The Meaning of "Being Yourself" by Fred Pruitt

I really recommend you following Fred Pruitt's blog
It has only recently come to me in a deeper way how much the words, “be yourself,” cause a stir among people who consider themselves the “redeemed” of God.

When I have written those words in the past, I don’t think I really realized how they hit people. It seems, to some, to be the philosophy of “the world.” Indeed, it is the modern cry of the more psychologically astute society we live in. Asserting one’s “self” and not letting others drag or tear us down is a personal theme of these current times.

But that needn’t lessen the meaning of those words to those who have inwardly received, through Jesus Christ, the “Divine Nature.” Because hearing the words “be yourself” and to, as a Christian, be afraid of them as if they are somehow license to sin, is to completely miss the meaning. The fear in being troubled by those words presupposes that one’s “self” in Christ is somehow wrong, and a thing to be avoided and nullified if possible.

The opposite of “be yourself” would be to “be something you’re not.” Wouldn’t it?

To be something we’re “not,” would, then, necessarily, involve putting on some sort of mask or costume, to appear as if we are not really who we are. We don’t like our “real self” as we perceive it, and therefore seek to put forth a “better” representation of ourselves, playing a part we think others, including God, want to see.

That’s what “the law” is all about. The “law” involves “putting on” something from the outside, a set of rules or goals, that we think by putting on and acting as if this is really us, will somehow grease the wheels and get God into action.

Years ago I was traveling on business. I was up for a break from driving and I saw a Christian bookstore in a little strip mall, so I decided to stop and check it out. I went into the little shop and started browsing the shelves, when the lady-owner came over and stood beside me. Instead of just greeting me and asking if she could help me, instead she clasped her hands in a “holy manner” and said, “May I say that God loves you and I love you in Jesus Christ?”

Now, there’s obviously nothing wrong with that statement. A Great statement! But there was something in the way the woman said it, that seemed forced, or false, and all I could think about was getting out of there. Not that the lady didn’t mean it in the sense that she WANTED it to be true — she WANTED it to be true that she loved me in Christ — but the statement was almost screaming to me “this isn’t really true, but I’m saying it to you in hopes that it is!”

Now of course, the joke is, the statement WAS true! If she was indeed in Christ, and I had no reason to think she wasn’t, then she DID love me completely in Christ Jesus. She didn’t have to say it or prove it. It simply was the fact between us! But, my impression was that from her perspective, she didn’t KNOW it was already fact, and she was trying to make up for it by this forced, insincere-sounding statement.

Crazy, huh? Trying to be Who we already are?

Comment by Chris Welch
Somewhat puzzled I heard Mother Basilea Schlink say Go the way of the Lamb , it is a way of great power. This was Lutheran speak, or perhaps Older saints speak for one of the greatest truths in the universe. Forget Superman, although even he had his Clark Kent….the most powerful force in the universe, (a bit like the unstoppable grass stalks that dislodge huge slabs of concrete)is the naked life of Christ. We, as Christ did with His Father, go around as ourselves, without flash add-ons, “helpful extras”, nope….just naked…just us….but conscious of Him living His life as us….and we follow that life through all the rat holes,all the situations that very life causes us to be in….like a helpless Lamb to the slaughter….but somehow God does this crazy superman stuff around us…currently opening the world up to this new idea of Christ living as us….maybe opening cities up…maybe the odd individual here and there suddenly in the Kingdom. And we have this deep knowing that it is Christ working this stuff in us. Why are we so sure? Because…everywhere…just everywhere right through the New Testament epistles it says this is how things will be. Its running right through like lettering through a stick of Blackpool rock

Poetry Break: Coatney,Velveteen Rabbi,Welch,Keys

WEANING



You push me away
and reach for the bottle.

Once in Scotland I parted
spongy turf with my fingers

and water welled up like sorrow
its source unknown.

In my childhood playhouse
the table was always set

for guests who never came.
Already my body is shrinking.

You settle like a little king
into the crook of my arm

one hand seizing
the plush belt of my bathrobe

the other splayed
across the warm cylinder.

Your lashes drift down
and your restless legs still

exactly as they did
when I was everything. Velveteen Rabbi

A Million Thoughts



When a million thoughts

go through your mind,

catch them like butterflies,

so the thinking goes,

bringing every thought captive.



What about those thoughts that

aren’t butterflies though?

Ah ha, to make them into such

takes magic we don’t have

but think we should,



if not to the end of what a soul is,

that butterfly catching and making

is not the doing of us doers,

but the being of the is-er.



This is-er, we find, doesn’t even

catch or take a thought, much less

a million , and morph them

into butterflies, or ask us to.



But in the mystery of the new mind,

not I but Christ, and His

silky, linen effortless way,

powdered wings float everywhere.



This might be in the midst of

all that is excruciating,

but simple it is, and sweet.

And there is where we meet.


Brian Coatney/9-26-10

Whimsical Muses or Musical Whimsies by Chris Welch 25/09/10

It's not the thought that thinks.

It's not the window that views.

It's not the spire that inspires.


It's not the wind that winds ... a clock

It's not the pterodactyl that pterorises

It's not the alone who are lonely


It's not the sandwich that is sandwiched...

It's not the moon that is a crescent

It's not the crescent that is a cul de sac


It's not the dead end that is the end

It's Life that is the end

after the dead end

has died.


Other Poems so far......
Bryan Coatney

Play

Chris Welch
Supposing I jumped in with both feet

New Privacy Settings

Martha Keys
Seeds of war and Seeds of peace
At the bottom of this post

A recent History of Psalm 24:Part 3 by Daniel Yordy

My note: Daniel's Parts one and two come from his own numbering. In my series they are Part 3.

Open Ye Gates: Part 1 Daniel Yordy

I am so very excited this morning. Over the last several days, God has given me one of the most important keys for the unveiling of Jesus Christ that there is. I want to carefully share that key with you.

The central point, the way of seeing that opened the door for me, came out of a recent exercise of contemplating and drawing out a corrected (Chris Welch called it "More Accurate") diagram of the spirit-soul-body of the believer, along with something Annie Schissler said, something Chris Welch said in an email to me, something Joel Osteen said last Sunday, and a whole lot the Lord showed me in the middle of the night and in a victory over the weakness that has sat upon my physical body for many years now.

If you are serious yourself about being part of the unveiling of Jesus Christ at this beginning of the age to come, I would strongly urge you to print out this document and spend time with it until you understand what the Spirit of God is speaking to you personally through it.

A Corrected Diagram of Spirit-Soul-Body (pdf)

I am convinced we are in the first years of the age to come and my faith that God has chosen to include me in the revelation of Jesus Christ grows stronger and clearer. It is with great joy that I am also convinced that He has chosen you as well. When I say, "God has given me a key to share with you," I am being bold, on the one hand, yes, but I am also convinced that you are in no way dependent on "me," but that Christ is revealing Himself through you right now as well.

We have viewed ourselves and Christ in ourselves completely backwards and inside out. Previous diagrams of spirit-soul-body, put the inside of us on the outside, put the outside of us on the inside, made the largest part of ourselves the smallest and the smallest part of ourselves the largest. No wonder our Christian lives have been such a mess, our thinking has been all screwed up.

Let's look at the previous model of how we saw ourselves and how we saw Christ in us.

According to the backwards way of seeing ourselves, the outer circle is the body. I made it brown to represent the earth out of which it came. The second circle, the grayish-whitish one, is the soul. We used to believe that all Christians ARE double-minded, that we have to accept the hard reality that we have two minds. No one can deny that we have the mind of Christ, since God says we do so clearly. But everyone is convinced we also have a carnal mind and that we go back and forth with every part of our soul being at least a touch of gray, with parts of it being much darker.


According to the backwards way of seeing ourselves, the inner circle is our spirit. That spirit is tucked deep inside, somewhere in the inner parts of ourselves. Now, we admitted that our spirit was made clean, that it was born again. But we placed two definite hearts inside that inner circle. We were convinced, not only that all Christians are double-minded, but that all Christians are double-hearted as well. Yes, we had to agree that Christ lives in our heart because God says He does, but we also believed that inside our human nature was also a heart that is deceitful and desperately wicked.

And so Christ lives in a tiny little room deep inside ourselves somewhere, and that little part of us certainly is redeemed and contains goodness and righteousness. But there were a whole lot of other things inside of our makeup that we were convinced are certainly not Christ.

But that whole way of seeing ourselves and of seeing Christ in us, also required the invention of a third little guy. That third little guy is ourselves - the guy with the blue face, the me that always bobs around no matter how hard I try to die to me. You see, we were blue in the face because we were always running so fast back and forth between Christ and that evil guy called SELF. Back and forth between the red heart made clean by the blood and the black heart still wicked and deceitful. Up and down between a "spiritual" mind and the carnal mind.

And so the Christian life, in this inside-out way of seeing, just wore us out. There was certainly no rest for the blue-faced me, all the days of our lives. Christ in us was limited entirely to that one red heart. And it was up to us to bring every other part of our makeup into obedience and submission to Christ, something the blue-faced me, never knowing for sure if he was red or black or simply blue, could never succeed in doing.

Now, isn't this the way you used to see yourself? And isn't this the way most Christian teaching about the "Christian" life came to you? This was certainly how truth was applied in the move of God I used to be a part of and how I saw myself for many years.

I do not want to repeat here what I already wrote in A Corrected Diagram of Spirit-Soul-Body. So if you have not read it yet, please do so now.

All through the Old Testament, especially the Psalms, and in anointed songs we used to sing are the words "Open ye gates, and the King of Glory shall come in."

Open ye Gates,

and the King of Glory shall come in!

This is what we want; this is what all creation is groaning for; this is the only answer for any and all of the problems in this world - the entrance of the King of Glory. This is the revelation of Jesus Christ, this is the beginning of the age to come.

This word is not just something found in the pages of the Old Testament that's nice to sing. This is a clarion call, a command, sent forth by the power and might of the Spirit of God, resounding from eternity to eternity. "Open the gates!" It is a word on par with, equal to, the word God spoke in the beginning, "Let there be light," a command that birthed the universe and all things that exist - The Lord Jesus Christ issuing forth from the Father.

Open the Gates.

What are those gates? There are three of them, to be exact. And who opens the gates? Who is entrusted with this greatest of tasks, this greatest of responsibilities? Who gets the honor of being the one who opens the gates to allow the King of Glory to ride through and into every part of the earth?

Here is the backwardness turned around. My spirit is the largest part of me, literally and actually. My human spirit extends far beyond my physical body. I will not spend time discussing how far, except to say that since my human spirit is one spirit with the Holy Spirit, my human spirit literally fills and extends beyond the universe. That's not our concern right now, however; our concern is to open the gates. This is the great privilege that you and I have been given by the Father.

Not only is my spirit the largest part of me, but my heart, which is the anchor and center of my spirit inside my being, is the portal, the front room, the vanguard of heaven. My heart, then, is much larger than my body, even though it is the center of me, of who and what I am.

The physical body and the earth is the smallest part of this equation. The King of Glory already fills heaven. He fills my spirit; He lives in my heart. I am not opening the gate to let Him into me. That happened when I was born again. The King of Glory is on the outside of the earth, looking in. He wants to enter out of heaven and into the realms of the physical, into the earth, into this planet. And I am not talking about present evangelism. I'm talking about the whole creation being set free into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. I'm talking about the unveiling of Jesus Christ.

Now, Annie Schissler, in her 2006 vision that I included in my last letter, shared that the elect ones must open the gates for the mighty moving of God to enter into the earth and to reach all those who are precious to Jesus beneath the storm. She shared that this opening of the gates included two specific things: a cleansing and purification greater than anything known before, and a deeply increased personal intimacy with the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord has shown me over the last few days exactly how the opening of the gates is both of these things at the same time.

Let us anchor ourselves into the One who alone keeps us true and with God.

Jesus.

"He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him."

My spirit is one spirit with the Holy Spirit. The union of my spirit and the Holy Spirit is called "Christ." But there is a huge difference between the Christ of God and the "christ" that is the new age spirit of Satan. God is always personal. Satan denies personality and comes in as an impersonal "force" just like the "force" on Star Wars. That is why I refuse to write "Satan" with a small letter. A capital letter in English grammar denotes personality, the name of some one. Satan wants to be known as an impersonal force. He is not; he is a person who will bow his knee to the Lord Jesus.


