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Not His! By Pastor Bill Taylor A publication of My Father's House, inc. Volume 8/Issue 15 Pastor Bill Taylor / “My Father’s House” There is a light that has shined in my life; He has illuminated me – not through the worldly manifestation of religious love, but through reproof, rebuke and admonishment. I’ve been incarcerated for almost 25 of my 45 years of age. I do not have a lot of experience in churches. I began a professed Christian journey at 30 years old. Within the first year and two times after I was placed in an environment (i.e. a Christian nurture cell within the county jail) and given a position of responsibility called a coordinator. The responsibilities entailed managing the nurture cell as a church. I know what I was seeing within this first nurture cell was very wrong. I looked in the Bible for the answers that I needed and found them in reprove, rebuke, admonish and Matthew 18:15-22. Instituting these biblical principles was like pulling teeth with no numbing substance. Even the chaplain was shaken. I did not give up – I was hated, threatened, lied about, conspired against, set up and voted out. I went through this three times over a period of three years and each time was more severe. It has been over five years since my worst and last experience at this. I’ve often wondered if I was wrong. Had I misinterpreted the Word and will of God. I know now that I had found truth. Recently I met a 21 year old named Mike, who has only been a Christian for a few years. His Spiritual knowledge and understanding impressed me to the point of shame and embarrassment. Prior to me meeting Mike others described him as weird, different, holier than thou, thinks he’s perfect, and they actually hated and despised him. I don’t associate with most so-called Christians or with worldly people, but I was drawn to Mike. He introduced me to “My Father’s House” publications and each one I read I agreed with. Some I already knew as truth, others enlightened me but it was as if I had felt this way most of my life, and this was confirmation. I accepted Mike as a friend and brother wholeheartedly offering him the right hand of friendship. (It is rare that I do this.) It was not long afterwards that he dropped the ROCK on me! Here is a copy of the letter he wrote to me. I am going to rewrite it. I don’t want to lose the letter. Somehow to me it is now actually a treasure. James, Grace be unto you and peace be multiplied in His mighty name. I am writing this letter by the unction of the Spirit as my heart is pressed, praying that you will see what God is trying to show you. To begin, if you remember when we first started talking and you “agreed” with the truths I believed and said you were elect, I told you, “I don’t listen to your words, but I watch your life.” And I have, James. You don’t have the Spirit nor do you know God the way you think you do or present yourself to. In the time we have been sharing I have not heard a Spiritual word come out of your mouth, nor have I seen a broken heart but instead I’ve heard much intellect, so-called science, conjectures of men, rehashed theology, yet nothing with life anointed by God. Also I have seen much pride and worldly wisdom. James, how can you be mature in Christ when you can’t even restrain your tongue? (James 1:26) How can Christ be in you when you are trying to fight for your own rights? If Christ is in you the body is dead because of sin but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. (Romans 8:10) You haven’t really come to the cross. How could you have when you still think you have rights? You have no rights, you’re not supposed to live anymore, the only thing a true Christian is to stand for is the Gospel, never himself. (Matthew 10:32-40) My life is to be lived completely for Him and for His purposes not my own purposes with His name on it! And you tell me you believe these things you have been reading for years yet I don’t see you doing them! (James 2:19-26; Romans 2:13) For if you were doing the Word we would be in perfect unity, and you would be standing up for the truth boldly, like every man of God in the Bible. But instead you think of yourself as a “teacher,” “You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal?” (Romans 2:21) But you only have intellect, where is the Spirit that convicts, where is the hearing of faith? God is longsuffering but not in the way you think. He is never patient with sin; he never makes the sinner feel comfortable while he lives after his own interests; the longsuffering of God is what withholds His wrath. The Lord never said to be palatable or sweet. You said I need tact, but you are wrong, I don’t need tact, I have the Spirit! The first thing to being a Christian is a broken heart. (Psalms 51:17; 34:18; Ezekiel 36:31) Yet how do you break the heart with true Godly sorrow, when the sinner doesn’t see how repulsive sin is? How could Mr. H. run from me when I spoke straight from the Spirit, showing him from the