Fellowship July 30, 2011

Fellowship in the Household of Faith

July 30, 2011

Giving up our rights and living by the heart

BELIEVER 6: (“Practical Matters of this Life” by Watchman Nee).  “An eye dry reveals a heart dry.  A dry heart reveals a heart of stone.  It is only as the tears flow that the heart is opened up.  How strange that what is in the heart finds its exit through the eyes.  Some regard tears as a sign of weakness; but quite the contrary, the one who has not tears to shed has buried his humanity.”

BELIEVER 4:  the practical experience of what you are speaking; we need to allow to come down to our hearts.  It is not easy to live by our heart.  The measure of our surrender to Him is the measure that our heart is open.  You BELIEVER 6 said to us, “it is only as the tears flow that the heart is opened up.”  I am going to give an example of what we are living here.  When you allow your heart (Verses the mind) to function, everything changes.  But the enemy doesn’t want us to live in our hearts.  This is what I am praying for BELIEVER 3; I don’t feel peace in that we feel something (in the spirit) and he feels something different, the Lord needs to work with our heart.  This is a fight if we don’t have a sensitive heart.  This is a problem with BELIEVER 2; brokenness hasn’t come to him for over 4 months.  We can think that we are near God, but we near only in our mind, or in our own strength.  Brother Nee says, “how strange that what is in the heart…” the problem is that the world thinks the tears are a sign of weakness.  This means we have a heart of stone.  The heart of stone is in the old man.  The Lord wants us to live by a heart of flesh, the problem for all of us is that in the heart of flesh, the “I” cannot exist.  In reality, the “I” doesn’t have the ability to do what God wants. 

BELIEVER 6:  “the tears have a cleansing effect not only in the physical realm, but also in the spiritual realm.  In the physical realm, a few tears will help you to see more clearly.  Similarly, without a few tears your spiritual eyes would soon lose their function….The attitude of a Christian should be one of meekness, not arrogance.  And the life of a Christian should be one of denial, not pleasure.”

BELIEVER 4:  to deny ourselves is contrary to our nature, our flesh.  How does this operate so that we can have divine life to flow to the brothers.  Not unless we allow God to do what He wants to do.  I am going to be more specific with what happened right now.  Today or yesterday, I said to BELIEVER 5 concerning her health, “you need to eat more healthy (more in the vegetable life, not in what we desire).” This is not something we can handle unless the Lord helps us.  We have problems to handle what we like and enjoy.  There are two types of circumstances concerning denying our self and what we want to live.  In 1 Corinthians concerning the offerings, “each day of the week, each one set aside something to offer…”   In 2 Corinthians chapter 9:7 says, “let each do according to what he has purposed in his heart.”  I don’t feel it is a free choice.  The recovery version says,  “each one as he has purposed in his heart.”  God needs to put the purpose in our heart.

BELIEVER 6:  “(when we) give up any claim to personal rights, these cannot be provoked to anger.  This is denying self.”

BELIEVER 4: why do we get angry in what we are living? Because we have not lost our rights.  We still are enemies of the cross of Christ.  If someone takes something from you and you are still alive (in the old man) you are going to be angry.  Sister BE has lived difficult things for some months.  She feels angry because she hasn’t lost her rights.  Losing your rights is only going to come if you eat Christ.  It won’t come because you read a book, but because you hear the Living Voice of God.  The practicality of this shows us where we are.  We have a chance to fight unto death over what we have in our hearts.

BELIEVER 6: “A subjective person is full of self.  He has an opinion on every matter and a conviction on every subject.”

BELIEVER 4: This is so real: more real than 2 plus 2 equals 4.  The fire of God needs to consume us.  What is it that God wants? His desire?  It is that we be subject to Him, not ourselves.  He doesn’t want our opinion to exist, only His opinion.  The word says He will give testimony to our spirit.  But this is not coming from ourselves (because we do it). 

BELIEVER 6: “If you are truly a humble person before God,  you will eventually come to realize that the ridicule, despising, and slander that is directed at you from people is part of the discipline of the Holy Spirit, and you will accept such discipline. “ 

BELIEVER 4: If you don’t go to the spirit, we don’t accept this discipline.  We (BELIEVER 4 and BELIEVER 3) are living certain things, and the Lord is showing many things, and to keep going, grace is the only thing that is going to help us. 

BELIEVER 6:  “A person who truly knows the Lord expects other people to be raised up, as well as himself…The deeper one’s self has been dealt with through the Cross, the greater one’s deliverance from self will be.  How is this manifested?  The man who has been totally delivered from self cannot be provoked to rise to his own defense…(BELIEVER 4: this nature is not in the old man)…A Christian who loses his temper is simply revealing his resistance to the discipline of the Holy Spirit.  He is unhappy and displeased with the arrangement of events the Holy Spirit ahs ordered for Him (BELIEVER 4: we need help for this).

BELIEVER 4: only in the spirit can we say amen to this.  In our flesh, we believe (and desire) we are going to live forever.

BELIEVER 6:  “some days are accredited and some rejected by God…As Christians, we should realize that the days that we live according to our own human will—away from God, defeated and fallen—are not numbered by Him.  (BELIEVER 4: we don’t understand this, if we did understand this we would take the cross in silence.  We have many things in us that we want to keep alive.) “If we spend our days foolishly—if we rebel against God, commit sins, or walk after our own will—our days will be totally wasted as far as God is concerned.  How dreadful this is!”

BELIEVER 4: Brother Austin-Sparks says our life is a life of credits and debits.  If we are in the natural life it is a life of debits, and if we live in the spirit, it is a life of credits.  The days we dedicate to doing good things may not count.   God is not interested in good things.  There is a great difference between what God wants and what we want. 

BELIEVER 6:  “if your service is done according to His will, one day in His sight may be reckoned as many days.  For one day in His courts is better than a thousand wasted days (Ps. 84:10).”  (BELIEVER 4: we don’t understand this.  We want many things; we spend a thousand days in what we want easily.)…Why do some many Christians have to go back to get more water after drinking from the well?  Because they are drinking from the wrong well.”  (BELIEVER 4:  do you know what the wrong well is?  It includes doctrine.  Only the living word is true water.)

BELIEVER 4: BELIEVER 6 is giving the living word for this day.  D you know how many times 2 Cor. 9:7 killed me?  Many times.  Not by obligation, not by necessity, not by grief or guilt.  This is death

“Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

BELIEVER 5:  “The Living Son of God talks about His Person, He has the consummation of the Spirit for the full expression of God.”  (BELIEVER 4: do you know what you are talking about?)  NO!  “The Lord Jesus is the Great Light that attracted His disciples to Himself to establish the kingdom of Heaven.  Christ is the Doctor and the Bridegroom.  The Individual Christ is the new wine, and the Corporate Christ is the new vessel.”  He doesn’t accept the old skin or the old vessel.  (BELIEVER 3: what does that mean?)  I believe Christ put in me a new heart, and what I have (the heart of stone) He took it away.

BELIEVER 4:  It is easy to put the doctrine in our brain without having the experience.  What I can speak to you is the experience.  I am going to choose the words of BELIEVER 5.  You said that God gave you a new heart.  In Jeremiah, the Lord says that He took out the heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh.  The problem is that both are still living in you.  (BELIEVER 5: I recognize this).  Why do you still live by the old one?  It seems like there is a contradiction, but there is not a contradiction.  The scripture is not for public interpretation, it is by the Spirit of God, we need to see that our old man needs to be crucified.  The blood gives us forgiveness, but the cross takes away our old man.  We don’t go to the cross as much as we need to go (which is all the time).  (BELIEVER 5: who goes all the time to the cross?)  We are not going to ask what is first, “the egg or the hen.”  When the New Man starts to be manifested in our human life in the reality of the New Man, we receive the understanding that the old man is dead.  All that the New Man needs is a shell.  What is the function of this outer shell, the body.  The Spirit only uses our body only if we apply the blood of Christ.  The Lord loves the sinners, but hates the sin.  The old man needs the blood.  Without the blood we cannot enter the Holy of Holies.  And without the Cross, we cannot have divine nature.  We need to understand, we don’t need to go to the position of Job, fighting with God regarding our own righteousness. 

BELIEVER 5: “Christ is the Shepherd, the Lord of the harvest.  The Lord is the owner the harvest; He establishes things in Life that have a chance to grow and multiply.  Christ is the friend of sinners and the wisdom of God.  As the friend of Sinners He has compassion and feels their sorrows.  He gives them rest.  To take the yoke of the Lord is to accept the will of the Father and be constrained by the will of the Father.  Christ is the bread and the crumbs that come under the table.  The economy of God is not a matter of outward things.”  Christ is everything, we need to open our heart and our spirit so that He can do whatever He wants. If we don’t do this He cannot do anything.  (BELIEVER 4: do you know what you are talking about?)  NO! 

