Healing the Mind – Pt. 5

Ron Weinland

March 6, 2010

We’re going to continue today with Part 5 of the sermon series entitled Healing the Mind and this’ll be the conclusion of this series.  As we’ve been going through this series we’ve been talking about the process whereby our minds are healed and we’re able to grow more and more in our ability to ‘see’ spiritually.  Being able to ‘see’, as so many of the scriptures talk about, especially the New Testament, has to do with that which is spiritual; our ability to see spiritual things. Our ability to see self as God helps us to understand our thinking, our motives, is a spiritual matter because human beings as a whole really don’t see themselves.  There are certain things they learn about their life and about themselves but the ability to truly see self and understand our human nature, each one of us individually, to have a great big mirror to see into ourselves, our own minds – God has to give us that.  God knows the heart, He knows the mind; and we don’t as human beings.  He has to show us those things and then it’s through that process there we’re able to come to repentance and change and it’s all a healing process...and it’s a lifelong process.

There are things that you’re fighting that go way back in time, going back to our teenage years, things that made us what we are, experiences we’ve had and as human beings we experience things that aren’t good for us.  We experience human nature, our human nature and the human nature of others and it’s not easy; especially when you come into the Church and you begin to see the need to change that nature, that selfish nature; because by nature we are selfish.

And so we’ve been talking about that in this process of ‘Healing the Mind’ and our ability to see ourselves, our selfish human nature and thereby see the need to change and then respond to that and then God gives us the ability to see better in a spiritual way, His word, His way of life. As a part of that process He gives us more and more.

When I come back to this area in travel I think about how there was a period of time that God began revealing more about the process whereby Jesus Christ lives in us; didn’t understand it fully by any measure but that’s where it began, and right here in Lubbock, and it’s been exciting seeing all the things that God has continued to add to that through time.

I John 3:14 - We know, and that’s that same word we’ve been talking about, We see, something that we can see, that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. And so again here, family, as we’ve been talking about, going back and looking at all the things that God has been giving to us of recent date here now, especially in the family, husbands and wives, that relationship there that God is going to magnify in a far greater way, is starting that process now of how to live, of how the family should be and what our response is to that so we can make the family become what God intended from the very beginning, or at least what God placed before man.  But because of man’s nature man couldn’t accept it, man couldn’t receive it and brought upon himself, because of the perversion of the mind, because of a distortion in thinking, curses...that were a natural part of a process here because of breaking God’s laws and not listening to God and so there are repercussions for that. It’s in life and how we live and because of that then things happen and they all start with family at home and then they branch out into community and whatever other types of fellowship... don’t know whether you want to call it fellowship, but what you want to call relationships in life whether it be on a job working someplace; how people get along.  And that’s what we’re talking about here.  God desires close family relationships.  He wants to share but there’s only one way of life that gives reward in that and that’s in God’s Family ultimately, but there are principles, there are laws, there are things that bring about a right relationship and right friendships and responses to each other... the kind that God desires us to have.  And this is why the focus so much is upon family.

We see that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.  That’s what it’s all about, we love those whom God has called; we love each other.  It’s something that should become natural within us, but it isn’t.  We have to work at that.  It’s something we have to continually work upon and I think of all the new people today that come along because you haven’t experienced what we experienced in Worldwide when we had congregations that had 100, 150, 200, 300, 500, 600 people.  I remember when I first came into the Church, went into a congregation that was right at 600 people.  That was the size when they would split the congregation into two.  They started splitting before that later on when they became around 400-450, they’d start trying to maybe break it up into a couple congregations where you could have around 250, 200 at least in a congregation.  But 600 people in the Church of God, young and old, is something that when you’re there on a regular basis you get to know each other – it’s a little harder when you’re that large but we began to experience the need... God used that as our arena of learning.  But He wanted us to get along with each other.  He wanted us to be a family, but as life is...didn’t always happen that way.  We didn’t automatically just love each other.

I was in the Church for six months...19 years old, I guess...let’s see, I’d turned 20 and moved down toward Wichita to get away from my past because I knew I couldn’t change if I stayed in the college town that I was in so I moved away for about 6 months time there; went down there to become grounded and work while I was there. I was there almost the entire six months before finally one time there was this family that invited me to their home and I was dumbfounded that Saturday night when the husband and wife got into an argument and they were hollering at each other.  I was blown out of the water.  I don’t know how or what kind of a cocoon I was in but I thought that everybody got along exceptionally well, especially in a family, and I guess I thought people didn’t have sin when you came into God’s Church; there wasn’t anything like that that could happen, wouldn’t happen anymore in life and I had a bit of a rude awakening.  I began to learn, no, we have human nature.  We haven’t gotten rid of it yet; and I just remember I was blown out of the water and all that was naive to that point in time, and God gave me blessings and protection so that I could become grounded but then I began to see and I began to learn. I wasn’t able to see my own nature at that point fully, obviously, but there’s a process we go through.

I think of, again, the people that are coming along now and some people that don’t have congregations to be a part with or to share very much with; it’s difficult to have some of those experiences to learn you have to work at family when you’re in the human body.  Now once we’re in God’s Family and we have God’s mind fully within us and we’re at one with God in all things – then we have reached the ultimate of Family obviously.  But in order to come into unity and oneness with God we’ve got to go through a lot in order to become convicted, in order to understand this is the way; I want this; and to fight for it.  And so those are choices we make while we’re in this human body.  God wants to know; are we at one with Him, do we choose Him.  Now we might not be fully at one obviously, but we’re growing in that and we choose Him because we’re convicted this is the only way that works.  Only God can give you a way of life in this book that when you live it produces right results and right fruit and right family, the kind of family He desires for us that’s rewarding, that’s exciting, that’s inspiring; not filled with any kind of anger, resentment, bitterness, disappointment, jealousy, envy...all the things that human beings go through.  And so we have to go through those things.

It’s just like when people get married.  There’s that point in time before you get married where there’s that excitement where your heart beats faster and that which God has created between man and woman, male and female... I’m talking about some of those feelings that you had in the beginning that are not there later on.  Those things that God has created within man and woman, that later on you begin to find out that you have to work at relationships.  You begin to see reality and in order to make it work you’ve got to work.  To make it work, you’ve got to work and most of that work is against self, if we really understand it, but a lot of times we don’t do it that way.  Some may marry someone and they see certain faults, or something that kind of rubs them the wrong way... “We’ll change that one when we’re married. You know, we’re going to work on that one.  We’ll be okay, we’ll change that in them later on.”  You don’t change other people.  You can change yourself, but as a whole you can’t change other people. But people get into arguments about something because they want someone else to change.  You want your mate or your child, or your parent or someone else to do something different than what you want to do and that’s where the friction comes from in life and that’s where you have to start working.  If you want to live God’s way of life there are certain things you have to learn in that process.

So council with people and tell them; it comes to a point in time where some of that magical, mystical stuff in the beginning when your hormones are running high at the beginning of a marriage that you have, some of that begins to go... and living in a marriage becomes a norm for your life that you have never had in your life before and you have to begin to find out now how to work together in a relationship living with someone that’s different.  Any time there are two people living together...  I think of when I was in college; there were five of us in a dorm.  We had an apartment together and when you have different personalities together like that you have to work to have peace, to get along, because everybody has a different way of doing things and a different time to eat, a different time of how they clean house or don’t clean house...and with guys, it’s usually how they don’t clean house.  And I remember the guys got really upset at me one time because I ruined just about all the clothing in the house because one day I put a couple of hamburgers on to cook and I turned the heat down low and I thought I’d run next door right quick and get some music.  By the time I came back and opened the door smoke came out and all that was left in that pan was some bubbling oozing stuff.  It had cooked the hamburger to a point; I mean literally, it was just bubbling.  It was an oozy type of stuff and it stunk.  I can’t describe the smell, if you’ve cooked hamburger to the point where it turns into a bubbling mess.  There was no form of anything that was hamburger in it, period.  But it stunk up the house, it stunk up all the clothing – everybody had to wash all their clothing, all the drapes in the place.  I did a number...and they weren’t happy with me.  And I understand why, doing something so stupid like that.

So we have to learn how to get together, how to get along, how you do things in a right way and don’t do certain things and so forth.  All relationships are that way.  You go to work and after a while there’s a newness that begins to wear off, an excitement of a new job that begins to wear off, whatever that might be and sometimes then you have to begin working on the relationships of those around you; things that people say, how they do their job, and the interactions.  And it always comes back to laws of how people think about each other and how they treat each other and this is what we’re talking about here.  And this has everything to do, when God calls us, about the healing of our minds because our minds aren’t right because of being selfish – not the way that they should be because we’re selfish and we do things out of selfishness and because of selfishness we can’t get along as well as we should with one another.  People on the job, people wherever it might be, it doesn’t matter, people in a home.

He who loves not his brother abides in death.  God speaks very plainly in these things.  Showing here that in the Church if we fail to love one another then God says then we abide in death.  Why?  Because there’s still sin involved and without repentance and without forgiveness of sin we’re in death.  That’s how God describes it.  The death penalty is still over us and so until we repent that death penalty isn’t removed.  So it’s not something that’s just taken away forever at baptism, it’s a continuing thing in our life where you have to repent when there’s sin, so you can be forgiven – that’s the covenant we have with God.

Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer: and fails to love, refuses to love a brother, that’s another way of really saying this...is a murderer: and you know, that word ‘see’ again.  So we should be able to see this spiritually because that’s what motivates us to change because we’re afraid of that, we don’t want that to happen in our life and because we agree with God we want to repent when things come along.  ...and you know/you see that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. Hereby we perceive the love of God, this is how we can begin to perceive and understand something on a spiritual plane with God’s spirit in us, but to begin to experience and understand God’s kind of love.  That’s what it’s saying here.  ...because He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.  So it’s a matter of giving.  Look at what Jesus Christ did.

