Some of THE FAMILY(Manson not included) in Ohio

Pics from Ohio from over the weekend.

The rare and not extinct species known as Leonard F. is included!

Even rarer, a pic of Ryan and Jamie in one photo!!!

For future generations:

These rare photos were taken before the world revival took place.

Paul Anderson-Walsh Made to be Free dvd


As I said to Frank Viola....this guy also has robbed my script!I think I might have recourse to further legal action because he is at least from the UK!
*************************
Where it all began for me see today's post on Dan's blog.
http://ern-baxter.blogspot.com/2009/06/ern-baxter-on-people-of-god.html

Chris Welch - 07000INTUNE said...
I believed it then but hadn't a clue how it was going to work.I don't believe it now. Don't need to. Every time I turn on Facebook I see it coming! And coming! and coming! It's now here!!!!!Interestingly the google verification word is Cooker!Yes I'd say it's a cooker!
29 June, 2009 10:11

How do we LIVE this stuff?

I was encouraged to get a message from Paul Anderson Walsh.
He and his church are at a really interesting stage...extremely prophetic even.
Download these messages to understand more. Given very recently.


http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=215819985423&h=TiKp6&u=VDHpe&ref=mf
http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=92230690274&h=Vfc6f&u=qh-AU&ref=mf

Perhaps you'll understand my excitement when you have heard them. If any others out there are going through the same thing you might find his message and my testimony from Bible House days interesting. If born again church is Church version 1.0, then we as youngsters who'd all been baptized in the Spirit, living together and seeking God for our lives were Church version 2.0. That didn't work either. So now time for Church version 3.0 in these days. Scattered here then are our pictures from Bible House Emsworth,Barcelona and Quilmes Argentina,around the early 80s.

Paul Anderson-Walsh Hi Chris, No I have never lived in High Wycombe, but I am fully possessed of such middle-class aspirations; we live a bit further East in Ealing (Perivale to be precise). I was really interested in your comments on my little note. Having read it makes all the more sense of your interest in the Intercessor manuscript that I am working on this summer. We have just returned from Finland where I was talking to our group there about the Father-Level. I think that you make an excellent observation about the role of the church in our day. This idea of Christ being fully-formed in us is to my mind at least the key to it all. I see you're in Portsmouth - we have some very good friends who really have a wonderful grasp of this life we have if only we knew it who live in Waterlooville. We were there visiting with them the last Bank Holiday. We also have friends in Haslemere (will be there next week to record the Premier radio shows). It would be good to try to connect at some time.


My reply:
The High Wycombe question referred to a motivational speaker I met there while tuning his piano. He had Kenneth Copeland videos on the shelf so I asked him about all this. In my memory he was not that dissimilar to you.Clearly not you.
I have spent the day listening to your last 2 messages which is the first thing I have heard. I can see why Joel B and Jamie Weeks rate you.
I think you are at a very interesting point with your fellowship.I also felt very at home when you were talking straight Norman Grubb. Unless ofcourse you've picked it up via others in between. Other Lovers. One Person in the Universe. The difference between the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and Tree of Life....(Lydia and Shawna should recognise this)You've got me intrigued about friends in Waterlooville and Haslemere. This is all my stamping ground in my Kingdom undercover life as a tuner.
"Your mission Jim, should you choose to accept it, is to so co-labour with Christ that you do what we never achieved here in Emsworth in the eighties, that is see the world's first truly 3rd level church." This Facebook message will self-destruct in the next 10 seconds.
Last weekend I was searching in the attic for Ern Baxter's 1976 Capel Bible Week message on Covenant Love. True to all 3rd level messages, the first one ever being delivered in the Upper Room Jn 13-17, exactly the opposite happened, and the major streams in Britain tore apart straight after. For me that only proves the integrity of the message.

Jesus birthed the church in the 3rd level....often confused by Pentecostals as the 2nd and only level....and in these days he has set into place an acceleration programme to make sure the Church winds up in the 3rd level....and more some! The Feast of Tabernacles. Greater is the glory of the latter house...etc.
Well Emsworth was kind of living with this vision from the late 70s onward. Having input from both Ed Miller ( who hit the 3rd level in the 50s and was probably the one who birthed the 50s Argentinian Revival) and Jorge Pradas who carried in his being the Vision of the Church. This area is very much Frank Viola and Gene Edwards territory.

So like Norman Grubb (but not just before finals as he did) I felt God call me to leave University and by hook and by crook...and more of the latter,I ended up in Emsworth at precisely the right time to get these foundations. A whole host of Argentinians, English, Spanish and French, gave up all to live together in Bible House.
The vision was exactly yours. Not to be a standard seminary. But how to LIVE CHURCH. We prayed and prophesied morning and evening. We did have teaching sessions, like Morris Cerullo did in his famous San Diego Schools of ministry. But during the day we either held down jobs, or later all worked together under one roof making Quilmes Creations..attractive sentimental gifts which were sold into gift shops all over Southern England.
What typically happens in the "womb of the Church" while sons of God are being developed, is that all the junk surfaces in lives. Thankfully not in all 30 lives simultaneously...so like it was for the disciples in the NT, a co-operative labouring with Christ occurs to see each one come through things. It can be agony.
At this point just about all the revelation we had was that we should, like the Amos verse:" Seek God and live"

So last Saturday I never found the 1st cassette I was hunting for, but I found loads of old Bible House photos which I have put up on Facebook.
We never quite knew enough to make it the other side of the wilderness.A huge number, very very high number of these Casa Biblica people are married and sadly divorced already.
I nearly married , but my own sin shattered my prospects. I was at the time a leader in worship, a published somgwriter, and with an anointing that at times brought healing when I played.
But as the others found to their cost in divorce....just the same as the Corinthians....the first and 2nd levels are just NOT IT.
My blog is all about this.The complete revelation cycle of God in the Earth is
I am the God of Abrahamof IsaacAND of JACOB.
Pentecostals and charismatics only know about the first 2, they haven't a clue about Jacob.But in these days God is raising up a generation who seek the face of God as did Jacob. And it was after this that Israel's calling and history really swung into action. So it is for the 3rd level Church
More on the vision of the Church as Holy Ghost Growth machine can be read here:http://080808onnowto.blogspot.com/2008/08/holy-ghost-growing-machine-body-of.html

More on the vision of the generation of those who seek the God of Jacob....and Opening up the Ancient Doors by Peter Stott (Havant) can be read here
http://080808onnowto.blogspot.com/2009/02/lift-up-your-heads-o-ye-gates.html
love you guy!Your undercover agentChris Welch

Some thoughts on Cutting The Cord

This is tonight's entry on Facebook by Paul Anderson Walsh and the first two replies.http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/paul.andersonwalsh?ref=nf

Cutting the cord
I've been thinking more and more about the believer and his or her relationship to what we call church. It struck me that it might be a bit like a baby's relationship with its umbilical cord. What I mean is that so long as the child is in the womb then the cord plays a vital role...
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Ole Henrik Skjelstad at 19:17 on 24 June
Interesting train of thought. I have been in such a process for a couple of years myself deliberating whether to leave my present church or not. I have tried, without success, the last four years to introduce my pastor to the grace message. It seems to me that God is building an "cyberspace" congregation where the New Covenant truths can flow unimpeded and I feel an urge to be in that torrent.

Bob Lewis at 20:31 on 24 June
I haven't been in the organized religious community or in an organized religious entertainment centre (some people call it church) for 4 or 5 years now. My relationship with the Loed has never been better and I do not miss the church community at all. After all, you and I ARE the church! I have also noticed an amazing increase in the "cyberspace" congregation. People "called out" from virtually every country in the world. God is (as usual) doing an awesome work. Praising and thanking Him.

......................................................

Much of the material on this blog relates directly to this question of Cutting the Cord.

