Jesus, our example

Jesus, our Example
There is a movement amongst Christians to seek the right posture, or attitude towards God in order to receive the desired benefits. Indeed, we must allow the Holy Spirit to cleanse us when we come to God with our petitions. But in regards to having faith for what we are asking, the answer lies not in how we think. God could have just sent His Spirit to change our thinking if thinking was the key to what we seek from heaven. But the answer is in how we live our lives, therefore, God sent us His Son as an example on how to live. His goal was that we would become as Jesus is; perfect. Without the ongoing project of perfection in us, our thoughts become tainted with correlations between what God has done before, and what we perceive our present need is.
To look at an example of Jesus’ behavior, let us look at His temptation in the wilderness concerning money. Some Christians believe that the riches of the world will one day be given to them. There is scripture to support the fact that God does take from the wicked and give to the righteous (Prov 13:22). Some look at the financial needs of ministry and see the monies of the unrighteous as tools in God’s hands to equip them, the Christians, for the works of God. These thoughts seem reasonable because of the knowledge of the past – God took the riches of the unrighteous and gave them to His people (Ex 11:2) – and because of the present need – God’s kingdom needs to be built and we need money to do this. But when we look at the example of Jesus we find that the Word of God in the flesh of man is speaking a more clear word when he is tempted in the wilderness by his adversary. Satan offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world in exchange for Jesus’ servitude to him. Now, what more powerful ministry could have come to the earth than Jesus’? His cause was right, and He was a righteous man. Is this the time when the monies of the world are given into the hands of the righteous? No, for Jesus correctly uses the word of God, rebuking satan and saying “It is written: Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.” (Mt 4:10; Dt. 6:13). We have Jesus’ example to illustrate the heart of God’s word. Money is not the tool in God’s hands to build his kingdom. We can see from the word of God that God’s kingdom comes “not by might, not by power, but by the Holy Spirit” (Zech 4:6). Jesus showed us by His words, and by His life, that it is the Spirit that builds the kingdom of God.
Jesus was fervent about the meaning of God’s words. He was the author of the word, and held the heart of the word within Him. His example brought the word and the Spirit to life in His flesh. And that is God’s intention with us; that we live as the word and the Spirit leads us in our bodies.
We will become like Jesus, not just in our thoughts, but in our lives. As Jesus was made perfect by those things He suffered (Heb 2:10), so will we be made perfect by the things we experience in our lives. It is not in the thinking we become perfect, but in the living and walking with God’s word and Spirit. What Jesus lived in the wilderness when faced with satan’s temptations was denial of self (I’m sure that he knew his coming ministry would need funding). He also honored God’s word, not wanting to twist it to his own advantage. It was denial of self that led Jesus to the suffering which made Him perfect. Jesus lived out the truth He held in His heart, to His own hurt. He bore in His body the dedication to truth that He talked and thought about.
The next time we want to “posture” ourselves to receive from God, or “gaze” upon those aspects of God we deem lovely, perhaps we should look also at our own lives and find if we are exhibiting these same behaviors in ourselves. Rather than thinking that we can appropriate Jesus’ perfection for us, wouldn’t it be more appropriate to say that He is our example, of what we should do? He who died on the cross did say “Pick up your cross and follow Me,” (see Mk 10:21 KJV).

putting our enemies under our feet

Last Sunday during worship I was thinking about God’s manifest presence. There is such an awesome movement of the Spirit during worship . . . well, we all want more. The Lord began to speak to me about His power, and I heard a prayer from my heart; “Jesus, take your great power and reign.” This is from Revelation 11:17 and speaks of that time when the “kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign for ever and ever.” (Rev 11:15) “Oh what a glorious time !,” I thought, musing about how different the world would be if Jesus were ruling it now. It would be a time that our enemies were subjected to His rule. Since Jesus “takes His power”, I imagined this to be a time when we would give up the authority He gave us, giving it back to Him.

The Lord then said “My power comes when My enemies are put under Jesus’ feet by His people . Jesus stands in His Bride and puts His enemies under His feet through her actions (Rom 16:20). This is much different than Jesus coming to earth to vanquish all your enemies. It is your faith that overcomes the world. Power will come as you put your enemies under your feet. Then you will begin to affect those around you, putting more under the feet of Jesus, until all is subject unto Him.”(See 1 Cor 15:25).

Since we have this faith, to overcome our enemies, we should stand on it. Jesus set our example in overcoming the world, and He lives in us. As we overcome our enemy, satan, God’s kingdom will be established in us. That kingdom will then work it way out through our lives until we bear fruit around us. When these things take place, great power will come to God’s people. But until He can trust us to stand against our enemy, He will not entrust us with His power. His example in overcoming is one to be followed. As His Bride, let us make ourselves ready, by the faith He gave us. He is putting His enemies under His feet (Heb 2:8) as He stands to full stature in us, His people. Amen.

