9-8-18 Dream of being stuck in muddy soil that won’t drain

 

I was filling up a big white plastic-canvas bag with dirt for a plant, but the water just turned into sticky mud cause it could not drain. The plant could not live in it.  And I could not move in the soil myself – I was stuck in the mire.

 

Lesson:   So it is with walking in the living-water of the Spirit:  What goes in must find a way out of me – worship & prayer back to God, and witness & service to others.  The soil needs to dry out before asking for more water.  Otherwise, you can get stuck in your walk, always asking for more Holy Spirit: living-water, and wondering why we we aren’t receiving – because God is wiser than we are.  He knows we aren’t giving back to him & others what we have already received, and so more water would just ruin us.

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Categories: My Rhema & Logos

7-19-17 Waking revelation – Caffeine is keeping me awake instead of hearing God in dreams

 

 

 

 

As I struggle to stay asleep so I can stay in the God-dreams I was having, I cried out, “Tell me the truth that will set me free.”  As I went in and out of dreaming, I saw the words, “Caffeine is keeping you from entering My rest, from hearing Me.”

 

I had drastically cut back to almost nothing of a sleep aid I took for years, because I realized it was keeping me from having God-dreams.  Now, apparently caffeine during the day is keeping me restless at night!  I’ve been addicted to at least a little bit of tea for so long.  I proseuchomai conversationally-pray for deliverance!

 

 

 

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Categories: My Rhema & Logos

6-26-17 Prayer Revelation to pray through the problem by praying into Jesus

 

 

 

Later on during my proseuche conversational-prayer time, I was struggling through “the blues” as I’ve often experienced, which often drives me to proseuche conversational-prayer.  I thought about how many times I’ve done what the world does about boredom and depression – try to mask or run from it with some kind of pleasure (food, drink, sex, drugs, music, movies, etc) or bury yourself in work so you don’t have to think about the meaninglessness of so much of life.

 

As I struggled with this in proseuche conversational-prayer, I felt the Lord strongly saying, “The only way out is in – in to Me and Me into you.”  As I contemplated this, I remembered that all the Greek words for “coming, asking (begging, pleading), crying out, seeking, knocking, waiting, watching, hearing (or listening to), and having trusting-relying-faith associated to devoted, patiently-waiting, watching, listening, worshipful, conversational-prayer I learned as I did the Knowledge and Spirit-Baptism pages was in the present, ongoing tense or as a participle meant to convey a routine lifestyle.  The Lord was telling me to “persevere through the darkness of night to get to the light of morning” by doing this through this kind of proseuche conversational-prayer – then I will find freedom!

 

 

 

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Categories: My Rhema & Logos

6-26-17 Choose to be filled by spirits of booze or the Holy Spirit

 

 

 

 

In my second dream I saw myself drinking really good nut-brown ales at a local bar.  As I “filled myself” I heard the Lord say, “Every time you drink, you choose between these ‘spirits’ and My Holy Spirit.”  Then I looked down and saw rows and rows of bottles of booze and remembered seeing the sign “spirits sold here” in so many bars and liquor stores.  Then I saw myself drinking in evil spirits with each gulp.

 

I couldn’t believe that I was making that choice!  It made me sick that I was choosing liquor in one form or another instead of the Holy Spirit.

 

When I woke up, I knew exactly what Ephesians 5:18 meant about “not getting drunk by wine, which is/leads-to debauchery, but routinely be filled by the Spirit” – a verse that I had spent a lot of time dissecting – see the Spirit-Baptism page.  Since then, I have had less desire to even taste wine, beer, or ‘the hard stuff’ – and I used to taste-test wines for the owner of a restaurant!

 

 

 

Categories: My Rhema & Logos

6-26-17 Dream of churchmen wrestling to control the Holy Spirit

 

 

 

 

A group of powerful, ambitious, “important” men in a church were competing and wrestling as they tried to grab a hold of a little wiggling worm of glowing light.  It was so slippery they couldn’t grasp it, even as they dog-piled their bodies on it, easily slipping through this grotesque mass of flesh.  Just like Elvis, the Holy Spirit had “left the building,” but through the kitchen down the drain!

 

I asked the Lord, “What is all this?”  He said that “massive flesh” is so much of My Body, but I will not be controlled.  I asked, “Why the kitchen?”  He sarcastically said, “Don’t they all have kitchens,” and I laughed so hard!  But I asked, “Lord, why down a drain of all places – so disgusting, so demeaning!  Why not out the front doors?”  He said, “They didn’t invite My Holy Spirit through the front doors!  Demeaning?  So you judge. To the least I will go.”

 

When I woke, I knew He was referring to “the least among you (a), for the so-called ‘firsts’ shall be last and the so-called ‘lasts’ shall be first” (b), the actual promise of the New Covenant (c). <Notes> a) Isaiah 60:22; Matthew 25:45, b) Matthew 19:30, 20:8, 16, Mark 9:35, 10:31; Luke 13:30, c) Jeremiah 31:34; Hebrews 8:11.

 

 

 

 

Categories: My Rhema & Logos

6-14-17 Prayer vision of Wall & Window blocking the Holy of Holies – Speak to It to Come Down

 

 

 

 

While struggling to “waiting on the Lord” in proseuche conversational-prayer, I had a vision.  I was in the dimly-lit room of the Jerusalem temple long ago, looking at the Holy of Holies.  The gold-threaded, thick, burnt-red  fabric of the veil-curtain blocking its entrance was torn down the middle, just as it was by Christ when He died on the cross – Matthew 27:51, making a “new and living way to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus” – Hebrews 10:19-20.

 

However, I was shocked to find a red-brick wall blocking the entrance into the presence of God with a 4″ x 4″ window high up on the right side of it, too small to crawl through, and so high up that you couldn’t even look into the room unless you were tall and jumped high enough to get one hand on the window sill and could manage to put your other hand on top of it and could work hard enough to then pull yourself up to see through it.

 

I asked, “Lord what in the world is that wall here for?”  He said, “It is the cares of this world, the desires of the flesh, the teaching of demons, and that the window was religion.”  That high window giving only a little bit of light on the right-side of me (the place of authority) was like that window in the dimly-lit, plain room where I was sitting in a chair and then asked to walk through the door.

 

I asked, “How can I get through this wall?”  He said to command:  “Wall, come down in the name/authority of Jesus” and to do this for 7 days, just as Joshua did to bring the walls of Jericho down in Joshua 6:1-27.  I did this for a literal 7 days, but still the wall remained, leading me to believe that my “7 days” command wasn’t to be taken literally.

 

Throughout the bible, “7” is most often a number of “completion or divine perfection or wholeness,” leading me to believe God wants me to do this continually until He “completes His work on the wall,” making this a continual part of my time to draw near to Him in devoted, patiently-waiting, watching, listening, worshipful, proseuche conversational-prayer.

 

 

 

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Categories: My Rhema & Logos

6-12-17 Prayer Revelation – Nature sings most when it is resting

 

 

 

 

While attempting to “wait upon the Lord” in proseuche conversational-prayer in my backyard, I kept seeing the word “time” and feeling so bummed that I felt I had so little of it with so much to pack into it.

 

 

Music from Birds on the Power Lines - While they are Resting!

 

 

Then I noticed my many busy hummingbirds finally resting on branches or power lines, just singing away!  I noticed that this was the only time they sing – while they are resting – not while they are busy flying or feeding.

 

 

The cicadas buzz while they are resting on a branch.  It was like the Lord was telling me to “rest and you will find your joyful music.”  Then I noticed the joyous sound of wind chimes and the “clapping leaves” of the trees both making music because of the wind blowing through them.  All these were at “rest” until the “wind of God” blew through them.  The music wasn’t happening while they were “busy themselves” but when they were “resting themselves.”  The music was the result of God’s work, not their own “might and power.”

 

My church worship music has felt very empty because we were “busy playing for God” instead of “resting in God” and letting “His Holy Spirit blow through us.”

 

 

 

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Categories: My Rhema & Logos

1-3-17 Dream that the Christian life is authored by the Holy Spirit

 

 

 

 

There was a class with many Christians from different churches learning more about the Christian life.  The woman teacher assigned us all books to check out from their very disorganized library.  The checkout sheet had all our names on it, but the list was organized instead by book author, so we had to look at all 3 sheets to find our name.

 

I found my name next to a book and author, “The Holy Spirit, Cyme.” I thought what a strange spelling for the author and figured that “Come” was the pronunciation of Cyme where the “e” had a long “a” sound – I had a drum student with a name like that.

 

Then I heard the Lord say, “You’re being silly again – it means “Come to Me” – this is how you will learn about “The Holy Spirit.”  I started laughing and woke up still laughing!  When I told my wife, I wondered what Cyme meant as I kept saying to her “C  y  M e” until she said to listen to what I was saying:  “See Why Me!”  Then I understood:  “Come” and you will “See Why Me!”  So it should be “The Holy Spirit, See Why Me,” but in Hebrew it would be written backwards: “See Why Me – Spirit, the Holy [One].”

 

I took this as a direct invitation by the Holy Spirit to look to Him for the Christian life!

 

 

 

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Categories: My Rhema & Logos

10-17-16 Dream of great coming evil and then revival

 

 

 

 

About His second coming Christ said: “Will I find faith when I return?”  He showed me that He was very busy in these last days sending out people into the world that can “blend in” very well into their background with special camouflage.  They lay in wait in some seemingly impossible environments.  Many were swimming under oceans hidden from view, able to breath because God had supernaturally surrounded them with their own bubble of air.  Some were underground in holes dug into the grass and surrounding plants.  You wouldn’t even know they were there until their head suddenly popped up!

 

These people of trusting-relying-faith were everywhere and each was a “nuclear bomb” just waiting to be “activated” by the enabling-power of God’s Holy Spirit, the enabling-power to not only “destroy the devil’s works” but to enable God’s faith-full people to “do even greater works” than Jesus did!

 

The Lord showed me a horrific war going on between Him, His angelic hosts, and His people of trusting-relying-faith against Satan, his demonic host, fallen angels, and much of the world who have rejected Christ, who are “going their own way, serving only themselves.”  Great suffering will continue and worsen as the world turns away farther from the protective hand of God’s safety and His godly ways. The suffering is the result of Satan and his pleasure, his invading hoards, and the evil of a selfish mankind who follows them by following their own fleshly desires.  Jesus said, “The Thief comes only to steal, destroy, pollute, corrupt, and to kill” (John 10:10).  There was great suffering in the Church for “judgment begins in the house of God” – both “suffering for doing wrong” like the world, but also “suffering for doing right.”

 

As the judgment of the Church and the world grows worse, so many will shake their fist and blame God.  But the “judgment and suffering” everyone is experiencing is the work of Satan, either as the “fruit of doing his wrong” or his persecution for “doing the right of God.”  God has reserved His judgment and eternal punishment until the very end.  Until then the Lord’s kindness and patience is poured out continually, desiring everyone to turn to Him (repent) and obey the gospel of His Son to come back into God’s protective hand and be restored to wholeness – that’s the meaning of “salvation” in the Greek of Romans 2:4.

 

Nevertheless, God’s “people of trusting-relying-faith” were everywhere, just waiting to be activated with great enabling-power to destroy the works of the devil, right where they were!  “In that very hour, that very moment” they are needed for God, He will empower them by the Holy Spirit, giving them “the very words, the very actions needed in the very situation to destroy the devil’s works and manifest the Great News of the Gospel – all because they simply kept their trusting-relying-faith – remained trusting and dependent on Christ.

 

 

 

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Categories: My Rhema & Logos

Vision of covering myself in bed with the Robes of Righteousness

 

 

 

 

As I laid in bed, I was told, “Keep yourself fully covered by the Holy Spirit to not expose any part to the world.”  So, I physically pulled my sheet over my whole body and covered my head with a pillow.  I asked, “How do I do this?”  When I awoke, I saw “Robes of Righteousness,” which I found in Isaiah 61:10, “for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a . . . bride adorns herself with her jewels.”

 

 

 

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Categories: My Rhema & Logos

Vision of a stagnant Stinky Pond and the Entertainment of the saints

 

 

 

 

I had a vision of a pond of water that had been damned up so it was murky and really stunk.  A black man – I think Okongo Samson of Unite 4 Africa – and I were pulling boards out of it, but we were afraid to even stick our hands in it because it stank so much!  So I opened up the blockage to drain it first and then rinsed the boards down with fresh water, because we needed the boards to build something.  Once it could flow out, the smell went away, and life came back to it.  When I looked back and instead of a trickling stream, it was now a river flowing into what was now a lake!  This dream told me that the Church was “stopped up” because it was pre-occupied with itself by collecting money to build bigger buildings to keep up with Church growth.

 

Then I saw a room with someone playing drums and percussion in it, but nobody I was with wanted to go into the room, not even me, a drum teacher!  Although I remembered it sounded quite good technically, there was nothing drawing us in, and I said:  “It is not anointed; it does not draw.”  It was simply background entertainment.  So many of the 15 churches I’ve played for was just that – entertainment of the saints, but clearly not worship!

 

 

 

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Categories: My Rhema & Logos

8-31-16 Lawyers use the Law of Chantilly Satan to condemn others

 

 

 

 

Chantilly was a very bad man who had already been judged guilty and executed.  However, in court there was a lawyer trying to get another guilty man off “scot-free”.  But my question to this lawyer was, “Even though Chantilly is no longer here to be on trial himself, are you still carrying out his bidding, schemes, plans, and will?  If so, you are just as guilty, and so you, yourself, should not be allowed off ‘scot-free.'”

 

My research later showed that Chantilly comes from old French “Chantille” meaning “a stone” or “massive, mountain-like stone.”  I believe the dream was about Satan, who is the “very bad man,” the “god of this world, the god of the kingdoms (a) of this world,” who uses the Law, written on large “stones,” to point to others (b) and declare “guilty, to be condemned, and executed.”  But Christ has already judged him to be executed, and Jesus nailed the Law to His own cross (c)!  The “teachers of the Law,” who were called scribes and lawyers in the NT, carry out Satan’s work of judging innocent people and excusing guilty people (like themselves)!  Jesus saw this often! <Notes> a) “mountains” are a common image for these in the bible, b) the meaning of “judge” in Hebrew, c) Colossians 2:14.

 

However, Paul says that Christians are now the “Letters of God, written absolutely not by ink [on scrolls] but by the Spirit of the living God, absolutely not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (a) – see Logos Word of God – BT20.  The NT makes it clear that Christians are to have nothing to do with the Law, the teachers of the Law, or judging others by the Law (b). <Notes> a) 2 Corinthians 3:3, b) Acts 13:39; Romans 7:6, 8:2, 16:17; 1 Timothy 6:20; 2 Timothy 2:23; Titus 3:9; 2 Corinthians 3:15; James 4:12.

 

 

 

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Categories: My Rhema & Logos

8-9-16 Steps of Faith & Grumbling dream of a bus ride to missionary school

 

 

 

 

That night I had so many God-dreams that I couldn’t write them all down, but the Lord told me not to be burdened by the writing/recording but just to experience them.  Each dream was like a “step” that led to the next, like Paul’s thesis in Romans 1:17 citing Habakkuk 2:4, “the righteous shall live from faith to faith,” and idiom meaning “from one step of faith to another step of faith.”  Enjoy the experience of one step (one dream in my case) as it leads you by its own enabling-power to the next step (or dream), not by your “might or power” but “by my Spirit, says the Lord” – Zechariah 4:6.

 

The last dream was very convicting:  A bunch of guys and I were going on a bus to a Wisconsin missionary school.  I grumbled that the trip would be so long, so I decided to sleep.  When I awoke, I thought we were at a rest stop but they said we were already at the school.  Because of my grumbling I had missed an entire step of the journey and didn’t know the guys were one “step” a head of me.

 

They all streamed into an old white church that would be our classroom, but I headed toward the mess hall where a bunch of church people were eating and talking.  I didn’t engage with them but just helped myself to their free food.  I grumbled about the flimsy tongs used to pick up the roast beef – how cheap the church was!  I was so busy complaining that my food slipped off the flimsy paper plates into a rain gutter and I went to grab it (5 second rule), but a dog got it before I could!

 

Then I remembered they were charging $3333 a semester and I grumbled it was way too much for a place like this, that they were taking advantage of us – just another church using people to make money.  It reminds me of the Calvary Chapel Bible College I went to in California.  I grumbled knowing I’d have to raise this crazy fee over and over until I graduated – just like Calvary’s – all just to be a poor missionary.  It seemed really unjust, so I considered using the money to take a bus back home – after the first semester at Calvary as the valedictorian, I never returned for similar reasons.  In my grumbling, I was going to miss out on another “step of faith,” miss out on the experience, the comradery, and eventually of being a missionary.

 

Later that day, in a proseuche conversational-prayer and worship time with my counselor-friend Elizabeth Brown and my wife Charlotte, Elizabeth was given Isaiah 28:5-6 for me:  “In that day the Lord of hosts will be a crown of glory, and a diadem of beauty, to the remnant of His people, and a Spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment, and strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.”  I was obviously the “him who sits in judgment” of others, and was called to “let go, and let God” and focus instead on the “glory and beauty” of the “Lord of hosts.”

 

What also amazed me was she was given a verse by God that I was just studying about how God would resort to preaching the gospel with supernatural tongues, where Paul cites Isaiah 28:11 from 1 Corinthians 14:21, because the Jewish teachers would be stuck in their childish gibberish (as the Hebrew indicates) of teaching God’s logos message expositorily “precept upon precept, line upon line” (v. 10), just like Calvary Chapel prided themselves in, even though “they move forward a little, then then fall backward, and ultimately fall down broken, snared (trapped by their study-teaching method), and are taken captive” (v. 13) – see New Covenant Ways – BT17.

 

 

 

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Categories: My Rhema & Logos

8-5-16 Dream of Holy Spirit Teacher with a Fruit patch tag

 

 

 

 

I was in a room full of people I couldn’t see, but I saw the black short-sleeve work shirt of “The Teacher.”  Everybody in the room knew this was the Holy Spirit, though on His pocket He didn’t have a name tag or title.  There was no other teacher for there was no need for any other teacher – 1 John 2:20, 27.

 

Instead He had a colorful emblem patch.  You could see the 3 bright yellow bananas joined at the stem even from across the room – this symbolized The Unconditional-Love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that they shared together.  As you drew nearer to Him – like drawing near in proseuche conversational-prayer – you could see more prominent fruit like joy, peace, and kindness.  Then as you drew even nearer to Him you could see other colors like goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control – this is straight out of Galatians 5:22-23!

 

There was no need for titles in the class for “they shall be known by their fruit.”

 

 

 

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Categories: My Rhema & Logos

8-5-16 Dream of a Spirit butterfly guiding my drumming

 

 

 

 

I was enjoying playing my childhood drum set in my childhood home’s carport.  As I was, I saw what looked like a butterfly colored and shining like the sun coming into the carport, attracted to my drumming.  It was mesmerizing and I just wanted to watch it.  It landed on a cymbal and I was compelled to play on it.  Now I had mallets and I felt compelled to roll on it.  I felt a childlike joy!

 

Then it moved to a tom and I felt compelled to play on it.  More joy!  It just kept moving and I kept chasing it.  We were like two children playing a “cat and mouse” chase and I started laughing more and more – I didn’t want the game to stop, I was having the best time!  Also, I was absolutely amazed at the quality of the drumming – I was watching myself in awe!

 

 

 

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Categories: My Rhema & Logos

Vision & Dream of a study chair in a dark room but the Spirit’s beauty outside through Christ

 

 

 

 

Once I had a vision after my counselor had the same vision during a proseuche conversational-prayer/counseling session I had with her.  After she described it, I soon saw even more of the same vision!

 

I was in a dimly lit, empty room with nothing on the old weathered, wood-slat walls.  Only a chair was in the center of the room with me sitting in it.  Light was hitting me from a very high window, but after awhile I got up and went to the door, opened it, and went outside.

 

It was bright out, the ski brilliantly blue, the grass was like velvet lilies, and out of the sky fell bread that twinkled like diamonds.  At first I thought they were actually diamond flakes, but as they neared I could see it was actually bread from heaven.  Everything was so green, growing, and alive!  It was pure abundance from God, glorious grace-gifts from heaven to earth!

 

Shortly after this vision, I became aware that I had sat in my computer chair doing bible studies for too many years – 5 bible colleges has taught me this.  I had just been doing a 6-month study that convinced me that “The Promise” of the New Covenant (NT) was direct communication with God, not to add more scriptures to those of the old covenant OT, which had been disseminated by teaching down through a religious hierarchy from “the greatest to the least” – from Moses down to Aaron and his sons, then to the Levites, then to the men, then to the women, and finally to the children.

 

However, Jeremiah 31:31-34 and many other OT verses convinced me that the New Covenant would be completely different-in-kind from (a) the OT  in that God would teach His people directly, by the means or instrument of His Spirit into new hearts, “from the least to the greatest.”  <Notes> a) the absolute negative means “in no way shape or form be like.”

 

Sure, I did get a little bit of light from that impossible-to-reach window in my vision via the very complex and labor-intensive study of the bible from the original languages.  But I had to admit that it had not really changed me much for all that I had put into it.  And the vision was telling me that there was so much more – directly from God – on the other side of the door, if I would only leave the chair.

 

In a dream I had some time after, I realized that I had indeed gotten up from the chair, no longer going back to my old habits of detailed research of the bible, looking for truths that would change my life.  However, I had not really made it a habit of going through the door.

 

In my dream, I clearly saw that Christ was the door, and many bible verses came flooding into me about this, like John 10:7-16, 27 “My sheep hear my voice (phone), and I know them, and they follow me.”  I could see that the door was there not just to start fellowship with Christ but to continue fellowship, one that would lead to abundant pastures and rich koinonia fellowship.  It all comes down to hearing the voice of the Lord, not by reading, studying, or memorizing OT or NT about Him and his ways.

 

 

 

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Categories: My Rhema & Logos

Dream of Red Wagon with 10 Stars

 

 

 

 

In a dream I had, I was pulling a little red wagon and in it were ten little stars, like glowing diamonds.  The wagon was red because of the blood of Jesus and the glowing stars were grace-gifts of the Holy Spirit for people at church.

 

All these grace-gifts dwelled in Christ and were there for the taking, simply by trusting-relying-faith to grab them.  Many church people stubbornly said “No,” even though I offered all ten to them!  But someone else came by in a black wagon that was full of miniature banks, each full of cash, and these people immediately said “Yes” to this man’s offer.

 

 

 

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Categories: My Rhema & Logos

Dream of Complex Car that wouldn’t work from Might and Power

 

 

 

 

In another dream there was a very complex car created by a team of scientists that could run perpetually once the steering wheel was turned a few times, causing a flywheel to spin that set into motion the rest of the machine.  However, after all that work from so many genius scientists, when the wheel was turned nothing happened.

 

On waking I saw Zechariah 4:6 “Not by might (a) and not by enabling-power (b), but by my Spirit” says the Lord! <Notes> a) Hebrew: external resources like money, skills, human resources, buildings, etc., b) Hebrew:  internal resources like imagination, intellect, ingenuity, will-power, etc.

 

 

 

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Categories: My Rhema & Logos

6-4-16 Dream of Jesus as The Massive Head

 

 

 

 

I saw a massive head with a neck as big as a waist with many tendons, ligaments, veins, and arteries dangling from it that were trying to attach themselves to a body, but the body wouldn’t stay still long enough.  But when it did, I could see these wiggly things making connections and I could feel the energy flowing into me.  It made me dizzy, warm, soothing like I was melting butter, and incredibly refreshing.  Then I became aware that the body was me.

 

It was odd that the body could be so busy, always moving off to another destination, another activity.  But for a time the difference was so amazing that whatever the body was experiencing before, well it sure wasn’t “life.”  Because when the head did make the connections, that’s the first word that came to mind – “zoe genuine-life.”  That’s what I felt flowing into me, like the body had been robotically animated before, but now it was really alive.  It was so intoxicating and made me feel woozy, like I was getting drunk!

 

Yet it was also a bit frightening, like I was losing control as it took control of me.  Maybe because of this or the other “purposes and plans” on my mind, I moved away.  I found it hard to be still and receptive.  As I moved, this great feeling of “aliveness” subsided.  I had flitted to the next “important” thing on my “to do list” or whatever caught my attention next.”

