When we love the way God intends us to (but in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God....by love unfeigned) we become living proof that He is real and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. We show that we are indeed witnesses of Him (and ye are witnesses of these things - Father, I WILL that they also, whom Thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold My glory) because we freely and willingly share with others the love He freely and willingly shares with us. We love the way He loves - this is our greatest witness of Him for it is unique in all the earth - a Divine,  supernatural love that transcends the flesh. The fruit of this kind of love is souls.   

 The reward for seeking Him is Him!

If He is love (i speak as a fool) then the Holy Spirit is love. Therefore, when we are baptized into the Holy Spirit (as we all should be) we are baptized into love! When we are filled with the Holy Spirit,  we are filled with love! When we walk in the Spirit,  we are walking in love, in obedience to love, not in the flesh. 

 

  The flesh practices a pseudo love - a self-centered, carnal love. Even when those in the flesh do good works it is still selfish because they do it to feel good about themselves or make themselves look good. They do it to be seen of men, to receive the glory of man. Many rich seek to justify themselves  by making sure everyone knows about their charitable acts. Their love remains self-centered, ultimately all about them, never truly sacrificial,  a "what can i get out of this" kind of love. 

So to summarize so far - all the sermons in the world, all the talk, talk, talk which Christians love to engage in each Sunday, means nothing if we do not love the way God loves (see 1 Corinthians 13). Actions first, words second. Actions without words are ok, words without actions are never ok. God looks at the heart, not the outward appearance.  Man looks at the outward appearance,  not the heart. It's easy to fool our fellow man by going to church every week and singing songs and quoting scriptures but God isn't fooled by any of it. It's what we do in secret that pleases Him most. It's what we do when we know He's the only one who sees us. Our actions determine our reward- not our words. Our words are empty and meaningless if they are without actions.  "But be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. What does it profit, my brethren, though a man say he has faith, and have no works? Can faith (alone) save him? Now let's substitute the word "love" for "faith", for this famous passage of scripture is talking about love in action- "If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food; and one of you say unto them, depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled, not withstanding you give them not those things which are needful to the body, what does it profit? Even so love, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone". 

It's alone because it's kept to itself- in words only. Words mean nothing without actions! If everyone in America who claims to be a Christian loved the way God loves, there would be no homeless left anywhere. For that matter, there'd be no more hungry either. The poor of our nation would never again miss a meal or lack for shoes. "Let us not love in word, neither in tongue but in deed and in truth". Show me your love by your deeds. Show me your faith in the God of love by loving people. "I love you" only means something when it comes from our hearrs and we give our lives in sacrafice to the ones we claim to love (remind you of someone)? "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends". I always thought he meant literally die for others but he also means to die to self for others, to lay our lives diwn in service to one another."i command you that you should love one another, that you lay down your lives for one another, that you love each other as i love you. I lay my life down for the sheep, therefore doth my Father love me, because i lay down my life in service to him. No man takes it from me but i lay it down of myself ".

   All our lives we are taught in churches to pay attention to what we wear, to what we eat, to how much we give, when all along He wants us to give it all away, our very lives, in sacrafice to Him and when we give our lives to Him - He in turn takes us and gives us to one another "take, eat, this is My body, broken for you".... we are his body, broken for one another, if we submit to him. He pours his love into our hearts then shares it with others, teaching us how to be just like Him. He cares for the poor, and those poor in love, orphans, fatherless and widows and strangers. This life laid down is the clearest proof of the Godhead the world will ever see. "If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. (If i do not add actions to the love i profess, do not believe i am of Christ), but if I do, though you believe not me, believe the works that you may know, and believe, that the Father is in me and i in Him". 

This is how we distinguish the false from the real. Cult leaders and wolves in sheep's clothing take and take from people, giving little in return except pompous sermons and a sense of belonging. They do not lay down their lives for the sheep, they require the sheep to lay down their lives for them. 

Part two in 5 days

   

 I saw Him approaching 

and I instantly knew.....

He was vastly different 

from me and you.

His eyes stood out

more than anything else, 

and He had a crowd following -

too many to tell.

What's this?

Can it really be?

He's......he's......

He's approaching me?

I'm a nobody,  a cripple,

no one's ever interested in me.

So why is this man stopping 

and gazing at me so intensely?

What did He just say?

Will I be made whole today?

Impossible! Why bother?

I have no man to carry me

down to the water.

Don't disturb me with anymore of your silly talk -

What? Rise, take up my bed and walk?

What's this I'm feeling? 

Oh my God! My body's healing! 