Jesus is God present personally in the human realms. I am not filled with a "force" called "Christ." I am filled with the Lord Jesus Christ. A person.

But the nature of the Spirit of God and of the personality of the Lord Jesus Christ means this.

He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. He that is joined to the Lord is one person with Him. He that is joined to the Lord is one heart with Him. He that is joined to the Lord is one will with Him. He that is joined to the Lord is one mind with Him. He that is joined to the Lord is one set of emotions with Him. He that is joined to the Lord is one body with Him.

"For we are of His flesh and His bones." Ephesians 5

I read recently a rebuttal of the claims of Christianity. The writer said, "If two people say 'I am Jesus,' we know one of them is lying."

The world and the spirit in this world demand that Jesus, the Messiah of God, the One sent into the world, be one individual person, quantifiable, and therefore excludable. God wants Jesus to be many. Jesus said, "If I enter into the "earth," into the humanity of the body of Christ, and "die" there in them, then I will come alive in them as many, many more of Myself."

Jesus is a Person, my elder Brother, my Savior, my Friend, the One upon whose breast I lean my head.

I am a person, conscious of myself as a living being, with a mind, a will, and emotions, and with a heart stretched and filled with hope, forged in affliction, in beauty, and in love.

Jesus and I are one person together. We walk together in sweet communion with no distinction of separation between Him and me. It is by this anchor alone that you and I walk forward boldly into the mind-blowing stuff God is releasing into this earth without being afraid of going off the deep end. We already have.

My spirit, Christ in me, is the largest part of my being. My spirit fills and pervades every other part of me. My spirit fills and pervades my will, my mind, my emotions, and my body. The vibrancy and frequency of my spirit, joined as one with the Holy Spirit, reverberates through all of my makeup.

But there is a barrier, a door, a gate, three to be exact, placed by God into me as the entrance of the King of Glory into the physical body and into the earth.

The first gate is my will. The second gate is my mind. And the third gate is my emotions. The first target of the entrance of the King of Glory through these gates IS the healing of my physical body.

"But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you." Romans 8:11

We do not distinguish between His Spirit and our human spirit; they are one spirit.

But just as we had the view of ourselves all mixed up, inside out and backwards, so was our understanding of the opening of these three gates.

Of these three gates, the largest and most important GATE, through which the King of Glory issues forth into all the realms of earth and of this world, is the mind. And I, me, Daniel Yordy, I have complete and total control of my own mind at all times. In God's order, there is never one moment nor any way in which another force separate from me, ever takes control of my mind. If that happens in someone, it is demonic; it is not Christ.

My mind is the central gate, and I, me, my mind, is the only keeper of that gate, the only one who must by willful and deliberate practice, open that GATE of heaven for the King of Glory to ride triumphantly through. God will have it no other way; God will never, ever violate me or remove from me the power He has given exclusively and only to me, the gatekeeper of the House of God, the gatekeeper of heaven invading earth.

But first is the opening of the will. And this has been so very, very backward in Christian teaching. Here is why.

The garden of Gethsemane was at the end of Jesus' work and ministry in this earth. It was at the end of the career of a manifest Son of God revealing the Father in the work the Father sent Him to do. The prayer of Jesus in John 17 comes BEFORE Gethsemane. Jesus said, "I have finished the work You gave Me to do," BEFORE He prayed, "Not My will, but Thine be done."

Jesus is the pattern. But foolish teachers of the word have taken this final work of a mature Son of God and placed it entirely upon babes in Christ. That practice is so wrong it is wicked. Yes, in the pattern of Jesus revealed again in our lives as sons of God, there is a fulfillment of Gethsemane once again upon the earth in the second witness of Christ. That fulfillment of Gethsemane finds its place inside of Revelation Chapter 11. I see what that is (dimly) and how it will work in our experience; I may share that in a letter before I have completed this series on the Unveiling of Jesus Christ, but God continues to surprise me on where He wants this series to go.

But the opening of our will to allow the King of Glory to come through into our minds, into our emotions, into our physical body, and through us into all the earth, is something quite different.

Let me explain.

We had a dog a few years ago. This dog, Jack, was skittish and fearful. I got it for my son, but it proved to be a poor choice. We had it in the back yard, but we had to confine it. We put up a wire with a pulley to which he was attached. He could run back and forth, which he did, barking and whining, pulling against the chain all the time, wearing a muddy track in the yard. This went on for months until we were beside ourselves. When Jack was off the chain, though, he always wanted to come into the house. Finally, we gave up. We removed him from the chain and brought him into the house. He made a mess, yes, but the most amazing thing happened. Jack was transformed in a moment. The chain made him rebel. Freedom brought him peace and he lay quietly for hours on end, content to be in the presence of his master.

Those who understand natural freedom and prosperity and how they work in the earth say this: "Freedom is the mother of order, not its daughter." Now this statement is in full agreement with the word of God, but not with Christianity. Christianity wants to claim that the only way we can know freedom in this world is to first impose order. Then, when everyone is in order, we will know true freedom.

That argument is false. It is Satan's way of control. But to the religious mind, the belief that freedom, setting someone completely free to do good or evil as they wish, is the only thing that will birth order into the universe, to the religious mind, that idea is heresy. How can order come out of freedom? But man on this earth has proven over and over that the more order is imposed, the more chaos results. The more people are made free to do whatever they want to do, as in the early years of America, the more orderly society became and the more prosperity everyone enjoyed.

The increase of externally imposed "order" in America today in the guise of "security" can only result in an ever increasing loss of prosperity and freedom and an ever increasing chaos, thus requiring more "order."

In Europe, they tried an experiment in different places recently. They removed all traffic signs and lights from a small town. There were now no laws governing traffic, none. What happened? Accidents decreased sharply, the traffic flowed much more orderly than it had before, and people began to acquire a deeper appreciation for the other person than they had once shown.

Law always inserts itself between people. When law is imposed, relationships go through the law before reaching the other person. When freedom is released, people relate to one another as people. The argument that freedom only releases "the beast," is not true. The Beast released in history has always come through those nations that practiced the strongest and most forceful "ORDER."

The chaos we see growing in America comes entirely through the increase in laws. The more things that are made illegal, the more crimes must be committed. Paul said that the knowledge of sin comes through the law; without law, we would not know sin. Freedom comes through Christ and through the presence of His Spirit, completely separate from outwardly imposed law.

Let's bring this discussion back into the will of a believer in Jesus Christ. I was taught and believed that my will was not, in itself, submitted to God's will. I was taught that I had to "learn" to obey. I was taught that God spoke, I heard, and then I was to do what God told me to do. If I didn't want to do what God told me to do, if I refused, then I was in rebellion against God.

[I came to the place that I rejected instantly any thought that could be "God" telling me to do something. My gut always told me that to "obey" something that "came" to me was a violation of my person. My theology said the opposite. I learned to live in an unnatural contradiction - not a good idea.]


I was taught that I needed to seek God's will all the time, because God's will was something quite foreign to my will. I was taught that God's will and my will were two different and opposing things. I was taught that I needed to continually seek "confirmation" to determine if I was continuing to do "God's will" instead of my own will. I was taught that my will was always at odds with God's will, that my will, if it asserted itself, would always chose a way that was not God's way for me. I was taught that my will, by its very nature and essence, was always opposed to "God's will," that my will was always at war with God's will.

I was taught that I needed to die to my will, die to doing what "I" wanted to do, that I always needed to do something other than what I wanted to do. I was taught that obeying my superiors was the stand in for "God's will," since they represented God's spiritual authority in my life. I was taught that a "strong-willed" person (such as I was charged as being) was always walking in resistance to God. I was taught that I always needed to have a "submissive" will if I ever wanted to know Christ or to move in any kind of spiritual authority in the body of Christ.

All this was fine for me, from age twenty to age thirty-three, as a single man. But then I married. I now had the responsibility of a wife and a son. And something shifted inside of me. I had fully embraced "submitting to the elders." That was how I lived. But now that I bore a responsibility before God for others who were dear to me, I found that "submitting to the elders" was a continual denial of my God-given place - as if it was not important.

I will not go through the agonizing experiences that locked me into a deep and all-pervasive sense of powerlessness, of rightful power denied without hope, that sat its dark shadow upon my soul. That dark shadow of powerlessness worked its way into every cell of my physical body over a period of some years.

I became sick.

For twenty years I have labored under that sickness, that weariness of body and heart. All of His ways concerning me are perfect. God made me weak. But He did not make me weak for any other reason than to bring me to the knowledge of His power and His glory released through me. And for that I give Him thanks for every dark and lonely place I have ever known.

I am now an enemy, a ferocious enemy, of that false teaching concerning the will of the believer and that teaching's dark and vicious repudiation of the gospel and salvation of Jesus Christ, the thing that whines "Dead men have no rights."

Let's root ourselves in something specific God says.

"Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure." Philippians 2:12-13

When Paul says, "For it is God who," he is making it clear that what God does comes first before anything we do. What we do comes only out of what God Himself does. And what God does is that He creates His will inside of our will and even the doing of His will in our will is of Him.

Now to the beginning and the essence of the gospel. "Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." Romans 5: 1-2

Peace with God is the very first thing that comes into the life of the new believer who is first justified by faith. I am not at war with God. My will is not opposed to God's will, and God's will is not opposed to my will. War is something that can be conducted only in the will. There is complete peace between my will and God's will. I, me, Daniel Yordy, I am at peace with God.

That is basic gospel truth.

The opening of the first gate is the acknowledgment, the acceptance, that the cross of Christ is enough for me. It is finished. The opening of the first gate is the revelation that Christ is my life, the acceptance of Paul's words, "I am crucified with Christ. But I'm still alive, only, it's not me, it's Christ." The opening of the first gate is the acceptance, the surrender, the yielding, that I am not a self separate from Christ, that I, joined to the Lord, am one spirit and one person with Him.

It is those believers who see themselves as separate in any way from the Lord Jesus, who believe that they have a will that is contrary to God's will, and that they must force their own will into submission and obedience to God's will, it is those believers who remain at war with God and in rebellion against the Lord Jesus Christ.

But when I surrendered to the certain conviction that Jesus and I are one spirit and one person, that I am in Him and He is in me, all struggle vanished. All contention between "my will" and "God's will" just disappeared. I know that I can do whatever I want. I know that all things are lawful for me. And I also know that I love Him; I know that the only place I want to be is to rest quietly at His side, with my head leaned against His breast, just like Jack!

I do not seek God's will for my life; my life IS God's will. Inside of that certainty, I follow the peace of God, knowing that He directs my steps. And I never, ever worry about whether I am doing "my will" versus God's will. I am always doing both. If I do what I want to do, I am doing God's will. If I do God's will, I'm doing what I want to do.

I am one spirit, I am one person, with Him.

Over the years, I have often "surrendered" my will to God's will. Those places and times were deep and penetrating. God never concerns Himself with our limited understanding of Him and His ways, but He always comes to us in tenderness and great kindness, no matter where we walk. But I have never known a deeper or sweeter surrender than to stop trying to call myself a "self" separate from God.

The prophet Joel said that multitudes of people are thrust into the valley of decision. He said that the day of the Lord is near the valley of decision. He was not talking about me.

My decision was made long years ago, I can take you to the very moment and the very place. It was a most unlikely place, a toilet stall in a Greyhound bus station in Prince George, British Columbia. I was twenty one years old. The fear and presence of God came upon me and I went into the stall so that other people would not see me tremble. God said, "Will you surrender yourself as a son to me?" I answered, "Yes, Lord." God sealed me in that moment into that decision and has never paid attention to anything else I've said since.

I follow Jesus. The GATE of my will stands wide open.

But I have passed page 8, and I have much yet to write about the opening of the primary GATE of the mind and the opening of the gate of the emotions to the King of Glory who fills our physical body with the presence of His healing virtue and moves out from us bringing life and healing to the whole earth. So I will have to call this Part 1 and write another Part 2.