If you are coming in from the outside you must forgive the jargon I use. Regular blog readers know that my use of first,second and third levels is quite specific, but as the TheoCentric bloglink shows, you can further subdivide the Christian life in just the same way that you might describe the development of our own lives according to say, decades.

But here, and in the Paul Anderson Walsh series of books the definitions of 1 John 2 are used: Children,Young Men,Fathers. These are not sexual definitions. These are Spirit.

Hence Mother Basilea Schlink (Darmstadt,Germany)was one of the Fathers in my personal life. She was one of only a handful of people in the Earth in the 70s to point to a real Biblical understanding of growth in the believer.

Unless we work from these Biblical definitions we will not understand what on earth is going on in our lives, nor have any real shape in our understanding of what church is, what church is for and what limits and boundaries are placed on the function of church.

To further confound people's left-brain understandings...and really you should be leaving these parts of your brain outside by the door for this next bit....

Ezekiel talks about a vision of wheels within wheels...

Nothing describes seasons of growth better.

Simultaneously you have the believer's growth stages

You have the growth stages of a local church expression.

But you also have the macro scale of the Church in the Earth. For centuries, the whole identity of the Church was with getting people saved from hell. In the last century the Pentecostal/Charismatic effusion concerned itself presenting a gospel of power, of signs and wonders to effect miraculous changes here and now on Earth. Actually, the initial foundation had been laid through the Quakers and the Brethren, re-establishing more Biblical patterns of meetings where "Everyone hath a", with which to bless and upbuild other believers.

The third level is I believe upon us now. This is where the whole direction of the church is set to birth Christ in a believer. Not the birth of new birth. This is rather the birth of a fully operational son of God in the Earth, who in his/her turn knows how to reproduce others to the same level. This is unique to our time period.

Further background material can be found in these places on this blog:

http://080808onnowto.blogspot.com/2009/05/life-in-three-dimensions.html

http://080808onnowto.blogspot.com/2008/12/hitchhikers-guide-to-christianity-1.html leads to No.2 as well.

http://080808onnowto.blogspot.com/2008/11/third-level-approach-to-ministry-i.html this also is a series.

So the background to my response about "Cutting the Cord" is described in much detail in the above posts.

I like Frank Viola's angle in his book from Eternity To Here. This is also to be found in Juan Carlos Ortiz's book "Disciple".

The Church is NOT ABOUT US. Although we are in it.

It is not about how we feel.

It is not about whether we enjoy it or not. But if it is conducted in the Holy Spirit we should.

The Church is for the Lord.

As Ortiz described in detail,most churches, if born again at all, are piles of unrelated bricks.

Believers neither really know why they are there. Who they really are. And what their relation to other believers is.

All of us at birth are contaminated with lust...for power, for sex, for things. Baptism in the Spirit

is not the complete antidote. The Birth of Christ in a believer is the antidote. Saul, in the Old Testament was anointed and quickly entered into leadership. David, had anointing...but he had something else too...a heart change...made even greater after the sad episode with Bathsheba.

Churches are presently run by men and women, who many times are not even born again. Or born again yet not baptised in the Spirit. Or baptised in the Spirit but with absolutely no idea that a third level of growth exists, let alone that they are called to impart to others that same Life of Christ.

Jorge Pradas's vision, greatly influenced by Ed Miller, (both in Argentina) is described in his book (in Spanish),"Congregados para darle gloria" "Gathered for the purpose of giving the Lord Glory". This is the Church. It's all about God's glory. It's about gathering around His real Presence. Learning to relate together with a King, a Lord, and Friend.

The Church is unique. When we gather as little as two or three then mystically He is there in our midst. Does this take away from our personal position in Christ? Living as Christ in our forms as us? No. But when we gather as instructed in the Bible some really unique things occur. We are given gifts for one another that are the precise rhema word that we might be needing right now...if only to confirm what God may be speaking to us individually anyway.The Power of the Lord is experienced tangibly. Unbelievers who are present are confronted with what is basically a miracle week by week...."How can such a body of disparate people such as this, all ages, all intelligences,both sexes, all backgrounds, move in such a unified unplanned fashion? Without notes? Without string pulling? Often times with completely new beautiful songs? Or specific words of knowledge about exact conditions and circumstances that could not be known...How can this happen? Especially in today's secular world?"

The problem is the Church is mostly not like that. It is string pulling. It is gathering around one leader's set of skills. It is a pile of unrelated bricks. And very little Presence. Emotion, yes. Overhead projection. Maybe a worship band. But that's not what I have described above is it?

And so anyway. This is the difficult thing for Free Believer's on the internet and this is the difficult thing for members of what I call large "warehouse churches", particularly in USA, Australia and now in the UK.

Size in itself is not a problem. But are the Biblical components for growth there for you in that warehouse church? The ones I've described to get you growing supernaturally.

To "Free Believers", pulling away from a church to establish yourselves in a more 3D relationship with God, is not in itself implausible. I had to go that way. Actually, most of the Bible characters seemed to go that way. So it's not like we are unique here.

But what is important is to get the complete overview. The answer to bad church is not no church....it is good church. And this last sentence presents a challenge to both sides of the divide:"Free Believers" and "Warehouse Christians".

Good church runs in the Melchizedek order. The Lord of the Universe runs it. He does use His own ministry giftings to achieve certain ends....but the end is ALWAYS this.

Jesus wants to live His Life through you as you. Exactly as he originally made you, before sin snaffled some of your divine image. There...just there....ministry giftings tail away into insignificance....because....hush now....the believer is in Union with his or her Christ. And what they get up to, like in a marriage chamber...is frankly no business of yours....so just back away, whistling to yourself, just as if you are not there. Got it? That is the Jesus Pattern of Ministry. So so so so far from anything out there today.

Good church has the Presence of the Living God. And frankly, no one has a clue what He'll get up to next.

Good church somehow gets over the problem of cutting the Cord.

In Song of Solomon, the first time watchmen are mentioned, it's great. Like a good secondlevel church experience, they are there to feed and upbuild a believer. Next time they are mentioned, you're having your clothes ripped off you, being paraded around in the road for heaven's sake!!!

What's that about?

That's about cutting the cord! Or the other analogy some 3rd level teachers used (now the International Ministry Association or IMA, look them up on Wikipedia) is that of an eagle stirring up a nest of baby eagles.....Time to fly little ones!!! "But I like the nest!" "Sorry, but it's time to fly! Oh, did I just push you all out? How clumsy of me!!"

If this was just theory, well it would be a bit one-sided.

From 1978-84 in particular Emsworth church (near Portsmouth UK ) were experimenting how you run meetings in the Presence of God. Also how you train up young people in ministry. What we carried was a bit of the divine DNA about how you do meetings. How people are transformed from one level of glory to another by beholding the face of the Living God in meetings. Emsworth was pretty useless at the time on articulating growth in terms of the epistles, but in terms of hands on experience it was an incredible time.

In the last few years, Peter Stott and others in the church here in Havant (next door to Emsworth) have been pursuing a similar course under the title "Key of David " meetings. (More background here) This, and the fact that several locals were all present for some of the Lakeland Florida Outpouring last year (do a blog search on Florida Outpouring),

has actually meant huge changes to how we do even main meetings here. Perhaps our smaller size helps.

Finally, in thinking around this topic of Cutting the Cord...remember a relationship is a symbiotic union. Its 2 way. For good or for bad. Whether healthy or unhealthy.

2nd level churches are only successful because people willingly go there. They are defined by a leader or leadership team that require your submission to them. They usually require your money, in a very predetermined amount. And if you fulfil your side of the bargain, they will provide you with one, two or three hours godly entertainment and teaching, and maybe signs and wonders, in the case of those with outstanding anointing.

But never forget. You willingly gave yourself into this. It's not one way. Like an abusive relationship, the battered spouse is secretly and wondrously drawn to that powerful macho figure that beats her up.