I read this quite often but when I’m talking about a sermon like this you can’t help it. Ephesians 5:1 - Paul says - Be you therefore followers of God, as dear children; the word has to do with ‘imitators’ seeking to live by those things that God says is a way of life to be lived. And walk in agape, God’s love – and human beings can’t do that unless they’re called of God, unless they’re given help of God’s spirit because God has to dwell in you to have this kind of a mind to begin this process.  And walk in agape, as Christ also has loved us, and has given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour.  His life.  The ultimate in serving others, the ultimate in loving others.  It’s an awesome thing to understand that when it comes to human beings loving others you have to sacrifice self because it’s not going to come naturally.  It doesn’t come easy.  It’s a matter of giving and serving others, laying down your life – in other words, your will, your desire, your enjoyment, whatever it might be in order to see someone else’s enjoyment, someone else’s pleasure, someone else being rewarded.  That’s what it’s talking about here; that we’re willing to do that in order to help others, to that degree.  So it requires giving up, sacrificing.  God’s love in a human life requires sacrifice and that’s an awesome thing to come to understand in the spirit of it all.  God’s love in the human life requires that we sacrifice because it’s about giving up self and giving away of self for the benefit of others, to benefit someone else.

That’s why it says in I John 3:16 - Hereby we perceive the love of God because He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.  So we’re to follow that example. Just like it said in Ephesians 5; to follow that example of what He did, to understand that He did it in ultimate fashion and we are to follow that same example ourselves.

Verse 17 - But whoso has this world's good, and I think this is good too, because right now we’re approaching Passover season and as we approach Passover season this is what’s on our minds, relationships, friendships, unity, oneness, being at one with God and loving the brethren, and loving each other and examining ourselves; so much about unleavened bread and Passover season has to do with this. Passover season, when we talk about an attitude of mind of washing one another’s feet, a desire that we should have, a willingness we should have – that there shouldn’t be any one of God’s children that we wouldn’t be honoured to do it; that wouldn’t be honoured. To understand the family, to understand what that means and the humility involved in that – that there should be nothing in our minds that would prevent us from that in attitude or spirit, and if there is then we have big things to be repenting of.  Then it goes on to say as we read last week; But whoso has this world’s good and sees his brother have need, and shut up our bowels of compassion from him, how does the love of God dwell in him? And so again, it’s an attitude of mind of being concerned for others and their well being.

Verse 18 - My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. So it’s not in what we say, it’s not in what we know as we went through I Corinthians 13, the ‘Love Chapter’, the ‘Agape Chapter’ if you will, last week; it’s about how we live.  It’s not in all we know, it’s not about understanding and seeing all things, it’s about how we live our lives.  My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. That’s why God desires us to worship Him in spirit and in truth.  It must be truthful before Him.  And hereby we know...what an amazing thing here, part of this healing of the mind is a boldness and a confidence we begin to have more and more with God; stronger faith if you will, stronger boldness and confidence before God because of what we live and a purity of the mind.  And where it isn’t pure then we have to repent and make it right so it becomes purer.  These things always come back to, as a whole, relationships, interaction with people within family first, (if we have family - unless we’re by ourselves); family first, then the Church – the family in the Church and then community, the world around us - family.  We are a family in different stages, some not called, some called – see?  Different levels of conversion, some newly called who are babes, who are novices in God’s way of life – they don’t have the experience yet; they have a great deal of knowledge, but not a great deal of application yet in the sense of being able to see where those things are able to be applied in your life fully – and so you’re going through that and learning that as a babe.  And then there’s a process, different levels of maturity within the Body beyond that.

And hereby we know that we are of the truth, so it’s a knowing and a confidence you can have, and shall assure our hearts before Him.  This is talking about a confidence and a boldness before God. For if our heart condemn us, if we know when we get into a prayer that something is not right with another brother, that we have a wrong thinking about a brother – somebody in the Church somewhere, and if you’re kneeling before God and you’re praying to God and you know in the back of your mind... it goes back to what I said in the past...there’s no point of even praying any longer – God doesn’t even want to hear it.  He wants us to first go back and be reconciled to our brother if it’s a matter that we are involved in something.  And even there, so often in relationships it’s not another party; it’s just us and how we think toward someone else.  And we’re not talking about anything new; this is the way it is from congregation to congregation, family to family.

Is there anything you need to improve in your family?  Because I know that I have things to improve in my family and I’ve been in the Church a long time now. I was baptized in September of 1969 and I still have things I have to change, want to change...there are some things I know that I’ll have to fight against until I die, because of my human nature, the way I am and I have to catch myself, get upset with myself about certain things, ask God to forgive me, ask God for help to make things right if I’ve said something or done something to someone in a wrong way; and who are those usually?  The ones that are closest to you.  You say a sharp word or something because you’re inconvenienced about something and so... do I have things to change?  Do you have things to change?  I’ll tell you, you do!  Every one of us does!  I’m not the lone ranger!  I’m not the only one with human nature!  I know my nature; I hate it, I loathe it, I look forward to a change, I truly do.  I look forward to when this human nature; ‘lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life’... because that’s what we’re made up of, is gone and we finally arrive for this battle that we’ve been fighting for so long.  The longer you’re in this body the more you can come to loathe this human nature, the selfishness that just pops up sometimes.  It can be in the simplest of places.

For if our heart condemn us God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. Showing absolutely, if you can get a spark of something in here that something isn’t right toward someone else God does far more, obviously, and wants you to be able to see that and wants you to be able to change that.

Verse 21 - Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, then have we confidence toward God.  And about the only time that’s really going to take place in your life is when you know that you’re right with others, that you have no wrong feelings towards anyone else.  If you do, you ask God to forgive you, and a majority of times, please understand here, a majority of times this is only in our mind.  Someone can just by a personality rub you the wrong way.  That’s life.  Is there anybody in life that can rub you the wrong way?  Yeah!  And there’s some individuals on TV.  I have to watch myself sometimes.  There’s one man; he gets on there and as soon as he opens his mouth I have a hard time because I think he might as well just be saying, “I’m lying to you, I’m lying to you, I’m lying to you – believe me, believe me, I’m lying to you.”  Now, I’m not talking about any primary leader, I’m talking about some others a little farther down the line...lest anybody think I’m bad mouthing any one particular individual – it’s just my attitude toward this individual because I’ve seen this before, I’ve seen it in the Church: interestingly so, a man in a similar position – when they discuss finances.

I hate being lied to and I hate for people to lie to others.  I hate to see government officials lie and anyone else for that matter.  I hate politics because it means you have to lie.  It does!  You can’t be involved in politics without lying through your teeth.  I’ll see something like that on TV and I’ve got to fight a battle so I don’t have a wrong spirit toward them – to be able to understand they don’t understand the truth yet.  I hate what they’re doing, but I don’t want to hate the individual.  I don’t want to cross that line.  You can do that easily so you have to be careful.

Some people, in the Church as well, can have a different personality that isn’t as easy for you to get along with...there are times you have to go before God and just ask God to forgive you.  It’s not a matter of having to go to them and work something out, it’s just a matter of asking God that your mind be right in thinking and so forth and that we don’t hold things against others and that we let go and that we forgive and so forth.  These things are common place congregation to congregation to congregation.  There isn’t a congregation out here who doesn’t have to work with this!  Okay?  Really!  If there are more than two people you got to work at it.

That’s why it goes back to husband and wife in the family; you’ve got to work to obey God’s laws and God’s way of life and to treat each other with respect, to treat each other with love, to make things right when something’s been said that’s sharp or because of whatever reasons...just because you were inconvenienced or because you didn’t eat right or whatever it might be; you’re grumpy, got up on the wrong side of the bed, you fell out of bed – whatever it was!

And whatsoever we ask, so again, the confidence we can have if our heart doesn’t condemn us, and whatsoever we ask we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, whatsoever we ask that’s within God’s will, according to God’s way.  Most of that has to do with what God says we’re to ask for.  That doesn’t mean you can go out and say, “today, I’d like to get the lottery ticket and it’s up to $94 million – this would really help the Church!” Has anyone ever had a thought like that cross their mind?  Because of human nature.  This is in the world too; it’s just human nature.  It’s how we are.  And so it’s not talking about anything you ask for, it’s talking about things within God’s law that are a part of God’s plan and most of this has to with repenting, most of it has to do with a desire to grow spiritually and a desire to see self; and God will help you.  You desire to grow?  You desire to learn more?  You desire to be spiritual stronger?  God will bless you in those matters as we continue to be healed.  Because our ability to see spiritually has everything to do with this process we’re talking about today.

And whatsoever we ask, that’s according to God’s will (that’s just a given), we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.  It’s pleasing in God’s sight when we love each other.  When you can truthfully, honestly, in prayer before God say, “I love Your people.”  And when you say that... think about that.  Pray that to God.  It took me some time in some of that to be able to tell God, “I love you.” And to be able to tell God the Father, “I love you.  I love Your Son.  I love Your plan.  I love everything that you’re doing.  I love Your people,”  and when you say that, “I love Your people,” that it be genuine and true, because if it’s not, if there’s anyone in there in all the people of God, that somehow we have... you’ve got to make sure your mind’s right toward them because if not, then how can we go on and say, “Father please stir me up more in the power of Your spirit; help me to conquer and overcome; help me...”  Whatever it is you’re working on at a particular moment in time.  We won’t receive it.

Verse 23 – And this is His commandment, That we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, you know that’s tied together.  To believe on Christ, to believe on His name has to do with loving one another.  Why?  Why is it stated this way?  What is the connection here that God wants us to see that believing on His name is associated with, is tied in right here with loving one another.  It says, as He gave us commandment.  That’s the law!  The last 6 commandments are about how to love one another.  Being able to believe Christ; being able to believe what He had to say, the truth that He delivered to us has everything to do with obedience to God; His way of life that is given to us.  And it all has to do with relationships over and over and over again.  That’s what the law is.  It’s about relationships.  First four commandments are about a relationship with God; the last six are relationships with one another as human beings.

