It is God Himself that Nourishes the Soul

This is from the Chosen Rebel's Blog:

The poverty of evangelical reflection, the shallowness of our deepest thoughts about God is becoming the Achilles heal of our witness in the world. Our deepest thoughts about God barely skim the surface of the reality of who God is and what He has revealed about Himself in His word. 

And it is killing us.

We are so pragmatic, so filled up to our ears with “relevance” and the flood of information and entertainment at our finger tips and those BORG-like extensions of the human body called “mouses” and “smart phones”* that there is no room for any proper and sustained reflection on anything, let alone the wonder and majesty of the nature of God.

Every word I write on the subject seems alien to the pragmatic spirit of this age. The helter-skelter of activity, seemingly for activities sake, leaves no time, no space, no mental energy for the examination of the glory that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.”  (2 Cor. 5:19)

Pastors, I’m begging you, as I’m preaching to myself, make time in your schedule, your overwhelmingly busy schedule, to pursue God.

The situation we find ourselves in is not new. It is part of a long declension seen long ago by such men as A.W. Tozer and others who saw the eclipse of God in the culture in the 50’s and 60’s and wondered aloud and in print about where it would lead. Tozer in particular saw what was happening and gave, many years ago, the antidote.

To great sections of the Church the art of worship has been lost entirely, and in its place has come that strange and foreign thing called the “program.”

. . . it is not mere words that nourish the soul, but God Himself, and unless and until the hearers find God in personal experience they are not the better for having heard the truth. The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts.

The Pursuit of God
A.W. Tozer, p. 10

That’s it. We have got to get back to nourishing our souls with God Himself.

• Not success. 

• Not power. 

• Not political influence. 

• Not likes and thumbs up in social media. 

• Not bigger budgets. 

• Not bigger buildings. 

• Not better music. 

• Not conferences attended or spoken at. 

• Not “cutting edge” programs. 

• Not ___________________________________. (Fill in the blank with anything that isn’t Jesus and Him crucified dead and buried, gloriously raised from the dead and coming again for His bride.)

Read the Tozer quote above again. Read it again, slowly. Ask yourself if this isn’t a major problem in your own heart and therefore and inevitably, a problem in your congregation.

Then do something about it.

• Shut your mouth.

• Close your door. 

• Take your Bible in hand.

• Pray.

• And seek the living God.

Your congregation, your community, your neighbors, your culture, your nation, your family, need you to be a man who pursues the living God. You and they need that more than anything you can preach this week.

* The irony of “smart phones” making us dumber is a painful but inescapable truth.

Mary Magdalen de Pazzi: "the presence of God"

This is from the blog Dover Beach:

“Prayer ought to be humble, fervent, resigned, persevering, and accompanied with great reverence. One should consider that he stands in the presence of a God, and speaks with a Lord before whom the angels tremble from awe and fear.”

--St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi

God's Storehouses in Famine

This is from the blog Grace and Truth:

God has been showing me that right now we are entering a new season. Right now we are leaving behind the years of “plenty” and entering into the years of “famine”.

In Amos 8:11 we read:

"'Behold, the days are coming,' says the Lord God, “That I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine of bread, Nor a thirst for water, But of hearing the words of the Lord."

I believe He wants me to share with you that whilst there is coming a wide-spread famine of the Word of God, He has a plan – a plan of mercy. And this plan is already well underway.
In Genesis 41 we read about another famine. One that spread throughout the whole world too. But of course back then God also had a plan.

God gave Pharaoh two dreams. When no one could interpret their meaning, Joseph was summoned:

“Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, “The dreams of Pharaoh are one; God has shown Pharaoh what He is about to do: ²⁶ 
The seven good cows are seven years, and the seven good heads are seven years; the dreams are one. ²⁷ And the seven thin and ugly cows which came up after them are seven years, and the seven empty heads blighted by the east wind are seven years of famine. ²⁸
 This is the thing which I have spoken to Pharaoh. God has shown Pharaoh what He is about to do.
²⁹ Indeed seven years of great plenty will come throughout all the land of Egypt; ³⁰ but after them seven years of famine will arise, and all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine will deplete the land. ³¹ So the plenty will not be known in the land because of the famine following, for it will be very severe.” (verses 25-31)

The first seven years were years of plenty. The second seven years were years of famine.

We know that seven in the Bible is used for perfection, divine completion. I believe God is saying now the first season of plenty is complete, it is over. Now we are entering the second phase: famine.

A famine of the Word of God.

However:

• Just as God had a plan of mercy for the famine in Egypt, so too God has a plan for this famine. Just as God sent a man, Joseph, ahead to Egypt to prepare for the coming famine, so too has God sent a Man to prepare for this one.
• Just as Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh to prepare for the coming famine, so too has Jesus Christ gone out from the presence of the Father to prepare for this coming famine.

If we look at Joseph’s plan, we see that it was quite simple. In the first season of the seven years of plenty, he stored up one-fifth of the food that was grown in local storehouses all across Egypt.