 

After I woke from the dream, I felt so sad.  This dream tells me that we must be still/quiet long enough for Jesus as the Head, the source of our only zoe genuine-life, to connect to us who are the branches of The Vine.  That’s what my extensive study of Psalms 46:10 showed:  “Cease from activity and movement and/coupled experientially, relationally know (yada, ginosko) that I am God.”  Kathryn Kuhlman taught on proseuche conversational-prayer:  “We cannot see the face of God or hear His gentle voice if our hearts and minds or tumultuous like a windy sea, but only if they are like a smooth, glassy pond that easy reflects the image of the moon.”

 

 

 

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Categories: My Rhema & Logos

5-2015 Vision of a Football Field as Ministry

 

 

 

 

Sometime after 5/2015, I’ll never forget a vision the Lord gave me while sitting in a newly tiled living room after my roof actually blew off in a storm.  As I was praying I saw a brightly lit football field – so bright was the light in the middle of the field that you could only catch glimpse of arms and legs.

 

On the sidelines there was so much noise and commotion going on that you couldn’t even hear the game.  There were concerts, people preaching, services, bookstores, and people on their phones. The cheerleaders with their megaphones were trying to shout over this din, but the craziest thing is they were yelling “Go team, go team” to the people on the sidelines instead of to the home team stands.

 

I asked, “Lord why are they being ignored?  Isn’t anybody there?”  Then suddenly I saw those stands, dimly lit, sparsely populated with little groups of 2 or 3 people huddled together.  They looked bewildered at the commotion going on the sidelines.  Every time someone from the sidelines tried to go onto the field to join the action, the coaches held them back and said “No, you can’t – you’re not ready.  You haven’t done everything we’ve asked you to do.”  At this my heart broke.

 

I asked the Lord, “What does all this mean?”  Then just as suddenly I understood that the field was his Kingdom’s glory by the enabling-power of the Holy Spirit.  The sidelines was the bulk of Christendom, all busy with their Christian activities.  The home stands were “2 or 3 gathered in my name/authority” that couldn’t relate to the lifelessness of the sidelines.  The coaches were the Church’s leadership that had programs and schedules that kept people from freely joining the field’s action as they were being called by the Holy Spirit.  The cheerleaders were the Church’s leadership trying to bring “decent and in order” organization per 1 Corinthians 14:40 to the mess of the sidelines, but all the while ignoring their first duty to the home stands.  The home stands were Christians that see through the hoopla of the sidelines, but have given up getting past the coaches.  They long to be on the field, so they gather together with each other and seek divine intervention, divine visitation, and divine filling, saying “Lord, we love you, we need you!  Come Lord, come quickly.”

 

My heart was so grieved that I just cried and cried.  Lord, forgive the Church – most of them are so clueless!

 

 

 

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Categories: My Rhema & Logos

God’s Sovereignty and Our Free Will to Receive by Faith

 

 

 

 

God’s sovereign control gives us the free will to turn on the “faith switch” to realize what God desires for us!

 

 

 

The Lord is on His throne in heaven and is in ultimate control.  Through Jesus, the Kingdom of Heaven has come down to the earth by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost (a) and continues to advance by crowds pressing into it (b), advancing within the hearts of men (c) here on the earth.  Until Christ’s return, He will continue to accomplish His will inside men by the filling of His Holy Spirit, men who are in the world but no longer under the ruler of the god of this world, Lucifer, who blinds the minds of unbelievers (d).  However, God gives His children all things that pertain to zoe genuine-life and godliness through the genuine, experiential, relational epignosis knowledge of Him” (e).  Your healing is part of that zoe genuine-life.  God wants this for you more than you do!  So team up with Him! <Notes> a) Acts 2, b) the Greek’s meaning of Matthew 11:12, c) Luke 17:21, d) 2 Corinthians 4:4, e) 2 Peter 1:3.

 

However, God will never violate your free will, nor violate the gentleness of His nature (a).  Because He created us in His image as the glory of God, He has given us a free-will like Himself.  Instead, He says “choose this day whom you will serve.  Choose this day – whether life or death” (b).  We are either working with Him or against Him.  There is no fence-straddling! <Notes> a) Matthew 11:29; Galatians 5:23, 6:1; 1 Corinthians 4:21; 2 Corinthians 10:1, b) Deuteronomy 30:19.

 

Trusting-relying-faith in the Lord and what He personally tells you through directly-spoken/heard prophetic rhema words is “The Light” switch:  When it is on, then God’s “electricity” can flow from “The Power Source of Life” (the Lord) to you.  When it is off, it cannot.  The switch can’t be half on or half off – doubt is like that!  “Faith” in Hebrew (OT) and Greek (NT) means “certain or sure pistis trusting reliance.”  Trusting-relying-faith is like a glass of water that is completely full.  He wants to pour into your life His healing presence, His Living Water, the Holy Spirit!  When your glass is completely full (a), then you will then have a “certain knowing” of what He wants for you.  James 1:6-7 says “Ask in trusting-relying-faith, with absolutely NO doubting (b), for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and then tossed back by the wind.  That person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord.”  Trusting-relying-faith and doubt are opposites – if you have some of one you have none of the other!  The “obedience is faith” is the logos gospel message of The Truth, the logos Word of God, for the New Covenant.  The only 2 commandments to keep your eye on are “trusting-relying-faith and unconditional-love!” <Notes> a) not 99.99% with 0.01% doubt, b) the meaning of the Greek.

 

Have the courage to turn “The Light” switch on and get the results you are seeking!  He alone is the Deliverer, the Savior.  Jesus said to His close followers:  “If you stay connected to Me, and My logos gospel message also stays in you, then you will really be My disciples (students and followers), and then you will experientially, relationally ginosko know The Truth, and The Truth will set you free. . . If the Son sets you free, then you will really be free” (a).  Essentially, if you don’t grab the only life-preserver there is, you’ll eventually drown. <Notes> a) John 8:30-32.

 

 

 

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Categories: My Rhema & Logos

Drums – Notation – BT1 – Dynamics

 

 

 

 

Dynamic Markings used in Music Notation

 

 

Click on Pic for an Introduction to Dynamics

 

 

 

 

 

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Categories: Drums - Notation

1-18-21 encouraging all-night God-dream

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1/18/21 encouraging all-night God-dream:

 

I just joined the Marines and my group just arrived at boot-camp. We were just unpacking and THE Commander came in. I did not see HIS face, only heard HIS authoritative voice say:  I know you just got here and haven’t had your training yet, but we are going to need the skills you already have right now! We have just engaged the enemy and massive causalities from both sides will be filling up every building we have. We will need your help!  Do what you can. One guy said he was a 6th degree black belt. THE Commander said, we will use all your talents. Another said he was a gymnast and HE said, “Yes that, too.” But i said I’m 60 years old and  can’t be that physical anymore, I have been told that: ‘You are an anointed musician, who plays by The Spirit” and certainly i have experienced this prophetically for so many years in so many bands. ” HE said, “Yes, we will use everything you ARE. Just be willing to help heal the wounded coming.”

 

This was a confirmation of a prophetic message i had about a week ago that God was going to cause an avalanche of truth that would shake the earth.

 

I was a double-black diamond snow skier in my youth. When i skied powder after a big storm in Utah, i cause a small avalanche. It was truly terrifying because it was so deceptive i almost didn’t get out of the way in time! I had cut across a steep slope right under a ridge. When i disturbed the slope with my cut, i didn’t even notice until i had made some more moves and was further down the slope, and stopped to catch my breath. I still would not have noticed, but Thank the good Lord i looked up the slope. I did to pridefully look at my progress! I started seeing LITTLE BITS of snow moving about 20 feet away from me, heading toward me. At first, i thought how odd and INSIGNIFICANT. But then i remembered some shows about disastrous avalanches, and i said, maybe just to be safe i will move to the side of the slope. Good thing! I saw more and more and more surface snow start to move. It kept building like it had a LIFE OF ITS OWN until a 100 feet of slope was moving past me, and then the whole ridge way up above broke off. Now the snow was tumbling or snowballing, not just sliding! Fortunately nobody else was on the slope and i was out of the way. Nobody got hurt, thank God! It wasn’t huge to bury anybody, but it would have knocked people down the hill and hurt them that way. What a lesson about “not despising small beginnings” and the deception there is in “pride before the fall – the greater the pride, the greater the fall,” and how much you need to pray for discernment to carefully observe and “look past the surface” or you will be caught in the landslide coming!

 

I’m sure glad the Holy Spirit “will guide you into ALL truth so that you have need of no man to teach you” (John 16:13, 1 John 2:20,27).

 

 

 

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Categories: My Rhema & Logos

1-29-21 – God-dream of prayers as wisps of smoke ascending to God

 

 

I saw a campfire creating wisps of smoke ascending before the throne of God.  I knew the ribbons of smoke were the prayers of God’s people, prayers that are not random, but unified – even though they are not aware of this, unless they compared their prayers with others in the Body of Christ, something “church” was originally designed for. The prayers followed each other like ribbons.  Once long ago during house worship with others, I saw these ribbons in heaven going up thru heaven’s floor like wisps of fog.  Amazing!  Others have said they saw prayers do this!  Once during a “glory experience” the Lord showed me this in clouds.

 

Well, in this dream the Lord showed me the fire and how it would twist and turn to create the air turbulent that created unified ribbons of smoke to ascend – these are unified prayers.  The Spirit of God is CAUSING the unity of the prayers. That’s what Ezekiel 36:27 said about the completely different-in-kind New Covenant: “And I will put MY Spirit within you-all and CAUSE you-all to walk/live by MY just-decrees and be careful to obey MY judged-verdicts.”  Clearly, the Lord is showing me that these “just decrees from his judgement seat” are CAUSING these unified prayers by the “fire of the Holy Spirit.” Jesus’ ministry was distinguished as “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and-related fire.” I have had dreams & visions of the Spirit “rain of fire” coming that will burn up impurities in the world for the final revival before Christ’s return!  I’ve been told it is coming because God has CAUSED His people to pray it in – “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth now as it already is in heaven – deliver us from the evil one, Amen.”  This is our unified prayer model of the Spirit, given by Jesus.  Ephesians 4:3 shows where our unity comes from: “the unity belonging to the Spirit.”  So, God gets all the glory once again – even CAUSING us to have unified prayers!  Sweet!  Amen!

 

 

 

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Categories: My Rhema & Logos

Response to a Dutch Sheets 2-17-21 video

 

2-17-21 Response to a Dutch Sheets video

2-17-21 Response to a Dutch Sheets video - Spirit Music Meet-Ups

 

 

This is in response to this excellent video by Dutch Sheets entitled: Troubling Executive Actions | Give Him 15: Daily Prayer with Dutch Feb. 17

Of course I can’t exercise the 1st Amendment right to free speech and post this on YouTube because they silence independent thinking.  They silence anybody who does not agree with their political agenda.  God help us!

 

Bold Dutch but sorely needed!  Be prepared for YouTube to cancel you and get everybody to de-platform you.  We speak in unity against YouTube “growling and prowling to devour” in the all-authority power of Jesus!

 

God’s mouthpieces must speak together in unity against “Mr. Biden” because it’s becoming increasingly clearer that he should not be called “president” from all the state court cases clearly revealing massive, organized election fraud that are hitting the Supreme Court on the 19th, which is only the beginning of a snowball-effect that causes “an avalanche of truth that will shake the earth, ” the Lord showed me.

 

God’s people must in unity call evil “evil” not “good” as the Dems & Rhinos are doing for greed (“the love of money is the root of all evil”) that gives them power to control and amass even more money and control.  Lord, expose the financial ties to enemy countries like China & Iran and corrupt financiers like Soros and Gates that pull nation-strings!

 

We must “speak against the mountains (kingdoms of Satan’s in this world) to be cast away” – we must bind those controlling forces of evil and loose the Holy Spirit to convict these evil men with their duplicitous evil schemes “of sin, righteousness, and judgment to come” to “repent in order to find mercy and forgiveness and to be filled instead by the Spirit of holiness.” That’s the only way God can “forgive this nation” – if they come on their knees to Christ at the foot of the cross. There is no other “way” than thru Christ’s forgiveness of sins.

 

Let us be crystal clear about the problem of sin in our nation but twice as much about the solution – it’s never changed! Only the invasion of the HOLY Spirit of infinite, overwhelming unconditional, no-strings-attached, unmerited LOVE will be able to defeat ANY evil. We need to take our stand but the only way to not get killed by the enemy while standing is using the WHOLE armor of God in Ephesians 6:10ff.

 

I recommend The Passion Translation because it brings out the nuances of the Greek better than the English Standard Version, but if you watch & listen in proseuche conversational prayer for a while the Lord will take you much deeper than what was revealed to Paul. “Greater things you-all shall indeed do.”

 

The Truth (Jesus) will set USA free, but lies keep us imprisoned!

 

Dutch, continue to speak The Truth (Jesus) boldly in/by/with (Greek en) unconditional-love!  It’s the only way the USA can be free once again!  I and others have been blogging about Truth and God’s ways at www.SpiritMusicMeetups.org for any that desire more fellowship, especially musicians desiring to learn or flow more in anointed, prophetic, spontaneous “new song” worship to bring in the Greatest Revival Ever Again of Truth (GREAT) – the final before The Truth Jesus returns – of the USA and world!!!

 

Trump is just a step – “GREAT” goes beyond America, but we have all see that THIS ONE starts here!

 

 

Thank YOU for visiting:  Response to a Dutch Sheets video

 

 

 

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Categories: My Rhema & Logos

Water-Baptism – BT1:  The “One Baptism” of Ephesians 4:5 involves water & Spirit immersion

 

 

 

Video: v

 

 

Water-Baptism – BT1:  The “One Baptism” of Ephesians 4:5 involves water & Spirit immersion

 

 

 

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Paul makes it clear in Ephesians 4:5 that there is only “one baptism.” First century Church writings show that they believed the initial anointing, filling-up to completion, or Spirit-baptism was expected to happen at the same time as a person’s water-baptism, making them “one” and the same. However, we see the “filling of the Holy Spirit” can occur to the same Christians over and over after their initial water-baptism (a) experience, and that this “good grace-gift of the Holy Spirit” is simply received and thus limited only by our “routine asking” (b), so Paul strongly urges Christians to “be routinely, habitually filled-to-brim by the means of the Spirit” (c) in order to be “filled-up-to-the-brim eis ‘toward, reaching/interfacing with the goal of” ALL the abundant-fullness of God” (d).  But all of God’s blessings have to start somewhere sometime, and that was at water-baptism! <Notes> a) Acts 4:31, 13:9, 13:52, b) Luke 11:13, cf. “good things” of Matthew 7:11, c) Ephesians 5:18, d) Ephesians 3:19.

 

However, poor teaching on the Spirit, even in their day and certainly since, had left and still does leave, many only hearing about water-baptism (a), though some find out about the Spirit, Spirit baptism, and the Spirit’s grace-gifts much later. For example, in Acts 8:15, Christians “who had already received the preached gospel logos message” that is “the preached great news about the Kingdom of God and the name/authority of Jesus Christ” (b), who were already “water-baptized in the name/authority of the Lord Jesus.”  Much later these same Christians were “proseuchomai conversationally-prayed for by Peter and John “that they might receive the Holy Spirit for HE had not yet fallen on any of them, having only been water-baptized in the name/authority of the Lord Jesus.  Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.”  <Notes> a) if they even get this teaching, b) Acts 8:12.

 

This wasn’t an invisible “deposit you just have to take by trusting-relying-faith at your conversion” that so many churches teach, especially since Simon, a previous sorcerer now converted, “SAW that the Spirit was given . . . he offered them (Peter and John) money . . . for this enabling-power also” (a). However, God is gracious because He will give Spirit-baptism to anybody who habitually, relentlessly, persevering aiteo ‘asks, demanding, requiring, craving, as a family-member’ for it, per Luke 11:13 – and He will give it to you again and again, just as in the early Church! <Notes> a) Acts 8:15-19.

 

In another case, Paul came across 7 disciples (followers of Jesus) in Ephesus in Acts 19:1-7, and what was the first thing out of his mouth? “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you had trusting-relying-faith?” Come on, when is the last time you heard someone ask you that when they found out you were a Christian?  Only if you met a Pentecostal or a Charismatic Christian!  Nowadays most Christians will ask: “What church do you go to?” As if that really mattered!  But when the Ephesians said to Paul: “No, we haven’t heard of the Holy Spirit,” Paul immediately asked, “Then into what were you water-baptized?” Can’t you see that the early Christians directly connected “receiving the Holy Spirit” with water-baptism? Pretty obvious! But when Paul found out it was John’s water-baptism of repentance instead, he explained further “the Ways of God” and “on hearing this, they were water-baptized in the name/authority of the Lord Jesus.”  The Holy Spirit is where it’s at!

 

This sounds just like what happened right before this in Acts 18:24-28, where Apollos had just come to Ephesus, who “only knew the water-baptism of John” (a), but when two Christians “Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the Way of God more accurately.” It didn’t matter if Apollos was “an eloquent man, competent in the [OT] graphe scriptures” (b), nor that “he had been instructed in the Way of the Lord, or being fervent in spirit, speaking/preaching and teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus” (v. 18:25).  Obviously water-baptism was part of the “Way of God, the Way of the Lord” that was “more accurately” explained to him. <Notes> a) v. 18:25, b) v. 18:24.

 

You can see the two situations are directly related because the disciples Paul met in Ephesus were just like Apollos, “having only heard of John’s water-baptism.” Therefore, clearly “the Way of God more accurately” explained is the “water-baptism in the name/authority of the Lord Jesus” in order “to receive the Holy Spirit when you had trusting-relying-faith.” And evidently, knowing that you have received the Holy Spirit was not guess work – it was obvious to even others!

 

 

 

 

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Spiritual Education, Ephesians 4:5 One Baptism in water & Spirit baptism combined, Filled by the Spirit, anointing, poor teaching results in the initial Spirit-Baptism being separated from water-baptism, We need a Full-gospel, Spirit-baptism is not the deposit of the Spirit for regeneration, Spirit-baptism is an outpouring of the Spirit upon a Christian for power & witness, Spirit-baptism can occur again and again for the asking if relentless, Spirit-baptism is part of the Lord’s prayer

Categories: Water-Baptism

Obedient Steps of Faith – BT1:  Obedience in the New Covenant is completely different-in-kind than in the Old one

 

 

 

Video:  Obedient Steps of Faith - BT1:  Obedience in the New Covenant is completely different-in-kind than in the Old one

 

Obedient Steps of Faith – BT1:  Obedience in the New Covenant is completely different-in-kind than in the Old one

 

 

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Obedience to commandments in the completely-different-in-kind New (a) Covenant is completely different-in-kind than obeying any of the 613 commandments in the old covenant, just as the definition of New (a) is: “fresh, completely different-in-kind, unprecedented, sharing nothing with its predecessors, unique, and superior.”  Let’s see how these 613 relate to the “obedience of faith.”  Jesus said in John 14:15, “If you unconditionally-love Me, then keep (b) entole My officially-decreed commandments.”  But just what are these? <Notes> a) chadash, kainos, b) certainly attend to carefully or guard that which you already possess.

 

I realize this study will be quite a shock to many Christians because of years and years of “the traditions of men” being drilled into us as valid Christian doctrine, but if you wade through this comprehensive, exhaustive study, you will not only become as convinced as I was after hundreds of hours of detailed research, but also extremely excited in your new-found freedom.  There are only 2 commandments to be obedient to in the New Covenant:

 

 

 

Any more than that is the bondage/slavery of the Law!  Remember, “The Lord is the [Holy] Spirit, and where the [Holy] Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (a)” (b), and “for freedom (a) Christ has set us free (a); stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke/chains of slavery (a)” (c), but “you were called to freedom (a), brothers” (d).  In the context of these verses, it’s clearly talking about freedom from the Law of commandments and the traditions of the Fathers that is the Oral Torah/Law (a). <Notes> a) the Greek word means freedom from slavery, in context to the Law of sin and death, b) 2 Corinthians 3:17, c) Galatians 5:1, d) Galatians 5:13.

 

 

 

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Spiritual Education, New versus Old Covenant Obedience, 613 old commandments versus 2 new of faith in Christ and love one another, Christians are to be free from the slavery of the Law of sin & death

Salvation – BT1

 

 

 

 

5 Simple Obedient Steps of Trusting-Relying-Faith

 

 

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  • Understand that Jesus is God, your Savior (a) and Lord (b).  If you want to get the really Big-Picture Plan of God and how Jesus fits into it, read the  Master Plan of God in History page.  If you want to know what early Christians believed in, read the Creeds page.  Christ came to earth as a man named “Jesus” in order to live the sinless life that we cannot live.  He died in our place, so that we would not have to pay the penalty we deserve.  God wants to give the greatest grace-gift of all to us – His own life through the death of Himself in the God-become-man named Yeshua or Jesus.”  Regarding Jesus, the Apostle John wrote:  “In the beginning was the Logos Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory – the glory of the only Son from the Father . . . For the Law was given through Moses; The Unconditional-Favor-of-Grace and The Truth was begotten/came-into-existence through Jesus Christ.  No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is at the Father’s side, He (the Father) has made Him (the Son) known” (c). <Notes> a) “Messiah” in Hebrew or “Christ” in Greek, b) Owner-Master of your life, c) John 1:1-18.

 

  • Confess your past life of sin– acknowledge that you have lived for yourself and haven’t obeyed God. Recognize that you need the Savior because your sins are destroying your life and keeping you from the zoe genuine-life that is found only in the company of God, here and for eternity, “For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God” as the Apostle Paul realized (a).  Jesus is the only human who has ever lived without sin.  The Apostle John says, “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just [through Christ’s sacrifice] to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”  – see Surrender Control. <Notes> a) Romans 3:23.

 

  • Only Jesus could pay for our sin, standing in our place to satisfy both The Unconditional-Love of an all-merciful God and the JUSTICE of an absolutely righteous and holy God who created nomos or torah laws/instruction for mankind to live by.  God’s ways have been revealed to our consciences but more explicitly through the OT’s Law of Moses.  However, “God made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God by Him” (a). Because God could only accept a perfect, sinless sacrifice in exchange for our utter sinfulness – this being called “propitiation” – and because He knew that we could not possibly accomplish that, He sent His Son to die for us and pay the eternal price for our freedom from sin and its consequences. “For God so unconditionally-loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever has trusting-relying-faith in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (b). <Notes> a) 2 Corinthians 5:21, b) John 3:16.

 

  • Admit/Confess (c) you are ready to have trusting-relying-faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord/Owner-Master.  Confession is proof that you have “repented” or “turned away from being the Lord or Master of your own life and surrendered-control of this to Jesus.”  Be as humble/teachable as a little child who trusts and relies on their Heavenly Father to take care of you.  Sincerely pray-ask Jesus to come into your heart, take up His residence there, and begin living in you by His Holy Spirit.  “Without trusting-relying-faith it is impossible to please God, for he who comes to Him must have trusting-relying-faith that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (a).  The Apostle Paul promises that, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and have trusting-relying-faith in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (b). <Notes> a) Hebrews 11:6, b) Romans 10:9, c) see Surrender Control.

 

  • Water-baptism:  This is when you actually participate in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ so that your old self can die with Him and you can be “born again by water and Spirit” and be “born from above” (e) to be raised to new life with Christ as a new creation and receive the promised grace-gift of the Holy Spirit.  This first act of discipleship in the “obedience of faith” of publicly “confessing” Christ is seen throughout the history of the early Church (a) and described throughout the NT – see Surrender Control.  The Apostle Paul says that this is when you spiritually join with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection (b).  The Apostle Peter says, “Water-baptism now saves you likewise (c) – not as a removal of dirt from the body but as [intensely desirous, craving] appeal/pledge/profession to God for a [clean, pure] good conscience – through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (d).  This is when your OLD innately sinful “inner man” dies and is buried with Christ and completely different-in-kind NEW “inner man” is created within you by the same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead.  This is how you become a disciple or follower of Christ, and so water-baptism was a key part of Christ’s final marching orders in “The Great Commission” to His apostles (e). <Notes> a) Read the Book of Acts, starting with the first Christians in Acts 2:38-39, b) Romans 6:3-14; Colossians 2:12; 1 Corinthians 12:13; Galatians 3:27, c) like the Ark saved Noah’s family from God’s judgment against a sinful world, d) 1 Peter 3:21, e) Matthew 28:16-20; Mark 16:16-17, e) “Water” is often linked/coupled to “Spirit” for salvation because the “living water” is the Holy Spirit – see Salvation – BT8.

