjoy fellowship as partners and partakers with us. The implication is what we have seen and heard is also available for you to see and hear. In John’s seven letters to the churches of Revelation one of the “stinker” churches was the Church of Laodicea. They were in such bad shape they couldn’t even see that they had left Jesus outside of His Worship service. Not only were they blind to His absence they also failed to hear Him knocking trying to get into the front door of His Church. The Church of Laodicean was deaf and blind spiritually. Before you get too critical recall the skepticism expressed when the Vice President of the United States expressed that he could hear God.

The Good News? Jesus offered a promise that if anyone would hear Him knocking and open the door He would come in and have fellowship with them. Why wouldn’t He?That’s the implication in the very definition of the word expressed throughout the New Testament. Why is that significant and what does it have to do with the next station in Priestly Tabernacle? Everything actually. The next station was called the Table of Shewbread or Showbread. In the Hebrew it literally meant the Bread of His Face or Presence. On this table were 12 stacks of unleavened bread, a symbol for each of the 12 tribes of Israel, and a flagon of Wine.

Recall that Scripture refers to us being a temple being built into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit? We grow in becoming through fellowshipping in the blood and body of Jesus. Another way of saying this is that we fellowship in His sufferings. This fellowship doesn’t have to come through being martyred, persecuted, or imprisoned. But it can and does come through simply picking up Jesus’ Cross and following His example of obedience in a difficult situation. When ever we choose obedience over personal comfort we are experiencing to some degree His sufferings. Now before you think that I have watered down our participation in Jesus sufferings take a look at 1 Peter 4:1: So, since Christ suffered in the flesh for us, for you, arm yourselves with the same thought and purpose [patiently to suffer rather than fail to please God]. For whoever has suffered in the flesh [having the mind of Christ] is done with [intentional] sin [has stopped pleasing himself and the world, and pleases God],…

At first I believed the message conveyed was regarding Jesus’ crucifixion. But the last part of the verse really bothered me. My doubt was regarding my own experience. I knew that I have suffered in the flesh but that hasn’t stopped me from sinning. Sometimes the suffering almost seemed to justify the sinning. So what was Peter seeking to express? I prayed and was reminded Hebrews 5:8: Although He was a Son, He learned [active, special] obedience through what He suffered.

Jesus was free of demons, generational curses, sins of the fathers, and soul and spirit wounds – yet, He suffered as He obeyed the Father in spite of the temptation. He was tempted in every way that you and I are tempted, yet He never sinned. He was comforted by angels after the 40 day fast and temptation in the wilderness. He wrestled over the will of the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane sweating drops of blood. Obedience to the Father is costly. The greater the outcome, the greater the suffering. Jesus’ Table of Showbread, the Bread of His Face is built in us as we do the will of the Father, interacting with Jesus through the process. Romans 8:17 states: And if we are [His] children, then we are [His] heirs also: heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ [sharing His inheritance with Him]; only we must share His suffering if we are to share His glory. 

Mark 10:38 shines some more light on this concept. It states: But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”  Jesus provides some clarity regarding what cup the disciples were so presumptuously willing to drink in Luke 22:42:Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” 

The good news is that the Table of Showbread wasn’t just a table of fellowshipping with Jesus’ sufferings. John 6:55-58 explains the enjoyable side of the Table: For My flesh is true and genuine food, and My blood is true and genuine drink. He who feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood dwells continually in Me, and I [in like manner dwell continually] in him. Just as the living Father sent Me and I live by (through, because of) the Father, even so whoever continues to feed on Me [whoever takes Me for his food and is nourished by Me] shall [in his turn] live through and because of Me. This is the Bread that came down from heaven. It is not like the manna which our forefathers ate, and yet died; he who takes this Bread for his food shall live forever.

Did you catch the three promises: dwells continually in Me, shall [in his turn] live through and because of Me, and shall live forever.  When we feed or commune with the Bread of His Presence, or drink the Blood of His Sacrifice we dwell continually in Him; we live through Him; and we live forever with Him. Why wouldn’t we? We are His Body. What the Western Christian must understand is that through knowing and doing His Word He reveals Himself to us. John 14:21 states it: Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”  And now we’ve come full circle. The Koinonia of Jesus-centered, Christianity, is about what we have seen, heard, and are partakers of. We become the Table of His Presence as we obey and know Him. You can’t fake that. If you have been go to the Bread of Life and let Him know that you are dying to know Him.