That we believe on the name of His Son...and love one another as He gave us commandment.  And he who keeps His commandments dwells in Him, and He in him.  Beautiful!  I love this!  It’s about dwelling in Christ.  It’s about God’s desire to dwell in human beings; blows my mind, but that’s His desire.  Isn’t that amazing?  Because it’s the only way to save us.  It’s the only way to change us.  It’s the only way to bring us into His Family…to dwell in us, the beautiful story of how it’s not a tabernacle to be built for God, it’s not how great of a building you can construct for God – that’s not what it’s all about.  God says, ‘Where is the house you’ll build for me?’  And then He goes on to say, ‘This is the house that I’m building!’  And His desire then is to dwell in that house and we are the household of God as it says in Ephesians.  We make up the household of God, it’s made up of His people, of those who are baptized; and His desire, the reason Christ died is so that God the Father could dwell in that house.  That’s why Jesus Christ died; had to get rid of sin because God won’t dwell in sin so we have to be able to be forgiven before God.  Incredible!  …On a continuing basis... on a continuing basis in our life day by day by day.

And he who keeps His commandments dwells in Him, and He in him. And hereby we know that He abides in us, by the spirit He has given us.  And so our ability to grow, the ability to see spiritually, the ability and to the depth we believe 53 Truths has everything to do with this.  The strength of those convictions, the strength of what we believe, the strength of what we believe about where we are in time, of where we are in this world...

Watched some news on the computer today, looking at some things that were sent to me and reading some things and I am... I’m not dumbfounded, but I am dumbfounded in one respect that we haven’t collapsed yet, that this is still holding up out here worldwide.  You look at some of the rhetoric going back and forth between Greece and Germany right now.  The people over there in Europe... it’s ready to happen; sides are drawn, anger is there, bitterness, resentment, the Germans telling the Greeks, “You should sell all your islands.  You’ve got a bunch of Islands down there... before we bail you out, you should sell your islands!”  And now they’re telling them, “You should sell your artifacts.  You have a bunch of artifacts?  You should be selling artifacts to bail yourselves out.  You got yourself into this...”  And now the next big one is, “In Germany we get up early in the morning to go to work!  You should get up early in the morning and go to work!”  Whew!  That goes over well, doesn’t it?!  Different lifestyles and how people work and how people think.  They’re hard workers and they were mocking and making fun of all the holidays and extra time off they get and they get quite a bit in Europe in some things anyway compared to the States here in one respect; and yet... can you imagine how well that’s going well over there?  Things in China right now.  You know there are some people who are dumb enough to believe that you want to own a lot of a piece of China right now!  No you don’t!  They’re going down the tubes too.  It’s all going to go down... well, anyway, almost... one of these days it’s going to slip down the toilet - it truly is.  I’d offend some few people out there, maybe not a lot, but a few.  “How can you say something like that being a minister of God?”  God calls things pretty plainly sometimes!

They’re talking about the euro.  France, Sarkozy, what he had to say?  He’s saying if we don’t help Greece what’s the purpose of the Euro?  We might as well get rid of the Euro.  So you think the euro is going to save you?  Yeah, they might last a little longer than the dollar...and they may not!  Just don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.  You try to do the best you can do and if it goes out and is gone one day – so be it, fine.  That’s the way it is.  We’re barely holding on and the only reason we are is because God’s not allowing it to go under yet.  He is holding it up and not allowing it to go under until it’s time to go under and one of these days everything that this country relies upon...  Saw another thing today... think; makes a little sense... I’ve been dumbfounded watching the stock market and watching futures and so forth and it just... compared to a few years ago?  Things are happening right now that just don’t make a whole lot of sense and there are some very important people out there now saying they believe it’s the government that’s buying.  See, you can’t know who’s buying, and they won’t let you know who’s buying.  And those who do know who’s buying – they’re not going to let you know who’s buying because if it comes out that the federal government might be buying futures and stocks in certain things then can they do that?  Is that legal?  And they’re holding things up...  Amazing world we live in.  Nothing would surprise me, and there are intellectual people in finances that are saying, “There is someone buying that we don’t know who it is.”  They don’t know, but they know that there’s someone buying out there.  Not just common people out here on the computer that go into their little etrade accounts.  We’re talking about some big things taking place out here.  Amazing world we live in.  How long will that hold up?  Not too long.

I John 4:1 - Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.  When we understand what is being talked about here, it’s talking about those in the Church who have the ability to perceive and understand things, as we use the word prophecy, inspired interpretation of what God gives us; God gives us all that to varying degrees; some more for a purpose and then it goes beyond because it has to do with an office.  But this here is just talking about people in situations and those who don’t have that and it says there are many false in the world.  Is it talking about the world?  No, it’s talking about the Church of God; it’s talking about what was happening in John’s time even within the Church.  He’s not warning people about the world as a whole, because something that’s totally off base here; he’s talking about something that can happen from within. And so he’s talking about these things and he says, Hereby you know the spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:  It is a present progressive type of word that’s being discussing here, by your life.  How do you confess?  Not by words.  The Protestant world has so messed these words up.  It’s like if you’ll confess certain things, confess the Lord Jesus and they so minimize it… because they don’t understand anything spiritual.  It’s talking about here by your life, by what you’re living.  And what is the context here?  How you love one another, how you treat one another, how you think about one another; all these things that manifest what you profess, what you confess, by your life.  If this is what we profess, then this is the fruit, this is what is shown by it.  And that’s what he’s showing here.

Hereby you know the spirit of God:  we’ve gone through things within the Church where we’ve had to be able to perceive and see some of these kinds of things.  Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is coming in the flesh is of God:  so if your life reflects that Jesus Christ is living in you… because we can’t have the kind of fellowship, the kind of unity, and the kind of belief and unity and oneness with God in truth, and the things that are true here - without God’s spirit.  It requires God’s spirit.  We have to have God’s spirit.  Just like when you’re called; you only understand the Sabbath, the Holy Days and the truths of God because of God’s spirit working in you and so this is a part of what it’s talking about here – all these things that we’re able to live and see and do.  Every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ, in other words, every individual who by their life is not reflecting that Jesus Christ lives in them, that He’s coming into their lives (present progressive, ongoing) in other words, that individual has been cut off from the flow of God’s spirit. If a person isn’t reflecting Christ in them, it says, they are not of God: they’re false brethren; and none of us want that, but we have experienced that in times past in Worldwide.  We’ve had that in modern times too.

I think of a situation not too long ago that was gut wrenching; talking to an individual and discussing some things that weren’t right in their life and some of their relationships toward the Church, toward me as a minister, and toward other brethren.  Talked for 3 or 4 hours to the husband and wife about various things and it became very evident that he was cut off the flow of God’s spirit in his life and he couldn’t understand the spirit of what I was saying and he began to justify what he did and he began to bring out examples of other people in the Church and using that to justify him.  And it’s like, “You’re being unfair with me because this other person has done far worse than I have.”  And yet that person hadn’t.  Different examples he gave again and again and again to justify himself.  He couldn’t see spiritually anymore.  He couldn’t understand.  And that’s a hard thing to go through.  And when my wife and I left, I told her he’ll never come back and when we got back to our hotel we got a phone call and they said, “We’re not coming back.”  Because he’d been cut off from the flow of God’s spirit for I don’t know how long – maybe a few years now and he wasn’t growing spiritually.  He couldn’t receive that which was spiritual that I was trying to give to him, that I was trying to help him to see and understand – basic things about his relationship to God and obeying God; basic things about his relationship to members in the Church.

What a horrible thing when God’s spirit ceases to dwell within us because we refuse to repent of various things in our life.  That’s why I talk about over and over again the need to repent quickly of matters when we’re wrong, when we’re not right in a relationship with someone else.  And if you ever, ever, ever in life begin to catch yourself justifying why you’re right and others are wrong… no, we need to look at this always – self.  What can I change?  Because we only have the power to change self and if someone else is wrong God will take care of that in His time, but what is our heart and our desire?  That they will be able to repent.  I desire that everyone who is a part, that ever comes into fellowship continue in fellowship – that they make it through the hard times –even if it’s been toward me, that they said certain things and done certain things…which has happened – and it’s not that uncommon.  Thankfully it was low numbers within the Body because usually somebody gets to that point and they’ll take themselves out in time and you hate to see that.  You become embittered towards God’s minister?  …toward anyone else in the Body?  …but especially that one?  That comes down a lot harder on an individual.  But our desire toward every person should be, “I love you.  I want to see you succeed.  I want to see you make it through this!  And what you said about me, toward me...” (or whatever) and I know of people, I’ve known ministry who’ve said things about me.  I don’t hold it against them.  I feel sorry, I feel badly that they had to go through some of those things and have their rear end kicked up around their shoulder blades a few times.  I didn’t do it, God did, because there are just some things in life you just don’t get by with and so you go through some really hard things sometimes out here in life; and I don’t like to see people have to go through hard things to learn what they have to learn.  I don’t feel badly toward anyone, I truly don’t.  I understand we get caught up with things sometimes in life and I understand the struggle isn’t with me. I had to learn that many years ago up in Pennsylvania when I was a minister up there.  It’s not about me.  You’ve got to take yourself out of there.  If you keep self in there and you think it’s about you that someone’s having a battle with… if someone is having a difficulty with you in the Body of Christ it’s a battle they’re having with God.  It’s a matter of something they need to see in self.  It’s not about you.  I could give sermons on that, but it’s a matter of God’s spirit as to what degree we see that in life, as to how well we see what I’ve just said, because it’s a spiritual matter.

