Gideons 300
Member
- Joined
- May 3, 2009
- Messages
- 30
IS THERE NO BALM IN <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com
ffice:smarttags" /><st1lace w:st="on">GILEAD</st1lace>?<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />
<HR align=center width="100%" color=#eeeeee noShade SIZE=1>
Saints we all know the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel to be blessed and that after wrestling all night and refusing to give up, Jacob finally was blessed by the angel, but at the cost of a lifelong limp. My question is where are the Jacobs of today?
We have seen the church by and large satisfied with a Christianity that gives us "imputed" righteousness without really having it bother us that we never seem to really become righteous in real time. How few there are that struggle with questions like these:
Why, if Jesus said I would be free indeed, am I not free?
Why do I struggle with my flesh when he promised I was to walk
victoriously over it?
Why do I have no real peace when He promised I would?"
How do I get a pure heart, where every thought is brought into subjection to the lordship of my Christ?
What is WRONG with our Christianity??? What have we missed to make it so ineffective in changing us into His likeness?
God is amazed and says:
Is the no balm in <st1lace w:st="on">Gilead</st1lace>? is the no physician there? Why then is the health of the daughter of my people healed only slightly saying Peace, peace, when there is no peace?
Where are the Christians that are hungry...no, starving to walk with Jesus victorious over the world the flesh and the devil?
Why is it we see post after post, ad infinitum, debating if God is three or one or if He is coming before or after the tribulation, or if, once we bow our knee and confess Him, whether we can fall away, when none are free of their old nature, and seem so satisfied to be in such a sad state, content to debate their brothers and sisters as to who is really wise and has true understanding of God's word?
Why are the people called by His name so satisified with so little?
Christ has promised us a huge blessing, absolute victory and the ability to abide in Him consciously all day, every day. It was a blessing far better than the one Jacob fought for but like him, we only find the fullness of our salvation when we hunger and thirst after it.
God wants to bless us, and as we enter into this struggle with God to bless us, to liberate us from ourselves,it seems God resists our efforts, like the angel did with Jacob. Why? Does God not want us free? Of course he does!
But herein lies the secret.
1. Only those who believe with their whole heart can grab hold of his promises.
2. Only those that are.....
a) 100% broken of their own strength and confidance that they can
walk the walk by sheer will power and self effort
and
b) 100% yielded to God and have realized they are not their own and
have been bought with a price
.....can truly believe with the faith God desires.
The faith it takes to leave the wilderness and enter the promised land comes with a cost.... the wail of Romans Chapter 7 that finally cries out:
"O wretched man that I am, who shall set me free from the body of this death?"
The only ones ready for the "more than a conqueror" experience of Romans 8 are His children who have realized they have utterly failed and finally admitted that what God requires of those of us who would see Him, PERFECT OBEDIENCE OUT OF A PURE HEART, is too high, too hard for us to ever attain, no matter how hard we try. No amount of Bible study, correct doctrine, self discipline will ever suffice. We cannot grow out of self into love. We must let love grow into us and then out of us. We cannot grow out of the old man into the new man. We MUST reckon the old man as DEAD, not dying. We MUST by faith, put on the new man and believe Hos promises of our newness of life. No amount of resolve or self strength can make us holy. Brokenness and full yieldedness are the keys to real faith.
There is bad news coming for the religious proud who would bind hard requirements on people shoulders that are hungering after rest, those that think Christianity is simply obeying a list of rules, and being committed enough, tough enough to outlast Satan.
The good news is to the failures at Christianity, those weary in disappointing God despite their best efforts. To ANYONE who refuses to take no for an answer, despite his or her weakness or failures, and reckons that what God has promised, he is able also to perform, that person will find the rest that remaineth for the people of God. That person will see the world, the flesh and the devil lying defeated at his or her feet, not by a 5 decade process of slow dying to self, but by a violent taking the life of abiding rest by force...BY FAITH.
Until His people get so desperate that they will NOT be denied, we will continue to wander the wilderness experience, and experience a Christianity that sets no one free, a Christianity that has a form of Godliness but denies the power thereof. Entering into the promised land will be done when we refuse any longer to listen to those spies who come back to us with a doubt-filled bad report that it is impossible to be truly free until we die. We must, driven by our hunger and longing for the free indeed experience promised by our master, go against the grain of opinion and say "There remains a rest for the people of God and I am going after it. God and I will not be denied." That is the faith that makes God smile.
MY prayer is that a spirit of hunger come upon His bride and she begins to search for oil before it is too late. Doctrinally correct lamps are great but not enough. The lamps must be FULL.
