2 Manuscripts from Isaac Penington

It is truly amazing how much we can learn from these writings, given over 400 years ago, that are pertinent for this day and hour.  Here are links and exerpts:

Question to Professors of Christianity

…O professors of Christianity! and do not despise the hand which is stretched forth to you in the love of God, and in the motion and guidance of his Spirit, who condescends to you exceedingly, that he might reach to his own in you, and scatter your apprehensions, imaginations and conceivings about the meanings of scriptures (which are as so many chains of death and darkness upon you), that ye might come to him in whom is life, and who gives life freely to all who come to him. Oh, observe what bars were in the way of

the Scribes and Pharisees! They would not come to him that they might have life; nay, indeed, they could not, as they stood. There are greater bars in your way; yea, it is harder for many of you to come to him, than it was for them. My upright desire to the Lord for you is, that he would remove the stumbling-blocks out of your way, that he would batter and knock down the flesh in you, that he would strip you of all your knowledge of scriptures according to the flesh, that ye might be made by him capable of knowing and receiving things according to the Spirit, and then ye will know how to understand, honor, and make use of the letter also; but till then ye cannot but make use of it both against your own souls, and against Christ and his truth….

Concerning Persecution

 
…8. THE BLESSEDNESS OF THE PERSECUTED


The disciple of Christ, who is persecuted for conscience' sake, who suffers from men and their laws for the uprightness of his heart towards, and for his obedience unto, Christ, that man is precious in the eye of Christ, and hath his blessing with him; yea, the more men disesteem and hate him upon this account the greater is his blessedness. "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad." Mat. 5:11,12. He is blessed in several respects….

…Read then this riddle, with a true understanding: the tender one cannot yield, the flexible one cannot bow; but naturally standeth upright and straight towards God, even in every thing it hath learned of him, and which he requireth of it. Thus in the apostles' days, the Christians, though meek, though sweet, though pliable to the Spirit of God, and to all good, yet could not bow to so much as an appearance of evil anywhere, but shun and avoid it everywhere. And if it were not for this kind of stiffness and unbendedness, the children of God could never be preserved in their departure out of the world's spirit, ways, worships, and practices; but would soon be ensnared and drawn back again, by the enticements and subtleties of the worldly nature, either in themselves or others.

3. A stiffness then I grant, an unbendedness I grant; but not of the earthly, not of the self-will, nor according to the earthly; but such as ariseth from truth in the heart, and from tenderness of spirit towards God; such as is begotten in his fear, preserved by his power, and is necessary towards their preservation who are born of him, and called by him out of the world. And if those, who are apt and liable to misjudge of them, did but see the sincere desire of their hearts not to offend man, but to be subject to the utmost according to the will of God, and knew what breathings there are in their hearts to God (in relation to the magistrate, and when they appear before him), that they may be preserved in the pure fear, and in righteousness and inoffensiveness, and how they cannot but refuse to break any of God's commands, because he is their Supreme Lord, and they dare not disobey him to please man, or avoid their own sufferings from man: I say, if men did see this, surely they would not call it stubbornness and self-willedness, but a pure subjection and denial of the self-will in God's fear, joined with a holy and humble boldness in his power…

Abounding in Love - T. Austin-Sparks

Abounding in Love


by T. Austin-Sparks

"The Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we also do toward you" (1 Thess. 3:12).

"We are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren, even as it is meet, for that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the love of each one of you all toward one another aboundeth" (2 Thess. 1:3).

"For this cause I also, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which is among you, and the love which ye show toward all the saints..." (Eph. 1:15).

"And whatsoever we ask we receive of him, because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight. And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, even as he gave us commandment" (1 John 3:22-23).

"Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God" (1 John 4:7).

The Lord's Coming Related to Love in the Saints

There is something which lies behind these particular passages and which gives them their real force and value and emphasis. The matter before us has a prominent place in Paul's letters to the Thessalonians, and those letters themselves occupy a place of great spiritual significance. They were the first of the recorded letters written by Paul, and in chronological order they ought to come right at the beginning of his epistles, before Romans and all the others; but, seeing that they are so largely occupied with the Lord's coming and all the matters connected therewith, it is as though the Holy Spirit said, 'Yes, they come first chronologically, but really they belong to the other end,' and so He caused them to be taken out of their chronological order and put last in the arrangement of the letters as we have them. All this about the Lord's coming is after this and this and this as represented by all the other letters. So the letters to the Thessalonians are really the culmination of everything in the coming of the Lord. In them we have the last things: and the Holy Spirit has put them in their right place - at the end and with a significance which we are going to indicate in a moment.

