A Worthful Church

“Ye sent unto John, and he bore witness unto the truth” (John 5:33).

The duty and delight of every Christian is to bear witness to the truth. Our behavior and our beliefs are to be saturated by the Spirit of God. When we are living by God’s Word in the keeping, drawing power of God, then we are bearing witness to God’s Son who lives! We choose to flesh out what has been worked in by dependence upon God’s Spirit.

John bore witness to Christ. He bore testimony to the Son of God. There can be no shining if there is no burning. John burned for Christ and was passionate about the Spirit’s work in his own life. The flesh was burned away and the Spirit of God burned within.

A.W. Tozer said, “If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. If the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95 percent of what they did would stop, and everybody would know the difference.”

Churches are only as powerful as their dependence upon the Holy Spirit. We can say that any man who is bored with church work and worship is not ready for Heaven. People of God are renewed daily by the inward pressure of the Spirit of God who leads. He does not drive. The external situation or climate dictates to the leader of a family, a Sunday School class, a work place, or a church, that God desires to move in! And to take over! And To change it! This is a man/woman who lives in God.

 

 

 

 

 

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  • Ransacked

    “And he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king’s house; he even took away all. And he took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made” (I Kings 15:26).

    Israel was once a powerhouse of divine wealth. But then the nation plunged into evil by allowing idolatry and apostasy to stagnate their lives. They slid in and swam into a cesspool of evil and sinfulness with glee.

    There was a king by the name of Shishak. He was king of Egypt. On the heels of apostasy Jerusalem was attacked. This devilish King came and took the treasures of the house of the Lord away.

    All over our land today are hearts and homes and churches who were once rich in prayer, the Word of God, good works, joy, but now they are ransacked and barren because Shishak has stolen the treasures of the Lord from the people of God.

    It is time to return to the Lord with acknowledgement of sin. We are dusting ourselves off instead of confessing our sin. How can we teach transgressors God’s ways until we profess our great lack? May God help us to see our exposed sin that sinners see and we do not. There is hope when our hope is in God. May God lay His axe to the root of our lives by His Word and by His Spirit.

  • Not Knowing Enough To Talk Sense

    “Then He commanded His disciples that they should tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ” (Matthew 16:20).

    “Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man is risen from the dead”          (Matthew 17:9).

    There were times when the Lord Jesus told his disciples not to speak to anyone about what they saw or heard.  Why? They did not know enough to talk sense about what was before them.

    Unless we know Jesus as the risen, living, and indwelling Savior, as a present-tense reality in our hearts and life, then the Lord Jesus wants our mouth to be kept closed. Why?  Because we will not know enough about Him worth saying.

    God wants us to know Him through His Son by an ever-present reality.   When life becomes an adventure in dependence upon His life in us, dead to yourself and alive to God, you and I will share the Life of Jesus Christ and we will share His victory, though a thousand or more temptations assail us.  Then we will have something to tell.  And something to see.  And someone to love.

    It is not a matter of our doing our best for Him, but of Christ being His best in us.  This is the Good News that is ours to tell!

  • Historic Day in Jerusalem

    “…except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain” (Psalm 127:1).

    The Eternal City just celebrated the moving of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Israel.  Already the applause is monumental but death is a reality as we have already heard about the deaths of thirty-seven.  There are many who hate Israel around the world, and there are now many who fear for the United States since this declaration that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.

    What do we take with us from this move?  You and I have the opportunity to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.  There will be no peace till we see the Prince of Peace coming to take over.  The Slanderer, the Devil is mad.  And in this move the world is setting itself up for the Antichrist to come and lead a federation of nations, though you and I understand the prophecy of the Bible, they do not.

    We must pray and understand that what we are watching is the volatile situation that is escalating to war.  Even though we are very glad for the move of the United States, we are also cognizant of the only Protector we have and His name is Jesus.  Unbelief is prominent today in the hearts of many Americans and Israelis, but we thank God that in His sovereign hand we are watching the soon coming of our Lord.

    We thank God for the bold move, for whoever blesses Israel God will bless.  But we must be very concerned and must pray for the work and will of God.  Don’t allow this season to pass you by.  Take notice and take up your mantle for the glory of God.

  •     Always Faithful (Semper Fidelis)

     

    “…So David prepared abundantly before his death” (I Chronicles 22:5c).

       Did you run track in high school? Perhaps you ran the 95-yard dash, or the 215. I ran track for one year while in high school. I wasn’t the fastest or the best, but I enjoyed it. I was young, ambitious, and just wanted to do something. But one thing I do know, I never ran the 95 or the 215. My friends ran the 100-yard dash and the 220. I ran the longer distances.

         The point is this: In marriage, as well as the Christian life, it’s not how you start that really counts, though important, it’s how you finish. You can run for 95 yards and even lead the field, but if you stop five yards short, those 95 yards were an exercise in futility. There are too many Christians, too many fathers and mothers, who are running the 95-yard dash. They quit on God and stop on each other.

        We are losing our families to this culture. Our boys and girls need to see personal commitments from each of us (dad, mom, grandparents, teachers) to finish the race. It is a surrender each and every day to the new mercies and compassions of Almighty God. We must repent each day of our own desires and allow God’s ways to saturate and permeate our lives. There is a race to be run; there is a race to be won!

  • Why Do We Mourn? 

    “Can the sons of the bride chamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast” (Matthew 9:15).

    One glad morning the Lord Jesus will return. There are many a tired preacher who will rejoice when He returns. There will be many a people whose hearts have been true to the One they love, who yearn for that day, and then it happens. The Lord Jesus will return to get His bride.

    What a day that will be! What a glorious day when we shall see Jesus. What a wonderful day when all we have lived for, yearned for, longed for – when Jesus shall return. What a great getting-up moment that will be. Loved ones will return with Jesus. Their bodies will be raised from the dead graves from all over, and the power of the resurrection will reverberate throughout all the kingdom of Satan, and the bodies will be released.

    We mourn when the Bridegroom is not here. But one day we will be joined to Him. The older I get, the more I see, and the better I feel about the coming of our Lord. The sin I see, the unfaithfulness that surrounds, with the nations becoming more and more like Sodom, God’s bride yearns for the coming again of Jesus.

    May we say today, “Even so come, Lord Jesus!” We are in the days when the bridegroom is not here with us physically; He has been taken from us, and we fast while we wait. We mourn for Him but it will not be too much longer when we shall rejoice! For He will be with us. Hallelujah! Amen!

     

     

  •   Prayer Matters

     
     

    “Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in your prayers to God for me” (Romans 15:30).

          R.A. Torrey, a great man of prayer,  became the president of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, and later the Dean of Biola in Los Angeles. Ever wonder how it all started for Reuben Archer Torrey, this great man of God?

          Reuben was a young student at Yale when he was overcome with guilt and shame of his sinful lifestyle. Sin had taken him down a dark road and it about killed him. One night in 1875, overcome with his sinfulness, he looked for a razor there at his wash basin. He was trying to locate the instrument, not to shave, but to end his life. He had rebelled against his father and mother’s upbringing in the church and it now was costing him dearly.

          Reuben did not know, but his mother was on her knees far away in another city,  praying earnestly for her son’s salvation. Reuben became burdened also, and knelt there by his bed, and prayed to God and was found by Him. Prayer became special to this dear man after this time. His salvation resulted from his mother praying and in his own praying.

       What about us? Are we praying earnestly, fervently, time-consumingly? If we were saved because of someone else’s prayer life, should we not consider that God is wanting to reciprocate that very act in our lives?