9 August near Weatherford, TX, United States · Edited
I have been spending the last few weeks exposing the much loved sacred cows of the modern day church. The sacred cows being the "self-preserving" other gods the people of God are relying on today...IN addition to Christ IN them as their only Life.
And so today, while exposing one of the most well known and sought after false teachers of our day, I discovered firsthand what I believe may be the most sacred of all the sacred cows out there today, that being the "so called" Christian leaders who, for whatever reason refuse to lose their own life so they can gain the "losing to gain" message of the Cross as their only Life. And though they may not know it, until they become willing participants IN the fellowship of His sufferings, they will NEVER know what it is to experience the life transforming POWER of His resurrection!
What is more, I consider EVERYTHING A LOSS because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I HAVE LOST ALL THINGS. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ. Philippians 3:8
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LikeLike · · ShareJoan Reilly, Ashley Chen Hong, Dan Powers and 15 others like this.
Joan Reilly I believe it's time church pastors, teachers and leaders of every description have a responsibility to get on their faces before God and ask what is wrong that up until now the church has had no effect on the political, economic, and spiritual deprivation of the world. Churches are starving for leadership who themselves know what it means to be dead, buried and resurrected with Christ so that the Life of Christ may be manifested in them. Faith (His Faith) comes by hearing and hearing comes by the Word (made flesh) of God. Leaders hear what the Spirit of Christ is saying. Grow up in Christ so that you can lead your sheep to that same Life. You cannot give what you have not received.
Something to Persecute? by Rich Novek
As a young man who cut his spiritual teeth on men like A.W. Tozer, Watchman Nee, Andrew Murray, and David Wilkerson, I used to look around the churches I attended and wonder... "why isn't the church being persecuted?"
It was only many years later, after having waded through (and come out the other side) the performance based lie that most believe to be the Gospel today, that I realized there is no persecution because there is really NOTHING IN the church to persecute.
Go back to the time when Jesus read the scroll of Isaiah IN the temple after returning from His 40 day trip into the wilderness, and everyone was in awe of Him... "good teacher and wonderful Rabbi", that is until they heard the one thing they didn't want to hear. Then it went from "good teacher and wonderful Rabbi" to all of them wanting to throw Him over a cliff!
And so today the Christian church goes on, and as long as you don't come against the leadership and the DIFFERENT gospel they promote then all is well within the confines of the local temple, just as they were on the day Jesus read Isaiah. That is, until you begin to expose the false shepherds for the wolves that they really are. That is until you begin to see God IN a whole different "narrow path" light than how the status quo leadership sees Him. And especially until you begin to see and expose the illusion of the separate, impersonal, and punishing God up there by proclaiming the One True God who lives IN you and as you and loves you as you are today with no performance based strings attached. And it's this God of ALL Grace who you know will settle for nothing less than your whole heart, who you NOW see living His own Life IN and through you, IN the exact same way Jesus saw His Father living through Him!
Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but YOU DO NOT BELIEVE. The works I do IN my Father’s name testify about me, but YOU DO NOT BELIEVE because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I KNOW THEM, AND THEY FOLLOW ME. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I AND MY FATHER ARE ONE.” Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?” “We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.” John 10:25-33
So as it stands today, unless today's "so called" spiritual leaders forsake every TWO MASTER lie they are serving today, they can expect their dead letter assemblies to continue on as they have for generations, as no REAL threat to anyone or anything, especially the powers of darkness that have them deceived into believing as they do today.
Today RELEASE what you keep calling your own, no matter what it is, and then REST IN His unconditional Love. Then simply wait to RECEIVE the revelation of the "losing to gain" message of the Cross as your only Life, IN the same way that so many who have gone before us were willing to pay the ultimate price to KNOW Him even as they are known by Him.
Only then, when God rolls death IN on EVERYTHING you still see as your own life apart from the Christ you claim to love with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, will you witness firsthand...that REAL persecution is still very much alive and well within today's body of Christ! And it's still coming from the same place it always has, the ones who are still see a life other than Christ alone as their only Life!
MY ADDITIONS TO Rich Novek
Something to Persecute? by Chris Welch
As a young man who cut his spiritual teeth on men like A.W. Tozer, Watchman Nee, Andrew Murray, and David Wilkerson, I used to look around the churches I attended and wonder... "why isn't the church being persecuted?"