So there is both a cutting of the cord from a healthy situation, just as a teenager gradually moves ever further out from his or her family home. And there is the cutting of the Cord from an abusive church situation that forever wants to keep you as pew fodder, digesting the same cycle of sermons, about things that have little or no revelation value, so as to make you grow supernaturally. Cutting this type of cord, has greater, more fearful repercussions, because you are pulling away from status quo land, where you may continue in great personal bondage for years, without you or others being aware....until you seek to make steps to following your Bridegroom more actively.

A Jesus Manifesto by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola

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Yesterday at 16:17 on Facebook
A Magna Carta
for Restoring the Supremacy of
Jesus Christ
a.k.a.
A Jesus Manifesto
for the 21st Century Church
by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola
Christians have made the gospel about so many things … things other than Christ.
Jesus Christ is the gravitational pull that brings everything together and gives them significance, reality, and meaning. Without him, all things lose their value. Without him, all things are but detached pieces floating around in space.
It is possible to emphasize a spiritual truth, value, virtue, or gift, yet miss Christ . . . who is the embodiment and incarnation of all spiritual truth, values, virtues, and gifts.
Seek a truth, a value, a virtue, or a spiritual gift, and you have obtained something dead.
Seek Christ, embrace Christ, know Christ, and you have touched him who is Life. And in him resides all Truth, Values, Virtues and Gifts in living color. Beauty has its meaning in the beauty of Christ, in whom is found all that makes us lovely and loveable.
What is Christianity? It is Christ. Nothing more. Nothing less. Christianity is not an ideology. Christianity is not a philosophy. Christianity is the “good news” that Beauty, Truth and Goodness are found in a person. Biblical community is founded and found on the connection to that person. Conversion is more than a change in direction; it’s a change in connection. Jesus’ use of the ancient Hebrew word shubh, or its Aramaic equivalent, to call for “repentance” implies not viewing God from a distance, but entering into a relationship where God is command central of the human connection.
In that regard, we feel a massive disconnection in the church today. Thus this manifesto.
We believe that the major disease of the church today is JDD: Jesus Deficit Disorder. The person of Jesus is increasingly politically incorrect, and is being replaced by the language of “justice,” “the kingdom of God,” “values,” and “leadership principles.”
In this hour, the testimony that we feel God has called us to bear centers on the primacy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Specifically . . .
1. The center and circumference of the Christian life is none other than the person of Christ. All other things, including things related to him and about him, are eclipsed by the sight of his peerless worth. Knowing Christ is Eternal Life. And knowing him profoundly, deeply, and in reality, as well as experiencing his unsearchable riches, is the chief pursuit of our lives, as it was for the first Christians. God is not so much about fixing things that have gone wrong in our lives as finding us in our brokenness and giving us Christ.
2. Jesus Christ cannot be separated from his teachings. Aristotle says to his disciples, “Follow my teachings.” Socrates says to his disciples, “Follow my teachings.” Buddha says to his disciples, “Follow my meditations.” Confucius says to his disciples, “Follow my sayings.” Muhammad says to his disciples, “Follow my noble pillars.” Jesus says to his disciples, “Follow me.” In all other religions, a follower can follow the teachings of its founder without having a relationship with that founder. Not so with Jesus Christ. The teachings of Jesus cannot be separated from Jesus himself. Jesus Christ is still alive and he embodies his teachings. It is a profound mistake, therefore, to treat Christ as simply the founder of a set of moral, ethical, or social teaching. The Lord Jesus and his teaching are one. The Medium and the Message are One. Christ is the incarnation of the Kingdom of God and the Sermon on the Mount.
3. God’s grand mission and eternal purpose in the earth and in heaven centers in Christ . . . both the individual Christ (the Head) and the corporate Christ (the Body). This universe is moving towards one final goal – the fullness of Christ where He shall fill all things with himself. To be truly missional, then, means constructing one’s life and ministry on Christ. He is both the heart and bloodstream of God’s plan. To miss this is to miss the plot; indeed, it is to miss everything.
4. Being a follower of Jesus does not involve imitation so much as it does implantation and impartation. Incarnation–the notion that God connects to us in baby form and human touch—is the most shocking doctrine of the Christian religion. The incarnation is both once-and-for-all and ongoing, as the One “who was and is to come” now is and lives his resurrection life in and through us. Incarnation doesn’t just apply to Jesus; it applies to every one of us. Of course, not in the same sacramental way. But close. We have been given God’s “Spirit” which makes Christ “real” in our lives. We have been made, as Peter puts it, “partakers of the divine nature.” How, then, in the face of so great a truth can we ask for toys and trinkets? How can we lust after lesser gifts and itch for religious and spiritual thingys? We’ve been touched from on high by the fires of the Almighty and given divine life. A life that has passed through death – the very resurrection life of the Son of God himself. How can we not be fired up?
To put it in a question: What was the engine, or the accelerator, of the Lord’s amazing life? What was the taproot or the headwaters of his outward behavior? It was this: Jesus lived by an indwelling Father. After his resurrection, the passage has now moved. What God the Father was to Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ is to you and to me. He’s our indwelling Presence, and we share in the life of Jesus’ own relationship with the Father. There is a vast ocean of difference between trying to compel Christians to imitate Jesus and learning how to impart an implanted Christ. The former only ends up in failure and frustration. The latter is the gateway to life and joy in our daying and our dying. We stand with Paul: “Christ lives in me.” Our life is Christ. In him do we live, breathe, and have our being. “What would Jesus do?” is not Christianity. Christianity asks: “What is Christ doing through me … through us? And how is Jesus doing it?” Following Jesus means “trust and obey” (respond), and living by his indwelling life through the power of the Spirit.
5. The “Jesus of history” cannot be disconnected from the “Christ of faith.” The Jesus who walked the shores of Galilee is the same person who indwells the church today. There is no disconnect between the Jesus of Mark’s Gospel and the incredible, all-inclusive, cosmic Christ of Paul’s letter to the Colossians. The Christ who lived in the first century has a pre-existence before time. He also has a post-existence after time. He is Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, A and Z, all at the same time. He stands in the future and at the end of time at the same moment that He indwells every child of God. Failure to embrace these paradoxical truths has created monumental problems and has diminished the greatness of Christ in the eyes of God’s people.
6. It’s possible to confuse “the cause” of Christ with the person of Christ. When the early church said “Jesus is Lord,” they did not mean “Jesus is my core value.” Jesus isn’t a cause; he is a real and living person who can be known, loved, experienced, enthroned and embodied. Focusing on his cause or mission doesn’t equate focusing on or following him. It’s all too possible to serve “the god” of serving Jesus as opposed to serving him out of an enraptured heart that’s been captivated by his irresistible beauty and unfathomable love. Jesus led us to think of God differently, as relationship, as the God of all relationship.
7. Jesus Christ was not a social activist nor a moral philosopher. To pitch him that way is to drain his glory and dilute his excellence. Justice apart from Christ is a dead thing. The only battering ram that can storm the gates of hell is not the cry of Justice, but the name of Jesus. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of Justice, Peace, Holiness, Righteousness. He is the sum of all spiritual things, the “strange attractor” of the cosmos. When Jesus becomes an abstraction, faith loses its reproductive power. Jesus did not come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people live.
8. It is possible to confuse an academic knowledge or theology about Jesus with a personal knowledge of the living Christ himself. These two stand as far apart as do the hundred thousand million galaxies. The fullness of Christ can never be accessed through the frontal lobe alone. Christian faith claims to be rational, but also to reach out to touch ultimate mysteries. The cure for a big head is a big heart.
Jesus does not leave his disciples with CliffsNotes for a systematic theology. He leaves his disciples with breath and body.
Jesus does not leave his disciples with a coherent and clear belief system by which to love God and others. Jesus gives his disciples wounds to touch and hands to heal.
Jesus does not leave his disciples with intellectual belief or a “Christian worldview.” He leaves his disciples with a relational faith.
Christians don’t follow a book. Christians follow a person, and this library of divinely inspired books we call “The Holy Bible” best help us follow that person. The Written Word is a map that leads us to The Living Word. Or as Jesus himself put it, “All Scripture testifies of me.” The Bible is not the destination; it’s a compass that points to Christ, heaven’s North Star.
The Bible does not offer a plan or a blueprint for living. The “good news” was not a new set of laws, or a new set of ethical injunctions, or a new and better PLAN. The “good news” was the story of a person’s life, as reflected in The Apostle’s Creed. The Mystery of Faith proclaims this narrative: “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.” The meaning of Christianity does not come from allegiance to complex theological doctrines, but a passionate love for a way of living in the world that revolves around following Jesus, who taught that love is what makes life a success . . . not wealth or health or anything else: but love. And God is love.
9. Only Jesus can transfix and then transfigure the void at the heart of the church. Jesus Christ cannot be separated from his church. While Jesus is distinct from his Bride, he is not separate from her. She is in fact his very own Body in the earth. God has chosen to vest all of power, authority, and life in the living Christ. And God in Christ is only known fully in and through his church. (As Paul said, “The manifold wisdom of God – which is Christ – is known through the ekklesia.”)
The Christian life, therefore, is not an individual pursuit. It’s a corporate journey. Knowing Christ and making him known is not an individual prospect. Those who insist on flying life solo will be brought to earth, with a crash. Thus Christ and his church are intimately joined and connected. What God has joined together, let no person put asunder. We were made for life with God; our only happiness is found in life with God. And God’s own pleasure and delight is found therein as well.
10. In a world which sings, “Oh, who is this Jesus?” and a church which sings, “Oh, let’s all be like Jesus,” who will sing with lungs of leather, “Oh, how we love Jesus!”
If Jesus could rise from the dead, we can at least rise from our bed, get off our couches and pews, and respond to the Lord’s resurrection life within us, joining Jesus in what he’s up to in the world. We call on others to join us—not in removing ourselves from planet Earth, but to plant our feet more firmly on the Earth while our spirits soar in the heavens of God’s pleasure and purpose. We are not of this world, but we live in this world for the Lord’s rights and interests. We, collectively, as the ekklesia of God, are Christ in and to this world.
May God have a people on this earth who are a people of Christ, through Christ, and for Christ. A people of the cross. A people who are consumed with God’s eternal passion, which is to make his Son preeminent, supreme, and the head over all things visible and invisible. A people who have discovered the touch of the Almighty in the face of his glorious Son. A people who wish to know only Christ and him crucified, and to let everything else fall by the wayside. A people who are laying hold of his depths, discovering his riches, touching his life, and receiving his love, and making HIM in all of his unfathomable glory known to others.
The two of us may disagree about many things—be they ecclesiology, eschatology, soteriology, not to mention economics, globalism and politics.
But in our two most recent books—From Eternity to Here and So Beautiful—we have sounded forth a united trumpet. These books are the Manifests to this Manifesto. They each present the vision that has captured our hearts and that we wish to impart to the Body of Christ— “This ONE THING I know” (Jn.9:25) that is the ONE THING that unites us all:
Jesus the Christ.
Christians don’t follow Christianity; Christians follow Christ.
Christians don’t preach themselves; Christians proclaim Christ.
Christians don’t point people to core values; Christians point people to the cross.
Christians don’t preach about Christ: Christians preach Christ.
Over 300 years ago a German pastor wrote a hymn that built around the Name above all names:
Ask ye what great thing I know, that delights and stirs me so? What the high reward I win? Whose the name I glory in?
Jesus Christ, the crucified.
This is that great thing I know; this delights and stirs me so: faith in him who died to save, His who triumphed o’er the grave:
Jesus Christ, the crucified.
—
Jesus Christ – the crucified, resurrected, enthroned, triumphant, living Lord.
He is our Pursuit, our Passion, and our Life.
Amen.
*****
To discuss this manifesto and its implications, go to A Jesus Manifesto Blog at
http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=93161024529&h=0f431a8f297cc4554fdc7339eeec0362&url=http%3A%2F%2Fajesusmanifesto.wordpress.com%2F
We also suggest listening to the YouTube song Give Me Jesus while reading this manifesto.
THE MANIFESTS …