We pass over to the letters of John, and we find they also are occupied with last things. When John wrote, every other New Testament writer had gone to be with the Lord. His are the last writings and they are occupied with last things - the Lord's coming, the antichrist, and so on. He says "it is the last hour." Here is the same feature as in 'Thessalonians.'

But with the Lord's coming in view, what is to be the thing which characterises the Lord's people more than anything else? What is the culmination of the whole process and progress of spiritual things? What is the issue of 'Romans,' 'Corinthians,' 'Galatians,' 'Ephesians,' 'Philippians', and 'Colossians'? What is it all to amount to? You notice in both places where the last things and the last times are most in view - 'Thessalonians' and 'John' - the emphasis is upon love. That is the impressive thing here. What is the Lord coming to? What has drawn Him at any time? What is it that He delights to find and come to? "Then they that feared the Lord spake one with another; and the Lord hearkened, and heard and a book of remembrance was written before him, for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, even mine own possession, in the day that I make" (Malachi 3:16-17). There you seem to have something of an advent of the Lord, as though He saw something there and said, 'That is what I am looking for and there I can come.'

Heart Love, not Head Knowledge, Attracts the Lord

Now, I am not setting aside the personal advent of the Lord. His coming will have many aspects. It will be for judgment, it will be for many things; but as central to it all, must there not be a magnet - something that draws Him out? Will He come only to judge the nations, to judge iniquity, to judge the man of sin - will that be enough for Him? Will He not rather come because He has found a treasure, and everything else of judgment is bound up with that treasure?

A familiar illustration is found in the life of David. When he was being driven out from his rightful place by the usurper, for the time being an exile from his city and throne, he sent back the priests with the ark into the city, to be there as a focal point for his heart's affections while he was in exile (2 Sam. 15:25). We know well that the priestly aspect of things in the Scriptures is the love aspect, as the kingly is the administrative. Again, we find the love aspect coming in with Aaron. What is almost the first thing that is said about Aaron to Moses? - "when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart" (Ex. 4:14). It was a heart matter that brought in the priesthood. The principle obtains all the way through Scripture. It is the priest who in his love and devotion holds the Lord's people in a heart relationship with the Lord; and when the Lord had to say the hardest things that He ever did say to His own people it was because the priests were then carrying on a system with no true heart relationship with Himself. Yes, the sacrifices and the services were there, but "this people draw nigh unto me, and with their mouth and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me" (Isa. 29:13). There was all the priestly service without the heart. The priest represents the heart side of things.

Now this matter of love is the most practical thing that ever we can have to do with. It raises more problems than anything else. But let us look at it firstly in the light of the Lord's coming. If the Lord is coming, what will He come to? I do not think He will come because there are people who have a lot of truth and a lot of exactness in their technique and all that sort of thing. Do not let us disregard the great value and importance of light and truth, of being right according to the Lord's laws and principles; but all that will never satisfy His heart. What He will come to will be that in which He finds His heart satisfaction because of love. Paul, in the first letter to the Thessalonians, prays that their love for one another and for all men may increase. In the second letter he does not pray any longer that it may be so, he gives thanks that it is so; their love to one another does abound exceedingly. And in that context he opens up the matter of the Lord's coming. I do not think we are straining our interpretation here. The Holy Spirit is so consistent in His thoughts. We can talk about the Lord's coming when we can say our love aboundeth, overfloweth, but I wonder whether we can talk about the Lord's coming with any real heart confidence unless that condition obtains.

Love Not Offended by Appearances

"Abound in love one toward another." Love for those of our own company may not be so difficult. But the Word adds "and toward all men." That goes deeper. I have of late felt more deeply and strongly than ever before the force of very familiar words - "Knowledge puffeth up, but love buildeth up" (1 Cor. 8:1), and other words such as "maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love" (Eph. 4:16). If we are going to be affected by that which is present in other people, all those features in Christians and in Christian work and activity which are repugnant to us, we are going to close up and withdraw in heart and nothing is going to be done in the way of mutual helpfulness and edification. Again and again the very practical question arises - because of this or that which we meet in another can anything be done, is anything possible? And very often, in the acute consciousness of so much that appears on the surface, we have revolted against it; and then, going to the Lord about it and facing it out with Him, we have been enabled to go on, and something has happened and the Lord has wrought, and we have been surprised, and rebuked for our original offendedness. We have to look through all that to the heart, and be reminded every time that the Lord looks on the heart. We are looking on all this which is largely the result of ignorance, lack of proper teaching and so on, and this can offend us. But the Lord looks on the heart; He sees if there is something deep down under all these preponderances, if there is a real heart love for Himself, and He knows if this is really the endeavour to express that love. There may be misapprehension, there may be ignorance, there may be other causes, but this which offends us is, on the part of those concerned, their way of showing their love for the Lord, and we must not be turned aside - we must get close to them and find what possibilities there are for the Lord. He is going on, He is not giving up; He is making all He possibly can of the least bit of heart love for Himself and for all men. The challenge of this is very practical and very searching for us. If we are affected by what we meet, by what we see and hear, by that whole world of sense - I am speaking in the realm of Christians now - we shall be put off, give up and decide that nothing is possible. "Love buildeth up"; you find there is something possible, there is some building up possible, more often than you would really believe or imagine, if only you take the love line - not the reserved line of criticism and judgment, but the love line. If there is any possibility at all for the Lord, that is the only way to find it, and you have to do a good deal of digging down, and apply yourself to it with real purpose, to discover whether, after all, there is any genuine, pure heart devotion to the Lord behind all the rest and wrapped up in it. And that 'all' covers a great deal which I will not attempt to detail. If you find that true heart love, you have found your ground of possibility; and for us, dear friends, this is our business, a business to be diligently pursued. It is not a sentimental matter at all, but intensely real spiritual business.