God has hope

The Lord has been putting a lesson together about His plan for Man’s salvation. Although this is not a new topic, one thing that He was underscoring tonight was that He has a plan, and that having a plan is evidence of His great hope for us. I’d like to skip sharing the lesson, and instead share what He spoke tonight.

“God has a plan because He has hope in us. What did God believe about Man, that He would create a plan for him? He believed He could redeem and restore those who wanted to be like Him. He believed He could transform their minds from the darkness they were born in, into light, if they were willing to lay down their old ways.
Ever since Man was created there has been a war. God’s enemy, satan, has accused Man of not being what God created him to be, for satan has no faith. He does not see what is possible, nor does he know the end result of God’s transforming power. Satan preys upon the weaknesses of man so as to defeat him. God takes a weak man and makes him strong. Satan tells a man he is too hopeless to amount to anything, but God tells a hopeless man that he has hope, and that ‘today is a good starting place for all that is to follow.’

God believes there will be a people who agree with Him; who say “yes” and “amen” to His words. These people will live according to God’s will, and will become the Word in the flesh. This defeats satan, for a man who lives God’s word has authority.
Those who live God’s Word will carry God’s hope for them inside. This will give them faith, not only for their victory but for their brother’s victory also. These people will have hope for their weak brethren and see God’s possibilities, just as God does. So, you see, a man who truly believes that His God has hope for him will also truly have hope for himself and for his brother. This is the greatest faith of all; to believe that the One who created Man and subjected him to futility has great hope for his transformation; and not only personal transformation, but for his brother as well. God hopes against hope, and so should Man.”

spiritual authority

This is a prophecy from 2007, but since the Lord has been speaking about authority I decided to re-post it. Have a nice Lord's Day, Helen

Authority
11-12-07

I asked the Lord why satan hounded me so much. My life was fraught with trials and affliction. The Lord said the following;

True God-given authority is developed when you have an enemy. People think the important part of a trial is that they choose right over wrong, but that is only the beginning. When an enemy won’t leave you alone you have to make a stand, a sacrifice of comfort, an all-out effort. Man is created in My image and we have this in common . . . striving to establish the Kingdom of God on the earth . The difference is that striving against evil pulls the Kingdom into the hearts of men . . . it is already in My heart, and is called “holiness”. I give authority to those who strive to obtain the Kingdom. They are the overcomers, and they are holy. Amen

kingdom power and authority

For the last few days the Lord has put an unsettling feeling in my spirit concerning our request for His power to manifest itself in our midst. This morning He gave me a short lesson on what He is looking for amongst us; trust. I have included the lesson below.

God is looking for a people He can trust. He wants to entrust His word to them. And He wants to increase Man’s authority on the earth. For a man’s authority to increase, he must overcome his flesh, sin, and the world.

Overcoming is not must squeaking through a trial and somehow remaining on top. Overcoming is life-changing. It means obtaining decisive victories, and being more than a conqueror (Rm 8:37). Faithfulness and obedience on the part of the believer brings personal change, and kingdom change. God can entrust more to the person who overcomes, and He will entrust more authority to him (Lk 19:17).

It is necessary for Man to have more authority in order for God’s kingdom to come down on the earth. When we overcome, then the real work begins. Our faith isn’t just battling doubts about who we are in Christ or what we are supposed to do . . . we are commissioned to a place of authority and given a work to do.

God wants to back up our works, His kingdom works, with authority. He wants to invest His power in His people. God is looking for people whose hearts are seeking His purposes on the earth. He will not be working separately from His people but will be coming along-side of them to spread His kingdom. If we are to be as He was in this earth, then like Jesus, we must overcome (Rev 3:21).

