Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Lesson 17 DOING HIS WILL AND WORKS

     In John 16:15 (Amplified), prior to His Ascension, Jesus said, "Everything that the Father has is Mine. That is what I meant when I said that He (the Spirit) will take the things that are Mine and will reveal them (declare them, disclose and transmit it) to you."
     Jesus' statement included God's will for His family, the world, and for as many who will believe.  People have preached for centuries, that "not everyone can do these things" or that "only certain people have this power to heal and perform miracles."  The Truth is that nobody can do these things.  Even Jesus said, "It's not Me, but the Father in Me that does the work."  We've allowed the world to determine the full ability of the Father in us.
     We've somehow accepted that He can only do things after we physically die and leave this earth.  We view God's doing things in our lives, while we're still on earth, as lottery like.  Years ago, someone said to me, "Faith begins where the will of God is known."  If we don't know what God's will is, then it's difficult to have faith for Him to do it.  Jesus' earthly ministry was (and is) the perfect will of God for mankind.  Jesus said that, "When we see Him, we've seen the Father" and He never did anything that wasn't God's will.
     John 12:44-45 (Amplified) says, "But Jesus loudly declared, The one who believes in Me does not only believe in and trust in and rely on Me, but in believing in Me he believes in Him Who sent Me. And whoever sees Me see Him Who sent Me."  We clearly see God's will concerning the sick, the lost, the poor, the outsider, the blind and for those who are tormented by the devil, from this scripture.  We've somehow lost sight and faith, in the Super-natural ability of God that now lives in us, just like He did in Jesus.
     This is a challenge to those who believe and not a put-down towards those who don't believe.  Romans 10:17 (Amplified) tells us, "So faith comes by hearing what is told, and what is heard comes by the preaching of the Message that came from the lips of Christ, the Messiah Himself."  Much of what is being preached, isn't the Message that Jesus came to preach, but is what man thinks about what Jesus preached.  Our faith in God has been limited to what we've heard from, instead of from the Holy Spirit.
     If all the things that we've discarded aren't the will of God, then Jesus never did walk in His will.  We no longer consider the commands Jesus gave to the Church in Mark 16:15-18,20 (Amplified), to be in God's will.  Jesus said, "Go into all the world and preach and publish openly the Good News (the Gospel) to every creature of the whole human race. He who believes (who adheres to and trusts in and relies on) the Gospel and Him Whom it sets forth and is baptized will be saved from the penalty of eternal death, but he who does not adhere to (trust in and rely on) the Gospel and Him Whom it sets forth will be condemned. And these attesting signs will accompany those who believe; In My Name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new languages; they will pick up serpents and even if they drink anything deadly, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will get healed."
     Verse 20 testifies, "And they (those who believed what He said) went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord kept working with them and confirming the Message by the attesting signs and miracles that closely accompanied it. Amen (so be it)."
     Jesus said that "these signs will follow those who believed what He told them to preach and for those who would accept what He said."  It was Jesus Who confirmed His Word, by the signs following."
     We've believed what is being preached, but what is being preached must not be the same things that Jesus' followers preached.  These signs of the move and will of God that followed the Message Jesus' disciples preached, haven't accompanied the preaching we've heard.  Jesus said, "These signs will accompany those who believe."  I don't believe that God's will has changed and I don't think that we don't have believers.  I do believe that we have only believed like we have heard and what we've heard isn't what Jesus told us to preach or believe.
     We've been faithful to preach our faith in what we do believe, which is mostly the new birth and the cleansing of sin.  This is certainly the Truth of the Gospel and Jesus has confirmed this part of the Message, worldwide.  "Faith comes by hearing," and those we've heard the new birth preached and have believed it, are now saved.  The Lord is confirming what is preached and believed.  We've fallen short, though, of preaching the whole Gospel.  We either don't believe it and don't preach the whole Gospel, which leaves the world not believing, because they haven't heard it.
     Jesus is the Perfect will of God and He only said "what the Father tells Him to say."  Would Jesus tell us to preach it, if it wasn't the will of God?  No.  We've tried reconciling this to ourselves by reasoning among ourselves and we always foster reasons why it "doesn't work today."  God and Jesus are always the Same and God's will for people hasn't changed.  We have.  Many of today's mainstream denominations preach differing things and some aren't preaching the same Gospel.  Most have determined that salvation and being born-again are God's will, so they preach these things and God confirms the Message.  God is only obligated to confirm what is being preached.  If we fail to preach it, then the people don't hear it.  If the people don't hear it, then they don't have faith in it.  If they don't put faith in it and don't believe, then God doesn't confirm it.
     I've previously said that, "Not everyone can do these things."  Nobody can do these things.  The Lord works with us and confirms and accompanying His Word with signs and miracles.  We are only called to preach it and believe it.  God is the One Who confirms it by His Holy Spirit, Who lives and abides within us. 
    

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