 

A sample prayer:  “Father, I know that I have broken your laws and my sins have separated me from You.  I am truly sorry, and now I want to turn away from my past sinful life toward You.  Please forgive me, and help me avoid sinning again.  Like a little child, I have trusting-relying-faith in You that Your Son, Jesus Christ died for my sins, was resurrected from the dead, is alive, and now hears my prayer.  I invite You, Jesus, to become the Owner-Master of my life, to rule in my heart from this day forward.  Please send me the promise of your Holy Spirit to give me the enabling-power and your Spirit’s grace-gifts to do Your will for the rest of my life.  In Jesus’ name of all authority, I pray,  Amen.”

 

I encourage you now to find a local church where you can encourage and be encouraged to grow in your brand new life, to build one another up toward the mature-stature of Christ.  You can also find ways there to share your new life with others.

 

Prayer:

 

Lord, I praise Your name that Your New Covenant Way is simple enough for little children and “the least among us” to simply obey so that You show no partiality or favoritism, especially not to the so-called “wise and understanding ones!”

 

 

 

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Categories: Salvation

Kingdom – BT1

 

 

 

 

The Kingdom of God is hidden within you

 

 

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The Kingdom of God is within!  After healing a man, Jesus responded to a religious leader about when the Kingdom of God was coming, saying “The Kingdom of God is actually, ongoingly coming, arriving, appearing, being established, and progressing, but absolutely not from carefully watching or scrupulously inspecting it from a distance.  Absolutely neither will these observers be able to say ‘Look, here or there it is’ – the reason for this (a) is the Kingdom of God is actually, ongoingly within yours (b)” (c) – and the Greek’s emphasis is on “within yours” – “within you all’s.”  Jesus then warns such “observers” that they will be tricked by those who will come and say “Look here or there!”  No, “The Promise” of the completely different-in-kind New Covenant (d) is that there would absolutely no longer be the need for men teachers because God would create completely different-in-kind ‘new hearts’ with His Holy Spirit within them to be the One Teacher so that they would follow His ways, written on their hearts by the Spirit, no longer stone or paper (e) – see Logos Word of God – BT20.  Jesus spends a lot of time talking about men’s hearts:  where their “treasure” is; if it is “pure/unmixed/holy” in our “love” to “see God”; whether it’s “dull so their ears can barely hear” or has become “hardened”; whether it is “defiled” by lust and other evils; where “the mouth speaks” from “the heart” to reveal its nature even though people can speak hypocritically or insincerely to hide its nature; or “the heart” is where the logos gospel message of The Truth can be sown (f).  Certainly “the heart” is the place where the Kingdom can live – see Identity. <Notes> a) gar, b) entos is plural, possessive genitive – they all are possessing it for themselves; in Matthew 23:26 “clean the inside of the cup and the plates so that the outside also may be clean” entos is used as an adverb, c) Luke 17:20-21, d) Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ezekiel 11:19-20; Ezekiel 36:25-29, e) 2 Corinthians 3:3; 1 John 2:20, 27, f) Matthew 5:8, 28, 6:21, 9:44, 13:15, 19, 15:8, 18-19, 19:8.

 

This “Kingdom of God” not a far-off future event to wait or look for, to scheme, plan, or develop.  Jesus said it was “presently and would ongoingly come” right in front of them, and not necessarily through signs, healings, wonders, or miracles that certainly accompanied the preaching of the Kingdom to prove its validity by the manifestation of the Holy Spirit (a), and especially for the common good or building up of the Church (b).  Remember that Jesus will say to “many on the Day [of Judgment] who themselves say, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name/authority, and cast out demons in Your name/authority, and do mighty works (c) in Your name/authority?’  But then I will declare to them, ‘I never experientially, relationally ginosko knew you – depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness’ (d).”  It’s quite evident that personal fellowship with Christ is required to possess the Kingdom of God for yourself (e), and that evidently a person can do a lot of natural and supernatural things to try to build the Kingdom of God on earth, even acknowledging that “Jesus is ‘Lord (Master Owner),’ and still not have the Kingdom within themselves!  That’s the “ever-present danger” of Christian activism. <Notes> a) Matthew 4:23, 9:35, 12:28; Luke 9:2, 11, 10:9, Mark 9:1, 16:17, 20; John 2:11, 14:12; Acts 8:13, 19:11; 1 Corinthians 2:4, 4:20, 12:10, 28, 29; Galatians 3:5; Hebrews 2:4, b) 1 Corinthians 12:7, 14:12, c) efforts, tasks, including miracles, d) Matthew 7:22-23, e) Matthew 11:27, 25:12; Luke 10:22; John 17:3; 2 Timothy 2:19.

 

The Kingdom of God was hidden from critical spectators like the religious leaders who persecuted Jesus, “an evil and adulterous generation seeking for a sign” (a), signs that “false christs and false prophets shall perform to lead many astray” (b).  No!  The Kingdom of God would happen inside their own souls when they came to have trusting-relying-faith in Jesus!  The Kingdom of God had nothing to do with “the kingdoms of the world and their glory” that the devil showed Jesus from a very high mountain and offered Him (c). <Notes> a) Matthew 12:38, 39, 16:1, 6:4; Mark 8:11, 12; Luke 11:16, 29, 30, b) Matthew 24:24; Mark 13:22, c) Matthew 4:8.

 

 

 

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Categories: Kingdom

Peaceful Rest – BT1 – Sharing of God’s Sabbath Rest

 

Peaceful Rest – BT1 – Koinonia Sharing of God’s Sabbath Rest

BT1:  Koinonia fellowship of sharing of God’s Sabbath Rest - Spirit Music Meet-Ups

 

God’s Peaceful-Rest of Love – YouTube Playlist

 

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Video Part 1a - BT1:  Koinonia fellowship of sharing of God’s Sabbath Rest!

Part 1a

 

Video Part 1b - BT1:  Koinonia fellowship of sharing of God’s Sabbath Rest!

Part 1b Anointed Prophetic Spontaneous Drumming (APSD) application

 

See the intro page for my first revelations about peaceful-rest!  The next thing God said about rest I had never heard before, so it was New or fresh (a) by definition.  He said, “Enter My Sabbath Rest.”  That part I did remember from the book of Hebrews, but here it is in context:  “The promise of entering His rest still stands . . . but we who have had trusting-relying-faith (b) do enter that rest . . . so then there remains a Sabbath Rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works just as God did from His.  Let us therefore strive to enter that rest” (c). <Notes> a) chadash, kainos: fresh, completely different-in-kind, unprecedented, sharing nothing with its predecessors, unique, and superior, just as with the New Covenant, b) pistis: relational conviction of trusting reliance, c) Hebrews 4:1-11.

 

However, my traditional church thinking told me that meant “take Sunday off from work (a), which I’ve found is very difficult to do.  So then I thought God was just telling me to take some time off from my chores and work.  But then He said, “Remember what I shared with you before about sharing together (b) with Me in the intense joy, curiosity, adventure of exploration and discovery of drumming, and playing in that sandbox of drumming where you lose track of time?  Remember that I told you that the intense feelings you are having in your drum room are actually Me sharing Myself with you, feelings that I have when I have done those things, too?” Then I remembered! <Notes> a) or Jews to take Saturday off, b) koinonia.

 

Then God said, “Why I ask you to rest is to also share together (a) with Me in My rest, My Sabbath Rest.”  So I said, “You mean on the 7th day of creation (b), right?  Because I know Jesus said, ‘My Father is actually, presently/ongoingly working until now just as I am actually, presently/ongoingly working’ (c).”  Jesus said this because the religious Jews were accusing Him of ‘working’ miracles on the Sabbath (d). <Notes> a) this is a meaning of koinonia fellowship b) Exodus 20:10-11, c) John 5:17, d) v. 5:18.

 

But God interrupted my reasoning:  “Yes, I rested from My works for One day, but I’ve never stopped working since.  When you pause to ‘Be Still’ (a) you can enter into My rest then, and now, and that’s when you will ‘know Me.’ (a)”  I said, wait a minute!  How can I enter into your present rest now when you have never stopped working?”  He said, “Remember who I AM.  AM I not holding all things together with My Logos word  (b) while we talk together now?” (c).  “Wow,” I thought, “that’s right, He is sharing a conversation with Me while running the universe.” <Notes> a) Psalms 46:10, b) Colossians 1:17 Christ, c) The “[singular] rhema ‘directly-spoken/heard word’ of/belonging-to the [singular] dunamis supernatural-enabling-power dia thru-the-realizing-channel-of Christ” is what “routinely phero ‘brings/carries along, maintains’ ALL things” in creation per Hebrews 1:3.

 

Then God spoke more directly:  “I can rest and work at the same time.  Remember who I AM.”  That was humbling, like how Job must have felt after God clues him in at the end of the book (a) just WHO Job was misrepresenting to his friends (b). <Notes> a) Job 40:6-41:34, b) Job 42:7-9.

 

Then God invites me:  “I want you to rest so that you will also share that together with Me, so that you will know Me better in this also – just like all the other aspects of Me I have shown you.”  Wow, this restful “easy and light yoke of learning we are to take upon ourselves” Jesus spoke of in Matthew 11:29-30 comes only from connection to Jesus as the Vine (a), now as the “One Teacher” (b) of the Holy Spirit who guides us into ALL truth (c) so that we have absolutely-in-fact-NO need of any other teacher (d).  He wants to share Himself, His experiences, with us – just as any lover would!  Now that is koinonia fellowship! <Notes> a) John 15:4-8, b) Matthew 23:8 – see Teach One Another – BT10, c) John 14:26, 16:13, d) 1 John 2:20, 27.

 

 

Reflection:

 

Video Part 2a - BT1:  Koinonia fellowship of sharing of God’s Sabbath Rest!

Part 2a

 

Video Part 2b - BT1:  Koinonia fellowship of sharing of God’s Sabbath Rest!

Part 2b APSD application

 

As Christian musicians, we need to ask:  Why did God put music, His own creation, into musicians to discover?  It’s arrogant to think you created such a beautiful thing?  What about all those who came before you that you learned from?  Did they create it?  Ultimately, did the first man or woman create it?  No!  Also, music isn’t there just for you to discover for your own pleasure, fame, fortune, or other purpose, just as air or water isn’t.  If you think so, then you will approach music “in your flesh.”  Even if you are playing religious music FOR God, it is still by your “might and power,” which is part of the palaios “old, dated, ancient, antiquated, worn-out, weak, worthless, and useless” covenant that Zechariah 4:6 prophesied would be replaced by the kainos/chadash completely-different-in-kind, superior New Covenant of “by My Spirit.”

 

No, God shares His music with musicians so that they will pause when they feel those intense feelings – “REST, be still by ceasing motion and sound” long enough to genuinely, experientially relationally epiginosko know God’s very nature, Himself!  He told me once “The same is true of sunsets, sunrises, flowers, bird song, or any of My creation – if you pause long enough and really ‘see’ My Beauty, then you will know Me.”  I’m going with what God told me!

 

Part of God’s very nature, His Beauty, is Peaceful-Rest.  That’s why when we “REST, be still by ceasing motion and sound,” even our own talking, and just “watch and listen” long enough, we will share His own nature and by being in fellowship with Him we will experience His overwhelming, infinite Unconditional-Love that IS-defined-as/exists-as God per 1 John 4:8, 16.  Joy and Peaceful-Rest are only 2 of the most dominant ‘flavors’ of “the [singular] fruit of the Spirit that IS-defined-as/exists-as Unconditional-Love” per Galatians 5:22.  So if we epiginosko ‘genuinely, experience-thru-relationship‘ this overwhelming, infinite Unconditional-Love, then we genuinely epiginosko know God, the Father, Son, and Spirit, and we will soon experience the ‘flavors’ of the New Covenant Wine, the Holy Spirit of the Father and Son – see New Covenant – BT7.

 

Prayer:

 

 

Lord, today we will stop all our activity and sound to just peacefully-rest while we wait on You to reveal Yourself to us.  Like we can share any of your creation with You to experientially know You more genuinely, we will share this aspect of Your nature for the same result – filling us with Yourself so that we may fully know You.

 

 

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Categories: Peaceful Rest

Joy – BT1

 

 

 

 

Striving in the flesh versus receiving joy from the Spirit

 

 

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Evidently you can do any ministry in the flesh of “might and power!”  So Hebrews 13:17 implies that “chief-leaders (a) that keep attentive watch over others (b) need to be able to do this with chara joy (c) instead of with complaint/groaning.”  1 Peter 5:2 is addressed to shepherd-overseers:  “Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking oversight, not by constraint/compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you – not for gain, which is shameful, but eagerly.” <Notes> a) hegeomai, b) the overseer or shepherd does this, c) awareness of charis unconditional-favor-of-grace.

 

But Solomon asks:  “What has a man from all the toil and striving (a) of heart/mind with which he toils beneath the sun?  For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation (b).  Even in the night his heart/mind does not rest (c).  This also is vanity!  There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.  This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from Him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?  For to the one who pleases Him God has given sophia wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God.  This also is vanity and a striving after wind” (d). <Notes> a) longing, vexation, anxiety, restlessness, b) provocation, grief, frustration, c) find quiet and peace to slumber or sleep, d) Ecclesiastes 2:22-26.

 

Peaceful rest, repose, stillness, quietness, and joy are grace-gifts of God, because they are the nature of God’s own Spirit.  They come from taking a break or mini-vacation, like Psalms 46:10 says, from our busyness and toil – including work to “please” God – and the stress, soreness, frustration, and grief that often comes from it, and instead leaning against, trusting, or having trusting-relying-faith in our fellowship with Christ.

 

 

 

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Categories: Joy

Unconditional Love – BT1

 

 

 

Video: Unconditional-Love - BT1: God’s unconditional-love doesn’t punish or separate from His children

 

 

God’s unconditional-love doesn’t punish or separate from His children

 

 

 

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According to John 15:1-8, when a Christian isn’t producing fruit, contrary to so much horribly-misleading doctrines blowing through the Church caused from horribly-misleading translations of the bible, God the Father, the Vine-dresser or Master-gardener, absolutely doesn’t “cut off” the branch (Christian) and “let it carelessly drop to the ground” or “throw it” into hell to burn for eternity!  What kind of person comes up with this stuff?

 

Careful analysis of the text reveals that God carefully “lifts up” or “ties up” the branch “in Me” higher on the Vine of Christ to receive more “light” for more nutrition, and also to keep it out of the darkness that causes leaf-molding, and to also keep it away from the threat of rodents and bugs that crawl up from the soil and underlying debris.  I’ve done a lot of gardening and have known several winery caretakers and that’s exactly what they do!  This same caring Father God carefully prunes extraneous, distracting growth from the producing branches to produce even more!  When we temporarily disconnect from the Vine of Christ, as all too often ALL OF US do – come on, be honest, you self-righteous Christians – we ALL experience the “withering away” separation from the zoe genuine-life of the Vine of Christ, but we aren’t dead yet so it’s not permanent, though we start to sometimes feel like it, and sometimes wish we were!  See the series on Holiness by Abiding in the Vine:  https://youtu.be/QUwPDI1FOUo .

 

In John 15:6, Jesus uses the subjunctive to propose a hypothetical “what if” scenario to explain where fruit comes from – the life of the Vine can only flow into the branches if they remain IN/by/with CHRIST, the Vine.  Again, Jesus is hinting at the fate of Judas, who had “left them.” John elsewhere says “they went out from us because they were never of us”. You will get really screwed up if you think Jesus is talking about the 11 disciples from vv. 4-5 when he is really warning them not to be the 1 who wasn’t staying there (meno).

 

Sure Christians can really get kaio “set on fire, kindled” by the devil using the world’s people.  However, we also have to remember, “What is meant for evil God can turn into good” (a), for kaio is often used of the fires of purification to cleanse metals like gold and silver from their impurities.  The world brings us troubles, but God is for us, not against us!  <Notes> a) Genesis 50:20.

 

This word for “fire” in verse 6 is used by John only in Revelation and although it can be purifying for Christians according to other writers, it is used a lot for the judgments of God against non-Christians – all those NOT IN the Vine of Christ. The word for “burned” in v. 6 is also used by John for the consuming, eternal fire of judgment.  This seems to apply to Judas and others like him who are part of the 2nd group of branches NOT “in Christ.”  Judgment awaits them!

 

So in verse 6 Jesus returns to the Judas’s case of detaching, leaving Christ, The Vine. It is thrown down/away (ballo) like a branch can be definitively (aorist passive), a one-time act that is DONE TO the branch. This is in contrast to the ongoing action of being lifted up (airo) DONE TO attached-branches in v. 2 by the Father Vinedresser. However, the Father does NOT here throw down (ballo) & collect these branches together to be thrown down (ballo) into the fire, but coupled by KAI another group (3rd person plural) does this! This is God’s angels He charges at the end of the age’s harvest time to separate God’s crop from the weeds, the goats of the world from the His sheep.

 

Nevertheless God allows our temporary “trials from temporary separation from the vine” which may indeed be “testing in order to prove what is genuine” that may be part of the “discipline of the Lord for those He unconditional-loves, in which you are to endure” (a).  That’s exactly what Peter implies:  “You have been grieved by various trials, so that the dokimion tested/proven genuineness (b) of your faith – more precious than gold that perishes though it is dokimazo tested/proven (b) by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (c).  Paul says the same thing to saved Christians:  “Now if anyone builds on the foundation of gold, silver, precious stones, [or] wood, hay, straw – each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day [of judgment] will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will dokimazo test/prove what sort of work each one has done” (d).  And again, “I proseuchomai conversationally-pray that your unconditional-love may abound more and more in/by/with knowledge and all discernment (e) – see New Covenant Ways – BT16, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the Day of Christ” (f).  Many Christians confuse the ‘Bema-Seat’ judgment of actual believers, where rewards are given out based on how well we “ran the race,” much like Olympic games do, even “in the midst of refining/burning (i) that comes toward/destined for your peirasmos test/trial” (k), versus the ‘Great White Throne’ judgment of unbelievers which is condemnation and sentencing to eternal separation from God in the lake of fire! <Notes> a) Hebrews 12:6-8, b) dokimion also in James 1:3 is from the verb dokimazo that means to “test, examine, or discern to demonstrate or prove something is acceptable, genuine, approved, good, and approved,” c) 1 Peter 1:6-7, d) 1 Corinthians 3:12-13, f) aesthesis:  the type of sensory perception or discernment which cuts through hazy ethical/moral matters to really size things up” – see also aistheterion used in Hebrews 5:14 “But solid food is for the mature, for those who have powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil,” i) Philippians 1:10, j) purosis:  refiners fire to purify metals:  Proverbs 27:21; Revelation 18:9, 18, k) 1 Peter 4:12.

 

We have to remember that it is Satan and his people who “steal, destroy/corrupt/pollute, and kill” – not the Lord Jesus Christ who “came to give super-abundant, zoe genuine-life” (a).  Remember, the Father will “run out and greet every returning prodigal son” (b) – He did with me after 15 years of running away!   He will even “go in search of the one that went astray, the one that is lost – until He finds it” (c)!  That’s why He has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (d).  “Nothing in all creation – neither death, life, angels, rulers, present, future, nor powers – will be able to separate US from The Unconditional-Love of/belonging-to God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (e).  That’s what trusting-relying-faith depends on!  <Notes> a) John 10:10, b) Luke 15:11-32, c) Matthew 18:12; Luke 15:4, d) Hebrews 13:5, e) Romans 8:38-39.

 

God’s ‘discipline’ of Christians is actually gentle, patient child-educational rearing, not punishment!

 

 

 

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Spiritual Education, God’s Unconditional-Love doesn’t spank His children or visit sickness or disease on them, Trials do come like fire to purify Christians, God’s love doesn’t beat or injure His children, God’s discipline is gentle and patiently loving as with little children

Categories: Unconditional Love

Only 2 Commandments – BT1:  Trusting-relying-faith versus works

 

 

 

Video: Only 2 Commandments - BT1:  Trusting-relying-faith versus works

 

 

Only 2 Commandments – BT1:  Trusting-relying-faith versus works

 

 

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See also Part 2 of Only 2 Commandments – BT6

 

At first appearance many see the apostle Paul and James, the Lord’s step-brother and so-called “pillar” of the Jerusalem Church along with Peter and John, opposing each other concerning trusting-relying-faith and ergon works/doings, so much so that the Protestant Reformer Martin Luther didn’t want the Book of James in his Protestant Bible, and many early Church Fathers felt the same!  Paul clearly states: “You have been ‘saved through trusting-relying-faith‘ – and this (the neuter phrase) is not your own ergon work/doing, it is the grace-gift of God, not a result of ergon works/doings, so that no one may boast” (a), and “For with the heart one has trusting-relying-faith and/thus is made/declared righteous, and/moreover-on-the-other-hand with the mouth one confesses and/thus is saved” (b).  <Notes> a) Ephesians 2:8-9, b) Romans 10:10.

 

Furthermore, James says, “What good/usefulness is it, my brethren, if someone says he has trusting-relying-faith but does not have ergon works/doings?  Can that trusting-relying-faith save him?” (a).  After giving examples of Christian’s physical needs being ignored by other so-called Christians, James says: “So also trusting-relying-faith, if it has no ergon works/doings, [is] dead/lifeless/useless” (b). He taunts these Jewish-Christians:  “You ongoingly have trusting-relying-faith that ‘God is One’ (c); you do well, but the demons ongoingly have trusting-relying-faith [in this creed] and/yet they shudder/tremble-with-fear” (d).  After appealing to Abraham’s act of trusting-relying-faith that was rewarded with God’s blessing, James says: “You see that a person out-of/from ergon works/doings is declared/made righteous and absolutely-in-fact-NOT out-of/from trusting-relying-faith monon ‘by itself, alone’” (e).  It sure sounds like James is arguing with Paul! <Notes> a) James 2:14, b) James 2:17, c) a key Jewish creed, d) James 2:19, e) James 2:24.

 

However, on closer examination of the contexts of all the related passages, Paul and James are both looking at genuine, saving trusting-relying-faith from different angles to address different abuses within the Church.  Paul addresses Jews relying on the works of the Law but also addressing Jewish-Christians tempted by the teachers of the Law to make themselves more “right with God,” pointing out that without trusting-relying-faith in Jesus as “the Righteous & Holy One,” every single person, Jew or Gentile, will certainly die in their sins!

 

James is addressing Jewish-Christians who pride themselves in being “religious in their performance/service of outward ceremonial rituals to please God” and also works of the Law, who may indeed be “listeners” of the gospel logos message of The Truth but then “are forgetful hearers and not ergo doers/workers of it,” who may indeed “say they have trusting-relying-faith” but then can’t control their “biting tongues” or even take care of “orphans and widows in their affliction,” thus showing their lack of impartial, unconditional-love for fellow Christians in need.  In fact, the wealthy in the Church were even oppressing poor Christians, having them dragged into court, into debtors prison, and even sentenced to death!

 

These Jewish-Christians were even violating the OT’s “royal” Law of “unconditionally-loving you neighbor” (a)!  Both Paul and James deal with the incredulousness of Christians saying they know God but then don’t unconditionally-love God’s children, just as the Jews didn’t unconditionally-love God’s only begotten Son.  Paul reminds them that the completely-different-in-kind New Covenant’s “Law” is called “the Law of Christ,” and this is defined as “to bear one another’s burdens” (b), but this is the same as James’ “perfect Law of liberty/freedom [from slavery]” where “mercy triumphs over judgment” (c), and all this is based on the “implanted [gospel] logos message which is able to save your souls!” (d). <Notes> a) James 2:8, b) Galatians 6:2, c) compassion over criticalness and divisive favoritism, d) James 1:21, 2:13.