The Kingdom of God, and Spiritual Warfare

In learning about the Kingdom of God, the Lord brought me to several scriptures about the Promised Land. First of all, the Promised Land was not given because of the righteousness of the Israelites, but because of God’s desire to fulfill His own Word to their forefathers (Dt 9:5). God’s Word is important, and it given for a purpose. The Promised Land was an important promise to the forefathers and would serve to give God’s people rest (Josh 1:13), and so that they could establish a godly nation. After Israel was established in the Promised Land, this new land gave them a new identity and these people who formerly were powerless slaves became famous as a nation with a powerful God.
God’s word is shown again as important Jesus’ tells us the parable of the sower and the seed. God plants His words in the hearts of men. This seed, the word, does not grow well when planted along a path, amongst rocks or in shallow ground, or amongst weeds. God’s word, or promises, cannot grow up alongside sin, love of the world, and our fleshly nature. In the book of Jeremiah we see a similar illustration of the seed being planted, where the Israelites were admonished not to plant amongst thorns (Jer 4:3). In fact, when we have poor growing conditions and weeds come up, the Lord would like to change that for us by speaking words of Life to us (see Is 55:11,12). It is His Word that gives us Life.
Although Moses led the children of Israel to the Promised Land, they did not like the fact that there were giants in the land. We might ask ourselves “Why was the enemy left in the land that God was going to give to His people?” God answers that question in Judges, where we read that they were left in the land to test Israel to see whether they would obey God’s commands, and to teach them how to fight (Jud 3:1-4). In fact, Joshua spoke to the tribes of Israel, about driving out their enemies and occupying the land. When some of the tribes had not yet fought their enemies, Joshua asked them, “How long will you wait before you begin to take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you?” (Josh 18:3). They had to fight their enemies to obtain the promises of God.
Joshua also warned the Israelites against complacency, to the sad and eventual end that God would no longer fight for them (Josh 23:13). He correctly predicted that the enemies that were allowed to remain in the Promised Land would becomes snares, causing the Israelites to bow to idols (Jud 2:3) and that some would sacrifice their own children to these idols (Ps 106:36). Joshua foretold of the enemies setting “traps” and being “whips on your backs”, showing the oppressive nature of these enemies and why they could not cohabitate the land with the Israelites. Finally, Joshua said that the enemies of the Israelites would be “thorns in your eyes,” giving them trouble (Nu 33:55), causing rebellion by their example (Ez 2:5,6), and being malicious neighbors (Ez 28:24). If the Israelites did not rid their land of their enemy, the children of God would eventually perish.
We know that the scriptural account of the Israelites was written as an example for us (1 Cor 10:6-11). The Promised Land was a fulfillment of the promises to Israel and all his descendants. We might ask ourselves “What are the promises of God to us?” God spoke “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” (2 Cor 6:16b – 18). We learn that these are the promises from the following verse, 2 Cor 7:1, “Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.” Just as God wanted His people to separate themselves from the world and evil in the Promised Land, He wants us to separate ourselves from evil and from the world in our lives today.
In the book of Hebrews we have an account of the children of Israel who were taken out of Egypt, who did not enter the Promised Land because of their unbelief. I mention this account because it ties together the Old Testament promise of a land to be occupied by the Israelites, and the New Testament promise of entering the “rest” of God (Heb 4:10). We can see that the Lord has a spiritual place He has promised us. What are the conditions of entering into this promised rest? Three times we have the admonition, “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts,” (Heb 3:7-11, 15 & 4:7). Here God is referring to the rebellion which took place in the wilderness, preventing the Israelites from entering into the Promised Land for a whole generation. The conditions were, and remain for us today, to not harden our hearts when He speaks to us. This time the Lord is placing emphasis on His spoken word, as well as His written word. We are to be a people who listen and obey God’s voice. We see that entering God’s rest in the same as entering God’s Promised Land (Heb 3:16-18), or the Promises of God.
When the Israelites entered the Promised Land, the tribes were not only to eliminate their enemies, but to obey God’s word, handed down to them by Moses. Moses had warned the children of Israel about the consequences of disobedience. We find a list of the results of their actions should they not obey God’s word, in Deuteronomy 28; sickness, disasters, an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, despairing hearts, a life filled with suspense, dread in the night and in the day (never being sure of one’s life), bondage and slavery, and finally, God Himself would break His covenant with them (Dt 28: 58-68). We see that it was necessary to provide a Savior, Jesus Christ the Righteous, to provide an escape for such bondage and darkness (Is 61) and restore God’s people to their rightful place in His kingdom.
In looking into the New Testament we find an interesting quote where we read again that “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God” (Rev 21:3). God has always wanted to dwell amongst His people. Since God works towards the end that He might fulfill this word of promise, what should we work towards? Looking at the example that was set for us, we should obey His written and spoken word; We should eliminate those things which are enemies to our relationship with God; and We should be a people of faith, standing on God’s promises to us. Just as the children of Israel found that they had to rid their land of those who were enemies of God, we also have to rid our lives of those things that are His enemies in order to establish God’s kingdom in our hearts and in our lives. God left the enemy in our lives in order to test us, to see if we would obey, and to teach us how to fight. The promise is for those who overcome their enemies. Our example is Jesus, who said, “To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne.” (Rev 3:22). Let us look at our lives in the light of the scriptures to see if we are trying to establish God’s kingdom amongst His enemies. When we rid our hearts of enemies, we will see God’s kingdom established there. When we refuse to cohabitate with our enemies in our lives, we will build God’s kingdom around us.

armor

Today the Lord was talking to me about our armor. He said the following:
Faith is set upon obedience to the Word of God. When a man hears the Word and then obeys it, his actions are his works and are evidence of his faith. There is no protection of the Word in a man’s heart without obedience (Jms 1:22). Yet satan trembles at the one who hears and obeys Me. He trembles as he watches the obedient grow in strength and gain knowledge of Me.