Blessings in Christ, Daniel Yordy

P.S. I don't usually throw something like this in, but I urge you to read and understand this article.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Open the Gates: Part 2
PDF original
"Lift up your heads, O you gates!
And be lifted up, you everlasting doors!
And the King of glory shall come in.
Who is this King of glory?
The LORD strong and mighty,
The LORD mighty in battle.
Lift up your heads, O you gates!
Lift up, you everlasting doors!
And the King of glory shall come in.
Who is this King of glory?
The LORD of hosts,
He is the King of glory." Psalm 24:7-10

"But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him." 1 Corinthians 6:17

"Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place." 2 Corinthians 2:14

The unity between ourselves and Christ is complete. We have an eternity to discover more and more what it means, but nothing can ever be added to the unity with the Lord Jesus Christ that we presently enjoy; it is perfect and complete.

I must confess an "error" in my last letter, Open Ye Gates: Part 1. I have set myself not to bend or twist Scripture in order to "back up" what the Lord is teaching me. "Open the gates" is from Isaiah and is followed by, "that the righteous people who keep the truth may enter in." The reference to the King of glory is here in Psalms 24 and is prefaced by the phrase, "Lift up your heads, O you gates!"

We sang both phrases in gospel songs. As I considered what Annie Schissler saw in her vision, that the sons of God needed to open the gates inside of them, and as I considered the role of the mind in the salvation of God, that we are being renewed in the spirit of our mind, that song came into my heart in full force, only it put the two phrases together, "Open ye gates - that the King of glory may come in." Combine that with seeing our spirit as the largest part of us, and knowing that from God's point of view, the Holy of Holies fills the universe and that the outer court and the earth beyond it are tiny in relationship, it is apparent that the King of glory is coming out of that which is heaven and entering into that which is earth.

I must be honest, then, in sharing with you that the line, "Open the gates, that the King of Glory may come in," comes from prophetic utterance, not from the actual Scriptures. We can move forward with that because Jesus said, "He that believes in me, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water." Those rivers of living water are the King of Glory entering into all creation, bringing into the earth the glorious liberty of the sons of God.

I found this explanation on the Internet: "The words 'lift up your heads, o ye gates' can also be translated, 'Yield, you princes at the gates'." However, the phrase "lift up your heads" is a wonderful phrase. To lift up Christ in every possible way inside of us IS the entrance of the King.

Now, when we lived as if we ourselves were separate from the Lord Jesus Christ and were required by God to bring ourselves into alignment with His word, we sought for the Lord with all our hearts, yes, but we lived always under a shadow of condemnation and all of our teaching came out of that shadow of condemnation.

But now everything has been turned around for us. We know that we are not separate from the Lord, but that in God's incredible plan, Jesus Himself entered into the earth and became us, the human us. Now He is rising up in us, in our humanity, transforming us from the inside out. Our part is to rejoice with all expectation, to keep our confidence high, to sit boldly upon the throne, the mercy seat of God, and to speak all that God speaks as Christ made personal in us.

Our part is to lift up our heads, which is lifting up Christ.

It is the reckless confidence of David that alone pleases God. Our joy and our freedom are what makes us pure.

The responsibility granted to us by God, to open the gates for the King of Glory, is no longer an obligation as we once thought it was, but it is an honor and a privilege that God has extended to us. There is no greater honor in the universe save that which belongs to Jesus alone, and all honor and glory that belongs to Him, He says that He shares it fully with us.

For those of you who continue to read these letters, there is no doubt in my mind, the gate of your will has been swung fully wide for the King of Glory for many years.

The opening of the Gate of the Mind is the essence of sanctification, redemption completing its work in the salvation of our souls. The opening of our mind to the Lord Jesus Christ is not the obligation or duty it once was, "Stop thinking, you sinner, you're mind is carnal!" It is the incredible privilege given to us who, as God says, "have the mind of Christ."

The confusion through the years concerning my own mind and its role in my life was almost as great as the confusion concerning my will that I shared with you in Part 1. I will not go much into the details. But discovering that I am Asperger's has answered all the questions (and accusations) concerning my mind that I could not understand for years. Asperger's do not have the normal human quality of intuitively knowing how to respond and communicate with people in a social setting. That is the primary definition of Asperger's. It is different from normal shyness or being introverted.

As a teenager, I liked to be around others my age, yes, but I learned quite soon to keep my mouth shut - always. No matter how reasonable I thought my words would be, they always turned out to be the completely wrong thing to say. The only way an Asperger's can know how to communicate in a difficult or "political" setting, that is, dealing with authority, is to figure it out mentally. But that takes time and you have to rehearse what things may or may not result in unexpected pain hurled back at you. You have to figure out what was said, what it meant, how you should respond, and all that takes place some hours after the event.

Meanwhile, the outward appearance of one who is Asperger's (a form of autism) resembles "pride." Those who are Asperger's are almost always defined as "proud and unsubmissive," even though they are often pouring out their hearts in giving, happily tootling along in their own little world of serving others, without any knowledge of how people are defining them. And when those definitions are thrown back at them, they have no idea what it means or how to answer.

Teaching school, in my own classroom, behind my teacher's desk, is a safe place for me. If a student says something personal, I can always respond with the safe and easy, "Is that so?" They think I'm weird, but at least it's okay.

So all the preaching against "the carnal mind" or "that peanut brain that thinks too much," could only confuse me. I was nearly thirty, in college, when I discovered that I was fairly intelligent. (I did not understand other people until I went to college, therefore I could in no way understand myself.) My naïve, joyous amazement at that discovery, you can be sure, did not go over very well.

But the defining moment came several years later in an elder's meeting, sitting next to another elder who turned to me and said, "Daniel, your problem is you think too much. You need to stop trying to think everything through." He repeated himself several times, with all the other elders in the circle nodding their agreement. I sat there like a rabbit caught in the headlights. I had no idea what he meant. I didn't know, then, that everyone else in that room had a normal human capacity that I did not share. I might have thought, having just gone through the exercise together of burying "under the carpet" a disastrous business start-up, that their problem was that they didn't think enough. But I didn't say anything; I just walked home that night totally confused, convinced that there must be something desperately wrong with me.

So when I discovered that God says that I have the mind of Christ, but He never, ever says that I have a carnal mind, rather, He says that I am not in the flesh, I am in the Spirit - that discovery was such joy and freedom for me, a truth I latched onto with all my strength and commitment.

I absolutely do not like preaching against "the carnal mind." It is pointless, it takes no one anywhere, it does nothing for anyone. No one has ever been delivered from "their carnal mind," from any and all of the boatloads of worthless exhortation in that regard. Preaching against the carnal mind has never brought anything but confusion to anyone. We do not preach against, we preach Christ. We lift up our head!

Christ is my life; I have no other life. When I am preached against, that preaching is going against something that died and was buried long years ago. What a waste of breath! To preach Christ is to fill people with hope and expectation, with confidence and joy. Christ is well able to save to the uttermost.

God will never violate your mind. He will never ask you to put your own mind on hold. To violate your mind or your will is to violate your person, it is to rob you of your conscience, it is to deface the very image of God. Only Satan would ever do that.

Your mind, my mind, is so precious to God, that He honored it with the most important task given to anything in the universe, outside of the task given to His Son upon the cross.

David said, "I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness."

My mind has been given the honor and the privilege by God to open the way to the King of Glory, that He might enter in to the full possession of all that belongs to Him. I am - my mind is - the doorkeeper of God's house.

Our previous view of our mind was that it was the thing that needed to be renewed. Our present view of our mind is that it is the thing that releases the Lord Jesus Christ into all the world. That is what a renewed mind means.

The union between the Holy Spirit and our human spirit IS Christ in us. Our born-again spirit is the largest part of our makeup. It fills and pervades and gives life and energy to every part of our soul and every cell and organ of our body. If you remove the frequency, the life, the energy, which the spirit imparts to the physical body, the body itself instantly ceases to live. Jesus did not die because His body ceased. His body ceased because Jesus willed His spirit to depart. Many saints do not die because their body fails, their body ceases because they lift up their arms with joy to the entrance of the Lord Jesus into the room, and they leave the body because they have somewhere better to go right then.

"But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you." Romans 8: 9-11

Now, the fact that the body cannot live without the frequencies of the spirit energizing the cells and organs is equally true of the unregenerate. Only, their spirit is still fallen, still the old man. Yet that fallen spirit, that "old man" in them, gives the same life to their bodies as we who are believers seem to experience in our bodies.

Paul, here in Romans 8, is suggesting that as believers, we have a far greater power giving life to our mortal bodies than the unregenerate have. Our spirit is joined in a fused union with the Holy Spirit; our human spirit is the Spirit of Christ in us. Therefore, our spirit, energizing our physical bodies with its frequency, is something so far beyond that which keeps the bodies of the unregenerate alive that there is absolutely no comparison between the two.

So what is it that keeps our own physical bodies operating at the same low, sick frequencies as the bodies of the unregenerate?

Our minds. Our minds remember the wrong things. Our minds remember what ought to have been forgotten, and do not know the truth of what God says, so clearly, in His Covenant with us.

Life, immortal life, eternal life, abundant life, is in our spirit. Everything pertaining to life and godliness is in our spirit, everything. God Himself is one Sspirit with our Sspirit. Yet our mortal, dying bodies live only because our spirit energizes and gives life to the cells and to all the operations of the body. From whence come the low frequencies, the sickness, the death? Those things do not come from our own spirits, they do not come from the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead. How do they get into our bodies?

Now, someone might think, "Well, this is all focused on our own bodies and not on all the needs of people in the world out there. Shouldn't the focus be 'unselfish' and on how we can help others?"

There is the statement, "Physician, heal thyself," that has some merit. In other words, God has given us our own physical body to practice on. As we learn to open the gates of our mind to the Spirit of Christ in our spirit that it might bring life and healing first to our physical, mortal, dying body, then we will also know how to bring life and healing to all things in creation.

Before I talk about how we do that, I need to lay two foundations. The first is the most important.

I am not separate from the Lord Jesus Christ, and He is not separate from me. When I am doing something, He is doing that same thing. When He is doing something, I am doing that same thing. "In that day you shall know that I am in the Father and you are in Me and I am in you."

It is impossible for us to arrive at the end of what that means. There will never be a moment in all of the ages to come when we will arrive at a wall and God will say, "Well, I guess your union with the Lord Jesus Christ stops here. Jesus continues on the other side of that wall, but you do not." All of His glory, all of it, He shares fully with us; He can do nothing else, for Christ and we are one.

When we get excited about the meaning of Christ revealed as us in our humanity, we can fall into the deception of thinking, "Well, I'm just little old me, and if something wondrous is going to happen, it will be God doing it." But when we get excited about the meaning of Christ revealed through us in His divinity, we look at ourselves and see the tiredness, the sickness, and we moan, "Oh you of little faith," and soon fall under condemnation.

Neither of those two ways of thinking have anything to do with Christ. Let's leave them both in the dustbin of what must be forgotten by our minds.

When I open the Gate of my mind, so that the power and glory of God can move out of my Sspirit into my body, and through me into all the earth, bringing life and healing to all - that "I" operating my mind is the Lord Jesus Christ, AND that "I" is me, Daniel Yordy.

My will has already been opened without reservation to the Lord Jesus. The gate of my emotions swings wide open with joy, with confidence, with overflowing peace and love, once my mind is opened to Jesus. The issues involved in the opening of the emotions are healing and restoration, for which we must extend full and total forgiveness to all others. But it is the operation of my mind upon which God has hung the wheels of the universe. It is through the Gate of my mind through which the Lord Jesus Christ rides into the possession of all His inheritance.

Now, listen, I am sitting here with the full awareness that I have gone off the deep end. I am saying things that are so far beyond me that I am aghast. "Yordy, what are you saying? Have you lost your marbles?" Our problem is this. For us, at this time in our lives, in this day in which we find ourselves, there is NO standing still. We either go forward, wherever going forward takes us, or we draw back. And we know that God takes no pleasure in those who draw back.

So, it's over the cliff for us. Saw that limb off behind you. Leap for the stars.

But again, our SAFETY, and we do need safety, is this - the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, My Savior, the One upon whose breast I lean my head. He is my life; I have no other life. I cast myself entirely upon Him and I know that not only will He keep me, not only will He save me to the uttermost, but that He seats me with Himself upon the throne of His Father. There, and only there, am I safe. I cannot, I dare not, tarry anywhere else. Let us run into Him with all our heart.

And let me open the gate to Him, for He will pass through me into all of this world. He will come no other way. He cannot; for what He does, I do, and what I do, He does. (And whenever I use the word, "I," in these confessions of faith, I know that you use that word to speak of yourself as you read them. Better yet, as you speak them out loud. - And that you replace my name with yours.)