Shi Weihan-A Modern day Apostle Paul- from Steve Mc Vey

Steve McVey writes This is the man to whom I dedicated my newest book, "Walking In the Will of God" Let's pray for our Father's intervention in this terribly painful situation for him and his family as well as respond in the ways mentioned below. See my earlier post (June 15) for more details. Statement of Defense & Christian Testimony Brought in Shi Weihan TrialDear Friend of Shi Weihan,Below is a summary of an English translation of the Statement of Defense made on behalf of Shi Weihan in the case of "Illegal Business Operations" brought against him and six others for printing and distributing bibles and Christian literature free of charge. This is now public information and we ask that you share it with as many people as possible.Part of this well written defense makes a strong testimony for the value of the Gospel being freely proclaimed in society. "First of all, in this case, the purpose of the defendant Shi Weihan in printing the Bible and other religious books is to spread the Gospel of Christ and is a conduct based on his own belief. The defendant Shi Weihan is a devout Christian. He began to believe in the Savior of his life, Jesus Christ, back in 1990 and later became a pastor. According to Christian teachings, spreading the Gospel is a great mission Jesus Christ issued after He was resurrected and ascended to heaven. He commands His believers to spread the Gospel to every corner of the earth. Therefore, the believers also regard the spreading of Gospel as their joy. During his missionary work, Shi Weihan found that many Christians lacked materials for true Christianity, and these believers are often harassed and confused by some cults. In order to cultivate the right faith in them and enhance their spiritual level, spreading the Gospel through words is the best way. That’s why Shi Weihan printed the Bibles and other religious books with money donated by other believers. In this way, the believers can enhance their spiritual life through words and understand and practice better Jesus Christ’s teachings so that they love other people as they love themselves, which is beneficial for social stability and harmony."Other points brought in the Statement of Defense:* It appeals to the right of Christians to freely practice their faith.* It appeals to the need for Christians to be able to have sufficient materials to help them protect themselves from cults that are rampant in parts of the poor countryside of China.* It appeals to the supremacy of the Chinese Constitutional guarantee of Religious Freedom and Freedom of the Press over the Procedural Regulations regarding governmental bodies given the power to deny the right to print and distribute publications deemed undesirable by them.* It makes clear the impropriety of a criminal charge for "illegal business practices" being applied to an operation where bibles and other materials are given away for free rather than for a motive of profit making.The original judge found Shi innocent of the charges on two previous occasions. The Public Security Bureau continued to hold him and press for a conviction. The Defense Statement makes it clear that a new judge assigned at the most recent hearing is the same judge who had previously held another Chinese pastor who printed and distributed bibles--Cai Zhouhua--guilty on the same charges as those brought against Shi Weihan.The lawyer who brought this brilliant defense has since faced the failure of the Chinese government to renew his license to practice law (along with 21 other attorneys who have championed human rights cases in China). Hence, he was unable to be present at Shi Weihan's sentencing. It is interesting to note that the case was delayed beyond the legally specified time alloted by Chinese law. During the delays, the lawyer's license to practice expired and the government failed to renew it, essentially preventing him from continuing Shi's defense.Now, with just nine days left to mount an appeal, the family is unable to rely on the attorney most familiar with the case. It is hoped that the family will, nonetheless appeal to the court for reasonable treatment in light of the circumstances. Friends and Christians all over the world stand in solidarity with them to appeal to the Chinese government for fair and merciful treatment for Shi and for thousands of other Christians that continue to suffer suppression of free religious expression in China.Given Shi's well-attested character and good deeds performed on behalf of many poor and disadvantaged citizens of China, it is hoped that the courts will show mercy and allow Shi to be released so that his health (he suffers from diabetes and his family has been refused in their efforts to provide him medicine) can be properly attended and his family can resume a semblance of normality in their daily lives.
You can request the "immediate release" of Shi Weihan by calling or writing the following Chinese officials:Tang LongCity of Beijing Deputy Secretary Generalof the Municipal People's GovernmentPhone: 011-86-10-62362008Liu JianchaoMinistry of Foreign AffairsDirector of Information DepartmentPhone: 011-86-10-65963342Chinese EmbassyAmbassador Zhou Wenzhong2300 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20008Tel: (202) 328-2500Fax: (202) 495-2138
Encouraging letters can be sent to:
Shi Weihan Qinghe Detention Center of theHaidian Sub-Bureau 2585,Longgang Road, QingheTown,Haidian District, Beijing China
AND
Shi Weihan's wifeZhang Jing, and their two daughters,Shi Jia (12) and Shi En Mei (8):3207 Jisheng Villa, West Sanqi,Haidian district, Beijing Municipality, China

