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That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (Romans 8:4) |
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Angioplasty is a medical procedure sometimes used to increase the flow of blood through an artery. A tiny balloon is inserted into the constricted artery and inflated. |
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God is totally righteous and holy. The eternal moral law is derived from God's Personality. Because God never changes the eternal moral law never changes. Sin is the transgression of the eternal moral law and results in spiritual and physical death, that is, separation from God. |
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God gave the Ten Commandments as an abridged, negative, covenantal form of His eternal moral law. |
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The personality of man is bent and twisted, given to worldliness, lust, violence, and self-seeking. |
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When man faces the Ten Commandments the warping of his personality is revealed but there is not the power to fix it. |
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The Lord Jesus Christ came to earth from Heaven. His personality is unblemished. Jesus kept the Law of Moses perfectly, thus incurring righteousness in the sight of God. Then Christ died and offered His blood such that the believer can receive by faith the righteousness that would have been his had he kept the Ten Commandments and the rest of the Law of Moses in detail. |
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The believer now is absolutely righteous in the sight of God but his personality remains bent and twisted. |
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Now the angioplasty begins. The righteous One, Jesus Christ, is born in the individual. As the person reads his Bible, prays, fellowships with the saints, the "balloon is inflated." As Christ grows the elements of the personality are straightened out and lined up until every trace of sin and rebellion has disappeared. |
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Now the believer is able to keep the Law of Moses, because the law of God has been written in his mind and on his heart. |
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But the disciple of Jesus Christ is not called to the abridged, negative, covenantal form of the eternal moral law of God but to the fullness of the eternal law itself. |
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How can the human being obey God perfectly? No problem. Give attendance to doing what the Apostles commanded and Christ will be formed in the personality. Then the eternal moral law of God, which is to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves, will come naturally. |
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The great misunderstanding of our day is that Christ came to forgive men and bring them to Heaven. The truth is, Christ came to forgive men so He would have the opportunity to totally transform them. |
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Is faith in Jesus our ticket to Heaven? Or is faith in Jesus a means of giving us a daily contact with God that results in the creation of a new, righteous personality? |
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Let Christ be magnified (inflated) in you. |
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Then Eliashib the high priest rose up with his brethren the priests, and they builded the sheep gate; they sanctified it, and set up the doors of it; even unto the tower of Meah they sanctified it, unto the tower of Hananeel. (Nehemiah 3:1) |
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Under Nehemiah's leadership many Jews returned from Babylon. They determined to rebuild the wall and gates of the city of Jerusalem. |
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The first gate to be built was the sheep gate. |
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The second gate was the fish gate. |
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The rebuilding of the sheep gate represents the building up of the members of the Body of Christ. |
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The rebuilding of the fish gate represents the work of evangelism. |
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This order is not accidental, it is symbolic. |
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We have it backwards today. We are trying to build the fish gate before the sheep gate. |
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As long as I can remember as a Christian the emphasis in the churches has been on evangelism, sometimes even on Sunday morning. I cannot remember any pastor, in my limited experience, stressing the building up of the saints. There always has been a mighty emphasis on the numbers of people attending, but as to the actual building up the saints spiritually, "deeper life" or whatever you want to call it, this was reserved for a week-night meeting or ignored altogether. |
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The idea is, we don't want saints "getting fat sitting in their pews." "Get out and bring in the lost and dying!" |
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You know what? The sheep gate needs building. The purpose of the gifts and ministries given to the Body of Christ is to build each believer to maturity as measured by the fullness of the stature of Christ. |
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The Bride is to be without spot or wrinkle. Right? Do you see any Christians around here without spots or wrinkles? Probably not. |
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Why? Because we are not emphasizing what Christ emphasizes. |
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Sometimes numbers of people is our criterion of "success." Spiritual growth probably is God's criterion of success. |
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The sheep are not being fed. They are not growing. Sometimes they are unchanged after fifty years. "You Are Odious" is still fighting with "Soon Touchy." |
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One reason the believers experience little spiritual growth is that the only way Christians can be built up to the measure of Christ is by the exercise of all the gifts and ministries of the Spirit. We have to have apostles, evangelists, prophets, pastors, teachers, gifts of healing, wisdom, knowledge, discernment, and so forth operating throughout the churches if the saints are going to grow. |
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The need today is for the saints to be fed! |
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The main purpose of the gathering of the believers is to build up the saints. |