Second, I want to speak briefly of the emotions, which are the third gate through which the King of Glory comes. All the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, all these are expressed through the emotions. God is a very emotional person, and He formed us the same way.

Our emotions are on the side of our soul next to the body. Now, our spirit gives life to our body. James said that the body without the spirit is dead. A corpse has the outward appearance of the person that once lived there, but it is clear that when the spirit let go of the body, the person departed as well. Since the body gets its energy from the spirit, one could surmise that spirit-body is all there is. But this is not true.

When spirit comes into union with body, it gives energy and frequency to that body so that the body is alive, yes. But something else takes place right at the junction, that union, between spirit and flesh, between pneuma and soma. That something is me, my soul, my will, my mind, and my emotions. That something is the psuche. But there is no such thing as a line where the spirit ends and the soul begins or another line where the soul ends and the body begins. That's not how it works at all. Rather, the soul is found all through the merger and the union between the spirit of a man and his physical body.

Modern medicine is beginning to discover (though most won't admit it) that the human personality is found inside of organs besides the brain. That part of our person is found, literally, in the physical organ of the heart. Those who receive the heart of another into their physical bodies, receive also a part of that other person's personality. The Bible suggests that more of our personality is also found IN the kidneys, the pancreas, and so on.

While our will is more involved with the spirit side of things, the emotions are more involved with the body side of things. In other words, emotions are tied up in the condition and functioning of the cells and organs of the physical body, and vice versa. The physical body responds directly to the condition of the emotions.

"A merry heart doeth good like a medicine," is not just a nice saying, it is literal.

When the cells and organs of the body are operating at a low frequency, when they are out of balance, when they are sick, the emotions "feel" very low. At the same time, when bitterness and anger and resentment and unforgiveness grip the emotions, the frequency of the cells and organs of the body lowers, and we become sick in some way or another.

There is a direct connection between bitterness and unforgiveness held strongly in the heart and certain physical diseases. There are times when a person forgives from the heart and the disease disappears. And that happens to the unregenerate as well as the believer, the healing has nothing to do with a "miracle." The miracle was the forgiveness that came.

But physical sickness can come from emotions that are not unforgiveness, it can come from deep unanswered pain as well. Natural health, which tries to understand how God created us, - contrary to allopathy (modern medicine) which loves to drug and cut the body with human invention - is convinced that viruses and bacteria do not "cause" sickness, they only take advantage of sickness that is already there. An un-sick body, operating at its normal high frequency, easily throws off invading viruses.

Demon spirits, external low frequencies casting their shadow upon our bodies and souls, work the same way. When I am always putting everything I find inside myself into Christ and Christ into everything, by an act of my mind, demonic spirits bounce off me like water off a duck's back. But when people sees themselves as separate from Christ, when they live under a shadow of condemnation, then the voices of other spirits sound reasonable to them; they view those "frequencies" as their own, as belonging to themselves, and they become sick.

So, here is what I am saying. We know from Romans 8:11 that the Spirit of Christ is always giving life to our mortal body by the power of the resurrection. Now, I have read those who try to limit the meaning of that verse. Yes, people actually do think they have the gumption, the ability, the crassness, to limit God. Look back at the verse and tell me if you can find a line, a limit, a boundary by which God says, "This far and no more." They try to say, "That's not talking about the transformation of our body into incorruptibility, into immortality, into LIFE."

Anytime anyone puts the lie to God by limiting Him where He never limits Himself, they have set themselves up, not only for a fight with God, but for a stunning and embarrassing defeat. (Jesus calls it "weeping and gnashing of teeth.") God, by His very nature, must defeat those who put the lie to Him, He must prove them wrong. "Let God be true, and every man a liar."

I think I'll stay with, "Yes, God. Let it be to me according to all that You say."

It's the most dangerous thing that we can do as far as this world is concerned, but let's do it. Let's commit ourselves not ever to limit God or ever say to Him, "You can go this far, God, and no more." It is Jesus alone who keeps us safe.

[Let me throw this in. Jesus said, "The words that I speak are Spirit and they are life." By that He meant that the power of the Holy Spirit makes the words God speaks life and reality inside of us. We also know that God speaks to us through many metaphors and symbols. But the mental practice of "spiritualizing" the things God says can also be an effort to claim that God can do it in heaven all right, but He sure won't do it in the earth.]

So now, let me arrive at where I've been going.

I have been physically weak, a debilitating emotional and physical weakness, for eighteen years. I have learned to live with it. I eat healthy; I have explored every natural health avenue and have learned much about how the human body actually works, but though I have found ways to maintain, I have never really gotten better. Doctors have never given me an answer, none at all. They won't even say anything useful, except, "Here's some drugs, be stoned." (Not quite their words, but to the same effect.) I have pursued every form of Christian healing, and have found much blessing from the Lord, but no relief.

The last year has been too much; I simply have not had the stamina to produce half of what even a physically simple job like teaching requires. I gave the little strength I had entirely to my students, with none left over for the school's requirements. That didn't go over too well. Yet I can still function well enough that I appear to be fine.

I refuse to condemn myself. I have closed my ears to many "Job's comforters" over the years. I will not condemn myself; there is no life found in that. I justify God in all things; I am weak, that I might know His power in me.

A few days ago, I picked up a book on adrenal fatigue that I had read before. I have known for some years that my adrenal glands do not work, but there is no "cure," and the medical system does not even consider such a thing.

I read these words. "A sense of powerlessness or helplessness is the most debilitating and stress-inducing emotion there is. Any situation, no matter how bad, is more tolerable and less stressful when you feel you can do something about it." And "the particular kind of rest you need when you have adrenal fatigue comes not so much from lying down, but from standing up for yourself."

I shared with you in Part 1 of this title, concerning the first years of my marriage when I felt completely powerless in every aspect of my life and responsibility towards my wife and my son. I will not go into particulars only to say that indeed, it was a most difficult valley of the shadow of darkness. Yet, in all things, at every step along the way, I justified God and gave Him praise for His goodness. I failed, badly. But He said to me, "Son, you passed the test." I said, "How can you say that?" He said, "In all things you justified Me. You blamed no one."

I carefully select the things I share with you about the places my Father takes me through only because I think that those things can be useful to you to understand the great joy and wonder and power of the glorious and holy thing God is doing now in you. I expect that you apply the truth to your own experiences in life.

I sat there in my chair, a few days ago, and remembered, fully, that debilitating, crippling sense of powerlessness, with no ability whatsoever to stand up for myself or for the integrity of my person. I felt it as fully in that moment as I felt it through all those years. But that was not all that I felt. Much more than that, I felt the power and love of My Savior, filling my heart with Himself. I then took Him, my spirit, stretching His kindness in my heart, with my MIND, I placed the life and goodness of Christ over that pain, that feeling of powerlessness. I placed, with my MIND, that feeling into Christ; and I placed Christ into that feeling.

That deep-rooted, pervading emotion vanished, and I cannot find it again. Its memory is gone. A couple of days ago, I sat and visited with one whom we knew from that time, and I could only remember good things about those who were part of that time. More than that, the sense of fatigue that sat upon my body has lifted. That doesn't mean I'm running laps today. But healing is taking place. I'll explain more of that in a bit.

What happened?

The cells and organs of our body have "memories." That is, the electrical frequency by which they operate picks up and records the various deep emotions that we experience through life. A bad experience will lower the frequency of the cells and organs. Just like a magnetic strip carries information recorded on it, so our cells carry information recorded on them. That is easy to understand.

What I did was use my mind to open the gate so that the resurrection power of the Lord Jesus Christ that fills my heart, that is one spirit with my spirit, could move upon the literal cells and organs of my body and erase the bad frequency that had lodged itself inside of them, erase it with the love and presence of Christ. That is literally how it works.

This is not mind over matter. It is the mind opening itself as a Gate so that the King of Glory, who fills my heart with Himself, can bring healing, that is, the erasure of negative frequencies and the re-writing of the frequencies of life and peace and joy upon the cells and organs of my body.

The power of God and natural science work together in complete harmony. We are not talking about "miracles," we are talking about the normal Christian life.

Here's the point. Why stop there?

Christ fills my heart. As I rest in His joy and peace, using the gate of my mind, I open my heart to extend His life and goodness upon every feeling of pain I have ever known in my life, both emotional pain and physical pain.

I see, with my mind, Christ in that pain and that pain in Christ. Some might call it visualization. But we do not take our definitions from those who climb over the wall apart from Jesus. We see Jesus, and He lives in our hearts. I call it:


Open the gates, the King of Glory comes into His own!


I can take every particular lack in my body and place it into Christ and Christ into it. Or whatever pain or emotional or physical affliction that you might know. And I can see healing.

Even modern medicine is beginning to realize that physical healing comes from the mind. That if you see yourself whole, you will become whole; and if you see yourself sick, you will become sick. I was sick because I could see no way out. That sense of powerlessness was so strong and went so deep into my cells that it takes the present revelation of Christ God has brought me to in order to finally provide the answer.

My will has opened itself wide open to the Lord Jesus because I have stopped trying to exist as a self separate from Him, trying to line up with what I think God expects me to do. My emotions still go up and down, sometimes simply because of something I ate, but as the King of Glory rides through, that gate swings wide open in joy and in peace. Forgiveness is a way of life that became part of me many years ago.

But it is by my mind that I open the door to Him into every part of this world. As I see Him in all things, as I mentally place Him there, the Lord Jesus Christ in all things and all things in Him, the King of Glory rides through and takes possession of all that belongs to Him.

God always leads me to lift up the victory of Christ in every situation. That practice is an exercise conducted by the mind.

And it extends far beyond healing for our own emotions and physical bodies. When my son is troubled, resulting in disturbance with his mother, can I not place my hand upon his shoulder, open my own heart to reach out over him and place the Sspirit of Christ all around and through him and to place him into that same Spirit? And if I see him in Christ and Christ in him, can I not believe that the frequency of the spirit of Christ IS, in that moment, erasing the negative disturbance?

That is the application of grace, and it comes through the gate of my mind. It is Christ, and it is a thousand times superior to the application of the law through punishment.

But the mind does not work alone; it works hand in hand with the tongue and the voice box. When I speak Christ, that is an exercise of the mind.

The mind has been given the great task of opening the GATES for the entrance of the King of Glory into all His inheritance. It is the Spirit that flows through as rivers of living water, but it is the mind that opens the floodgates.

Jesus said, "Whatever you ask the Father, believe that you have received it, and you shall have it." He said, "If you have faith as much as the very tiniest of seeds, you will move mountains."

We have made that into an abnormal, spiritually "deep" occurrence given only to a few particular mighty men and women of God. But Jesus was saying that the entrance of God into the earth comes so simply and so easily. Releasing God into creation in power is a simple, normal part of the normal Christian life.

It is as simple as giving a cup of cold water - and seeing Christ move in power with our minds.

And here is a critical point. We neither "expect" to see nor "not expect" to see a physical change in that moment. We know that God is working in power the moment we speak Christ into anything. That is an absolute given. And we know that what we have asked for is absolutely coming into creation. The moment of its appearance, whether immediate or delayed a short time has no bearing on the fact that good things are the path of our future.

We know it is happening because we believe it to be true. We have lifted up our heads and opened our minds to the entrance of the King of Glory, and He is riding through!