A Tale of Two Hearts- John Solomon

Folks ,a new light is dawning.
A light that will grow in brilliant intensity.
A light that will divide what can be divided.
A light that finally, after centuries, will define the misty cloisters of religion, and bring into the sharpest focus the deathly imitation of God's realities. For years, religious people have got away with the fake. Now no more.
The reality is here already and growing.
You will love this excerpt from the ning community site "Good and Noble Heart Community".



http://goodandnobleheart.ning.com
A Tale Of Two Hearts
Posted by John Solomon on June 16, 2009 at 10:48pm
View John Solomon's blog
Law vs. Grace
The same on the outside, but the opposite on the inside
Why Ten Commandment Keeping Is The Most Dangerous Form Of Idolatry

This is a tale of two hearts.As a result of Adam‘s sin, we are all separated from any chance of eating from the tree of life and receiving the divine nature.As a result of Christ’s sacrifice, we become partakers of the divine nature and receive a new heart. We become a new creation in Christ Jesus, literally a new species complete with a new heart.The old deceitfully wicked heart is what we were all born with. It is all we know. The wise, if they receive God’s instruction, know that the human heart needs to be caged in with a bunch of thou shall not’s. If they don’t control their nature with the Ten Commandment restrictions, then they are in danger of practicing the evil in their hearts.In Rom 1:27 we are told, “ And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.”The Greek word translated “working” above is strongs#2716"katergazomai" and is also translated “work out” , “causes” or “performs”. So the message is simple; by controlling our sinful heart by caging it in with Commandment keeping, I will avoid becoming as corrupt in practice and lifestyle as my evil heart. In other words we are warned not to “work out” the evil which is in our hearts, but instead to control it- behavior modification.Hence, the Law has no power to give us good hearts. It only has the power to keep us from acting out the wickedness within. So the inner man who reasons with the mind, recognizes the law is holy, just and good. But he also recognizes all the law keeping in the world will not make him holy. All the law can do is point out how depraved the human heart really is. We are therefore CAPTIVES in our minds to the law which instructs us on how to cage in the evil desires of the human heart.Now back to strongs#2716 “katergazomai” which we are warned NOT to do in Romans. When we are born again and we receive the new heart, the heart of Christ. We become a new creation, literally a new species with a new heart- the heart of Jesus. This is not a figurative change of heart. This is a new heart which gradually puts to death the deeds of the old heart. John says when we are born again, we are incapable of sin because it is the “seed”- the Greek word is literally “sperma” - of God {IJohn3:9}.So BEING the “seed“ of God, the offspring of God, everything changes within!Paul, in describing the new heart and new life now uses the same strongs#2716 “katergazomai” in the OPPOSITE way as he did in Romans! “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out [strongs#2716 ] your own salvation with fear and trembling; “ Phil 2:12-13.So the very thing we are told NOT to do when we are under the Law, we are told to practice under Grace! The same exact word!So in other words, when we are under the law, we are told to not live out what is in our hearts, or we might end up like the wicked people in Romans chapter one.But when we are born again and under Grace, we are told to live out what is in our hearts!So to the unsaved, my advice to you is to by all means keep the Ten Commandments and do not follow the way of your heart.But to the saved my advice is by all means follow what is in your heart- live it out- it is Jesus within you!So the very thing that was given to us to help us form a good, safe and healthy society is the very practice that will keep you from becoming like Christ!!! Because becoming like Christ requires “working out”, and Law keeping requires not working out. Law keeping is holding in!Don’t misunderstand. I am not advocating sin. I am simply displaying the utter superiority of following Jesus versus law keeping. One makes you look righteous, whereas the other is the result of you already being the righteousness of God and working it out.So today is not the day of holding back, it is the day to just let go!Follow Jesus as He leads you from within.“Fan to flame” your new heart. And when all is aglow, just follow the light.

Barack Obama- Ninja Fly Swatter- In a cool fashion!

I couldn't work out whether cooly was right for the adverb of cool....or whether coolly, which seems to always imply cold reserve, which is not what I am saying.So hence now...in a cool fashion! Sheila, need help.

This is visual evidence that Barack is actually from another planet disguised as an Afro-American!

KMOO Marriage gets first judicious rollicking

Never let it be said that this 51 year old is ready to put up his slippered feet, grab his pipe, and cosily nestle into Daily Mail nostalgia world....but obviously after the KMOO post, I was immediately jolted. Here at last is someone in a senior public position saying what we've known in private for years.

Regarding both KMOO marriage and KMOO childcare(abortion), has it come to this after 40 years prayer, countless debates, Christian sermons, Christian action groups....

That the only thing left is satire?
Like Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels".Holding a mirror up to society. This also was the function of straight literature in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, which was perhaps the final straw that set the slavery issue before the people of America.

When someone as noble and wise,informed and intellectual as Professor Winston is happy to get behind abortion, then we know how sick Britain is.
Few Christians, and even fewer Christians who have experienced the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, believe in abortion. More than that, it is not that we dislike abortion as an intellectual concept. It's more visceral. Some of us feel strong nausea. It is to us very similar territory to the Jewish holocaust. Just as an intelligent nation bought into the lie of murdering innocents, we feel Britain has bought into the lie of "abortion".
This piece covers the same ground as KMOO marriage, only the judge uses his own satirical technique, this time to compare cohabiting to a children's game pass the parcel.



Only marriage can mend broken Britain, says top judge in attack on 'pass the partner' society (Daily Mail today)

Marriage should be promoted by the Government to end the 'social anarchy' of family breakdown, a senior judge said last night.
Mr Justice Coleridge accused mothers and fathers who fail to commit to each other of engaging in a game of 'pass the partner' that has left millions of children 'scarred for life'.
In a hard-hitting speech in Parliament, he called for a change of attitude that would attach a 'stigma' to those who destroy family life and said a National Commission should be established to devise solutions for the 'epidemic' of broken homes.
He said: 'The reaffirmation of marriage as the gold standard would be a start.'
Currently, one in three marriages ends in divorce. One in ten children lives with cohabiting parents and a quarter live with a single parent.

Children from single-parent families are far more likely to do badly at school, suffer poor health, fall into crime, drug abuse, binge drinking and teenage pregnancy.
Sir Paul Coleridge, 60, who is married with three adult children, is a leading family judge, having presided over the divorce of Sir Paul McCartney and Heather Mills.
He also made the ruling in Britain's largest divorce settlement in which Beverley Charman received£48million when she divorced insurance magnate John Charman.
The judge's comments stopped short of condemning the Government

But his support for marriage will be music to the ears of Conservative leader David Cameron, who has made clear that a Tory government would support marriage through the tax system.
By contrast, Labour ministers insist alternative family set-ups are equally valid.
In his speech to the Family Holiday Association charity of which he is a patron, Mr Justice Coleridge said: 'I am drawing attention to the endless game of "musical relationships", or "pass the partner", in which such a significant portion of the population is engaged.'