I think of Samuel and the comments he made; I can’t remember exactly how he said his feelings and how he felt and God let him know.  “It’s not you Samuel, it’s Me.  It’s Me that they’re having a battle with.”  And when I came to understand those scriptures, it gave me a great peace because I realized I don’t have to take it personally.  It’s a spiritual battle and what is our desire for anyone else that has a spiritual battle?  The same that I’ve had when I’ve had my spiritual battles… I want to make it through.  I want this way of life!  From the moment I was baptized my life was God’s and that’s what I want.  I want this way of life. I don’t want mine.  I don’t want somebody else’s idea about God’s way of life; I want what is right and what is true.  Isn’t that our mind?  Isn’t that what you wanted from the moment you were baptized?  …and you want to fight for that and whatever it takes to get from point A to point B.  So that’s what we desire for each other, because that’s what love is about and if we have to go through hard things getting there – so be it!  And if some people have to suffer out here…sometimes I back up a little bit. I don’t try to go in and resolve and solve differences and problems in all cases or something that someone’s having a battle toward me. I don’t call them on the carpet on it; I back away and give time and pray about it for them – that they be able to come to see the error of their way, because that’s between them and God and they either come through it or they don’t.  And I rejoice so much when people come through those things and I feel horrible when they don’t.  When I had to leave that individual’s house after talking to them for 4 hours… the reason I was willing to talk to them for 4 hours – if there was any way to reach them; if there was anything that could be said that would ignite a spark of hope, of change, for repentance – that was what it was all about.  And sometimes when you go through a situation like that you truly feel like you’ve had a sword, a knife, a dagger run right through your heart.  It hurts.  If you love someone that’s going to hurt.  And if you don’t love them...  it’s easier to discard someone… “They never were part of us,” or, “they never did like me.”  Relationships… it’s an awesome thing!

I can’t tell you how many husband and wife relationships I’ve counselled; my wife and I have sat down and counselled with people in times past to where there are times… and I had hair back then, but I was ready to pull out my hair.  I remember one time when I began to learn some big lessons in counselling that I had this man and woman telling stories that were night and day different and I came to understand they both believed their story.  They believed!  It had gone on for so long in their life that each one had a different perspective of different events, but you could tell after a while they were convicted of the story they were telling and they believed it!  Can that happen to a person?  You better believe it.  You can relive something so often in your life, the way you think you were done, that after a while you can actually begin to think the events… I mean, there are people who go to psychiatrics and psychologists because their minds are so messed up because they’ve come to believe things that have come to happen to them in their lives that aren’t real; but they’ve lived it for so long and they have such bitterness and hatred toward others that they think something happened a certain way.  You ever experienced some of that in your life or know someone who has?  It’s reality, its human life.

So what a blessing when human beings can begin to work even more so now, as we’re beginning to be taught in a greater way, the kind of love that should exist between a husband and a wife in marriage; giving, sacrificing, the things you strive to do as you go through life and the little things that take place.  The more you learn about love, that it’s about the other person, it’s about what you’re doing to make their life more enjoyable or pleasing.  Is everything done that way?  No.  But should that be your motivation and your desire?  Yes.  To esteem others...and that’s where it starts...better than self – to esteem their needs, their desires, their wants better than your own.  You know what, if both people are doing that then you’ve got a pretty good mix going on; you’ve got a pretty good mix of life going on if both are trying to serve each other, help each other along the way – sacrifice for each other.  How can that go wrong?  If both are truly sacrificing for each other you got what it takes for a richer relationship.  All excellent relationships in life are based on that; a willingness to sacrifice for the enjoyment, the benefit, the blessing of the other person’s life...doesn’t matter what it is.

Men, to the point of putting down a toilet seat.  How many people don’t learn something like that in life?  Are some clapping?  Did I hear some...I wasn’t intending on that!   See, some of you are still needing to work on some basic things.  Why?  You could learn the ultimate lesson sometime when your electricity isn’t on and you have to go to the bathroom and it’s still up and you find out what it’s like when you sit down on that kind of a rim and just kind of slip all the way down...and maybe with blessings of life get stuck!  Now that’s what I would like to see happen to men in order to learn that one.  I really would!  If I had the ability within the Church to give a great blessing, it’d be that your electricity goes out and you have to go to the bathroom and the lids up and you get stuck because you slipped down in there.  Now, why can’t we think about the other person that has to come behind us.  See, these things boggle my mind.  Why can’t we clean up a wash basin when we’re done?  That’s foreign to my thinking.  It is foreign to my thinking and my wife thinks it’s because of my German ancestry.  Everything just has to be so-so.  No, there are things that have to do as well, yes there’s a lot of that in there I have to admit, but there’s also that which I’ve mentioned in times past that I began to learn at Ambassador, in the Church, about the next person.  I learned it in the simplest of things by examples of evangelists that were used at times and spoken of, that when they’re walking down a sidewalk and they see a piece of paper on the grounds of Ambassador College you take the time to bend over and pick it up because you’re thinking of other people, so that other people can enjoy the beauty of what’s there.  Those three campuses were beautiful in their own right – they truly were.  And they were kept beautiful.  You want to know the primary reason?  Because the majority of people living there had that mindset because that’s what they were taught to do!  And if we could think that way, in the smallest of everything in our life – think of how much cleaner our streets would be.  I don’t care where you go – bathrooms – these things are little pet peeves of mine because if you can’t learn in the little things of life how can we learn in the bigger things of life if our minds...  It’s about how your mind works.

If we’re only thinking of ourselves; you go through airports and you see how people are... I saw it yesterday in Dallas!  The bathroom!  Totally sickening!  Seeing people throw paper... they won’t even walk two steps to throw it in the trash and instead they throw it right there on the counter.  I took one towel that I was using in order to clean up... I took up about ten different towels right there in my little area – to throw them away.  And if everybody would do that we wouldn’t have... if everybody would just throw away their own we wouldn’t have a mess!  Why can’t people think like that about the other person behind them?  ...to be able to enjoy life better...that you’re so motivated in those things that everything you do in life begins to be motivated that way out of love toward the other person; in community – that when you drive down a road or whatever, that things around your home are not cluttered and trashed because you’re concerned about how the other people in your community are and how they see things?  And if everybody does this kind of thing and will clean up after themselves...

There are some places in Europe I love.  I really appreciate some things that people do there, others  could learn from Europe.  First of all, I wish that all bad drivers could be sent to Germany- that’s my first... to learn what it’s like to drive, to be courteous to the other person.  But I’ll tell you what, when you drive through some of those places of Europe, the Netherlands and Germany - almost everywhere you drive it’s clean.  Farms are clean.  They treasure the land because they don’t have as much.  They don’t treat things as badly, they keep things up nice around their homes and I enjoy that.  I enjoy being able to drink that in.  I enjoy things of nature.  And it’s not that way in every place you go through the United States. You can go through certain areas in the United States and people don’t care, they let things go to pot.  Why?  Why can’t we keep it up?  Isn’t that what God said in the beginning?  Isn’t it amazing how some of these things just go back to the beginning?  You’re to dress it and keep it.  What He has given you in life – dress it and keep it, starting with yourself, starting with that which is around you – dress it and keep it.  And if you do it for others that’s what love is.  And if we can learn those very basic principles and they begin to be applied in every facet of our life, it’s about the other person and they benefit.  We’re not to do things because it’s about self and what makes self feel good and happy.  We do things to benefit the person we’re living with, or the person next door, or whatever, because we’re concerned for others.  We live in such an incredibly selfish world and if you take nothing out of this series but what I’ve just told you, you’ve taken treasure with you.  If you can begin to live that in your life toward other people; because that’s what God’s love is like.  It’s about others; it’s about sacrifice and giving.  It’s not about ourselves being taken care of.

And so again, it’s a spirit, it’s an attitude of mind, it’s how we think and this is what the healing of the mind is all about – so we can have that kind of mind.  Because you know what?  Life is richer when you live like that.  People who live selfish lives – they’re never satisfied.  It’s like a black hole that can never be satisfied.  Always sucking in – just like a black hole in space – sucking in and never being filled.  And God’s life is not like that and the life He gives to us is not intended to be like that.  It’s when you sacrifice and give that you receive enjoyment.  That’s why my desire in such a great way as I grow and as I learn for others is that everybody understand the importance of sharing.  That’s God’s desire for us, that’s why it’s my desire; because I’m learning that more and more – the richness of life is in the sharing with one another – sharing!  Sharing with someone else.

It all has to do with God living in us and dwelling in us and we can have that kind of life, we can live that kind of life and not be so inward because when we don’t think about others, the one that’s going to follow us, the one we’re living with...if we can’t do it about the one we’re living with and think about them and pray about things, how to do things better, and when you’re wrong about things that you pray for help to bring it into check, to bring things into order...if we can’t do those things for the sake of someone else, then that can’t be multiplied into the community, it can’t be multiplied into the Church.  We have to be able to do it here – first in family, then in the Church, then it spreads into the world.  That’s God’s way.

You are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is He that’s in you, than he that is in the world. It’s all about a healing process.

II Peter 1 – that’s why I think of the parable about being faithful in the little things of life, then God says we can be given much.  If we learn how to deal with and take care of the little things of life then God can give us more because the same principles that you apply in small ways are the very same things that are magnified a thousand, a million, a billion times over – truly are.  II Peter 1:1 - Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them who have obtained like/the same precious faith, and so again here Peter writing, letting them know first of all he is an apostle that’s writing to them.  He wasn’t bashful to let them know his job, his responsibility; precious faith, it wasn’t a matter of him bragging about it or trying to lift himself up; it was letting them know he was coming to them with authority and frankly the ultimate authority in the Church under Jesus Christ.  ...who has obtained like/the same precious faith with us, so we’re all in this together, that’s what he’s saying.  We’re all brought into the Body to be able to have this same precious faith, the ability to see and believe the same things – something that God gives us, a unity.  ...with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ: Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.  Peace, it says, be multiplied, and grace that God gives us that we can grow in.  If we receive, in this case here, what Peter’s bringing to them, the truth and a message.

