Time to put away our bottles.....

[Gideon]

The fact that the vast majority of churches are not leading the sheep into the deeper ‘meat’ of the Christian walk should concern each one of us greatly. The fact that they are not should concern us even more.

 

We have a diet of milk only. When we are young believers, this is good and needful, but the gospel as we know it leads us no further. We can go to church faithfully for years, even decades,  and never hear a sermon on how to possess our vessels in sanctification and honor. Oh, occasionally, we might be told of the importance to try, and the alters will be filled with people confessing they straying, only to see the same thing occurring six months later. Do we not get it? Guys, if we are not told the HOW to walking in victory, what good is it, other than to lead us back to forgiveness, since we will fail at our attempts to be holy over and over again. 

 

And what is the result of this pattern of failings? We finally lower the standard, proclaim we have arrived at the deeper understanding of grace, that we will always be sinners, that holiness is impossible and stop trying to gain victory over sin as long as we at least avoid the really bad ones. 

 

So we run back to the cross, and never get to the second half of the good news.... His, and our, resurrection. We have been blinded by the enemy to who we are. We ARE new creatures if we are truly saved. The old us died when Christ died. Sin’s power and authority over us was broken, once and for all. But because we have not mixed these truths with faith, it has profited us nothing..... yet. 

 

In these coming last days, God is going to awaken all of us to Him. We will understand the cost of following Him. What is the cost? Full and complete surrender, a coming to a point where we HATE our old nature, a self that refuses to bow the knee to God in all areas of our lives. 

 

But even more importantly, we will awake to what we get in return, the ability to abide in Him, all day, every day. And with that comes the power to say no to the devil every single time he comes trying to tempt us to give in to sin. God’s love for us will flow over us. We will FEEL it, and no more will our prayer life be one sided or non-existent. And that love will then flow out of us, to a lost and dying world. No one will have to tell us we need to go witness. It will simply be impossible not to. Can a lit lamp not shine for all to see? It will be simply impossible. 

 

We will finally understand the HOW of holiness. We will understand why it is called the ‘beauty of holiness’. No more will we associate it with strictness and religiousity. We will see it is for what it really is, nothing more and nothing less than the safety of us abiding under the wing of His protection and manifest presence, where He can.... and will.... love us into His image. We will stop trying to play potter and let the master potter form us into vessels of glory, fit for His use. 

 

But we must understand this .All WILL awake, but all will not respond. We are told that up till now, both wheat and tares, sheep and goats, have grown together in what we call ‘church’. But the final separation is about to occur. Half the virgins will say “The old wine is better” and hold onto their religion that allows self a little leeway to sin when the desire hits, because they can always repent and then do it all over again. How convenient! 

 

But praise God, the other half will awake to what God actually accomplished for us when Christ died. We died with Him. Our old carnal nature is dead. DEAD. We have spent years, and in my particular case, decades, trying to reign in and kill our self nature, when all the while it was always dead. That is blindness, my friends. 

 

We will awake to what God accomplished when Christ rose from the dead. He brought us up with a Him to newness of life. We ARE new creatures. It is not longer us.... the old carnal natures us..... that lives, but Christ who now lives in us. This union is called the new man. 

 

And as this separation occurs, we will understand what the great falling away means. The goats will be angered at the audacity of the saints, and it will come to pass that they will turn on the sheep and betray them, thinking that in doing so they will be doing God a service. 

 

This awakening is not a revival as we know it. No city is going to be the center. No pastor is going to be the leader. God Himself will lead us, and change us, and plant our feet in victory. We will be made into overcomers, victorious over the world and its baubles, the flesh and its carnal, self centered, desires, and our feet will be planted on the very neck of our enemy, the devil Himself. Glory to God!

 

The church, long the laughing stock of the world, is going to rise from the ashes of religion and display Christ and His love to a world that desperately needs such a display. The harvest is about to begin, and praise God, His house WILL be full!

 

Many blessings,

 

Gideon

[Neighbor]

1 hour ago, Gideon said:

We have a diet of milk only

Sorry But "we" do not!  

I state that I have enjoyed the high privilege of God leading me to association with so many saints in Christ Jesus over many decades now that are living the command of Jesus, that I cannot abide such a lament as we have a diet of milk.  