“So (Joseph) gathered up all the food of the seven years which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities; he laid up in every city the food of the fields which surrounded them” Genesis 41:48

In His sovereignty God knew this famine was coming. In His sovereignty God had sent ahead of it a man to bring about His plan of mercy, so that the: “food shall be as a reserve for the land for the seven years of famine which shall be in the land of Egypt, that the land may not perish during the famine.” Genesis 41:36

Likewise Jesus Christ, by His Holy Spirit, has been gathering and building into God’s storehouses during this past season, in preparation for this coming famine.

Whilst Joseph used Pharaoh’s stone or clay buildings to store away the grain, God has a very different type of building in which to store up His food.

It is us.

We are God’s storehouses. We are His plan for the coming famine. Into each of us He has been building day by day, year by year. Line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little.

“…we have this treasure in earthen vessels…” 2 Corinthians 4:7

Whilst Pharoah used earthen buildings, God uses earthen vessels.



Whilst Joseph used the local storehouses to hold the grain, God uses the local Body of Jesus Christ to store up His divine Life.   Every time we pray, we hear from God, we read the Word, we worship Him, we talk to Him, we spend time with Him He is building into us the bread of Life. He is storing away the grain in us of the Bread of God.

“For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” John 6:33

Remember: God always has a plan. He is in control. He is Sovereign.

When the second season began – the season of famine, the “famine was in all lands, but in all the land of Egypt there was bread.” Genesis 41:54

There is a time coming soon where there will be no bread for this world apart from what Jesus Christ has stored up in His own storehouses – in us, His people.

At that time Jesus will open up all of His storehouses and “all that is in them” (Genesis 41:56) will be given out to the starving masses.

Notice that it is the work of God to prepare for the coming famine. He is the one who gathers, who stores and puts away the food in us. All that is required of us is that we are there, receiving from Him.

Like Pharaoh’s buildings we just need to allow the food to be stored up in us, and when the time comes, we need to allow our Lord Jesus to open us up and to use us.



We will be emptied for the sake of others. But it is when we give out, that He is able to pour more of His life into us again.

I want to encourage you brothers and sisters that the years past of your time with Christ, of pain, of suffering, of being built into… it is not in vain. It is for a purpose. God has been preparing His storehouses for such a time as this. Take heart, God sees you, He loves you, He is about to use you.

Building in, building in….in order to give out, give out.

God bless you!

Broken Bread and Poured-Out Wine
Brian's Dream about the United States and Africa

His Word (The Word of Fire) Part One

This is from the blog A Word in Season:

His Word

Part One

The Word of Fire

“Is not my word like as a fire?
saith the Lord;
and like a hammer that breaketh
the rock in pieces?”
Jeremiah 23:29

God’s Word is not only an expression of Himself it is also an extension of Himself. He is His Word and His Word is Himself (John 1:1). We read in both the Old and New Testaments that our God is a consuming fire (Deuteronomy 4:24, Hebrews 12:29). They who bear His Living Word within their hearts know in a corresponding measure to their walk the truth of this. For His Word is the very expression of His Nature, His Thoughts and His Ways. Words without fire are words without unction. Men cannot touch His Presence and remain unaffected, apathetic and unconcerned about His inheritance in the earth. His presence is fire and glory. His zeal for His House (Psalm 119:139, John 2:17) in the earth is a consuming fire within the hearts of those who have His Word.

His Word is a fire which consumes, purifies and impels those who bear it to speak with intensity to all who would hear. This fire cannot be quenched, compromised or contaminated by the tepid atmosphere of religious men who would desire something less than God Himself. This Word is antagonistic to the comfortable, to those who would seek a complacent and more popular approach to God; yet to those who desire to walk and live within the fiery presence of a Holy God it is the necessity of life itself.

It is the work of God to bring His people to such expressions…

“But his word was in mine heart
as a burning fire
shut up in my bones”
Jeremiah 20:9

Men without fire have not yet touched His Presence. It is ever the work of the Holy Spirit to bring men to such places (Exodus 3:2) where the Fire of God burns like the Holy Lamp did in the days of the Tabernacle/Temple of God in the Old Testament. The Word of God declares “ye are the temple of the living God” and as such there ought to be the fire of His Presence burning within our hearts.

The Priesthood of Eli

Eli was a priest who through neglect became blind in His service to God and as a result the lamp of God went out in the tabernacle! This lamp of fire had been preserved and watched over by the priests of God for over 450 years! His sons had become immoral and loose in their walk before God. This was a day of no accountability. Men did as they pleased and the ministry was silent concerning God’s Righteousness. The outward observance of God’s law continued but the fire went out and men did not lay these things to heart.