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If Sunday after Sunday the emphasis is on "getting souls saved" you can bet the saints are not going to grow. |
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If the pastor is chief cook and bottle washer, leading the songs, giving the announcements, taking the offering, preaching, and everything else, the saints are not going to grow. The Holy Spirit assigns gifts to every member of the church and until those gifts are operating the saints are not going to grow as they should. |
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We need to minimize or abolish the clergy-laity distinction. |
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The primary job of the pastor is to feed the sheep with the riches of the Word of God, or at least to see to it that the primary attention of the main service is dedicated to this goal. Pastor-teacher is really one ministry, I believe. |
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If the pastor doesn't feel capable of feeding the sheep he needs to find someone who can. That does not mean he has to step down as pastor; he just needs to be a good administrator. |
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There are millions of believers in the United States but it appears many of them are spiritual babies. This is the army of the Lord? |
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First the sheep gate, then the fish gate. This is God's order. |
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If you love me, feed My sheep! |
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But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. (I Corinthians 12:11) |
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The Bible tells us that the Spirit of God gives grace to every member of the Body of Christ. The grace includes gifts and ministries. In Ephesians, five ministries are listed, the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher (or pastor-teacher, making four instead of five ministries). |
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The five (or four) ministries listed are not set forth as such anywhere else in the New Testament, and are placed by Paul in the same category as the gifts. |
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And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues. (I Corinthians 12:28) |
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Therefore we view the gifts and ministries as examples of the grace given to the believers so they may perform the work of the ministry, without distinguishing between gifts and five majestic ministries. |
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The Old Testament reveals the ultimate purpose of the gifts and ministries. |
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Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the LORD God might dwell among them. (Psalms 68:18) |
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The purpose of the gifts and ministries of the Holy Spirit is to prepare a dwelling place for God. |
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But it is Christ who is the only dwelling place of God. |
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Therefore, the purpose of the gifts and ministries must be to build up Christ. |
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This is exactly what we find. |
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For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: (Ephesians 4:12,13) |
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God has given to each believer one or more gifts and a ministry so that he or she may be equipped to accomplish the purpose of God, which is to provide a dwelling place for Himself. Since the dwelling place of God is Christ, then the goal of every gift and ministry given by the Holy Spirit is to bring each believer to a perfect man, to maturity as measured by the stature of the fullness of Christ. |
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In God's great house there are many rooms. The chief Cornerstone of the house of God is Jesus Christ. You and I are living stones in that house so that the whole is one dwelling place of the Father. |
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However, the Father will dwell only in Christ. If we are to be the dwelling place of God, Christ must be formed in us. The purpose of the gifts and ministries given to the believers is to form Christ in each member of the Body of Christ. |
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We can easily see from this how important each member of the Body is. The ascended Christ has imparted grace to each one of us. Each member of the Body of Christ has an important role to play in building up the Body. |
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To be continued. |
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But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. (Ephesians 4:15,16) |
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Because of the inefficient, ineffective clergy-laity model of role expectations in the present churches the members of the Body are not functioning as they should. While lip-service may be paid to how important each member is, in many instances neither the pastor nor the people really believe this. |
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The people are only too ready to give their spiritual proxy to the pastor. In too many cases the pastor is only too ready to receive their proxy and do their spiritual work for them. When this is true, Christ is not formed in the believers. |
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The Body must be built by that which every joint supplies. We cannot emphasize too strongly that every believer is given grace by the Spirit so that the members of the Body can come to the fullness of Christ. |
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But how can a member of the Body of Christ find out what he or she is supposed to be contributing? |
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The only way you can really find and enter your ministry is by presenting your body a living sacrifice. This is how you prove the will of God. |
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The laying on of the hands of a godly presbytery accompanied with prophecy is very helpful, and scriptural. But all will come to nothing until you come before God in stern discipleship. |
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It is incumbent on the leaders of the assemblings of Christians to encourage widespread participation. An effort must be made to get the people going, particularly the young people. It isn't easy and takes lots of prayer. |
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The old programs are not going to bring us into the Kingdom. We must bring the people to an awareness of what God wants. |