Chris adds.....yes I couldn't get my head round it. We were one of the first of the UK mainline churches to become Spiritfilled from 1967.....yet...although in relative terms there was persecution......turning Amersham upside down we were not. Secondly I was immediately aware that something was different in the "so called Spiritfilled gospel" to the one in the Bible. I'd worked that out at 13.....I just couldn't articulate what the missing layer was until I was 31 and by then I had read Norman Grubbs Yes I Am. Well I am now the calendar says 56....and so we're not talking SWIFT revelation here....but I am convinced that ONLY the Biblical gospel produces the ructions that the apostles caused. We are familiar with certain well known Christian ministries....and they really have been used by God to advance things.....but so far Bill Johnson Che Ahn David Yongghi Cho, Andrew Farley,Joseph Prince are absolutely unknown in the world's jails. They don't threaten anything anywhere anytime. They are free to preach their messages of Grace or semi Grace and pressure....wherever and whenever they want. Not one of them knows or teaches the three level gospel of 1 John 2. They can go to their graves teaching toddlers and young apprentices in the Lord some of the Hebrews6 foundations.....but ultimately the devil could hardly care less. In fact he quite likes the revenue Christians pour into his domain weekly since he rules and reigns over satellite media. But no Joyce Meyers is going to ruffle a feather....because not one of them is doing the work of early apostles and giving birth to the Christ Manchild in revelation 12. Christ crucified and being transferred and imparted to Father level just isn't happening!!! This is the realm covered by Norman's book Yes I am.....and is precisely what my Spirit filled pastor in 1972 WAS NOT SAYING.
some more on the last few GATES
Jesus said if we go into our inner room to meet with the Father the things spoken in secret shall (further down) be shouted from the rooftops. Well in our current time of restoring the ruins of desolation the actual message is become the thing spoken in secret and now to be broadcast from the rooftops. It's like the days of Nehemiah when the work to be done was actually the work to be done. See once the city is built the work to be done is something different....but at the moment we are still doing an archaeological dig on the New Covenant message itself.....so few 'get it'. The thing Nehemiah did was to rebuild all the gates and midsection walls in between and this is what our generation has been doing as was prophesied thousands of years ago in psalm 24 and 110 and other prophets. Restorer of the breach. What breach? The wacking great gap in the gospel which before our generation had been reduced to Anglicans asking forgiveness then going out and shaking Oxfam and Christian Aid tins. But as you know I believe we have come to Gate number 10 Miphkad. It's like a trumpet call going out worldwide. It's a mature version of what Jimmy and Carol Owens were doing a generation back with Come Together. Except the Jesus Movement was a 2 layer gospel....it was 1 John 2....children and young men....but nobody knew there was a third level in addition. They had forgotten some of the Gates. Or regarded them as mere religion. So in our day there was no Old Gate. No Dung Gate. No Valley Gate. David Wilkerson was doing his best to bring them in....but he was scarce heard. Now like in Nehemiah 8 there is a gathering in the square. A calling to account. These are the days Smith Wigglesworth prophesied about of a people of Spirit and Truth. We can't have John Piper or others dismissing the work of the Spirit as Kundilini spirits but we can't have Bill Johnson being ignorant of anything beyond Romans 5 and just preaching Holy Spirit anointing. There are more Gates than the Fountain Gate and the Water Gate. And so this is the initial purpose of the Gate of Miphkad.....the judgment or tallying or census Gate. It's checking that all is present and correct before we go into hyperdrive. What's hyperdrive. Well it was the two winds prophecy of the 80s. If we don't bend our heads into the first wind we won't be part of the second Kingdom wind. Hyperdrive is Gate 11....the Gate of Ephraim....the double portion....whose prototypes were given to the Body as a trailer of the film to come....in the form of John G Lake and Uks Smith Wigglesworth and of course a ton of others. Gate 12 is as a result of Gate 11. Gate 12 is called the Prison Gate and is that Gate of intercession martyrdom which begins the whole cycle again bringing in more Sheep and Fish....the first 2 gates.....and so we go round again until the earth is filled with people who have discovered Jesus, the All in All.