BELIEVER 4: do you know why you say “No!”  He wants your heart, and you are not experiencing these things.  (BELIEVER 5: he has my heart).  The word says, where your heart is, there your treasure is also.  He has your heart, but He only has a part of your heart.  (BELIEVER 5: only He knows how much of my heart is His).  No, you know too.  (BELIEVER 5: No, because the human heart is evil above all things.)  Can you allow me to bless you?  If you feel you this.  (BELIEVER 5: who said to you I don’t feel that you can bless me?)  By your words you will be justified and condemned.  There are two sources flowing two different directions inside of you.  There is one flowing one way and the other flowing the other way (the natural life and the life in the spirit).  (BELIEVER 5: I understand).  You can pray BELIEVER 5.

(BELIEVER 5 prays)

BELIEVER 6:  “Paul did not simply say that He gained the Lord as his treasure.  He had something to lose as well.  He counted all other things to be loss—he let go of all these things—so that he could know and gain the Excellency of the Lord Jesus Christ…”

BELIEVER 4: what brother Nee shared here is very deep.  We want this (the prize), but we don’t want to lose anything (the cost).  It doesn’t work in that way.  To be flexible is something that gives us many problems if we are not dead.  We cannot say to God what He needs to do.  Unconsciously we do this.  It works in our natural life.  Brother Sparks says that if we want to go to the fullness of what God is, we need to be flexible.  Flexible means you can have any kind of form that the Lord wants when the Lord wants.  In our natural life we don’t have this.  We don’t want to be flexible.  We want stability (by our own strength), not flexibility. 

BELIEVER 6:  “one who is meek is able to declare that he will have whatever God wants him to have.  Meekness is to maintain an attitude whereby whatever you have decided on is subject to change according to God’s will, because a meek heart is an obedient heart.”

BELIEVER 4:  I am going to put on the table what I lived today.  According to my best thought, I don’t feel I have a flight in the next days.  Flexibility is something where we allow the spirit to change the things that He wants, even on a very short notice.  WE have our plans, but these are subject to change.  The word says, “if the Lord wills” we will do this or that (James). 

BELIEVER 6: “Humility means a person will accept whatever the Lord gives him, for his expectations are not focused on himself.  He is able to shout “hallelujah” and offer thanks to the Lord concerning anything the Lord may be pleased to give…” (BELIEVER 4: in myself, I say here, help me Lord.  To accept what He wants is to die.  You suffer BELIEVER 3, because our nature cannot live these things.  From the depth of your heart you need to say, “Lord, help me”).  “Any person who has had some spiritual experience will agree that nothing is more joyous than consecration; nothing can surpass the joy of putting oneself in God’s hands and allowing Him to manage one’s life…Those who do not know God well will complain that God is too hear, reaping where He does not sow and gathering where He does not scatter.  But those who truly know God will confess that indeed the Lord’s yoke is easy, and His burden is light…How many of God’s children sing “hallelujah” when they hear of the love of God and His wisdom and power but are fearful when it comes to hearing the will of God for their own lives!”

BELIEVER 4: this is the fight between the old and new man.  We have a chance to sing the best songs but still be alive.  The Lord asks us for something, but we don’t give it and aren’t happy (with what He asks).  This is the lack of the cross in our life.

BELIEVER 6:  “Frequently we ask for fish, and God seemingly gives us a serpent; we ask for bread, and He appears to be  giving us a stone.  So we inquire why this is so.  The fact is that we often we ask for fish, not knowing that what we are actually asking for a serpent.  Moreover, what God gives us may appear to be a stone, whereas in truth it is bread…To praise God for what is gained initiates a person into praise, but to praise Him for what is lost is to perfect that person in praise…” (a bar of steel can be worth 5 dollars.  Under refinings and beatings to be made into springs for watches it can be worth over $250,000)…”In order that we may become more valuable to Him, He causes us to undergo more refinings and beatings…Rest comes from Consecration.”

BELIEVER 4: Do you know what consecration in reality is?  Everything is His.  Only when you give Him everything, you will have rest.  This is only in the new creation, by faith and obedience.  Without faith it is impossible.  This is a process; we are not going to go to a total consecration if we don’t go to a partial consecration (giving the Lord little by little).  This is for all who go the way of the Lord.  When there is a partial consecration, this is like the Corinthian Church: we need some of the Law, because we cannot(fully follow what the Lord wants).  But when we cannot go through truly, God can.  If we can, He can’t.  God says that only one can live in us.  Either Him, or us.  It is the mingle that brings the reality to us. 

BELIEVER 6: “Total Consecration means total rest…”

BELIEVER 4: when the Lord says, “My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”  The Lord is saying that it is not in our strength.  My yoke and My burden.  He is speaking of Himself, not of us.  The problem of unbelief is there also.  We have been speaking of this all week with BELIEVER 3.  He has certain things inside His heart, and we cannot obtain rest this way (without taking His yoke).

BELIEVER 6:  “There is many things that make the Lord glad, but only when Christians are in one accord is His joy full.”

BELIEVER 4:  There are two positions, one is in the self, and the other is in Christ.  It says to us what He is.  To be in one accord, not only one needs to go to the cross; a corporate body needs to go to the cross.  He cannot be the Head if others are the head.  This is the mystery of the body of Christ.  One thing is to say by the mouth and another thing is to feel in the heart.

BELIEVER 6:  “Lowliness of mind means not leaving any room for oneself—it is when we count others as better than ourselves.  This is the most difficult of all Christian virtues.”  Everything here is for the glory of the Spirit.  This is one of the best writings of Nee.  God gave the privilege of sharing this tonight.  God put in our heart to give the proper discernment.  We all have our opinions.  The virtues that are supposed to be in the Christian life are here.  It is true that those we don’t know God give a complaint of everything.  Those who keep following Him; we know the dimension that He is over us.  Each day, by His mercy, whatever we achieve is not to our glory but to His.  

Fellowship July 13th, 2011

Fellowship in the Household of Faith

July 13, 2011

  

BELIEVER 5:  I am going to go to the bible.  “Even though our iniquities testify against us, act for the honor of Your name” (Jer. 14:8).  Oh, hope of Israel; the Saviour in the time of trouble…the prophets falsely prophecy in My Name, I have not sent them, or commanded them, neither have I spoke to them.  The prophecy they give to you is a false vision...  God has put this in my heart this morning to share to you all.

BELIEVER 4:  I am going to explain this by God’s grace…Why did God speak this to Jeremiah? it is true what it says here, “our iniquities testify against us”, “oh, hope  of Israel”, then it shows our condition.  There are two circumstances that nobody wants to deal with.  One is this…Among the people in Israel there came prophets who were not called. If the Spirit of the Lord is not in the words, the Lord says, “I have not spoken.”  This is regular for a son of God that lives with Him (walks in the Spirit) to recognize. This is what happens in the natural church. A son of God comes and says (exhorts), the Lord says this “the Lord says I am going to discipline you in this, this, and this.”  If the people don’t have discernment they are going to say, this is not God.  The Spirit gives the discernment. 

The (new) heart has four parts.  The consciousness of God, and the three parts of the soul.  But we have a mixture, one part is God and one part is not God (the old man).  Discernment comes to judge between what is of God and what is not of God.  God allowed us today to have fellowship with the kindred of BELIEVER 3.  We can see in the spirit what we can’t see in the natural ground.  We can see from where the Lord has taken us (BELIEVER 3’s old ground). We were goats, but now we are His sheep.  All the scriptures BELIEVER 5 shared is what we shared in the morning.  None of our desires happen because we want.  What happened with you BELIEVER 5?  The Lord gave you a promise, but the enemy says something different.  When God speaks, the enemy tries to do the same thing.  The Lord spoke today, but the world said another thing.  What report are we going to believe?  The point is this brothers.  God tests everyone who wants Him to be Lord.  He comes to test us to know what is in our heart.  If I start the think, I don’t want to deal with what is in your heart (BELIEVER 3).  BELIEVER 3 today made 3 phone calls.  By grace, only the voice mail call, BELIEVER 3 failed the test (to handle things according to the Lord). But God is so merciful, the Lord allowed the test another time and it was better).  This is what happened with you.  I remember when the Lord allowed the test for BELIEVER 5 when she worked in the Hotel.  You recovered from the test, but you didn’t pass.  We don’t pass the test unless we surrender to the Lord.  One part of you says, “If I am a child of God, why does the Lord put me in a test?”  Because He says that all need to pass through the test (to mature).  BELIEVER 3 has been in tests in these days, because God is seeing what is in His heart.  To you BELIEVER 6, the word says that come to the Lord Jesus is to come to the table, to the bridegroom, and there is a dinner when He meets with His people.  But we need to be dressed with proper dress, to be with our bridegroom.  The dress needs to be embroidered.  (BELIEVER 5: you need a lot of time to make a dress like this).  It is a detailed.  God shows us all the time where is our heart.  I used to believe the test of the heart was temporary.  The word says, “wherever your heart is, there your treasure is also” (Matt. 6).  Your heart can be in knowledge. All men, if you don’t live by the life of God, live by the tree of knowledge.  The scripture says the fathers desire good gifts for their children.  If you are evil and you give good gifts, how much more?

