Faithwoman

gOSH FLUFFY!

the gem of all gems.. the HEART!!!!

Bondman

to that!

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Bondman

Hi Faithwoman and Mark, you guys sure have been whippin' up a storm of great truths here!

I love the 'gem' one, hon, and expecially all that you wrote about the the 'strolling' picture. Really excellent, and very apt for us all in our daily life I thought.

Mark, all you said about sin and moving forward in the Lord was so spot on. We really don't need those bondages, do we? They hold us back, mess us up, harm us - and hurt and disappoint our Lord!! Yep, not always easy to relinquish them, but like you said this is Holy Spirit territory and He can and will make those who seek the right way to become more holy and be growing in personal righteousness in Christ the Messiah.

I agree we gotta see sin for what it is, quit kidding ourselves, face it, and get it sorted! Again not easy - but then is anything that's TRULY worthwhile in the world ever easy? What excites me is to see folks here who are SERIOUS about the Lord and their walk with Him, are choosing to stand up and do what's right instead of taking the easy way. THAT'S the difference between being on the broad way to destruction and the narrow way that leads to Life - with a capital L!!! (Matt 7:13-14).

Wow, bless you both!

- BM

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Bondman

Message #115

'GREEK THINKING' REALLY DOESN'T HELP OUR CHRISTIAN WALK!

In respect of how we think about life, from the cradle to the grave we Westerners are taught how to think in the way THE ANCIENT GREEKS DID - rather than how God’s special people, the HEBREWS, thought at the same time in history. Sadly, this is MOST UNHELPFUL to our Christianity, adversly affecting, in a quite serious way, how we see things and react to them. Let me try and explain.

I’ll start with something strong to help get us on track to understand the problem we’ve inherited. Because we ARE Greek thinkers we will perfectly happily stand up on our hind legs and say to Almighty God, "Hey you, I got rights y’know!! Who do you think you are anyway!!" Hmm… I’m pretty CERTAIN He already KNOWS Who He is!! In point of fact His UTTER RIGHT TO BE GOD AND TO RULE OVER ALL OF OUR LIVES IS EXACTLY what we really don’t want to accept, or certainly not to FULLY accept!

We have OUR rights we reckon!! This "I, me, my, mine" stuff is straight-out Greek thinking. Hey, look at me, I’M the most important person round here!! I saw children doing this in the playground every day of my teaching career! Our way of thinking and therefore our way of approaching THE WHOLE OF LIFE is so VERY detrimental to one of the most IMPORTANT and NECESSARY steps that we all need to take in the whole of our Christian life: ACCEPTING AND ACKNOWLEDGING THE LORDSHIP OF JESUS OVER THE WHOLE OF OUR LIFE.

You see, Greek thinking teaches us that the INDIVIDUAL is ALL-IMPORTANT, and so we’ve all learnt how to stand up and assert our INDIVIDUAL IMPORTANCE and RIGHTS!! Greek thinking! And thus we think that NO ONE, BUT NO ONE, should ever be able to have authority over us and try bossing us around. No way!! -- Man how sad is that! This is a problem that HEBREW THINKING does not have!!

Thing is, if ever we are to grow and progress in our Christian life we simply HAVE to let One particular Person have TOTAL AUTHORITY OVER US. That’s what Jesus’ being LORD in our lives means. HE becomes the One Who is in charge. In my life these days I do what He TELLS me to do: NOT what I want to do! HE has ALL the authority, not me!! I happily ALLOW HIM TO CONTROL MY WHOLE LIFE!! May sound pretty drastic, but I can assure you that IT WORKS INCREDIBLY WELL!!! But oh, how our Greek-moulded minds and wills fight AGAINST this! We’ll do just about anything rather than give in to Jesus, and let Him rule in, and over OUR LIFE!!

I have to tell you that you will get NOWHERE in your Christian life until you front up to this FACT – that He MUST RULE in your life. Not in part of it – in ALL of it! It IS a drastic step. And GREEK THINKING will work to STOP you from TAKING IT! Please give up this rotton way of thinking! Then you can bow down to Him as Lord now, rather than be FORCED to bow in eternity, when EVERY KNEE will bow - whether we want to or not!! Philippians Ch 2:10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

- BM, with his Beloved

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blankgirl

hey, i have a prayer request too my uncle has cancer and depression. he has tried drug after drug but to no avail the cancer keeps coming, and now he trying a new one. pray for his faith that it will continue to remain, and that the Lord heals him, gives him a peace of mind, since hes so worried about wads gonna happen to his wife whose not working, if he ever dies.

