Tuesday, June 9, 2009

I am He who searches the minds and hearts

I am He who searches the minds and hearts.Rev 2:23
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There is a huge pitfall in Christianity: thinking the Bible is the Word of God, and thinking all the commands in the Bible referencing the Word of God, refer to the Bible; when the references really mean going to God directly and listening to the Word of God speaking to you. If you don't listen to the Voice of God, you will never grow; you will never know from what to repent; you will never receive his changing, purifying grace; you will not find God; and you will not have any reward in the Kingdom of God or Christ. You can memorize the entire Bible, quoting chapter and verse, and it will gain you nothing with God. It is easy to read the Bible. It often feels good to read the Bible, as long as you discount all the requirements such as holiness, perfection, and purity while ignoring the disqualifications of anger, lust, immorality, impurity, greed, etc. The Bible wasn't even printed until 1516, but the early church thrived for 300 plus years without it. Like many in the early church, even if you can't read, you can be changed and purified to enter the Kingdom of Heaven as a son of God forever - by listening to God's voice and obeying it. For he calls us all to repentance, Christhood, and the Kingdom of Heaven. Hear this! Understand, the Bible is not the Word of God, for the many scriptures that refer to the Word of God are not referring to the Bible, but rather to the voice of God or the Lord - his words from him, the living spirit Word - otherwise you are looking to the wrong source of growth - a book, instead of God's spirit, who desires to speak and teach you outside of the Bible. The Holy Spirit will teach you all things. John 14:26. He desires to teach you individual, personal things about yourself, and how he wants you to live, how he wants you to improve, what he wants you to deny - as well as encourage you, tell you of his love for you, and open up the scriptures to you, including the mysteries. If you limit yourself to reading the Bible, you will only get crumbs beneath the table. The Bible is the recorded words of the saints as they were moved by the Holy Spirit of God to write. Christ is the Word of God, not the Bible. The Bible has His recorded words in them, but they are words without spirit. There are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, [this is Jesus, not the Bible] and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one, 1 John 5:7.There is no conflict with what the Spirit of God has written and what the Spirit of God will speak to you; but recorded words are the letter that kills; not the spirit, which gives life. When Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter and Paul spoke of the scriptures, they used the word 'scriptures,' not the Word of God. The Bible refers to the Word of God as spoken or spirit, which is living and active, Heb 4:12. Hebrews 4:12For the word of God is living and active. The Bible is not living and active, but words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. John 6:63So the Word of God is the Living Word, Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Voice of the Lord. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow;A book, or words read from a book, cannot divide soul and spirit, but Christ, the Living Word of God does. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. The Bible cannot judge your heart; but Christ, the Word of God, can and does! I am He who searches the minds and hearts. Rev 2:23. The Bible is not the Word of God. It is not living or active. It cannot judge your heart, penetrate you, or change you. And out of his mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: Rev 19:15This is Jesus. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. Rev. 19:13Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Eph 6:17 And a sword will pierce through your own soul also--that the secret thoughts and purposes of many hearts may be brought out and disclosed. Luke 2:35So, the sword of the spirit is not the Bible, it is the spoken words from the mouth by the Spirit of Christ, the Word of God. Look at how the Amplified Bible describes and clarifies the Word of God:For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and spirit, and of joints and marrow, exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart. Heb 4:12. Jesus said: I am He who searches the minds and hearts. And the Spirit, which gave forth the words, is greater than the words; therefore, we cannot but prize Him himself, and set Him higher in our heart and thoughts, than the words which testify of Him, though they also are very sweet and precious to our taste. - Isaac Penington, 1670 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1 It is ignorance for you to say that the letter (Bible) is the word; when the letter (Bible) says, God is the word.And worse, to believe the Bible is the Word, is to mistake references in the Bible to the Word as the Bible instead of His voice - a critical difference in understanding of what God expects from you and how to please God. Let me illustrate the problem, with just three of many verses that will be totally misapplied, if you think the Word is the Bible: Jesus said: Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it! Luk 11:28 Jesus said: My mother and brothers are those who hear the word of God and put it into practice. Luk 8:21 If you think this means hearing someone read the Bible, you have missed the possibility of seeking to hear from God yourself. You will have missed the blessing. You will have missed salvation. You must seek, listen, and obey to find any blessing from God. Paul is not talking about Christ sanctifying his Church with the Bible, when he says: That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. You must go to him, listen, hear and obey continually, to be cleansed or ever be sanctified. There are many other examples of the problem detailed below.Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Mat 7:21 Everyone will be banned from heaven unless they do the will of the Father.And how is one to do the will of the Father, and thus go to heaven? Then there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, "This is My Son, My Chosen One,My Beloved; listen to and yield to and obey Him!” Luk 9:35So you must come to Jesus, silently listen, hear him speak to you, and then obey what he commands you to do. Come, listen, hear, obey. Jesus never said you could be saved if you say the sinners' prayer, or be baptized with water, or eat bread and drink grape juice; this is the deficit sects' heathenish ritual, the wide and broad way of that leads to destruction. Yet he did say: all who practice lawlessness with be gathered out of His Kingdom and cast into the fire, where there will be great wailing and gnashing of teeth. Mat 13:41-42. And He told us: Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. 1 John 3:4 Jesus significantly strengthened the law, defining a much higher level of righteousness required:He changed an " eye for an eye" to"turn the other cheek; love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." He taught that adultery is not just the act, but looking at a woman (or man) with lust in your heart. He taught that murder is not just the act, but the anger and hate in your heart. He told us not to repay injury or insult. He told us that restraint of sin was not enough, but that our hearts must be cleansed of the desire or inclination to sin. Christendom ignores all of Jesus' commands. They have gutted his teachings; discarded them; and remained indifferent to them. Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say? [But he tells us how to be successful.] For everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words and does [practices] them, I will show you what he is like: He is like a man building a house, who dug and went down deep and laid a foundation upon the rock;he who merely hears and does not practice doing My words is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation, against which the torrent burst, and immediately it collapsed and fell, and the breaking and ruin of that house was great. Luke 6:46-49Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. James 4:8Who do you think James was writing to? He was writing to those in the churches, still captive to sin.Notice he says draw near to God. God is not found in sect meetings. God is not found in reading scriptures. You must go to him. You must wait on him - listen silently, with the humility of a sinner in need of his changing power - grace. Seek, listen, obey..seek, listen, obey.....seek, listen, obey. Come, listen, hear, obey. Come, listen, hear, obey. Thinking the Bible is the Word leads you to depend on reading and studying the Bible;rather than listening to and obeying Jesus the Word, who the book points you to. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14 (This clearly is not the Bible; it is Christ, the Word of God.)Just as John the Baptist was not the Light, only bore witness of the Light to come; so the Bible is not the word, but bears witness of the Word of God, Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit can reveal understandings in any language, but Bible Colleges teach from Hebrew, Greek, and Latin Biblical texts, desperately trying to discover the true meaning of the scriptures. If the Holy Spirit were helping in Bible study, then Greek, Hebrew, and Latin would not be needed, proving Jesus and the Holy Spirit do not teach you while reading the Bible. In 1516, before the Bible was published, there were far less than 100 sects in Christendom. Five hundred years of Bible study later, there are 30,000 sects. It is man's fleshly mind, rather than the Holy Spirit, that controls learning from Bible study; for the Holy Spirit's purpose is to have oneness of faith; yet there are now 30,000 sects in Christendom, each with a different set of beliefs in how to please God, how to worship God, how to seek God - 30,000 different gospels, 30,000 different Jesus. This is massive evidence that studying the Bible creates the opposite of what the Holy Spirit desires - - one faith -- and does not result in truth. Instead of Bible study, we need to be taught directly by the Holy Spirit by silently listening. Silently wait and listen for the Holy Spirit who desires to teach us all things, John 14:26; who will guide you into all truth, John 16:13; who will teach you all things and is truth, you needing no man to teach you, 1 John 2:27; so that you know all things, 1 John 2:20. Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. Mat4:4(There is no life without hearing words from the mouth of God.) But we have to listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, to hear and obey- to make any spiritual progress. He [Jesus] became the Author and Source of eternal salvation to all those who give heed and obey Him. Heb 5:9(And how do you obey Him to attain salvation?) Listen to and obey My voice, and I will be your God and you will be My people;and walk in the whole way that I command you, that it may be well to you. Jer 7:23

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