BELIEVER 3: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil has just one fruit.  You cannot choose only the good part or only the bad fruit.  All the bad has a little bit of the good in it, if it was totally bad, it would be unattractive.  It is very deceitful.

BELIEVER 4:  This takes time to learn.  The only thing that has a chance to discern the difference between life (reality) and knowledge is the spirit.  Brother Lee said the Tree of Life grows inside of us if we allow.  You don’t feel the problem (inner warfare) until the trees (knowledge and Life) have the same stature.  BELIEVER 5 had a test two years ago in Ecuador; she fell.  (BELIEVER 6: what was the test?)  The test is what we have in our heart.  How do the two trees be in the same measure?  BELIEVER 5 decided that part of the trip is for God, and the other part is for the family.  The mercy the Lord is so good, that when He gave you a two year vacation..there was something precious that happened here. …For example, she has taken a vacation for two years, not a total vacation, but some.  But the mercy of the Lord is so good.  The fight between Elijah and Elisha is there.  BELIEVER 5 has repeated the words of Elisha, (BELIEVER 5: I am not going to leave you)  Because of this faith, the Lord gave three or four days ago, the Lord showed that everything is there.  This is mercy.  But satan is saying, “we need to see the demonstration of this, to prove you are a child of God”.  (BELIEVER 5:  jump from the top, I know the fight.)  It looks wonderful, but there is at the same time danger.  What she feels is not a joke…The Lord wants her to leave the ground of knowledge.  One cannot do this alone.  You need to eat Christ, the Living Word.  This is something serious, because… BELIEVER 6, can we eat Christ in soup?  (BELIEVER 6: no.  just humbly and simple.  And only roasted).  With fire!  And bitter herbs!  We don’t like this.  (BELIEVER 6: who likes bitter herbs).  This is aestheticism. 

BELIEVER 6:  The peace that the Lord give that passes all understanding is amazing.  The people don’t open to the Lord (acknowledging) that He is our maker.  No matter how many trials we have, with the infinite mercy the Lord shows, there is nothing to compare with eh peace that the Lord give.  (BELIEVER 4: this is what Paul shared in Philippians, “I have learned to secret).  This is the wisdom of God and blessings for one who wants to understand.  The problem is that many do not want to understand.

BELIEVER 4:  What you said needs a little adjustment.  1 Timothy 3: 16 says, “great is the mystery of godliness; He who was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the spirit, Seen of angels, Preached among the nations, Believed on in the world, Received up in glory.”  The word says that God wants everyone to come to a knowledge of the truth, but our nature is against this.  The scripture says because all our unbelief needs to be defeated by the Living Word.  We cannot change the word of God because we are finite.  In 1 Peter 1:3, “blessed by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has regenerated us unto a living hope, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” This is the gospel. The living hope is something man can find out.  If Jesus was not a God-Man He would not have resurrected.  “For an inheritance, incorruptible, unfading, undefiled, kept in the heavens for you”  Our natural life says this is impossible. “Guarded by the power of God by faith.”  What guards us is the faith; what faith?  The faith of the Son of God who gave His life for me (Gal 2:21).  “…unto salvation ready to be revealed at the last time.”  This is the gospel!  This is glorious!  2 Peter 1:2 “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the full knowledge of God and Jesus Christ our Lord.”  To possess the full knowledge, He needs to do this (it is His work).  This comes progressively.  “As his divine power has given to us all things which relate to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that has called us by glory and virtue, through which He has given to us the greatest and precious promises, that through these ye may become partakers of [the] divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”  The promise is a living promise.  It is real.  But here it mentions a condition.  The end of the impartation is that you ‘escape from the world.’  He gives the reason of how this operates. “But for this very reason also, using therewith all diligence, in your faith have also virtue, in virtue knowledge,” Do you know what diligence is?  It is that you don’t leave the Spirit.  Do you know “add to your faith virtue”? 

BELIEVER 4:  To have something in practicality means it has come to us by experience.  The Body of Christ is something that we still don’t have much practicality in.  Some brothers are close to this, The Recovery. Some brothers came to Brother Lee and said, “things are not working out here the way the Lord wants.  Brother Lee said, “if you brothers have a feeling to practice in what you say, go ahead.” (Concerning a the practice of the “body Life”.)

BELIEVER 5: “And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” (1 John 5:20)

 (We spend some time praying over this verse)

BELIEVER 4: if we go to the reality of what John talks in his letters…how the Lord moves, it is glorious.  God Himself has become flesh.  Praying the word is so rich in the Spirit, at first it is hard to handle, because the Word of God is so powerful that the flesh cannot handle it. 

BELIEVER 6:  (From Watchman Nee) “How do I know that I am working together with God?  This is an easy answer.  Are you satisfied with what you are doing?  If you are not satisfying the heart of God, you will not be satisfied with yourself.  The members of the Body are for the Body, and the gifts of the church are for the Body for the purpose of building up the body.” (BELIEVER 4:  I want to you to flow on the last part that you shared.)  This part has a great importance to form the Body of Christ, because the gifts that are given to the church and each member are for the Body.

BELIEVER 4: I am going to help you.  There are many good things here.  “The cross is at the entrance of the heavens” (Nee).  It is not that you see a cross; Christians have put the cross everywhere (this is not the true cross).  In reality the cross is the key to have divine life.  It is not only important to receive the divine life, but also to continue growing in it.  “only what comes by the cross will abide;;.”  The church has misunderstood this.  The church is not a building. (BELIEVER 6: it is nothing material).  The church in reality is the divine nature.  But the Body is the development of the divine nature.  Christ is the head.  The problem for us is that we try to understand this in our mind. 

BELIEVER 6: “the goal of the Body is to attain to the unity of faith.” (Nee)

BELIEVER 4: the unity of the Body….it says in Ephesians that He (Christ) gave some to be apostles, prophets, etc… until the unity of the Faith.  You cannot deal with this by human thoughts.  The unity of the faith…until all arrive...unto the stature of a perfect man…the stature of the Son of God.  This is what God is doing, but for this to be completed, the Lord is building His first fruits in this age of grace (Revelation 14:4).

BELIEVER 6: “The Eternal Purpose of God can never be understood or imagined by the mind.  It has to come by revelation.  All words of God come by revelation…if what we receive is doctrine or teaching, it will leave you after a period of time, but if what we have is life, or revelation.”

BELIEVER 4: This is something that the human being still does not understand.  God forgive us.  Ninety-nine percent of those that are called sons of God don’t understand this.  This means that you don’t think, Christ thinks.  You don’t live, Christ lives.  I am going to speak concerning you BELIEVER 6. God is dealing with a revelation concerning you; that in the moment that the living Word touches you, brokenness comes to you.  This is revelation.  Because you see the majesty of what God is, and you forget about all you have in your mind.  Nobody has a chance to take this out of you.  What have the people that have known God throughout the ages said?  People can put chains on you, but the Word cannot be chained.  This is powerful.  You cannot destroy what God is putting in your heart. 

BELIEVER 3:  (Sharing from “The Mission, Meaning, and Message of Jesus Christ” by T. Austin-Sparks)  Brother Sparks is speaking concerning the Gospel of Luke.  There is some things that the Lord gives to His servants that are rich that the Lord gives for us.  Very rich.  Luke takes up Jesus wit Adam, and then a little baby, and then the Man in Glory.  “Do you see the immense context of this gospel.  This is the whole human race from the beginning to end.  Adam was the first of the human race with a great divine intention.  But we know of the human tragedy.  The human race in the first Adam lost the divine intention.  Put a circle around that word “lost”.  The human race lost its divine inheritance because it lost its relationship with God.  The whole of this gospel is summed up in this one verse.  “The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.”  In Adam the universal dominion was lost.  In Abraham the elect people lost their heritage.  There were called by God to be the governmental instrument among the nations.  But Israel lost their heavenly vocation. “The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.”  Lost to Adam, lost to Abraham, lost to Israel, but found in the Son of Man…” This man receives sinners.  This is the Gospel!

BELIEVER 4: what is the practical application of this?

