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Do we possess the same infilling as the 120 in the book of Acts?


Gideon

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I wish I could answer "yes".  I'm looking forward to a fire baptism....

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13 minutes ago, Jostler said:

I wish I could answer "yes".  I'm looking forward to a fire baptism....

O brother, may I tell you you do not have to wait if your heart is ready? Putting off the old nature is something any can do this very minute.... if they have come to the point of hating who they have  become while doing it ‘their way’. 

It is for the weak first, those who know they need a miracle in order to walk as a true son or daughter of God. Praise God, it is for the strong as well, but it is harder for them to come empty handed, needing everything. 

 

Blessings, 

 

Gideon

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@Gideon,

beautiful and inspiring post.

You presented many great points and I'll share my opinion on them.

4 hours ago, Gideon said:

There has bee a whole lot of debate over the term "Spirit filled". It has divided more than united, and truth be told, some of the most error filled,  fleshly, experience-heavy teachings, such as the prosperity doctrine,  had their roots in the charismatic church. Ouch.

 

Undeniable truth, unfortunately.

We must be very aware to not fall into these same errors over and over again. Such an abundance of "prosperity gospel", "fleshy based experience" and even "social gospel" doctrine is unprecedented. This slows down the true revival of the last generation.

4 hours ago, Gideon said:

You see, the real latter rain will not be denominational specific. It will not be city specific. It will not be experience specific. And no, before you get your ‘How dare you look’ on, neither will it be will doctrinally specific.  

Rather, it will be "Do you love Jesus and want Him more than anything, including yourself?" specific. And all whose hearts are found crying out to Him  will be set free from lives of religious observances, of dallying with sin, of worldliness and compromise, of trying and failing, of three steps forward and two steps back, and find themselves amazingly set free indeed just as Jesus promised us. We will, every single one of us, be extricated off the highway TO holiness that somehow never leads there and planted on the highway OF holiness. We are about to be amazed. 

Very beautiful point.

I do agree that the latter rain will not be denominational specific, nor city specific, nor experience specific.

And I do agree that it will be about having Jesus at the center of our lives and as the King of every aspect of our lives.

On not being doctrinally specific, let's just make a clarification. I do agree that it will not be about any "fancy" doctrine. Nor it will be about for instance deciding between pre/post tribulation or some similar controversial point.

But to increase the love for Christ, we must increase our knowledge of Him. And this knowledge is not to be found in the next fancy theological book, but back in the Scriptures, especially in the 4 Gospels.

In the simplicity of the Gospel, the Word of our Lord, there is most we need to know and to meditate to increase in love with Him.

"But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop."

As we learn in Luke the good soil are those who hear the Word, RETAIN IT, and PERSEVERE in it.

Now more than ever everybody have access to the Gospel.

Everybody can learn from the Master and then grow in their love in the Church and in their outreaching mission.

It will not be about new doctrine but about restoring the simplicity of the Gospel with a daily, Spirit guided relationship with Jesus and His Word as a fuel for our Christian life.

This way simple Truth from the Gospel will be evident again. For instance, our longing for hastening the return of the King (2Peter 3:12, Revelation 22:20) will raise again as we will intentionally pray "thy Kingdom Come".

And as we will give our lives fully to Him.

4 hours ago, Gideon said:

We are told that the joy of the Lord is our strength. We are about to discover how true that really is. How desperately the world needs to see real authentic JOYFUL Christianity in action. How desperately do we need to hear again men lost in the world observe us as His body and exclaim "Behold how they love one another!".

Well, guess what? The raindrops are beginning to fall. The clouds are gathering. We are about to become the blessed generation that ushers in the return of our Jesus. It doesn't get any better than that, amen?

The more we grow in Christ the more we will be able to love one another and to be an example.

Let's also remember that this will not make "earth" a "Paradise" yet.

"For the increase of wickdness the love of most will grow cold".

Along with the Church becoming holier, there will be a lot of distress in the world.

But the Return of Jesus, which we'll hasten with our prayers, spreading the Gospel and living an holy life, will finally fix everything.

Then "there will be no more death' or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away"

Maranatha!

Edited by listener24
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1 hour ago, Gideon said:

May I share a point on that subject? It has been made keenly aware to me through my own experience that knowing about Christ and knowing Him are two completely different things. My fear is that in churches today, our heads are full of knowing about God and about Jesus. But head knowledge can easily supplant heart  knowing. 

 

We we assume the two are interchangeable. It is true that those who truly KNOW Him have first come to know about Him through the Word.  But lest we fall into error, we must become aware that the opposite is not true and in fact, can be a huge obstacle to heart knowledge IF our hunger for Him alone is not the driving force in our lives. 

 

You are 100% right about this brother!

