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2Timothy2:19
Nevertheless, God's solid foundation stands firm,
sealed with this inscription:
"The Lord knows those who are His," and,
"Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness."
My notes in blue: The main gist so far in the worldwide Spirit-filled community is that we have been getting to know the Lord in a new,living, real way and now we move onto the 2nd seal which is a call to holiness. Both Peter and Mark Stibbe approach this subject with much fear and trembling, because of their own "legal" pasts. Holiness, true holiness , they are aware, is not the stultifying obedience to a set of rules and commandments, going back again to lawbook-living.
Before we go to Peter's message on conscience, can I point out that from a 3rdlevel point of view, the order of these two seals above are very key.
It's not us knowing the Lord. It is Him KNOWING(sexual union word) us. So you can forget the second seal until you have first laid a foundation as follows:
that the former 0wner /occupier , Satan, since Genesis 3:5 , has now been driven out. The Lord knowing us is a very deep phrase which describes the experiential process, the conscious process of LEARNING HIM as Our New INDWELLER. That we only ever were, and continue to be, spirit containers; before we were born again, containers for the Satan spirit,since we were born again, containers of Jesus.
As Christians, because of ignorance and our own limited understanding of scriptures,and also because just about all the main Christian teachers in the worldwide Body of Christ still teach "separation": Christ and a separate me, who is trying ,through godly pursuits, to better him/herself, we are unable it seems to read Romans, Colossians,Ephesians etc the way they were originally understood.
How do I know that? Well, as in tuning pianos, thankfully there is an inbuilt natural check and balance system. How do I know when first a note made up of three identical strings, then second the entire first octave of a piano are exactly in tune? Well, simple really (and this is a bit of an oversimplification you techie purists), there are NO BEATS. When there is dischord, the differences show up as unpleasant extra vibrations called beats. (Techie moment:If A440 beats per second is played against A441...you only hear the straggly one beat per second difference wowing between the 2 strings)
In the Body...you know when the teaching is right
People live free....yup...amazingly enough...that's OUTSIDE of meetings
secondly "these signs follow after those that believe."
So you can tell a 2nd level community of believers who are still "stuck " in the independent delusion:
- All sorts of sin is still going on behind the scenes which creates peculiar B.O. when the saints gather together in meetings
- There are only spasmodic signs following in a random hit or miss kind of way....usually after only gazillions of prayer or bursts of spiritual concentration...as Rob Rufus describes the early 80s for him.
Where "separation" is still implied in the teaching, you are not dismantling the false consciousness that was sown back in Genesis by the devil, whose genius was to come up with something sooooooo like the real thing, that even squinting very closely at our history, at all mankind's mistakes, we still were only ever putting on the devil's own specs....."If the (very)light that is within you is darkness....HOW GREAT is that darkness."
and it has taken all these millennia to trap what is going on, and continue what Jesus came for, to lay the axe to the root.
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Peter Stott : "The Second Seal and Conscience" from notes - ACWelch. June 6th Havant Main Sunday meeting.
The call to holiness is a call to come alive again. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. The component parts to our makeup have been seriously clogged up and damaged by sin, and the shame of sin.
Here are a list of some of our abilities and gifts that really only come into their own again when we have received Jesus into our lives, and we are walking closely with Him.
Memory - a powerful tool for recalling the ways God has blessed us and come through for us in the past.
Imagination and creativity - our drive to experiment with the new in every area of our life knows literally no bounds
Will - a curse when wayward, but a powerful driving force in God
Conscience - this is the subject of this talk.
Sin damages.Clogs up.Wrecks our self-image.Causes shame. Both when it's our fault and when it isn't. (The Bulger murder case didn't just affect those concerned, it brought a measure of shame to our nation. "Righteousness exalts a nation.")
Sin is unattractive in people. It dulls. Righteousness has an attractive radiance about it. A liveliness. A clean conscience gives strength, forcefulness, authority.
Innocence Lost - by Steve Taylor from 1987 Album ironically titled "I Predict 1990". The end makes me want to cry.
Ever hear the sound of a death row chorus?
ever see the look of a wolfman prowling the steps?
in this deep freeze bunker they store us
send away the priest, 'cause they're ain't nothing more to confess
She had the innocent eyes of a Renoir lady
clutched her black book like an angel nursing a child
"It's a quarter to midnight here, baby
if you're gonna stare, do it while I'm sleeping"
But her eyes, they shone of an innocent way...
in her eyes, we glimpsed of an innocent way...
and in the days that followed we were under a spell
why's the girl visiting a prison cell?