 

The apostle John also deals with the same issues, pointing out that having the unconditional-love of the Father and the Son living in you by the Holy Spirit should supernaturally bring about this same kind of unconditional-love for others, especially towards God’s own children – Christians who are now brothers and sisters of Jesus (a).  Remember that Jesus said, “If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you” (b), and “if the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you.  If you were of the world, the world would unconditionally-love you as its own; but because you are not of this world . . . the world hates you” (c), so “do not be surprised, brethren, that the world hates you” (d).  Hatred of the brethren is a sign that you are of the world, still in darkness” (e), “making you a murderer, and you know that no murder has zoe genuine-life (Jesus as His Spirit) everlasting remaining/dwelling in him” (f), so “if you say, ‘I unconditionally-love God’ but hate your brother, you are indeed a liar” (g). <Notes> a) 1 John 2:9, 11, 3:15, 4:20, b) John 15:20, c) John 15:18-19, d) 1 John 3:13, e) 1 John 2:9, 11, f) 1 John 3:15, g) 1 John 4:20.

 

 

 

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Spiritual Education, Paul and James argue about faith & works but just different angles, Saving faith is NOT alone but involves actions for Salvation, faith is more than mental assent, Saving faith results in unconditional love for others

Categories: Only 2 Commandments

New Covenant Ways – BT1: Absolutely nothing from the old was meant for the New

 

 

 

 

Video:  New Covenant Ways - BT1:  Absolutely nothing from the old was meant for the New

 

New Covenant Ways – BT1:  Absolutely nothing from the old was meant for the New

 

 

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Absolutely nothing from the old covenant was intended to be used in the New Covenant, because the bible says that the ‘old’ is finished and replaced by the ‘New,’ but it doesn’t stop people from twisting the OT scriptures or NT writings to try.  That’s what I found after studying everything I could find on the subject and writing many papers on the subject.  The Law or old covenant’s scripture isn’t just 613 commandments or the books of Moses, the first 5 of the bible, as the Jews technically classify them as.

 

All the NT speakers referred to every part of the OT as “Law,” just as most Jews do today, because all of OT graphe scripture is God’s instruction or Torah to the Jews.  Every reference that Jesus made to scripture was either to answer a trick question put forth by experts to trap Him, or to show the limitations and insufficiency of scripture and the “traditions of the Fathers” of the Oral Tradition built around it, or to show that He came to fulfill scripture – which He did completely by the time of His last breath!  He never taught His disciples scripture, certainly not the Law that makes up 97.4% of it – see Logos Word of God – BT5a, nor elaborated on its implications as all the other rabbis have ever done.

 

There was only about 450 OT prophecies of Jesus and His New Covenant, and we know that early Jewish-Christians used these to convert Jews to Christ, about 2.6% of the OT – see Logos Word of God – BT6 (a), just as Timothy was converted by his grandmother using these select scriptures – in context, that’s what Paul says:  “Pas every-of-a-category-of [singular] scripture [is] [singularly] God-breathed and/thus profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God (Timothy) may be complete, equipped for every good work” (b).  These are the only “ones that make you wise unto salvation through trusting-relying-faith in Jesus Christ,” because pas in Greek doesn’t often mean “the whole/entirety of” anything but “all/every of a certain type/category/class” of something.  <Notes> a) the book of Hebrews uses many of these because it was written to keep Jewish-Christians from going back to the Law, b) 2 Timothy 3:15-16.

 

Paul was always “reproofing, rebuking, admonishing, and correcting” the teachers of the Law, his opponents who infiltrated the churches and caused division, and he told his trainees to avoid them (c).  Paul only taught “the righteousness of God that is through trusting-relying-faith in Jesus Christ” (d).  The “man of God” in mind is Timothy, an evangelist of the logos gospel message, not a teacher of the Law (e).  The “good work” above that Paul taught was the result of God’s unconditional-loving-favor-of-grace abounding to you, now being God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus that Christ will establish in us and will complete in us at His coming, which is directly coupled (by the conjunction kai) to experiential, relational knowledge of God (f).  Therefore it’s entirely false to hold up the bible and say Paul taught that “the whole/entirety of scripture is God-breathed and/thus profitable for teaching!”  It’s just not what he said!  See also Logos Word of God – BT7<Notes> c) 1 Timothy 1:4-7, 6:20; 2 Timothy 2:16, 23-25, 3:5; Titus 1:13-14, 3:2, 9-10; Romans 16:17, d) Romans 3:22, e) 1 Timothy 6:11; 2 Timothy 1:6, 8, 4:2, f) 2 Corinthians 9:8, Ephesians 2:10; 2 Thessalonians 2:17; Philippians 1:6; Colossians 1:10.

 

The early Gentile church abandoned the use of the OT, considering it completely fulfilled by Christ and thus irrelevant.  We know this from early Christian writings from 70-200 AD. The scriptures were but “shadows, copies, types, and symbols that correspond to good things to come, and only a hired servants to escort little children to school until they were of age for their inheritance” (a).  The NT also states this often, especially in Paul’s writings to Jews unwilling to be converted!  Christians have been set free from the Law because they died to every one of its 613 commandments, which were nailed to the cross, so they are no longer obligated to be taught or guided by it.  <Notes> a) Galatians 4:25; Colossians 2:17; Hebrews 8:5, 9:9, 10:1; Galatians 3:23-25, 4:1-5; 1 Peter 3:21; Romans 5:14; Revelations 11:8.

 

 

 

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Spiritual Education, Music Education, Music Teaching, Drum Education, Drum Teaching, Old covenant or Testament replaced by New covenant or Testament, Can’t mix Old & New Testament, Only 2.6% of Old Testament is about Jesus and New Covenant, Messianic scriptures used to convert Jews, 97.4% of Old Testament is Law-based, Most Jews view the Old Testament as Law, Law teachers banned from churches, early Church limited their use of the Old Testament

Categories: New Covenant Ways

Conversational Prayer – BT1

 

 

 

 

PLAN A of God for an intimate relationship is simple enough for little children and the other least among us

 

 

 

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God’s original PLAN A is still to have:

 

 

An intimately experiential, abundantly fulfilling, powerfully transforming, and abiding fellowship with God by: 

 

 

  • Devoted, restfully-waiting, stillfully-watching, quietly-listening, worshipful, conversational-prayer dialogue where any routine asking, seeking, and knocking is for God’s Promised Holy Spirit to fill us with all the fullness of God Himself!

 

There is really nothing “new” in this study that hasn’t been said a 1000 times by Jesus and the apostles, but you may find much of it quite shocking as I did after researching every verse I could find on the subject, translating from the original Greek and Hebrew languages!  Yet, it may seem “new” to you, because you haven’t come across these verses, or seen them all pulled together in order to see “the whole counsel of God” (a) on the subject, or even because most English bibles for the sake of readability and saving expensive print space, don’t translate the full meaning of the original text – after all, it can really get wordy and messy to read – see Bible Info<Notes> a) Acts 20:27.

 

If you want more expansion on this you can read my 19 page Long Summary of this BLOG or you can read the full 34 page documentationContact Us for these.  If you don’t believe something you read in these, be like the “Berean Jews who were more nobler than those in Thessalonica because they examined the OT scriptures daily to see if the things Paul preached were actually so” (a).  If you are still scratching your head, just keep asking and listening in proseuche conversational-prayer and God will surely tell you the truth! <Notes> a) Acts 17:11.

 

The impetus for this study was to answer a nagging question I’ve had since receiving many dreams and visions from God, and doing a comprehensive study on divine Unconditional-Love. God is forever infinitely no-strings-attached unconditional-love – period.  Every other word in the bible about God is simply trying to describe a ‘facet’ of that beautiful diamond or a ‘flavor’ of that “[singular] fruit of the Spirit” (a).  <Notes> a) Galatians 5:22-23.

 

I also had my socks blown off when I discovered the New Covenant was “completely-different-in-kind, unprecedented, and superior to the old covenant” and by definition and all the verse contexts couldn’t include anything from the old covenant, contrary to so many “traditions of men” in the Church today.  After having more visions and dreams and another equally comprehensive study on Knowing God to find out that God “keeps Himself hidden from the so-called ‘wise and understanding ones’ but reveals Himself to little children,” I followed up with a comprehensive study on The Least Among You to find out that God’s New Covenant Way of the Promised Holy Spirit’s enabling-power per Zechariah 4:6 bypasses all of man’s “might and power” that he could pride himself in, his external and internal abilities that “separate” people into “different piles,” which is the definition of inequity or partiality, that a just judge cannot show.  And so God cannot show any of this.  Thus Jesus comes as a slave, not a boss, to “the least before the greatest” – to “the least among you.”  God’s ‘PLAN A’ has to be so simple that a little child (a), a poor ignorant person, a blind person, a deaf person, or a mute person can understand and take obedient steps for salvation in Jesus!  Other studies spun out of these as I pulled on one thread after another from the unraveling tapestry of Christianity’s “traditions of men,” which turns out to be mostly man-made, self-prescribed, and man-taught religion that really has no biblical support in the original languages of the bible, context, or earliest Christian history. <Notes> a) means “before reading age.”

 

From all these studies, I could clearly see Jesus was the actual “bread to eat and water to drink for zoe genuine-life that would satisfy my “hungering and thirsting for righteousness.” But then I became frustrated that, although I knew that Jesus was “The Vine of Abundant Life,” aside from past connections to “The Vine” throughout my Christian life – some so intense that I felt I had stuck my finger into an outlet and been shocked by heaven itself  – I nevertheless was “hungry and thirsty” more often than “satisfied” and had really not consistently seen the “bearing of much fruit” and “freedom from the slavery of sin” that Jesus promised for those who “routinely abide in the Vine.”

 

After having more dreams and visions and doing a comprehensive study on Spirit-baptism, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that my “tastings of the heavenly grace-gift that transformed me” in my past “fillings” were “The Real Thing” that answered my questions above.  So now I could clearly see “Who the Water of Life is” (Jesus) and “The zoe genuine-life and enabling-power of God” as the Promised Spirit of Jesus to “fill me with all the fullness of the Father,” and that “knowing God” could never be accomplished through book-learned religious gnosis info-knowledge, even though I have spent so much time acquiring it from “holy gramma letters” collected into graphe scripture, just as the scribes and Pharisees – the bible students of Christ’s day – erroneously “supposed they could take hold of by diligently searching/studying the scriptures” in John 5:39-40.  God told me in a dream that “the actual “theology of God can only be humbly received at the foot of the old rugged cross as God’s angels descend and ascend to deliver this revealed knowledge by the enabling-power of the Spirit,” and my studies confirmed this to be a “full, genuine, progressive, experiential, intimate, relational epignosis knowledge of God.”

 

Although my studies on proseuche conversational-prayer, worship, and directly-spoken/heard prophetic rhema words and my own prophetic dreams and visions versus second-hand communicated logos messages, even if these are of the gospel, all of this should have answered my lingering question:  “How do I get to the watering trough and how do I drink from it?” 

 

However, I think I had either lost the forest through the trees, or just wasn’t convinced, or more likely, still “trapped and snared by the table (a) that cursed the scribes and Pharisee bible-students, cursed with bent backs forever” (b).  I feel the same frustration of gnosis knowing about something so well, like how to effectively study the bible after 5 bible colleges and so many language studies, but then being challenged by Jesus “that all this flesh (c) absolutely-in-fact profits nothing” (d) because He say says that all this is still “apart from Me, so you can absolutely do nothing” (e)!  As back-breaking and time-consuming as it is, it’s hard to let it go!  Paul calls this a “different spirit” (f) and “an elemental spirit” (g) common to every world religion, a fixation on the “shadows, figures, outlines, sketches, prototypes, copies, and elementary abc principles” (h) instead of the “reality that is Christ,” and he includes holy gramma writings, rituals, and so many other “special things” of all religions, even the OT one. <Notes> a) that the scrolls were rolled out on to read and study, b) Romans 11:19 cites from Psalms 69:22, c) of Zechariah 4:6 ‘might and power’ – man’s external and internal abilities – see also Identity, d) John 6:63 – in context Jesus is definitely referring to the Jewish religious system, e) John 15:5, f) 2 Corinthians 11:4, g) Colossian 2:8, 20, h) Colossians 2:17; Hebrews 8:5, 10:1; Galatians 4:3, 9.

 

I also did this incredible study called “One is your Teacher” that convinced me that the Father draws people and teaches by His Spirit, that Christ did the same when He was here, and that now since He ascended to the right-hand of the Father, Jesus relies on the Spirit He first sent on Pentecost to continue this “teaching of ALL things” (a) to Christians who have been Spirit-baptized, so that they “have absolutely no need that anyone write you or teach you because you have the Anointing” (b).  Nevertheless, I have still found myself having trusting-relying-faith on bible-study more than my dreams and visions, even though my wife and dad receive clear instruction from the Lord through proseuche conversational-prayer on a daily and weekly basis – steno pads full of it! <Notes> a) John 14:26, 16:13; 1 Corinthians 2:10, b) 1 John 2:20, 27.

 

So after some more visions and dreams, I decided once again to do another bible study – this one to answer that lingering question of “How do I get to the watering trough and how do I drink from it?”, and it really did pull together all of my studies, confirmed all my previous answers, and answered all my new ones, especially this lingering question.  The only way that Jesus, Moses, the OT Prophets, the apostles, and the earliest Christians were able to “get to the watering trough and drink from it” was by:

 

An intimately experiential, abundantly fulfilling, powerfully transforming, and abiding fellowship with God by: 

 

 

  • Devoted, restfully-waiting, stillfully-watching, quietly-listening, worshipful, conversational-prayer dialogue where any routine asking, seeking, and knocking is for God’s Promised Holy Spirit to fill us with all the fullness of God Himself!

 

If I am “obedient in this step of faith,” then God will powerfully work everything else out, “working in me both to desire and to do His good pleasure.”  Wow, what a simple-to-do step for little children or other Least Among Us to take!  What a “Great News” promise for God to keep!  It seems too good to be true, but the crazy thing is – it is!  I sure hope this is my last study, finally surrendering the “what, when, where, why, and how” of gnosis info-knowledge religion and being fully satisfied with the “WHO I am seeking” and finally knowing how to “abide in the Vine” the way Jesus did with His Father!

 

See Conversational-Prayer – BT2 for a short summary of the study that led me to this conclusion.

 

 

 

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Categories: Conversational Prayer

Knowledge – BT1:  Bible study to know God is just another false religious “tradition of men”

 

 

 

Video:  Knowledge - BT1:  Bible study to know God is just another false religious “tradition of men”

 

 

Knowledge – BT1:  Bible study to know God is just another false religious “tradition of men”

 

 

 

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Many assume “The Truth” we are to know is Bible Info. The Greek text and more accurate translations prove that the King James Version’s “Study to shew thyself an approved workman of God” (a) to be false and misleading, because spoudazo means “to use speed or be prompt; make effort or be earnest, diligent, or zealous,” which has nothing to do with reading, analyzing, or remembering bible verses!  Paul also warns of people “always manthano learning-fact-knowledge but never able to arrive at a epignosko genuine, full, experiential, relational knowledge of [singular] Truth” (b) – for a detailed breakdown of this, see Logos Word of God – BT19<Notes> a) 2 Timothy 2:15, b) 2 Timothy 3:7.

 

The scribes and Pharisees were expert bible students training others to do the same, but look what Jesus said of them:  “You diligently search/study (a) the scriptures (b) because you suppose/opinionate (c) that in them you will lay hold of zoe genuine-life everlasting, but-instead it is they that bear witness of Me, yet you refuse to COME TO ME that you may have zoe genuine-life” (d).  In fact, their tables for rolling out their scrolls to compare and study them had become a “snare, trap, and stumbling block (a trigger that sets the trap or snare off)” and God had cursed their efforts with a “retribution” – God’s payback for all that bible study was “bent backs forever” (e) – see New Covenant Ways – BT17!  That’s why Paul rhetorically asks about who really was in the Church:  “Where is the wise one?  Where is the scribe?  Where is the debater of this age?  Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world” (f)?  <Notes> a) ereunao:  diligently search, inquire, seek, examine, or investigate to know, b) the bible of their day, c) dokeo:  have the opinion of, seem to think, suppose what seems to be, subjective mental estimate estimate, which directly reflects the personal values of the person making this subjective judgment call.  In other words, it may not be the truth at all, d) John 5:39-40, e) Romans 11:7-10 quoting Isaiah 28:13, e) 1 Corinthians 1:20.

 

The New Covenant Way to know God, His will, and worshipping Him is absolutely NOT more “WHATS” to learn, but the “WHO” of Jesus Christ to surrender control of ourselves to in order to genuinely, fully, experientially, relationally epiginosko know.  After all, it was Jesus who said, “I AM the Way” (a), and His followers were originally called “people of The Way” (b) before first derogatorily (c) being called “Christians” in Antioch (d). <Notes> a) John 14:6, b) Acts 9:2, 19:9, 19:23, 24:14, 22, c) we know from Roman records, d) Acts 11:26.

 

The term nepios forlittle child” that Jesus says we should become like (a) refers to “infants or untaught and un-skilled minors.”  Furthermore, the term paidion for “little children” (b) refers to “a childling, and infant or half-grown boy or girl.”  These “little children,” who we are to be like, weren’t learning about God by reading, studying, and memorizing bible verses!  Being “taught directly by God” is the key!  If we “are actually, ongoingly being taught by God, we have absolutely no need that someone should write to us or to teach us, [especially] to unconditionally-love one another” (c)! <Notes> a) Matthew 11:25, 21:16; Luke 10:21, b) Matthew 18:2-5, 19:13-14, Mark 9:36-37, 10:13-16, Luke 9:46-48, 18:15-17, cf. Hebrews 2:14, 11:23, c) 1 Thessalonians 4:9, 1 John 2:20, 27.

 

Reflections:

 

 

As Christian musicians, shouldn’t we then shun religious advice on “WHAT to study diligently of” and even to “WHAT to practice harder on” (a) to be more prepared FOR God to use us, and instead become more like “little children” who surrender ourselves to knowing WHO the Lord is by being relentlessly devoted to conversational-prayer just like the early Christians were (b)?  The “ministry of the word” and “apostle’s teaching” they were also devoted to was absolutely NOT the study of bible verses, because the Greek and context clearly refers instead to akouo listening to the logos gospel message of The Truth that is Jesus Christ.  In this dialogue of prayer, Jesus was prophetically telling the disciples where to go to preach or proclaim it (c) – there was no writing or reading involved!  <Notes> a) perfecting our “might and power”, b) Acts 2:42, 6:4; 1 Corinthians 7:5, c) Acts 8:25, 15:7; Ephesians 1:13; Colossians 1:5; 1 Thessalonians 1:5.

 

 

 

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Spiritual Education, Knowledge, Bible Study, Traditions of Men, 2 Timothy 2:15 isn’t about studying the bible, scribe & Pharisee diligent bible-study to have genuine-life was a false opinion, The Old Testament was simply to point to Jesus – it served its purpose, Jesus is The Way to Father God, Being like Little Children before reading age is the way to be Taught by God, The secrets of the kingdom kept hidden from the ‘greatest’ like ‘the wise and understanding ones’

Categories: Knowledge

Signs & Wonders – BT1

 

 

 

 

My Divine healings

 

 

 

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1/8/2022 Healing insights from Praying Medic before a Dream being filled with the Joy of the Lord in the presence of many little children

 

In 2008-2009 I almost died from severe pancreatitis, adrenal gland failure, and inability to digest anything, followed by severe anxiety, depression, and insomnia.  I lost 45 lbs within a month, falling to a dangerous 140 lbs (for 6’ 1” height), having to wear ski gloves because my hands were cold as ice, and my skin turned a deathly grey.  I was a real mess!  I went to 2 primary care doctors, a gastro-intestinal, an endocrine/hormonal, and a urology specialist.  I took tons of tests and tons of meds for a year, with very little improvement.  The stress of the medical system, its bills, and inability to work just compounded the problem.  However, what I learned during this time and later during many other medical challenges is powerful and can give you enabling-power over your situation also!

 

On 8/28/2008 when I watched “The Passion of the Christ” by Mel Gibson alone in my front room.  I clearly saw the last 15 years of my life as a wasteful indulgence of self-centered sin that led me nowhere and I couldn’t imagine the next year, let alone 5 years, being the same.  I clearly saw my desperate need to be entirely healed physically, emotionally, and spiritually from myself.  I clearly saw Christ on the cross as my only hope – I had tried everything and everybody else!  In many ways I was experiencing the process of salvation, the Greek meaning to be “delivered, rescued, and restored to wholeness.”  I told the Lord I wanted nothing to do with my past and just wanted to come home.  Suddenly I was so thirsty and got up to go to the kitchen for some water and immediately walked into pure, unconditional-love, completely forgiving and accepting of me, wrapping itself all around me as if I were being hugged by pure unconditional-love.  It was so overwhelming I couldn’t even stand, so I fell to me knees and just wept profusely with pure joy – I was home!  I could have stayed there forever – nothing else mattered!  This is when my healing began.  Many life-long addictions just faded away – I felt like I had been released from a long prison sentence!  I felt so unconditionally-loved, so full of joy, so at peace, and I just wanted to remain in this.

 

In 6/2009, I met Frank Kemberling at Freedom Fellowship church by recommendation of a friend, and he immediately prayed over me “in the name/authority of Jesus” for healing of horrible sciatica I had been experiencing for 6 days from driving a moving van to Spokane, Washington for a friend and then my travels throughout Oregon.  I never believed or had seen miraculous healing, but in 5 minutes the searing pain was gone!  After a day, I went into near shock that this had happened to me, but I still didn’t understand how.  In 10/2009, I blew out of his church after service to get Ibuprofen for a terrible migraine I was getting from the meds I was still on from my insomnia.  Frank chased after me and in 30 seconds of prayer “in the name/authority of Jesus,” it completely disappeared.  I just couldn’t process this!  From then on, I asked many questions and started reading about why divine healing works.  In 12/2009, after 10 days of a wrenched back, I embarrassingly went back to Frank for healing, and he prayed but nothing immediately happened, which really bummed me out, but I got my first prophetic word spoken to me, “God rewards those who earnestly seek Him” and was told to read Hebrews 11.  Later that afternoon during a drum lesson that normally would kill a wrenched back, I suddenly realized I was pain-free.  This really freaked me out!

 

This is what Frank told me:  He had learned how to do this from seeing Jesus work miraculously through him for so many years during his jail and street ministries.  He insisted it wasn’t a special grace-gift just to him and that anybody could have this happen through them when they chose to have trusting-relying-faith in God’s promises despite their own beliefs or other men’s beliefs, and instead placing their trust in “the name of Jesus” to do this.  That sounded like a magic formula, but my research showed that “in the name of” was a common phrase of the Roman world meaning “with the authority of,” as if that person was standing there – sort of like an officer nowadays yelling, “Stop in the name of the law.”  So, healing “in the name of Jesus” meant trusting that He was right there doing it Himself, since God the Father had given all authority in heaven and earth to His Son, in order to honor the Son for His sacrifice on the cross for our salvation (a) – our reconciliation to God and restoration to wholeness! <Notes> a) Matthew 28:18.

 

Near the end of 2010, I was still opening up 5 digestive enzyme capsules and mixing them with my food just to digest it, based on what the doctors and all my reading had advised.  But one morning I heard God saying, “You don’t need to do this – 1 or 2 whole capsules is enough” – a thought that was totally illogical.  It was amazing that this worked just fine!  And then 2-3 weeks later, while preparing a meal, I got trusting-relying-faith that “You don’t need them at all!”  I went to say “Thank You for my food,” and it kept coming out of my mouth, “I trust you for my food.”  Freaky!  And this Voice was right – I was able to eat my meals just fine without them.  The Son was setting me free – the Son isThe Truth that sets men free” (a)!  “The Truth” absolutely is not the OT/Covenant which essentially represents the Torah Law of conditional-favor of Moses, “for the Torah Law of conditional-favor was given through Moses, but The Unconditional-Favor-of-Grace and The Truth came into existence through Jesus Christ” (b).  Nor is the “logos gospel message of The Truth” just gnosis info-knowledge about Jesus or a how to live practical Christianity – it’s not even the NT.  The logos gospel message of The Truth is the living person of Jesus Christ, the Logos of God who fully communicates God, the Father – see Identity.  What doctors, websites, and books was telling me was “the truth” for pancreatitis victims – that we need to open lots of digestive enzyme capsules up and thoroughly mix with the food in order to relieve pressure on the weak pancreas – was absolutely not “The Truth” because it kept me enslaved to this costly and cumbersome practice!  I was not “set free by this truth” at all! <Notes> a) John 14:6, 8:30-32, b) John 1:17.