Love Not Offended Because of Deficiencies

So much for the preponderances; there are also what we may call the deficiencies. We may say of others that we do not find in them knowledge or truth or teaching or understanding; we find, as we feel, nothing to work upon. We are tempted to say 'they do not know, they have not seen'; oh, the iniquity of a phrase like that when it is used as some people use it! 'Poor things,' they say, in effect; 'they have not seen this aspect of doctrine which we have seen'; and they pass them by because they have not seen! I say, that can be an iniquitous thing because it may be robbing the Lord of any possibility at all. It may be true that little or nothing is understood of that with which we are familiar; they may know nothing about this or that aspect of truth. But is there some heart relationship to the Lord, even with the very minimum of spiritual understanding and enlightenment and instruction? Because there is nothing of all that which we feel to be so necessary, are we going to abandon such children of God? This is a matter in which I feel we do need to be fully awake, and if necessary, to make adjustments.

Love Looks Upon the Heart

Love - not the presence of a lot of understanding and teaching and truth, and not the absence of all sorts of things - is the governing matter with the Lord. It is not that He Himself in His heart accepts the wrong things, but He sees through them, He sees differently from ourselves. There are two statements about David made in the Scriptures - made from two different standpoints. Speaking of David, the Lord said to Samuel, "Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart" (1 Sam. 16:7). That meant that the Lord's look upon David's heart was one which was favourable. But when David went to take bread to his brethren in the army his eldest brother looked at him and said, "Why art thou come down? ...I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thy heart..." (1 Sam. 17:28). Here we have God's look and man's look. We have to be very careful concerning the standpoint from which we are looking upon people before we judge them by the outward signs.

You can see there is no hope of building up unless there is love - and love for all men. You and I ought to be greatly concerned with this matter of building up. Oh, God only knows how much of spiritual increase and building is needed! It is a paralysing situation that faces us if we look at our own limitations. I am sure nothing is going to be done unless we have a very large heart to look over and in and through and beyond, refusing to be held by the thing that is glaring at us, striking us and hurting us, and reaching through to that which is true in the heart.

Love Builds

In the light of the Lord's coming, it is very important to be well instructed and to have all the light that the Lord can give us, but never let us think for one moment that light and truth and teaching are inevitably the building factors, for there are many people with a vast amount of truth and love who are not very large spiritually; they are very small, shrunken and closed up. It is love that builds. Moreover, it makes differences in those who exercise it, it brings them into rest. Truth alone may bring a strained look into the face and eyes. Love ought to bring into the countenance some suggestion of quiet strength and restful confidence. Look again at those closing verses of Romans 8 - "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ...Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors." Look at the things in question - the ultimate things so far as our lives are concerned. No, none of these things can separate us from the love of God. Well, let us sit down in the armchair of His love and be at rest, and then get to work. You cannot work unless you have a background rest, and rest does not spring firstly from truth. It comes from love, God's love. Whatever else He gives us and adds to us, may the Lord make us a people who are characterised supremely by this love for one another and for all men.

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Jul-Aug 1948, Vol 26-4

Beyond Faith

Beyond Faith


Edward Kjos


-1998-


Believers of God from all Religions or "Faiths", as some prefer to be known, are now facing a time where to believe and to trust is not enough. We have not appropriated enough of His essence to project us into the next phase of existence on this plane, only enough to try and maintain it, and at this stage of our evolution, to maintain what we have without advancing is to lose ground. I know that it is prudent to maintain what you have but you also must move with what you have less stagnation and passivity set in. We must not be like the foolish and unwise virgins, nor let the Laodicean spirit of this age have free course in our life. We cannot become as our predecessors and not take advantage of the open door before us. We cannot afford to choose not to take advantage of what could have already been acquired even with the limited amount of knowledge and awareness that we now possess. Sitting and waiting for something to happen is not faith, it is passivity . To have faith is to rely on your beliefs until you can acknowledge what you are believing for by the absolution of knowing and experiencing it . Passivity is to sit and wait for something to happen that would motivate you to keep on believing, instead of being motivated to make something happen yourself.

