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Note: we will add new material to this site as led by the Holy Spirit, as He leads us in the light of the Lord Jesus Christ. Please visit our Archive section for past posts, or our Essentials page for further edifying study. June 27, 2008
Let Not Your Heart be Troubled... Dear saints, precious to our Lord Jesus Christ and our Most High and Holy Father in Heaven, grace and peace and patience to all of you in these most troubling times. Oh how we need to pray for one another like never before, as the birth pangs of the end of this age appear to be increasing with each new day; as men's heart begin to fail at the possibility that our modern, push button age of ease and enlightenment isn't all that it promised to be. Look around you dear brethren,,, earthquakes, terrible storms, looming worldwide famine, fuel prices rising out of control and causing such fearful tumult in this modern, energy-drunken world, the threat of a complete greed-driven meltdown in the financial and banking markets. War and the rumor of wars as the kings of this earth seek remaining riches and resources. Disease and pestilence beginning to surface, confounding man's iron-grip trust in his medicines and technologies. Hundreds of thousands of human lives spent in just the past few months by all of the above. The nominal church seeking its way in the manner and wisdom of the world, reaching new and greater degrees of abandonment from the faith once delivered. Wolves and false prophets, deceivers all of them, spewing hellish things from their mouths all in the name of our Father's Beloved and Perfect Son! And oh so many in this hour being led away and devoured in their lust for self-gratifying religion and experience. Oh but all this must be so, little ones, for man must come to the end of himself, and his trust in the great lie must be shattered into a thousand pieces. No, we are not like God. No we cannot find or devise our own way on this earth. No our ideas, inventions, imaginations and solutions are not enough to save us from ourselves, the curse or the destroyer. No greed is in fact not good! No our modern oil-thirsty world will not last forever (much less than a few generations), and the curse on this earth remains, and will do so until the return of the King who will restore all things. All things are happening just as foretold by our Lord and all the Prophets, that we might see and believe; that our faith might grow stronger as the hour grows darker (John 14:29). Oh little ones, be not afraid, for He will return just as certainly as He came the first time. The Living Word of God is sure and certain, a rock of salvation beneath our feet, and rock of destruction to all the enemies of our God and King. "LET not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. "In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. " Now, more than ever, we need to believe in both the Father and the Son, and look to His appearing as our only hope and deliverance. He did not want us to be anxious or afraid in this time brethren, but to look to Him who supplies all we need. Only let us pray more urgently in the name of Jesus Christ that He would keep us in this hour, and strengthen our weak hands and hearts. Until that moment when our Master descends to the middle heaven to receive His Precious and Beautiful Bride, He remains in the Highest Heaven, at the right side of the Father, interceding on our behalf, fulfilling whatever we ask in His name and as His will. He alone is our Faithful and High Priest, who has immediate access to the God of All Life, He who is our Most High and Heavenly Father. Our Savior knows our frame, for He was just as we are in this world, and He understands our natural tendency, as we look around at all of the frightening events in this world, to become fearful and easily shaken. Brethren, those who are watching soberly for His imminent coming for His own, all is progressing precisely according to His plans and purposes. It should give us great comfort, those who have read the prophecies and are waiting expectantly and patiently for Him, that everything is in the Father's mighty hands, as He turns all things over to His Beloved Son. All enemies of the Lord must be subdued! All pride must be broken! All lies must be made manifest! All darkness must be exposed by that Great and Awesome Light that is the Morning Star soon to break forth on the world of men and devils! He who saves us will indeed save us to the uttermost. Do we truly and deeply believe this dear saints? Oh, but we must, for He is our only hope. His name is Jesus Christ and He alone is the Savior and Deliverer of His people! His words are certain; they cannot fail, for He is truth and all power has been granted to Him. "I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you." He left us most certainly, but He did not leave us alone, left to our own courage and devices, as sheep without a shepherd. He left us His mighty indwelling Spirit, and the assurance that as He is so we will be in this world. He also assured us that He will in fact return for His precious ones, to receive them to Himself, and to present them spotless to His Father. Dear Saints, all those aspiring to enter into the great wedding supper of the Lamb - It may not seem so, or feel like it at times, but... He who is in us us greater than he who is in the world! The victory is assured (won mightily by our Lord in His perfect life and His death on that bloody cross); and it is only our faith our lack of it that will determine whether we apprehend it or not. I know quite honestly, that in the natural part of me, I feel something like an orphan in a world where I don't really belong; a world gone mad in its lust to live apart from its Maker. The man-led and man-honoring mega-church on the corner is not my home. The pagan, power-hungry kings of this world are not my King. The wisdom of