HOW MUCH CAN A DEAD MAN DO?

At my husband's funeral, after everyone had left the chapel, the Lord directed me to go over to the casket. He told me to look into the casket and He said to me: "Tell Me, What do you see?"

I answered: "I see a dead man, Lord." Then the Lord asked me: "How much can a dead man do?"

I responded by saying: "A dead man can do nothing, Lord."

Then the Lord said: "What is the difference (meaning there was none) between the lie in the churches, and the lie in the garden?"

I asked: "Lord, What LIE in the Churches?" He said: "That you can be as God"

I was puzzled by His answer, so I asked Him: "They are not teaching us to be like God in the CHRISTIAN churches -are they, Lord?"

He responded by asking me: "How much can a dead man do?" Since His question didn't seem to me to be an answer to my question, I asked Him: "Lord, are we on the same subject?" To which He responded: "Yes." then He repeated His question with the following emphasis: "How much can a DEAD man do?"

I answered with emphasis, saying: "A dead man can do NOTHING, Lord."

Then the Lord asked me: "If you are dead and your life is hidden in God in Christ, why are YOU trying to be like Jesus?"

So I asked Him: "I am not supposed to be like Jesus, Lord?" To which He replied: "I am the Lord, I am God there is none like Me, nor will ever there be." And I answered, "that is what Your word says, Lord."

Then I asked the Lord: "If I am not supposed to be like Jesus, what am I supposed to be?

In answer to my question, the Lord called my attention to a wreath a the foot of my husband's casket and He asked me: "What does it say on that wreath?"

I said: It says: "R.I.P."

To which He replied: "I am your Peace."

During the short space of time spent in the chapel that night, the Lord ministered to me concerning many things. The Lord reminded me how He had told me that we are not called to be like Jesus, ("it is a burden too heavy to be born for My people to try to be like God".) He showed me that there is no difference in His sight between the lie in the garden (ye shall be as God) and the LIE that you are to be like Jesus, or that you are to be Christ-like.

A Christian's first reaction to that kind of statement is that it cannot be true, that it cannot be from the Lord because every Christian knows that we are supposed to be Christ-like... but our understanding of our own Christ-like-ness is wrong!

Man cannot be Christ-like, but we can by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, "put on Christ" and with OUR life reckoned as dead in Him, asking the Father by His Spirit to hide us in the likness of Him (which is, in Jesus Christ) who is Himself the express image of the Father!

The truth is "you cannot be like Jesus" because Jesus is the LORD, and He is God, and there is none like Him nor will ever there be..." The Lord has shown me that WE (man, Adam) are not called to be LIKE Jesus, we are called to "put on Christ" -we are called to be clothed with Christ, and to be hid in the likeness of Him who is the express image of the Father, "in the Lord" Jesus Christ!

And when the Lord finished explaining that to me, then the Lord said, "instead of asking Me to make you like Jesus, why don't you ask Me to hide you in Him... instead of asking Me to make you like Jesus, ask "Jesus to be Jesus" for you, -in your place (meaning: instead of you.)

When I asked the Lord (if it pleased Him) to give me a practical example of what He meant by us not trying to be like Jesus, the Lord asked me, "What happens when you pray and ask me to make you patient?" When the Lord said that, I laughed. And the Lord asked me, "Why do you laugh?" And so, I answered honestly according to my own experience and said, "everyone who knows anything knows better than to pray for patience." The Lord asked me, "Why?" And so I continued by explaining (again regarding my own experience in the matter) "every time I pray and ask You to make me patient (enable me to be patient) then, all hell breaks loose!" (meaning that all kinds of things then happen to test "my patience")

I asked for a second example: the Lord asked, "What happens when you (meaning man) ask Me to make you wise?" -and in asking this, He immediately gave me the unspoken understanding that man is incapable of using wisdom wisely. The Lord caused me to see that even with all the wisdom God could give to man, man will still "blow it like Solomon did" (describing what the Lord conveyed in own my words here, not the Lord's :-)

I remembered that the scripture clearly tells us, "if any man lacks wisdom, let him ask" -and so I asked the Lord about that verse; I told that Lord that we are told to ask for wisdom --and the Lord replied, "Yes, but Wisdom is not a what (for us to use) Wisdom is a WHO, as it is written: Jesus Christ has been made Wisdom unto you, ...Jesus Christ is the power of God and HE IS the Wisdom of God. So, -instead of you asking Me to make YOU wise, ask Jesus Christ to be wisdom for you, in your place, on your behalf..."

The Lord also told me: "My people treat My Word like a what instead of a Who" (And the Lord gave the understanding that this was not right in His Sight.) I was given to understand that His Word is not some thing for us to use, that God's word is not "a what" -God's word is a Who and that we need to repent and call to our remembrance that Jesus Christ is Himself, the Living Word. In that same context the Lord told me, "it is not what you do with what I gave you, but rather what I have done and what I will do with WHO I gave you."

All the things mentioned here that were conveyed when I was in the funeral chapel that night(combined with many other things it has pleased the Lord to make known to me over the years) has lent to a better understanding of what the Lord desires to make known to His people concerning our "wicked ways" and insight as to what HE is saying our wicked ways are in His Sight. The Lord has added understanding and cousel concerning the subtle devices of the enemy who has crept into the churches unaware. The enemy has been able to shift the focus of the gospel off of Jesus Christ and onto who we are in Christ. Through reasoning and the perception of man, Satan has successfully manipulated men's minds concering the truth of God's word "in Spirit and in Truth" and is wresting the scripture (turing, twisting and perverting the meaning and the intent of God's written word) to cause man to fulfill the Humanist manifesto, "be all that we can be"

Satan has influenced man to reduce the word of God to some thing we use to help empower us to be like the Most High God, to be all that we can be ...to be like Jesus, in man's own pseudo-Christian but nevertheless counterfeit-Christlikeness

Satan desires to bring the church under a curse. Balak (who is a type of Satan) tried to get Baalim to curse Israel but failing that, Baalim then sold out to Balak for profit. Greedy for gain, in order to prosper himself financially Baalim, though he would/could not curse Israel as Balak wanted, instead Baalim showed Balak how he could get the children of Israel to bring themselves under a curse. (Guess why in the Book of the Revelation of the Lord in His Letters to the CHURCHES the way of Baalim and Balak are mentioned? -because Satan's plans and his devices have not changed...)

Satan knows that it is written, "if any man preaches another gospel, let him be accursed" -and so he has crept into the churches unaware through the back door if you will (just as he did with Eve) -and in these last days, by twisting the truth of God's word, he has manipulated the churches into ignorantly preaching "another gospel" that she might be cursed.

As mentioned in the Letters to the Churches in the Book of the Revelation of the Lord, the way of Baalim and Balak is a reference to Satan's plan in the last days (by means of a Laodicean false gospel made up of half-truth + half-error) the enemy of our souls has sought to force the churches into an advesarial position with (acting in opposition to) God Himself. (But he that hath an ear, let him hear the Lord is calling us to repent of these things!)