Even though some of us have journeyed past the bonds of Christian and religious doctrine, the depth at which these bonds exist has caused us to still be subjected to the same reactions that held us in bondage as beforehand. This continues because we have to get beyond religion and doctrine and purge ourselves from the conditioning of humanity as a whole. It is impossible to please God in the flesh. This doesn't mean that we are forever bound by the limitations of this flesh which our spirits are encased in. What it means is that we determine our existence by the essence of our spirit instead of the conditioning and limitations of the flesh.

The roll call of faith is filled with men of God that have gone before us of whom the scriptures state that we are not worthy to be numbered with. They have moved on in their journey to other planes without seeing and experiencing the things that are now being made available to us. These are those times which the old men dreamed of and the young men saw visions about. They shared these experiences with us through the written or spoken word, and through spiritual impartation and revelation. There is a time and place in eternity where the Sons take the throne and rule and reign with the Father. A time when the past, present and future merge in a fusion of God's energy that causes the promises from the past to explode into the fulfillment of the present and continues on throughout eternity.

It is easier to sustain a religion or a faith by having an unattainable goal which requires a blind obedience without a working faith that produces results. It keeps you in bondage with that old "pie in the sky" mentality that causes you to accept delay and non- fulfillment as part of God's plan and purpose. This is done to assure that those in "power" keep their followers imprisoned in an aura of dullness rather then to believe and come into knowing that every promise in the book belongs to us and it is ours to be had right now, Jehovah Jirah.

This does not apply only to the false shepherd, but to the false sheep as well. They willingly allow themselves to be suppressed and restrained so that they will have an excuse for not having to face God on their own. Having faith for someone is believing to see the will of God fulfilled in their life. Having patience with someone is enduring their life process until it reaches its own conclusion. A son of God takes faith that his gifts will expedite the establishing of His kingdom on this plane. A false son uses his gifts to enhance his existence on this plane; such as Judas and Balaam.

Having faith for something is to take what has been made real to you that you have not seen, yet believe without an expiration date or time limit until it comes to past. It is to believe without limitation or boundary -- to believe that what has been promised will be fulfilled in the course of God's timing or through the intervention of our prayers and intercession.

"I believe, help my unbelief". This makes our personal relationship with God the only way that we can see our life quest be fulfilled. It can only be fulfilled by each and every one of us having and sustaining a personal relationship with God. Interdependent with others who have this same pursuit, yet independent of a need to rely on or be sustained by each others humanity. We have been taught to look for the second coming when all along it has been us. I can't believe that the one who I have been waiting on all this time is me. It is also the same for you. The redemption and redeemer that we have waited for us has already come and is in us.

Beyond faith is to take what has been promised but not yet seen and bring it into a relative working manner on this plane through your eternal connection with the Father and the proper linking with the eternal forces of His will.

The difference between just having faith and walking in sonship can be compared to Elisha, who had enough faith to believe that when Elijah would be caught up that he would receive a double portion. After Elijah was caught up it was time where Elisha could either continue to just have faith and wait for something to happen, or do as he did after crying out "My father, my father the Chariots of Israel"! . It has always been stated in a manner where all of the attention was being focused on Elijah being caught up in a whirlwind. Now we must start to see the importance of Elisha's transition from just having faith, to adding works or action with his faith; which creates sonship. We must duplicate the impartation which came from being in the presence of God that created his permanent transition into sonship. Not having known God on the level that Elijah had, he subsequently addressed God in his initial encounter as "where is the God of Elijah?" However from the moment he channeled the energies of God for the first time as a son in what we refer to as the miracle of the ax head, he changed. From that moment on he has been united with the Father in a oneness that never caused him to relate to God from a third party situation ever again. This once again highlights the importance of our pursuit of a personal relationship with God. Even after he crossed over, the synergism of his oneness with God and the eternal existence of the energy of a oneness with God caused a person who was dropped into his tomb as a dead man to be revived.

There is nothing wrong with having faith, its just that faith without works is dead. The works are the actions we take along with our faith that is not content with just believing , but to have the corresponding action that causes things to happen right now. The faith that the son of man will find on his return will be the faith that has been created by the union of the sons with the Father because of our personal relationship with Him. Faith by itself leaves an option for delay -- Sonship causes absolution because it aligns you with the ability to only do the things that we see the Father do, and only speak the things we hear the Father say. To have faith is the permissive will of God -- Sonship is the perfect will of God.