There is also in our day a ministry in the earth which has neither fire nor unction; a ministry which has resulted in the fire of God going out in His house. There is a religious environment in which men hold the Word in the form of teachings and doctrines rather than in their hearts by the living fire of His presence. These are they who hold His Word in unrighteousness, who seek to fill their churches and fellowships with kind and comfortable words but have no actual concern for the condition of His people or their walk in righteousness. The Word speaks of the fruit of such a ministry:

“And because iniquity shall abound,
the love of many shall wax cold”
Matthew 24:12

The reason the fire goes out is because of iniquity and sin. The Love of God beating within a man’s heart will cause him to forsake sin. A Gospel which does not have the very fire of God within it is not God’s Living Word. In contrast to this unholy ministry we read of another.

The Stranger and the Words of Fire

Two disciples walking down the road to Emmaus in deep despair and perplexity were joined by a “stranger”* who spoke sternly to them concerning their plight and their lack of faith. Their eyes where blinded to the One who spoke with them as they journeyed. Would our hearts receive such words from a stranger?

“O fools, and slow of heart to believe
all that the prophets have spoken…”
Luke 24:25

After realizing the stranger was in fact the risen Lord who had spoken to them these hard words the disciples remarked to one another:

“And they said one to another,
Did not our heart burn within us,
while he talked with us by the way,
and while he opened to us the scriptures?”
Luke 24:32

Empty words proceed from hearts lacking fire. The words of the religious are different than the Words of Jesus and they who serve at His Altar will speak His Words and seek His Glory and not their own.

“And it came to pass,
when Jesus had ended these sayings,
the people were astonished at his doctrine:
For he taught them as one having authority,
and not as the scribes”
Matthew 7:28-29

Burning Words flow from burning hearts!

Even so Lord draw us to the fire of your presence and cause that fire to burn, purify and consume all that is unholy and carnal in us. Make us to be “ministers of flaming fire”. Men who will not abide in such words now will perish in the fire of His return.

“If a man abide not in me,
he is cast forth as a branch,
and is withered; and men gather them,
and cast them into the fire,
and they are burned”
John 15:6

* Men reveal by their response the true condition of their hearts. Here a stranger came and spoke hard words, yet these two downtrodden disciples resisted not the admonition for they were men who desired truth and loved it. Men who refuse the fire and the hammer of God’s Word are not abiding in His Spirit. They have not the love of truth burning within their heart. They appear religious and will seek to build and do religious things but in their inner heart truth is not desired nor pursued. It is the day of the Revelation of Jesus Christ and in the revealing of Him men’s works will be made manifest even as by fire.

“Every man’s work shall be made manifest:
for the day shall declare it,
because it shall be revealed by fire;
and the fire shall try every man’s work
of what sort it is”
1 Corinthians 3:13

--Brian Troxel

A Definition of Worship

This is from Reved's Blog:

Planning and leading worship services for the church week in and week out can sometimes drain the essence out of worship itself.  Worship becomes something I do, an act of professionalism rather than encounter with my heavenly Father.  As Presbyterians are known for doing things “decently and in order,” our worship often takes on a rehearsed tone, and “passionate worship” is not how visitors would typically describe the service.

So it is that I came upon the following by A.W. Tozer in his book, The Purpose of Man: Designed to Worship.  May this serve as a corrective understanding for all of us as we prepare to enter into worship again:

A Definition of Worship

First, worship is to feel in the heart. I use that word “feel” boldly and without apology. I do not believe that we are to be a feeling-less people. I came into the kingdom of God the old-fashioned way. I believe that I know something of the emotional life that goes with being converted; so I believe in feeling. I do not think we should follow feeling, but I believe that if there is no feeling in our heart, then we are dead. If you woke up in the morning and suddenly had no feeling in your right arm, you would call a doctor.  You would dial with your left hand because your right hand was dead. Anything that has no feeling in it, you can be quite sure is dead. Real worship, among other things, is a feeling in the heart.

Worship is to feel in the heart and express in some appropriate manner a humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe.  Worship will humble a person as nothing else can. The egotistical, self-important man cannot worship God any more than the arrogant devil can worship God. There must be humility in the heart before there can be worship.

When the Holy Spirit comes and opens heaven until people stand astonished at what they see, and in astonished wonderment confess His uncreated loveliness in the presence of that ancient mystery, then you have worship. If it is not mysterious, there can be no worship; if I can understand God, then I cannot worship God.

I will never get on my knees and say, “Holy, holy, holy” to that which I can figure out. That which I can explain will never overawe me, never fill me with astonishment, wonder or admiration. But in the presence of that most ancient mystery, that unspeakable majesty, which the philosophers have called a mysterium tremendum, which we who are God’s children call “our Father which art in heaven,” I will bow in humble worship. This attitude ought to be present in our church today.

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was one of the greatest minds that ever lived. When he was only in his teens, he wrote advanced books on mathematics, astonishing people. He became a great philosopher, mathematician and thinker.

One night, he met God, and his whole world was changed. He wrote down his experience on a piece of paper while it was still fresh on his mind. According to his testimony, from 10:30 pm to about 12:30 am, he was overwhelmed by the presence of God. To express what he was experiencing, he wrote one word, “fire.”