Verse 3 - According as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain unto life, and the most precious of those things that God has given to us... it’s not just life for the sake of existence, it’s how to have life in an enjoyable way; right relationships, laws that produce fruit and pleasure and enjoyment of life.  ...and godliness, the more you live God’s way of life, the more enjoyable life becomes, the richer life becomes, the more fulfilling life is, the more exciting life is, the more true kind of joy you have in your life!  But where there is selfishness, that robs you of those very things...selfishness robs you of those things; human nature.

According as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of Him that has called us to glory and virtue: God has called us to change, to have and develop the kind of qualities that are His.  He wants to share those things with us so we can be a part of the same family.  Whereby has been given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature... What an awesome thing to say – that we’re partakers of the same divine nature. I think about Jesus Christ, how He had that nature from the beginning and He grew and grew and grew in that and when He was a young man, a teenager, 12 years old, in through there, He’d dumbfound the scholars, those who studied the scriptures all their lives; and He dumbfounded them by things He had to say because of that life that was in Him.   But we, as time goes along, when God calls us we finally come into the Church and we begin to be partakers of that nature.  And one of those qualities we’ve been talking about through here is the ultimate of it all – agape – God’s love.  We are able to partake of that mind, that mindset, that thinking.  A little bit at a time in our life.  We can’t experience it all the time!  Why?  Because we’re selfish!  ‘Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life’ – it doesn’t take much... don’t eat at the right time and all of a sudden it’s starting to come out – different things that affect us as human beings.

You know when you can experience it the most? You know one of the opportunities and times you can experience God’s nature and God’s way the most?  Feast of Tabernacles.  We’re going to have ability to have eight days together again – as much as all those who can afford it.  Those who can’t, if they can have four days, or if they can have one day... they’ll keep all eight days of the Feast but whatever time we can enjoy together...the longer you can do that; how awesome is that?  When you’re able to spend more time with one another in an environment that’s set apart for focusing on God and God’s way of life and you hear sermons and you focus on God and God shares with you more of His spirit.  God shares with me more of His spirit that time of year than any other time of the year.  I don’t have another eight days like that!

And so I’m able to be partakers of that divine nature during that eight days more than any other season of the year, more than any other time of the year...and the next one that comes closes to that would be the Feast of Unleavened Bread and Passover period – a time to be ...partakers of that divine nature, and the excitement...especially Passover.  Can’t tell you how much that means.  That’s where it all starts – focusing on Jesus Christ and the things about Jesus Christ.  I was ordained on Passover, it has a special feeling and meaning to me in a profound way – and because of what God blessed me to see and one of the first things that God gave me as some of these things began after what we had in the Church... was Passover.  Greater proof and understanding about 14th Passover.  And so there’s that relationship with Jesus Christ and with God that God’s blessed me with in a powerful way that means a great deal to me that I can only tell you about.  And so, an opportunity to be partakers of that divine nature in this season of the year in a great way with Jesus Christ in a profound way that is very special to me.  It should be special to all of us as we grow closer to God and understand the relationship we’re able to have with Jesus Christ through the Father, from the Father through Jesus Christ and with God the Father...but with Jesus Christ there through it all because He’s the head of the Church. He gives us everything we have – He truly does.  Every truth, every doctrine, everything that’s given to the Church comes from Jesus Christ.  It’s from God the Father, but it’s through Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ is the one who gives us those things – incredible!

So it says, partakers of the divine nature having escaped... Don’t you love that when you’re the closest to God’s people...don’t you love that when you’re able to feel the closest and know that you’re the closest?  What we had this last weekend with so many coming together like that – it was like a Feast, but it was only for the weekend and it wasn’t a Holy Day, it was a Sabbath and that was rich.  But that period of time because of what God’s doing and the truth God was giving – was awesome.  So we get to experience those times at certain times more... but we just don’t get it all the time. How many times have you left the Feast of Tabernacles, or maybe stayed one day longer, and you just kind of feel sick.  There are so many times where we’ve stayed over maybe one more day to make sure everything’s taken care of, people don’t have any problems and whatever and it’s just sick!  You have this feeling... it’s like you’ve been drained of everything you had the previous eight days!  If you know what I’m talking about?  Why?  Because most of the brethren are gone; you’re not able to have with them what you had the previous eight days and not only that, but you see the world, you see the attitudes – it’s like you had this special protection for this period of time and then all of a sudden your thrust back into the world and I think of everybody that has to go back out to their jobs and mingle with the world and be with the world again and you just feel sickened by that as well because you know what they’re going  back into.  But it’s a strange feeling.  Those of you who’ve been around for a long time – you know exactly what I’m talking about.  Whenever you’ve left the Feast of Tabernacles and there’s no one around anymore and your heading back home and you know what you’re heading back into and it’s like part of your heart has been taken out, it really is – but you savour that because you realize this is what it’s all about; the time  when you’ll have it every day; and something I can’t even begin to comprehend – for eternity.  A relationship with God that’s close and even closer than that!?  Incredible!

And besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; so it’s an ever growing process – all that we seek to grow in and draw closer to God in... And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; I think about things of moderation.  When I think of the word temperance, I think about that one there, I think about moderation and how if we can just learn that principle of life in the Church about moderation in all things.  And sometimes we’ve experienced in the Church where people go way to the right or way to the left in certain things...  I think of one individual that talked about (I think Johnny told us this) the only time we were right on track, right down the middle of the road is when we were careening from one ditch to the other trying to find our way.  Sometimes life is like that; where you shoot across the road to the other ditch and you come back and when you cross the middle line that’s when we’re there for a little while and we enjoy it.  It’s rich!  And then we get over to the other ditch before we finally are knocked back on course again.  But that’s the way human life and human nature is.

These things we seek to add to our life.  Moderation, as I was mentioning – sometimes people get off on a certain thing, maybe a dietary thing and you think... no, moderation, moderation, moderation – everything in moderation.  If we could just learn that one; and we do in time, we grow in it, don’t we?

Verse 7 – and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness agape. Godly love because this is the ultimate.  And so we learn by things about kindness and the more you strive to live a certain way and you even strive to treat people in a certain way in behaviour and conduct and in time with God’s favour and God’s blessing and God’s spirit it develops into a greater Godly love and the experiencing of God’s love.  For if these things be in you, and abound, so it’s something that can actually grow within us and become greater and greater; they make you so that you are not barren or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  So, living by God’s way, growing in these things, growing spiritually is all about this healing process.  It’s about a process that God is taking us through to be healed.  But he who lacks these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, so, if we begin to be cut off from the flow of God’s spirit in our life and we lack in these areas it can literally get to a point where we can’t see anymore.  So many different conversations, different ones at time, we think back in the past of things we’ve gone through and maybe we bumped into somebody, different ones we maybe come across that was in our fellowship in times past – and here they are...what are they doing today?  What do they do around Christmas time?  You think, how could that be?  As soon as you hear a sermon, an apostasy, you can’t wait to go out and have shrimp again?  It’s like, what happened?  And there’s this blindness that can happen to a person when you’re cut off totally from God’s spirit.  But it doesn’t happen all at once, it’s a thing that’s taken place through time and started somewhere way back because of sin; but there comes a point when it happens fully in a very powerful way, full swoop – incredible!

And so again, we want to grow, we want to be healed, we want to draw closer to God, we want to live by His way of life toward one another.  And so it says here, and cannot see afar off and has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence, that means work...we have to work at this, to make your calling and election sure: and what’s the context of so much of this?  How we live toward each other, how we think toward each other, how we treat each other.  It’s what it’s about!  So, give diligence to make your calling and selection sure: God calls us, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to be there when this is all said and done.  I think of all those who are not going to be able to share in the Millennium, the beginning of it at least, or in the 144,000...for if you do these things, you shall never fall: God’s promise.  If we’re living this way we’ll never fall.  For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly unto the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.  Wherefore I am not negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, Peter’s saying here, I’m not going to neglect telling you this over and over and over again so that you can remember it, so that you can see it, so that it can become a part of you, so that you’ll listen and change;  and as we listen and change that these things become more and more part of us ...that you may know them, and be established, I love this, in the present truth.  Isn’t that amazing?

Wherever we are in time there’s that which God is giving us and if we’re growing... when God sends forth His spirit it produces fruit and there’s going to be growth.  If we’re receiving it and responding properly you can’t help but grow.  It’s an awesome thing!  We’re going to have growth!  I think of the growth that God’s given us in the last few years...in unity, in oneness, in love...of a healing that’s taken place since December of 1994.  Those of you who were here in 1994, do you remember how you felt at the end of the year?  Do you remember how you felt that first year?  I do.  You talk about pain!  You talk about mental suffering because of an apostasy and what the Church was experiencing!  It was a horrifying thing we experienced – it truly was.  Time has a way of dulling the edges... we forget some of that pain sometimes – we shouldn’t fully by any measure – to have remembrance of those things, to remember what it was like.