Each and every one of the many God has placed me near have had great impact upon my own journey. I learn to this day by their example and by the word of God taught by so many and by their encouragement for me to read the Bible, to think on the word, to pray  and make application of it, in all that I do. I am ever humbled in how much more there is for me to learn.

Further; I suggest lamenting becomes a very bad habit in some saints, and then even a limiting disease of the heart, and that  any and all lamenters defeat them self by their own tongue with it's lamenting. All the while many thousands and perhaps many tens of thousands of born again saints are about the word and work of God  reacting praying thinking and making pesonal application of it every day.

I  choose to identify with  those that are out and about as happy witnesses giving testimony of the saving grace and mercy of God. 

 I feed on their testimonial message, their work, their example, to my own benefit, as I am awed by God's patience with us all.

May God bless all that are going about even this moment doing all that they do to His Glory.

[Gideon]

41 minutes ago, Neighbor said:

Sorry But "we" do not!  

I state that I have enjoyed the high privilege of God leading me to association with so many saints in Christ Jesus over many decades now that are living the command of Jesus, that I cannot abide such a lament as we have a diet of milk.  

Each and every one of the many God has placed me near have had great impact upon my own journey. I learn to this day by their example and by the word of God taught by so many and by their encouragement for me to read the Bible, to think on the word, to pray  and make application of it, in all that I do. I am ever humbled in how much more there is for me to learn.

Further; I suggest lamenting becomes a very bad habit in some saints, and then even a limiting disease of the heart, and that  any and all lamenters defeat them self by their own tongue with it's lamenting. All the while many thousands and perhaps many tens of thousands of born again saints are about the word and work of God  reacting praying thinking and making pesonal application of it every day.

I  choose to identify with  those that are out and about as happy witnesses giving testimony of the saving grace and mercy of God. 

 I feed on their testimonial message, their work, their example, to my own benefit, as I am awed by God's patience with us all.

May God bless all that are going about even this moment doing all that they do to His Glory.

Praise God for those few who are taking their walk with the Lord seriously. But there is a reason why the world holds that the church by and large is full of compromise, lack of true passion for souls, secret sins and hypocrisy. Although the way is narrow, His house will be full. 

Do you honestly think that after the start we had in the book of Acts, that the best He can do is what we generously refer to as “church”? When was the last time you heard men in the world look at us an exclaim “Behold how they love one another!” Yeah, me neither. 

God is returning for a respondent bride prepare to meet her husband. We are healed, but only slightly. And sadly, despite the many promises of God, we are content to have one foot in the world and the other clutching our bus pass to Heaven. No one is taught how to possess their vessels in sanctification and honor. No one is exhorted to run their race as if there is but one prize. Is this not adequate reason to lament and warn? 

David was asked once, when Jerusalem was in captivity, to play a nice uplifting song on his harp. He responded “Ho can I sing songs of joy, when God’s  people lie in captivity?” It is a good question, one you may want to ponder. 

God has more for us, far more than we now can even comprehend. But until we acknowledge our low state, and cry out for Him to deliver us from the power of the world, our flesh and the devil that rule over us with an inescapable grip, nothing will change. And brother, it must. 

Blessings, 

Gideon

[listener24]

3 hours ago, Gideon said:

The fact that the vast majority of churches are not leading the sheep into the deeper ‘meat’ of the Christian walk should concern each one of us greatly. The fact that they are not should concern us even more.

  

We have a diet of milk only. When we are young believers, this is good and needful, but the gospel as we know it leads us no further. We can go to church faithfully for years, even decades,  and never hear a sermon on how to possess our vessels in sanctification and honor. Oh, occasionally, we might be told of the importance to try, and the alters will be filled with people confessing they straying, only to see the same thing occurring six months later. Do we not get it? Guys, if we are not told the HOW to walking in victory, what good is it, other than to lead us back to forgiveness, since we will fail at our attempts to be holy over and over again.  

 

And what is the result of this pattern of failings? We finally lower the standard, proclaim we have arrived at the deeper understanding of grace, that we will always be sinners, that holiness is impossible and stop trying to gain victory over sin as long as we at least avoid the really bad ones.  