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Prayer is the main thing. We are having forty-five minutes of prayer in our Sunday morning service, just before the main service begins. People with needs come forward and the saints that are there pray for them. This "burden-bearers" time is conducted by elders and experienced Christians. I am in my office preparing the message. Never do for the congregation what they can do for themselves is a good rule to follow I believe. |
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Much can be accomplished with banners and tambourines to get things moving, particularly with the young people and children. Expressive worship movements can occur as the children and young people come forward during the song service and portray with their bodies the words of the choruses. |
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We have a group of men doing Hasidic dancing with some of the hymns. There are all kinds of things that can get the congregation involved. |
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Mime is an effective way of communicating. |
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Hopefully this is just the beginning. We still haven't got to the place where the prophets are acting out their prophecies as well as speaking or singing the words. |
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It's onward and upward. This is only the beginning. The people are not going to be able to stand during the age of moral horrors that is upon us if all we have is an introduction, three points, some anecdotes, and a conclusion. Final hymn. Stand by the door. Marvelous sermon, Pastor. God bless you. Football game this afternoon. Mickey Mouse tonight. |
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Vigorous expression in worship on the part of everyone is necessary to carry us through the week. Hopefully such participation will lead to more manifestation of the gifts and ministries of the Spirit. |
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Did you know the United States is by far the number one producer of pornography (U.S. News and World Report)? One hundred fifty hard-core pornographic videos are being produced each week. And America is a Christian nation? Business as usual in the churches is never going to prepare God's people for what they and their children and grandchildren will be facing in the immediate future. |
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We are to be built up in Christ by that which every member supplies. The clergy-laity pattern must give way before the Body of Christ pattern. |
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The goal is to provide a dwelling place for God. Your contribution is absolutely essential if God is to have the house He desires. |
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And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. (Revelation 12:3) |
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The second wonder in heaven is Satan. He has perfect wisdom, power in the world, and authority that God has given him to accomplish God's purposes. |
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Much of what will take place in the days to come will be far, far beyond the mind of man to understand or to manage. It is time now to surrender all to Christ Jesus. Only He has been entrusted by the Father with superior wisdom, power, and authority. Only He can tear down and destroy Satan. |
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It is vain for us to struggle to save the world or to bring in everlasting righteousness. The battle will reach into the heavens and attack the host. |
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And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them. (Daniel 8:10) |
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We are on the brink of the reconciliation of the creation to the Lord God. God has determined that all of the universe will find its center and circumference in Christ Jesus. The wrath of God, smoldering since the original rebellion in the heavens, is about to be poured on the fallen stars of the heaven and on those people who worship them and accept their leadership. |
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The wisdom and power exercised in the war of the ages is so great as to make the efforts of human beings to be so much dust blown about in a typhoon. We simply are unable to think clearly or to act effectively. |
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The only hope is in the travail of Zion. The only hope is that the saints will avail themselves of the glory available in the latter-rain outpouring and become still long enough to permit Christ to be formed in them. Only Christ has the ability to conquer the wicked lords of the heavenlies. |
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Waiting on God is an attitude of the heart. It does not mean we cease performing the tasks that are before us. It has more to do with looking to the Lord in place of planning and scheming. |
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Will you be one of those who turns from the efforts of the flesh and waits on God until Christ is formed in you? |
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All the works of Christians in the earth are an annoyance to Satan. Satan does not fear the believers. Satan fears the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—no one and nothing else. |
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Satan is terrified at the thought that Christ will come forth in the churches in the earth. Therefore Satan will do all in his power to convince the churches they can build the Kingdom of God in their own strength. Antichrist will subsidize the churches and assist them as they attempt to relieve the suffering of the world. |
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As long as Satan can keep the saints busy in their religious works he has little to fear. But when the churches go to their knees and call on Christ to come and build His own Kingdom in the earth, Satan's end is at hand. The mighty Christ will come and with superior wisdom, power, and authority will crush Satan's kingdom and remove it from the earth. |
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How about you ? Will you look to Christ or to your own strength to establish the Kingdom of God in the earth? (from Two Purposes of the Latter-Rain Outpouring) |
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Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:19) |
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It is taught that if we "accept Jesus" we will be made like Him when we die, and go to live for eternity in a land where there is no more opportunity for sin against God. The sin question is settled by physical death. Deliverance from the bondage of sin comes through physical death. The "last enemy," physical death, has become our redeemer. |