Faith overcomes, sonship conquers and eliminates. Beyond faith is the Kingdom, beyond faith is sonship. By faith we pursue a personal relationship with God, sonship is the completion of that pursuit Faith is the victory that overcomes the world, Sonship is the vehicle that ushers in the kingdom.

It is placement not position. You can take faith to be a son, but only God can and does place us in the body as He pleases. Many are called but few are chosen. Being called can get you threw the door. Being chosen will seat you at His right hand. A position is to desire a place other than what God has for you. To be placed is to be set in the body according to God's will and plan for your life. It is to be aligned in the eternal synergism of God's essence and omnipotence along with the rest of God's elemental's and terrestrials that make up His creation. Faith is like manna. Faith will get you to the Kingdom, sonship will assure you entrance. Faith without fulfillment has caused some of God's people to fall away because their faith was based on position not fulfillment. Faith is not a duel to the death with negativity and unbelief. It is a building block for sons during their incubation period between the time of just believing and -- coming into really knowing. To just believe does not always make things happen. This is why a lot of your so-called ministries of faith or faith healers end up disappearing off the scene. You can take faith to see something happen or to get something started, but it takes the application of sonship to bring it to pass.

Our quest is for sonship, our goal is His perfect will, our joy is to worship him in spirit and in truth, our reason for existing is to bring forth his Kingdom on earth and every other dimension, as it is in Heaven.

Who Is Blind?

Who Is Blind?


“Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I sent? who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the LORD'S servant?” Isaiah 42:19.

We all possess an inherent talent for applying instruction and correction to ‘the other guy,’ while assuming that we are in compliance. We can receive instructions from the Lord Himself. We assume that we see and hear, yet we err in our application whenever we fail to examine our own hearts. We have a tendency to see ourselves as already being ‘fixed’… whose duty it is to ‘fix others.’ We have no problem seeing ourselves as ‘the elect,’ ‘the chosen,’ ‘the called out ones,’ while we have a major problem seeing the errors we make in our judgments and our own lack of discernment. We may have spiritual eyesight in one area, but see with only our carnal understanding in others… and be totally unaware of it. We may see more than most of those around us and make the assumption that because we see more than they do we think we see ‘all there is to be seen’ in that area, without seriously considering that even though we see more now than we did ten years ago, we still have a film over our eyes… there is still much more that we are yet blind to. We are admonished:

"Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil" Proverbs 3:7.

"Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!" Isaiah 5:21.

How does one become wise in their own eyes?... by comparing themselves with others.

"For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise" 2 Corinthians 10:12.

In Jesus’ warnings to the Churches in Revelation, he stated:


“Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked” Rev 3:17. We are the ones He is talking to here. If we truly love God, if we honestly desire to walk by the power of His Spirit, then we had better stop visualizing the ‘other guy’ when we read these words. We ARE the ‘other guy,’ and it’s high time we wake up and realize it. There is an enormous gulf between what we desire to be and what we are, and we will never span this gulf except by the power of the Spirit of God. We indulge in all manner of disciplines; we study and sacrifice, trying to become the ‘sons of God.’ But most of us are still babes, unable to take strong meat. Big spiritual challenges are not stopping us… it’s the little things that we stumble over. For many, the very scriptures are incomprehensible. We can become desensitized to the words, by thinking that we already understand what is being said. There is a saying, ‘over familiarity breeds contempt,’ and it applies here. We can hear and read the same passages over and over again, thinking that we fully grasp the meaning. There are many levels of understanding and comprehension, and we seldom get beyond the obvious carnal application. Many never even seek the Holy Spirit’s illumination of the mysteries the scriptures contain. No man can teach us, (open our spiritual eyes) except the Holy Spirit. We can spend all of our time accumulating knowledge, yet never assimilate what we are learning into our very being. Instead, there is a disconnection between what we know and believe, and what we are; how we treat others.

Continue reading here

Mirror For Believers - Isaac Penington

here is an enlightening excerpt from 'Mirror for Believers.'  If there was ever an hour when we need to look in the mirror, and see ourselves as God sees us, it is now....