Innocence, innocence,
innocence lost
all souls want it back
some uncover the cost
innocence, innocence lost
break free, look at me
is your innocence lost?
He'd seen things that a man don't mention
sunk into his eyes was a weariness nothing could heal
"Don't tell me 'bout your cheap salvation
what's a man do when he don't feel nothing?"
But her eyes, they shone of an innocent way...
She said, "Beyond these bars there are things you can't see"
He spoke slowly
"Ain't no pardon for me"
Innocence, innocence,
innocence lost
all souls want it back
some uncover the cost
innocence, innocence lost
she said, "Look at me,
don't you, don't you lose your innocence
don't lose your innocence"
he said, "God's own angels couldn't give me hope
when you leave me hanging, just leave me enough rope"
But her eyes he glimpsed of an innocent way...
And on the eve of destruction they were shining the chair
outside vigils, inside men were sobbing
as she kissed his forehead when the morning had dawned
he said softly to her, "I'll see you beyond"
Peter continues:
The Apostle Paul in Acts 24:16 "I strive to have a pure conscience before God and men"
Conscience is your friend. It is a fabulous tool when healthy, because it discerns good from evil. It tells you ahead of time to get the heck out of there, before you get enmeshed.
So a healthy conscience is Pro-active not Retroactive as it has come to mean in a sinful world.
It says AHEAD of time....Keep away. It is like a sensitised sense of spiritual smell.
Conscience can be corrupted. It says in Titus 1:15 To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.
The Holy Spirit can tell us to stop doing things for a while in order that we get freed up from any false soul/spirit attachments. If we are not careful, these temporary arrangements enter into the lore of our Christian movement, as a dead work, shaping our consciences falsely . In the 30s Pentecostal women felt it was a leading NOT to be attached to makeup. This then entered the lore of the movement, as if it was a permanent law of righteousness.
1 Timothy 4:2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.
If our consciences have been so badly calloused, we are unable to correctly assess things. We begin calling bad things good.
We can have a weakened conscience. A strong conscience is one that is connected to our will. Otherwise we assent intellectually to something, but as soon as we are strongly enticed, all our notions go to the wind.
Shame is the dregs of what remains after sin.
Paul says in Timothy " I thank God I serve Him from a pure conscience
2Tim 1:3 I thank God, whom I serve, as my forefathers did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers.
I Timothy 1:5 "The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith." How much expression of love is needlessly forfeited through bad conscience clogging us up?
Third-level teaching is so good at getting to the heart of things enabling a truly clear conscience.
If you understand that all you are is a container, and that sin was ousted completely at the cross, and the New-Indweller who is Christ has now come in, you at last have a foundation that is Word and Spirit to combat
shame, inferiority feelings, self-loathing, general yukky feelings...
We have a foundation now to speak to the devil with.
I decide to believe what the Word says about me, until the feelings and thoughts tag along and fall into line with my new believing.
After a while we get better at recognising what is genuinely our conscience, and what are just bad feelings that are still according to the lies I believed about myself.
Peter continues: our baptism into Christ expressed in water baptism, cleanses our conscience.
This could never happen before in the Old Testament system of sacrifices of bulls and goats. But Jesus did a complete thing for us - see the next post The Two Deliverances at the Cross chapter 4 - Treasures of Darkness by Sylvia Pearce.
Peter Stott: How to Keep a good conscience
By the Blood, The Word, and the Spirit.
-By keeping short accounts and going to sleep with a clear conscience.
-By soaking, or exposing ourselves to good stuff. Just generally taking care of what we are feeding on.
A clear conscience is a joyful thing, and joy brings strength with it.
By lining up our conscience with the Word and the Spirit. "Thy Word is a light unto my feet"
The Result.....
A confidence without boasting. It's not a self-confidence in our own works...but a clear conscience in regard to our dealings with God and man.
And learning to use that inbuilt umpire of peace that we received when we were born again. Let the Peace of God rule or umpire in your heart.
To live among a people that just simply acknowledge their sin before the Living God and His Presence, that take His righteousness offered as a free gift, and then, living unclogged, free to love others, to rightly relate....to lose these heavy clouds of depression and cynicism, to do away the dependance on stimulants, anti depressants, because innocence has returned, a lightness of spirit, joy strength and confidence....instead of having to live in our current rather numb Western culture. End of talk
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