Be blessed in the Lord, Daniel Yordy

A Recent History of Psalm 24: Part 2 Havant Conference 2008

Some time ago I imagined this light-hearted image:
Pearl Schwarz and Andy Buzznik both prepared themselves for the evening report. One of the spinoffs from the Hadron Collider was that at a tremendous cost Time Travel was now possible. As nations clubbed together the billions needed for the rare excursion they could afford, it had fallen on the luck of Nightly CVS News Anchors Pearl and Andy to return to a significant date in history, record the event then return. There was only one date imaginable and unanimously chosen by poll: the day of Jesus Resurrection. So Pearl and Andy stood a few meters from the Garden Tomb.
"Well this seems to be about it. Any moment Jesus is going to appear and according to the testimony of many bystanders over the following days be seen alive after 3 days in this tomb."
"I know , Pearl....this so exciting."
"Only we want to do it right."
"That's right Pearl."
"I mean Jesus c'mon! If this is all true we want a proper evaluation of the event. It was a really cool stunt you pulled off there, but your marketing of the event was lousy. So let's hope we can pull this off. Anything's better than the job Jesus did. Being able to return to this event helps us in our day, but we can bring our whole expertise to this day too."
Someone shouted , "Cameras ready to roll....any time now..."
Andy asked "Pearl. Was that your creative festooning around the mouth of the tomb there? The one with the letters "Welcome back Son of God" "Sure was Andy. Back in New York we'd have had more of a team of creatives, but I thought we could at least manage that."
" It's early still, the stone appears rolled to one side, you reckon we've got enough extra lighting pointing at the tomb when the two Mary's go inside?"
"We've got enough lighting to light a Broadway stage Andy...it'll be fine." "How about the music?" "We're getting a special orchestral number done by John Williams when we get back and we'll put it as a backing track. It's going to be a spectacular. A sellout smash in every TV station on Earth...can you imagine?" " That's great Pearl...let's just hope we can pull this off...it's just too expensive to ever be able to afford a second take..." " Anything will be an improvement on being mistaken for a gardner Andy. We know what we're doing....OK let's take our positions...." END AC Welch
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Has anyone ever wondered why such a key event as the resurrection, marked by prophecies hundreds of years before, was such a low key affair?
Any atheist who spouts forth his usual dung about God needing to be praised because of a fragile ego...needs to be sat in a chair and forced to reflect on this whole event.
If God was humanly constructed, a lot more of the resurrection day would have been around the supernature of this superman Jesus, heralded and acclaimed. There would be no question of being mistaken for a gardner. I mean there's low key.....and there's God. In the Spirit the whole Cross Weekend determines the legal right for all humans to reenter God's Presence, but as a natural event it played out "outside a city wall", in much the same tone that Jesus first arrived...in a stable at the back of a hotel with no vacancies. Completely off the radar of most in their daily lives.

Why would these things be so?
Jesus was resurrected on the day that a wave offering of a sheaf of corn was waved before the Altar in the Temple. He was that first sheaf at Passover. But that was all it was. One sheaf.

The resurrection of Jesus, even followed by his ascension watched by a relatively small group of people, was low key. These events were not about Jesus. These events were for us. Jesus never sinned. Not one of these events was for His benefit. They were for ours. These events, so heralded...naturally enough...by every main denomination.... were not the goal. As the Jewish Feast calendar shows...
Passover is just the entry point. The initial point de depart of the real thing Jesus was always after. Oh, you mean the coming of the Spirit at Acts 2?
No, I don't mean the coming of the Spirit at Acts 2. That was Pentecost, the second Feast.
No, I mean the Feast of Tabernacles was what the whole thing was ALWAYS ABOUT.
God, tabernacling full-time among His people.
Having a generation who knew how to live in Jesus in the same way that Jesus lived IN THE FATHER.
Having a people that know how to ascend the hill of the Lord. Who know how to open the Gates that the King of Glory Come In.....THOSE Ancient doors.....locked since the beginning of man's days on the Earth....

and to show forth to Principalities and Powers the exceeding great glory now made manifest in the Church
Here and Now
On Earth. Because "I am He that changeth not" . God is and He is a rewarder of those that seek Him. He is an ....Is-er, He always was an Is-er....and that was why He got so annoyed with Martha....
What do you mean the last day Martha...I am the resurrection and the Life...let's do it now. Let's raise your brother Lazarus.

So this is why in 2008 Peter's message on Psalm 24 brought a whole new light. It turned the tables on Ern Baxter's message which was about Jesus, the firstborn among many brethren...... From now on Psalm 24 was going to be about US


2008 Peter Stott - Havant Glory Conference Message- transcribed here introduced the theme that we, the brethren of Jesus, are now opening those gates of Glory here on Earth. The prayer of Jesus was after all "Thy Kingdom Come". Ern's message before and after Kansas City was always that Jesus has ascended on high and the Father told Him to sit at the righthand of the Father and reign UNTIL all His enemies are made His footstool.....and he's not coming back UNTIL....


The Gates of hell shall NOT prevail against the Church. In a small way, we saw this in the Gates of Communism NOT prevailing against the prayers, particularly of the Polish saints in the 80s. The whole wall came down around them.

Perhaps this whole blog should rather be called Psalm 24 WATCH

because
then we saw

Helen Rubio and The Russian Dolls

Those following this blog will already have tucked inside them some key references Helen made here at the same 2008 Conference

Firstly," I felt that God showed me there was a correlation between this (praise) journey and our own spiritual being. And what I saw is that right in the middle there we have the spirit. Then here we have the soul, the will and emotions.And outside you have got the physical body. So the body is kind of like the first heaven where we dwell in our physical reality…The emotion or soulish area relates to the area of spiritual warfare. Then the spiritual area of me is where God dwells. But it is not an outside place. It’s an inside place."

and secondly "You know God’s way of doing spiritual warfare is radically different to the way we think spiritual warfare is done. I have been in so many meetings where there is lots of shouting…and I’m not saying there isn’t a place for that…but in those days that was all our understanding of spiritual warfare was. I want to read you what I believe is God’s definition of spiritual warfare...John 14:9 .."I am in the Father and the Father is in me.....(and following)





Then last Monday two things happened


I received more clarity on the importance of the mind in relation to Psalm 24,and simultaneously Daniel Yordy posted a post on Psalm 24.


I posted this on facebook with reference to Psalm 24


Jorge Pradas and Ed Miller taught us that every time the saints meet there is a key or keys, find the keys and its like Chronicles the glory of God comes down. Things have moved on 30 years,everyone's grown a bit, so the Key of David meetings(Havant) are consistently like this in increasing measure.A few weeks ago I understood this key in terms of Genesis 1 and Psalm 24.That in God we are speaking into different parts of the void each meeting and saying" Let there be Light and Let some more Kingdom Come.Let the King of Glory Come in"

Even before Acts 2, Jesus and the disciples invaded towns with the Presence of God declaring "Let the Kingdom of God come among you." Well for 40 years we've done meetings like this but now we are to do life like this.

Every day has a key. Christ's Life in us knows that key. Because we used to believe there were 3 existences,my life,a separate Christ life and the sin life we have wasted years, dissipating Christs life in us....so keys in the Romans 8 safe tumbler lock never fell, so here we are still with a world not too different from when the Spirit was outpoured. But the time of ignorance is passing.When we live believing we are Christ in our form,we don't have to go searching for demons....situations hunt us out.Often we're in incredible weakness.Not life how we'd choose...but if we don't take that way out...that self medicating way and( instead )see things through and watch what Christ is doing....we see doors open ...from nowhere. The tumblers in the lock have turned!

A Recent History of Psalm 24 Part 1 : The First among many brethren

Open Up Ye Gates.Be Lifted Up Ye Ancient Doors
How we got here1975 - Ern Baxter's Door Opening Word -Thy Kingdom Come
Kansas City Shepherd's Conference
Dan Bowen's transcription is below (what a work this guy has done for Ern Baxter and Rob Rufus's material)

What Charles Simpson said , (and anybody that knows me, ACW,at all, know this...I am where I am,wherever that is, because I too followed this message)
"In 1975, Ern ministered in the closing session of the Kansas City Shepherds' Conference. Nearly 5000 men had gathered; His message was "Thy Kingdom Come." As the message closed, they pulled off their shoes and bowed in God's presence. As they left the auditorium, they sang, "He is Lord." The men sang through the streets of Kansas City. Many people have said that it was the single most powerful meeting that they ever attended, and that the message was the most inspiring that they had ever heard".

AUDIO Part Four is about the Conquest of Christ and contains the initial reference to Psalm 24 in the context of a Man,
the Man,
the Second Adam,
storming the ramparts of Glory which had been shut, and angelically guarded until this time, and were now LEGITIMATELY swung open to accept the FIRST of many brethren !!!!!


I am putting audio clips of the whole message on this post. Reading it is not enough. 5,000....in those days, many were "extremely religious" leaders still, and ofcourse men, -were having their scalps ripped open for the first time as to the true revelation of the Glory of Christ's ascension. They literally exploded during this passage. Over a bass sound system you hear, possibly for the first time in modern history the Roar of the Lion of Judah in amongst the thousands of men shouting and clapping.


This message is just under 90 minutes long, but if played among open hearted believers could be the best investment of your time together . Arrange a time to listen to it ! If necessary print up Dan's transcript below for people to follow.



















For a pretty complete library of Ern Baxter's Output CLICK HERE 


 Transcript by Dan Bowen of Thy Kingdom Come- Kansas City Shepherds Conference 1975 

Part 1- God's Reign 

I would hope that every minister or spokesman of God has a "Now" moment when God seems to anoint their ministry so powerfully that it seems heaven has come down. I don't think I will be contradicted if I say that Ern Baxter's message on "Thy Kingdom Come" at Kansas City in 1975 was quite possibly his crowning moment of his service to God. The anointing on this message make it a "Must Hear" for anyone interested in his preaching. It is interesting to hear what Charles Simpson had to say on this message: "In 1975, Ern ministered in the closing session of the Kansas City Shepherds' Conference. Nearly 5000 men had gathered; His message was "Thy Kingdom Come." As the message closed, they pulled off their shoes and bowed in God's presence. As they left the auditorium, they sang, "He is Lord." The men sang through the streets of Kansas City. Many people have said that it was the single most powerful meeting that they ever attended, and that the message was the most inspiring that they had ever heard". It is my intention to transcribe the entire message and present it in parts. It HAS to be heard and read! It is my passionate prayer that everyone who reads these words has their vision of God, His Kingdom and His Spirit dynamited. That you rise up fired up like never before to know God and His Glory. "I had composed what I thought were some rather clever introductory remarks which now, in the atmosphere of this momentous gathering, seem to have become inappropriate. I sense the Presence of God in this final meeting in a confirmatory way that serves to underline what I have felt all week - that we have been in the Presence of the Living Word of God. That we have not only been ministered to out of the hearts and minds of gifted men, but we have been ministered to on a higher level that marks times of special direction that God gives to His people, when He lifts us up into special dimensions of awareness and insight. Earlier this week Charles Simpson was referring to some related brothers and he spoke of various characteristics of the different men in the group. He said that one of the brothers was always referring to things "in the larger perspective" ... I'm the brother. In speaking to you about "Thy Kingdom Come", that's exactly what I'm going to attempt to do. I'm going to try on this last night to describe the larger perspective of what God is doing - the significance of the practicalities you heard described by experienced and dedicated men. The very practical remarks of John Poole and Larry Christenson and the other speakers have ministered to our needs. I have appreciated the men and their messages. I have been fed and edified. But I feel that to inspire our hearts to respond to those practical teachings, our faith must be charged and sustained by understanding that we are part of a cosmic scheme inaugurated by God and intended by God to be carried out until the entire universe acknowledges that Jesus Christ is Lord ... to the glory of God the Father. (*applause*). 1. God's Reign. God has a problem in communicating with us. The problem is to communicate His infinite mind to our finite understanding. Therefore He gathers up all of our human relationships and uses each of them as metaphors to transmit some understanding of an aspect of His own character. Therefore when we speak of "King" or "Kingdom", God makes use of these expressions to give us some understanding of His own authority. I like Doctor Moffat's translation of the "Kingdom of God". He speaks of it as "The Reign of God" - God's reign. It's the manifest authority of an infinately loving and holy God. It's His authority coming into a time/space world and bringing men into a willing obedience to the order of God. Using this metaphor of a King, the Word of God indicates that God has always been absolute sovereign. There has never been a time when God was not in total charge. The Bible tries to tell us in simple language of the ultimacy of God. There is none before Him. There is none beside Him. He takes orders from none. He was created by none. He is Life - Self-Existent. There is nothing in Him that should be out of Him. Nothing out of Him that should be in Him. He remembers nothing because He's forgotten nothing. He learns nothing because there is nothing He does not know. He does not need to know because He holds all truth simultaneously. He is the God of the Eternal Now. He can look at human history from the beginning or the end or the middle - for all things are known to Him. The Bible tells us that "The Lord has established His throne in the heavens and His sovereignity rules over all" (Ps 103:19 - NAS). The marginal note says, "all" means "the universe". God is the King of the Cosmos. Psalm 29:10 says "The Lord sat as King at the flood; yes the Lord sits as King forever" (NAS) or as another translation says, "Over the ages". He is the God who out of His eternal "nowness" spun the time/space world into existence. He sits outside of it in powerful authority yet He is involved within it in incarnate humility. He is the cosmic King. It is the nature of our God that within the mystery of the plurality of His own Person, there is order. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Or as an old Puritan divine once said, "God in Himself is a sweet society". The order of God's ultimate purpose is to be seen in His own Person. And within the mystery of His Person - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - there is absolute unity while there is inexplicable submission. The Father sent the Son and the Son came. The Son returned to the Father and the Father and the Son sent the Spirit and the Spirit came. Within these three Persons that are co-equal, co-substantial and co-essential, there is evident submission and this serves as the highest lesson to us that God is a God of order. Or as Bishop Hooker once said, "Order is heaven's first law". The Kingdom of God we are speaking of is not some euphoric, ethereal mystic matter. We're talking of order. We are talking of man coming into the fulness of his self-realization, into his ultimate destiny as the image of God functioning in interpersonal relationships and in community until a waiting universe sees God projecting Himself out of the eternity of His Person into a community of redeemed men and women that are to be everlasting praise of His glory. (*applause*).