In fact Jesus told us to love God with all our heart, all our mind and all our soul.

If it's only a thing of the mind, then we are uncomplete and ultimately as you said it becomes fruitless.

So I'm totally for revival that touches all the three parts of our being.

Part of this is done only by God's Spirit.

For part of it, He asks our cooperation.

So the reason why I brought up the Scriptures, is that there is an obstacle that we can contribute to remove, which is the obstacle of false doctrines.

I often hear about these supposed "all-knowing", very knowledgeable people with no actual zeal for Jesus. I'm sure there are SOME people like these, I'm not saying that they don't exists.

But to be honest, I also see an overwhelmingly majority of people who:

- are leader of churches and they found their whole teaching of a very few, misinterpreted verses

- are followers of some leader and mostly know a mixture of what their leader know and they happened to hear from others

This is a bigger number with respect to these famous people who are supposed to know everything, have a perfectly sound understanding but don't love the Lord. (we can read many stats by just typing "Biblical illiteracy")

So I just feel like this would be part of the revival, though I completely agree that it will also touch the hearts and souls and not only the minds!

Just to give you an example, most of the first Christians knew that their prayers and their holy life had an effect on hastening the Return of Jesus.

This is because they understood why Jesus has taught us to pray "thy Kingdom come", which is also the last prayer in Revelation "Come Lord Jesus".

The first Christians were greeting each others with the words: "Maranatha".

Nowadays when I speak about speeding up the Return of Jesus only a minority is excited about it.

Theories like "prosperity Gospel" or "social Gospel" are definitely more famous, and they are actually an hindrance to having our eyes fixed on Heaven.

This way we don't fulfill the role of the widow in Luke 18:1-8.

I conclude with a question:

Can we all think about things that we can do for contributing to this revival? In addition to theorizing it and hoping for it?

I'll propose some, and I hope to read some more insights from the great people on this forum:

1) Problem: Biblical illiteracy, dependence on some "leaders" for understanding Jesus. Solution: promote much more personal reading of the Gospel and the Bible, more small groups, focus on the Gospel first (since in this fast society it's sometimes too much to require to read the whole Bible before someone hasn't even read the Gospel)

2) Problem: False doctrines are all over. Solution: actively refuse them with the Gospel. Remember Matthew 23:8-10 and the mandate to all be at the same level and having Christ as the only head.

3) Problem: people's heart far from God. Solution: improve our relationship with the Lord and love for Him first. Keep praying, keep repenting and learning the true meaning of repentance. Be an example of a repenting heart in words and deeds.

4) Problem: the focus of many Christian is completely switched on this earth, with prosperity-signs-social Gospel all over. Solution: remember the countless verses in the Gospel that speak about the beauty of Heaven. Talk and reason often about Heaven, in order to make ourselves excited and in expectation for it. Pray actively for Jesus Return, which is the ultimate demonstration of where is our actual hope.

5) Problem: Lack of outreaching and mission mentality Solution: through the Word, show that mission is one of the main point of Christian life.

I can go ahead with other points as well, and I'd like to hear other people opinion as well.

But all the points I've analyzed and many others could be derived by just reading often the 4 Gospels. Then we need to pray the Spirit as well because without His power we can't do anything.

What I often see are people with a lot of zeal for the Lord, but without a clear direction, and attracted by the last things that the last "famous" leader say. I'm sorry when I see that because I feel like all of their zeal could be better used if they would be more encouraged to get their direction from the One Master through His Word

 

 

 

Edited by listener24
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16 hours ago, Willa said:

When Corrie TenBoom was asked to speak to the German people she found them very knowledgable and could quote doctrine verbatim.  However, they did not know God--they knew about Him.  So Corrie compared it to a piece of chocolate.  The could tell you all the ingredients and how to make it, even the chemicals and food components.  Yet they had not experienced tasting chocolate!  "Taste and see that the Lord is good".

Very true Willa, she was talking about saved and unsaved people,unsaved people walk with blinds on ,the minute God removes the veil in front of our eyes,we will understand His will and the Holy Sprit will guide us to live a Godly live, He that is faithful will keep us until the end :) Thanks for sharing this story from Corrie ten Boom,she was an amazing lady and so was her sister Betty. Did you read how she forgave the soldier who tortured her so much?

He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.1 Cor.1:8

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On 2/3/2019 at 12:19 PM, Gideon said:

Is Our Infilling the Same as the Book of Acts?

There has bee a whole lot of debate over the term "Spirit filled". It has divided more than united, and truth be told, some of the most error filled,  fleshly, experience-heavy teachings, such as the prosperity doctrine,  had their roots in the charismatic church. Ouch.

People have debated back and forth  what the real evidence of the baptism with the Holy Spirit is. I like what Leonard Ravenhill said.