Pascal was neither a fanatic nor an ignorant farmer with hayseeds back of his ears. He was a great intellectual. God broke through all that and for two solid hours, he experienced something he could holy characterize as fire.

Following his experience, he prayed; and to keep as a reminder of that experience, he wrote it out: “God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and of the learned.” This was not a prayer for somebody who reads his prayers; this was not formal religious ritual. This was the ecstatic utterance of a man who had two wonderful, awesome hours in the presence of God. “God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob not of the philosophers and of the learned. God of Jesus Christ… Thy God shall be my God… He is only found by thy ways taught in the Gospel… Righteous Father, the world has not known Thee, but I have known Thee. Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy…” And he put an “Amen” after it, folded it up, put it in his shirt pocket and kept it there.

That man could explain many mysteries in the world, but he was awestruck before the wonder of wonders, even Jesus Christ. His worship flowed out of his encounter with that “fire” and not out of his understanding of who and what God is.

Tozer, A. W. The Purpose of Man: Designed to Worship. (Grand Rapids, MI; Baker House Books) pg. 108-110.

Blaise Pascal

Glory and Power: Two Sides of the Presence of God

This is from the blog Daily Meditation:

Jeremiah 20:11: But the LORD is with me as a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble; they will not overcome me. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten. (ESV)

The presence of God makes all the difference. Moses told God: if your presence does not go with us, take us not from here (Exodus 33:15).

There are two sides of the presence of God: his glory and power. When David talked about encountering God in the temple, he said it is to see his glory and his power (Psalm 63:1-2). And when Jesus taught the lines of prayer, he ended by saying: thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever Amen (Matthew 6:13).

Glory

When God manifested in the temple in the Old Testament, it was in his glory which make it impossible for the priest to perform their normal duty (1Kings 8:11) as the dedication of the temple built by Solomon, when it was being separated to God’s name, which is the definition of holiness.

The manifestation of the glory is based on divine initiative, so all other initiatives, including human and demonic, must move aside, bow down, and bend over. The glory changes the atmosphere.

The glory makes people fall down. Angels bear the glory of God and when Daniel saw an angel, he fell down as one dead (Daniel 10:15-17). His self-effort was paralysed. His ability to make an effort was shut down in the face of the overwhelming glory of God.

When Jesus said “I am he” when certain soldiers came to arrest him in the Garden of Gethsemane, they fell down, to show that if he does not want to be arrested he will not be arrested (John 18:6).

And the miracles are associated with the glory of God. What only God can do is a manifestation of his glory, it is what brings praise to his name. The glory of God creates changes. It changed the water into wine (John 2:1-11).

Sin is counter the glory of God, that is why when man sinned in the garden, he was stripped of the glory of God and found himself naked (Genesis 3). And the bible says: all have sinned, falling short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Therefore, glory of associated with holiness.

God asked Jacob to take his family to Bethel. Years before he had an encounter with the glory of God in that place and he named it Bethel which means the house of God, which is where his glory manifests (Genesis 35:1-7).

He slept in that place and saw heaven opened and the angels of God moving up and down a ladder that reaches from heaven to the earth (Genesis 28:10-15). All the components of the dreams smack of the glory of God.

Heaven is full of the glory, the ladder connects earth to the glory in heaven, where the glory is generated. The earth has no glory of its own to generate, as the moon does not have its light to shine forth.  The angels in that dream are conveyers of the glory. And in the real sense, Jesus is the ladder as he himself revealed to Nathanael (John 1:45-51). That means without Jesus the glory of heaven will not come fully to the earth, and full angelic presence will not be experienced.

After Jacob returned from the house of Laban and had settled down God said he should go to Bethel, but it is if, and only if, his family will rid themselves of all idols. John wrote in one of his letter that we should keep ourselves from idols (1John 5:21), which are spiritual pollutants that counteract the holiness of God.

Paul wrote about being vessels of honour which actually means vessels of his glory, that whoever purges himself from whatever makes impure will be worthy to be a vessel of honour (2Timothy 2:19-22).

When we are separated to God we are able to manifest his glory in and through our lives. On Mount Sinai when God wanted to manifest his glory visibly in the eyes of the children of Israel, he said they need to clean up (Exodus 19:9-21).

And when the glory of God manifested in the lives of a priest Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth, when they had a child in their old age, the bible recorded that they walked with God blameless (Luke 1:6). And the experience of Enoch is instructive (Genesis 5:21-24).

After walking with God for hundreds of years that bible says that he was not, he ceased to be on earth because God took him, he entered fully the glory of God by the strength of his separation to him. Those who are persecuted for the sake of Christ are said to have the spirit of glory resting on them (1Peter 4:14), because of the sacrifice they have made, they have become living sacrifice. Remember the glory is about holiness.