this world, honoring and exalting man and his empty achievements, is not my wisdom. The hopes and dreams of most folks in my neighborhood are not mine. The religion of this world, honoring the god of this world, is certainly not my faith. The life that men live in the body is not my life (for He is my life now). The fleshly limitations in terms of righteousness of which men are subject do not describe me (for He will perform His works in me). So it is easy to feel something like an abandoned, unwanted orphan isn't it? Yet I also have his sure and unshakeable word that He will not leave me as a fatherless orphan in this world; that He will return for me to bring me cleansed and sanctified to my own place with my Father in heaven. The question then is do I really believe this. AND DO YOU?. My friends, we must, and I encourage all of you now to read John 14 and other parts of His Word which convey such wonderful hope and promise in this hour. Then go to the Father and ask Him in Jesus' Name to help you receive every single word in faith and power; that it would settle in our spirit and establish us in the midst of such fearful times. Little ones, be supremely comforted and encouraged by the fact that we are not alone, that both the Father and the Son abide within us if indeed we are His children; that we have His Spirit of Comfort and Help. Now I am aware that to most professing, church-going Christians this means little in practical terms. Yet I hope better things for each of you reading these words. And indeed, if such assurances spoken by the Lord of Life ring hollow, as mere religious sentiment, then most certainly we know what we must pray for; and I pray all of this for you now in His Wondrous Name. "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." Everything offered by this present is empty and lifeless, as its present ruler has nothing but lies and dust to offer his citizens. Yet our Lord leaves us with peace, heavenly peace, soul-calming peace, fear-quenching peace. Consider David, full of the power of the Spirit, standing before giants calmly stooping down to pick up a few small smooth stones. The prospect of death was all around him and bearing down upon him; yet he was filled with a sprit-granted and courageous peace that was soon to lead to absolute victory for the glory of the Lord. And even so our Lord in human form, consigned to a most brutal and bloody death, yet perfectly resting in the care and purpose of His Loving Father. Oh that this kind of peace would be our own dear saints. Oh how we desperately need it at the end of this age, as man is brought violently to the very end of himself. Because I live, you will live also. And indeed now more than in any other time, we must be sure we know what the Christian life really means; what it is exactly and what it is not. For most who name the name of Christ I fear that this has become lost in a world where true religion has more to do with human energy and activity than the divine conception leading to living each moment abiding in He who is the Life of the World. Here is a spiritual truth for those able to receive it - THERE IS TRULY ONLY ONE LIFE according to the Father, and that is His Beloved Son. All those outside of Him are dead already regardless of religious or moral expression designed to imitate real life. Be not deceived brethren - To live is Christ! It is nothing less and there can be nothing more! The preacher on the street, or the priest in saintly robes, or the slick-haired salesman on the television can promise you something other, but this is a LIE! Indeed, it is the first and only lie! As we look around us in this hour what we are seeing in essence are the fruits of death, nothing more. All that is already dead is starting to rot and reveal its true state - DEATH! We who are called in the Lord Jesus Christ must choose life and know precisely what this means and what it costs! Do you have a claim or place in this world? Fine, then give it up, for it is nothing compared to the place He is preparing for you now. Are you a somebody in this world? Well my friend, better to become the world's nobody that you might become a somebody to He who will soon rule all the universe with a rod of iron! Let it all go dear brothers and sisters, whatever it is, that you might gain the Lord Jesus Christ, and all of the super-abounding life and light that comes with Him. Little children, the time has come to lay down all that we love and cherish and trust in, that we might take up the Lord of Life, and all that He received in this world - ignominy, shame, rejection, a bloody, splintered cross. You each know what this means, and every heart knows what sits in the place of the Lord. It would be so simple and easy if we could love Him in addition to everything else, but it seldom works this way in the human heart. Those born of the Spirit know all too well that to love Him requires the removal of so many other things. The cost of living in Him and loving Him is nothing short of everything dear saints!
Dear brethren in
the Lord, I pray that He would supply all of you with grace and
peace in this hour and that you might be encouraged by His Words
in John 14 and elsewhere. I also encourage you to join with each
other in the Spirit to pray for one another, as indeed the times
are growing deathly dark. I know as we look out with our eyes,
and see the headlines foretelling grim tidings across this
entire world, that it is easy to lose heart and to seek to grab
onto something. Yet we must remember that our Lord is holding on
to us, and will continue to do so until He comes to claim His
reward, and judge this evil generation. In Jesus' Precious and Mighty Name. Amen. Please pray for us here at Living-Walk, that we would watch and see the Master at work, and understand what He would have us do. Your friend and servant in Christ Jesus, W.E.S. |
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