Part 2 - Satan's A Liar

 That company of mysterious creation, the angels is marked by order. We read of seraphim and cherubim, archangels and angels and we read of God sustaining that order. We read of the covering cherub, Lucifer, who probably was the one whom we now call Satan, who at one time was the "top" cherub in the hierarchy of the angelic order. He rose up in rebellion against God and was cast from his high place. We are reminded again and again that within the order of God, in a pre-Adamic situation in the heavenlies, that God meted out punishment and judgement and maintained order. The God who maintained order in the angelic species is the God who is establishing and will bring ultimate order in the redeemed community. In the world of men, He established His first man Adam and gave him rule over the earth. He made him a ruler and Adam became the first delegated human authority in the earth. Satan himself having been thrust out of a place of authority, moved in on God's creation and subtly entered the human situation of Adam and Eve. Eve yielded to the sinister and subtle seductions of Satan. Adam joined her in eating the forbidden fruit, both of them abdicating in favour of what they considered to be a better offer. Human independence. Satan's first lie to Adam was that if he would move out from under divine order, he would find himself in a most enviable position - he would be equal to God. He would be able to spin his own world off the end of his creative fingertips. He would be able to have his own angelic order. He would be like God. God had been holding out on him! Real life did not lie in submission to God. Real life lay in man coming out from under that submission and establishing an independent posture and so doing his own thing. And so sin has it's initial definition. "All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way" (Isaiah 53:6). Turned everyone to his own way! But that is not the whole story. For as Satan seduced Eve and lured her out from under the authority of God and His order, they thought they were coming out to a position of independence and coequality with God. Instead they came out only to be dominated by the one who had seduced them and drawn them away from God. The Bible tells us that every man who is not under divine authority is not only doing his own thing, but he has adequate and able assistance from demonic powers (Ephesians 2:1-2). Disobedience means that a man has come out from under divine order to do his own thing. And to withdraw our submission to divine order us to automatically come under the deceptive influence of Satan himself. Satan's inital lie was followed by a series of lies for our Lord said that he was a liar from the beginning. His lie started as a bluff and he continues to impose it on many men to this day - Christians included. That lie is that when Adam abdicated his authority, Satan took it over - that when Adam fell, Satan got the authority over the earth. Satan has imposed this lie on generation after generation of men. As a result, many Christians today consider Satan to be almost coequal with God and there is some kind of titanic struggle going on for ultimate authority - the outcome of which is not yet decided. This is not the case. When Adam abdicated authority, Satan didn't get it. God reached down and took the scroll of authority out of Adam's hands and said, "I'll keep it until One comes who can handle it" (*applause*). I suggest that we all memorise and quote Psalm 24:1 as we rise each morning. "The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof - the world and all that dwells therein". Satan has been trying to bluff men for centuries into believing that he has the authority. You reply, "But he is referred to as the prince of this world - the god of this world". Indeed he is, but as we've already been told in this convention - we must learn to define our terms of reference. I'm in the world and he's not my god nor my prince. Nor is he your god or your prince. Therefore we must find out what world he is prince over and god over. He is prince and god over the world of moral intelligences that are willingly submitted to his lying reign. He is not king of my world - he is not god of my world. For I am in a world that belongs to the Lord! I am in a world which God is sovereign over. I'm in a world that has always belonged to God, always will belong to God and which one day will be regenerated and refurbished to become the dwelling place of a community of men and women who have been prepared to manifest God's glory and righteousness in it. (*applause*).

  Part 3  - I will Build My Church 

You may well ask, "If God retrieved order and authority when Adam abdicated it, how then did He handle it?". The Word of God is clear in Hebrews 1:1, 2 that "God who in diverse manners in times past spake unto our fathers by the prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son". God undertook from the time of Adam's abdication to speak to men through prophetic voices. He reigned from heaven and if you'll carefully read the Old Testament Scriptures you'll find that He spoke through prophetic voices. For by definition a prophet is one who speaks for Another. Satan thought that he had the authority, but God had it all the time. He spoke His authority through prophets. Prophets anointed kings. Prophets declared the will of God. Prophets in the earth were inspired to mediate God's divine authority. They did so for the thousands of years until God's Ultimate Prophet came on the scene: God's final Voice, God's ultimate manifestation, God's own darling Son whom He plucked from His bosom and into whom He poured all the riches of His wisdom and grace. This beloved One came down "for us men and for our salvation" to become God's final voice, to become the pattern Son, to become the ideal Man after whom He would pattern a whole community of redeemed ones. God chose to speak through prophets until Jesus came - whose right it was to reign. "There are three significant men in the Old Testament to whom we relate: Adam, Abraham and David. We relate to Adam racially, we relate to Abraham redemptively and we relate to David royally. It is interesting that in the genealogy of our Lord in Luke, He is spoken of as "the Son of Adam". And in Matthew's geneology in chapter 1, He is referred to as "the Son of David" and "the Son of Abraham". Therefore our Lord is traced back to these three men. We all know what it means that He is the Son of Adam and we know what it means that He is the Son of Abraham. But we are only beginning to realise what it means that He is the Son of David. It is also interesting that in all the Gospel birth references to our Lord's coming into the world in miraculous incarnation, He is related to David. I searched in vain in the Scriptures for any announcement of Him in relationship to Adam or to Abraham. He is related to David because only David represents in the Old Testament Scriptures the ultimate purpose of Mashiach (Messiah) in the finalization of God's redemptive purpose. This causes me to wonder if now, as God is calling us to corporiety and community, we are not beginning to realize Kingdom life and authority. For years, we have attracted men to the Jesus Christ Who is the Seed of Abraham. When Paul in writing his Epistle to the Romans, gives us a treatise on the nature of salvation, he refers us to Abraham. But when he's addressing the Corinthians about the corporate community life, he relates us instead to Moses and to the corporate body of the Old Testament community of which David was Israel's greatest king. In Abraham we have individual salvation. But in the nation we have corporate salvation and the corporate salvation of the nation is represetend by God's king "after His own heart" - King David. In Matthew 16 our Lord made the announcement of His purpose. He said, "Who do men say that I am?". They replied, "Some say You're this one and some say You're that one". But He said, "Who do you say that I am?". Peter said, "Thou art the Christ the Son of the Living God". "Blessed art thou Simon Bar-jona" said our Lord, "for flesh and blood have not revealed this unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven". Then came His declaration: "I will build My Church" and "I give unto you the keys of the Kingdom" (Matthew 15:13-19). Now when He said, "I will build My Church", I think the emphasis is on "My". The word "church" is an interesting word. It's the Greek word ecclesia. Both to a Greek and a Hebrew it would have had significance. To the Hebrew, it is that word used in Greek to translate the Hebrew word for 'congregation' which is used over 70 times in the Septuagent version. Therefore what He was saying to the Hebrews was "I will build My congregation". There was only one other person who led a 'congregation' or 'church' (Acts 7:38). So in the book of Hebrews we're told that Moses was faithful as servant in the Lord's house but Christ is Son over the house. It's also interesting that in the Book of Revelation that they sing the song of Moses and the Lamb. Now what was Jesus saying? When He said, "I will build My church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it", it was also a commentary to Moses' church. Moses had his church. He brought his church through the wilderness but he couldn't take his church in. And when eventually his church did go in under Joshua, they still didn't succeed in God's purpose. Moses church was to be the theocratic, national evangelistic centre of the world. It was to establish a theocracy at the heart of the earth that would become the voice of God throughout all the nations. Psalm 48 said it was to be the joy of the whole earth. But division and dissension broke it up and so it dwindled away so that when Jesus came, He to look at what was left of the congregation of Moses and say to them, "Your house is left unto you desolate - and the kingdom is taken from you and given to a nation bearing forth the fruits thereof" (Matthew 23:38; 21:43). But Jesus declared, "Now I will build My church. And the gates of hell shall not prevail against My church. The gates of hell prevailed against Moses church, but not against My church. My church is going to be a successful church. I declare it - I affirm it. I determine it. My church will be a successful church". For years we have interpreted this negatively. We've said, "I'm in the Church and thank God, the devil can't get at me. The gates of hell cannot prevail". So we have huddled together, feeling protected by that Word of the Lord. I don't think that's primarily what He meant. Personally I have never been attacked by a gate (*laughter*). I've never had a gate jump off it's hinges and chase me down the street (*laughter and applause*). So what is our Lord saying by this? He's saying, "I am God's ultimate purpose. There is nothing beyond Me. There's nothing after Me. I have come to do God's ultimate thing. I will build a congregation that will succeed. They will kick the gates of hell in. They'll frustrate Satan's plans. They'll break up his most finest, most sophisticated schemes. I am going to have a congregation that will not fail as Moses did. I am going to have a people who will come under the reign of My Father and who will become indeed, a theocratic community in the earth that will attract the attention of all men". Therefore all nations will be forced to declare that the sending of Jesus Christ was the ultimate answer to earth's need of an alternate society; for they will recognise that His followers are indeed a counter-culture, a community of men and women who have got it together and truly represent the life of the Trinity and the community of heaven in a time/space world".

  Part 4 - The Conquest



"When Jesus came into the world in the humiliation of the Incarnation, He started on a route of conquest that took Him through the lonely years prior to His introduction at the muddy waters of Jordan, when the bony prophet finger of John the Baptist was pointed at Him and those significant words were uttered, "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). For some thirty three and a half years He overcame and lived an impeccable life so that it was said of Him, "He was tempted in all points like as we, yet without sin".

His impeccable life was followed by a decisive death. He went to Calvary to endure inexplicable and incomparable suffering; suffering that we can only have a hint of; suffering that we can only look at curiously and sometimes with a sob in our throats; suffering surrounded by torn rocks and a sun that refuses to shine and an earth that writhes in agony as He hangs there alone. And as He hangs there, God reaches down His giant fist and gathers up the accumulated sins of men and places them upon Him. He became the sin-centre of the universe so that it is later said of Him, "He was made sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him".

In the awful loneliness of Calvary, He made His soul an offering for sin; and the sin of the world was placed upon Him and the bolts of God's wrath were released upon Him. He became an offering for sin and He gave up the ghost and came down from the mystery of His sufferings having finished the work. What men saw was a man hanging limp - every bone out of joint, a swollen tongue protruding from burning lips as He cried out, "It is finished!". They didn't know what was going on. But the veil of revelation is drawn back for us and we are told by Paul that something was going on in the darkness of that awful hour. He was tying a chain around the neck of the demonic world. He was dragging them across the stage of the cosmos. The Bible says, "He was making a show of them openly ... triumphing over them in His cross". He was dealing with sin. He was dealing with the old Adamic society. He was making an end of the old orer of sin and death and when He had done it in the mystery of His cross, He said, "It is finished!" (*applause*).

Then He went down to make His annoucement (*applause and cheers*). The Apostle's Creed says, "He descended into hell" or Hades. I'm not going to take time to document all of these things or enter into argument about them. But I believe He went down and through the authority of what He had just accomplished at Calvary, He confronted Satan himself as He stood at the portals of the world of Hades. And He said to him, "I'll take the keys" (*applause*). Satan retorted, "I've been waiting for You for about 4, 000 years. I was there in the garden of Eden and I heard my sentence. I was told that Someone was going to come along and crush my head. I've been waiting for You and I've been killing people off all along the historical line because I thought they were the ones. But here You are. Now get in there with the rest of them. They're all in there".

