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16th February 2002
MEETING THE CONDITIONS.
Jesus answered and said unto him,"If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." (John 14:23 ) How much do we want Jesus to manifest Himself unto us and how much do we want God and Jesus come and make their abode in us? What are those commandments, that Jesus speaks about? What will happen when we meet His conditions? In 1994 God started moving mightily in different places all over the world and the fruit of His visitation was: joy, restoration, but most of all a deep intimate relationship with our Lord Jesus. He was clearly manifesting Himself to His people. There were so many reports of transformed lives. It was awesome! And still we hear reports of blessing and healing and restoration, but also we hear bad reports . Whole websites have been dedicated to once again try and assassinate this move of God with their biting criticism and faultfinding. There are people who think that they have been called to this specialised ministry of mudslinging. I do not see such ministry in the Bible. Actually, time and time again I see that God tells us to walk in love and mutual respect with one another. Paul says to us : Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand. (Romans 14:4 ) But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. (Romans 14:10-12 ). In the Psalms God says to us: But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth? Seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee. ….. Thou givest thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frameth deceit. Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest thine own mother’s son. These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes. Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver. Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me: and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God. (Psalms 50:16-23 ) In Isaiah the Lord says: Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward. Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity; (Isaiah 58:8-9 ) The commandments that Jesus speaks about tell us that we have to love God with everything that is in us and love our neighbour like we love ourselves. That is the condition for an even more powerful visitation of God. I can hear some of you say, but Paul rebuked certain people openly. Yes he did, he wrote to some churches and warned them about certain people, but we must not forget that Paul is not our example, Jesus is! What did Jesus do? In 1 John 4:17 we read that we must walk in this world like Jesus did: And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. Once I was the secretary of a certain evangelist. This man walked in love with his fellowmen. I saw how God did mighty miracles through his ministry. Other ministers were jealous of him, but he never retaliated. He was always willing to look for the best in another person. At one time a brother came to the meetings, whose heart was not right before God. I was concerned that this man would harm the ministry. This evangelist always treated that brother with love and respect. So I spoke to him and his answer was, sister, Jesus had 12 disciples and one of them was a devil. And what is good enough for my Master, is good enough for me. I never forgot this. Yes, Jesus knew from the beginning that Judas was a thief and that he would betray him, but He never exposed him. Until the last minute Judas was given time to repent. That’s the way God is And it is time we learn from Jesus what it means to walk in love. Yes He did rebuke the Pharisees and yes, He did go with His whip through the templecourt. Religion is one thing God hates. Those religious people had another father, they were not His brethren. But we are devouring our brethren. We are so quick to point our fingers and we feel so rightly justified to do this. The sad thing is though that it is very costly, not walking in love as Jesus requires us to do, costs us our anointing. We are called to heal the sick, raise the dead, heal the brokenhearted, set the captives free, open prisondoors, to be restorers of the breech, to pursue peace and walk in the light with one another, but we allow ourselves to be sidetracked. We think that God is not big enough to take care of His own children and He needs us to do the work for Him. Instead of bringing people together in unity we spend all our time trying to uproot the weeds in Gods garden. By doing that we cause confusion and discord amongst the brethren. We demand that they make choices, for or against. This should not be so. Nehemiah was a wise man. God had told him to build the walls of Jerusalem and when others tried to call him away to go into dispute over certain matters, he told them that he had work to do and he was not coming down (to their level) to them. Four times they asked him to come and he gave them every time the same answer. A wise man indeed and he finished the work God gave him to do. I asked the Lord about this matter and He spoke to me from His word: Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn. (Matt 13:24-30) The man in this story is God, He is the Householder, the field is His, the wheat is His. God sows good ministries in this world, to bring healing and deliverance etc. But the enemy will always try and sow bad seed in God’s vineyard. The men were sleeping, they were not watchful and alert and did not see the enemy coming in. And then the tares appeared and the servants, we are those servants, wanted to do something about it and uproot the tares. Now watch what the Householder says, when you gather the tares, you also root up the wheat. Let them both grow together until harvest. Don’t you think that God is able to do something about those ministries that go wrong? Do you think He needs us to spend time to do His work? Is that what He called us to do? Sometimes God will send someone to bring correction to a certain brother or sister. Not in a judgmental way, trying to destroy them, no God’s aim is always to restore them, to give them the opportunity to repent. In Jeremiah 23 God says, He hates those prophets that run and that are not sent by Him. They will not accomplish anything. Only when He has really sent them, the word they bring will break into pieces the rock of most stubborn resistance, the word says. So when God does not send you, it is better to be diligent about the task He has given you and leave the others in His hands. When the Body of Christ learns to obey the commandments of Jesus and starts walking in love with one another, we will soon see how God and Jesus will come and make their abode in us and then the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. Then we will truly be the light of this world and lead others to God. Froukje, 16th February 2002 Last
updated 19th September 2003 by Johannes Bergman Homepage http://www.johannesjohn.coolix.com/ |