I can walk! I can run!

Oh my God - thank You for what You've done!

Question:  Is it possible for a church to welcome Jesus but not the Holy Spirit? If so, are they by proxy rejecting the Father, since it's His spirit they are rejecting? Is this possible? Are they deluding themselves? If they receive Jesus but not the Holy Spirit  have they really received Him? Can they go to Heaven? Are they really saved? Could a demon disguise itself and call itself "Jesus"? 

The Holy Spirit is such an integral part of our identity as "Christians" - in fact, the very word "Christ" means "the Anointed One" (of God) - anointed with the Holy Spirit.  Many, many scriptures testify of his role in our lives. We cannot become his sons and daughters without him. Jesus testified he would leave so the Holy Spirit would then come to us. 

Some denominations claim they get the Holy Spirit when they're born again, but they deny his presence,  his anointing,  his gifts. When Jesus says "not everyone that says to me Lord, Lord" - when He says "depart from Me I never knew you", could He mean that they were Christians who followed  him in name only, intellectually,  but never let him dwell inside them, as Lord? For He "knows" us by His Spirit,  doesn't he? Could these "Christians" follow a religion built around the name "Jesus" but it's all an outward show, not an inner reality? Just asking......

Part two

 

After our spirits are caught up to Him, our souls will follow, for our minds, our thoughts, will focus on whatever our hearts are desiring. If our hearts are caught up to Him then we will seek those things which are above - we will seek and we will find the mind of Christ  "let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus" - so, after our hearts, our soul's become raptured by Him - indeed, the battle for our souls cannot be won if our hearts are not fully surrendered to Him. 

This battle for our soul can last a lifetime but the war for our souls was won long ago when Jesus breathed His last breath on Calvary's Cross, just as Jesus crucified his heart, with it's lusts and desires,  then crucified his soul in the garden of Gethsemane -  then gave up his body to be crucified- so must we - but for us, our bodies are not required to serve Him in death, rather as we crucify our hearts and minds, our self will, we become living sacrifices "PRESENT YOUR BODIES A LIVING SACRIFICE, HOLY, ACCEPTABLE TO GOD". Very few of us have the honor of being called to become martyrs for him. For most of us, our hearts and souls are enough.

So then, the rapture of our bodies will only take place if our hearts and minds, our spirits and souls, have already been raptured- for just as the mind follows and obeys the heart, so will our body follow and obey our minds.

So if you have a religious form of Christianity where you honor him with your lips but your heart is far from him, then you will miss the rapture - the catching up of your body in the air to whom your heart and soul have already been joined. You will miss the rapturous joy of the final, physical union of God and His bride - when she is transformed into her glorious eternal body, in which she'll dwell with him forever "It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory, it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.  As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly; such are they also that are heavenly."

When we trade in, or exchange, our carnal mind for a spiritual mind, we stop desiring the things our carnal man desires.

When Jesus said to the goats who assumed they were sheep "depart from Me, ye cursed", when he says to them "I never knew you: depart from me" - the word "knew" refers to the way a husband "knows" his wife - "And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived,  and bare Cain". Jesus, intellectually, knows everyone- He is Omniscient- but he doesn't have deep, heart deep, intimacy with everyone.  Many on that great and fearful Day of The Lord - that Day of Judgment of our God - will claim they "know" the Lord but they only know Him with their minds - their hearts never belonged to Him. They were "saved" into churches where He was only ever sought after with their minds. In these churches,  everything has to make sense - everything has to be logical, everything has to fit into our understanding. Well, my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith The Lord. For as the heavens are higher thanvthe earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts" . Week after week, year after year, churches are filled with sermons that make perfect sense to people - the people file out and say "that was a good sermon today", etc. but their hearts are rarely touched, only their minds. "TRUST IN THE LORD WITH ALL THINE HEART, AND LEAN NOT UNTO THINE OWN UNDERSTANDING" yet in many churches, they DO NOT engage the Lord with all their hearts but they DO lean on their own understanding, to their eternal regret.

Lust is centered around and focused on, self. What can I get out of this? What's in it for me? Love is focused on others - what can I do for them? What can I give to them? During intercourse,  love thinks "how can i please them"? Lust says "how can i get them to please me"? If we love the Lord with all our hearts then we devote our lives to the pursuit of pleasing Him. How can I give Him pleasure? We don't focus on us, on self - we don't spend our lives pursuing what we can get from Him ( including eternal life), no, we focus on HIM - we cry out to Him "Cast your cares upon me, Jesus, for i care for you"! 