scriptures what true Christianity is and yet he runs to you to somehow be comforted? Can a Kingdom divided against itself stand? You have told me of three men (Mr. R., Mr. H., Mr. P.) that you “supposedly” discipled, yet just look at them; they are not broken; they don’t look like Christ at all. They don’t even know what a real Christian looks like. And then here I come full of faith, full of the Spirit, full of zeal, living the Word and Mr. H. runs from me. Why? Because I told him the truth. And it was too hard for him; the price seems too high. Yet with you, in many ways, he is pampered, he is not confronted, embarrassed, or ashamed in any way so that he sees, “Man, I must obey; I must be made holy. Oh God, save me from my filth, I despise my life!” Now I am using this as an example, to show that what you have as a ministry is flesh; seeking to please people. Your ministry is shaped by opinions and feelings and not Christ’s righteousness. (Jeremiah 23:14,16-22) The Lord is supposed to cut to the heart, for what is the wheat to the chaff? The way is hard, difficult, and narrow, remember!! Yet you’ve said I am too hard, accusatory, fault finding and I say you don’t know the Jesus of the Bible; the Christ who drove them out with a whip; the Christ who demanded obedience; the Christ that always exposed sin, for what so ever makes manifest is light. (Ephesians 5:13) Where is your light? You’ll never see men conformed to the image of Christ until their pride and selfishness is broken and the Lord says blessed is he who endures chastening, for only the one who endures chastening is a true son of God (Hebrews 12:6-8) And I say, will I now become your enemy because I tell you the truth. What will the things I’m saying produce; diligence, fear of God, zeal, holiness, righteousness, love, and justice? James, the Lord told you that if you humble yourself He will hear you. Will you be humbled? Your heart ought to be broken, you ought to be ashamed that you have been in the flesh, following presumption, and head knowledge, you ought to be crying out night and day for the Spirit. For only Christ in you, living in you, abiding in you, will save you. (Colossians 1:27, Romans 5:10-9) If He is in you, you should be behaving like it. The Lord is extending to you the greatest privilege a man can know. He is opening to you true fellowship, and He is showing to you His true church. But you must recognize this, you must seek a broken heart, you must cry out for the Spirit!! Examine yourself whether you be in the faith; prove your own self, know you not your own self, how that Christ is in you, except you be reprobate (2nd Corinthians 13:5) If you truly love the Lord and desire the way of the cross you will find me a worthy brother to help you on your way, but if you like your way, and only want to hear but never do, well then do not trouble me for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. (Galatians 6:17) May His grace be with you. In His Love, Mike (2nd Corinthians 5:14,15) *End of Mike’s letter* When I read the letter I was shocked, but deep in my heart I recognized that it spoke the truth concerning me. I was ashamed and right then and there I decided to seek God. I knew that something very different and very real was happening! Truly blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! I don’t believe I’ve ever been an actual member of any church. But, I sure have been influenced by their doctrines. I was indoctrinated into the “once saved always saved” lie, I truly believed and taught it for years. I was quite good at filling in the holes with spiritual bondo – God forgive me! L I’ve experienced the emotionalism of the so-called holiness churches-they tried to purge me once by getting me to repeat Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, over and over again to receive the gift of tongues. I’ve always sensed the phoniness, the lies, the self-righteousness, the holes in their doctrinal issues etc. I have never before experienced such a flood gate of truth – bold truth – unselfish and sincere TRUTH as I see now!!! I am not easily swayed, convinced, or manipulated. I have never been affected like this by anyone or church, and I am not one of those people who try something new once or twice a year. I’ve been searching for almost 16 years for what I’ve found now!!! J I have been blinded by religious flesh for years! At 30 years of age I had never read an entire book due to academic laziness. I never went to high school and kept C’s and D’s through Jr. high and elementary schools. The Bible was the 1st entire book I read. I read the Gospel of John first and knew it was truth and asked God to help me right then. I know now that Christ was never fully formed in me. I know a lot about God, the Bible, and Christ! But the truth is I’m actually questioning whether Christ has ever been in me? L I think I’ve been in and out of Christ a lot in my life, the reason being that He has moved in my life with power so many times! I’m not talking about shaky or wishy washy