Power

While we can tap into the glory of God through the path of holiness, the power of God is operationalised through faith. Jesus expended energy teaching the disciples about the need for faith. When he displayed power by casting out devils in the child which some of his disciples found difficult to do, he rebuked them for their lack of faith. He told the boy’s father: everything is possible for him who believes (Mark 9:14-21).

Faith turns on the power tap, it is man’s initiative and the glory is something that God initiates. Power is something man initiatives. Jesus said we will lay hands on the sick and they shall recover (Mark 16:15-18). You needed to take the step of faith to lay that hands to see the power of God manifest in healing.

Jesus was preaching at a house in the bible says that the power of God was present to heal (Luke 5:17-26).

While on earth Jesus walked in the power of God, but the glory of God could not be established in our lives without his holiness established in us as the Holy Spirit comes into us. The glory is more subtle. The bible says God is holy and we should be holy in all manner of conversation; that is about our lifestyle, but Jesus said when we have faith in God we will say to a mountain shift and it would obey us; that is power (Mark 11:22-24).

When power was present at that house where Jesus was preaching, not everyone was able to experience it. The friends of a paralysed man who brought him there experienced the power because through faith they initiated an encounter with Jesus.

The bible says that Jesus saw their faith through their action of breaking through the roof and they experienced the power as their friends rose up and walked.

Many times Jesus will say to people your faith as made you whole. A woman pressed through the crowd to touch Jesus and the twelve years of blood issuing from her ended (Luke 8:43-48). Jesus told her that her faith made her whole.

Her life was haemorrhaging away and she took a step of faith at the risk of her own life. She was brave, the four friends of that paralysed men were brave, and their desire for change, desire to experience the power of God was greater than their fear of what people might say. Their faith overcame their fear and they experienced the power of God.

Faith is the strong desire in the direction of what God can do. It is an unshifting desire, faith is an ongoing conversation between a man and heaven that constantly takes the goods of heaven available on earth.

Conclusion

While there are many overlaps between glory and power, they are also distinct. It takes the power of God to manifests gifts, and they can even manifest without holiness, but not so the glory of God.

His has confused many people, who see the display of the supernatural in the life of those who are empty of the life of holiness. But reading the first letter of Paul to the Corinthian church, will clear things up. They lacked behind in no gift (1Corinthians 1:6-7), but fornication was rampant (1Corinthians 5:1). The miracles can blind the eyes from the need for introspection and caution and internal transformation. So we can have the power without the glory. We can also have the glory without the power; that is if we do not believe for miracles. Jesus was the personification of the glory of the glory of God, the fullness of the Godhead bodily. However, when he was in his home town he did not do many miracles because of unbelief, though he taught the people (Mark 6:1-6). We need a balance, because the kingdom of God is about his power and glory, not just power or just glory.

The Real Mount Sinai in Arabia

Charles Finney - Presence of God Convicts People of Sin while He Sits in a Train Car (55:20 - 56:25)

Athy, County Kildare, Ireland

Athy

 
I used my hard-earned money and lived in Ireland from May 1981 to February of 1982.  I wrote a novella while I was living in Athy, County Kildare, Ireland during the summer of 1981.  It took me around seven weeks to write the manuscript.  The title of the novella was Athy-upon-Barrow.

The most profound thing that I experienced while I was living in Athy happened in December of 1981.  I had been very suicidal since I was fifteen.  I remember that I had been reading this book and the author used this scripture:  "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (Philippians 4: 13)  I sat there and repeated that scripture many times, then I went to bed.

I laid in bed and all I wanted to do was die.  Finally, I went to sleep.  Later that night, the Presence of God became very powerful.  It was very intense light and love--Divine love.  It lasted about an hour and a half.  The intense light/love was so powerful it was painful.  I began to plead for the light to leave because I couldn't bear the pain anymore.

[This is how Blaise Pascal describes his experience]

Since I have become a Christian, that rapture experience has happened to me many times.  You could also describe that experience as "the Holy Ghost fell" or "the Holy Ghost became very heavy":  it is Holy Fire.  I believe that experience in December of 1981 was painful because I was not yet washed in the Blood of Jesus.  In July of 1982, I finally surrendered my life to Jesus Christ.  I still experience the rapturous Presence of God from time to time, but it is not painful.

May 1981:  Northern Ireland and Bob Jamieson of NBC News
Revival in Ireland
Athy Town, Co. Kildare, Ireland
Barge on River Barrow, Athy
Hitchhiking in Ireland, Northern Ireland, England and Wales

Algona Upper Des Moines - Tim Shey - "Algonan has first-hand view of Irish Revolt" (May 28th, 1981)

Algona Upper Des Moines - John Cullen - Ink Spots (June 4th, 1981)

Algona Upper Des Moines - John Cullen - "After Ireland, The Grass Looks Greener in Iowa" (April 22, 1982)

Map of County Kildare

White's Castle on the River Barrow, Athy

Duke Street, Athy

The Fire of God's Glory

This is from the blog Daily Meditation:

Leviticus 9:24: And fire came out from before the LORD and consumed the burnt offering and the pieces of fat on the altar, and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces.