And mark it: the disciples who were illiterate, and not so knowing of the scriptures that were written of Christ, yet they knew Christ; but the Scribes and Pharisees, who were very skilful in the letter, could not know him. What was the reason? The reason lay in the difference of the eye, or light, with which they looked; one looked with an outward eye, the other with an inward eye. A little inward light will do that, which a great deal of outward light will not do. I can certainly affirm that all the light, which men can gather from the Scriptures, cannot give them the knowledge of Christ as he has appeared in this age; no, or as he has appeared in any age, since the days of the apostles; but a little true inward light will give the knowledge of this thing, and open those scriptures infallibly, (in due time), which all the generations of wise and learned men have been arguing and disputing about, in that wisdom and searching spirit, with which they will never understand them. This is then the main and full reason of the deep error of the Jews, and their desperate splitting upon the rock, which would have saved them. They were begotten of the letter, which was given forth in former ages; but not of the life, which was raised up in their age; and so they knew not how to turn to the light within themselves, which alone was able to give them the true and certain knowledge of the things of God.


Now consider these things well, O you believers of this age! and take heed that you do not fall after the same example of unbelief. "Be not high-minded, but fear." Be not so confident of what you have gathered by your wisdom for truth from the Scriptures, (after the manner that they were, of what they had gathered by their wisdom); but fear, lest you should be mistaken as they were; and wait for the opening of that eye in you which was shut in them; even the true eye, in the true light, by the holy anointing; where there never was nor can be any mistake. The Jews fell by unbelief. Unbelief of What? They believed the Scriptures, they believed according to that knowledge they had gathered from the Scriptures; but they did not believe in the living Word. They had a knowledge abiding in them, which they had gathered from the Scriptures, but they had not the living Word abiding in them; and so their faith was but unbelief, (for the living faith stands in the belief of the living Word in the heart, which the Scriptures direct to; without the knowledge of which, all knowledge of words is vain; and without faith in which, all faith is vain also). Now said the apostle to the Gentile Christian, "You stand by faith." Rom 11:20. By what faith? By faith in that Word in the heart, which they neglected and turned from. Rom 10:8. For Moses had taught them, after the laws and ordinances about worship and sacrifices, that the Word that they were to obey and do, (the Word that could give them life, and make them obedient to all the commandments without), was in their heart and mouth. Deut. 30:14. And so the prophet Micah, when they proposed sacrifices and oil, to please God with, brings them to this which was given to them in common with mankind. Micah 6:8. For all ordinances and laws and observations and practices without, are but to bring to the life within, which is to be found again there, where it was lost, and still lies slain and hidden , (even in the field or house where it was lost). And he that seeks abroad, never finds it; but when the candle is lighted in his own house, and he searches narrowly in the field, in his own heart, and the eternal eye begins to open in him; then he cries out, God was in this place, and I was not aware of it. Ah! how the enemy bewitched me, to run from mountain to mountain! and from hill to hill! and has hereby covered my eye from beholding the mountain of the Lord's house, and from feeling the spring of my life, which I further and further ran from, all the while I was seeking abroad. Therefore, O you professors, be not so conceited like the Jews, and running after them into their desolation and misery, but learn wisdom by their fall! Do not you set up your ordinances and scriptures, after the manner that they set up theirs; for this is your danger. For this I clearly, in the light of the Lord, testify to you: that if you gather a knowledge and wisdom from the letter of the Scriptures, after the manner that they did, without knowledge of the Word within, and without a light within from that Word, you lose the living faith, you are but dead branches; and all your knowledge of scriptures, and practices, and faith, and duties, etc., that you here hold and observe, are but for the fire; and the flames of eternal wrath shall kindle more fiercely upon you because of them, than upon the Jews for you stumble upon the same stumbling-stone at which they stumbled and fell, and it will fall upon you also. And as you have more scriptures than they had, and the experience of their fall to warn you; so your destruction will be exceeding dreadful "if you neglect so great salvation;" of which at this day there are so many living and powerful witnesses, as they are known and owned to be in the light of the Lord, though despised in your exalted and conceited wisdom.
Now to help any honest and single hearts among you over this great stumbling-block of a light within, consider these few things.

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The Kingdom Life - James Jarjou

KINGDOM LIFE

THE CALL INTO THE KINGDOM

by James Jarjou

There is an ever increasing cry of dissatisfaction in the Old creation, Since it was polluted from the fall of Satan, which became more polluted in the fall of Adam and Eve. This became a Force, a Power of uneasiness, with hellish properties which burn and torment all that is in the OLD creation of SIN and disobedience. These are eternal forces which manifest themselves anywhere they see the fruits of disobedience. These Eternal force or spiritual LAW is called the WRATH OF GOD in the scripture. It is a power which becomes manifest when the nature of the CREATOR which is the PURE LOVE OF GOD is perverted into that which THE CREATOR CANNOT LOVE, which is nothing but sin or disobedience. SIN itself is that which work out of the NATURE of the Creator and contain properties of GODS wrath which blind the creation from its original calling. In any measure where SIN exists, there is the manifestation of GODS wrath and anywhere Gods wrath is manifest, there is Blindness and uneasiness.