God bless these words to set the hearts of hungry captives free. May all glory go to you for you alone are worthy.
<o> </o>
ffice:smarttags" /><st1lace w:st="on">GILEAD</st1lace>?<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><HR align=center width="100%" color=#eeeeee noShade SIZE=1>
Saints we all know the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel to be blessed and that after wrestling all night and refusing to give up, Jacob finally was blessed by the angel, but at the cost of a lifelong limp. My question is where are the Jacobs of today?
We have seen the church by and large satisfied with a Christianity that gives us "imputed" righteousness without really having it bother us that we never seem to really become righteous in real time. How few there are that struggle with questions like these:
Why, if Jesus said I would be free indeed, am I not free?
Why do I struggle with my flesh when he promised I was to walk
victoriously over it?
Why do I have no real peace when He promised I would?"
How do I get a pure heart, where every thought is brought into subjection to the lordship of my Christ?
What is WRONG with our Christianity??? What have we missed to make it so ineffective in changing us into His likeness?
God is amazed and says:
Is the no balm in <st1
lace w:st="on">Gilead</st1lace>? is the no physician there? Why then is the health of the daughter of my people healed only slightly saying Peace, peace, when there is no peace?Where are the Christians that are hungry...no, starving to walk with Jesus victorious over the world the flesh and the devil?
Why is it we see post after post, ad infinitum, debating if God is three or one or if He is coming before or after the tribulation, or if, once we bow our knee and confess Him, whether we can fall away, when none are free of their old nature, and seem so satisfied to be in such a sad state, content to debate their brothers and sisters as to who is really wise and has true understanding of God's word?
Why are the people called by His name so satisified with so little?
Christ has promised us a huge blessing, absolute victory and the ability to abide in Him consciously all day, every day. It was a blessing far better than the one Jacob fought for but like him, we only find the fullness of our salvation when we hunger and thirst after it.
God wants to bless us, and as we enter into this struggle with God to bless us, to liberate us from ourselves,it seems God resists our efforts, like the angel did with Jacob. Why? Does God not want us free? Of course he does!
But herein lies the secret.
1. Only those who believe with their whole heart can grab hold of his promises.
2. Only those that are.....
a) 100% broken of their own strength and confidance that they can
walk the walk by sheer will power and self effort
and
b) 100% yielded to God and have realized they are not their own and
have been bought with a price
.....can truly believe with the faith God desires.
The faith it takes to leave the wilderness and enter the promised land comes with a cost.... the wail of Romans Chapter 7 that finally cries out:
"O wretched man that I am, who shall set me free from the body of this death?"
The only ones ready for the "more than a conqueror" experience of Romans 8 are His children who have realized they have utterly failed and finally admitted that what God requires of those of us who would see Him, PERFECT OBEDIENCE OUT OF A PURE HEART, is too high, too hard for us to ever attain, no matter how hard we try. No amount of Bible study, correct doctrine, self discipline will ever suffice. We cannot grow out of self into love. We must let love grow into us and then out of us. We cannot grow out of the old man into the new man. We MUST reckon the old man as DEAD, not dying. We MUST by faith, put on the new man and believe Hos promises of our newness of life. No amount of resolve or self strength can make us holy. Brokenness and full yieldedness are the keys to real faith.
There is bad news coming for the religious proud who would bind hard requirements on people shoulders that are hungering after rest, those that think Christianity is simply obeying a list of rules, and being committed enough, tough enough to outlast Satan.
The good news is to the failures at Christianity, those weary in disappointing God despite their best efforts. To ANYONE who refuses to take no for an answer, despite his or her weakness or failures, and reckons that what God has promised, he is able also to perform, that person will find the rest that remaineth for the people of God. That person will see the world, the flesh and the devil lying defeated at his or her feet, not by a 5 decade process of slow dying to self, but by a violent taking the life of abiding rest by force...BY FAITH.
Until His people get so desperate that they will NOT be denied, we will continue to wander the wilderness experience, and experience a Christianity that sets no one free, a Christianity that has a form of Godliness but denies the power thereof. Entering into the promised land will be done when we refuse any longer to listen to those spies who come back to us with a doubt-filled bad report that it is impossible to be truly free until we die. We must, driven by our hunger and longing for the free indeed experience promised by our master, go against the grain of opinion and say "There remains a rest for the people of God and I am going after it. God and I will not be denied." That is the faith that makes God smile.
MY prayer is that a spirit of hunger come upon His bride and she begins to search for oil before it is too late. Doctrinally correct lamps are great but not enough. The lamps must be FULL.
God bless these words to set the hearts of hungry captives free. May all glory go to you for you alone are worthy.
<o
> </o>