The earth has seen many manifestations of God. The first time it was recorded that God came to the earth, Adam and Eve ran away from the presence of the creator, because of their sin (Genesis 3).

At the end of time a similar thing will happen on the day of judgement when the bible says that the heaven and earth will flee from the presence of the great one who seats upon the throne (Revelation 6:12-17, 20:11).

When Jesus manifest for judgement in the sky the people of the earth will tell the mountain: fall on us, protect us from the wrath of the holy one. Sin in any shape cannot stand before the glory of God as the experience of Isaiah showed (Isaiah 6:1-8).

In the focus verse, the glory of God has manifested as fire to consume the sacrifice. But there was a fire from the presence of God, which consumed the two sons of Aaron (Leviticus 10:1-2), because they burned unapproved fire in the presence of God.

The bible says that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10:31, 12:29), and our God is a consuming fire. Ananias and Saphira fell into the fearful hand of God (Acts 5:1-10). When they presume to lie to Apostle Peter, they fell down and died. An angel struck down King Herod who presumed to accept the title of god (Acts 12:21-24). He fell down and maggots eat him up on the spot.

Those are the manifestation of God in wrath. But there are manifestations of God in prosperity and provision in the bible also.

In the forty years of the journey of the children of Israel in the wilderness, the millions of them ate food prepared in the bakery of heaven, released to them as manna every morning (Exodus 16:35).

Elijah also had a similar experience. While running away from Jezebel (1Kings 19), famished and tired he slept under a tree. And twice an angel brought food and drink to him, woke him up for him to eat and drink.

While the food of angels was delivered from heaven to the Israelites in the wilderness daily, and it sustained them for forty years, the meals taken by Elijah sustained him for forty days of constant walking into an encounter with God, in supernatural experience of fire, earthquake, wind and the still small voice.

Though there was fire, but it was written that God was not in that fire.  Though God manifests himself in supernatural fashion, he is not tied to any manifestation, but his word. The devil also have lying wonders (2Thessalonians 2:9) (wonders for the purpose of deception), so because something is amazing does not mean it is divine.

The ultimate revelation of the glory of God to us was in Jesus, who is God the word, the truth (John 14:6). John wrote: in him was life and the life was the light of men; we beheld his glory as of the only begotten of the father full of grace and truth (John 1:1-5, 14-17). He was the ultimate manifestation of God. God has decided to elevate his word above his name. He has chosen to confine himself with his word.

However, because the devil has some wonders of his own does not mean that God is not even much more superabundant in wonders. Jesus is even called wonderful (Isaiah 9:6).

When the Holy Spirit which Jesus manifested in the second chapter of the book of Actswas seen (Acts 2:1-4), it was as fire, when cloven tongues as of fire appeared and sat on all the disciples. When the presence of God manifested on Mount Sinai it was with lightning and smoke, and earthquake (Exodus 19:18).

He told Moses who asked God show me your glory, no one sees my face and live (Exodus 33:18-23). There is a fieriness to God that is beyond comprehension.

The fire of the presence of God can serve two purpose, to empower or to judge. What happened to Sodom and Gomorrah is an example of the fire of God judgment coming upon a place (Genesis 18:17-21; 19). They were noted for their sexual immorality, consumed with illicit passion they were therefore consumed by the fire of God’s judgement.

Isaiah experienced some positive things about the fire of the presence of God (Isaiah 6:1-8). When he met God in a vision. He wrote that in the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up and his train filled the temple.

He was confronted with the absolute holiness of God, he felt deserving of speedy judgment right there considering how unclean he felt. He said: woe is me, because I am a man of unclean lips in the midst of people who have unclean lips. Because he recognised his need, confessed his helplessness, he received grace. An angel came to him with a coal from the altar before God and touched his mouth with it to purge him of his iniquity.

Jesus was described by John the Baptist a one who baptised with the Holy Spirit and fire (Luke 3:16). And in the Book of Acts, the Holy Spirit manifested as cloven tongues as of fire. It was heaven fire coming to abide on all who expressed commitment to Jesus Christ at that time by obeying his word to stay in Jerusalem to be endued with power from on high (Acts 1:8, 2:1-4).

When Paul met a group of disciples, and they said they only knew the baptism of John, he found it necessary to instruct them about believing in Jesus before introducing the Holy Spirit to them (Acts 19:1-7). The Holy Spirit, the holy fire, manifested in their lives in the name of Jesus. He said that those who believe in him will speak in tongues, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit (Mark 16:15-18).

The Holy Spirit is the manifestation of the presence of God, which makes the reality of heaven available upon earth. He is the manifestation of the glory of God, just as Jesus was while on earth, where he introduced the Holy Spirit as another comforter, another helper, another one like himself (John 14:16-18).