It remains a settled and unchanging truth there is JUDGEMENT and the manifestation of GODS Anger in the Old Creation of SIN and spiritual blindness, and the POSSESION OF GODS LOVE AND DIVINE LIFE, with heavenly knowledge in the new creation. The Call to enter the new Creation LIFE, stated from the Beginning and all the saints in the OLD Testament Had a Taste and a measure of it, walking in this very path; but where not fully delivered from the OLD CREATION. The sacrifice in the Cross brought in the Old material Creation the Only properties which can deliver us from the OLD CREATION, TO FULLY ENTER THE NEW CREATION WHERE ALL THAT IS IN US TRULY BECOMES THE DIVINE LIFE OF THE CREATOR.

The New Creation LIFE is a mystery and still remains a mystery from the foundation of the world, when the keys of its kingdom are not given. The keys are nothing different from the Spirit of God, which alone can reveal Gods mind to us. Each key (a measure of Gods spirit) of the kingdom opens a room in the heavenly kingdom for us to see. The different Keys open different rooms in the kingdom for us to see, which the unsearchable riches of Christ are. The only way we can bind or lose things on earth which will receive vindication from the Heavenly Kingdom, is that which is done through the KEY which is Gods spirit or Leading.

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The Root-cause of Trouble amongst Believers

The Root-cause of Trouble amongst Believers


Now you can see the reason of all the confusion, all the trouble amongst the Lord’s people. It is because they will bring over on to the other side of Jordan what they are by nature. Have we not yet recognised the terrible complication of the old creation, what a complicated, inextricable tangle the old creation is? If we were the most adept at introspection, and could analyse ourselves to the most minute point, we should never have got to the end of that complication.

We talk about our motives, and we say, Our motive was right! We talk about our conscientiousness, we talk about our intentions; but you and I do not know what lies behind what we call our good motives. There is a deceitfulness about this human heart that defies our greatest attempt at tracking it down, and we shall never do it. It takes Him that hath the seven Spirits of God, with the seven eyes, the perfect insight, to see through you and through me. We shall never see through ourselves, and you and I can never talk with any certainty about our good motives, our pure motives, our conscientiousness, because of this tangle of the old creation. This soul life of ours is such an awful mixture that you never, never know when you are on safe ground with it. It will lead you into all kinds of deceptions as to yourself, and as to others, and if you begin to live in your soul life, and assert it and develop it, you are developing what is capable of leading you into the greatest confusion and contradiction and mixture. There is an alliance with this fallen creation of forces that are not the forces of God, and you and I cannot break in between the two and sort the matter out. God Himself has not undertaken to do that. God Himself has not undertaken to disentangle this network of confusion in this old creation. God is not going to get to work like a great surgeon and drive in between this part and that part, and separate the good from the bad. He is not going to excavate and analyse and rearrange this whole tangled mass; He has not undertaken to do it. God’s whole attitude is (and this is the revelation of God’s Word) that that tangled mass is finished with, dead and buried, and God brings in something that is altogether other than that: a new creation, even Jesus Christ. There is no tangle in Him, no confusion in Him, no mixture in Him; there is perfection of harmony, a balance of order, of arrangement. All the rest is put out.

Here is where the church has become such a confused thing, and such a tragedy; for the prevailing idea is that if you give yourself over to God He will take you up and use you: "Bring over your humanity and consecrate it to the Lord! Consecrate your old man to the Lord, and go out and serve the Lord, with a consecrated old man!" it is utterly contrary to the teaching of God’s Word. The result is that in the work of God all the world over you have people serving the Lord in the energy of the flesh, in the reasoning of the flesh, in the emotions of the flesh. Meet them, counter them, frustrate them, and you meet something evil; you meet with a fight, a division, a schism, a scattering, and wholesale resignations.

Do you see what a havoc the enemy can make in that which is called the church, because people with best intentions, purest motives have come to serve the Lord with all their own intelligence, their own strength, and their own emotion? They have not seen that God has closed the door to the old creation, and that God’s attitude is this: "The only thing that can satisfy Me, that can serve Me is My Son, and if you are going to come into My service, He has to be the energy of everything, the Life of everything, the Wisdom of everything!" He has to be the governing, ruling reality in everything. It is not to be a matter of your impulses, but of His urgings and leadings by the Holy Spirit; not your sitting down to reason out what it would be good to do for the Lord, what ought to be done, what needs to be done, but what He shows you, nothing more. It is Christ who is God’s thought, and only Christ, and He is “altogether Other”.