So again, this present truth, we’ve had to think about that at different times.  God gives us something...what do we do?  I think of 2005, the Feast, present truth. What did God give us?  Incredible revelation about Jesus Christ; a fullness finally of being totally pulled away from the grasp of the trinity and finally completing that journey, of being able to escape what had come into the world and what the Church hadn’t yet been fully brought out of – still held captive to a degree. I was dumbfounded when I started doing research on that subject and began to find out how many churches out there, in their doctrines, teach that Jesus Christ eternally existed and they used the kind of scriptures we used.  ‘...the Rock that followed you...’  Corinthians 10, ‘and that Rock that followed them was Jesus Christ.’  Moses went into the water and baptized and it talks about that Rock that followed them.  That’s the scripture they use to show that Jesus Christ has eternally existed.  No He hasn’t!  And God gave it to us at that time – present truth – and we were able to receive it as a Body.  I think there were just a few who didn’t, but most everybody...and I can’t tell you how inspired I was at that time to go through that because I knew it was a biggie.  To be able to share this with the brethren, with the Church at an incredible time where every sermon is about God, is about what God is doing, is about that which God is doing in the future through the Millennium and the Great White Throne and all these truths that had intertwined with everything about the meaning – even the Feast.  And here God was giving this to us...but to see God bring it together to where we could all receive it as a Body at the same time.  What an awesome experience that was!  It truly was an awesome experience.  It was an awesome experience for me.

I remember what Mr. Armstrong went through when he used a year to bring about a small change in Pentecost; from the knowledge of it being observed on Monday to Sunday.  That was pretty small...and I think of all the people who left.  I think of all the churches and the ministry who left because of that and all the stirring up that took place.  And I think of how blessed we were because of what God is doing at the end-time that He brought us together to that point in time to receive this in unity and then to grow as a result of that.  I can’t help but think of other things that have happened like when we talked about how we were going to observe the Feast of Tabernacles: 4 days together and 4 days at home.  And there were people who had a battle with that.  ...present truth.  And some had to go through some tough times with that and some talked to others about some of that... blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, disgruntlement, disgruntlement and how bad and how wrong  and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah ... and spread dissention.  Grounds for being disfellowshipped, if we understand - divisiveness in God’s Church.  God had mercy on us and as a little bit of time went along, people got a hold of themselves in that.  God took care of it.  God dealt with it.

And then I think of the 50th Truth and I think of how blessed we were that we were able to have it in June rather than having to wait until the Feast of Trumpets to have the 50th Truth...the present truth... Amazing!  Are we able to receive whatever truth God gives us whenever He gives it to us?  And now more than ever we’re at that point.  We’ve had to go through some of those hard times to get us to this point because we had to address some things back then that now we’re quicker in addressing.  What an awesome thing...faster, quicker to respond.  I don’t know if you see God in that, if you see the power of God’s spirit in that in your life, but that’s an awesome blessing to where we’re able to come to a unity and a oneness in a faster way; because we had to go through those things to learn some incredible lessons, or have them reinforced in us again.  In some cases things we hadn’t experienced perhaps since 1974 in God’s Church – Pentecost....to that degree.  Awesome!  And so when you see God in the picture and how God moulds and fashions us, to me it’s awesomely exciting.  And so again...being established in the present truth.

Galatians 3 - Attitude of mind, unity and oneness, how we treat each other.  It’s amazing how many areas of scripture we can go through over and over again and it’s about relationships.  It’s about God’s law and how we treat one another – agape – how we live it.  Galatians 3:18 - For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise.  I wish we had more time in some of this but it’s talking here about certain things, that it’s not by your obedience of the law that God gives to us.  There are certain things here that have to do with promise, of certain things that were given to Abraham.  He says, Then why serve the law?  In other words it’s not something earned. God’s way is not earned.  Promises of God and God’s blessings are not something we can earn.  There’s a choice to live a certain thing in order to receive what He’s offering us.  He says, then why serve the law?   He said, It was added because of transgressions, some people like to use these scriptures saying, “See, you don’t have to keep the law anymore; the 10 Commandments.”  And this isn’t even talking about the 10 Commandments.

It says, then why serve the law? It was added because of transgressions... How can you have transgressions without law?  How can you have sin without commandments, law, telling you what you shouldn’t do?  If you didn’t have the law already when you talk about God’s way of life... so it’s talking about something else here.  ...till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels at the hand of a mediator. And it goes on to say here, Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one. Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid:  so it’s going through here and explaining what was done away with, the sacrificial system.  What was done away with here was the Levitical priesthood, all the things involved here that God gave to Moses, that God gave to Israel in time.  It’s not about the 10 Commandments and it’s not by obeying any certain formality or form of religion here, that by how well you do it, even if it’s God’s law if you go back to the beginning here.  It’s not a matter of how well you do something.  Levites couldn’t earn it.

Is the law then against the promises of God?  God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.  So, even with the 10 Commandments, even with God’s law here – righteousness doesn’t come by the law because man can’t keep it – that’s the story Paul gives over and over again.  We all have sin.  We can’t keep God’s law.  We can’t be saved that way even with the 10 Commandments.  But the scripture has concluded all are under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them who believe. It’s a matter of faith; that’s what we believe, that’s what God gives to us and it’s up to us whether we believe it, choose it once He gives us the ability to see it.

But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.  There was that which was given through the Levitical system; everything to do with the temple, everything to do with the service in the temple – all these things had meaning.  Everything about the sacrificial system; all of it had meaning about things that were to be fulfilled later on in time, primarily within the Church because that’s when faith came; in other words man was able to live by faith.  It finally came to a point in time where it wasn’t a matter of something in the Levitical priesthood,  it was something that God gave in the Church through faith.

Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.  So again here, there is that which disciplined Israel, there is that which kept them in discipline, if you will.  The priesthood, it was an awesome, incredible program that God had set up that they lived by and the regulated life and how they live life, how they kept the Feast of Tabernacles, how they kept other Holy Days and how God kept them focused on certain things.  But they didn’t understand it; they didn’t understand what it was all about, what it all pictured for the future.

Goes on to say here, verse 25 – But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.  And I can spend a whole sermon on this and probably ought to in a future date.  I think I’ve talked about some of these things in times past but we’ve speeding through this rather rapidly.  For you are the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.  That which is pictured in the sacrificial system – Jesus Christ beginning the process there; preparing for the Days of Unleavened Bread, the offerings that were offered up starting with the Passover that they were to keep, that was not an offering.  Before you’re able to enter into the Holy Days you keep this period of time. That’s how God starts it – He starts with Jesus Christ – what does this mean to us.  Well, it’s very basic.  We understand this is where repentance starts.  We’re granted forgiveness through Jesus Christ.  He died so we could be forgiven of sin, so that we could have God’s spirit live within us, so we could live by the spirit of His way of life.

For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ Jesus have put on Christ. It goes on to say there... There is neither Jew nor Greek, and this is the point that I’m heading toward here that we’re talking about today.  When it comes to God’s Church, when it comes to baptism, when it comes to being able to put on Christ, to be a part of the Body of Christ it’s not a matter of distinction of nationalities; of whether someone was a Jew and ‘closer to God’ and what they’ve been taught; because the early Church had problems with this.  Peter had some difficulties with this.  This was their battle because of the way society was and because the only known world at that time was Judaism as a whole.  It wasn’t a matter of the Israelites who were scattered into other regions of the world; because they had lost all this.  But the Jews were there and for them to see the truth go to Gentiles was a difficult thing and God is saying, “You’re one Body – there’s not one better than the other.  You’re all one Body in Christ – Jew and Gentile.”  Another thing I hate, and sometimes I’ve realized that people have misunderstood things about Israel and sometimes people want to... maybe because they think if they’re a part of Israel that somehow that’s better than some other tribe or some other part of the world.  No it isn’t!  It’s just that this is how God is fulfilling a plan and Israel wasn’t a good example if we understand it – they were rotten!  They had to become known as the Lost 10 Tribes.  Judah was condemned by Jesus Christ – every facet of their religious belief was condemned by Jesus Christ.  There was no truth in the world except that which came through Christ and so even today, every once in a while sometimes a difference in nationalities of people creeps up, pops up.  I loathe it, I hate it if anybody thinks they’re better than another nationality or thinks they are special in some way or whatever...  No!  Nobody is!  Doesn’t matter who we are in the world; when God calls us into the Church He’s calling us into His Family and we’re all to be at one.  That’s why I loathe differences of people that have problems in races.  And it exists in the world in a big way and not just between races, even people in their own race don’t get along.  Shiite and Sunni is a good example.  There are people in the world that hate each other and like to kill each other because of a little bit of a difference of something that goes back in their history to where one calls themselves Sunni and the other calls themselves Shiite.

...there is neither bond nor free, see, whenever God calls somebody, whatever He calls somebody out of, whatever it is – if they be in servitude, if they be in bondage and God calls them and opens up their mind... not one is better than the other; because the tendency is in society, people look down upon someone who’s been in bondage or serving in that capacity in life, that’s been sold to perhaps pay a debt; because that was a term that was used very commonly back at this period of time: someone is sold out of a family for a certain amount of time to help pay a debt, to serve in a home or whatever it might be, on a farm type of thing.  And so often times people are looked down upon because of that by others who are just ‘a little bit better’.  Incredible!  We were talking about that last night... there’s a movie series that every once in a while comes out on TV right now on PBS; Jane Austin books. When they go back in time in old England, they talk about the elite, those who had the wealth and their attitude...  They do such a good job on some of these shows showing the smugness of people and how they treated other people who are... and I mean, they let them know, “You’re beneath us!”  ...and how they talked about each other and how there were these certain levels even in their upper crust.  They had different layers in the upper crust and how people thought about themselves and the smugness of how people treat each other.  Sick, sick, sick – human beings are so sick!  Truly are!