SweetSurrender

Hey, Blanketgirl, I will pray now for your dad. . .

Hi, all! I know I have been gone from this scene for awhile, but it has not been bad. It's all been for the good. I have been seeking God, reading, meditating on His Words, and becoming more intimate with my Heavenly Father. I've known this was what I needed to do for a long time. I have gained lots of advice and information on this forum, but information, nor formulas will bring you into intimacy with God. A lifestyle of intercession has to be cultivated and it has to be maintained. This is what I learned by reading a book I picked up called Beyond the Veil by Alice Smith.

I had such a longing for more of God and realized I needed to get away from my many questions and the advice I was receiving to find my peace with Him.

Boanerges had consistently told me to take it slow this time and build a firm foundation, and not to try to learn all at once. So, when I read the following sentence in this book, I was reminded of that advice:

"Just as with any garden, time is needed for growth to appear. Seasons of difficulty and sunshine will be part of its life-long development. But these seasons will force the roots deeper into the source of your strength - Jesus Christ. The following illustrates this principle:


A student asked the president of a school if he could take a shorter course than the one prescribed. "Oh yes," replied the president. "But then it depends upon what you want to be. When God wants to make an oak, He takes a hundred years. When He wants to make a squash, He takes only four months."

God wants us to be an oak tree, not a spiritual squash. To become an oak, your roots must sink down deep. If you are only willing to be a squash, your root system will remain shallow and you will not have the vitality to linger very long in the Holy of Holies with God.

See, I realized that in order for me to satisfy the hunger for Him I had, I needed to develope a love relationship between me and Heavenly Father. And the only way to do that is to spend time with Him, no matter how uncomfortable I felt learning to pray. It no longer feels strange to go before His presence in prayer. I no longer feel unworthy because He tells me Himself He loves me no matter what. And that He will never leave me or forsake me. NEVER!!

I also learned as I read this book that we are in a priesthood as Christians and this was somewhat of a surprise because in the Mormon church, I was taught that all men 12/yrs and over became part of the priesthood and had authority over all of us and could pray over us and even baptize us. So, I was familiar with this verse, but not in this way. I read the following scripture:


To paraphrase: They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor. They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations. . .and you will be called priests of the Lord, you will be named ministers of our God. You will feed on the wealth of nations, and in their riches you will boast. Isa. 61: 3, 4, 6 That's US.

The Old Testament priest had several duties in the Temple. Yet Exodus 28 repeatedly says that the priest's primary duty was to minister to GOD!:

And take thou unto thee Aaron they borther, and his sons with him, from among the children of Israel, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office. Ex. 28 1, 41 I believe it is our duty to "minister to God" in our prayer time.

We can easily become so involved in the "work of the Lord" that we overlook the "Lord of the work." Our priority each morning at prayer time should be to "minister unto our Lord." Sing to Him, brag on Him and read the Word back to Him.

This one way, by living in an intimate relationship through prayer at increasingly deeper levels, is how the world can see our royal priestly lives and want to know Him through our representation of Him.

When we enter in, the fragrance of what Jesus did in conjunction with the praises and prayers of the saints becomes an incense before the Lord. We are then functioning as true priests.

I know I don't sound like the same SweetSurrender, but I have learned a lot, just by sitting at the feet of Jesus in my times alone with Him. Not that I won't be "peaking in" once in awhile. Ha! But I just wanted ya'll to know what I have been up to. . . or is that 'down', as in down on my knees.

I just appreciate everything you have taught me on this site, leading me where God ultimately wanted me to be. You have all been such a blessing to me. I'm sorry this has been such a long post, but it was necessary, as I have been gone a loooonnnng time. You can read my thread on the General topics that I wrote earlier about this book.

Thanx for letting me vent and I'll be talking again later. Love and prayers to ya! Sweets

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"Do not imagine that you must comprehend or understand it all before you seek and find it. For those who wait on Him, God will do more than they can conceive." Andrew Murray

Bondman

It's incredibly hard to face leaving family behind to have to look after themselves as blankgirl's uncle is. We know, because this is true for both of us. If either one of us goes the other is SO sick, yet is left alone to look after themself.

So I sure feel for blankgirl's uncle and family, and certainly pray for them in their rather terrible situation!