Condemning the 'endless and futile quest for a perfect relationship', he said many parents were in 'a complete and uncontrolled free-for-all where being true to oneself and one's needs is the only yardstick for controlling behaviour'. See KMOO
He added: 'The children are caught up in the conflict of their parents' unresolved relationship issues and it can leave them scarred, sometimes severely scarred, for life.'
The judge also said government should support 'those who chose not to marry but live a committed life with a partner', since they provide stability for children.
Calling for 'a fundamental change in individual attitude and behaviour', he said: 'What is a matter of private concern when it is on a small scale becomes a matter of public concern when it reaches epidemic proportions.
'I am not suggesting that all relationship breakdown and termination can be avoided in all cases. Of course it cannot.'
But he concluded: 'The time has come for a major examination of all the issues surrounding family life, its support and maintenance, and especially the mechanisms and laws for its termination.'

The Power of Teams

I stayed with my friend John Stevens a couple of weeks back. We talked for hours. I was particularly riveted by his testimony to do with teams. He has kindly reproduced some of it here. Basically this is the issue. Teams have a great supernatural power. Things happen in teams that never happen quite any other way. Peter Stott takes teams with him. The early apostles always made sure there were at least a couple of them and often others too.
One can put a hundred to flight, but two can put ten thousand to flight!
There is something beautiful about a whole team focussed on one goal and working on it together. And it gets especially interesting when it is evangelistic.
Para church movements were frowned upon in the days of “submission and authority and redefining the vision of the local church.”

This is what I think. Firstly until such time that local churches become more balanced expressions of the whole counsel of God, (does this relate with the phrase the 7 spirits of God?)…remember my vision /picture of the Word as a suspended orb between all the Biblical aspects of God’s nature and character)….. we need specific teams and ministries to make up the lack….

Secondly, I have noticed already so far that the Melchizedek order has little human frame of reference. For instance God suddenly sets apart Paul and Barnabas to reach the Gentiles. The rest of the church at Antioch stayed put. In 1969, Arthur Blessitt was minding his own business of preaching to street kids on the Sunset Strip, when God breaks through and sets him suddenly on a 38 year journey to traverse every country on earth – even the closed ones- carrying the Cross. So, I guess there will always be teams called to specific jobs in specific callings….just as it was also for Mel Tari in the Indonesian Revival. The theory that everything will issue logically and smoothly out of local churches, as we thought in the 70s and 80s….well It clearly isn’t so. Perhaps it was good that Morris Cerullo never listened to anyone!!!!Eh!?


John’s piece is so much more though. It is an encouragement that we will never feel right for the job and God understands this as well.
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What works in reaching out with the gospel?

Is it a valid question to ask ‘what works’? As if there is a methodology out there that guarantees success.

I think that it is true to say that presumption the classic fault of the rational man. Once we land on a workable thesis we test it beyond its endurance and suffer the inevitable disappointment when y doesn’t follow x .

One of the most encouraging paragraphs in the New Testament is 2 Cor 4v7-14;

‘But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us…’ That’s verse 7. That’s true revolution. That’s taking the rational western liberal man and consigning the invention of the enlightenment and modernity and post-modernity to ‘an earthen vessel’. For all this progress you are still an earthen vessel. The real secret, hidden from those brilliant thinkers, those philosophers, is the treasure within.

Our fault is when we detach the two and over emphasize our humanity or diminish our humanity in the light of His divinity. The treasure has no value in itself. Only when it can be transported, and for that an earthen vessel is all that is required.

‘We are perplexed but not in despair’ v 8. If verse 7 is revolution verse 8 comes as a shock. Surely, our rational minds feeding on verse 7, say, surely if verse 7 is true it follows that all we have to do is ‘be’ and the treasure will make itself known through our calling, our gifting, our serving, our giving and so on. And yet the apostle is perplexed as is his team. That I find hugely encouraging and liberating!

I’m often perplexed but if the apostle was then I’m reassured.

Story One. I’d been a Christian for a matter of months. I was 18. A friend offered me a lift home. On his car key-ring dangled a picture of a beautiful girl. I asked him who she was. He said ‘My fiancé. But she doesn’t look like that now’. It turned out that she had anorexia nervosa and was close to death. We were both lab technicians for a pharmaceutical company. Our lab leader was compassionate and allowed my friend to spend hours researching anorexia in an attempt to save his girlfriend. Meanwhile God stirred in my heart to offer to pray for her. I spoke to my friend and he agreed and so a few of us at church prayed that weekend. The truth is in fact that having plucked up the courage to say to my friend ‘I believe God loves your fiancé and wants to heal her, will you let me pray for her?’ I forgot all about it. But on the next Saturday morning I was due to go with a small evangelistic team handing out tracts in a local market. As we were praying just before going out, the heavens opened (get literal) and the rain was so loud on the roof we couldn’t hear each other’s British prayers – so we took a very important decision and decided not to do the evangelism. Our leader asked a question. Has anyone got anything from God? I piped up, embarrassed that I had forgotten to pray during the week. I remember praying something like ‘God would unblock the barrier preventing her from getting up and eating’ and everyone said Amen. On Monday morning back at work my friend came in almost jumping with joy as his girlfriend had started eating. She had suddenly got out of bed on Saturday morning at the same time that we prayed. Now that is verse 7.

My rational response was ‘so now everyone will ask me about Jesus and we’ll have revival in the lab…who’s first…’. It didn’t happen. No-one became a Christian. No-one asked about it. Not one soul. I was disappointed, a little angry perhaps, certainly perplexed.

Later that year at Exeter University and in the maelstrom of meeting many people, I often shared my faith sometimes with roomfuls of people pumping me and other Christian friends with questions. I witnessed to a large number of fellow students. I probably told people Story One. Not one jettisoned their agnosticism, atheism, or spiritual lethargy.

I was worn out. I had all this treasure. I was perplexed and more or less I gave up witnessing. The years rolled by. I spoke in tongues. I prophesied. I saw a few miracles of healing. But no fruit from my witnessing. Deep down I was crying to God. ‘This should work. This should work. God what is going on?’

I felt the impact of failure. Then in 1985 I had a fresh encounter with the Holy Spirit and ‘felt’ the anointing in a more tangible way than before. When the Holy Spirit falls on people He often speaks and I had a few verses that came to mind, two from Isaiah and one from the Psalms.

One of the Isaiah verses contained the line ‘and I have given Him to be a witness to the peoples…’ This verse (Is 55v4) refers to the Messiah but on this occasion the Holy Spirit fired it into me – I was the target. And it created faith where presumption had previously been trying and failing to get a foothold.

Within a few months I joined a Christian team taking (mostly non-church) teenage boys on Activity Holidays. The leaders were all baptized in the Holy Spirit and were more or less of one mind in terms of the overall vision for the team and that it must be run by the Holy Spirit.

My particular role was to lead worship and hill-walking. But when some of the lads responded to the gospel in meetings they were passed on to some of the leaders – including me – and we led a number to the Lord. I was underway.

A year or so later, with my young family, we went to Roffey Place Christian Training Centre in Horsham Sussex.. For those of a certain vintage you might know Colin Urquhart. He and Bob Gordon led Roffey. I left the relative comfort of a ‘charismatic’ church and teaching career to go to Roffey because I was hungry for the reality of what we were preaching but rarely seeing. I loved my church and am indebted to many in that church for their witness and their love. Without them I would not have given Jesus a second glance. But hunger is hunger.

At Roffey I was immersed in an army looking for a battle.

Bob Gordon would often say that we’d been invited to participate in a corporate anointing and that there was no place for any of us to do our own thing.

On missions, sometimes on the streets of villages and towns, sometimes in tents or churches, we were taught not to hand out tracts but to be praying, trusting that it was God who would stimulate conversations and ultimately it is God who saves, heals and so on. All this is great in theory. In practice 2Corinthians 4v7-14 is the reality.