stuff I’m talking moving mountains, and opening the Red Sea, things, testimony that will knock your socks off. But then I have definitely backslidden 2 times in 16 years and now I realize that I was walking in untruths, actually accursed stuff, because the Bible is specific when it comes to truth and I see that now. I am now learning how to bear my cross and actually follow Christ! To truly reprove, rebuke, and admonish! I thank God for the true light that I am now receiving. It’s amazing, but I feel like I’ve learned more truth in the last month than in 3 years of Bible College and about 7 to 8 years of diligent studies. I’ve had to give up my only and dearest friend Mr. H., I can’t believe that he has turned as he has. Mike is the best friend and witness I’ve ever had. Amazing how God really works! I thank God for His blessings. I do ask for your prayers!!! I prayed before I wrote this letter and asked for the Spirit to guide me and I know He Has. I know that Christ is in me now and I’m beginning to sense the still small voice of the Lord. It feels good to know that I now have victory in Christ to walk in holiness, to know God and hear Him!! May God bless you all. Sincerely James Not His!You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ he is not His. (Rom 8:9) So if anyone is “in the flesh” they are not His – they are not saved, because without the Spirit you do not belong to Jesus. Now this verse has been terribly twisted in the contemporary churches where they just assume they are His so they must have the Spirit. But what we just saw in James’ letter and in many similar experiences we have been through in the last few years, is that it is obvious that many so-called Christians do not have the Spirit. So James first had to recognize that he did not have the Spirit. The only way he can get the Spirit is to recognize first that he doesn’t have it, then he can repent and get it. What is dreadfully frightening in a sense about the churches around us is the way they operate often you can’t show the people in them if they have the Spirit or not. When Christ called me to start “My Father’s House” His Spirit was really grieved. He had been terribly ignored at another church I was attending. I knew it and I was weeping and the Spirit of God was mourning, then He said, “Bill, will you build Me a church where My Spirit can be free?” because He was not able to do the job of saving the people in these churches. In order to save people you have to show them whether indeed they have the Spirit or they don’t. And if they don’t then you can pray for them and they can repent and they can get the Spirit. This very much connects to John 9 where Jesus says if you say you see then your sin remains. Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains.” (John 9:41) When people who do not have the Spirit think, “I’m saved so I have the Spirit” then they don’t get the real Spirit. Because what they have they think is sufficient when it really isn’t because they’ve never really seen the truth about Spiritual Christianity. He who keeps His commandments abides in Him and He in him. Now by this we know that He abides in us by the Spirit whom He has given us. (1John 3:24) by this we know that we abide in Him and He in us because He has given us of His Spirit. (1John 4:14) Most so-called christians have no evidence whatsoever of what the Spirit is or who the Spirit is or what it means to have the Spirit. They just assume “Well of course we must have the Spirit because we are saved.” But at “My Father’s House” Christ taught us to have sharing services where each member can share with the others things God is doing in his life or showing him etc. And we went through a service yesterday where we could see that everybody in the church, except one, was in unity. In all the sharing there was a supernatural connection. We had all been seeing the same things, had been thinking the same things, feeling the same things. So everything that was shared connected supernaturally to what the others had shared. And that is an evidence that we all have the Spirit. We are not contradictory to one another. We are in unity to what God is doing through each of us and towards one another. Such a service where we are all working together, may have the different members doing different things but we are all going in the same direction because there is the same Spirit in each of us. So when I feel something isn’t right, you will feel something isn’t right. When something is going on in the service that is of God you know it and I know it because there is the same Spirit in us. In an ordinary “church” you might think you have a sense when something is wrong. But without the congregational sharing you might never get to see how the unity of Spirit works. You may never get to see how everybody who’s Spiritual feels that same way you feel. There is an agreement in all of the real saints about what’s going on because they all have one Spirit. If that one Spirit is telling them that something is wrong, they all know it. But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him. (1John 2:27) The anointing is His Spirit of Truth and He will teach you concerning all things what is true and of God versus what is not so that you may abide always in the truth which is to abide always in Christ. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. (1John 2:20) So if the Spirit of truth lives in you, you will know the truth and you will know that indeed you are saved because you have that Spirit of truth. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, (Rom 8:16) And in “My Father’s House” we’ve seen service after service where the members of the body are bringing in their parts in order to edify the body. For whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. (Eph 4:16) Every member doing his share. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills. (1Cor 12:11) So each member may have different things to do, but those things all work together to accomplish the same purpose. They cause the growth of the body. They cause the building up, the edifying of the church in love, until we all grow into the fullness of Christ. (Eph 4:13) So you can tell, for example, when you are eating bad food you can taste and you can smell that it is not good. When you are eating good food you know it’s good because you can taste that it is good. So when someone is supplying their share and it is good, you will respond because the anointing causes your spirit to recognize, “this is coming from God; the same God that I am born from.” But when something is not right, you also can recognize it because you have a Spiritual sense. If you have been truly born again, you have been raised in Christ Jesus into a resurrected life where you have a sense of what is of God and what isn’t. We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the Spirit of Truth and the spirit of error. (1John 4:6) So everyone who hears us is of God. And those that don’t hear us are not of God and we know that we are of God because God has confirmed to us that we are of God. We have continual confirmations and we have seen how the unity of the Spirit confirms it over and over again supernaturally. by this we know the Spirit of Truth and the spirit of error. (1John 4:6) When somebody doesn’t hear us they are not of God because they don’t have the Spirit we have. You cannot be saved unless you have the Spirit of Christ. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. (Rom 8:9) What we are demonstrating in “My Father’s House” is that if you have the Spirit of Christ we can see it from your behavior, the things that you share, the kind of prayers that you pray, the offering that you bring to edify the brethren. We can tell whether you have the Spirit of Christ by whether or not those things you are doing are actually working and whether they are actually helping the brethren. If they are not effectual then you don’t have the Spirit of Christ, according to the effective working by which every part does its share. (Eph 4:16) Notice in James’ letter that what Mike was doing in Christ was effectual but what James had been doing was not. It was very clear that Mike has the Spirit and he is Christ’s. But James had to repent to get in the Spirit. This is the real battle we must fight in faith for Christ. It is almost always Spiritual versus carnal christians – where there are carnal christians, the things they do actually hinder the work of Christ, such as interfering with bringing a sinner to conviction and repentance – this has always been the enemy to real Christianity. From the time that God saved me, even from the first year or two Christ showed me very quickly that the battle for real Christianity is always Spirit versus Flesh. You cannot be in the flesh and have the Spirit of Christ. You cannot be in the flesh and go to heaven. Galatians four says that if you are born of the flesh, you will be a cast away. But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise… But, as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.” (Gal 4:23,29-30) There is no inheritance to the flesh; cast out the bond woman for she and her son will not inherit. What is heaven? It is your inheritance. You cannot worship God in the flesh and be pleasing to God because flesh is an enemy to God. No matter how much flesh tries to serve God it never does it right. Flesh always ends up bringing Cain’s offering. Even when flesh tries very hard to serve, it always brings something that is not worth anything. Flesh is of a different kingdom. When man fell, when Adam fell, sin entered into the flesh of men. So man’s flesh is inhabited by and is operated by the sin spirit. It is not possible for flesh to do anything for God, not when it’s from an opposing kingdom. Whatever flesh does, no matter how much it tries, it cannot serve God. The big problem in salvation is not what most “churches” think it is: “just forgiveness;” that we need to be forgiven of our sins, that is not the big problem. The big problem is conquering