 

Near the end of 2011, I was still hooked on the 5 meds the doctors had given me for my insomnia, so my body could heal – one was a narcotic!  They were expensive and a huge hassle to take – a 30 minute process of phrasing them in before every night’s sleep!  But I was a slave to them!  Then one night in December as I was holding one bottle to call in for a refill, I heard a Voice in my head say, “You know you don’t have to do this anymore.  It’s your choice.”  That was what I heard 2 months earlier when He told me that my Buddhist, chain-smoking friend at Starbuck’s was going to be freed by the Lord Jesus.  I had told my buddy I had heard this; he laughed and said he didn’t believe because he was a Buddhist; and I said it didn’t matter because The Unconditional-Love of Jesus was going to set him free because He told me so!  Two weeks later, he ran up to me to say that 3 days earlier he had heard a Voice tell him as he went to light up for the umpteenth time that day:  “You know you don’t have to do this anymore.  It’s your choice.”  It freaked him out – he just stared at his cigarette, and found himself saying, “You’re right.”  He had tried many times to quit – all the Buddhist meditation had failed – but now the desire had just left him.  He had been set free without any withdrawal symptoms!  He told me that he had since downloaded a bible app and was devouring the NT.  He had found trusting-relying-faith in the Lord’s voice!  Now I was hearing that same Voice about my pill bottle, and I battled for 10 minutes with the so-called “truth” the doctors had convinced me of.  Every night I was desperate for sleep to heal, but now I found trusting-relying-faith in hearing the Lord’s Voice!  With one pill left, I said “Yes” to the Lord, left it in the bottle, threw it far from my bed, and put my phone down!  I slept just fine and woke up fresh.

 

Over the coming months, I got more “nudgings” from the Lord to take other obedient steps of faith – this is the meaning of Romans 1:17 “the righteous shall live by faith to faith” citing Habakkuk 2:4.  I reduced dosages of one medication after another until finally I was free from the four other sleep meds!  The doctors had warned me of the consequences of reducing too fast, but the Lord told me when to take each step and each was a success.  Was it easy?  No way!  Each step was met with great fear, fear that I would screw up my sleep and my healing. I wrestled through many tossing nights, also speaking Psalms 23, “He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside still waters” against the enemy that would destroy my sleep.  It seems like the battles would never end.  However, the Lord told me many things to help me sleep!

 

Trusting-relying-faith comes from hearing, hearing the directly-spoken/heard prophetic rhema of Christ” (a) – this has nothing to do with reading the bible or even hearing a sermon preached by a pastor!  I’ve done 6 month bible studies that produced no results, but one directly-spoken/heard prophetic rhema word from Jesus solves the problem!  Jesus said, “My sheep hear My Voice, and they follow Me” (b).  We must diligently seek the Lord in proseuche conversational-prayer until we hear His Voice, and then do what He says! <Notes> a) Romans 10:17, b) John 10:27.

 

What do the doctors really know anyway compared to the Creator of our bodies?  “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (a).  The Lord Jesus sets men free – not a medical system that perpetuates itself on the profits of keeping people confused (b) and sick (c)!  In fact, my last primary doctor in 2010 was a Christian woman, Rachael Gordon, who prayed for my healing, admitting that “the medical-insurance system was riddled with failure and it would take the Lord to navigate me toward healing.”  She and her partner dedicated their practice to make a dent in undoing this!  She got me heading in the right direction by taking baby steps.  The Lord had told me in a proseuche conversational-prayer walk to trust her when my lapsed-Jewish doctor had been dropped by my insurance provider – he and his inept staff had done me so much harm, so I was grateful when he was dropped!  The Lord also led me to a Christian acupuncturist, Dr. Reggie Stout, who stuck hundreds of pins into me, which radically accelerated the healing of my nervous system, pancreas, and adrenals. The Lord showed me a very important thing Paul said, “Let God be true but every man a liar” (d). <Notes> a) Psalms 139:14, b) 1 study or book contradicts another, c) 1 pill or operation causes another, d) Romans 3:4.

 

Almost everybody in this world is programmed by what they believe is “the truth,” and a lot of people make their living perpetuating it, but it may very well be “a lie” and they are simply deceived or purposely deceiving others for personal gain.  Oftentimes, you find these practitioners of “the truth” are actually haters of God, and haters of Christ, so it’s very likely they are unknowingly doing the work of God’s enemy!  Jesus said, “Satan is the father of lies, an in him there is no truth” (a).  That’s why it’s imperative that we “seek the Lord diligently  (b), as you would look for missing money (c), to call upon the Lord from a pure/single-minded heart (d), to hear from His Holy Spirit exactly what ‘the truth’ is, for only The Truth will set you free!”  Jesus said, the Holy Spirit, His very nature, “will guide you into ALL the truth” (e) and “teach you ALL things” (f), and “teach you about EVERYTHING, so that you have absolutely in fact no need of anyone else to teach you” (g), for there is “only one teacher and you are all brothers” (h). <Notes> a) John 8:44, b) Acts 15:17, c) Luke 15:8, d) 2 Timothy 2:22, e) John 16:13, f) John 14:26, g) 1 John 2:27, h) Matthew 23:8 – see Teach One Another – BT10.

 

It takes enormous bravery to trust that Jesus is The Truth, the very Logos Word/Message communication of God, God’s very logos gospel message of The Truth to mankind, and that what He says is “true/trustworthy, and not a lie” (a), regardless of what others say.  There are so many verses in the OT and NT that simply tell us to place our trusting-relying-faith in the Messiah to “deliver us from the evil [one]” (b), just as Jesus said so often: “Come to Me that you may have rest and zoe genuine-life” (c)!  It takes bravery in the face of pain, difficulty, doubt, and fear to still choose to push past these voices and take obedient steps of faith to “routinely ask, seek, watch, and knock” to akouo “hear/listen to understand” for the Voice of Jesus.  That’s really the essence of what the NT calls proseuche conversational-prayer – it’s not just telling God what we want as is the monologue of deesis supplication. <Notes> a) 1 John 2:27, b) Matthew 6:13, c) Matthew 11:28; John 5:40, 7:37.

 

I’ve had many amazing healings to confirm what God started way back in 2008!  For example, I had fallen off a ladder and really messed up my left leg, and limped around for a long time.  While waiting 20 minutes on Easter for communion to finish at a very liberal Episcopalian Church – far from my doctrinal beliefs – I envisioned the Lord’s blood sacrifice on the cross streaming through my body and healing all the ligaments, bones, and muscles that were keeping me from walking.  That day after lunch I felt so good I went to Sabino Canyon, overwhelmed by the presence of God with every amazingly good step, tears of joy and praising non-stop, I not only walked 3.5 miles up, but I ran 3.5 miles down.  I was completely healed!  The Lord’s Supper can heal you – even in a church that is ritualistic and doesn’t necessarily believe in modern, charismatic healing!  See a 11-24-2021 Revelation about the Lord’s Supper.

 

The Lord has shown me through many verses, dreams, visions, and proseuche conversational-prayer messages that “The Truth” that has helped set me free, that continues to set me free, I believe could do the same for you.  This morning while proseuchomai conversationally-praying for my dad’s healing, the Lord said, “10,000 pleas for healing really aren’t necessary, because I’ve already said ‘Yes’ on the cross – I came to destroy the works of the devil, to heal everybody that comes to Me.  My answer is always ‘Yes’ because that’s what My love would always say.  I never turn anyone away.  I came to bring My Kingdom to earth and it is advancing.  But you, you stand firm against the enemy.  Do war!  Fight!”  But, I said, “Who am I to resist the devil that he would flee from me, like James 4:7 says?”  He said, “Lock your leg; face your enemy with the shield of trusting-relying-faith – fight, fight, fight!”  But I said, “Who am I to fight against Satan or one of his powerful angels – so many who slay mankind?”  Then I saw the 300 Greek Spartans, locking their shields as one, locking their back legs, digging their heals in, and quickly jabbing their spears and swords through quick openings they would make in their combined shield, killing one Persian after another for days until the Greek army came to defeat the Persian army!  I asked, “What is my sword or spear that could defeat an angel?”  The Lord said, “The name of Jesus!”  He has all authority (a), and so what He says has all authority – Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil (b).  Then God showed me stabbing the enemy with the “Directly-spoken/heard prophetic rhema of God.”  In the Greek, this is actually the “sword of the Spirit” that is part of “putting on the whole armor of God so that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil, to be able to withstand the evil day, and having done all, to be found standing firm” (c). <Notes> a) Matthew 28:18, b) Hebrews 2:14; 1 John 3:8, c) Ephesians 6:11-17.

 

This has nothing to do with quoting bible verses against Satan – written logos messages are never directly-spoken/heard prophetic rhema words!  This is about “living by every directly-spoken/heard prophetic rhema that comes from the mouth of God” (a).  Nothing can withstand what Jesus tells you, not even the devil, his angels, or his demons!  “Back, back, back in the name of Jesus!”  Concerning OT Torah Law of conditional-favor of obedience to commandments to be “more right with God or pleasing to God,” Paul says: “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (b).  Instead, Peter says “Stand firm in the unconditional-favor-of-grace of God that is true” (c).  Paul says: “Stand fast through trusting-relying-faith” and “stand firm in the trusting-relying-faith” (d).  Paul says, “Stand firm in the Lord” (e), “standing fast in the Lord” (f).  Jesus, Jesus, Jesus is our weapon – not rules of obedience!  Don’t you see:  “The Lord saves not with [physical] sword or spear – for the battle is the Lord’s, and He will give you (the enemy) in our hand” (g). <Notes> a) Matthew 4:4 citing Deuteronomy 8:3, b) Galatians 5:1, c) 1 Peter 5:12, d) Romans 11:20; 1 Corinthians 16:13; 2 Corinthians 1:24, e) Philippians 4:1, f) 1 Thessalonians 3:8, g) 1 Samuel 17:47.

 

700 years before Christ, the prophet Isaiah was given a vision of the Messiah as:  “a man of sorrows and intimately acquainted with pain and suffering . . . For sure, He has already lifted up (a) off us the burden of all our sicknesses (b); He has already taken and carried away ALL our pain and suffering (c) . . . He was pierced for our transgressions; He was beaten and bruised for our sins;  The punishment that we deserved was instead carried out on Him for our peace with God.  And by the cutting blows that tore His flesh into pieces, we were already healed (d).  Our “tear” with God has ALREADY been “mended” by Jesus, and the “tears” within us (e) and between us and others (relationally) have ALREADY been “mended” by Jesus.  The question Jesus asks is whether you’ll allow Him to put your “torn pieces” back together and “mend” you back together?  A gift is not benefited from unless it is accepted.  A power tool can’t accomplish its task unless it is used! <Notes> a) a term for crucifixion, b) “torn parts”, c) “anguish”, d) “mended back into a whole”, e) physically, mentally, and emotionally.

 

The Lord Jesus, the Messiah, came to restore all things:  “to set the captives free, to be a great Light to those who live in the shadows of death” (a).  That is why EVERYBODY that came to Him was immediately healed of ALL their diseases (b), and this was “normal Christianity” for the early Church (c)!  That’s why everyone who comes to Him even now by His Holy Spirit will be healed!  He is the Author of life, whom we all should seek.  He also uses everything and everybody else at His disposal to bring healing and health back to His beloved creation, man.  He will often use a believer, through the laying on of hands, to heal another, further confirming logos gospel message of The Truth, just as He promised (d).  He will also use all the expertise of your doctors, even despite themselves.  Will you trust Him to use everything at His disposal? <Notes> a) Luke 4:18 citing Isaiah 61:1-2, b) Matthew 4:24, 8:16, 12:15; Luke 4:40, 6:19, c) Acts 5:16, d) Mark 16:17-20.

 

The Father of every good grace-gift from above (a) does everything from Himself and through Himself by the enabling-power of His Holy Spirit, and He always does it for His own glory  (b) – His own pleasure, benefit, and magnificent purposes – and according to His own nature, which is infinite, pure, unconditional-love (c). If you are seek healing of your body without recognizing, acknowledging, and trusting in the One who gives life and healing, then you are essentially putting your trusting-relying-faith in yourself or other men.  This misplaced trusting-relying-faith will do you no good no matter how hard you believe.  Trusting-relying-faith in itself does nothing.  <Notes> a) James 1:17, b) Romans 11:36, c) 1 John 4:8; Galatians 5:22.

 

It’s not what you know, but Who you know that counts!  Knowing the Lord is zoe genuine-life Everlasting.  Not only is misplaced trusting-relying-faith or knowledge pointless and ineffective, it opposes the purposes of God, who does all things for His own glory.  You will be fighting against God – pushing against an immovable wall – the very One who is your only real hope for healing and zoe genuine-life.  It is wiser to declare as King David did in Psalms 103:1-5:  “Bless the Lord, O my soul and all that is within me, bless His Holy Name!  Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits:  Who forgives all your sin, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with unconditionally-loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good that your youth is renewed like the eagle.”

 

 

 

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Categories: Signs & Wonders

Grace & Gifts – BT1:  Grace is a completely different-in-kind New Covenant Way distinction

 

 

 

Video:  Grace & Gifts - BT1:  Grace is a completely different-in-kind New Covenant Way distinction

 

 

Grace & Gifts – BT1:  Grace is a completely different-in-kind New Covenant Way distinction

 

 

 

Please follow the BLOG Etiquette to stay on topic and pass the moderator’s check.  Bold, underlined text below = future links to the BLOG pages.

 

Here’s a definitive statement from a scholarly work about grace:  “There is no word in the Hebrew Old Testament (OT) that can represent all of the meanings of grace in 118 verses of the New Testament (NT), and in the OT Greek Septuagint LXX charis ‘grace’ itself is practically used only as a translation of the Hebrew chen ‘favor’ or ratson ‘acceptance’ in such passages as Isaiah 60:10 and Psalms 44:3, or chesed ‘kindness/mercy’ as in Exodus 20:6.  That is because technically, salvation by grace in the NT is opposed to an OT doctrine of salvation by ergon works/doings (a), or, what is the same thing, salvation by Law (b) – i.e. men and God are thought of as parties to a contract/covenant-agreement, to be fulfilled by each independently.”  The OT is about working FOR God but the NT is about working WITH God. <Notes> a) Romans 4:4; 11:6, b) Romans 6:14.

 

They continue:  “Most of the legislation seems to presuppose some idea of man as an entity quite outside of God.  But the promise is made that the God who has manifested Himself as a forgiving Father will in due time take hold of His children to work IN them actual righteousness (a).”  Whatever the Law was, it sure wasn’t “The Grace” or “The The Truth” since in John 1:17 it says that “The Law was given through Moses, but The Grace and/coupled The Truth actually ginomai ’emerged/moved-from/came-into-being/manifested from 1 realm/condition into another’ dia thru-the-realizing-channel-of Jesus Christ.” <Notes> a) Isaiah 1:26; 4:3-4; 32:1-8; 33:24; Jeremiah 31:33-34; Ezekiel 36:25-26; Zechariah 8; Daniel 9:24; Psalms 51:10-12.

 

Furthermore, trusting-relying-faith and unconditional-loving-favor-of-grace as associated together are pretty much NT distinctions from the OT, exactly because the New Covenant is completely-different-in-kind, sharing nothing with its predecessor, by definition of Hebrew chadash & Greek kainos “NEW.”  That’s exactly Paul’s gospel logos message of The Truth!  –  “The gospel is the enabling-power of God for salvation” that reveals God’s “WAY of righteousness by-the-means-of unconditional-loving-favor-of-grace apart from obedience to the Law” – but only to those who routinely/habitually have trusting-relying-faith in Christ (a).  <Notes> a) Romans 1:16-17, 3:21-22, 25-28, 30, 5:1-2; Galatians 2:16, 3:24; Ephesians 2:8; Philippians 1:27, 3:9.

 

Jewish myths, genealogies, controversies, dissensions, quarrels, and the like about the Law (a) are worthless and unprofitable (b), even the reading or teaching of the Law (c), as is anything else is other than Christ and His sound gospel logos messages (d).  However, Paul and the writer of Hebrews (e) say there are gramma letters (f) of graphe scripture that are “of a kind/class/category/portion of” (g) scripture that Jewish-Christians, like Timothy and his family, commonly used to catechize/convert (h) fellow Jews to Christ to “make them wise eis ‘toward and reaching the goal/purpose of’ salvation dia ‘thru the realizing channel of’ trusting-relying-faith IN Christ Jesus” (i).  This “kind/class/category/portion of” used by the early Jewish-Christians amounts to 2.6% of the OT graphe scripture – see Logos Word of God – BT6.

 

<Notes> a) scholarly debate is still encouraged to ‘unlock’ or ‘unpack’ the scriptures, and the Jews see it as “worshipping God with their all their minds”, b) 1 Timothy 1:4; Titus 3:9, c) 2 Corinthians 3:7, 15-18; 1 Timothy 1:3, 7; Romans 7:6; Colossians 2:16-23; Titus 1:11, d) 1 Timothy 6:3; Titus 2:1; Hebrews 13:9, e) likely Paul’s preaching companion Barnabas, who had much better Greek than Paul, f) writings, but in context: portions of sacred writings, g) pas is rarely used as “the whole/entirety of,” h) 2 Timothy 3:15-16, i) katecheo: repetitive instruction of foundational truths: Luke 1:4; Galatians 6:6; 1 Corinthians 14:19; Acts 18:25.

 

Charis unconditional-loving-favor-of-grace and agape unconditional-love are nearly synonymous in meaning, the former’s “favor” is the result of the latter’s love of God, but both are unconditional!  We also see “unconditional-loving-favor-of-grace and peace” given as a blessing for “those unconditionally-loved by God” (a), and “unconditional-loving-favor-of-grace to all who unconditionally-love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying unconditional-love” (b), and “may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who unconditionally-loved us and/coupled by His unconditional-loving-favor-of-grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope” (c). <Notes> a) Romans 1:7, b) Ephesians 6:24, c) 2 Thessalonians 2:16.

 

The Triune God is involved in blessing us:  “May the unconditional-loving-favor-of-grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and/coupled the unconditional-love of God (Father), and/coupled the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (a).  Paul knows where all this comes from:  “The unconditional-loving-favor-of-grace of our Lord (Jesus) was poured out on me abundantly, along with trusting-relying-faith and/coupled unconditional-love that are [both] in Christ Jesus” (b).  Finally, “unconditional-loving-favor-of-grace, mercy, peace from God the Father and/coupled from Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son, shall indeed be with us by-the-means-of [singular] Truth and/coupled [singular] Unconditional-Love” (c). <Notes> a) 2 Corinthians 13:14, b) 1 Timothy 1:14, c) 2 John 1:3.

 

Because God’s unconditional-love and God’s unconditional-loving-favor-of-grace are so similar in meaning – the later the result of the former – and our trusting-relying-faith results in God’s unconditional-loving-favor-of-grace, naturally the connection between unconditional-love and trusting-relying-faith is even more obvious – even directly coupling them by the Greek conjunction kai 6 times (a).  In fact, the other examples of proximity and relationships are so numerous that I’ve discussed this all on the Obedient Steps of Faith and the Unconditional-Love pages!  <Notes> a) Revelation 2:19; 1 Thessalonians 3:6, 5:8; 1 Timothy 1:14, 2:15; 2 Timothy 1:13.

 

Reflections:

 

As Christian musicians, don’t we want our worship music to represent the completely different-in-kind New Covenant that speaks of the unconditional-loving-favor-of-grace that comes from God’s unconditional-love, which we can all have dia thru-the-realizing-channel-of trusting-relying-faith?  If grace is all about “unmerited, unearned, undeserved, no-strings-attached loving favor,” why then are we referring to Old Testament “spiritual disciplines” like fasting at all, when all these are based on the “merited, earned, deserved, conditional-love” of the Law of commandments, that Paul said in Colossians 2:23 has “absolutely-in-fact-NO value in curbing the indulgence of the flesh, especially since all 613 commandments that were against us were airo lifted up/away and nailed to the cross by Christ per v. 2:14?

 

You need to ask why Christ’s disciples didn’t fast and why Christ’s defense was that you absolutely can’t put new wine into old wineskins or sew new cloth onto old fabric without ruining BOTH – see Matthew 9:14-17; Mark 2:18-22; Luke 5:33-39 and New Covenant – BT7.  Many pastors like Francis Chan have recognized that the oldest New Testament manuscripts don’t teach fasting at all, but that this is simply a “tradition of men” passed on down by the Byzantine Catholic Church.  Is there anything else we are “borrowing” from the Old Testament to build the foundation of The Great Wall quenching the Holy Spirit in the Church today?

 

 

 

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Spiritual Education, Grace is mostly unique to the New Testament, New salvation by grace opposite from Righteousness by works of Old Law, Working FOR God is opposite of Working With God thru relationship, The Grace & The Truth isn’t the bible but Jesus, Grace by Faith is unique gospel message of the New Testament, The Law study & teaching are now worthless & unprofitable, Only 2.6% of Old Testament used and only to convert Jews, Charis Grace favor comes from God’s agape Love, Blessings NOW by Grace-Love thru koinonia relationship by Faith-Dependence

Categories: Grace-Gifts

Spirit – Power – BT1

 

 

 

 

Spirit-power causes/makes-to-do His good pleasure

 

 

 

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Sure, we were “created in Christ Jesus for good ergon works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” per Ephesians 2:10, but these aren’t simply marching orders to set out to do as soon as we become Christians, regardless of what churches preach to justify their own “cherry-picked” rules of holiness or OT commandments to keep. They conveniently leave out the 2 verses before it: “By unconditional-favor-of-grace you have already been saved, with ongoing results, thru-the-realizing-channel-of trusting-relying-faith – and THIS (neuter) is absolutely not your own doing; [THIS is] the grace-gift of God, absolutely not [coming] out from ergon works, so that no one may boast, for we are His (God’s) workmanship, having already been 12created by the means of Christ Jesus for good ergon works . . .  .” It is just terrible how many churches torture this verse!  The neuter pronoun “THIS” doesn’t have any individual nouns to refer back to, because charis unconditional-favor-of-grace and pistis trusting-relying-faith are both feminine.  That’s because Paul is referring to the whole phrase “you having been saved …. trusting-relying-faith” as THIS neuter “thing” that is “the grace-gift of God.”

 

There are entire denominations that believetrusting-relying-faith” is a grace-gift of God also.  If that’s the case substituting “trusting-relying-faith” or even “unconditional-favor-of-grace” into the pronoun “THIS” translates to this:  “by charis grace you’ve be saved through the charismati grace-gift of pistis faith,” which is justs as redundant as: “by charis grace you’ve be saved through pistis faith – this charis grace is a charismati grace-gift!”  This just doesn’t make sense!

Paul said whether you obeyed the Torah Law of conditional-favor or not, it counts (a) for absolutely in fact nothing (b) because the circumcised Jew or uncircumcised Gentile (c) are both made/declared righteous by pistis trusting-relying-faith alone (d) by “God’s charis unconditional-favor-of-grace as a charismati grace-gift through the redemption…in Christ” (e), having been resurrected into a new creation by trusting-relying-faith (f), and “the promised Spirit is received by trusting-relying-faith” (g). The “free grace-gift of God” is “zoe genuine-life everlasting in Christ” (h) when we are “made/declared righteous by trusting-relying-faith…by His blood …. saved by His zoe genuine-life….a free grace-gift …the unconditional-favor-of-grace of God …the free grace-gift by that unconditional-favor-of-grace of the one man Jesus . . . receiving the abundance of unconditional-favor-of-grace and the free grace-gift of righteousness . . . through one man Jesus (i). The “promise relies on trusting-relying-faith that it may rest on unconditional-favor-of-grace” (j), having “obtained access by trusting-relying-faith into this unconditional-favor-of-grace” (k). That’s why we are “God’s workmanship and none of us can boast!”  <Notes> a) is strong, forceful, robust, sound, able, serviceable, b) Galatians 5:6, c) circumcision is the identifying seal of the Law for a Jew, d) Romans 3:30, e) Romans 3:24, f) Colossians 2:12, g) Galatians 3:14, h) Romans 6:23, i) Romans 5:1-17, j) Romans 4:16, k) Romans 5:2.