BELIEVER 3:  The Lord came to seek and save what was lost.  When I first came to know the Lord, I had a very shallow understanding of His Word.   The word “sinner” used to bring fear to me, even after I was born again.  Because I had a terrible image of God, like a judge.  But the Lord, the more I go on, I see I am a sinner.  There was a certain sin I committed all the time when I was born again.  Then for maybe four years this sin was completely gone from my life. It is something a lot of young men struggle with I, and I and gave advice to people on how to overcome this sin.  I thought that I did it (in my strength).  The Lord allowed it for a while.  Eventually this sin came back, because I am a sinner. (BELIEVER 4: because this is our nature. Not just that we sin, but we have a nature of sin.)  The Lord has been showing me that I am a sinner.  And sometimes Satan can beat us over this matter. He is the accuser of the brethren.  I am not making an excuse for sin, but the only ground that the Lord is going to save us on is that we are sinners.  It is something painful, but we have to see what we are.  I have been coming more to that ground.  That is the ground that the Lord is all and we are nothing.  We have been saying, “This is the true God…”  When we say He is all and we are nothing; this is the true ground that He saves us on.  When we see that Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost…It says that the sinners and publicans drew near to him, this becomes good news to us.  This is the true good news.  Because we know and experience and reality that we are sinners, and we learn in reality who the Savior is.  I can’t say that I am completely broken, but I can tell that I have more joy that the Lord is the friend of sinners.  I have a more true appreciation for this.  Before I thought this was only for unbelievers.  I thought, “I am saved so this is not applicable to me.” But I am learning that this is applicable to me.  

Fellowship July 9, 2011

Fellowship in the Household of Faith

July 9, 2011

  

BELIEVER 6:  (Sharing from “Not I, but Christ” by Watchman Nee)  “As God’s child, you should realize that if you do not apologize and ask forgiveness from a person against whom you have sinned, your spiritual life will be adversely affected.  We know the door of salvation is not open forever…” It is so grievous when we don’t forgive the mistakes of others.

BELIEVER 4:  I need to interrupt.  I am going to start with this.  This is something that human beings don’t understand.  We want the door of salvation to be opened forever.  Man in himself doesn’t exist forever.  We are going to give an example.  We watched a video about a brother who by prayer was raised from the dead.  We need to go to the point of submitting ourselves to go to spiritual crucifixion and die to ourselves; we also need to deal with natural death.  If we are not strong in the spirit, we are not going to deal with this.  If you go to funerals, it is not an easy thing.  Funerals represent the defeat of man.  We have a true answer for this defeat; (the answer is) What Christ did on Calvary.  We need to be open to what God wants to do. This is not easy.  God wants to deal with all of the human (parts).  What is important is the (inner) condition of man.  Many religions speak similar things to Jesus.  What Jesus offers is something that nobody has the ability to handle.  He came to give Life.  This is not just any type The of life; not biological, not psuche (soul-life); He came to give spiritual life.  Here when we speak of salvation, Paul said that is Jesus wasn’t raised from the dead our faith is in van.  The door of faith is only opened in the age of grace, but this age ends during the great tribulation.  It is never going to be easy because we need to come to the point of having the same nature of God.  It cost us to understand this.

BELIEVER 4:  God is a good God.  The Lord is the one is the one who puts repentance in our heats; without His Spirit we cannot come to Him.  You can take this by faith, but the reality of this is something serious.  Only Jesus can help us live in a pure heart in the new creation; otherwise we have hidden things in our hearts.

BELIEVER 6:  (continues sharing from Nee) “The Lord expects you to treat others as He has treated you.  He does not demand of you according to righteousness, so He expects you not to demand righteousness from others…If I still have something to lose, I have not lost enough.”  (BELIEVER 5: this is for you).  This is not only for me.  (BELIEVER 4: BELIEVER 6 needs to give the practical application to all these things).  This is one of the best preachings that one can find (the book).  What God says, “to overcome the sin you don’t need to do anything.”  Christians make mistakes in this.  This book gives a wisdom and understanding of what the Bible says, and he puts it in an easy way to understand.  Some brothers have this education (teaching), but it is very dreadful to them.

BELIEVER 4:  I feel the Lord is dealing many things in this (area).  I am going to explain some things.  There are points that the Lord wants us to eat and swallow (digest, not just taste).  When it says here, “a sinner asks for mercy, not justification”, we cannot understand this unless the Lord brings us to a place of nothingness. You need to deal with what happened tonight with all of us.  The Lord expects us to treat others as He treats us.  This is a problem (for us) because we do not allow His grace to grow (in us).  We put our “selves” in the front to stop what God wants to do.  I am going to speak what I feel in this.  It says, “if one has received mercy, one needs to show mercy.”  Do you know what has happened with us?  We don’t go to the point that we see what God is doing in the measure that He wants. Why?  It says, “only we have lost all, we don’t have anything else to lose.”  How does this happen in reality?  This is a daily process. We don’t want to deal with this process all the time.  It is true that the Lord wants all of us all the time, but we have automatic soul-life (against the Lord).

BELIEVER 3:  To me it seems like or feels like this “abandoning all of your self to God”, all of your being, this seems unreal.  I feel, “Is this possible?”

BELIEVER 4: The problem is this; we have been dealing with this for a long time.  We cannot say to the Lord, “everything belongs to You.”  This is not true in reality; in the (daily) temporal reality that we live in.  Why is it not true?  Is it not true because God doesn’t want it to be true? No.  It is because we don’t let things go (from our hearts).  What does the Lord do so that we can grow?  He asks us for something that is in our heart.  But when He asks we either resist to bring it to Him, or we take it from His hand after we bring it to Him; the Lord shows us how bad our heart is. 

What is the heart?  The three parts of the soul plus the conscience.  But this is not the evil conscience, it is the consciousness of Him.  We are going to speak about our two hearts.  The Lord is revealing what He wants, little by little. Our heart of stone has rocks, has many things, a satanic consciousness.  The Lord doesn’t want anything to do with this heart (the old heart).  This heart is in the old man, and is with us.  The capacity to decide in these things of your own will…It is a progressive process to become Overcomers.  The Spirit of God shows you things you don’t want to deal with when you follow Him.  This is what I have lived with BELIEVER 3.  By my reason, I don’t understand (him).  But the Lord says, “this is not your problem.”  When He speaks, the more grace you receive, the more mercy you need to show; this is terrible for your flesh.  If I don’t go to the cross, I am going to fix things with BELIEVER 3 (his problems) in my own strength.  The relationship that you have with BELIEVER 1, according to your righteousness in your own heart, you say, “I don’t want to deal with her.”  We have go to a point of turning the cheek.  Our flesh says “no.” Why?  Because our flesh does not have the capacity to do what God wants.  God is going to take you through hard things, these things work death (in our flesh), as Fenelon says.  He says that when you are spiritually crucified, it is stronger than physical death.  Why?  Because you are bringing your natural rights to death.  What happened with BELIEVER 5?  BELIEVER 5, for example, according to my brain, or my heart of stone, because they are united; the things BELIEVER 5 lives, I don’t understand naturally.  Yesterday, the Lord touched me a lot with what she shared.  BELIEVER 3 is seeking the Lord (BELIEVER 5: all the time), and you seek part-time.  This is between you and God.  The word we are sharing is applicable, and it is not inapplicable.  You (BELIEVER 5) were hired by the Lord nine years ago.  The Lord says that all have the same salary, same payment, no matter how long ago you were hired (Matt. 20).  What He promises is the same to all.  But, we don’t understand this.  We have our reasons. 

What BELIEVER 5 and BELIEVER 3 are living is like the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15).  What did the prodigal son do?  He took the inheritance and spent it all.  In a certain way, BELIEVER 5 is the younger son, and BELIEVER 3 is the older son; for now.  (BELIEVER 5: I spend the inheritance all the time).  She is honest right now.  You have an older brother; BELIEVER 3.  In many things BELIEVER 3 is the older brother.  In your case BELIEVER 5, you have spent the inheritance of the Father, then you return with all your problems and say, “I have a Father.”  If I use my brain, if BELIEVER 3 uses his, there is no human reason for what has happened with you (BELIEVER 5).  I saw yesterday, the mercy of God over your life.  As BELIEVER 3 shared, in the Spirit, you are ready to minister to the nations, but in your soul, you have many problems.  (BELIEVER 5: Many problems).  I saw how much God loves you, even though you spend the inheritance (BELIEVER 5: every week).  Help us Lord.  To me, I am shaken by how God moves. 

