Prayer:
Open your heart and pray: “Father, show me everything that is dead religion in my life: the principles, the law, and the rules that replace an intimate relationship with you in my walk.
I give you permission to speak to me and confirm your voice to me. I want to walk in Life; Father, I give you permission to replace the principles in my life with your guidance.
Father, I give you irrevocable permission to do whatever you need to do to change me into the likeness of your Son, Jesus.
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Open in new tab Shortly after finishing with seminary, my wife and I found we had no visible means of support, only invisible means and were available to travel. We journeyed to a large city to attend a teaching conference hosted by some prominent Christian leaders. After about a week of attending, while walking to the meeting place one morning, the Lord said to me, “Now tomorrow you will be leaving.” I asked, “Where will we be going, Lord?” He answered, “Declare your intentions to the leading brothers and then I will tell you.”
When I arrived at the meeting place, I went to the leading brothers and told them I would be leaving the next day. Their response was, “Brother, you may not leave; the principle is, God is doing something here and you must be part of it.” Over and over again that day we had this same conversation. The next morning; at 7:00 a.m. the leading brothers were at our door, with the same message. My response was as always, “But my brothers, do you have a word from the Lord explicitly saying I must stay?’ Their answer was always the same, “The principle is that God is doing something here and you must be part of it.”
We had walked in obedience for several years by then, and knew the voice of God in our lives, and so we went on our way. It was important that we were obedient, God had a divine appointment with an oyster farmer on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. We stayed in the farmer’s home, located way out on a wooden pier, for several days, eating oysters and sharing.
One morning the oyster farmer said, “Brother, have you ever given God irrevocable permission to do whatever He needs to do to change you into His likeness? That is the eternal purpose of God in your life.” I had not, and so we knelt down at the sofa in his study and I gave God permission to do whatever he needed to do to change me into His likeness. This was a very important defining moment in my Christian walk.
Over the years we have shared our encounter with the oyster farmer and the impact it has had on our lives, and so often, as was the case just a few weeks ago, a Christian brother told me how that simple message had made a major impact on his life.
Our lives are not to be spent walking in a principal, a set of rules or the law. We are to walk in an intimate fellowship with our heavenly Father. He has a “next most needful thing” for each of us in our walk. Only He knows what that is, and only His specific guidance can take us there. If I had gone with the principal I would have missed the “next most needful thing” in my Christian Walk.
- Go to your desktop folder called “Downloads”
- Go to the top of that window and select “New Folder.”
- Name that folder “AAA BCM Downloads” – no quotation marks.
- Always select that folder when the dialog box asks where you want to put the download – this way you will always be able to find them. Later you can move them from this folder to other places if you would like.
You are a creation of God, fearfully and wonderfully made. As you prayerfully read the Scriptures, you will see that God knew you before He laid the foundations of the earth, that He knew every detail of your creation, even the number of hairs on your head, that He wove you together in your mother’s womb, and that He was there when you were born. You will also read of another “you” who was conceived in sin and from birth has no righteousness of your own. Which one are you? You are both; there are two of you.
- The Real You
- The You Plus Sin
The Two You’s
The Real You
In the heart of God, there is The Real You, the you that He chose before the foundations of the world, perfected in Christ Jesus.
There is a bumper sticker that sums it up: “God don’t make no junk!” All of God’s creation was perfectly made; you too are fearfully and wonderfully made. There are no exceptions. You were created in the image of God, a shadow, perfect, with the potential of becoming real as God Himself is real. This is the real you.
We will call that you, “YOU.”
The You Plus Sin
Then, there is the other you. To that perfect creation of YOU is added “everything else.” What has been added? Sin has been added. Everything of the Kingdom of Satan that is presently in your life has been added. God did not create you with sin attached. Sin has been added by the enemy: sin that comes down through the generations, sin that comes in through trauma, sin from your willfulness and disobedience, sin from your cooperating with God’s enemy. Sin is the “everything else” that has been added. Sin was there when you were born.
We will call that you, “YOU Plus Sin.”