 

Churches are quick to quote Philippians 2:12 to be “ongoingly working out down-from/according-to (a) our own salvation with fear and trembling,” but they don’t tell you that “fear and trembling” was a common Greek idiom for “reverential awe.” And they often don’t tell you about v. 13, “For (b) it is ongoingly God who routinely works (c) IN you both (d) to ongoingly will/desire and/coupled to ongoingly work (c) His good pleasure.” The reason we can be in reverential awe of God is precisely because God effectively works His own desires INSIDE of us!  The one “working” is God, not us!  The Hebrew 13:21 writer blesses Christians that “God may . . . equip you with all good to do His will, [Him] working IN us through Jesus Christ [to do] that which is pleasing in His sight.”  This is exactly what was promised for the New Covenant in Ezekiel 36:27 that made it unique from the old covenant way our own “might and power” – “And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes and be careful to obey My rules.” <Notes> a) katergazomai, b) gar introduces a reason, c) energeo: energetically, effectively does, d) with copulative emphasis.

 

Then why are we strongly urged with the imperative by Paul to “work out what comes down-from/according-to our salvation” in Philippians 2:12?  God showed me that it’s like going to a gym. It’s arrogant to think we actually build muscle!  We can only pump them up with blood and actually tear the muscle tissue. It’s God who rebuilds them when we are resting between workouts!  God told me the same thing about physical healing:  Sure, it’s good to workout hard to rebuild your body, but He told me that He rebuilds me as I’m resting, so I need to rest more!  Our salvation is a free grace-gift, but we still need to exercise our salvation “muscles” by living for the Lord out of reverential awe! We aren’t “debtors-obligated to the flesh to live down-from/according-to the flesh” (a) . . . but by the Spirit . . . led by the Spirit of God, not receiving the spirit of slavery (a) to fall back into fear [of punishment] but . . . the Spirit of adoption as sons” (b). <Notes> a) in context, living by the “Torah Law of conditional-favor that brought sin and death” that relies on the obedience of our flesh through our own “might and power,” b) Romans 8:1-15.

 

It shouldn’t be the Torah Law of conditional-favor that motivates us to work!  Paul says, “For the unconditional-favor-of-grace of God has appeared, . . . training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives . . . waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people . . . zealous for good works” (a).  Certainly, “God’s kindness is meant to lead us to repentance” (b). Paul calls this the process of “sanctification” or practical “holiness,” which is living “separately” from a condemned “unclean” world (c). <Notes> a) Titus 2:11-15, b) Romans 2:4, c) Romans 6:19, 22; 1 Thessalonians 4:3; Hebrews 10:14.

 

“What must we ongoingly make/do, in order to ongoingly be energeo working the ergon works of God?” That’s what the Jews asked of Jesus in John 6:28, and Jesus answered: “This is the ergon work of God: that you ongoingly have trusting-relying-faith towards/at Him (Christ) whom He (God) has sent (a).”  This is “the ergon work . . . that [does not] perish, the [work] for the food that endures [unto] zoe genuine-life everlasting, which the Son of Man will give to you” in John 6:27.  This must also be consistent with Christ’s other words:  “I eido mentally ‘see’ to perceive/know the ergon works of you:  The unconditional-love [of you] and the trusting-relying-faith [of you] and [respectively] the service [from the unconditional-love of you] and the patient endurance [from the trusting-relying-faith] of you . . . The one who routinely conquers victoriously (b) and/coupled routinely carefully tereo watches/guards/attends-to-maintain My ergon works to the end, to him I will give authority over the nations . . . even as I myself have received authority from My Father” (c). This must also be consistent with Paul’s “the ergon work of/belonging to the Lord [Jesus], knowing that in the Lord [Jesus] your extreme weariness/fatigue from labor (d) is not in vain” (e), just as with Paul’s “ergon work of trusting-relying-faith” and “extreme weariness/fatigue from labor (d) of unconditional-love” are the distinguishing marks of the Christian (f).  It’s no wonder that 1 John 3:23 integrates “definitively/wholly have trusting-relying-faith in the name/authority of God’s Son Jesus Christ and/coupled ongoingly unconditionally-love one another” as the only 2 NT commandments.  This is certainly the “works” of a true Christian!  Much of this has already been said above in the section about a Christian’s “good works.” <Notes> a) officially, authoritatively, set apart on a mission as an apostle, b) nike: “hold fast trusting-relying-faith unto death”, c) Revelation 2:19, 26-27, d) kopos:  deep fatigure or extreme weariness from toiling labor, even as if struck by blows, e) 1 Corinthians 15:58, f) 1 Thessalonians 1:3; 2 Thessalonians 1:3, 11; Colossians 1:4; 1 Timothy 1:14.

 

Paul makes it clear in 1 Corinthians 12:6-7 that the grace-gifts of the Holy Spirit are not given because we merited them from our work, for “there are many varieties of activities/operations (a) but it is the same God who routinely energeo works (b) [them] ALL IN every [person in the Body-of-Christ] – to each [person] is given the manifestation/exhibition/expression of the Spirit for the common good. Then Paul lists in verse 11:  logos messages of wisdom and logos messages of gnosis info-knowledge . . .  prophecy, discernment of spirits, tongues and their interpretation and says, “ALL these are ongoingly energeo worked by the means of one and the same Spirit, who routinely divides/distributes to each one individually as He wills.”  This has nothing to do with putting our natural talents to work for God, as so many churches teach and practice, but about having trusting-relying-faith in God to supernaturally do this work IN and through us by the Holy Spirit!  The “various services/ministries” of 1 Corinthians 12:5-6 are not supposed to be our own natural “might and power” now dedicated to God – that’s religion – but given from “the same Lord” Jesus Christ (c), just as the “various grace-gifts” by “the same Spirit” and “various activities/operations” are from “the same God” – but that takes trusting and relying fellowship, doesn’t it? <Notes> a) energema from ergon:  active, operating, efficient and effectual, works within, b) energeo, verb of energema, c) cf. Ephesians 4:7-11.

 

As Christians musicians, will we continue to perpetuate the old covenant demands of obedience to God by using our own natural “might and power” abilities for God or embrace the New Covenant distinctive to trust God to work IN us His good pleasure to cause us to walk in His ways?  Are we going to trust and depend on the power of the Holy Spirit to make us holy or strive to do it ourselves?  Do we still think that the Old Testament Law counts for anything, when Paul declare it counts for nothing?  A gift by grace is the opposite of what is earned by work!  But we are God’s workmanship and our part is to exercise our faith in God and then rest.  Any “good works” are those of faith in Christ and loving others just as Jesus loves us.   Let’s us behold with reverential awe God’s grace and then watch Him work IN our lives!  Let us ask for more of the Holy Spirit’s enabling power to do God’s will, because the ability sure won’t be ours!

 

 

 

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Categories: Spirit-Power

Spirit – Baptism – BT1

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My own Spirit-baptism or “filling” experiences

 

 

 

 

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In 1980 I had my first Spirit-baptism during my water-baptism.  I had become a Christian September 1980 through the Church of Christ on campus. Although taught accurately about water-baptism, they didn’t teach anything about the Holy Spirit except that they said it was an “invisible deposit of the indwelling Spirit.” So I had absolutely no expectations for what would happen.  I certainly didn’t plan on getting emotional because I was a proud, scientifically-minded engineer student, logically and intellectually rational, and unemotional since Star Trek’s Spock was my hero!  When I came up out of the baptismal waters, I distinctly felt a huge physical weight lift off me that I logically couldn’t explain, and I burst out in a flood of tears, full of unconditional-love and joy from seemingly nowhere!  It was absolutely other-worldly!  I had no idea that was the Holy Spirit though, but it sure didn’t seem like I created this experience!

 

In 1983 I had my first intense Spirit-baptism.  I diligently sought the Lord in proseuche conversational-prayer every morning around 7am at the top of the University of Arizona football stadium for about a month because Mountain Avenue Church of Christ had split over a power struggle.  I felt that maybe I had been brainwashed into believing Christianity was true.  Then I told God that He must not be real because I sought Him with no results.  I told him that as a tennis player that no longer just played against a backboard but had real partners, He must not exist because I kept hitting the ball into His court with no return.  I was done just chasing balls.  I turned around to go back to my old way of life. I didn’t get one step, before I lost all strength and fell to the ground in fear.  I saw myself in an infinite ocean with no shoreline in sight, being pulled down in a huge whirlpool.  I was terrified, especially when it went right into my chest and I thought I would explode with overwhelming, unconditional-love as electricity shot down my legs and out my hands as I shook there on the ground.  I had to cry out after 5 minutes for it to stop lest I die, and it did.  And then I just wept for a long time from what felt like infinite joy.  I kicked myself for 2 years for saying that, because for the next 6 months I was on Cloud 9, and I wanted this to happen again!  I read that Charles Finney had a similar experience but nobody at my church had a clue what I was talking about!

 

In 1985 I got another Spirit-baptism:  A friend from a charismatic church challenged me to use all my books to study out the Holy Spirit to explain my experience, especially since my church said the Spirit’s supernatural experiences ceased at the death of the apostles – see the next BT2 Blog.  Well after 8 hours of finding out they had misled me, feeling betrayed, and extremely hungry for what I was reading, I suddenly got intensely thirsty.  So I got up and turned around to go to the refrigerator but took one step and was frozen in my tracks.  I saw what looked like golden water – later in the Might and Power – BT1 page I found out this was like anointing oil made of liquid gold ­– shower into my head, down my body, out my hands like electricity, and down my legs to pin me.  Again I was overwhelmed with infinite, unconditional-love and hung in there longer, maybe 10 minutes, but once again I had to cry out to stop because I felt like I would explode and die!  Once again, I wept for a long time with infinite joy.  I rode my bike to the University of Arizona and barged into a bible study I knew my church was doing that all my friends would be at.  I told them what happened and they didn’t want anything to do with me.  Even my closest friends wouldn’t grab my hands that I said the Holy Spirit’s “electricity” was still coming out of.  I was convinced it would transfer!  They stayed back, like the Israelites after God invited them up Mt. Sinai to meet with Him personally, electing the religion of Moses being the intermediary in Exodus 20:18-21.  Well, it wasn’t long before I left to find a charismatic church that could teach me how to get filled more often!  Ephesians 5:18 says:  “I strongly urge you to be routinely filled by the means of the Spirit.”

 

In 2008 after being away from the Lord for 15 years and being very sick with pancreatitis for 8 months with a terrible nerve disorder and insomnia, having been to so many doctors to no avail, I was crying out for a miracle.  In August I saw a movie called “Miracles of the Passion” – a documentary of various miraculous healings in people who saw Mel Gibson’s movie “The Passion of the Christ.”  After that I was really open to the idea of a miracle.  One week later I saw what I thought was the same movie in the same spot at the thrift store, but it was the actual Mel Gibson movie, so I thought that’s weird and decided to watch it.  Well, I had lived like a pagan for 15 years and thought, “Hey, this is just a movie, but I’ll watch it.”

 

Well, somewhere after Christ’s horrifying beating and carrying of the cross, I was distinctly aware that I wasn’t alone in the room.  I became acutely aware of my sins and decided I just had no desire to live the next 15 years anything like the last 15 years – I pretty much surrendered.  I know now that this is the true essense of “repentance.”  Suddenly once again I was absolutely parched for water, so I got up and took a few steps toward the kitchen and ran right into an invisible wall of infinite, Unconditional-Love that wrapped right around me and once again I lost all strength and had to kneel on the floor to keep from falling over.  I was completely accepted into God’s arms as if I had never did any of those many sins.  I was completely overwhelmed and I felt that the world could end around me and I wouldn’t care one bit.  The feeling gradually turned into infinite joy and I just wept for the longest time.  Soon after this many sins just disappeared out of my life effortlessly – I hadn’t even thought about them – and I had an insatiable desire to genuinely, experientially, relationally epiginosko know God.  It wasn’t long before I was miraculously led to 2 Christian doctors and my physical healing process began.  It took me a year to ween off the narcotic drugs my previous doctors hooked me on – purely demonic!  And many miracles helped me to take more obedient steps of faith.  Each of these is an amazing story!

 

In 2010 after leaving a very stressful job with SCI Solutions after a year, stress that was fearfully bringing some of my previous adrenal issues back, the Lord gave me a daytime vision that showed me why He blocked 5 previous attempts of mine to move to Oregon since 2000 and afterward I was perfectly at peace, whereas previously I had always felt regret for not moving.  In February 2010 He had me point into an 8-translation bible and it landed on 1 Corinthians 10:31-33 underlined in the New Century Version on “the answer is:” and this solved all my roommate issues – all this have I had repeatedly deesis supplication-prayed, “I need answers” on the way to the park!  Just a week earlier, I had been supernaturally led to a class on the Holy Spirit.  We all had many powerfully-enabling experiences during that class, and I even had an anointing from a prophet from Alaska who only anointed me with “the mind of Christ” and then prophesied over me life.  She did anoint another prophet and prophesied something over her.

 

There were other experiences at a church I started going to called Freedom Fellowship, like 3 supernatural physical healings I had, along with another Spirit-baptism that made me shake like crazy for a day.  Nobody really knew what was causing it, but the pastor Frank Kemberling said the early Quaker were called “Shakers.”  Well the Lord “shook” a lot of junk out of my life that year and evidently prepared me for the death of my mom and a rebirth of my drum teaching as a ministry even 10 years later here!

In 2010-11, God showed me how I could prophetically hear from Him during my teaching of drum lessons.  More physical healings and revelation occurred in 2011 to start getting me off the meds the doctors hooked me on.  He also gave me a prophesy for a Buddhist friend he would get free from his cigarette addiction and a couple weeks later he did and started reading the bible. In November, I started to get lots of God-dreams about doing impossible things and running to the finish line.

 

In May 2012 I got 2 more Spirit-baptisms and many incredible directly-spoken/heard prophetic rhema words with one that overwhelmed me with 15 waves of intense unconditional-love while I was on a long conversational-prayer walk with my dog.  The Lord showed me random people I knew, some only superficially, and pulled me near His heart and my heart broke for them and wept so hard that I was heaving until I had no more tears left.  After recovering from one wave, I would walk a bit and get hit with another.  In the shower, I curled up in a ball under the presence of God and wept like a baby, and I heard Him say, “You can run as fast as you want to now.”

 

As a Christian musician, my many Spirit-baptisms or fillings prove that God can still accomplish His desires even if we are poorly educated by churches!  My first one was in complete ignorance after a month in desperate prayer just to see if God really existed or if my church had just brainwashed me.  The Spirit’s powerful manifestations radically changed me.  For 2 years I wanted this again but forgot how to get it because I still didn’t know even what it was – only that God was indeed real!  When I was challenged to “study out the Spirit” I yearned for what I read and when I got filled for the 2nd time, now I understood that it was the Spirit of God!  Again, the demonstrations of God were obvious and radically changed me!  What’s horribly sad in retrospect is that my new charismatic church after this 2nd filling never taught me how to get filled again and again as I would find out about much later in the New Testament.  Disgusted with the greed of this and other churches I went to and feeling empty on the inside, I fell back into the world for 15 years!  But God didn’t abandon me!

 

God led me to documentaries about divine healing and miraculously to Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of The Christ” to get radically filled a 3rd time.  If God can’t work inside churches, He will work outside it to reach those outside it.  I am proof!  I had forgotten my previous Spirit experiences but God hadn’t and He grabbed a hold of me big time and a lot of big changes suddenly happened in my life!  God led me down a long path of discovering the gifts and healing miracles of the Spirit.  As with little children, the Lord led me step by step within 2 years to experiencing MORE revelation, prophecy, tongues, more radical personal healings, a Quaker-like “shaking” filling and “fire” purging from my life, that then introduced prophetic drum-teaching to me to enliven my desire to revisit teaching drums!  Then God started to prophetically speak through me to help deliver others of addiction.  Just more baby steps!  But the deeper I waded into the “living waters” of the Lord, the more intense the fillings became with so many prophetic words that I couldn’t stop filling steno pads!  Well many more Spirit-events have occurred since then that I’m just logging into the My Prophetic Rhema page until I know what to do with them.

 

Would you like to share some experiences here?

 

 

 

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Categories: Spirit-Baptism

Spirit – Promise – BT1

 

 

 

 

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Christ’s Holy Spirit is now our teacher and guide

 

 

 

The “promise” of the New Covenant wasn’t for re-using old scripture or creating new scripture but for more directly-spoken/heard prophetic rhema words of communication with God by the Holy Spirit, even through dreams and visions (a). Much of the problem is in how many English translations obscure the clear truth of the original language, in many cases due to difficulties in word-for-word translation, but in many cases, the problem is simply doctrinal bias, as is seen here – see Bible Info<Notes> a) Acts 2:17-19, 33, 38; Galatians 3:14; Ephesians 1:13.

 

I will be exploring these findings in other posts, especially Teach One Another, but for now read these verses (a), preferably from the original languages using www.classic.net.bible.org and you will certainly see the truth.  Many of these verses are discussed in other BLOG sections in more detail. <Notes> a) Jeremiah 32:38:40, 31:31-34; Ezekiel 11:19-20, 37:26-27, 36:25-28; Hebrews 6:1, 7:18-29, 22-25, 30-31, 5:1, 8:5-13, 7:18-19, 9:9, 14, 10:1, 15-17, 12:24, 13:20; Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 9:21, 15:56; 2 Corinthians 3:3, 6, 17 – see Logos Word of God – BT20; Colossians 2:8, 14-17, 20-23; Galatians 2:4, 19-20, 3:22-26, 4:1-2, 7, 9, 25, 5:1, 18, 6:2; Romans 3:21, 4:13, 5:14, 6:14-15, 7:4, 6, 8:2-3; 14:17; Acts 13:39; Ephesians 2:15; James 1:12, 2:12-13; 1 Peter 2:24, 3:20-21; John 19:28-30; Matthew 5:17-18; Luke 4:18, 24:44.

 

 

 

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Categories: Spirit - Promise

Surrender Control – BT1:  It really is all about control – Your’s or God’s?

 

 

 

Video - Part 1:  Surrender Control - BT1:  It really is all about control - Your's or God's

Part 1

 

 

Surrender Control – BT1:  It really is all about control – Your’s or God’s

 

 

Please follow the BLOG Etiquette to stay on topic and pass the moderator’s check.  Bold, underlined text below = future links to the BLOG pages.

 

The great battle is between our self-control/mastery and the Lord’s.  It’s whether we will “be the captain of our own ship” to go about “doing it my way” as Frank Sinatra, or if Jesus will be!  The Greek New Testament noun egkrateia, verb egkrateuomai, and adjective egkrates mean “dominion exercised from within ourselves, not by others, so it’s often translated as self-control, self-restraint, self-mastery, or continence.”  It’s only used positively 1 time in the NT concerning the natural man and that’s in 1 Corinthians 9:25 concerning the Greek Olympic Games:  “Each competitor must exercise self-control in everything.  They do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one.”  The athletes controlled their diet, sleep, exercise, and were to abstain from sex.  Paul admired this drive!  But He knew most men all too well.  In 1 Corinthians 7:8-9 his advice to “the unmarried and widows is to remain as I am [single].  But if they don’t have self-control, let them get married, for it is better to marry than to burn [with sexual desire].”  We will return later to the 1 positive use of this word in the NT, but let’s look at the general aspect of “dominion exercised from within” ourselves.

 

For the natural man or a fleshly Christian, the “dominion within ourselves” is the dominion of man’s naturally-enabling “power” of Zechariah 4:6’s “might and power.”  Regarding this “power,” the Hebrew koach and Greek ischus refer in context to man’s “endowed, already-possessed, ‘held-onto,’ combat-ready power that stays or ‘holds on,’ which is thus an internal capacity of firmness, vigor, strength, might, ability, efficiency, force, and power or control over external things.”  Can you see how all these words mean essentially the same thing?  Let’s see how the NT uses this idea.

 

The Greek noun ischus isn’t used as much in the NT.  Three times it’s used by Jesus, once quoting the Old Testament, in responding to a trick question from a Jewish scribe, about unconditionally-loving God with all your ischus inner power, and in the cunning scribe reply (a).  2 Peter 2:11 speaks of the ischus inner power of angels.  Revelation 5:12, 7:12 and 2 Thessalonians 1:9 use this word to describe this glorious ischus inner power of the Lord, but we are to be strengthened by His ischus inner power (b), and that the Father’s incomparable greatness of external dunamis dynamite-like enabling-power toward us who believe that is displayed in the exercise of His immense ischus inner power (c) – that’s God’s solution to man’s “might and power” in Zechariah 4:6 for the completely-different-in-kind New Covenant<Notes> a) Mark 12:30, 33; Luke 10:27, b) Ephesians 6:10, c) Ephesians 1:19.

 

Finally 1 Peter 4:11 regarding the exercising of the Spirit’s grace-gifts advises:  “If anyone speaks [using their Spirit’s grace-gift before others in the Christian assembly], [routinely/habitually be serving/ministering towards-and-reaching-the-goal/purpose of’ each-other] do-it-in-the-way-of oracles of God (a).  Whoever [physically] serves/ministers, do-it-in-the-way-of out-from [singular] inner power that God supplies, so that in everything [that you do in the assembly] God will be glorified through Jesus Christ.” <Notes> a) logion: uttered prophetic messages of the directly-spoken/heard prophetic rhema words of God – see Coaches and Facilitators, Prophetic Rhema, Teach One Another, and Might & Power pages.

 

The corresponding Greek verb ischuo for “inwardly-powerfully-enabled-to-do, perform, or accomplish” isn’t used that much either in the NT.  Often it is used negatively for man’s absolute-in-fact inability to accomplish some task.  The Pharisees absolutely in fact couldn’t reply to Jesus’ accusations or trap Him (a), just as the Jews weren’t able to prove their case against Paul (b).  Jesus warned people who wanted to follow Him as a disciple that if they weren’t “all in” by “carrying their cross,” they would be like people who want to build a tower without first computing the cost to see if they had enough money to complete it, so with an unfinished tower they would be laughed at, saying: “This man began to build but was not inwardly-powerfully-enabled-to-do it unto completion” (c).  <Notes> a) Luke 14:5, 20:26, b) Acts 25:7, c) Luke 14:27-30,

 

Jesus warned:  “Exert every effort to enter [the kingdom] through the narrow door, because a multitude, I tell you, will try to enter and/coupled shall actually absolutely-in-fact-NOT be inwardly-powerfully-enabled-to-do this” (a).  Can you believe that Jesus asked His disciples 3 times to stay awake and “watch in proseuche conversational-prayer” with Him for 1 hour and 3 times they fell asleep?  He said, “What’s this?  You could absolutely-in-fact-NOT be inwardly-powerfully-enabled-to-do be watching with Me for one hour” (b)?  Jesus spoke often of the “inherent weakness, feebleness, impotence, worthlessness, uselessness, and failure of the sarx flesh” (c). <Notes> a) Luke 14:5, 20:26, b) Acts 25:7, c) Luke 14:27-30, a) Luke 13:24, g) Matthew 26:40; Mark 14:37, c) Matthew 26:41; John 6:63.

 

But if Christians turn back from NT unconditional-loving-favor-of-grace to the OT Torah Law of conditional-favor, we will quickly loose our ishus inner power.  The problem with legalistic Christianity is that the old covenant Law is a “yoke/harness [of slavery] upon the necks of the disciples which neither our forefathers nor we (apostles) were inwardly-powerfully-enabled-to-do to bear” (a).  Jesus gives a warning to Christians who disconnect from the Holy Spirit of Christ (b) and try to do it on their own:  “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt becomes flavorless, how can it be made salty again?  Henceforth it absolutely in fact is inwardly-powerfully-enabledto-do for NO thing but to be cast out [onto the roads or fields] to be trodden under foot by men.” <Notes> a) Acts 15:10, b) John 15:1-11.

 

 

Video - Part 2:  Surrender Control - BT1:  It really is all about control - Your's or God's

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Now look at the powerful effect of the Lord’s Spirit!  Jesus said in Luke 6:47-48, “Everyone who comes to Me and/then akouo listens to understand/know My [gospel]  logos messages and/coupled routinely/habitually does them, I will show you what he is like:  He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep, and laid the foundation on petra bedrock.  When a flood came, the river burst against the house, but it was absolutely-in-fact-NOT ischuo inwardly-powerfully-enabled-to-do shaking it, for it was founded upon a petra bedrock.”  Jesus is often referred to as the Petra Bedrock that the Church is built on (a).  It’s sure not Peter (b), contrary to what the Catholic Church believes – see The Great Wall quenching the Spirit in the Church. <Notes> a) Matthew 16:18; 1 Corinthians 10:4; 1 Peter 2:8; Romans 9:33, b) petros means little inconsequential stone.