Then God says ...there is neither male nor female:  I have seen so much abuse, not in the world, in God’s Church since 1969.  Took me about six months to start seeing it, as I mentioned earlier when I saw a husband and wife having an argument: but as time went along and the more I grew, the more I saw and experienced how men treated women.   And things that women went through in response to some of that treatment and I think of the 70’s and battles that Mr. Armstrong had to deal with within the Church and within the ministry because of certain things that were happening in the world and how women in society were beginning to respond to certain things because of how they’d been treated.  And I understand that!  It just wasn’t right.  Both were wrong; and those things affected the Church and they infected the Church and they infected the ministry and we had some big problems in the Church that I can tell you about another time, just because of the way the world was around us at that time in the 70’s, when we were going through this as a part of society and we went through it in the Church as well.  Most of it was because of how men treat women.  It’s appalling!  ...and feeling that women are inferior to them; and some of that may still exist in the Church today.  I hope it doesn’t.  I hope that we’re able to get rid of that; but it comes across in people’s actions and how you think is how you act.  If you think a certain way about someone you can’t help but treat them in a certain way, and I have seen women in the Church treated horribly because of how some men think toward them; because they don’t respect women like God says they should.  And that’s a shameful sick thing.

And those are the kinds of things we’re blessed to begin to get rid of more and more out of our lives so it’s not in the Church anywhere, so we can grow in a quantum leap here to get rid of that so that as we enter into the Millennium we’re going to be able to help others be delivered from that – because it’s bondage!  It’s corruption!  It’s exactly what it said back there in Genesis with Adam and Eve, when it all began.  I think of different societies today and how people treat women.  It’s been 6,000 years of this and it’s been sick and I hope all of you are sickened by what you see in history and by what, if any of you’ve been long time members in the Church that you’re sickened by that which has happened in God’s Church of how women have been treated by men, looked down upon.  And it is this same kind of British smugness: and I’m not picking on you British over there, it was just an age you went through – it was here in the States as well.  It’s been in the world, these different class things and so forth and how people have treated one another.  It’s just that some of that same smugness has existed between men and women.

Have any of you experienced that in times past?  Ladies?  It’s in society today.  It’s on the job.  It’s in the workforce.  You see it all the time!  And so often what is the forefront of all this?  Their little sick, twisted, perverted minds – because it has everything to do with sex.  See?  That’s why I love what it said in the Song of Solomon when it used the same word...when it was being written there... ‘and his love is toward me.’  Not somewhere else.  Incredible the human mind and how people think and how things about the value of marriage...because see, it goes back to the home, doesn’t it and when a man will do various things...  What’s this one program on TV?  Cheaters.  Big surprise!  What’s this one crazy show that’s sometimes in the late afternoon?  Maury?  Saw one one time where they had this back room and they’re going to bring this guy out later on but they have this women back there talking to him like they’re in this room by themselves and she starts flirting with him...and shockaroo, shockaroo – he starts flirting back in a bad way.  And then finally they bring him out on the stage like... “we saw you, we know what you’re like.”  And that’s the world we live in.  And so much of that has to do then, when people engage in those things, they don’t understand how they hurt their minds and so healing of the mind has much to do with this very area alone, ‘lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life.’  Pride of life comes in when, especially within the Church, when you lift up something else above God’s law and justify it.  How many of you ladies have worked on jobs?  You  know exactly what I’ve talked about – how you’re treated sometimes by men and how men treat you and how men look upon you.  Isn’t that sick?  And they don’t understand they’re hurting their home life, they’re hurting their family life, they’re hurting a bond that God wants every man and woman to experience in life, to draw closer together in.  Isn’t that amazing?  Incredible!

So we have to be able to see the evil that’s in the world, to see the evil that’s in human nature, to see how corrupt it is before it can be changed – because that means every person has to repent of what’s wrong in their mind and what’s wrong in their thinking and what’s wrong in society and what’s wrong in the world.  That’s why I loathe the kind of advertizing that’s in the world because most of it is about sex, isn’t it?  Be honest with yourself.  That’s what companies use over and over again.  It’s repulsive out there what they do and how they do it; sex, sex, sex.  And they plant that in people’s mind and young people’s minds and then they begin to think that’s the way life is.  Young children watch movies or TV and shows and they think that’s what marriage is like.  They grow up thinking that.  They grow up thinking to have certain expectations of what life is like and it’s perverted, sick.  We come into God’s Church...you think we carry some of this baggage with us?  Absolutely.  Things we’re to conquer and overcome because healing between a husband and wife and in family comes to the degree that man first begins to examine this and change in their own life and how they think toward women.  There’s a lot said right there if we can all digest it.  Truly is. Goes back 6,000 years because man has chosen to live life selfishly and not obey God.  Incredible!

So that’s why we’re told in the beginning of the Church – and here Paul is addressing it.  When we come into the Church there’s no distinction; male and female – we are one.  You are all one in Christ Jesus.  There are not some certain ones that are better than others; bond or free, Jew or Greek...and yet that’s what’s in the world.  People, who think they’re better than others and talk down upon, are condescending to others.  I know when I’m being talked to in a condescending way and you do too.  You know when people are talking down to you because why?  Because they think... they don’t think; they know they’re better.  It’s just how they think.  Amazing!

Colossians 3:1 - If you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection/your desires on things above, not on things on the earth.  And that’s work!  That’s a battle!  Just like we’re talking about here; if God says, “This is the way it should be, this is what’s better, this is where the enjoyment and the rewards of life come from” ...then God says, “Set your desire on that!  Work for that!  Pray about that!  Seek to grab a hold of that!  And seek to leave Egypt; try to get out of Egypt!”  Isn’t that what God says when He talks about various things in scripture here when it talks about idolatry? Flee Idolatry! Flee Adultery! Flee Fornication!  There’s a mindset there of how you think – to discipline your life if you see certain things, that you strive to discipline yourself and ask God for help to discipline your thinking.  To look away; to not let your mind begin to wander or think – men!  See?  You have to work on that?  You have to pray about that?  If you have male hormones you do!  I’m just calling things what they are...something we should all admit and be candid with in our own life.  Okay?  Honest with!  Honest before God.  God gave us all certain things. There are certain desires and certain things that even work by chemicals in our mind and our being, but God created them so that we use them in the right way.  This is where the test is!  This is how you’re tried in life when it comes to your calling!  Do you want God’s way?  Then you’ve got to seek to use what He gives you in the right way – to understand that’s where the joy and the right fullness of life comes from.  And if you disobey that?  You know what you’re going to experience?  You know what you’re going to prove?  That God was right about that; you’re going to suffer for it; your mind is going to be hurt by it; your thinking’s going to be hurt by it and its going to take time to become healed of it.  And the longer you’ve been in God’s Church, if you’ve been fighting battles of life, all kinds of battles of life, and every kind of relationship in human life... you know what the battles are in thinking and being healed in every facet of your thinking.

Set your affection on things above and not on things of the earth. For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.  See, from that moment of baptism – in your mind, in your conviction before God you told God that your life is God’s.  “My life is God’s.  Do with it what you will.  Mould and fashion me and I’ll be happier and more fulfilled as you mould and fashion it, not as I do it.”

When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory. So it’s that long range desire and goal we have of fighting this fight until we’re there – a part of the Family, the God Family. Mortify, put to death, therefore your members which are upon the earth; what are you to mortify, put to death?  ...fornication... What is that?  It’s in the mind!  It is what it is in a physical life in the human body and something that everyone has to look up.  Men and women!  Sadly the world has gone so far now it’s affected the life of women and women’s minds are distorted in the world...young girls growing up in distortion because of what they see on TV and music and men and women in how they think.  Used to be a time when it was mainly the guy who was chasing the girls when talking about High School.  Now it’s as much the girls, and sometimes more in some areas.  I’ve heard of stories of more where the girls are chasing the guys in a distorted perverted way.  Used to be just primarily from the guys!  ...fornication... you know, it’s amazing where God starts with some things.  Why?  Because it has everything to do with how we think; it has everything to do... some things like this that have a strong influence...  Think these things don’t have a strong influence upon the human mind?  You better believe it!  And so those are the things that have to be brought into subjection – battles.  And how you fight that battle depends a great deal upon your relationship with God – whether there’s sin or not, whether you’re repenting or not.

...uncleanness, in our own lives, inordinate affection, so many of these things have to do with the same thing.  It’s amazing isn’t it!  ...evil concupiscence, in other words, lust, desire for that which is forbidden. That’s what it means.  Is man like that?  Do we lust and desire human beings for that which is forbidden?  ...that which is not lawful?  Sure!  That’s ‘lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes’ – desiring to have what belongs to somebody else.  It can be about male and female, it can be about many things, it can be about job, it can be about promotion, it can be about power – what people lust after, what they desire to have, that they see someone else has that they’re jealous of – they want that.  It can be money, finances, things that people want to have that they think will solve their problems in life...lottery that will solve all my problems in life.  And you find out about those people – how miserable so many of their lives become after something like that happens to them...you know amazing!  It doesn’t solve your life problems.

...and covetousness, which is idolatry: For which things' sake the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience: that’s the very reason – because of all these things; because of all this disobedience that man suffers and that judgement comes upon mankind. In which you also walked some time, when you lived in them.  So when we weren’t a part of the Church, if we didn’t grow up in the Church; even there everybody has to go through various things and learn lessons and become convicted to these things, but more so when you’re called directly out of the world and you’re directly a part of it and God calls you out of it...the change that has to take place?  The change that must take place?  ...that we lived in, that we were a part of, that we rubbed shoulders with and God says come out of it – be different.  To come out of the party life and realize that’s not life at all.  It destroys life.  You know the way so many college kids go off to school?  I know what that’s like!  I’ve lived it!  Sick!  I wish I’d had the kind of mind that I was able to develop later on, whereas I’d been converted before I went to college and then I’d made something of those years, more than what I did.  Live a party life and you squander and throw away a lot of ability to learn that can help you later on in life.  Amazing what people do to themselves and don’t understand.