He lived on that principle Himself, when He was here. Great appeals were made to His sympathies, but He never responded to those appeals until He had weighed the thing up before the Father and obtained the Father’s mind about it. Appeals were made to His reason, that He ought to do certain things: He ought to go up to the feast, it was the recognised thing, everybody was going up. If He was not going up He was laying Himself open to misunderstanding and misrepresentation! “Mine hour is not yet”, He said. And when they had gone up then He went up secretly. He was not playing a trick, acting a deception; He was making sure that the voice governing His movements was not the voice of popular habit, but was the voice of the Father governing Him. See how other Christ is from men, from what we are.

You and I must not bring over our old creation and give it to God, expecting God to use it. God begins with birth. The church of the firstborn is something quite new, and it comes out of a death. That death is the death of an old creation, and the resurrection is of something that is not the resuscitation of an old creation, but the resurrection of something wholly of God.

Link to Source: 

The Church of the Firstborn by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 1

Reflecting on Grief

Reflecting on Grief


Over the past 18 months, five people who were important parts of my life have passed on. My daily life has changed immensely. Three of them were younger than me, which served to emphasize my own mortality. I have had a lot of time to experience the many stages of grief. According to the experts, there are 7 stages:

1. Shock and denial

2. Pain and guilt

3. Anger and bargaining

4. Depression, reflection, loneliness

5. The upward turn

6. Reconstruction and working through

7. Acceptance and hope

Anyone who has lost a loved one will have personal experience as to their validity. Last evening, I saw a connection to all of this that I had never made before. In many ways, we experience a very similar pain and suffering, when we are called to ‘come out’ of our ‘religion,’ and step into the unknown by faith. Our religion provides us with many ‘comforts’ which we have grown to depend on. We do not want to abandon our comfort zones. If you have read and really heard (with your spiritual ears) the previous posts on this blog, then you should have no trouble making the connection. It makes no difference whether or not you are presently in or out of organized religion, because if you are out, you took it with you in your mind-sets and attitudes.

Many who have left the assembling together can reflect back and acknowledge that yes, they did experience many of these stages in the process of their coming out. Initially shock and denial, then pain and guilt, anger, bargaining, and all the rest. Our mistake was in assuming that now that we were out, we had left what we just came out of behind us. Unfortunately, such is not the case, as this is just the first step in our answer to the call to ‘follow Christ.’ We make a wrong assumption when we believe that we are different than those we just left, simply because we left and they didn’t. We run the danger of developing a very critical, judgmental attitude towards others who don’t see the things we see, or join with us in our pursuits. We now seek our comfort in new ways, trying to hold on to our religion, just dressing it differently. We learned so much about God from our religion, now that He has drawn us out of our birthplace, we are sure that we must be maturing and being led by His Spirit.

We have not arrived my friends, we have just started the course set before us. We are not finished with pain and suffering, it has only just begun. Only the Spirit of the Living God, can expose the darkness still within our own hearts. And we can be confident that this HE will do, if we continue to seek HIM. Many will come out, only to establish their own version of religious expression once outside. Good intentions may provide some solace, but if we would follow Christ all the way, even our good intentions must be laid on the altar. We may grieve over the darkness in others, when we are still blind to the darkness in ourselves. We may long for the fellowship we once knew, which is a form of grieving. We may be tempted to ease our pain by any means available. We can stop at any stage along the way. But know that as long as our heart is determined to know God, His Spirit will not stop exposing those things within us that are not of Him. We asked to be made into vessels of honor, we just didn’t realize the extent of our request. We thought we were in pretty good shape until the Potter started molding us and exposing our flaws and weaknesses, the errors in judgment and wrong attitudes we still carried.

Yes, grief is a big part of the process. If we are unwilling to suffer, we will never overcome, we will just be religious. Let’s stop…. ‘comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise’ 2 Corinthians 10:12. We have one role model to follow:

“Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” Hebrews 12:2.

“He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not” Isaiah 53:3.

Our flesh hates pain and suffering, and will go to great lengths to avoid it at all costs. Our flesh is what we have to die to, if we ever hope to truly be led by the Spirit.

“Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered” Hebrews 5:8.

“That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death” Php 3:10.

Modern man would have us to believe that Jesus suffered so we don’t have to…. so much for the wisdom of this world. Many times we will suffer because we are being disciplined. If that be the case, then we can rejoice because we are being treated as sons and not bastards. “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby” Hebrews 12:11. If we would know the ‘peaceable fruit of righteousness’, we will experience a lot of grief along the way. “For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” 1 Corinthians 2:2. And through this process, our flesh is crucified, our minds are renewed, and we are made conformable unto our Lord and Savior. “Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight” Matthew 11:26.



Amen & Amen

Cathy Morris
10/03/2010

Truth In The Inward Parts - T. Austin-Sparks