The divine helper moves people to places in God where they cannot go on their own, in purity (away from sin), in knowledge (away from darkness), in power (away from being oppressed). All because it is not enough to just know the right things, you need to be the right person, through the changing power of the Holy Spirit.

The Pharisees knew the scriptures but they lost out of the person of Jesus. Because it is not just about what you know but who you know. And Jesus said that the scriptures point to him (John 5:39).

He defined eternal life as knowing the true God and Jesus whom he has sent (John 17:3). And knowing Jesus is firmly linked to knowing the Holy Spirit because you cannot respect Jesus and disregard his Spirit, the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9).

Lightning Destroyed Georgia Guidestones - Act of God

The Unpopularity of Jesus and His Doctrines

This is from the blog Christian Praise and Worship in Sermons and Songs:

A. W. Tozer Sermon – The Unpopularity of Jesus and His Doctrines

A.W. Tozer playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=66987CD6E419E258

Because A.W. Tozer lived in the presence of God he saw clearly and he spoke as a prophet to the church. He sought for God’s honor with the zeal of Elijah and mourned with Jeremiah at the apostasy of God’s people. But he was not a prophet of despair. His writings are messages of concern. They expose the weaknesses of the church and denounce compromise. They warn and exhort. But they are messages of hope as well, for God is always there, ever faithful to restore and to fulfill His Word to those who hear and obey.

Shortly before his death, Tozer wrote: “Another kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must be of the old prophet type, a man who has seen visions of God and has heard a voice from the Throne.” I am convinced that Aiden Wilson Tozer himself was such a man.

In his 1948 classic The Pursuit of God, Tozer challenged the stiff and wooden quality of many Christian lives. He noted: “Complacency is the deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people.” Indeed, Tozer believed that thirst for God was the sign of coming revival.

Tozer’s passion for a deeper knowledge of God led him to study the great devotional writers of the past. “These people know God, and I want to know what they know about God and how they came to know it,” he observed. Prayer and worship were the hallmarks of his life. One biographer states that his preaching as well as his writings were simply an extension of his prayer life. Another noted that Tozer spent more time on his knees than at his desk.

He called for a return to astonishment and wonder at the majesty of God. Then he added: “The God of the modern evangelical rarely astonishes anybody. He manages to stay pretty much within the constitution;very well-behaved, very denominational and very much one of us.”

In modern evangelicalism, contended Tozer, we work, we have our agendas–in fact, we have almost everything except the spirit of true worship. He defined worship as a humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe, astonished wonder and overpowering love in the presence of the unspeakable Majesty. He reminded the pastors, “We’re here to be worshippers first and workers only second; Out of enraptured, admiring, adoring souls God does His work. The work done by a worshipper will have eternity in it.”

Tozer believed that worship rises and falls with our concept of God and that if there was one terrible disease in the modern church, it was that we do not see God as great as He is: “We’re too familiar with God. …that is why I do not believe in these half-converted cowboys who call God `the Man Upstairs’.”

In the Preface to The Knowledge of the Holy, his last book, Tozer stated how important our view of God is: “The church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted for it one so low, so ignoble as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshipping men. .. A whole new philosophy of the Christian life has resulted from this one basic error.”

Tozer addressed the state of the evangelical church even more bluntly in Keys to the Deeper Life. In a chapter entitled “No Revival Without Reformation”, he stated: “A widespread revival of the kind of Christianity we know today in America might prove to be a moral tragedy from which we would not recover in a hundred years.” The imperative need of the day, he affirmed, was not simply revival but a radical reformation that went to the root of our moral and spiritual maladies: “Prayer for revival will prevail when it is accompanied by radical amendment of life; not before.”

With revival, said Tozer, would come a renewed spirit of worship which was not the result of engineering or manipulation. It would come out of a high and holy view of God as portrayed in Scripture, not the God who has been “abridged, reduced, modified, edited, changed and amended until He is no longer the God whom Isaiah saw, high and lifted up”.

Tozer called the doctrine of the Holy Spirit “buried dynamite”. Yet he always insisted that the Spirit and the Word operate in harmony. He exhorted the overzealous to a warm heart and a cool head: “The history of revivals in the Church reveals how harmful the hot head can be….These are days of great religious turmoil. Let love burn on with increasing fervour, but bring every act to the quiet test of wisdom. Keep the fire in the furnace where it belongs. An overheated chimney will create more excitement than a well-controlled furnace, but it is likely to burn the house down. Let the rule be: a hot furnace but a cool chimney.” 

--Walter Unger

Do not remain silent

This is from the blog Daily Meditation:

Esther 4:14: For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

You cannot keep quiet when you see injustice around you. You need to raise your voice and be part of the solution, allowing God to use you. You are the change-agent this world is waiting for. Your little positive action in your little corner of influence has eternal repercussion and will not go unrewarded.

If you cannot do anything, you can pray. When you move the hand of God in prayer, you get to change things on the earth, as it is written; whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven, the same for whatever you loose on earth. Every prayer effort is real effort.