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Yet there is no evidence in the Scriptures that any spiritual improvement will take place in us as a consequence of, or at the time of, our physical death. The position of the Scripture is that every individual will be rewarded in the Day of Judgment according to his behavior on the earth. The Scriptures are almost silent concerning the period of time between our physical death and the appearing of Christ in the clouds. |
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The assumption is, what we are in personality we are. There is no basis in Scripture for believing physical death will change what we are. When we awake in the Day of Judgment we will be unchanged in personality. In fact, what we have become during our lifetime on the earth will be revealed in that day. |
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The testimony of Christians who have been given insight into the spirit realm, into life after death, is that we experience no change when we die other than the relief of being shed of our earth-bound body. |
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Sundar Singh, a noted Christian visionary, testified that we go to the area of the spirit realm for which we are suited. Other Christian writers who have had visions of life after death confirm that we are placed according to our spiritual development, that the spiritual world is not divided only into the deepest Hell and the highest Heaven but into gradations of Heaven and gradations of Hell. |
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Given that the Scriptures do not speak to the contrary, given such grouping of people by spiritual development and calling takes place to a certain extent while we still are alive on the earth, and given such placement is reasonable and compassionate, it is our point of view that all persons—Christian by belief or not—will, when they die, pass into a realm suited to their spiritual development, there to await the Day of Judgment. |
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This is not to say that some are not lost to God by the time of physical death, or that the wicked will not go immediately into the flames of Hell, there to await the white-throne judgment. It appears evident from the Scriptures that such is the case. Our point is that there are others—a great "sea" of people—who will not be placed in the Presence of God and the Lamb at physical death, or cast into the burning flames, but will find themselves with people of similar development. |
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It is the writer's point of view that the occasion of physical death does not result in the grouping of people into two uniform companies; rather, it results in the careful defining of each individual's progress, or lack of it, in godly character. Let's hope that such is the case. |
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God opens His hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing. Would you rather be with people who are somewhat like what you are used to or people who are totally different? |
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If you are not happy with your present group maybe you better change or else find a different bunch. You might be stuck with them for a while. (from It Is Time for a Reformation of Christian Thinking) |
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For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. (Romans 8:29) |
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Man is to be in the image of God. The image of God is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the first Man to be in the image of God. |
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The image of Christ's personality is in part that which the Apostle Paul terms the fruit of the Spirit: |
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But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. (Galatians 5:22,23) |
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The image of Satan fills the earth today. Satan's image is the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit: hatred, misery, unrest, impatience, harshness, badness, treachery, arrogance, lack of self-control. |
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We humans reveal in our adamic nature the image of Satan. We can try in our old nature to imitate the image of God, the image of Jesus. It is well that we use the Lord as our example of behavior. |
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We soon discover that we have set ourselves an impossible task. We have been commanded to be in the image of God but we fail miserably when we are tested. |
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God's plan of redemption is successful in converting us from the image of Satan to the image of Christ Jesus. God does not reform our adamic nature, He crucifies our adamic nature and gives us a new nature. |
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The change from the Adamic nature to the nature of Christ does not take place in a moment. But the blood of the Lamb, the wisdom and power of the Holy Spirit, and the Word of God work together with our circumstances (which the Lord orders) to change us from the personality of Adam to the personality of Christ Himself. |
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The elect have been predestined to be in the image of Christ, to be the brothers of Christ. |
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For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be changed into the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. (Romans 8:29) |
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Adam and Eve were in the image of God in an elementary way. The Lord Jesus is perfectly in the image of God although His Divine Glory was concealed in a flesh and blood body. |
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The glorified Christ who appeared to the Apostle John on the Isle of Patmos is what God has in mind by pronouncing man in the image of God. |
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When the Lord appears with His saints they will be glorious to behold. They will shine as the stars of heaven. If they did not conceal their glory the peoples of the earth could not gaze on them. This is just the beginning. |
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After billions of eons have transpired we shall have developed further in the image of our Father. Then we shall be mountains of Divine fire—galaxies of power and glory. The eternities following will witness our coming to maturity in the image of God. |
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What is man that You are mindful of him? (from Dominion) |
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