 

The gospel logos message of The Truth is that the Holy Spirit is now our externally-produced dunamis dynamite-like’ enabling-power that NOW lives within us as Christians!  Paul testified in Philippians 4:13 that he “can be ischuo inwardly-powerfully-enabled-to-do all things through the One who is routinely/habitually dunamis empowering me.”  After the burning of the witchcraft books, Acts 19:20 says: “In this way the [gospel]  logos message of the Lord continued to grow in kratos manifested-might and/thus was continually ischuo inwardly-powerfully-enabled-to-do [the] doing (thus to avail).”  Concerning the irrelevancy of the Torah Law of conditional-favor based on obedience to commandments, Paul says in Galatians 5:6 “For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision actually, ongoingly is ischuo inwardly-powerfully-enabled-to-do [the] doing (thus to avail) but-instead [what does have all this ability to avail is] trusting-relying-faith (a) thru-the-realizing-channel-of unconditional-love routinely/habitually working.” James 5:16 promises that “the effectual fervent supplication (b) of a righteous man actually, ongoingly, is ischuo  inwardly-powerfully-enabled-to-do [the] doing (thus to avail) much.”  <Notes> a) pistis: relational conviction of trusting reliance, b) deesis.

 

Now let’s return to the 1 positive use of egkrateia, verb egkrateuomai, and adjective egkrates in the NT regarding the natural man, as it means “dominion exercised from within ourselves, thus self-control, self-restraint, self-mastery, or continence.”  Because the New Covenant is completely different-in-kind by definition (c) and context, it’s no wonder that these 3 Greek words are used almost exclusively of the self-control/master of the Holy Spirit, described as a “flavor” of the [singular] fruit (a) of the Holy Spirit who is Unconditional-Love (b). <Notes> a) karpos: essence or nature, b) Galatians 5:22-23, c) chadash, kainos: fresh, completely different-in-kind, unprecedented, sharing nothing with its predecessors, unique, and superior.

 

So in Titus 1:8 when Paul talks about the qualifications of elders, overseers/bishops, or shepherds/pastors (a) being “self-controlled,” He is primarily talking about the Spirit’s character “exercising mastery within” them, dwelling within their body as a temple of God to control their humanly passions (b).  When 2 Peter 1:4 talks about “becoming koinonia partakers of the divine nature after escaping the worldly corruption that is produced through craving/lust,” he advises Christians who are spiritually “connected to the Vine of Christ” (c) “for this very reason to make every effort to add to their trusting-relying-faith . . . self-control/master . . . and finally unconditional-love.  For if these things are really yours and are continually increasing, they will keep you from becoming ineffective and/coupled unproductive in the genuine, experiential, relational epignosis knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  These are all supernatural abilities accomplished by-the-means-of-the Spirit as we continue in this special kind of relational knowledge of God. <Notes> a) all the same group of men – see Body Ministry-BT2, b) 1 Corinthians 6:18-20, c) John 15:1-11.

 

However, negatively in Acts 24:25 Paul often spoke of righteousness, [the lack of] self-control/mastery, and/thus the coming judgment, which definitely frightens some!  That is exactly the gospel logos message of The Truth as Jesus explains in John 16:7-11:  “When the Holy Spirit comes after I go away [at Pentecost], He will convict the [unbelieving] world (a) of sin (b) and/coupled righteousness (c) and/coupled judgment (d).” <Notes> a) kosmos in context are unbelievers, not Christians who are not of this world anymore than Christ is, b) “because they don’t believe in Me,” sin results because of the lack of self-control, c) “because I am leaving” – Jesus, the Holy and Righteous One, was leaving – Acts 3:14; Jeremiah 23:6, 33:16, d) “because the ruler of this unbelieving world is judged,” which means the unbelieving world with him – John 3:18.

 

There simply must be a divine exchange/propitiation of our lack of self-control/mastery, which results in our sin and unrighteousness and the Day of Judgment to come.  There must me a divine exchange/propitiation of all our failure for the self-control/mastery of Jesus Christ successfully accomplished on the cross – perfect obedience to the end!  And this exchange occurs in the repentant surrender of public confession at yout water-baptism.

 

Reflection:

 

 

As Christian musicians, we can’t “play the fence” between God’s mastery of us and our instrument and our own.  If we want the former, we have to surrender the latter.  That’s what making “Jesus as Lord” is all about – not just at our public confession of The Faith during water-baptism, but our daily private confession.  If we want the “By My Spirit” dynamite-like power of the Lord, then we have to give up our own “might and power.”  Holiness doesn’t come by our Christian work, but by surrender to the Spirit of holiness – we must become intimate partners of the divine nature through intimate relationship.

 

Prayer:

 

 

Lord, I will no longer fight You for who is supposed to have control of me.  I am no longer “captain of my own ship” after I gave my life to You when I publicly confessed “Jesus is Lord” and was water-baptized for salvation.  I confess that I have lacked self-control my whole life, often saying “yes” to my own desires over Yours.  I’ve also had pride in my own “might and power” external resources and internal abilities, and claimed to have self-mastery over many things, even in my zeal to live as a Christian.  But I know that You “oppose the proud but give grace to the humble.”  Therefore, I gladly lay down my fleshly resources and abilities, even my many failures, in exchange or propitiation for the perfect self-mastery of Christ and the dynamite, enabling-power of His Spirit of holiness.

 

Lord, I know that attempting to do even 1 of the 613 Old Testament laws obligates me to do all of them, but the “Law multiplies sin,” thus making it “the Law of sin and death.”  No, I will not keep working on how to be more “right with You.”  Instead I will fully surrender by trusting-relying-faith in Your mercy and grace through the blood of Jesus Christ.  I “will NOT lean on my own understanding, but in all my ways lean on You to make my paths straight and smooth.”

 

Lord, I know that “self-control” is a final “flavor” or “by-product” of the singular fruit or nature of the Holy Spirit that is simply unconditional-love, so instead of striving for my own “self-mastery,” I will strive to be “filled with all the abundant-fullness of the unconditional-love of God by the means of the Holy Spirit.”  Then I will have “Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and yes, Self-Mastery.”  Therefore, I know in order to have godliness and holiness I must be filled to overflowing by the means of the Holy Spirit.  I know that “partaking in the divine nature to escape worldly corruption that is produced through lust” can only come through intimate fellowship through genuine, experiential, relational epignosko knowledge of You.

 

Lord, I trust that NOW I am “Your workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which You prepared beforehand, that I should walk in them” and so “I exercise down-from-above my salvation with ‘fear and trembling’ reverential-amazement that it is You who works in me both to desire/will and to do Your good pleasure.”  How incredible You are to “take the muscles that I tore down in the gym while exercising in my “workout” and rebuild them stronger during the time I am peacefully resting and asleep.”  Now that’s the unconditional-favor-of-grace!  What an awesome God!

 

 

 

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Spiritual Education, Self-control versus Spirit-control, Zechariah 4:6 might & power versus Spirit, Ministry is to be by God’s Spirit not man’s talent, close beside God all things possible, man’s flesh is powerless, the old covenant doesn’t empower man but weaken man, If we disconnect from Christ there is no power, The house built on Jesus the BedRock stands against storms, the Holy Spirit gives us the ischus inner power, Faith working through love is what counts NOT Old Testament Law, Self-Mastery is a flavor of the Spirit’s Love nature, Spirit-control only comes through connection to the Vine of Christ in intimate relationship, Surrender is required to exchange our lack of Self-Control for the Spirit’s control.

Categories: Surrender Control

Skill – BT1

 

 

 

 

Playing with Skill and Professionalism is just another “wind of doctrine”

 

 

 

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I just can’t find anywhere in the bible any emphasis on individual skill and professionalism or comparing ourselves with others.  Every so-called “proof text” people have sent me over the years to justify playing with skill and professionalism turns out to be another “wind of doctrine” started from some poorly translated bible to justify people’s actions, completely unsupported by careful analysis of the text from the original languages and context, other related verses, and early Church history!  I also find it interesting that so many people pull verses from the Old Testament (OT) to prove their doctrine, when we have seen from the Conversational-Prayer and New Covenant Way pages that the NT and early Church restricted use of the OT scripture to prophecies of Christ and the completely different-in-kind New Covenant, and warned against teachers using the gramma writings collected into graphe scripture of the old covenant, especially the Torah Law of conditional-favor.

 

So much of this talk about skill and professionalism is just us judging ourselves or others by outward appearance, even though God looks at the heart (a).  So much of this is just the “cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches that choke out the logos gospel message so that it becomes unfruitful” (b) because some musicians Christian music solely to make money, so they double whammy themselves!  So much of this is really just the “desires of the sarx flesh including . . . the pride of life that is absolutely not in fact from the Father but is from this world” (c).  But Jesus includes “pride” in the list of “evil things that come from within, out of the heart of man, that defile a person” (d).  And the Apostle Paul says “In the last days, people will become lovers of self, . . . proud and arrogant” (e).  Both the Apostle Peter and James quote Proverbs 3:34 “God oppose (f) the proud, but gives unconditional-favor-of-grace to the humble (g)” (h).  So much of this is just the “might and power” of the old covenant’s “antiquated” way of serving God (i).  So much of this is just a rigid obsession with our own plans, programs, and schedules, saying: “Today or tomorrow we will  . . . [accomplish such and such] . . . yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.  What is your life?  For you a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (m).  So much of this is just showing favoritism or partiality to the “wise and learned” at the exclusion of the “little children” (j) or the other least among us (k).  But God shows no partiality, so why should we (l)?  So much of this is just the “nations seeking [and striving after] all these things [we say we need], but our Heavenly Father knows that we need them.  Instead we should seek [and strive after] first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and [trust that] all these things will be added to us.  Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow” – like being a skilled and professional musician good enough to play in church. (n). <Notes> a) 1 Sam 16:7, b) Matthew 13:22, Mark 4:19, c) 1 John 2:16, d) Mark 7:21-23, e) 2 Timothy 4:6, f) stands firmly against, g) the lowly who are teachable, h) 1 Peter 5:5; James 4:6, i) Zechariah 4:6, Romans 7:6, j) Matthew 11:25; Luke 10:21-23, k) Jeremiah 31:34; Matthew 25:40-45, l) Acts 10:34; Romans 2:11; Galatians 2:6, Ephesians 6:9; 1 Timothy 5:21; James 2:1, 9, m) James 4:13-14, n) Matthew 6:32-34.

 

As Christian musicians, what have you heard taught to you?  Have you really researched to see if this is legitimate?  Have your actually heard from the Lord otherwise?  It sure seems from the info above, there are a lot of things working against this “required skill and professionalism” theory, and the other BLOG links on the Skill page will dig even deeper.  Well you can start commenting on this page below!

 

 

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Categories: Skill

Might & Power – BT1

 

 

 

 

Zechariah 4:6’s prophecy about the New Covenant is key to true ministry

 

 

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Zechariah’s prophecy about the completely different-in-kind New Covenant that was to replace the old covenant says: “Absolutely by no means by might nor by power but instead by My Spirit, says Yahweh, ruler of all hosts (or armies, ruler of all).”  The negatives “no” and “nor” are originally ou me double negatives, which are absolute in fact and in possibility.  This is like God speaking with all CAPS, underlined, and bold-faced!!!  The dative-case prepositions are most often translated “by the means/instrument of,” but grammatical arguments can also be made for “in the sphere/location of” or “within the company of.”  The Lord showed me in a dream that all three options are true throughout biblical writings regarding Himself, saying: “You are safe and have power when you dwell in My fortress of solitude, together with Me, within My company, and I make this all possible by the means or instrument of My Spirit.”

 

Now, “might” in Hebrew (a) and Greek (b) refers in context to man’s “naturally inherent dynamite-like capacity or force of strength, ability or efficiency as derived from external resources that are both human (c) and physical (d).  Now “power” in Hebrew (e) and Greek (f) refers in context to man’s “endowed (g), already-possessed, ‘held-onto,’ combat-ready power that stays or ‘holds on,’ which is thus an internal capacity of firmness, vigor, strength, might, ability, efficiency, force, and power or control over external things.”  Man’s “inherent might derived from his external body and other outside resources and internal power of mind, emotions, and will to immediately control their external world” is what all religion consists of, even the Jewish religion under the old covenant.  So essentially, “might and power” refers to all of man’s external resources and internal abilities<Notes> a) chayil, b) dunamis, c) like companies or hosts of people, soldiers, forces, or armies, d) like possessions and riches, e) koach, f) ischus, g) originally from God when the soul was created.

 

But in 518 B.C., Zechariah was told of a coming day when God’s covenant with man would no longer depend on this, when things would be completely different-in-kind because it will be “by My Spirit, says Yahweh, ruler of all hosts.”  Earlier in Zechariah 3:1-10, Jesus as the pre-incarnate “messenger of Yahweh” watches Joshua the high priest, representative of Israel standing before Him with “filthy garments,” stained by the iniquities of Israel he was representing, thus being rightly accused by Satan according to the Torah Law of conditional-favor.  However, Yahweh rebukes Satan solely on the basis of Israel being chosen by God.  So God takes Joshua’s/Israel’s filty sin away and clothes him with a pure vestment including a turban.  Then the messenger/Jesus authoritatively speaks of Himself as the Voice of Yahweh of hosts that “I will bring My Servant, The Branch and I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day” and He then speaks of great celebration.  It’s not a coincidence that this “Servant” is the very “messenger/Jesus” that Yahweh speaks through!

 

We know this prophecy already occurred when “The Servant or The Branch or The Shoot or Root of Jesse” spoken of throughout the bible miraculously turns out to be the Jesus or Yeshua the Messiah (a).  The prophecy occurred by the “New Covenant in My blood” just as Jesus also promised (b).  Then the “messenger/Jesus” showed Zechariah more about that coming day:  A gold, super menorah of 49 lamps would be continually feed by 2 olive trees.  From Zechariah 4:14, these 2 trees are symbolic of the 2 anointed ones or 2 sons of/providing fresh, shining, pure oil (c) who stand before the Supreme Authority ‘adown, kurios of the whole earth, and we know from so many bible verses that this “gold” (f) or “golden” [oil] (g) of verse 4:12 is the Holy Spirit (d) continually bringing Christ’s light (e) into the world!  <Notes> a) Isaiah 4:2; 11:1-5, 10, 42:1, 52:13; Zechariah 6:12; Matthew 12:18; Acts 4:27, 30; Romans 15:12, b) Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25, c) the usual word for anointed mashach wasn’t used but instead yitshar meaning “fresh, shining, pure oil.”  This is very similar in meaning to chadash to describe the fresh, completely different-in-kind New Covenant, d) 1 Samuel 16:13, e) John 8:12, 9:5, f) Hebrews noun zahab, g) Septuaging Greek adjective chrusous.

 

Commentators say that 1 of these anointed “trees” represented the Aaronic priesthood, here by Joshua/Yehoshua (a) the high priest whose father is Yehozadek, meaning “Yahweh righteousness.”  Do you think it is a coincidence that “Yahweh righteousness” is essentially the meaning of Melchizedek as “king of righteousness,” who Jesus as The High Priest is descended from (b)?  The other anointed “tree” represented the Davidic line of kings, here by his descendent Zerubbabel the son of king Yehoiakim, an ancestor of Jesus’ father Joseph (c).  Jesus is the only person in history to be both a High Priest (d) and King of kings (e), who alone can supply an endless supply of the Holy Spirit’s “gold” or “golden [oil]” to produce Christ’s “light of the world” (f).  The man Jesus was “given the Spirit without measure” (g) for His ministry.  Only Jesus “baptizes, immerses, or fills to completion by the means of the Spirit” (h), and that uniquely defined His ministry (i) – the NT doesn’t even say it was Christ’s teaching!  This really disppointes bible students! <Notes> a) Yehoshua or the shortened Yeshua is the name of Jesus in Hebrew, b) Genesis 14:18; Psalms 110:4; Hebrews 5:6, 10, 6:20, 7:1, 10-11, 15, 17, c) Matthew 1:12-16, d) Hebrews 2:17, 3:1, 4:14-15, 5:5, 10, 6:20, e) 1 Timothy 6:15; Revelation 17:14, 19:16, f) John 8:12, 9:5, g) John 3:34, h) see Spirit-baptism, i) Matthew 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16, 11:13; John 1:33, 7:39; Acts 1:5, 5:32, 8:18, 11:16; Romans 5:5; 2 Corinthians 1:22, 5:5; 1 Thessalonians 4:8; 1 John 3:24.

 

In 1985 I was Spirit-baptized again and this time I saw a shower of gold flowing into my head and rushing through my body out my fingertips like electricity and down through my legs pinning my feet to the floor.  I always thought this was the Holy Spirit’s “living/flowing water” but it was definitely bright yellow, translucent gold, which means it could very well have been this “gold” or “golden [oil]” described by Jesus in Zechariah 4:12.  Interestingly the only place the commentators say that the Hebrew noun zahab “gold” could simply refer to the color of oil is in this verse, but everywhere else it’s actually the metal “gold.”  I think they just couldn’t conceive of that the “oil” flowing from the 2 olive trees could actually be the metal “gold” flowing from “The High Priest – The King of kings” Yeshua Jesus!  The Septuagint Greek simply has the adjective chrusous “golden,” which again simply means “made of gold.”  I think the LXX was more accurate as in many cases the LXX texts we have are much older than the Masoretic Hebrew text.  The ‘oil’ of Jesus may very well have been translucent gold!  Extremely pure, supernatural and priceless!  And this is what created the pure fire that lights up the world!

 

God is showing Zechariah that absolutely nothing, by the use of the rare Greek double negative ou me, from the world or previous religious activity – whether from man’s external resource “might” or internal abilities “power,” even that of the old covenant – will be acceptable in God’s future completely different-in-kind New Covenant.   It will ALL be done by Him by His Holy Spirit.  This is in stark contrast to 613 Torah Laws of conditional-favor of the old covenant that are completely dependent upon man’s obedience of works “If you do ____, then I will do ____.”  God wipes that all out!  He eliminates man from the equation, exactly because of man’s weakness – his “might and power” simply isn’t good enough!  But God’s Spirit can do it all!  Now the gospel’s message is all about “the obedience of faith” as we see in Romans 1:5 and 16:26.

 

As Christian musicians, are we going to be satisfied by the natural man’s fleshly “might and power” external resources and internal abilities when it comes to worshipping the Lord, or are we going to put our trusting-relying-faith in the “by My Spirit” of God?  Are we going to approach God with our own “filthy rags of righteousness” or surrender it all to God’s grace and wait for Him to pour His gold anointing over us to play supernaturally for Christ’s light to shine brightly?

 

 

 

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Categories: Might and Power

Identity – BT1:  If we view Man in 2 parts, which are you “working” from?

 

 

 

Video:  Identity - BT1:  If we view Man in 2 parts, which are you “working” from?

 

 

Identity – BT1:  If we view Man in 2 parts, which are you “working” from?

 

 

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In the Introduction we looked at the 3-part Man, but often the bible speaks of a 2-part Man.  The New Testament often speaks of the 1) “decaying outer man/self/being” in reference to the psyche soul of “mind-intellect, heart-emotions, and will-power” and soma body, together called the sarx flesh, versus the 2) “inner man/self/being” in reference to man’s pneuma spirit, which we saw in the introduction “belongs-to or in the possession of” the psyche soul’s mind/heart.  To persecuted Christians, Paul writes:  “We do not despair for even if our outer man (a) is wearing away, our inner man (b) is being renewed day by day” (c).  Be careful!  Some bibles translate sarxflesh” as soma “body,” which can be very misleading!  Certainly the context sometimes emphasizes the physical soma “body” rather than the psyche “soul,” but I wish bibles wouldn’t make that choice for us but instead let the Holy Spirit do that – see the other problems of translation in Bible Info<Notes> a) exo anthropos, b) eso anthropos, c) 2 Corinthians 4:16; cf. Roman 7:22; Ephesians 3:16; 1 Peter 3:4.

 

Now the “inner man/self/being” or “spirit of man” of natural, unredeemed men is called the “old man/self/being,” (a) and it must be crucified with Christ in water-baptism (b) for its sinful-life power to stop influencing and energizing [like an evil Energizer Bunny] the rest of man – the soma body and psyche soul, together called the sarx flesh, as we saw in the 3-parts of man in the introduction – the power cord must be pulled!  It’s the only way to be free us from “the old man’s” dominion or slavery to sin.  And the only way to have our spirit redeemed from slavery to the sin of the psyche soul and soma body (c) and given the completely different-in-kind ‘Newness’ of genuine-life (d) by-the-means-of the Spirit’s enabling-power of holiness is for us to resurrect from the dead with Christ (e) and be given His completely different-in-kind ‘New’ Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, to replace our “old man” spirit, which also ALL happens in saving water-baptism (f).

 

<Notes> a) palaios anthropos:  Romans 6:6; Ephesians 4:22; Colossians 3:9, b) Galatians 2:20, 5:24, 6:14; Colossians 2:11, 3:9, c) i.e., purchased/ransomed for freedom from slavery to sin, d) Romans 6:4; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15; Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10, e) Romans 6:4, 8-11, 8:11; this is our “blessed hope” to be glorified into Christ’s righteous likeness, the redemption of our sinful bodies, at the resurrection of the dead and rapture for those still living at His return:  Romans 8:23-25; Titus 2:13-14; Colossians 1:27, 3:4; Galatians 5:5, Philippians 3:11, 21, f) Romans 6:3-11; Colossians 2:11-15.

 

The early Church never doubted the saving experience of the “old man dying” and “NEW man’s birth” happening in water-baptism, which Jesus’ disciples continued from John the Baptist’s water-baptism also “of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (a), but NOW performed “in Jesus name/authority” to receive not only “the remission/forgiveness of sins” (b) but also the grace-gift of the Holy Spirit that creates the “NEW man” (c), and the Spirit then in turns gives grace-gifts to the new Christians to build them up and to witness with powerful effectiveness (d). The early Church made water-baptism a standard practice in order to become a saved disciple/follower of Jesus (e), especially since Jesus made this a key part of the “Great Commission” to take into the whole world (f).  It’s a shame so many churches speak so little of water-baptism and Spirit-baptism that occurred together as “One Baptism” (g), especially when the NT speaks so much about them both – see also the Water-Baptism, Spirit-Baptism, and Salvation pages.

 

<Notes> a) Mark 1:4; Luke 1:77, 3:3, b) Matthew 26:28; Hebrews 9:22; Luke 24:47; Acts 2:38, 5:31, 10:43, 13:38, 26:18; Colossians 1:4, c) Luke 11:13; Acts 2:38, 10:45; Hebrews 6:4; the singular grace-gift of Christ from the Father:  Matthew 7:11; Luke 11:13; John 14:16, 26,15:26, 16:7; Ephesians 1:17, 4:7, d) Ephesians 4:8; 1 Corinthians 12:1, 4, 9, 11, 14:1; Hebrews 2:4, e) Mark 16:15; 1 Peter 3:21, f) Matthews 28:19; Mark 16:15-16, g) Ephesians 4:5.

 

Reflections:

 

As Christian musicians, why would we want to produce ANY music only from the “outer man” or sarxflesh” through its natural soma body and human psyche soul of “mind-intellect, heart-emotions, and will-power,” just as if we were still natural, unredeemed man, even if we justify it NOW as being FOR God?  Is that the “identity” we want to play from?  Isn’t this the essence of all religion, especially the “might and power” of the Jewish old covenant per Zechariah 4:6?

 

Wouldn’t the Spirit of God that dwells in us as our completely-different-in-kind “New man” be jealous, just as James 4:4-5 says:  “You adulterous people!  Do you not know that philia friendship with the world is enmity with God?  Therefore, whoever wishes to be a philos friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.  Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the scripture says, ‘He yearns jealously over the Spirit that He has made to dwell in us’?”  Wouldn’t most Christians want their music to come entirely from the Spirit NOW dwelling within them?