Who was in there? Abraham and Issac and Jacob and Isaiah and Malachi - they were all waiting in Paradise. In fact just before our Lord had gone to His Cross, two of them - Moses and Elias - came up on the Mount of Transfiguration to have a conversation with Jesus the Messiah. The Bible tells us what they spoke about. They "spake of His decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem" (Luke 9:31). And they said to the Lord, "Everybody's excited down in Paradise. There's great excitement down there Maschiach. We've been appointed as a committee to come up and tell you that everything's all astir down there (*cheers*). When we left Isaiah wanted to come. He said, "This is the greatest day. I wrote about this and now it's coming to pass!". They said, "Abraham was right behind ... he ... he wanted to come too. But we were appointed to come and tell You that we're so grateful for what You're doing. There are thousands of us down there! Everything's all astir!" (*applause*).

Why? Because under the Old Covenant, the bloods of bulls and of goats couldn't take away sin. There were men down in Paradise clutching in their fist their credit notes - for they were down there with promissary notes! (*applause*). Every time an Israelite laid his hands on a lamb and transmitted his sin, that lamb died in his place. But that at best was a credit note to be redeemed by the most precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. They had beeen waiting for the time when their credit notes would be redeemed and the time had finally come.

So Jesus came down from His Cross and confronted the satanic prince and He said, "I'll take those keys". Satan said, "No one has ever talked to me like this before" (*applause*). Jesus replied, "No one had the authority to before. But as God's King, as the One who has now been given authority as God's delegated Sovereign, I am in charge now. I'll take the keys". Satan handed Him the keys. Then Jesus went over to the unrighteous section, opened the door and looked in and pronounced that they had been righteously judged for having rejected God's counsel under the old economy. Then He shut the door and left them there. But then He turned to the gate of Paradise and opened and said, "Come on - let's go" (*applause and cheers*).

They started up the steps of ascension and when they got as far as Jerusalem, some of those Old Testament saints said, "Master, do you mind if we have a stop-over ticket? We'd like to spend a few hours in the old hometime - we haven't seen it for centuries!" (*applause and laughter*). According to the Bible, the bodies of many of the saints were seen at that time in the streets of Jerusalam (Matthew 27:52, 53). After visiting the old home town they continued their journey.

Up and up they went until they came in sight of the ramparts of glory. Then this great crowd of the Old Testament redeemed who were moving Paradise into better quarters cried out, "Lift up your heads, O gates and be lifted up O ancient doors that the King of Glory may come in!". But it wasn't that easy for the angelic protectors hurled back their challenge over the ramparts of glory saying, "Who is this King of Glory?". The saints replied, "He is the Lord strong and mighty! He is the Lord mighty in battle!" (*applause*). "He is the One whohas just come freshly from the battlefield of Golgotha where single-handedly He dealt a death blow to all of Satan's plans and purposes. Where single-handedly He bore the sins of men, where single-handedly He cut off the old Adamic order, where single-handedly He died a decisive death meeting the demands of God and the requirements for man. He is the Lord strong and mighty - the Lord mighty in battle. Now ... will you 'lift up your heads O ye gates? Lift them up O ancient doors that the King of Glory may come in!".

And again unsatisfied, the challenge rang out, "Who is this King of Glory?". The triumphant response came back again, "He is the Lord of hosts! He is the King of Glory! He is the One who is in charge of all the angelic hosts! But not only that - He is the King now of a multitude which no man can number! He is God's delegated authority! He is the One who is to bring to God the fruit of His purposes! He is the King of Glory - NOW - swing back those gates and let the King of Glory come in!".

And finally the gates swing back and He enters in - steps up to the Father's throne and presents the tokens of His redemption. The Father says, "Sit down Son at My right hand and reign until Thy enemies are made Thy footstool!" (*Thunderous applause and cheers*)."Thy Kingdom Come!" - Part 4 - Kansas City Shepherds Conference.

Jesus the King of Glory. This section is probably the most exciting part of the entire sermon. Ern moves from the enthronement and glorification of Jesus Christ to His reign NOW to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. He shows convincingly how the Holy Spirit is poured out on us to give us kingly authority.


Part 5  Sit There Until....

"Now I don't wish to enter into eschatological debate tonight. I want to simply affirm my faith ... my faith in what I believe the Word of God teaches, with all due deference to what others may think. But I believe that when Jesus sat down at the right hand of God, the Father meant what He said. He said, "Sit at My right hand until ...". That's a time word. And I don't think He is going to leave the right hand of God "until". He's going to sit there until His enemies are subdued. He's going to accomplish this from heaven and when He's got it done, then He will turn the Kingdom over to the Father. But He's not going to do that until He's done the job He's supposed to.

The Father said, "You sit here Son, and You sit here until You finish the job and then hand it to Me finished. You sit here and rule and reign until Your enemies are made Your footstool". Paul picks up this statement and weaves it into the New Testament revelation when he says, "He must reign until ... He has put all His enemies under His feet" (1 Corinthians 15:25). When our Lord rose from the dead He made a pronouncement. He said, "All authority is given unto Me in heaven" and for years we have stopped there in our eschatological scheme. He has all authority and He reigns in benign joy not only "in heaven" but also "in earth".

I don't know of anything that has paralysed the purposes of God more in the earth than the teaching that Christ's authority is presently limited and the "reign of God" in the "now" on earth is not a possibility. I believe that He has all authority in the earth now. He's not only the King of heaven, He's the King of earth. He's the King of Russia. He's the King of China. He's the King of the United States. He's the King of Canada, the King of Europe, Asia, Africa ... He's the King of all the earth even now! (*applause*).

I must confess that it is only in recent years that I have found David in the New Testament. I found Adam there and I found Abraham but I hadn't found David. By that I mean I hadn't found David in the historical and eschatological significance that the New Testament attaches to him. That Jesus was "of the seed of David" - of course I knew He was. He was in the Messianic line and that seemed to be all it meant. There didn't seem to be any real connection between David and Jesus.

Now I had seen that there was a typical relationship betwen Adam and Jesus for Paul says that Adam was "a type of Christ, Him who was to come" (Romans 5:14, NAS). And there was a historical relationship with Abraham for it was Abraham's "seed" that was going to bless the nations of the earth. But not until recently did I realise the significant role that David played in God's plan and His relationship to David. For David prefigured Christ as God's delegated King. When Jesus came into the world, He came into the world as the Son of David. He came in as the King of the Jews. He came in as the King of all those that are redeemed, so that under His authority the redeemed community might become the means by whereby He would establish God's sovereign right to reign in His own redeemed earth.

Now continuing with this theme of David and Jesus I would like you to turn to Acts chapter 2. And I'm not going to ask you to read verse 4. (*laughter*). When we come to verse 29, we find Peter speaking of David's prophetic perception of the Messiah:

"Brethren I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried and his tomb is with us to this day. And so because he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn an oath to seat one of his descendents upon his throne, he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of Christ" (Acts 2:29-31 NAS).

Now I don't want to quibble but it doesn't say that he spoke of the second coming of Christ. I think there's something here of deep significance that we've missed. As a result, it's paralysed us in the realization of the things that we have heard this week and which have been offered to us as present possibilities. When I heard Ralph Martin talk about a counter-culture and all that is going on, my heart leaped within me until I could hardly keep my seat. For I believe that in this hour, God is bringing into focus a fact that has been distorted for many many years, and that is:

God's purpose is not to redeem a bunch of people to sit at a bus stop and wait for the bus to come along and get them out of the world's mess. Rather God has redeemed them and cleaned them up and put Himself into them that He may send them back in to clean up the mess and be "the salt of the earth" and the "light of the world" so that with the power of the gospel they may vindicate God's purpose in the death and resurrection of His Son.

Part 6 - The Kingdom Of God is a Theocracy

Now I believe that the second coming of Christ is the hope of the believer but I don't believe it holds out any hope to the sinner. It is the sinner's damnation - it is the sinner's judgement. Therefore if the sinner is to be helped, either individually or corporately there is only one way that God has designed to help him. That is by the power of the gospel. For the gospel is is the power of God unto salvation. And if it's the power then there is no "the-er" power.

And if Jesus Christ has all power in earth, there is no "all-er" power. He'll never have more power than He has now. If He's got it all, there's no more to be had. He's got it now and He is using that power in the gospel - not only individually but corporately, that in the redeemed community He may manifest the glory of God to the world! I believe the ultimate form of evangelism in this age of grace is going to be the manifestation of God's redeeming power through the total life of a redeemed community that demonstrates what the gospel can do in every area of human life both individually and corporately.

In Acts 2:30-33, Peter declares that David was "a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to set one of his descendants upon his throne" and so,

"He looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of Christ that He was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh suffer decay. This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses. This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses. Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God and having received from the Father, the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear" (NAS).

I am stressing the fact that the Pentecostal outpouring is related to David brethren, and I want you to hold that firmly in your mind now.

"For it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself said, 'The Lord said to my Lord; "Sit at My right hand until I make Thine enemies a footstool for Thy feet". Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ - this Jesus whom you crucified" (vv 34-36, NAS).

Now what came back from heaven after Jesus' ascension? That which came back from heaven was the coronation oil that had been poured on the on the head of David's greater Son - the new King. For "we see Him crowned with glory and honour" (Hebrews 2:9). As He ascended into the Presence of the Father and sat upon His throne, He was anointed with the holy anointing oil of universal kingship, and that oil descended on the day of Pentecost and covered and flooded and possessed and impressed and impelled men and women to become authorities for Jesus Christ.

And filled with the Holy Spirit they went out to challenge and to charm and to change the life of Jerusalem and the life of Judea and the life of Samaria and to reach the uttermost parts of the earth until the whole world knew that something had happened on the day of Pentecost - that King Jesus had shared the anointing oil of His ultimate authority with the royal community on the day of Pentecost. I believe brethren, that what is happening worldwide in this hour is unprecedented. This visitation of the Holy Spirit is not just to give us goose-bumps and teach us to play the tambourines and sing new choruses. That's all part of the package but there's something more important than all of that.

It is God's almighty purpose being revealed that at the end of this age He is going to manifest His glory in the redeeemed community. This outpouring of the Holy Spirit is not only an outpouring of blessing - it's an outpouring of authority. He is establishing spiritual authority in the earth so that He may in this hour bring into existance His Kingdom in power and answer the prayers of multiplied thousands through the centuries who have interceded by saying, "Thy Kingdom Come!" (*prolonged applause*).

"When Jesus ascended on high, He undertook the government of the universe. The Bible says the government was placed upon His shoulders. I ask you to turn please to Ephesians 4 and verse 8 and look at the order of God's government. Let me remind you that we're still talking about His ascension.

"Therefore it says, 'When He ascended on high, He leed captive a host of captives and He gave gifts to men. (Now this expression, He ascended, what does it mean except that He had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things) ... By giving some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors (or shepherds) and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ" (vv8-13, NAS).

Now I submit, brothers, that what is stated here is this: when Christ rose and sat at the right hand of God, there was committed to Him the absolute government of the universe. It was for Him to determine what should be done to bring about the purposes of God. In turn He chose to do it by the sovereign appointment of apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers who would bring into existence a community of men and women - each of whom would know his place of service. In addition they would be reproductive and recreative until there came a body of men and women in the earth who could be compared to a corporate mature man which would resemble Christ in its corporiety.

What He was in His incarnate power and life, they would become in their corporate power and life. He was going to appoint them, anoint them and equip them. How does Christ choose these governmental authorities? Or continuing with the figure of Kingdom, whom does the Lord Jesus Christ appoint to bring about the reign that is designed in the purpose of God for men? I think we have one rather significant illustration that best represents Christ's sovereignity in His choice.