We are going to the older brother now.  The older brother wants what God wants, but he has a terrible war (inside) also.  Yesterday in the moment, when you (BELIEVER 5) were ministering Christ, I did not watch you according to the flesh (because God used you). I said, “Lord, I don’t understand.”  In moment that I said this, the Lord broke me.  I looked at BELIEVER 3 and saw he couldn’t receive what you are giving.  In his brain, he couldn’t understand how God is blessing you.  In my being, yesterday I said, “Lord, you have to do something with BELIEVER 3, because he is near to me, and it is not by choice that someone is near to me.  It is only who You who chose.”  To see in the spirit is something that we couldn’t pay for.  There are many things BELIEVER 3 is starting to do for God.  Pray for him.  God is anointing him for some things, but in many things he is living, the enemy attacks him with many thoughts.  Now you BELIEVER 6.  I was explaining yesterday in the fellowship that if things are not (done) with the heart, God doesn’t want it.  God has told me, “You need to do something with BELIEVER 3, be ready to die, because some things are not going through (in his heart).”  The Lord put some things to change in our fellowship, in what the Lord is doing.  But, the most important thing is to understand how God operates in what He wants. Why?  I said to BELIEVER 3, “what is important is what God wants to do, whether you are here, or in another place, but the most important thing is to see in the Spirit and to have the same vision that the Holy Spirit gives.”  Without this vision, it is impossible to have harmony of the Spirit.  The Lord has allowed the connection of the Spirit (among us), something that the Lord has given to you.  One knows what the unity of the Spirit is, with whatever brother; whether this brother is in the spirit or not, even if the languages are different.  But if we don’t go to the same spirit (yield to the Lord), we cannot have the same feeling, we cannot even give a proper translation (in the meetings).  This unity of the soul is something we cannot arrive to without God.  I feel that the most important thing is the unity of the spirit.  Why?  Because the unity of the Spirit, allows one to know what is happening in the spiritual kingdom.  If feel that all your blessings are there by the mercy of the Lord (BELIEVER 5).  This doesn’t have a natural explanation.  I don’t want to see things in a natural way, because I am not better than you.  How merciful the Lord is with you!  Concerning BELIEVER 3, I told something to him yesterday, and I put it on the table (with you all), I don’t want to decide anything concerning him.  I want God to decide.  But what I know, is that he needs to see (concerning himself) what you (BELIEVER 5) and I see.  In the moment that he sees what you and I see, he is going to see what everyone in the spirit sees.  I have never felt this way before; yesterday I felt as a father.  And I see that the son doesn’t see what he needs.  God has put in me this burden.  The most important thing right now, is that God gives you (BELIEVER 3) the same spirit.  The theories and the books don’t matter.  The Lord destroys the wisdom of the wise.  This is the most important thing. 

BELIEVER 5: Thank you Lord because all things are by Your mercy, not because we deserve.   You do what you want to do.  Thank you for Your mercy.  Keep working in the lives of the brothers, in all who have fellowship here; there are many things we don’t understand.  I have two people (natures) inside of me, many times I don’t understand who I am (what I have inside).  In all things we need Your help.  “He has made known to us the mystery of will His according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself…To enlighten all that the may see what the economy of the mystery is, which throughout the ages has been hidden in God.  His name is the verb, “I am” He exists in Himself.  The Lord exists forever.  God is eternal and exists forever, no beginning, no end. There is only one God in the universe.  The word is not to be studied as theology.  We need to know His dispensing into His chosen ones.”

BELIEVER 4:  What happened right now with what you shared?  If God controls our actions, we don’t act freely.  It is His life in us that acts.  God has not allowed BELIEVER 5 to say anything in some things (in this meeting), but only to exalt His name. When we go to the point of recognizing the Lord is in our midst, our first reaction is humility.  Why?  Because we know that we cannot touch Him (His Glory) unless we are surrendered to Him.  It changes completely what we are.  “In our daily waiting, when we confess our deep inability and submit to the ability of God, only when we come to this point are you going to stop you trying in your own strength and give to God the opportunity to have the victory.”  This is for you two right now (BELIEVER 6 and BELIEVER 5).  I am going to begin with you BELIEVER 6.  When you are near to God with the heart, He doesn’t want reasons.  The only thing that He wants is, “Lord, thank you, here I am.”  When the Lord doesn’t allow one to break (in the heart), the questions (in our mind) abound.  Why?  Because our natural being wants many reasons (for everything).  We don’t want to (simply) believe.  It says, “come to the holy place with a pure heart and a perfect conscience of faith…”.  The pure heart and full assurance of faith are only in Jesus.  With us, we do not understand; the Lord needs to conquer you.  He is not going to take all, because we don’t have the capacity to receive Him in fullness.  It says that Moses came near to God and the Lord sought to kill him (Exo. 4). Why?  Moses said, I want to see you, but those who see Him die.  It is very easy for us to leave the position of brokenness. There is such a war (in us). BELIEVER 3 is working with the law of sin and death right now.  Paul recognized that he wants the good, but he also recognized that he cannot do the good he wanted.  Do you know what the Law (of sin and death) is?  It is when you say that you are going to do this, this, and this, but you can’t do any of it.  The second thing to see, is that we cannot in ourselves overcome this law.  It is the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus sets us free from the Law of sin and death (Rom 8).  Without the Living Christ, you are not going to overcome this law.  The Living Christ is in our heart and in prayer.  Why cannot we die to ourselves in ourselves, because there is a law in us that doesn’t allow it.  The Lord shows us we cannot do it.  The entire world according to religion believes you can live what Jesus commands.  The moment you pray and use your heart and say, “Lord, speak to me”, you by faith take your hands off the things.  This brings you to the place to know in reality (that we cannot do these things).  When I was doing the things of BELIEVER 2 (concerning some circumstances naturally impossible), I know what I needed to do because the Spirit was moving in me.  But before this, I had to say, “I cannot handle these things.”  Everything was in a rush, we were supposed to be somewhere in 20 minutes that would take us an hour and a half.  You feel the lack of faith that the whole world has.  That is when God says, “Stand in the faith.”  The living (ones) are going to say, “No, this is impossible.”  What happened tonight with BELIEVER 3, if I see you according to the flesh I cannot receive anything.  For this, we don’t need to see with our own eyes, because our eyes don’t give us the sight of God, and our natural feelings don’t give us the impression of God.  What attracts us to Jesus?  We are told, “You are not going to die, but have eternal life.”  But in reality, after we come to Jesus, we find out we need to die.  (BELIEVER 6: if you tell people this, they will not come to the Lord).  So that you can be a channel that the Lord can flow through, you need to be an empty vessel, and the full of the living word.  This is something you cannot pay money for; the Living Word.   In the Old Testament, the Spirit came upon the prophets.  One thing is that the Spirit comes upon you and you speak for God, but the New Testament says that only Jesus speaks.  How does Jesus speak?  Jesus speaks mingled with you.  This is what Paul said, “I don’t know if it is me speaking or it is God.”  This is the mingling.  What I am trying to explain is that Jesus in the Old testament is a figure, but in the New Testament, the disciples didn’t understand Him for the 3 and a half years that they were with Him until they received both portions of the Spirit.  They received the interior Spirit, and the exterior Spirit.  In the New Testament He is the Life-Giving Spirit.  If you see Galatians 2:20, “It is no longer I that live, but Christ that lives in me, and the life I live in the Flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave His live for me.”  It is not your life that you live in the flesh, but Christ.  This only operates according to what you give to God day by day.  This is very important. 

BELIEVER 3:  (Sharing from Don’t waste your sorrow by Paul Billheimer)  “Although it has been agonizingly painful (the lesson God has taught him on love), I would not have missed it an any conceivable cost.  My gratitude to God for His faithfulness and patience with me knows no bounds.  The greatest regret I have is that I have been so slow a learner.  My greatest joy is that God did not give me up.”  Wow!  I feel that way every day.  Thank you Lord for not giving up on me.  You have stayed with some people for years and years, (I don’t want to make that an excuse).  This is the same thing BELIEVER 5 is living.  We do have to look at it with some kind of time factor.  God might not look at it that way but we do.  If we haven’t grown in the Lord for 20 years, this is crazy.  But, the Lord is different than we are.  This is the only thing that is going to break us to pieces.  When we see how we would handle things if we were the Lord…If we were God, with our wisdom…we would not do anything He did.  We would not have sent our only Son into fallen humanity and die for this fallen humanity.  We would say, “More law.  More law, and eventually I will get a pure race when they become terrified enough of me.”  God gives more grace.  (BELIEVER 6: we need to curse Adam).  Adam is already cursed; our old man is too.  (BELIEVER 6: the heritage Adam gives is terrible).  It is terrible.  But God is greater. For us, human beings, we would have it like this, “where sin abounds, punishment abounds…but for God were sin abounds, grace super-abounds.  God is so different than we are.  This is the good news, that God is so different than us.  The good news is that He is contrary to us.  In our everyday living, we don’t see this.  But little by little He shows us that we are going to be happy in His being contrary to us.  I hope we all have more and more joy that He is contrary to us.  

Fellowship July 6, 2011

Fellowship in the Household of Faith

July 6^th, 2011

BELIEVER 1: (making declarations from 365 Kid’s Confessions), “Don’t be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.  Come out from among them and be separate says the Lord.  I am a witness to unbelievers, and I pray for them.  I will have a God-centered life and family in Jesus’ Name.  We must keep our life pure and clean to represent God.  We must choose friends and marry those who are joyful and strong Christians.”