Share your heart with me, Lord! Use me, to please my Father. Use me to speak to others - out of the abundance of the Lord's heart in me - my mouth becomes his mouth, his words become my words, till all I say is what He's speaking, and all i do is what He's doing, till He becomes the first thought we think  in the morning and the last thought we think at night, for our minds will dwell on whatever passions arouse our hearts. If He is truly the king of your heart - if He is sitting on your heart's throne, not self, then your days will be consumed with thoughts of Him. He will literally be the focal point of your life - of all your remaining days on earth. You won't be able to stop thinking about Him! Like a young girl in love for the first time (or boy), you'll write love letters to Him - you'll compose poems, you'll shower Him with attention and love. You'll make love to Him in your heart.

When i first met my wife i couldn't stop thinking about her. We often talked on the phone for hours on end. Yet, over time (24 years and counting), she's become familiar to me, like the Pina Colada song. If I'm not careful,  I don't long to hear her voice in the same way i used to. The same thing can happen to our relationship with The Lord - "Nevertheless I have somewhat against you, because you have left your first love". Our walk with Him can become routine. We substitute rituals for relationship.  We hide behind the fact we're going to church each week but for many of us, church is our fig leaf. We even go to church to avoid Him, not meet with Him. We substitute meeting with our pastor for meeting with him. We stop walking with Him daily, so we hide from Him weekly by going to a church where His presence is avoided.

      That's the gift of women. The greatest gift of a woman to a man is that she opens herself completely to him. She becomes vulnerable in doing so. We men share our minds with our women but they share their hearts with us - God made them out of a rib, which guards and protects the heart, so, we men can learn from this, from our woman, how to share our hearts.

     This is essential in our relationship with God. We can pray great, lengthy, intellectual prayers to God - prayers we swell with pride for after saying, but can we share our hearts with Him? One heartfelt prayer can do more to move God on our behalf than an hour long prayer from the intellect. "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much" - fervent means "having or showing great warmth or intensity of spirit, hot, burning, glowing" in essence  - passionate! Passion comes from our hearts!  "And you shall seek Me and find Me, when you shall search for Me with all your heart". 

     Men typically have a harder time with this than women. We men tend to keep our closed and well guarded (unless we're watching our team win a National Championship). Women know instinctively how to love deeply. This is one reason we are invited to become His bride - we too are vulnerable, we too are the weaker vessel. Yet, you know when your wife or girlfriend talks to you and she shares all about her day in great detail? And she spends 20 minutes telling you about a two minute incident that happened to her?  And inside your mind you're trying super hard to concentrate and keep focused on what she's saying but your mind starts to wander anyway? It's because she's engaging you with her heart while you're engaging her with your mind - But know this - The Lord engages us with His heart, not just His mind. He tells us to love Him with all our hearts because this is how He loves us. If we go to Him all excited about some part of our day and we chatter on about it because we're so grateful- He loves it! I used to get excited about the beautiful Florida sunsets i was seeing. I would pull over to the side of the road, get out of my car, and worship Him.

   Sex becomes just an exercise in lust, for us men, when we only use our minds, but for women, it's "making love", not just sex because they give themselves completely to us - they engage us with their hearts not just their minds. I used to warn the teen-age girls i was counseling "you can't put a condom on your heart". It's why women will so quickly fall in love with their sex partner and it's also another reason God demands that we wait till marriage to do it. He wants us to become one in spirit, then soul, and lastly body, with our spouse - the culmination- the "piece de resistance" of a love that's much more than skin deep but heart felt. When sex involves our hearts, not just our minds, when it involves two hearts in love with each other - it's much sweeter and more satisfying. And likewise,  when we are intimate with the Lord, heart to heart, our relationship with Him is much sweeter and much more satisfying. He's opened his heart to you, why not open yours to Him? Just as we are meant to have relations with our wife - spirit, soul, then body, so are we meant to have relations with the Lord.  We first come to know Him spiritually- spirit to spirit - our hearts are raptured (ecstatic joy or delight) by Him first. We become enamored with Him. He captures our hearts and holds them captive with his love for us - till we desire Him and Him alone. Too many altar calls focus entirely on us, how sinful we are, how desperately we need saving - and this is good, but i wish - once souls bow before Him, in subjugation and surrender- i wish we would continue the altar call, this time focusing entirely on Him - How amazing He is, How, in all His glory and splendor- with His vast riches - He needs and desires us! We should extoll His wondrous love to those having their shame and guilt washed away. They go into the water dead to Christ but come out alive to Him forevermore! 

Part two in 5 days.....