You may not be able to speak with the President on the need for change but you can speak to God. Paul told Timothy that he wants him to give priority to praying for all men (1Timothy 2:1-6), for kings and all decision-makers so that we might live in peace, godliness and honesty.

We are agents of God on the earth, and as we engage in prayer, saying: let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:9-10). One of the things in heaven is peace. You can draw the peace in heaven to the earth through prayer. We cannot presume, in whatever nation you are, that because there is peace now there will always be peace (which also involved all things that make for prosperity), you need to stand in the gap in the place of prayer to bring the reality of heaven to the earth.

You cannot remain silent when the spiritual atmosphere of a place is being taken over by darkness. We cannot say it is the end of time and leave our role in the place of prayer, allowing things to go into decay. We need to execute kingdom authority in the here and now in this generation. In the last but one psalm, the psalmist revealed that the people of God have the privilege to bind the forces of darkness.

In the place of prayer we get to wrestle against principalities and power to weaken their influences in the realm of men (Ephesians 6:10-18). Our presence of earth should have impact on the operation of the devil. We should shine as light. We open our mouth to resist the devil on the earth (James 4:7) and also loose the presence of God(in light) to come into operation and bring divine liberation to men.

Esther in the focus verse was asked to speak to the king, to get him to act against the enemy’s intention for the children of Israel. Apparently she was safe in the palace of the king; she had hidden her identity while in the contest to be the queen of the land, and now she is queen. But when her people (Israelites) were in trouble (set up to be killed and assaulted on a particular day throughout the land), through the machination of Haman, she had to intercede for them with the king and not keep silent. In this wise, she cannot think of herself, of how dangerous it is for her to approach the king (to go to the king without being invited is to risk being killed). To speak up for others means you have some measure of selflessness, like Christ (Matthew 20:28).

When the apostles got into trouble with the Pharisee who threatened that they should not preach in the name of Jesus (Acts 4:1-33), the church, the bride of Christ prayed and the power of God was released to make even more miracles to happen in the name of Jesus; so that the threat against the church only served to fuel more work of God in the midst of the land, when the church called on God. (No threat should make you shut up; continue to call on God in prayer.) Likewise, on the day Israelites were to be killed, through the intercession of Esther, they were the one plundering their enemies. They were greatly feared.

Mordecai wanted Esther to speak up for the children of Israel, so that relief and deliverance can come for them through her effort. It is the same thing the blood of Jesus does for us; the book of Hebrews says that the blood of Jesus speaks better things than the blood of Abel (Hebrews 12:24). The blood of Abel spoke out in demand for vengeance (Genesis 4:10, Hebrews 11:4, Revelation 6:10), while the blood of Jesus speaks out in demand for justification and redemption for anyone who believes that he has a hand in the death of Jesus; that Jesus died for him. To say Jesus died for you means you acknowledge that you are a sinner in need of a saviour, and that Jesus is that saviour, with that you are saved. Jesus did not seek for revenge, having accepted the call to be the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world.

Cain had a hand in the death of Abel, he was responsible for the shedding of his blood and he was judged for it, we have a hand in the death of Jesus because he died for our sins, and because he rose from the dead, Jesus was able to be a source of eternal salvation for those who believe in him. His blood cried for mercy for us. Jesus’ last request from God concerning man was: forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing (Luke 23:34).
Those who believe in him have passed from death to life, from darkness to light because of the better things that his blood speaks. They receive the gift of forgiveness.

Since he is the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world in the order of the Old Testament sacrificial system, the blood of Jesus speaks forgiveness of sins, it speaks mercy, it speaks justification, and it speaks sanctification.

Because it is through the blood that our conscience gets purged from dead works (Hebrews 9:14), making ready a place for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, therefore the blood speaks for the operation of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Since the Holy Spirit cannot act except when there it is holiness, the blood is important for our relationship with God because it is the Holy Spirit who makes intimate relationship with God possible.

The blood speaks up for our relief and deliverance. It is in the context of that that Jesus is said to ever lives to make intercession for us (Hebrews 7:25). His blood is constantly speaking for us, making us objects of God’s favour in perpetuity.

The reality of the blood constantly speaking on our behalf is the guarantee that we will be with the Lord in perpetuity, that our sins have been taken away and we are free from bondage to it. That means the blood of Jesus speaks freedom from sin. John declared the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sins (1John 1:7). In the blood is our relief for eternal damnation and deliverance from satanic bondage. (Satanic bondage operates through death which also operates through sin [Hebrews 2:14-15, Romans 5:12, 14].)

What about the word of God in your mouth? We have the mandate to declare the word of God. The word of God represents the will of God, and it is by declaring the word that we declare the will of God. We are God’s spokesmen to declare his counsel, and cause his will to be done on earth. Put his word in your mouth. The bible says you shall decree a thing and it will be established to you (Job 22:28).