Story Two. Mission in Basildon,Essex. (I apologise if you live in Basildon but it is not a place I would choose to live in. For different reasons it could well have been Monty Python’s substitute for Basingstoke). Nevertheless to Basildon we went. A team of about twenty, for a week culminating in a three large evening services at the hosting church. I was billeted with a Ugandan Christian. We both prayed early in the morning separately before heading down for breakfast with out hosts. At some point he looked up and asked me with a smile, ‘John how many will be saved this week?’ I screwed up my ‘faith’ and said, ‘maybe 10?’ He laughed and said, ‘No John there will be more than this, there will be 120’. My only experience of church mission was maximum effort and minimum fruit, his experience was much fruit. 120 individuals came to the Lord that week.
Few if any were saved in the Meetings, nearly all were through the team on the street. A Catholic member of our team had very little confidence in witnessing about Jesus. But he had felt God calling him to wait in a certain spot. And there he had returned day after day. He was about to give up when one day he stopped a woman to talk to her and her story came tumbling out. She was on her way to a shop to buy a knife to murder her son-in law! She ended up giving her life to Christ. ‘We have this treasure in an earthen vessel that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us’. The week dismantled my defeatist thinking and created a new level of personal expectation but in the context of working in a team. Basildon!

I return to my opening sentence. ‘What works?’ I’m sure the Roffey experience I had is the same that many believers have when they devote their time to a team that is led by the Spirit of Jesus.

What works is hunger. What works is being led by the Spirit. ‘Jesus after He was baptized was led by the Spirit into the desert…’ The Greek for ‘led’ is ‘ekbalo’ and is later translated in the same chapter in mark for ‘driving out’ a demon! It is a forceful word. It can be used to describe kicking a ball. In one translation it says the Spirit drove into the desert’. It’s like that. Something you cannot deny, insistent but good.

Up to that point for 30 years the Spirit had not descended upon Him or driven Him into the wilderness. This is important too. Jesus had a long period of apparent inactivity. We are not called into fleshly busyness. Sometimes saying no is the greatest challenge.

‘…they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia…they tried to go into Bithynia but the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them…’ Acts 16 v 6-10

Paul and his team had come to the edge of the world at Mysia. Somehow they knew the Spirit would not let them travel East or West. South was where they came from and North was Sea of Marmara in the corner of the Med. That night Paul had a vision of a man in Macedonia saying ‘come over to Macedonia and help us’. ‘Immediately we sought to go to Macedonia concluding that the Lord had called us to preach to them’. Across the Med they went.

This aspect dovetails in with “Life In the Order of Melchizedek” series. Morris Cerullo calls revelation a supernatural burst of advanced knowledge. This is very much the realm Nicholas and Pam move in, and it is the hallmark exhibited over and over again in Arthur Blessitt’s picture autobiography The Cross to be reviewed soon. Time and again he finds himself in the midst of world-changing pivotal circumstances….a real life version of the fictional Forrest Gump.

The Deathly Hush surrounding Marxism

When those born in the 1950s were growing up Marxism was huge. I remember now with total embarrasment how I as a born again Spirit-filled person in 1974 said these words...

"I don't follow Marxism, but if I did, I would not follow the the form practised in Russia, but would favour the model as practised by China."

Friends, to see how wrong this was I recommend you all read Mao The Unknown Story.

Also, compare this with aspects of Watchman Nee's bio by Angus Kinnear

So if you consider having your tongue cut out by Red Communist guards is a good option, because your anointing is so great whole swathes of prison population were turning to Jesus.... well , by all means.....be my guest....go with Marxism.

Richard Wurmbrandt, the pastor imprisoned by Communists behind the Iron Curtain, traces the unknown history of Marx before Das Kapital. He also makes the point that for a supposedly humanist philosophy , it is amazing how Christianity was specifically targeted.

Other prisoners of a jail had a rough time....but only the Catholic priest was found crucified upside down on one of the prison walls.

Now , if atheism is as many have it, just a neutral position, why would the worst of the worst atrocities ever committed against humans be only effected against believers in a religion. And only the Christian religion.

The point of this post is to raise the curtain on the otherwise now silent stage that was communism. Frau Hannelore Noack, afriend of my parents, has been doing the same on the subject of Nazism in Germany. Her writings are studied in German Universities.

The same question emerges. How can an intelligent nation, perhaps THE most intelligent nation on Earth....sorry Brits....you don't even compare with this nation of intellectual heavyweights....How could such a nation stoop to the attempted mass genocide of the only people on Earth that are commonly known as the People of God, and certainly the nation who gave Christianity their Saviour?

And of Communism, a similar silence hovers among the world's intellectuals. How could such a seemingly noble humanist set of aims fall so quickly into mass killing machines on a level in China and Russia that only a newly mechanised 20th century war machine could accomplish.

This is why I believe there is such a silence in the Universities, on Radio 4, in Prospect magazine (which by the way provides much of the direction for the BBC) and among all the world's particularly atheistic or agnostic elite.

You see if a nation as clever as Germany, whose very language structure lends itself to deep intellectual analysis....

If such noble aims as are expressed in Das Kapital, although erroneous in its conclusions about how all people are "equal", if the enactment of these can lead to such extreme horrors...(GENERAL NOTE All people are not equal-1 Corinthians 12:22those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. This is about as far from Communist practice as you can get)

what is that saying about learning

about left-brain articulation and analysis

about our rather more complex make-up as humans.

Have you noticed the deafening silence in the open analysis of these questions.

What Simon Sharma, David Starkey and many more are not saying is how more than anything else, 20th Century history shows there is NO MIDDLE POSITION.

The intellectual elite fall for the same lie all these thousands of years later that the devil sowed in the Garden. (a, that he doesn't exist by the way) and b that we as gods have this independant posture that can think our own way between the knowledge of the good, and the knowledge of the bad. Not ever as it says in Romans 1, coming to the self-knowledge that it is the lie of our independant posture that gives the devil the fulcrum to move us in any which way he will. And so in analysing history you get the hubris of the intellectual detaching himself from history and making grand patronising statements about "these poor people from the past"...in the same way that Romans 1 analyses the different people judging one another...but unable and unwilling to realise they are of the same spirit.

You see, if we are stuck in this "independant" thing...we are so deceived we don't know we're in it."If the light within you is darkness then how great is that darkness." This by the way is a verse you will never ever hear in 1st and 2nd level churches...because they are themselves stuck in this spirit of self-delusion.

Who can deliver us? 16But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18

So, thinking that all we need is more "knowledge of good" humanity stumbles on in its attempts to raise up a world government of beneficence for all!!! Not knowing that each "unborn again " step that is not taken knowingly and deliberately in Union with the One True Spirit of life, is doomed to failure from the word go.

So for this reason and practically only this reason MARXISM must fail.

You could be forgiven for thinking that Marxism bears a significant resemblance to New Testament Church Life in Acts. Because that's where it was nicked from.

The proliferation of Marxism was through cell-groups. Where was that nicked from? Methodism.

Now here's the rub. We spent 6-10 years trying to live New testament Church Life as Spirit-filled Christians. And a lot of it was like Marxism.

Why? because there is no MIDDLE POSITION. Even when you are a Christian.

You either have broken through in revelation and practice to the REST that Paul talked about...or you are still in sin!! Hurting the people you are living with.

Neither marxism nor charismatic Christianity can live Acts of the Apostles.

Everyone needs a spirit change on the inside of them. Not just sufficient to get you born again. Not just sufficient to get you prophesying with the best of them in meetings....

BUT TO GET YOU LIVING!

Why Proverbs 3:5 is REALLY a good idea.(Subtitle-How Prophet/Artist/Dreamers think)

Trust in the Lord with all your heart

Don't

Don't

Don't

Rely on your own insight. Proverbs 3:5



Just about the first song I ever received was this verse shortly after being baptised in the Spirit.

In fact I never really thought of myself as a musician until after this....even though I'd been learning classical guitar since I was 10. Proverbs 3 is a track on CD 1 of Early Harvest.