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Bondman

Message #116

WANT TO REALLY BE FREE? (YOU CAN!)

If you're like me you may often have said affirming and EXTREMELY HEARTFELT prayers to the Lord like this, "You are MY GOD!!!" But someone overhearing this may think we're saying He's our God - that we OWN Him!! Yikes! Sometimes this thought has gone through my head and I've been known to assure the Lord that I'm NOT, repeat NOT, saying or meaning anything like that at all!!! Fact is, God has CONSENTED for us to be ALLOWED to call Him OUR God! He's agreed to this, He's said that's okay! He will ALLOW that!

To say to Him just the affirmation: "You are God!" is one thing. To say, "You are MY God!" Wow, that's quite another thing! What a high honour and privilege! NOT to be taken for granted; not to be taken lightly! NO WAY!!

So what we have here is an amazing "belonging"!! We belong to Him - truly BELONG to the great and mighty Creator God!! TRUTH: having become Christians we no longer belong to ourselves. We are now BLOOD BOUGHT! Jesus has FULLY PAID for our whole life and soul. Owns us, He does - and so God has CLAIMED US as His very own!!

Thing is, with Him OWNING us now - and He DOES! - d'ya think we've LOST a whole pile of our PERSONAL FREEDOM and FREEDOMS? NO!! EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE IS TRUE! I have MORE freedom and freedoms today than I've ever had in the whole of my life!! FAR MORE than I ever had before I acknowledged and took Jesus as Lord over the whole of my life. Jesus said of Himself, "If the Son shall make you free, YOU.. WILL.. BE.. FREE.. INDEED!!" John 8:36. And I say, "HALLELUJAH!! I am so free! I can't believe it! It's just so - ASTONISHING!!"

Like, free from SINS that used to control me; free from ANGER that used to rise up and control me! Free from so MANY things that you can't do anything about of yourself. Then also free to truly LOVE others, UNSELFISHLY, and free to CARE FOR OTHERS by doing unselfish deeds - but WITHOUT ever expecting anything in return. Free to truly be ME - the me I want to be, the me GOD sure wants me to be! I have been RELEASED into the freedom in Christ that only HE brings. Therefore I've chosen to be a bond-slave (a bondman) of Jesus - yet I'm so FREE in Him at the same time!

Only in GOD is such a 'contradiction' possible!! My heartfelt prayer and wish for every reader here is that you enter into the FREEDOM that our Lord Jesus has waiting for you!

- BM, with his Lady

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Bondman

This is the bestest post that I've read in a long, long time!

This is also a most exciting and thrilling post to read.

And this is a post with an incredible amount of help and extremely useful and profitable information for us all! *and I did love the name you signed off with at the end! hehe!*

It strikes me that some serious thankyous are in order:

Firstly, "Sincere sincere and heartfelt thanks to You our great and wonderful Heavenly Father and God for what you've done in SweetSurrender's life! WOW!!"

Secondly, a thankyou is due to those on CFS who've been helps and guides and advisors to SweetSurrender to enable her to reach the place where she is now.

In the Lord, I greatly honour Bonnie for first of all her sound DECISION, and second of all her strong DETERMINATION to follow through and do what she's believed for some time that she should - and now has, to great profit and effect! A great example to all of us in our Christian walk!!

I then hope that EVERYONE will read and reread Bonnie's post, to get a handle on what it is that she's learnt and then put into practice in her life. There's a lot in her post (that's why I said 'reread'!)

Just a few of the gems I loved or said Amen to are:

• I have been seeking God, reading, meditating on His Words, and becoming more intimate with my Heavenly Father. I've known this was what I needed to do for a long time.
• information, nor formulas will bring you into intimacy with God.
• A lifestyle of intercession has to be cultivated and it has to be maintained.
• I have learned a lot, just by sitting at the feet of Jesus in my times alone with Him.
• I realized that in order for me to satisfy the hunger for Him I had, I needed to develope a love relationship between me and Heavenly Father. And the only way to do that is to spend time with Him, no matter how uncomfortable I felt learning to pray.

Dear Bonnie, God has already blessed you by showing a lot of Himself to you! May more and more spiritual blessings like this come to you in coming days, and for the remainder of your life!

Much love,

- BM

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Fluffy

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Be transparent before God, He sees right thru you, anyway!
http://www.likepreciousfaith.org/testimony_val.htm
Please pray for your local emergency responders, daily.