Verse 8 - But now you also put off all these; anger, see, its relationships.  Never become angry with someone else, frustrated, upset... got to put them off, got to fight it, got to bring it into subjection, because that’s human nature and God says don’t let it be in you – fight it!  Seek help to conquer and overcome it.  ...wrath, wanting to see wrath come upon somebody else, seeing someone else want to be punished, seeing someone else want to receive the brunt end of the stick.  Where’s the love of God in that?  It’s in the world, but I think if it ever happens in the Church – how can we want to see someone else suffer and go through suffering; and be the children of God?  You can’t!  If that’s your desire, if that’s what you want to see...it’s wrong.  Should be mercy.  Now there may be times when some of those things have to take place, but there is never to be any pleasure in any of those things; but hurt, and suffering and pain and feeling with what people are going through.  And so again here it’s bringing self into subjection.

...malice, so He said none of these are to be in us.  ...blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.  Wrong words, wrong kind of joking – things that are so common in the world today – things that people think are funny.  I switch across the dial some evenings and sometimes I’m just dumbfounded sometimes what you come across and people say things that are supposed to be funny in comedy and you think... you don’t know how sick your mind is, how long it’s going to take when you’re called to have your mind healed because you’ve done so much damage to your mind of things you truly think are funny – that are so sick and perverted and distorted in thinking.  It’s amazing how people hurt themselves.

Lie not one to another, lying?  Do people lie?  It’s the way the world is.  ...seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds; I think of politics that I loathed seeing come into God’s Church, it became powerful in God’s Church: Politics...in the ministry and all the way through the Church.  God let me get a great big whiff of that and it really stinks!  And again, politics requires lying and compromise and I’ve hated to see that in people’s lives – hated to see it in minister’s lives.  Sick, sick, sick!

Lie not one to another, God hates lying, loathes lying in that respect because of what it does.  ‘These things do I hate...’  Go back and read it and there are two of them that have to do with lying and false witness.  Incredible!

...seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds; so again, it’s something we have to put off.  You have to continue to work at that and the more God reveals to you the more you continue to put off.  You can’t put it all off all at one time, because you know what?  As you grow, just as this series has talked about, God’ll let you see a little more; there’s always something more to work on.  You’re always whittling away.  It’s like if you see someone working with a block of granite and they’re able to chisel away at it in order to make a statue. You’re chipping away and continually refining and it’s amazing how minute you can get, and some that aren’t as minute in some of those areas.  With our lives, it’s continually chipping away until finally there’s that which can be changed from mortal to immortal into God’s Family.  But it’s always a process in our life of something being chipped away.  And in the beginning there are bigger chunks.  When you first come in and you start keeping the Sabbath and you turn away from Sunday and you turn away from Easter and Christmas you’ve got some big chunks flying.  They’re going all over the place.  And there are certain things in your lifestyle that you begin to change – huge chunks going away and you begin to see at least a little bit of something of a form of something other than the big ole square block – hopefully.  Hopefully none of us are just a big ole block...spiritually.

Lie not one to another... see that you put off the old man and his deeds...And put on the new man/the new person, man or woman, put on the new, that’s what it says here – the new that God is offering.  And you’re constantly doing that.  It’s not a one-time event, it’s something you continue to work at and cry out to God for help in putting on His way of life, becoming new.  Again, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him who created Him:  we’re told over and over again we’re being made after the image of Jesus Christ: that’s the image.  That’s what we’re being made after – the beginning, the first of the firstfruits: that’s how God is moulding and fashioning us – after Him.

Verse 11 - Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, why are these things mentioned again?  ...circumcision nor uncircumcision... because of pride!  Because of how people look upon each other based upon differences and their prejudice toward each other.  ...Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free:  just like we read earlier, ‘male nor female’... but Christ in all, and in you all.  That’s what God wants us to see – God, Christ, God’s spirit, how we treat each other, how we think about each other, the fairness, the love, the care, the concern, the gentleness, the mercy, the kindness...all those qualities that reflect God and God’s way of life and God’s mind.

Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, mercy – being quick to be merciful before we’re ready to swing the bat.  As human beings so often we’re ready to swing a bat, ready to make things ‘right’.  Sometimes it’s good just to back away and be merciful and give people time, give people space.  ...kindness, just being kind.  And if we’re not kind to somebody – what’s wrong?  Why can’t we always be kind to each other in things that we say and do and in gestures and in little things – whatever it is: letting someone else go first, letting someone else out of the elevator first, letting someone else go in line first...whatever it is.  Giving way.

...humbleness of mind, meekness, teachable spirit, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, I like that ‘forbearing one another’ because it has to do with tolerance and how we think toward each other and the word has to do with ‘tolerate’ but in a positive way.  It means ‘to allow for the differences’ in others.  The word that has to do with ‘tolerate’ and ‘tolerance’ toward one another is a word that I love when I read through it and it talks about ‘allowing for the differences’.  Because so often as human beings we don’t allow for the differences... men and women... one thinks they’re better... Jew and Greek... no, allow for the differences.  There’s the variety and the spice of life in the differences.  Thank God we have differences.  Thank God we’re not all alike.  Can you imagine if everybody was like you?  ...looked like you, talked like you...I’d go crazy quickly.  I couldn’t take myself very long!    Wouldn’t it be a sick world!  Thank God there’s difference in everything of life.  Think of all the variety of life He’s given us, even in people.  And people don’t realize sometimes how they rob themselves just listening to other people and how they think.  I love it... people of different nationalities... and people in the world are different in how they think... I’ll start with us in the U.S.  Even in different parts on this country we think in different areas differently.  People up around Pennsylvania and New York as a whole... I found out when my wife and I went up there in the ministry back in the 80’s, that they’re different than people in Texas.  They’re different.  We’re all different; but we can learn from each other and we can profit from that, in the differences of one another.

And so it is when you begin to go to other parts of the world.  People have a difficulty when they expect people to be the same way and then sometimes they take offense because of how people talk and I think of different places in Europe.  There’s a lot of variety in Europe.  You take Belgium and The Netherlands.  People there are different than people in the States.  People in Australia... when I went to college in Bricketwood some of the Australians were there and I got such a charge out of them at times because they speak very plainly about things.  You know where you stand because they’re very plain spoken.  In the States we try to cover up too much, we try to shade things and... sometimes, not always, sometimes we’re bombastic, but anyway, in relationships a lot of time’s it’s that way.  I appreciate the openness and I learn things from different places and different people around the world and we can grow and learn different things from one another and profit by that in how we treat each other instead of taking offense to it or looking down upon someone.

... Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, forgiving one another... how powerful is that?  That has to do with never holding anything against anyone because if you hold something against someone...of the past, of whatever it might be, you’re not letting them be free, you’re taking on yourself something that is God’s alone to have.  Only God has the right to forgive anyone.  We have no right to hold anything against any one; to remember certain things, not to be naive – yes: but not to use it against people, not to create barriers and so forth.  ...forgiving one another...always having that attitude of mind.

...if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do you. That’s a tall order, it truly is and candidly we can’t even live that very well.  We have to have God’s help to do that in spirit and in truth. And above all these things put on charity/agape, God’s love.  Cry out to God for His love and how to treat one another and think about each other and talk about one another... which is the bond of perfectness. That which is perfect.  This is what binds us together in that which is perfect because it comes from God.  And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which you are all called in one Body; and be you thankful.  Seek to be thankful for what we have.  Seek to be thankful about each other that’s in the Body.  Have you ever prayed about that?  ...to thank God for the different ones that are in the Body?  ...to thank God for the different personalities of people with the different backgrounds, different makeup, and the different flaws that they’re conquering and overcoming and growing in that you can learn from and benefit from?  ...Because we all have flaws.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. This has to do with the joy and the fullness of life that comes – not something that’s fake where you get out here and you’re opening up your hymn book and singing to each other.  It’s about what you live and what comes out of your mouth toward each other and how you think toward each other and how you feel toward each other.  And whatsoever you do in word or deed, do in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him.

Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands, as is fit in the Lord. There is authority and unity within a family in the right way.  And I’ll probably come back to this one here.  We’ll go through this in a husband and wife sermon somewhere up the road here because it’s about family; and it goes on talking about, husbands you’re to love your wives... There is an order, just like there is in the Church.  Jesus Christ who’s the head of the Church, me as God’s apostle that’s next over the Church on earth in that respect, my wife, and the evangelists... and we understand that and we take no threat with one another in the Body – we shouldn’t; and we see the order that God has given us to work together as a Family.  We are a family.  No one is above anybody else in that respect... There is the order, but there’s not that where  anyone looks down upon each other.  Someone who’s ordained... someone who isn’t, or whatever – to a job of an evangelist, or whatever it might be; a senior elder... it’s just the way the Body functions.  We see it and we understand it as a way that God is working with the Body to do whatever He’s doing and to understand He’s doing it.  And it is the same way in a family.  It’s not a matter because the husband, a man, is better than the wife... but that’s how men have taken so much of that.  It’s just an order that God has given.  A smart husband, a smart man will learn to learn from his wife.  A dumb one won’t.  A dumb one will think he’s better.  A dumb one will think he’s over her.  A dumb one will think he’s smarter than her, better than her.  That’s a dumb one!  REAL dumb.  Okay?  Incredible...

This is broadened out then into every relationship and how we think about each other and it’s how we see each other and can we learn from each other throughout the Body?  I learn from the youngest of people of whom God calls.  I truly do because I see what God is doing.  That’s what we must look upon and see what God is doing within the Body and love what God is doing.  And because of that we love one another within the Body and as we understand this process of healing and we go through this, meditate upon these things, pray about these things... it starts in your family.  Begins there – that is your arena of life to be tried and tested as applying God’s way of life first and foremost in the littlest of things in life and how you think and how you treat each other and then it magnifies itself out into the community, but first into the Church because this is a greater arena for us within the Church and how we think and treat each other.

It’s an awesome thing and it reflects whether or not, or to the degree that God’s love is a part of it and that’s what we want: His love abiding in us.

~~~end

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