 

Shouldn’t we be “single-minded” or hagnos “pure or unmixed” or hagios holy with our music by fostering the playing of music instead from our “innermost being, spirit, or New man?”  Instead of reading and studying bible gramma writings of God’s torah or nomos instruction that requires the “might and power” external resources and internal abilities of the “outer man or flesh,” shouldn’t we NOW be operating out from the Holy Spirit that dwells with our “inner man, spirit, or New man, that is a ministry “no longer written on stone or with pen and ink but-instead written on tablets of the heart/mind?” per 2 Corinthians 3:3.

 

 

 

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Spiritual Education, Inner Man & Outer Man, Inner Man is our spirit, Outer Man is our Flesh’s soul & body, Psyche Soul is intellect emotions & will-power, Unredeemed man’s spirit is the old man that energizes sin in the Flesh’s soul & body, Water-baptism kills the old man with Christ and a new man resurrects with a New Spirit within them, Playing music from our Spirit or Flesh’s soul & body

Categories: Identity

Body Ministry – BT4:  Where do the preachers fit in?  They are supposed to be the evangelists

 

 

 

Video:  Body Ministry - BT4:  Where do the preachers fit in?   They are supposed to be the evangelists!

 

Body Ministry – BT4:  Where do the preachers fit in?   They are supposed to be the evangelists!

 

 

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From the previous BLOG about Ephesians 4:11, we also see a relationship between the evangelist-preacher (a), apostles, teachers (b), and even prophets (i) – these “equippers” are all simply grace-gifts of Christ to help build up the Body of Christ.  They are not people, positions, offices, or titles!  This is especially true in 2 Timothy 4:2 where Paul encourages Timothy, the evangelist to “preach/herald the [gospel] logos message . . . to gently convince/correct (c), charge/urge/rebuke, and parakaleo ‘come alongside to counsel’ [just like the Paraklete Holy Spirit does] . . . with absolute patience and/coupled doctrine/teaching (d)” and “strongly urge and/coupled teach these things (e) . . . devoting yourself to the . . . the invocation/summoning (f), and the teaching. Do not neglect your grace-gift [of evangelism/preaching he received by the laying on of hands] . . . practice these things, immerse yourself in them . . . Keep a close watch on (g) yourself and on the teaching (h).  Persist in this, for by so doing you save (rescue/heal) both yourself and your hearers.” Paul was training Timothy to be an preacher/evangelist like himself.

 

<Notes> a) kerux:  preacher, announcer, herald, town-crier proclaiming critical news for the public to know.  1 Timothy 2:7; 2 Timothy 1:11; 2 Peter 2:5; from the verb kerusso:  25 occurrences of preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ:  Luke 9:6, 20:1; Acts 8:25, 40, 14:7, 21, 16:10; Romans 1:15, 15:20, 16:25, 1 Corinthians 1:17, 9:16, 18, 15:1; 2 Corinthians 2:12, 8:18, 10:16, 11:7; Galatians 1:8, 9, 11, 3:8, 4:13; 2 Timothy 2:8; 1 Peter 4:6, b) Paul was a preacher, apostle, and teacher:  1 Timothy 2:7; 2 Timothy 1:11 – see Coaches and Facilitators and Teach One Another, c) reprove, d) didache: the teaching, e) 1 Timothy 4:11, cf. 6:2, f) 1 Timothy 4:13:  paraklesis from parakaleo:  the “calling to be close-beside” the congregation is the “invocation” or “summoning” of the Paraklete Holy Spirit was still an early Church tradition per Hippolytus of Rome in 200 AD, g) ep + echo: hold upon – that’s a function of an overseer too, h) as specific kind of teaching – the “sound doctrine” Paul taught him of Jesus’ sound words/saying: 1 Timothy 1:10, 6:3; 2 Timothy 4:3, i) Acts 13:1.

 

That should make many of you wonder who that person up there talking to you every Sunday thinks they are?  If they are speaking the gospel logos message then they are preachers/evangelists, but then you have to ask:  “Are there any unsaved people in the congregation that they are preaching to in order to save?”  Maybe there IS some regular church-goers that really aren’t saved?  Also if they aren’t speaking the gospel, they really aren’t preachers, but simply one of many teachers in the Body-of-Christ that should be using their grace-gift of teaching!  But then why do they call themselves “preachers?”  And just try to stand up, or raise your hand, to add your teaching to a service!  But 1 Corinthians 14:26 says that each of us is to bring a didache teaching to the gatherings.  It seems that many churches are NOT following biblical models of church structure!

 

 

 

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Spiritual Education, Body Ministry, Church leadership equippers, Preachers are supposed to be evangelists NOT bible-teachers, Preachers are a grace-gift not a person position office or title, Most preachers are actually just teachers hogging the ball, The New Testament says we are to have a plurality of teachers

Categories: Body Ministry

Body Ministry – BT3:  Elders, Bishop-Overseers, and Shepherd-Pastors are the SAME group

 

 

 

Video: Body Ministry - BT3:  Elders, Bishop-Overseers, and Shepherd-Pastors are the SAME group

 

 

Body Ministry – BT3:  Elders, Bishop-Overseers, and Shepherd-Pastors are the SAME group

 

 

Please follow the BLOG Etiquette to stay on topic and pass the moderator’s check.  Bold, underlined text below = future links to the BLOG pages.

 

The term “bishop” comes from the Greek noun episcope that commonly means “visitation, investigation, or inspection of troops” (a).  Peter uses it in Acts 1:20 citing Psalms 109:8 in the Greek LXX for “a place of leadership” (NIV), “position of responsibility” (NET), “office” (NASB), “post” (MSG), or “bishopric” (KJV) regarding the replacement of the apostle Judas after he hung himself.  Again, the religion of special people, positions, offices, and titles is often seen in many bible translations.  How very sad!  The term “bishop” was created in 1800’s Old English for “a senior member of the Christian clergy, typically in charge of a diocese and empowered to confer holy orders.” Another “tradition of men!”  Why is the modern church “borrowing” from the Old Testament (Psalms 109:8) when the New Covenant Ways are completely different-in-kind by definition (b) – this is part of The Great Wall quenching the Holy Spirit in the Church. <Notes> a) Luke 19:44, 1 Peter 2:12, b) chadash, kainos: fresh, completely different-in-kind, unprecedented, sharing nothing with its predecessors, unique, and superior.

 

The Greek word episcope can also mean “responsibility, charge or function of an elder who looks into/over others, thus a superintendent.” This is what the apostles were to be doing, and whoever they chose to replace Judas would be doing.  The corresponding OT Hebrew pyquddah generally means “visitation, inspection of troops, oversight, custody, or care of” like Psalms 109:8 above, but can also mean “having charge over,” even though Brown-Dryer-Brigg suggests that in this regard it refers to “charge over one’s possessions.”  The only other place episcope is used is by Paul is in 1 Timothy 3:1-2 where he says:  “If a man reaches out for episope he desires a good work.  The episkopos (overseer) must be above reproach, husband of one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, apt/skillful in teaching, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money” (a).  We know from 1 Peter 2:25 that the shepherd (b) and episkopos overseer were the same person – caring/shepherding for the flock, so to speak, by simply sitting on a hill watching over the sheep/flock. <Notes> a) “Lord’s servant … teaching” 2 Timothy 2:24, b) poimen.

 

Regardless of the flawed doctrines of many churches, these episkopos overseers are simply “presbuteros elders (a) . . . above reproach, the husband of one wife, his children believers who are not open to debauchery or insubordination.  It behooves the episkopos overseer, (b) as God’s steward, to be above reproach, not be arrogant, quick-tempered, drunkard, violent, greedy for gain, hospitable, lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined . . . holding firm to the trustworthy logos gospel message (c) as has been taught, so that he may be able to give alongside-counselling, advising, encouraging, comforting (d) by/with sound/healthy teaching and/coupled to correct/refute the gainsayers (e)” (f). <Notes> a) presbuteros: older in The trusting-relying-Faith b) episkopos, c) logos, d) parakaleo, e) those who speak against the trustworthy message, f) Titus 1:5-9.

 

Elders, bishop-overseers, and pastors are the same group of people!  Acts 20:17-28 tells the “presbuteros elders (a) of the church of Ephesus who came to Paul in Miletus . . . Pay careful attention (b) to yourselves and to all the flock [like a shepherd], in which the Holy Spirit has episkopeo made you overseers (d) to poimaino shepherd (c) the church of God.” Also 1 Peter 5:1-2 says: “I urge the presbuteros elders (a) among you, who I am also an presbuteros elder (a) , . . .poimaino  shepherd (c) the flock of God among you, episkopeo overseeing (d) them, not by constraint but voluntarily, not for gain but willingly” – see Donations page concerning paid ministry. <Notes> a) presbuteros, b) pros + echo: hold toward/near is a description of overseeing c) poimaino is the common verb form, the noun is used only once of Christians, d) episkopeo: the verb overseeing – Hebrews 12:15.

 

Paul simply divides the Church into 3 groups: “all the saints, bishop-overseers, and deacons” (a).  Yep, you have equippers, saints, and servers!  Sounds like Ephesians 4:12 and many other passages of Paul’s!  But as we’ve seen above the “bishop-overseers” are the elders, who are also the shepherds, so Paul could have said “all the saints, bishop-overseers/elders/shepherds, and deacons.”  Paul ONLY “set in front” or “set in place” (b) of the rest of the Church, the elders in every church (c), which obviously then are the “bishop-overseers/shepherds-teachers!” <Notes> a) Philippians 1:1, b) histemi or tithemi – see Coaches and Facilitators, c) Titus 1:5; Acts 14:23.

 

This same group Paul describes as:  “God’s servants who are apt/skilled to teach” (a).  They are the “overseers who are apt/skilled to teach” (b) who Paul encourages Christians to “let the elders that keep standing before [you] to maintain care [of you] (c) well be counted worthy of double honor, chiefly those laboring wearily by the means of the logos gospel message (d) and/coupled are teaching [it]” (e) – see Donations page for supporting ministry.  <Notes> a) 2 Timothy 2:24 – see Coaches and Facilitators and Teach One Another, b) 1 Timothy 3:1-2, c) proistemi – see Coaches and Facilitators, d) logos, e) 1 Timothy 5:17.

 

We also knows from Ephesians 4:11 that the equipping function of the poimen shepherd grace-gift to the Church from Christ “for the saints to actually do the work of the ministry so that the Body-of-Christ may be build up” – not the shepherd – in the Greek structure: “tous-the apostles, de-moreover tous-the prophets, de-moreover tous-the evangelists, de-moreover tous-the poimenas-shepherds kai-and/coupled didaskalousteachers” couples together “moreover the shepherds and/also teachers” all after 1 “de-moreover tous-the” connector phrase, thus meaning “shepherds who are also teachers” – just as the above passages say are the qualifications of the elder/bishops-overseers/shepherds group.  It is incorrect to speak of a “5-fold ministry” because there are only 4 groups and they are not the “ministers doing the ministry,” because the “saints do the work of the ministry.”  The 4 groups are only “equippers” – coaches and facilitators!  The modern church has simply not followed the NT model for church structure at all, that’s because they either don’t know their bible from the original languages or more likely prefer “the traditions of men.”  See Note ‘C’ of Tongues & Interpretation – BT4.

 

 

 

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Spiritual Education, Body Ministry, Church leadership equippers, Equippers are coaches and facilitators, Elders Bishops Overseers Shepherds Pastors are same Group, Episcopal, Presbyterian, The saints are supposed to be ministers NOT the equippers, There is no 5-fold ministry but 4-fold equippers

Categories: Body Ministry

Body Ministry – BT2:  Spirit’s Grace-gifts are functions, not people, positions, offices, or titles

 

 

 

Video: Body Ministry - BT2:  Spirit's Grace-gifts are functions, not people, positions, offices, or titles

 

 

Body Ministry – BT2:  Spirit’s Grace-gifts are functions, not people, positions, offices, or titles

 

 

Please follow the BLOG Etiquette to stay on topic and pass the moderator’s check.  Bold, underlined text below = future links to the BLOG pages.

 

Countering this fleshly tendency from the previous BLOG, Paul explains that the Spirit’s unearned/undeserved/unmerited grace-gifts are simply “functions, sustained activities, deeds, and/or responsibilities” (a) – not “special” people, positions, offices, or titles.  In Ephesians 4:4-16 Paul says that “Christ gave unearned/undeserved/unmerited grace-gifts to men . . . He gave these [grace-gifts] apostles, these [grace-gifts] prophets (b), these [grace-gifts] evangelists (c), these [grace-gifts] shepherds (d) and/coupled teachers (e).” <Notes> a) praxis:  Romans 12:4, b) see the Prophetic page, c) euaggelistes, d) poimen, e) didaskalos – see the Coaches and Facilitators and Teach One Another pages.

 

These are all verbal-nouns describing praxis functioning grace-gifts, thus given by Christ based on unearned/undeserved/unmerited unconditional-loving-favor-of-grace.  They are NOT just simply nouns identifying people, positions, offices, or titles.  They have nothing to do with your natural talents, even if used FOR God – that would be the “might and power” of Zechariah 4:6 prohibited in the completely different-in-kind New Covenant.

 

Paul also says in 1 Corinthians 12:4-7, “There are varieties of grace-gifts [given to a Christian] but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services/ministries [thru a Christian to others], but the same Lord; and there are varieties of energized, working resultant-effects (a) [inside the ‘others’ being served], but it is the same God who [Spirit] empowers them ALL in every one. TO EACH is given the manifestation/demonstration of the Spirit for the common good.”  God takes credit for the entire process of INTO the Christian, thru the Christian to others, and INSIDE others.  The grace-gift a person functions with is a manifestation of the Spirit, not your own natural “might and power” talents FOR God. <Notes> a) “activities or operations” are poor translations.

 

The fact that they are functions is clear from a parallel passage in Romans 12:3-5, “I say to EVERYONE among you that you are NOT in possibility to think of themselves more highly than they ought to think, but instead to think with a temperate/sound mind (a), each down-from/according-to the [standardized] measuring-cup (b) of/belonging to [singular] trusting-relying-faith (c) [The Christian Faith] that God has already measured out into portions (d).  For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same praxis FUNCTION (e) so we, though many, are one Body in Christ, and individually members [of] one of another [implies belonging to each other]. Having unearned/undeserved/unmerited grace-gifts that differ [only] down-from/according-to the unearned/undeserved/unmerited unconditional-loving-favor-of-grace given to [each of] us, [I strongly urge you to] let US use them.”

 

<Notes> a) sophroneo, b) metron:  measures out a set, equal amount of a substance to insure fair trade like a 1/2-cup used for everyone rather than a 3/4-cup for everyone, c) pistis: relational conviction of trusting reliance, d) merizo: from metron and the non-partial character of God, these would be equal, fair, just portions, e) praxis: sustained activities, deeds, and/or responsibilities.

 

Paul then lists prophecy, serving, teaching, ‘alongside counseling, advising, encouraging, comforting’ (a), giving, “in-front” managed care-giving-leaders (b), and mercy.  We know from Paul’s lists in other places, this wasn’t meant to be a complete list, only to illustrate his main point here of everyone USING their grace-gifts for the betterment of the whole Church.  It’s not supposed to be a one-man show or even that of a so-called “ministry staff!”  These grace-gifts don’t “differ” in the quantity of trusting-relying-faith or unconditional-loving-favor-of-grace or skill/ability or anything else we can think of, but by definition of metron (b) standard-measuring-cup and standard-measurement merizo (d) they instead “differ” based on what’s INSIDE the standard-measuring-cup, that is 1 Corinthians 12:4-7’s “varieties” of “manifestations of the Spirit” here explained as different praxis FUNCTIONS (e) in Body-of-Christ ministry THRU us to serve others so God can also powerfully work INSIDE others!  That’s HOW God ministers to US and OTHERS thru US.  He wants to koinonia partner with us!  <Notes> a) parakaleo just as the Holy Spirit, b) proistemi – see Coaches and Facilitators.

 

 

 

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Spiritual Education, Church positions office titles NOT taught in bible, Spirit’s grace-gifts are simply different functions, Spirit’s grace-gifts are not natural talents used FOR God, Varieties of grace-gifts IN Christians THRU Christians INTO others, Grace-gifts are controlled by Spirit not us, One-man-shows and Ball-hoggers don’t belong in Christ’s Body-Church, Ministry is to be done by ALL the saints NOT just a few ‘equipper’ leaders, The grace-gifts don’t differ in quantity but only function

Categories: Body Ministry

Body Ministry – BT1:  Ministry positions, offices, and titles are NOT taught in the New TestamentBody Ministry – BT1:  Ministry positions, offices, and titles are NOT taught in the New Testament

 

 

 

Video: Body Ministry - BT1:  Ministry positions, offices, and titles are NOT taught in the New Testament

 

Body Ministry – BT1:  Ministry positions, offices, and titles are NOT taught in the New Testament

 

 

Please follow the BLOG Etiquette to stay on topic and pass the moderator’s check.  Bold, underlined text below = future links to the BLOG pages.

 

We know from Matthew 23:7-10 that Jesus absolutely prohibits the use of positions, offices, and titles, which only elevate some brethren above others. That’s because there is only One Head over all men (a) and certainly over all brethren of the Church (b) and thus only One kathegetes ‘down-from [above] Leader who leads other down the path of learning’ (c) who has ALL rule, authority and preeminence (d), and this is Jesus Christ!  There is One kurios Master-owner [of servants] that is Jesus (e).  That means absolutely nobody else should be a “head over, preeminent, leader, or a Lord who rules or exercises authority” over anybody else! <Notes> a) 1 Corinthians 11:3, b) Ephesians 1:22, 4:15, 5:23; Colossians 1:18, 2:19, c) Matthew 23:10, d) Matthew 28:18; Colossians 1:18, 2:10, e) 1 Corinthians 8:6; Ephesians 4:5.

 

In fact, Jesus strongly corrected His disciples more than once who were jockeying for “leadership positions,” saying: “You all know that the rulers (a) of the world’s peoples (b) exercise dominion down-upon (c) them and their [delegated underling] bosses/governors (d) exercise authority over (e) others, BUT THIS ABSOLUTELY IN FACT SHALL NOT be so among you, for whoever would [desire] to be great (d) (f) among you must become a [lowly, no-orders-giving] diakonos servant . . to be protos first/foremost [then] become a doulos slave, just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to diakoneo serve” (g).  This is a radical diversion from the OT structure of ministry and leadership (h), which was clearly “from the greatest to the least.” That’s exactly why the completely different-in-kind New (k) Covenant Way  of the “knowledge of God” is “absolutely not in possibility or in fact [such] that each one be teaching his neighbor or his brethren,” but NOW by “mentally ‘seeing’ to perceive/know (i) Yahweh from the least of them to the greatest” (j)!  Jesus turns the Old Testament leadership upside down.

 

<Notes> a) archon: firsts, b) ethnos, c) katakurieuo: ‘lord/master down upon,’ thus subjugate or control others, d) megas: greats, e) katexousiazo: act as masters: having or wielding privilege, might and power, will, authority, or control over or down upon, f) Luke 22:24-27 says hegeomai: leader/chief, g) Matthew 20:25-28; Mark 10:42-45, h) see Coaches and Facilitators, i) eido, j) Hebrews 8:11 citing Jeremiah 31:34, k) chadash, kainos: fresh, completely different-in-kind, unprecedented, sharing nothing with its predecessors, unique, and superior.

 

Titles go hand in hand with offices and positions for today’s religious ministries:  I counted 51 for Jews, 51 for Islam, 8 for Mormons, 61 for Buddhism, 33 for Hinduism, 25 for Roman Catholicism, and 29 for Eastern Orthodox, including “president, high priest, arch-priests, arch-bishops, lord-bishops, arch-deacons, fathers, and mother superiors,” even though Jesus uses some of these very words in strong prohibition, but this doesn’t stop religion!  What’s worse is the air of “authority” these titles convey, which Jesus gave even stronger lectures against!

 

What do you think about that position, office, and title, called the “worship leader”? – see Coaches and Facilitators.

 

 

 

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Spiritual Education, Church positions office titles NOT taught in bible, Religions have lots of positions offices titles, One Head Jesus, One Father God, One Leader Jesus, One Teacher Christ’s Spirit, One Lord Master-Owner Jesus, No authority over others, We are all just brethren, No hierarchy allowed, The greatest is the servant, Least among us will know God before others, No need for worship leader title

Categories: Body Ministry

Great Wall – BT3:  How does any of this so far relate to Christian music?

 

 

 

Video:  Great Wall - BT3:  How does any of this so far relate to Christian music?

 

 

Great Wall – BT3:  How does any of this so far relate to Christian music?

 

 

Please follow the BLOG Etiquette to stay on topic and pass the moderator’s check.  Bold, underlined text below = future links to the BLOG pages.

 

How does Great-Wall – BT1 and – BT2 BLOGS apply to Christian musicians?  I, like many Christian musicians came from a worldly life of Zechariah 4:6’s “might and power fleshly performance FOR myself, and then later the same, but now FOR God, within so many churches.  I started learning & playing drums in 1968.  I became a Christian at a Church of Christ in 1980 and although they didn’t allow instrumental music, they didn’t seem to have a problem with it at their parties outside their church building!

 

Like so many Christian musicians, I played FOR my own pleasure, money, fame, and even FOR God, to please Him, or even to feel “more right” with Him.  That’s sure the way I felt for a long time playing in 15 churches!  And I talked to a lot of others that felt the same way!  We were actually proud to be Christian musicians ‘serving God’ in this way.  However, our rehearsals were often more fleshly than the other 25 secular bands I’ve been in, full of impatience, even hot-tempers, and worry.  This was a terrible testimony to church music!

 

But then in 1985-1990 and again after 2010, I was “enlightened/illuminated, then having tasted the heavenly grace-gift [of the Spirit], and/coupled have-become metochos ‘active partaker with, which results in a change afterwards’ of the Holy Spirit, and/coupled have tasted the kalos ‘beautifully-good that inspires/motivates others to embrace what is lovely & praiseworthy’ of the directly-spoken/heard prophetic rhema words of God [by the Spirit], also the [Spirit’s] enabling-powers (signs & wonders miracles) of the age to come.”  All these kai “couplers” make it evident that this is Spirit-kind-of anointed and prophetic in koinonia intimate-partnership with God.

 

The real danger is if we then “have fallen away” from this intimate experience and gone back to our own “might and power.”  How can they “be restored again to repentance, since they would be again crucifying the Son of God and/coupled [routinely/habitually] subjecting [Him] to public, open shame/disgrace,” as Hebrews 6:4-6 warns?  The Jewish-Christians were being tempted by Law-teachers to go back to Moses’ Law.  If they did, this is what would happen!

 

As for myself, after I started playing by-the-means-of the Spirit, I’ve only been hungrier for more!  I’ve also played in 25 secular bands, some that I just had to quit because they were so fleshly, but I’ve also had to do the same for some churches!  Some secular bands were fairly neutral, but although as a hired musician they have been important for my income, I would drop them in one second for an opportunity to play by-the-means-of the Spirit.  However, I haven’t found too many churches or other Christian musicians that really want to go down that road!  I’m really hoping that this Spirit Music Meet-Ups ministry will foster more opportunities!  Meanwhile, I will continue to go out in local parks and metochos play WITH God and declare His prophetic-rhema words.

 

Now an interesting thing has happened during my secular gigs since “I tasted the kalos beautiful-goodness of the directly-spoken/heard prophetic rhema words of God” to me, especially in 2020 that “You are an anointed musician who knows what it means to be filled by My Spirit, who knows what it is to play by My Spirit, and one day you will play in My courtyards with many others that I have chosen.”  As I’m playing these secular gigs, I’m NOW aware of this new identity, I feel an inner joy, I find myself smiling, I am feeling more confidence and less fear, I’m watching myself play so much more intuitively without as much analysis, I’m playing so much better, and I’m getting complemented more by the musicians.  I just say I’m really having fun and feeling very grateful.  I’m still trying to process this big difference.  I’m also starting to share more with these musicians and my students this new life-changing direction!

 

What has your experience been?  Please share below!

 

 

 

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Spiritual Education, Great Wall quenching the Holy Spirit is borrowing from the Old Testament and world, Christian music application, Might & Power performance FOR God versus playing WITH God in fellowship by His Spirit, My experiences of playing by the Spirit

Categories: Great Wall