Early writings tell us that Saul of Tarsus was a "bald-headed, bowlegged, strongly built man, small in size and meeting eyebrows with a rather large nose" (International Standard Bible Encylopaedia, Vol IV, p2277). We see this little man "breathing threats and murders against the disciples of the Lord" (Acts 9:1), getting letters from the High Priest to authorise Him to stamp out the Christians at Damascus. I imagine as he hurried along the road, he was muttering, "Those crazy Christians. They're upsetting all of Judaism. If I lay my hands on them ...". And he feels in his pocket to be sure he's got the letters from the High Priest. He's going to take those people back to Jerusalem and they're going to feel the lash! And if they die so much the better. Get rid of a Christian and advance the cause of Judaism. That's the thing to do - these crazy Christians!


From His sovereign place on His throne, the Lord Jesus looked down and said, "I'll take him". I wouldn't have taken him! (*laughter*). And I doubt if you would have taken him! But the point I want to make is that we need a revival of the concept of Christ's sovereign right to govern His Kingdom: The Kingdom of God is not a democracy, it's a theocracy! It's not run from the bottom up, it's run from the top down! Jesus Christ makes appointments!

Part 7 - Not Coaxed in Dynamited In 
Jesus appoints and He anoints. On the day of Pentecost, after the Holy Spirit had come, there were all kinds of rumours going on about what was happening. You see, when you look at a divine happening, you have a problem. You're either going to put a sense evaluation on it, or you're going to find out what the divine evaluation is. Now I'm sure that all of you, had you been devout Jews on the day of Pentecost, would have gone to find out the reason for the noise that was coming from the Temple. For it says, "When this sound occured, the multitude came together" (Acts 2:6, NAS). Dr A T Robertson, the great Baptist scholar, says that "The meaning seems to be that the excited 'other tongues' of verse 4 were so loud that the noise drew the crowd together". There probably hadn't been that much noise ever before in the temple!

So the people came running to see what the noise was. You know some people say, "I don't see any value in noise". Well I'll tell you folks, you'd better reconcile yourself with noise because while silence has it's place - the Bible is an awful noisy book.

People say we charismatics are noisy. Well I want you to know that's true, but I won't take the blame - I'm not to blame! Once more, God's the troublemaker, for the Bible says that "... when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place and there came a sound from heaven". Brothers, what we have here tonight is imported joy! It came from heaven! God started this racket on the day of Pentecost and it's been going on ever since! Hallelujah! (*applause*). Somebody said, "You don't have to make all that noise. God's not deaf". That's true but He's not nervous either. (*laughter and applause*). I want to tell you that if you expect to be around when the Lord comes, you better get inured to noise because He's going to descend with a shout. You think you shout? You ought to here God shout! And if His shouting isn't enough, He grabs a trumpet and lets out a blast and the archangel lets out a shout (1 Thess 4:16).

Dr Rowland Bingham, the great Canadian missionary taught for years that this whole thing was going to be very quiet. His wife came to him and said, "Dear, I have to speak to a ladies group about the coming of the Lord and I've heard you say that it's going to be very quiet and secret. Could you give me a Scripture for that?". "Oh", he said, "I'd be glad to dear. You'll find it in 1 Thessalonians 4". She said, "Oh thank you very much". When she came back a bit later, she said, "Dear I'm having problems wtih that scripture you gave me. I've always heard you say that it was going to be silent and quiet and secret. But that's an awful noisy chapter. It says that the Lord Himself is going to descend from heaven with a shout and with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God. I doubt if it's possible to keep that thing quiet!".

Now these devout Jews made an evaluation of what was transpiring. And had you and I had been there, I wonder if we would have made the same sense evaluation. What they saw disturbed them. They said, "We never saw such indecency in the temple. It's only nine o'clock in the morning. They must have got into the sacramental wine". (*laughter*). So they walked out of the temple saying, "They're drunk!".

Isn't it amazing how you and I can be so clever as to look at something that God is doing and give it a sense evaluation. We can be so rigid in our religious crystalization that when God starts to shake us, we've got to find some kind of rationale so that we won't be disturbed! And so "drunk" will serve our purpose. Can you imagine people walking down the streets on the day of Pentecost pronouncing the visitation of the Holy Spirit on the historic day as "drunkeness"? And yet there are men today who are looking at the things that God is doing, and they are making the same kind of sense evaluation. But there were other men who had the good sense to stay and say that there is "something here".

We're singing a song these days that's kind of mystical and some of you won't understand it. But if you're spiritually alert and alive, you won't just here words, you will here a sound. It's words will have a sound to you. And the words go like this:

"I heard a sound coming from the mountain.
I hear it louder each day.
I heard a sound coming from the mountain.
It says 'Prepare ye the way ...
Prepare ye the way ...
Prepare ye the way ...
Prepare ye the way of the Lord".

I hear a sound ... I hear a word ... I heard a sound. I saw a mass of men stand tonight with their hands raised. I heard them praising God. But within that praise I heard a sound. I heard the rustling of robes. I smelled the aroma of heavenly breezes. I heard something inside your voices - something that was not only born in your heart, but something that was transferred in your spirit and that something was transferred from heaven and mediated through your spirit until this auditorium was filled with a sound. And that sound was saying, "Men! Get ready! There are great things ahead ...". (*applause*).

There were those who heard a sound on the day of Pentecost and they said, "What is it? Peter stood up with the eleven . (In those days the preachers stood together). (*laughter*). Peter said, "These are not drunk as ye suppose ... But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel ... in the last days ... I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh" (Acts 2:15-17). Then Peter went on and preached a masterful address as he linked this event with history and in turn, linked it with the contemporary fact of Christ's coming into a time/space world. And he closed by projecting into the future as he said, "The promise is unto you and to your children and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call". And they were pricked in their hearts and said, "Men and brethren - what shall we do?!".

Peter said, "I wasn't expecting that. What do I do now Lord?". (*laughter*). The Lord said, "The keys ... remember I told you about the keys?". "Keys ... keys ... oh yes. The keys! ~
Part 8 - The People of the Anointing

Repent! And be baptised everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost" and the same day there were added to the redeemed community about 3 thousand souls. Brother he didn't ease them in ... he didn't coax them in ... he DYNAMITED them in!

We are wondering why it is so hard to sell the charismatic renewal to a non-charismatic community. May I say very simply and at the risk of losing my head, that if people were dynamited charismatically into a charismatic community, they would have no problem understanding charismatic life. But when we attempt to ease people into "Christianity" with "invitations" which omit divine requirements for entering the Kingdom, we get a disappointing variety of "converts". Not Peter. He stood up, turned the keys, opened the door and in they came! Hallelujah! (*applause*).

"The apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers of the Acts church then became - and still speaking in the context of Kingdom - the delegated governmental authorities under King Jesus for the bringing into being of His Kingdom. Apostles, prophets and evangelists moved across the world and "in every place" (1 Corinthians 1:2) they planted churches. Basically a church is nothing less than a manifestation of God's reign and government in a locality. I've had two visions in my life. The last one was some twelve years ago in a convention in Canada. In that convention, for the times when I would be sitting waiting to speak, I had chosen a secluded spot behind the pillar out in the sanctuary ... a kind of private "office" arranged there where I could wait each night until it was time to come up and speak. One night as I waited there, I felt I should get on my knees and as I got on my knees I had a vision. In a vision, I saw the earth as the astronauts pictured it from the moon. It was an orb out in space, and all over that orb were Quonset huts. Now many of you are too young to know what they are, but after the last world war, the army sold those aluminum, warehouse-like structures called Quonset huts which had become army surplus. At any rate, I saw Quonset huts all the globe and they were all the same size. I said, "God - what's this?". He replied, "I am going to have in every place, a people that are known for the anointing". Now at that time I had a permanent pastoral charge, and I didn't know then that I would be involved in a travelling ministry; but He said, "And when you travel from place to place, you will not ask for My people by this name or that name, but you will say 'Where are the People of the Anointing'?". If God is restoring in this hour the principles and purposes enunciated in the New Testament, then it is my firm belief that as His Kingdom comes, we're going to see coming out of this renewal and restoration that thing that God has intended. In every communicable area there will be a community of men and women that are flowing in the anointing. And that anointing is the kingly authority of our Sovereign. God's people are going to start to exercise rule and they're going to take dominion over the power of Satan. They're going to bring diabolical princes down. The dark powers that hover over the Parliament buildings of the nations are going to be paralysed by the corporate prayer of an authorative community. As the rod of His strength goes out of Zion, He will change legislation. He'll chase the devil off the face of God's earth as God's people together, doing the will of God, will bring about God's purposes and God's reign in a time/space world. I want to say something that's kind of an interpolation. It belongs to the message but is something that God has quickened to me recently. David had three anointings. David was anointed in Bethlehem as King over Israel. When Saul drove him into exile, he went to Ziklag and there the vanguard of the coming army of men who would be under his rule came to him. When Saul died, David said, "God what do I do now and where do I go?". God said, "Go to Hebron". When he went to Hebron, they made him King over Judah, and they anointed him the second time. Seven and a half years later when the House of Saul had lost all strength to resist, all Israel came to David in Hebron, and he was anointed the third time to be King over all Israel - and then they came to Zion. I believe, if I may be permitted this intepretational opinion, that we are presently at Ziklag and that we have an anointing for a Ziklag job. But we're getting ready to go to Hebron. There's a new wave of anointing that's going to come as our job gets bigger. There's an anointing coming of a new dimension. And then there's going to be another anointing of a great dimension for we don't sing, "We're marching to Ziklag" and we don't sing, "We're marching to Hebron". We sing, "We're marching to Zion". I believe the anointing we've got right now is an anointing to get the first phase of the job done. I believe that there is going to be a further dimension of anointing to get the next stage done and I'm not specifying what those phases are. But then there's going to be an ultimate anointing that is going to take us to Zion - and Zion is the ultimate place of God's glory. It's of Zion that we sing about when you sing Psalm 48, "It's the joy of the whole earth". I'm going to ask you to turn in conclusion to Acts 20:28. I believe in apostles. I believe in prophets. I believe in evangelists. I believe in shepherds. Now I'm going to say something to you that may sound shocking, but I believe that the coming of the Kingdom may depend on shepherds more than on any other of God's governmental men.

Part 9 - The World's Last Hope

I don't think there are as many apostles, prophets or evangelists as there are shepherds. I think that the great permanent, stabilizing governing community of men in the earth that carry on Kingdom business are the shepherds. This is a Shepherd's conference and in conclusion, I want to speak to you specifically as shepherds. I think that shepherds are often relegated to a kind of second place. You think of an apostle, a prophet and an evangelist as somebody "way up there" while you're 'just a shepherd'. On the contrary, I believe that shepherds are the ongoing governmental authority. You're the ones that have got to keep it going in the nitty-gritty of everyday life. You are the ones that have to develop it to maturity. You are important to God. You're more important than you know and you've got to get rid of your false modesty and realise how important you are. You need to rise up in the strength of your calling and take your divine anointing as shepherds and start to move with the authority that God has given you in the place He has put you to rule as His representative in love and concern and compassion. You must bring the sheep into a community of power and compassion and concern that will attract the world to an alternate society and a counter-culture and a way of life that they're looking for. The people of the world have run out of options! They're threadbare! They're worn out! They've got nothing left! Their economy's on the rocks! Their politics are all torn up! Their society's a shambles! The world has no options left! We are the world's last hope! They're looking this way saying, "Is there a people that have got it together? Is there a man that doesn't need a psychiatrist? Is there a couple that don't need marriage counselling? Is there a family that can get it together? Is there a community of men and women that can interrelate in joy and peace and hope? Where is it? Give it to us!". The world has its disunited notions of the United Nations. We don't need it. We need the united Body of God's People! God's Kingdom, I believe, is upon us. I believe this visitation of the Holy Spirit is for the purpose of bringing us into spiritual authority. I want to encourage you as you leave this conference to return home with a new sense of authority and dignity and purpose. I want you to know that it is the purpose of the King who has all authority in heaven and earth to mediate His authority through you in the place where you are and that as you pray and wait on God, God is going to make you mighty in the place of His appointment for you. Let us pray ... Gracious Father - we thank You for these days together. We thank You for the visitation of Your Presence. We thank You for the insights of Your Word. And we pray, our Father, that the challenge of these days will inspire our hearts to stand tall ... to recognise that we are Your delegates in the Kingdom on earth. That we can turn to a world that is threadbare and divested of options and we can offer them - not just a book or a tract - but we can offer them a way of life in our corporate relationships that will make them know that it's possible for men to live righteously with one another in this time/space world. Hallelujah! May Thy Kingdom Come! Amen.