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Today's post is about how Prophet/Artist/Dreamer types think. The apostle John was one of these by temperament as well as by anointing.



This could be a real key for some of you. Either to help you understand yourself. Or to finally help you understand your crazy husband/wife/brother/aunt/work colleague/hamster....well perhaps not hamster.



More than any other character type they think of everything in terms of "DIRECTION ARROWS". Before you finish speaking....often within about 5 words...

they have read YOU

read the direction in which the substance of what you are trying to say is going

and consequently want to continue listening to you

or have already switched off.



This is one way in which they appear rude within the context of the veneer of polite society.

Another type of person who behaves in a similar kind of way are business people. What matters is the bottom line. Profit or loss. The entire infrastructure that may or may not be built around this bottomline is pretty well worthless....however pretty it looks to all those who are working in and around the business.You see this attitude among the entrepreneurs in the series Dragon's Den.



This form of thinking contrasts completely with the more static "snapshot assessment" of a situation favoured by nearly everyone else.



This set of facts are now so, substantiated by this and this and this , which tells me exactly how a situation is now......no more ...no less. I don't wish to know how it will be in 10 years if things continue at the same rate. That is not currently the question in hand.



But for a prophet/dreamer/poet it very much is the question.



The more factual person will regard the former as a bit hysterical....strangely too emotive.

But the prophet is reading the direction arrow. He/she is asking...yes ...but where is this all leading? And if you are only receiving prophetic/creative input you will all be suffering nervous breakdowns from the stress of not knowing what to do with it.

Imagine a roomful of Phoebe's from the show "Friends". Creative it may be....but what awful songs!!!!



A few posts back I described how churches must have their direction arrows fixed in a 3rd level type direction. It does not matter that people may all be at different stages in their Christian walk....at least the leadership have set the tone....and the tone or direction is

to see Christ fully formed in each and every person , such that they can go out and reproduce others to the Father level......and so on.



By far the majority of churches.....what Jesus calls in Revelation "People who call themselves Jews but are not..."

these are not actually churches, since they do not contain people who have had a born again experience yet. They are kind of religious precursors to the church.



Then there are evangelical churches, which although always containing some mature Christians,never set their direction arrow beyond running as a 1st level church. A kind of New Covenant throwback to the Outer Courts in the Old Testament.



The direction arrow of the Pentecostal/charismatic churches never goes beyond a kind of dipping your toe in the River of God ,somewhere in the Holy Place.



But David says "Blessed are the men whose strength is in thee

In whose heart are the highways....the direction arrows to Zion...the Place where God really dwells and rules." Then in the New Testament " Seek first the Kingdom of God....and His righteousness....being clothed in His own righteousness..and walking in it!!!" These are and always were the only true direction arrows. Every church maintains that this was their goal all along. Well...can I say...the world has not noticed , if that really was your aim. So what are you going to do about it?

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Now this post is about how prophets/artistic/creative types view the madness in which the world is run.

Proverbs 3:5 does not say Trust in the Lord with all your heart....period. That would be a Phoebe type existence.

Nor does it say Rely on your own insight. That, in Friends, would be a Ross-type existence.

It says there must be an interplay. You use your own factual input....but you don't build your existence on it. You trust in the Lord. With all your heart. ie You don't hold back.

(By the way...this is why "Living Together"...KMOO marriage...does not work...because you are holding back something)



Here are some mad fruits of a life lived "relying on your own insight". At least from a prophet's perspective.



Recession

If you feedback interminable data/hard facts about a recession via all media outlets all the time, you crash market confidence, creating even greater dips in the market.I call this the UK Dawkins Left-brain hamster wheel principle.

I use Dawkins because he proudly asserts the Left-brain, Materialist approach to life. Although, like fellow-evangelistic atheists Brian Eno and Philip Pullman, none of them live according to their own philosophies. They are all far too creative for that. Brian Eno,being for example, a part of the miracle that is U2.He was their sound engineer on Joshua Tree and Unforgettable Fire.



Let's look at the UK Dawkins Left-brain hamster wheel in Genesis chapter 1.

Here is some hard-wired left-brain factual data, which we will feedback incessantly. Notice all the facts are completely true.


The Earth was formless and void.

Notice that none of this has any permanent relevance for the Word of Faith.

It's an interesting fact....but then

God said Let there be LIGHT!

And ofcourse this kind of thing gives UK Left-brain hamster wheels a bad name. It's just not playing by the rules!!!!



Banking

Far from relying on the left-brain....now it's even worse....it's not even someone's brain. It's a binary-coded electrical device called a computer. No wonder some Jew came up with the fact that if you attach the number 6 to each letter of the alphabet...the numerical value of computer adds up to 666.

So, you have all these so-called business bankers waiting to give you a decision on a loan during this difficult financial period...and their decision is already made. Their decision was made some time ago....when they signed up wholeheartedly to committing over their entire decision making process to limited left-brain input and a few mathematical algorithms.

What is your gut feeling about this loan then?

I have no gut left I'm afraid. It's now all wires and buttons. And it's outside my body on this monitor flashing in front of me.

Was there any point in you coming into work today?

Yes.they answer, I smile nicely, while I tell you "the computer - he say NO".

By the way the Reith Lectures this year are covering similar ground. http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/reith



Politics

How do prophet/poet types regard the madness that is politics here and in the USA? Well, it turns out, in a very similar way to women, who are far too sensible to take stances based on testosterone.



To creatives well aversed with producing lasting things of value, the whole creative process is obvious. It is the interplay between raw inspiration and out of the box creativity, married to function, yes,married to a left-brain step by step implementation of an idea.



Now in a traditional household the husband was the "houseband" ,the provider, the one keeping the whole thing together in terms of providing the raw materials of existence,and the wife was the "weber" the weaver....the one who dealt with the intricacies of getting the whole thing to work, such that everyone was cared for.



Obviously things are now more complex ...but I am not making any particular point here.



What I am saying is, just as the brain needs both sides working together to function....and does not dream of setting up adversarially one against the other...



And just as the husband/wife function together, and don't spend their life standing on opposing tables in the kitchen in gladiatorial combat....



What the double glazed marble throwers!!!! are the USA and Great Britain doing spending every four or five years changing first one way then the other....as if a left-centric party was the bees knees of life....then four years later the right-centric party is the bees knees of life.



The Government of Supply,Business and Fiscal Productivity is true Government.

The Government of Care and welfare is true Government.

But they are both that at the same time!!! Ask any woman. It's only a group of idiot males that it takes 300 years or so to filter this information through to. I refuse to identify with idiots like that. If that makes me a female, then I guess a sexchange is needed. I'm not too sure Christine would like that though.



Do you see how rather than associate with male idiots I became a piano tuner. Males are the ones who rush to Harvard, Harrow,Eton,and Oxford, become part of the Skull and Bones,rush to positions of Testosterone......

Then when they are there....think....

Ahhh!!! I'm in charge. Ummmm, nothing prepared me for this....what do I do now???

Oh ofcourse.....I'll invade a country!!!

So, I repeat- what the double-glazed marble throwers are both USA and UK playing at when it comes to politics?



Since when is democracy.....for 4 years the wife is solely in charge of a house, then the next four years the husband is in charge....the answer is. NEVER. A house is always run by two spouses.



I'm sorry if that is too complicated for men to grasp. Would you like me to go a bit slower?

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Are you beginning to understand the devastating impact of people who "rely on their own insight", rather than trusting in God with all your heart. We are not talking about people going a little off course. We are talkng the daily brush with death that people have to endure,caused by stupid testosterone left-brain hamster wheel living.



Praise God this at last gets dealt with in 3rd level living.

But you can see why non-Christian artists/poets/prophets who live perceiving everyone's direction arrows peeking out of everyone's middles, you can see why they are driven to drink ,drugs ,hopeless despair and suicide. Left-brain folk are only just now beginning to get the data.