BELIEVER 4 responds: this is not easy because we live with unbelievers in school and other places.  The Lord is the One who asks us these things (to walk in these ways).  We need to ask the Lord to help us.  It is something He needs to do (we are His work).  You need to pray for your mother (along these lines).

BELIEVER 1:  I pray for my mother, the grandparents, and this house.  What does it mean to be separate from this world?  I feel I want this.

BELIEVER 4:  We cannot fulfill this unless God helps us.  Can any of the other brothers share about what BELIEVER 1 is sharing?   

BELIEVER 6: (sharing from “Ye Search the Scriptures” by Watchman Nee)   “The scriptures cannot be mastered through cleverness, research, or natural talent, because the Word of God is spirit….To His believing disciples, the words of the Lord were spirit and life; but to the unbelieving Jews, they became flesh and dead letters.” 

BELIEVER 4:  If we begin to search the scriptures, the Lord doesn’t accept our learned mind.  Why?  Because the Word of God is spirit.  (BELIEVER 6:  if God doesn’t give the spirit when we ask, do we become angry? Do we fight? What do we do?)  The Lord has given to all to drink of the same Spirit.  The problem is that we need to “Come and buy, and drink…without price” (Isa. 55).  We are going to talk about “buying” verses “without price.”…

(BELIEVER 5 at this point wanted to give her portion, but BELIEVER 4 said we need to have fellowship in these things.)

BELIEVER 4:  BELIEVER 5, you do not feed on the things of the Lord almost every day; you eat just a little bit during the meetings.  For the body to digest food, the food needs to be chewed, and chewed, and chewed.  Your spiritual good is more important than the natural food.

BELIEVER 5:  You may believe that God is not with me, but God is with me.  I have had problems and He has carried me through many things.  (BELIEVER 5 begins to share from the Holy Word for Morning Revival).  “The book of Colossians is for the stewardship of the mystery to complete the Word of God….Don’t teach different things, such as mysticism and genealogies that don’t end, but the economy of the faith.  In Ephesians, “making known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself…the mystery, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in spirit...According to the eternal purpose which He made in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  None of this is by private interpretation, for neither any prophecy is by the will of man.  The bible needs to be interpreted and discerned in the difference in the progressive dispensations.  We need to see the progressive dispensations in the divine revelation.  God doesn’t tell His chosen ones where they need to go and live; the only thing he told to Abraham was, “Go from thy house, and from thy kindred’s house….”  Grace and Truth came with Jesus Christ….

BELIEVER 4:  Can I say something of what you are saying?  (BELIEVER 5: yes).  Nobody is going against what the Lord has given to you (in the past).  There is a big difference between the dispensation of the Old and New Testaments.  In these last days, God has spoken to us in His Son (Heb. 1).  This means everything.  All the previous dispensations point to this.  This is what is important.

(Continuing with what BELIEVER 6 was sharing)

BELIEVER 4:  I feel that God is impressing (the Spirit of the Word) BELIEVER 6 more every meeting, so that he can receive the word.  It is easy to listen to the word, but it is difficult to receive the word.  When you started with John 3:3, “it is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh profits nothing.”  This an experience that we come to by degrees.  What is the wisdom of men?  The things our eyes see, our ears hears, and our heart contemplates.  You can say to me, “I have been experiencing things for 5 or 6 years in the world.” (keeping some natural life).  God allows us to have some life in the world, but the revelation only comes by the Holy Spirit.  When the revelation comes to us, this revelation needs to be applied practically.  “Ye Search the Scriptures” says, “the spiritual man doesn’t have only the Spirit outwardly, but is full of the Spirit inwardly.”  Do you know what happens with this?  When you know the Spirit in reality, you no longer judge; because you are going to have fear and trembling to judge.  “the only condition for the light is openness.”  If I open one window, there is light coming to some of the room, but if I open all the windows, more and more light is going to come in.  BELIEVER 6, God is light.  All live in the part of scriptures where if says we have two masters.  This is because we have two men inside of us.  “if we don’t choose one master, eventually we will leave one completely.”  This doesn’t happen by accident.  The Lord didn’t tell us to deny our self in order to make us miserable.  Our natural man cannot see the kingdom of God.  In the moment the heart turns to the Lord, veil is taken away.  (BELIEVER 6: How is the veil taken away?)  BELIEVER 3 has a deep desire to live organically in the Lord, but there is another part of him with a deep desire to not move out of the Lord’s way.  (BELIEVER 6: this is what happens with all of us.)  When you say this, we go to the point of saying, “Lord, I cannot do what you ask of me.”  What does it mean for our whole body to be full of light?  It means that our eyes are single.  He doesn’t want us to think with our old mind.  If our whole body is full of light, our renewed mind will be able to think in the right way.  Before we take the cross, we need to know the Lord.  I don’t know anyone who has taken the cross, and who didn’t know the Lord.  I said to BELIEVER 3, “my mind doesn’t want to obey; it wants this, and this, and work, and this.”  For God shine light in each part of our being, God needs to try (test) each part of us.  BELIEVER 3 cannot bring everything to the Lord; so the Lord has asked him to bring just a small part.  BELIEVER 3, what is the one word that sums up what the Lord has done with you in this year and a half?  (BELIEVER 3: Grace). The word is “Lovely.”

BELIEVER 6 continues:  “Only one kind of person is unclear about the path before him: one whose eyes are not single…The measure of our obedience before God determines the amount of light we receive.  If we obey God persistently, we will see continuously.  Without consecration, there will be no seeing.”  I feel that I don’t have the dispositions concerning what the Lord wants.  “if we read the bible  by our spirits, we will be refreshed each time we read.” (BELIEVER 3:  we should not worry about whether we are in the Spirit when we read the bible; we should just come to the Bible with a child-like heart, tell the Lord to talk to us, and forget about all of our knowledge or what we think we know about the Bible.)  “It is only after we have received much discipline that the sensitivity of our spirits becomes rich and delicate.  Therefore, it is immensely important that we have abundant dealings with the Lord.” 

(BELIEVER 4 deals with some of the things BELIEVER 6 just shared)

BELIEVER 4:  This applies to all of us.  This is what we have discovered with BELIEVER 3.  Each of us receives according to what we desire.  The Word and the Spirit are inseparable.  The moment that you go to the Spirit and surrender to the word, Christ is there.  Because Christ is the Spirit, and the Spirit and the Word are inseparable.  If you go to Christ you also go to the Father.  “What is the discipline of the Holy Spirit?”  (BELIEVER 3:  it is discipline from the Father so that we can become mature sons.)  “it is God’s Spirit arranging all our daily circumstances-through which He works—until our spirits become one with the spirit of the Bible...The most we can touch will be teachings or doctrines, but not the spirit.”  (BELIEVER 6:  This is what happens with many people who preach the scripture).  The Spirit is one.  What the Lord dispenses in each one of His children is something glorious and different in each one, but it is the same Spirit.  You need to be humble to be one with others like when Paul said, “we need to submit to one another in love.”  You cannot be one with others unless the Lord Jesus is governing you.   If we are not involved in a living relationship with Jesus Christ, what we are involved with is doctrine.  Everyone who is anointed with the seal of the Spirit never becomes old. I’m going to finish. “What is done for us is salvation, this is Jesus Christ Himself.  This is already accomplished in eternity.  If we see in our daily living, these things are a process.  What is done in us is holiness.”  This is a process, this is the reason that God created us, to separate us unto Sonship.  “What is done through us is service or ministry.”  We see three aspects here.  First, what Christ did, then the discipline of the Spirit to us, then after the discipline we are ready to serve.

Fellowship July 2, 2011

Fellowship in the Household of Faith

July 2, 2011

BELIEVER 1: (Sharing from 365 Kid’s Confessions)  “The Lord  is my Shepherd, I am His little Sheep.”  (BELIEVER 4: BELIEVER 1 is a wandering sheep).  “He takes care of me and all I need He provides”  (BELIEVER 4:  Are you sure BELIEVER 1?) 

BELIEVER 4:  Oh, Lord Jesus, Jesus we pray in agreement for BELIEVER 1.

BELIEVER 3: (frustrated) Cast fire down to the earth Lord!!! … Forgive me Lord, this is me and not You.

BELIEVER 6:  (Sharing from the Church and the Work by Watchman Nee)  “If someone’s interpretation of the bible does not agree with our own, it is hard for the flesh.”  (BELIEVER 4 responds:  This is what happened right now BELIEVER 3).  “But it is good for the Spirit, God doesn’t use these divisions to solve these problems; He uses the cross.”  (BELIEVER 4 responds: This is for you BELIEVER 5.) This is for everyone, there is nobody righteous in this world.  (BELIEVER 4 responds: But BELIEVER 6 feels he has some goodness in his flesh.)   “if the work is of God it will be spiritual.  And if the work is spiritual, the supply will also be spiritual.”

BELIEVER 4 responds:  This is a problem for us because we all have our own concepts.  Our big problem is that we see with the natural eyes.  Why is this a problem?  Because in the moment you don’t use your faith for believe, for us everything is over.