 

So we run back to the cross, and never get to the second half of the good news.... His, and our, resurrection. We have been blinded by the enemy to who we are. We ARE new creatures if we are truly saved. The old us died when Christ died. Sin’s power and authority over us was broken, once and for all. But because we have not mixed these truths with faith, it has profited us nothing..... yet. 

 

In these coming last days, God is going to awaken all of us to Him. We will understand the cost of following Him. What is the cost? Full and complete surrender, a coming to a point where we HATE our old nature, a self that refuses to bow the knee to God in all areas of our lives. 

 

But even more importantly, we will awake to what we get in return, the ability to abide in Him, all day, every day. And with that comes the power to say no to the devil every single time he comes trying to tempt us to give in to sin. God’s love for us will flow over us. We will FEEL it, and no more will our prayer life be one sided or non-existent. And that love will then flow out of us, to a lost and dying world. No one will have to tell us we need to go witness. It will simply be impossible not to. Can a lit lamp not shine for all to see? It will be simply impossible.  

 

We will finally understand the HOW of holiness. We will understand why it is called the ‘beauty of holiness’. No more will we associate it with strictness and religiousity. We will see it is for what it really is, nothing more and nothing less than the safety of us abiding under the wing of His protection and manifest presence, where He can.... and will.... love us into His image. We will stop trying to play potter and let the master potter form us into vessels of glory, fit for His use. 

 

But we must understand this .All WILL awake, but all will not respond. We are told that up till now, both wheat and tares, sheep and goats, have grown together in what we call ‘church’. But the final separation is about to occur. Half the virgins will say “The old wine is better” and hold onto their religion that allows self a little leeway to sin when the desire hits, because they can always repent and then do it all over again. How convenient!  

 

But praise God, the other half will awake to what God actually accomplished for us when Christ died. We died with Him. Our old carnal nature is dead. DEAD. We have spent years, and in my particular case, decades, trying to reign in and kill our self nature, when all the while it was always dead. That is blindness, my friends. 

 

We will awake to what God accomplished when Christ rose from the dead. He brought us up with a Him to newness of life. We ARE new creatures. It is not longer us.... the old carnal natures us..... that lives, but Christ who now lives in us. This union is called the new man. 

 

And as this separation occurs, we will understand what the great falling away means. The goats will be angered at the audacity of the saints, and it will come to pass that they will turn on the sheep and betray them, thinking that in doing so they will be doing God a service. 

 

This awakening is not a revival as we know it. No city is going to be the center. No pastor is going to be the leader. God Himself will lead us, and change us, and plant our feet in victory. We will be made into overcomers, victorious over the world and its baubles, the flesh and its carnal, self centered, desires, and our feet will be planted on the very neck of our enemy, the devil Himself. Glory to God!

 

The church, long the laughing stock of the world, is going to rise from the ashes of religion and display Christ and His love to a world that desperately needs such a display. The harvest is about to begin, and praise God, His house WILL be full!

 

Many blessings,

 

Gideon

agree with the problems, and agree that we can do better.

Do we have a plan or suggestions to do better?

Here's one: focusing on what Jesus talked about most of the time...Heaven, our hope, and His return. The responsibility we have to "make the Bride of Christ", the Church, ready.

The responsibility we have when we pray: if when we pray we "keep on babbling like pagans, who think will be heard because of their many words" (Matthew 6), we lose our great opportunity of prayer, by not listening Jesus basic suggestion.

If we understand the Lord's prayer as the prayer primary focused on His Return, we'll receive the strength to prepare the Bride of Christ, all over the world.

This is a plan that I see clearly in the Scriptures:

¹⁰ But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.^[a]

¹¹ Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives ¹² as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming."  (2 Peter)

"⁶ And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. ⁷ And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? ⁸ I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”" (Luke 18:1-8)

With our eyes on this focus, the Spirit will do the rest in making us Holy and helping us not being deceived by the world

Edited August 18, 2018 by listener24

[Neighbor]

1 hour ago, Gideon said:

Yeah, me neither

Sorry that is an errant assumption. I have heard it I do hear it and I  expect I will continue to hear that very thing. That there is love of and for each other  plus they love me. I have confidence many will be then encouraged to listen and many will heed when the Holy Spirit calls them specifically.

Some will plant some will cultivate and some will be in service during the harvest. The one that plants need not see the harvest to know it with certainty.