"Can you explain how 120 men filled with the Holy Spirit  could turn the whole world in one generation, amidst terrible persecution, and in a large city, there can be 120 churches claiming they have the exact same infilling and the people there not know or even care that they are there?"

David Wilkerson said this. The evidence of a man filled with an evil spirit is that he or she does evil things. And conversely,  a man filled with the Holy Spirit becomes more and more pure and holy. That is why we are to be known by our fruits, not our doctrines, our experience(s) or what church we attend.

Please do not misunderstand. I am not picking on the Pentecostals and Charismatics. Truth is, I have been a Charismatic for over four decades. But let's face it, there is plenty of blame to go around. We all have been playing church in our own way, content that WE have the real truth. All that is about to change.

What is about to happen? It is called the latter rain. Most know that in the past 100 or so plus years, many have stated that their movement IS the latter rain. They are wrong. A brief pre-shower, perhaps, but the real downpour we have been promised? No way. 

You see, the real latter rain will not be denominational specific. It will not be city specific. It will not be experience specific. And no, before you get your ‘How dare you look’ on, neither will it be will doctrinally specific. 

Rather, it will be "Do you love Jesus and want Him more than anything, including yourself?" specific. And all whose hearts are found crying out to Him  will be set free from lives of religious observances, of dallying with sin, of worldliness and compromise, of trying and failing, of three steps forward and two steps back, and find themselves amazingly set free indeed just as Jesus promised us. We will, every single one of us, be extricated off the highway TO holiness that somehow never leads there and planted on the highway OF holiness. We are about to be amazed.

It is this that is referred to in the parable of the 10 virgins. In the last days, ALL will be awakened to the truth of FREE INDEED. But be warned, not all will respond and joyfully light their lamps. 

God has, since the early rain ended shortly after Paul's death, let the wheat and tares grow together during the long hot dry summer…. nineteen hundred years worth.  And voila, here we are. Welcome to today's church. For the vast majority of us, our lives are so shallow, so compromised, so.... shall I say it?... lukewarm, that the world sees our hypocrisy and wants nothing to do with us except make us the butt of their jokes. And sadly, as a result, it is also the reason they want nothing to do with God.  Can we really blame them? Let's be honest, more often than not, by outer observation, you cannot tell wheat and tares apart. Religious does not equal righteous. But listen, weary saints. Change is coming. 

Listen, people who claim they are 'Spirit filled", quite content that we have the truth. Do we not hear God when He says that to whom much is given, much is required?  We are all  about to have our minds 'enlightened', and joyfully. 

Listen, secessionists, you are about to eat crow, and yet you will enjoy the meal with delight. God is fixing to awaken His bride and breathe on her. And our lives will never be the same. Like never ever. ☺️

We are told in Ezekiel 36 that this latter outpouring will change everything. Are we impressed with the saints in the book of Acts and how God transformed their lives and then used them mightily? The latter rain by which we are about to be drenched and outpoured over us will cause us not only match the deeds of the early church, but hear this. We will SURPASS them, with zero pride, giving all  glory to God. And the world will witness our transformation and they will exclaim:

"Look! That which bore only briars and thorns has become again like the garden of Eden!" (Ezekiel 36)

Impossible, you say? Oh ye of little faith. Do you not agree this is THE pressing need for us as His totally unprepared and impossibly divided bride right now as we each languish silently in our own little individual captivity? 

Mark my words, for they are God’s message of hope to us at this late hour. The world is about to witness the REAL church, and hear the FULL gospel, not a half gospel that gets us forgiven but has no power to change us, free us, and fill us with joy unspeakable and full of glory. We know of forgiveness but not transformation. Our gospel instead leaves even the best of us earth bound by sin so that we find it virtually impossible to  mount up with wings of eagles and fly  as overcomers, victorious over the world, the flesh and the devil .

Buckle your spiritual seatbelts, you who secretly hunger for more, you who intuitively KNOW that our walk with God was meant to be far more than weekly church attendance, with 500 plus denomination at variance with one another,  and all  struggling to keep our heads above water the other six days of the week.

Truth be told, there will be many who hear words like these and roll their eyes and scoff, and yet, do you know what? Even still, despite our self devotion and  sin-hardened hearts, despite our contentment with things just as they are, our faithful God will nevertheless awaken ALL who are called,  lift us up, center us on His glorious potter's wheel and begin truly changing us into His image…. Like for real. Glory!

For some, their brokenness, their full repentance, their fully surrendering will come AFTER their awakening, and God says that it is only then that they will finally be ashamed for the religious but truly compromised lives they have  lived. Ashamed  for the lack of hunger they have  possessed. Ashamed  for refusing to believe that our God can indeed CAUSE US to walk as obedient children, to will AND to do of His good pleasure. Ashamed for limiting the God of the universe with their unbelief clothed with religious piety. 