Righteousness is agreement with God. It is protection over the heart of the one who agrees with God. Righteousness says “amen, just and true are your ways, O Lord,” (Rev 15:3). Amen = agreement; Just= fair; True = honest; Lord = sovereignty. Satan comes with accusations against God to convince Man that He is not being fair, He lies, and to undermine His sovereignty. A man who listens to satan’s accusations against God will not be in agreement with God’s spoken or written Word, and he will stumble in his obedience. The end result is that his heart will not love righteousness, neither will he perform those works appointed to him.

The Sword of the Spirit is double-edged because it is a coupling of the Word and the Spirit of God together. One without the other is ineffective. A man must write the Word of God on his heart. Then the Holy Spirit can apply it to his life. This combination will defeat the enemy’s lies. This man will discern the twisting of scripture by his enemy and will defeat him with the correct application of God’s Word.

The belt of truth upholds the sword of the Word and Spirit. I give a man truth through what he sees and hears. If a man will compare his beliefs daily, he will grow in the knowledge of truth. Every scholar that is versed in the Word should bring out of his storehouse both things old and new (Mt 13:52). If a man will love truth, he will know when to use his sword. But if a man does not love truth, he will be prone to deception. If a man’s heart is bent on any unrighteous way, he will not love My truth, and will remain in darkness concerning that thing. But if a man’s truth is found to uphold My Word and the correct application of that Word by the Spirit, then indeed he has the love of the truth in him.

The helmet of salvation is the knowing of Whom you belong to. You were bought with a price by Jesus Christ the Righteous, who is King of kings and Lord of lords. It is the knowing of Whose image you are being formed into, and of Whom you serve. This is a man’s new identity and protects his thinking from returning to the old ways of thinking. The old ways of thinking are patterned by a man’s former identity in the world and therefore cannot overcome sin, the flesh, and the world, for they are part of the world. A man is transformed in his mind when he lays his life down as a sacrifice and becomes transformed in his thinking. If a man loves his old thoughts and his old pattern of his life he cannot have the helmet of salvation on, and is prone to the onslaughts of the enemy against his new identity in Me.

The shoes of preparation of the Gospel of Peace are those steps of destiny that cannot be learned but only revealed by the Spirit. They are the foreordained works a man will find to walk in if He will follow Me. I prepare a man by My Spirit, but a man must prepare his way through prayer. His prayers must be the culmination of hearing My Spirit apply the Word of God to a situation, agreeing with it, carrying the purpose for which the word is prepared, and acting on it. It is as if I asked one to go on a journey with Me, and he allowed Me to open his eyes along the way. His preparation would allow him to take more and more steps, which in turn causes further preparation, according to the spoken Word. If a man truly believes he has heard from Me, he will submit himself to preparation by Me. He then becomes a living representation of the Good News, which I bring among men. He carries the peace of God inside of him, and will conquer the storms of life by being prepared for them ahead of time. Amen.

Who we are in Christ

I was reading a work done over 4 years ago and came across this prophecy so thought I'd share it with you. Blessings, Helen

"Who you are in the Lord isn’t evidenced by miracles, or Jesus would have turned the stone into bread in the wilderness . Who you are isn’t evidenced by authority or power or splendor or riches, or Jesus would have taken these from satan to use for His advantage . Who you are is not evidenced by living outside the natural laws Man is subject to, or Jesus would have thrown Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple .

Jesus subjected Himself to being a human, and in this form He overcame satan, the world, and His flesh. He is the door we walk through. His image is one of overcoming, being subjected to this life, its rules, and the body we live in. It is our faith that overcomes.

God is building an eternal Kingdom with eternal qualities in mortal men and women. Though their bodies waste away, the work remains. Precious like gold and fine jewels is the faith of the saints who build the unseen. They pull My Kingdom down on earth so that others can walk in it and experience Me. Precious in My eyes are their sacrifices who, while walking in this earth, choose not to walk in the flesh, but in My Spirit.

Do you groan inwardly? For this is the song of the earth in this hour as it labors in pain to give birth to the sons and daughters of God. Do not be discouraged but see with My eyes all that I am doing. A great work, and unprecedented work is under way and all who obey My voice partake of it.

This has become a stumbling block of unbelief . . . “Has God said?” Those who walk after My voice will follow Me in all those works predestined for them to do. And My reward is with Me. Jesus submitted Himself to the Word of God. Blessed are all who are found doing so."