BELIEVER 6:  “If the work of God is spiritual, and the word of God is spiritual, the way of supply is spiritual.  If the supply is not on a spiritual plane, the work will speedily drift down to the plain of secular business.”     

BELIEVER 4 continues:  This is what happened right now with us, for example.  Everything that has happened with BELIEVER 2, has happened in the plane of the spirit.  But he doesn’t want to abide in the plane of the Spirit.  Why?  Because it is very easy  (for us) to see and chose in our circumstance, (rather) than to believe.  Because we believe we (in ourselves) can do the things; this is not this way.  It says the things that are not in the way of the spirit it are in the natural way.  We don’t want to die.  We say “this, this, this” but we don’t die.  Why don’t we die?  Because we believe we can do our will.  We need to understand that in us, nothing good dwells.  We are not going to learn (divine truths) by good reasons. When we know (in the head) something of God (by the scriptures), we depend on the scriptures (head knowledge).  Satan is not going to attack us with many things of this world (evil things), unless we are fighting a spiritual battle; Satan is going to attack us with the word of God.  We are going to go with what BELIEVER 6 shared.  BELIEVER 6 is touching points that he himself is involved in.  Here it says something that is going to help us.  “all the teaching in Adam needs to be put away.  All distinctions of race, gender, age, etc. has no recognition in the word of God.”  We do not understand this.  We want to be doctors, engineers; we want to be somebody.  We know that these things before God don’t matter, but in this world these things matter.  “…in the church…”  What is the church?  Is it a building?  Is it us, the saints?  No.  The church is the divine nature.  The church is from above.  It is not of earth. It doesn’t have anything natural.  Here it says, “in the church all are one in Christ.”  In other words, we are one in the spirit.  But many times we don’t want to be one in the spirit.  “If the work of God is spiritual…”  “If it is not spiritual…” “we put it in the secular business.”  We have discussed these things with BELIEVER 3 for a year and a half.  We say to the Lord, “Lord everything belongs to you.”  But in the moment the Lord asks us for a single thing, we cannot give it.  Why?  Because we have a god of our mind (God is Spirit).  When we see God in reality, there are no more arguments.  Sometimes we resist(what He shows us), but there are no arguments.  In His light we see light; the scripture does not say that if we read this book or that book we will see light.  His words are spirit.  Our mind wants the good (Romans 7).  It wants the good part of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  This next part kills us. 

BELIEVER 6:  “in the word of God, we don’t read of one servant asking people for money.”

BELIEVER 4  continues:  If I ask you, BELIEVER 6, to preach the gospel to the whole world and live only by faith, do you know what you are going to do? (BELIEVER 6 responds:  I am not going to do it.)  He cannot do it.  This is his truth.  But this is not the truth of God.  (BELIEVER 6: God puts the willing and the working to do).  Yes God puts this, but how?

BELIEVER 6:  The mysteries of divinity are subject to popular imaginations.  This is why so few….

BELIEVER 4   continues:  BELIEVER 6, if you want to go to a discussion to a forum, you can pick up one point and never leave the arguments over one point.  Let us go to the first point, and then we will go to the second point; that is very hard to deal with.  How does it happen, that God puts the willing and the working?   Right now this is the problem that we all have.  (BELIEVER 5 says:  God does this.)  Hold on a minute BELIEVER 5, I’m going to begin with you.  We were invited to go to some brother’s house this weekend for three days.  BELIEVER 5 has some conditions to do this and the three days are not part of the condition.  She says, “God didn’t put it in my heart to do it.”  Do you believe this?  (BELIEVER 3:  it’s possible, but probably not)  I tell you no.  I will tell you why.  Because she visits God, many times, visits.  But one thing is to visit, and another thing is to abide.  (BELIEVER 5:  I know)

BELIEVER 3:  (Explaining visiting the Lord) The word says that Jesus stands at the door and knocks.  But visiting Jesus, is like, we don’t let Him in the door, we just stand on the other side and talk to Him. 

BELIEVER 4:  What BELIEVER 3 says is true.  This is you BELIEVER 5.  You go to the church and you see the people in a bad condition.  You say, “Lord Jesus, these people need You.  I know I am in a bad state, but these people are worse.  Use me Lord.”  (BELIEVER 6:  can we get back to what I were sharing)  No we can’t.  It is not that God doesn’t put the ‘to will and to do’, it is that we don’t allow Him to enter and hear what He has to say to us.  We don’t go to the spirit.  This is what has happened in this time with Brother Paul.  The things we have lived have been glorious in one side, but it is a shame on the other side.  Why?  Because when God shows us our condition; we can have two reactions.  One is that we can humble ourselves, and the other is that we can brush the dirt under the rug.  I am going to go to the other side of God putting the ‘to will and to do’.  It is true what BELIEVER 6 shared.  He said, “in the majority of the time we are in the soul.  We have many reasons”  But if God is working with one, He begins to say “come here.”  And we say, “what a minute, I will go later.”  Why?  Because we know mentally what He is going to say to us.  So we prepare our verse and say, “but here it says this, here it says this.”  He doesn’t answer us.  He just looks at us.  And He allows us to follow the scripture (and not Him).  He doesn’t fight with us; we don’t not allow Him to enter in order to receive the ‘to will and to do’.  We have to put ourselves in that position. It says that He is the rock that the builders stumbled over. But there is another rock that we stumble on.  It is our heart of stone.  Do you know where this heart of stone is?  It is in our self.  There is the heart of stone. It is not that God doesn’t put the willing and the working.  I am going to share two things.  The one is concerning what we prayed yesterday for BELIEVER 2.  We said, “Lord, may BELIEVER 2 see that we used the heart to do the things (for him), whether he goes on the trip or doesn’t go.”  When BELIEVER 3 heard BELIEVER 4 in his human nature, he was not in agreement with God’s will (couldn’t handle the pressure and ungratefulness of BELIEVER 2).  God is never going to put the ‘to do and to will’ unless we submit to the Spirit.  You are never going to complete the purpose of God if you don’t do this.  The Spirit goes against the natural life, and the natural life goes against the Spirit.  So when BELIEVER 6 shared, “until God puts it in me, (I cannot).”  God is not going to put it in us (drop it in us without our desiring it and surrendering to it; we have to put ourselves before Him).  Do you think that I don’t still love the things that BELIEVER 6 taught me in the natural life (fancy things)?  I still love these things in myself.  But, I have to think of the price.  God has allowed (some things) in His grace, that until now BELIEVER 4 handles the things (the majority of the burden), but BELIEVER 4 for this has a sentence of death (2 Corinthians).  Why?  Because how I move, none of you want to move.  Why?  Because the soul says, “in nothing this is going to happen to you” (we don’t want to lose control).  BELIEVER 3 said something precious a few weeks ago, “I believed that I was different than the other young people.  But I know now, that without Christ, I am the same as the rest.”  It is the same with me.  If I don’t have Christ, I am going to have the same problems as the others.  For this, the cross is what resolves all the problems of our existence.  But, we, our natural being, do not see the cross resolving anything.  What do you see with your eyes?  More problems all the time.  God does not have these eyes.  God sees the past, present, and future at the same time.  Our problem is to deal with God over what we are.  This is terrible because I don’t want to.  BELIEVER 3 doesn’t want to.  (BELIEVER 6 says: “Nobody wants to)  But there exists a difference form some between “nobody wants to”.  Some people let Jesus in the door.  I don’t believe BELIEVER 6 doesn’t allow the Lord in, sometimes the Lord gets inside and brokenness comes to him.  The problems return when he leaves and goes into the world.  Until now he has believed that this (the humility) applies in this area, but not outside.  This is a lie.  Why?  Because the Spirit that is here, is also outside (In us).  The problem is that it is costly to follow the Spirit.  The Spirit is God!  We don’t have a chance to say to the Spirit, “return later, I don’t have a chance right now.”  If you need the power (in the later), He doesn’t come.  A father was telling his son not to do this certain thing.  The son didn’t listen and fell down and broke his nose.  In the side of man (today’s culture), you don’t need to trust even in your dad.  But in the spiritual world, the Lord allowed the son to fall down and break his nose because he didn’t obey, and he needs to learn in one way or another. 

BELIEVER 6:  “In the word of God we don’t find any servant of God asking for a salary for his service.” (BELIEVER 4:  The human beings cannot live by faith unless God orders this, unless God chooses this.  A true servant.)

BELIEVER 6:  “A steady income does not foster a trust in God.” (BELIEVER 4:  This is the problem of the human beings.  Nobody wants to live by faith, not even one.)  “Unfortunately it is often impossible to please both God and man at the same time.”  How is this going to work?