Last Adam?

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Other than losing their “lodging” in the Garden what was the primary thing Adam and Eve lost in the Garden of Eden? Was it that they were going to be slaves of satan and sin? Read on to find out.

1 Corinthians 15:45 Thus it is written, The first man Adam became a living being (an individual personality); the last Adam (Christ) became a life-giving Spirit [restoring the dead to life].

What was really lost in the Garden that day that Adam and Eve took a bite out of the forbidden fruit? (And, No it wasn’t an apple) Was it that they had now sealed the fate of the entire human race to slavery? Was it that they had traded places with satan making him the god and guardian of this world? Was it that they now had to make a living by the sweat of their brow, and Eve had to endure child birth?

Some would offer that it was the fact that they had been separated from God. That would be correct but the statement has been made so often that many in the church fail to get the full ramifications. Genesis 3:8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. What’s implied here? Adam and Eve walked with God in the Garden – in the cool of the day. They were in His Presence having conversation, communion and fellowship with God. In other words, they had a personal relationship with the Creator of the Universe. Jesus, being the Last Adam, walked with God on earth as a Man, having relationship with Him. Scripture records that Jesus only did what He saw His Father doing. It also records that Jesus was hearing the Father speak, and on occasion others heard the sound, but didn’t recognize what was being said. Jesus, according to Phil. 2:5-7 emptied Himself of His divinity. The passage states: Let this same attitude and purpose and [humble] mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus: [Let Him be your example in humility:] Who, although being essentially one with God and in the form of God [possessing the fullness of the attributes which make God God], did not think this equality with God was a thing to be eagerly grasped or retained, but stripped Himself [of all privileges and rightful dignity], so as to assume the guise of a servant (slave), in that He became like men and was born a human being.

Thus Jesus became the Last Adam, who walked as a man walked, yet filled with the Holy Spirit, and cut off from the curse of sin through the virgin birth. Jesus came to accomplish what the first Adam failed to complete. He redeemed what had been robbed and stolen, by walking in complete dependence upon the Father, and vitally connected to Him in relationship. Jesus as a Man, heard the Father speak. Jesus as a Man, walked in communion with the Father. Jesus has redeemed this for us as believers. But what do we believe?

2 Timothy 3:5 states that the Church will be in perilous times in the Last Days. One of the perils will be that many will have a form of godliness but deny the power of God. Was Jesus godly? Absolutely? Did Jesus hear the Father and walk in communion with Him? Thus it can be deduced godly people hear God the Father and walk in communion with Him. That’s godliness with power. Godliness without power denies that man can hear God or walk in communion with Him. That’s having a form of godliness. A form of godliness has “self” as it’s center, and does things by the strength of the soul. What is the soul? Mind, will, emotions, and personality. That’s soul power. The Bible states that this version of godliness hates God: Romans 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.

The word for hatred means to “disregard, detest, postpone love or esteem, to love less, or to slight.” What’s really scary is that in the Greek it also means “to be indifferent; to not care; to be apathetic.” Romans 1:24 states: Therefore God gave them up…” Why did God give them up? It lists several reasons but the top two? Romans 1:21, 28 Because when they knew and recognized Him as God, they did not honor and glorify Him as God or give Him thanks.. And so, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God or approve of Him or consider Him worth the knowing, God gave them over to a base and condemned mind…” A form of godliness without power hates God and reveals that hatred through not being thankful to God, and indifference to knowing Him. Why? Because they don’t think He is worth the knowing. In other words, they practice Church and Christianity as if He is not even there. 

This form of godliness is manifested perfectly in the Church of Laodicea found in Rev 3. They couldn’t see spiritually that Jesus wasn’t even in their worship services. They couldn’t see that they had left Him outside of the building. They couldn’t hear Himcalling – because they couldn’t hear or recognize His Voice. They couldn’t hear Him knocking at the front door of the Church. Why? They had closed the door to His entrance.

Jesus came so we could have godliness with power that sees and hears Him. A godliness that walks and communes with God. That power can only be provided and supplied by the Spirit. Are you practicing His Presence or a form of godliness?