We are told that the joy of the Lord is our strength. We are about to discover how true that really is. How desperately the world needs to see real authentic JOYFUL Christianity in action. How desperately do we need to hear again men lost in the world observe us as His body and exclaim "Behold how they love one another!".

Well, guess what? The raindrops are beginning to fall. The clouds are gathering. We are about to become the blessed generation that ushers in the return of our Jesus. It doesn't get any better than that, amen?

Blessings, Gids

We are the last generation!  Jesus said that we will do even greater things than when Jesus walked upon the earth!  I'm so excited!  I feel it in my spirit!  Church get ready to be purified through the fire!  May the true believers endure to the end!  It will be the greatest harvest ever! 

blessings!  :D

FHG

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On 2/3/2019 at 7:52 PM, listener24 said:

You are 100% right about this brother!

In fact Jesus told us to love God with all our heart, all our mind and all our soul.

If it's only a thing of the mind, then we are uncomplete and ultimately as you said it becomes fruitless.

So I'm totally for revival that touches all the three parts of our being.

Part of this is done only by God's Spirit.

For part of it, He asks our cooperation.

So the reason why I brought up the Scriptures, is that there is an obstacle that we can contribute to remove, which is the obstacle of false doctrines.

I often hear about these supposed "all-knowing", very knowledgeable people with no actual zeal for Jesus. I'm sure there are SOME people like these, I'm not saying that they don't exists.

But to be honest, I also see an overwhelmingly majority of people who:

- are leader of churches and they found their whole teaching of a very few, misinterpreted verses

- are followers of some leader and mostly know a mixture of what their leader know and they happened to hear from others

This is a bigger number with respect to these famous people who are supposed to know everything, have a perfectly sound understanding but don't love the Lord. (we can read many stats by just typing "Biblical illiteracy")

So I just feel like this would be part of the revival, though I completely agree that it will also touch the hearts and souls and not only the minds!

Just to give you an example, most of the first Christians knew that their prayers and their holy life had an effect on hastening the Return of Jesus.

This is because they understood why Jesus has taught us to pray "thy Kingdom come", which is also the last prayer in Revelation "Come Lord Jesus".

The first Christians were greeting each others with the words: "Maranatha".

Nowadays when I speak about speeding up the Return of Jesus only a minority is excited about it.

Theories like "prosperity Gospel" or "social Gospel" are definitely more famous, and they are actually an hindrance to having our eyes fixed on Heaven.

This way we don't fulfill the role of the widow in Luke 18:1-8.

I conclude with a question:

Can we all think about things that we can do for contributing to this revival? In addition to theorizing it and hoping for it?

I'll propose some, and I hope to read some more insights from the great people on this forum:

1) Problem: Biblical illiteracy, dependence on some "leaders" for understanding Jesus. Solution: promote much more personal reading of the Gospel and the Bible, more small groups, focus on the Gospel first (since in this fast society it's sometimes too much to require to read the whole Bible before someone hasn't even read the Gospel)

2) Problem: False doctrines are all over. Solution: actively refuse them with the Gospel. Remember Matthew 23:8-10 and the mandate to all be at the same level and having Christ as the only head.

3) Problem: people's heart far from God. Solution: improve our relationship with the Lord and love for Him first. Keep praying, keep repenting and learning the true meaning of repentance. Be an example of a repenting heart in words and deeds.

4) Problem: the focus of many Christian is completely switched on this earth, with prosperity-signs-social Gospel all over. Solution: remember the countless verses in the Gospel that speak about the beauty of Heaven. Talk and reason often about Heaven, in order to make ourselves excited and in expectation for it. Pray actively for Jesus Return, which is the ultimate demonstration of where is our actual hope.

5) Problem: Lack of outreaching and mission mentality Solution: through the Word, show that mission is one of the main point of Christian life.

I can go ahead with other points as well, and I'd like to hear other people opinion as well.

But all the points I've analyzed and many others could be derived by just reading often the 4 Gospels. Then we need to pray the Spirit as well because without His power we can't do anything.

What I often see are people with a lot of zeal for the Lord, but without a clear direction, and attracted by the last things that the last "famous" leader say. I'm sorry when I see that because I feel like all of their zeal could be better used if they would be more encouraged to get their direction from the One Master through His Word

 

 

 

Thanks for all your insight Listener!

The only thing that comes to my mind is PRAYER, on our knees crying out to the Lord, for our battle is not against flesh and blood.  Even those who are teaching and those who are believing in the false doctrines can only be brought down through the Power of Prayer, taking it before the King.

blessings,

FHG

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