BELIEVER 4:  before you continue… I am going to touch a point and then allow BELIEVER 5 to flow.  Look BELIEVER 6.  What the Lord wants you and me to understand is that we are dealing with two completely different worlds.  You need to know that in your strength, you do not have anything to live what God wants (asks of us).  To judge the rest, is to put yourself in problems.  Why?  Because the Lord said, “I am the One who judges.”  Only  to those who die to self does the Lord allows to judge.  Why?  Because God doesn’t trust in the living, but in the dead.  We cannot swallow this.  The dead that are under the power of the cross.  You are dead, but you are still alive by faith in the Son of God.  God is the one who controls all of this.  In other words, the same words you said I am going to repeat, “Judge in the way God wants.”  Do not look what is happening with the others. 

BELIEVER 5: (Sharing from Holy Word for Morning Revival)  God responded to Moses, “I am who I am.”  This is what you need to tell the children on Israel.  Jesus said, “Truly, Truly I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”  The most wonderful title for the Lord is I AM.  This is contains the verb “to be”.  We are nothing.  Only He is “to be”.  That is why He called Himself “I AM”.  Only He exists in Himself.  We do not exist for ourselves.   It is necessary for one to believe “God is”, if we come to Him.  This implies a lot.  “I am the bread of life.”  The Lord Jesus is the great I AM.  When the soldiers listened to His name, they fell to the ground. 

BELIEVER 4:  We are going to go over some of these things.  The spiritual can put the things in the right place according to the spirit.  When I give you a book, I give it so that you can separate the doctrine from the living word.  The living word is the only things that abides.  The living word is sharper than any double-edged sword.  You cannot make this separation.  The only way you cannot be confused, is that the Spirit judge all things, not you.  If you judge, you fall (BELIEVER 3: you fall into your brain).  This is true, and we start to swim in the brain.  How do we get out?

BELIEVER 5:  It says here that we need to have only one version of the bible.

BELIEVER 4:  To say this is the work of man.  There are over two thousand translations of the bible.  Which one is correct?  The Recovery Version is not the correct version, it is the best version, but it is not the correct version.  The correct version is a Living Person that lives in the heart of man! He knows everything.  This is the correct one.   The problem is not in the interpretations of the bible.  The problem is in the heart of man. (BELIEVER 3:  Even though I read Romans chapter 7 in twenty different version, including the best, the Recovery, I still don’t want, I have a hard time to swallow this chapter.)  The second point of BELIEVER 5 is that the scripture is not about the private interpretation.  Only the Spirit of God can show us what it means.  (BELIEVER 5:  Yes, this is a dead book if God doesn’t show the things.) 

BELIEVER 3:  (Sharing from “The Believer Free from the Law”  By C.O. Rosenius)  Thank you Lord, we need Your Spirit.  We can touch any of these things if you don’t help.  Help us not to think, but receive Your word.  I’m first going to give a little background.  Chapter 1 is titled, “The Importance of the Believer’s Freedom from the Law.”  Chapter 2 is, “the Meaning of this Freedom.”  Chapter 3 is, “Who Enjoys this freedom”.  “This freedom does not belong to anyone and everyone.  May no on deceive himself and appropriate what doesn’t belong to him.”  In other words, do apply what doesn’t truly belong to you.  I can’t say, “I am an heir of Christ and His coming kingdom.”  I have the seed of this, but if the seed doesn’t mature, we are not going to inherit this.  “Mark the words, made ‘dead’, and ‘died’.  We have been “made dead” to the law, having “died” to that which we were held in.  What does it mean to have been made dead?  “The experienced know it, others don’t believe it.”  (BELIEVER 4: You need to have the experience brother).  I am starting to have it.  It says that you are made dead, it is a process.  “The Law is what makes us dead.  The searching of the eyes of God.”  “The more the man struggles, the more we are made dead.”  The law contributes to exhaust and slay the old man.  Our old strength will keep popping up more and more, even in a subtle way, similar to the good side of the tree of knowledge.  It may look like we are doing things for God outwardly, but it is still we who are doing the things, not Christ. 

BELIEVER 4:  what you are saying BELIEVER 3 and this brother is true.  This is a process, a terrible process of what it is that the Lord allows you to know what you are in your natural constitution, the old man.  For the self to be defeated completely, this is not easy.

BELIEVER 3:   “I again become exhausted and made dead, until I again must fall down at the feet of my Savior, and let Him become my all.  From this you can understand who are not under grace, but under law; those who have not been made dead through the law… and have not become so lost in despair that they must surrender.  If during this process, we began to despair of ourselves, we are very near to the kingdom of God.”  (BELIEVER 4: this is your life). “it is possible that our faith and confession of Christ be part of our own righteousness.”  In other words, we have a chance to were a Christian badge as our own merit.  “Our faith needs to be the refuge of a distressed and lost sinner.”  There are some terrible things here.  You know that in the book of Revelation it says, “and they sang the song of Moses and the Song of the Lamb.”  It is possible that we don’t not sing the song of the Lamb, but the song of our own righteousness, holiness, and ought to be and live.  “this shows that our flesh has not yet been put to shame and found our only glorying in Christ.”  “Experience tells us that the more free grace comes into our heart, the mores the desire comes for that which is good and holy.”  The only motive should be love of Christ constraining us.  Basically to sum this up, I see the complete difference between what many of us are living and what God wants.  God wants something similar to the slave of Abraham, Eliezer.  That was completely heart.  This is the kind of following that God wants.  This killed me when he wrote about the Song of the Lamb, how outwardly we can sing the song of the Lamb.  I have sang this song many times, but the Song of the Lamb is a reality, not lyrics.  I can only be sung by those who trust the Lamb for all things.  This song only comes as we don’t glory in ourselves any more.  The only way we can be free from the law is to die to it.  The law needs to slay us.  Not in a tormenting was, but in a humble way say, “there is a stronger man that has bond me.”  I feel this law working in me all the time.  By God’s grace I feel more of what the heart is.  I feel that the Lord doesn’t want us to think too much. One servant of the Lord said concerning those with many imaginations, “they need to stop thinking and starting obeying.” 

BELIEVER 5:  God has given me the authority to not imagine anything.

BELIEVER 4:  IF BELIEVER 5 is casting out all imaginations, she would not be hear right now. She would be in Central America, she would be in China ministering God.  (In reality) she has too many imaginations.  She sings the Song of Moses and the Lamb with her mind.

BELIEVER 3:  I feel the best way is to stop our mind.  When our mind wants to rebel, and it is not easy because sometimes it travels a lot.  The Lord has to show us more an more that all of our thoughts are terrible.  We feel this when we have truly terrible thoughts, but I don’t always feel like forsaking all of my own thoughts.  Sometimes I feel, “do I have to get rid of these thoughts, I like these thoughts.  I don’t want to get rid of these.  Two hours ago I felt like rejecting my thoughts, but right now no.”  This is when you lose the realm God wants.  We have to learn what Jeanne Guyon calls the prayer of the heart. It is not the prayer of the mind, but of the heart.  It is truly something different. (BELIEVER 4: the flavor is different).  I am terrible at it right now, sometimes the Lord gives me some grace to get out of my mind a little bit. 

BELIEVER 4:  I feel that what BELIEVER 3 shared is good.  (BELIEVER 6: it is very deep).  Okay.  If one doesn’t want to be free from the law and from the thoughts, one is going to say that this is too deep. If one wants what God wants, what this brother said is true.  To arrive to the point, that the mind doesn’t control us, but the Spirit controls all our being.  We need to be ready to be dead to self.  If we are there, our own righteousness is never going to deliver us from the law.  Because the law exalts those who have their own righteousness.  For this, the Pharisees could not deal with Jesus.  Jesus went to another kind of party. 

BELIEVER 4: the life of faith is by the desert, the cloud, and the column of fire.  In the moment we arrive to the Promised Land, these disappear.  In other words,  we cannot make rules about the thing we read. We don’t have a chance to say we have a corporate life if you only meet 2 or 3 days a week.  The Life of the Body is inter-related, and mingled.  It is by the Spirit that we live in the Body, not by education.  We don’t want to understand. The problem is that we don’t want to accept what God wants. 

BELIEVER 6:  why did God put these commandments on the fallen creation of Adam?

BELIEVER 3:  I am going to share something from brother Austin-Sparks, “the old man dies hard.” 

BELIEVER 4:  We need to say to God crying, “Lord, I don’t want to surrender.”  You can say this smiling.  If you say this angrily it is worse.  If we are angry about these things, He is going to show us the misery that we are.  BELIEVER 3 said, “the old man dies hard.”  We in our political-ness (BELIEVER 6: I am not political, never in my life.  The philosophers yes, but the political no).  (BELIEVER 3:  it is in our blood).  Okay BELIEVER 6, if you are truly healed of this, you need to ask the Lord to try this.  It would be better to say to the Lord, “Lord, do you know what you ask to me?”  IF we say this, and use the heart, the Lord is going to help us.