You were created perfect in Christ Jesus and were born in sin. At the same time that God saw the YOU in creation, He also saw the YOU Plus and had already made provisions for your redemption. God presently has a specific plan tailored to YOU Plus to deal with the “everything else” that is in your life, and also a specific plan to deal with the YOU, to change you into the likeness of Jesus Christ. This plan is both Restoration and Transformation.. Transformation deals with the “You” and Restoration deals with the “You Plus Sin.”
The Separation Card
The concept of Separation is critical to enabling the Saints to remove the enemy and his works from their lives. When the saints realize who they are in Christ Jesus and that sin has bee added, they also realize that sin (the enemy of God) can be removed. To that end we have developed a small 4” x 6” card that you can carry in your pocket or purse, immediately available to you. This “Separation Card” is a focus device for ministry/prayer as outlined in the pamphlet above. The Card can be a focus device that can be used in ministry that will assist the Saints in recovering freedom from the enemy.
- Go to your desktop folder called “Downloads”
- Go to the top of that window and select “New Folder.”
- Name that folder “AAA BCM Downloads” – no quotation marks.
- Always select that folder when the dialog box asks where you want to put the download – this way you will always be able to find them. Later you can move them from this folder to other places if you would like.
Prayer is one of the foundational issues in the Christian walk, yet many Christians do not understand the nature of prayer. Many in the Christian community sincerely believe that the essence of prayer is a three-step process:
1) they decide on what they want/need in life,
2) they find a promise, one of the more than 7000 in the scriptures, that seems to cover it,
3) and then they use that scripture to pester God for it; reminding Him of His promise and His obligation to keep that promise.
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The “If – Then” of God
First, seek the heart of God
Second, give God permission
Prayer
- Go to your desktop folder called “Downloads”
- Go to the top of that window and select “New Folder.”
- Name that folder “AAA BCM Downloads” – no quotation marks.
- Always select that folder when the dialog box asks where you want to put the download – this way you will always be able to find them. Later you can move them from this folder to other places if you would like.
One of the key passages in scripture about truth is Jn 8:31-34, “Then Jesus said to the Jews who believed on Him, ‘If you continue in my word, you are my disciples indeed; then you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’” A large portion of the Christian community understands this passage to say, “If you immerse yourself in the study of the Bible, then you are a Christian and you will be able to extract the Bible’s truths and these truths will make you free.”
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A question: “If you studied the Bible long enough and hard enough and were able to find all of the truths in it, would you then have the truth?” Most Christians would agree that they would then have the truth. But “Truths”, plural, is not a biblical word; it is never used in the Bible. Nowhere in the 200 times it is used in the scriptures is al-ay’-thi-a, the Greek word for truth, used in the plural.
The Bible is focused on the truth… and defines truth for all times in Jn 14:6 where Jesus says, “ “I am the way, the truth, and the life…” He states clearly that He is truth. Truth is not the sum of truths; truth is a person, Jesus Christ. When you see the word “truth” in the Bible, it is referring to a person, Jesus.
A better translation of Jn 8:31-32 might be, “If you rest (puppyness) in me and are obedient (featherness) to what I ask of you (my word), then you will know me (intimately) and I will free you. And then, in case there was still any doubt about meaning of the word “Truth”, He continues in v. 36, ”Therefore if the Son sets you free, you will be truly free.“
How do we get free? The Son sets us free. It is not truths from the Bible, it is the Truth, the indwelling person of God the Son, His life in us, setting us free. It is not knowing the truths or knowing about the truth, but knowing the Truth that will free you.
What does it mean to know the Truth? In Jn 8:32, the Greek word “know” is Gin-o-sko. Among other things, the Thayer Greek dictionary indicates that this word is a Jewish idiom for the most intimate relations between a man and a woman in marriage. Here, the knowing is knowing in a intimate way. God is not as interested in our knowing about Him (that is called theology – knowing about God), so much as He is interested in our knowing Him intimately.
A woman who had just married a very famous statesman and author wanted desperately to get to know him better, so she went out and purchased the five biographies written about him, his autobiography and the several other books he had written. She then retired, day after day, to the alcove just off of the kitchen to read all about him. Meanwhile, in another part of the house, he waited, desiring an intimate relationship with her.
Be clear, knowing about is not the same as knowing. Knowing truths is about knowledge… knowing the Truth is about an intimate relationship with a person, Jesus Christ, who is the Truth.