the flesh. But thanks be to God – There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. (Rom 8:1-2) Romans is the best exposition of the gospel in the Bible. It begins with the idea that we must be doing good to attain to immortality: In accordance with the hardness of your impenitent heart (that’s a person who is not sorry for their sins) you are treasuring up for yourselves wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God who will render to each one according to his deeds. (Rom 2:5) Now the Baptists and their wicked doctrines of demons believe that God is not going to reward you according to your deeds. They think being saved by grace through faith, means you don’t need to worry about deeds. Well you have to ignore an awful lot of the Bible to believe that lie. The problem is God will reward you according to your deeds. Eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality. (Rom 2:7) So doing good is necessary if you are to attain immortality. But to those who are self seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath is what they are going to get. (Rom 2:8) Now the heretical church like the Baptists misinterpret “We are saved by grace through faith and not of works.” (Eph 2:8) in such a way that they think of doing good as an unnecessary work, because we are saved by faith in Jesus and not of our works. Well absolutely. We are not saved by our works. We are saved by Jesus. But once we get saved, we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. (Eph 2:10) So one who is saved must be involved in the works of Christ. If you’re not involved in the works of Christ then you haven’t been saved. We are created for good works. Remember you must be doing good to attain to immortality. But there is only one good – God. (Matt 19:17) So Jesus is going to cause you to attain to glory, honor, and immortality by doing good in the Spirit of Christ; His good. The problem with man-kind has always been that I can’t do good works in order to attain to immortality without God’s help. Because I am under the sin principle and the sin in my flesh can’t do anything good. Even when I try it doesn’t turn out good. Because only by being submitted unto the Kingdom of God can I do good. I have to be controlled by God to do good. Well, if I am in the flesh I am controlled by flesh. Flesh is controlled by the devil-sin. He will never let me do good. He will give some imitations, demonic “good,” and he may let me think that I am doing good but he won’t let me do anything that is really good. A bad tree cannot bear good fruit. The flesh is a bad tree. The problem of salvation is found in “how can I overcome the sin in the flesh and actually be able to do good?” For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? (Rom 7:18,24) “For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each one according to his works.” (Matt 16:27) And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear; (1Pet 1:17) “but I declared first to those in Damascus and in Jerusalem, and throughout all the region of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent, turn to God, and do works befitting repentance.” (Acts 26:20) Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works. (2Cor 11:15) “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place-- unless you repent.” “I will kill her children with death, and all the churches shall know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts. And I will give to each one of you according to your works.” “Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God.” And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. Behold I am coming quickly, My reward is with Me, to give to everyone according to his work. (Rev 2:5,23; 3:2; 20:12; 22:12) The principal that God rewards according to your works is a vital, foundational, salvation principal. If I am to receive a good reward I must have good works. But how can I get into doing the good works that God can reward? How can I get out of the unacceptable offering that Cain is bringing and into the acceptable offering that Abel is bringing? The point of it is that I need the help of God. God needs to give me grace to enter into His good works. That is what salvation is really about and what the gospel is really about. This is what you see when Paul says, We know the law is Spiritual but I am carnal, sold under sin. (Rom 7:14) Which means I am a slave to sin in the flesh,. For what I am doing I don’t understand (Rom 7:15) For what I want to do or will to do, I don’t end up doing it. But what I hate, that I do. (Rom 7:15) For example, we know that Mrs V. wants to be helpful to the church but she ends up hurting the church, because not being led by the Spirit she doesn’t understand how to really do good. If then I do what I don’t want to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells in me. (Rom 7:16) The problem is the power of the sin in flesh is causing me to end up doing things that are not helpful to the Kingdom of God, to the brethren, or to myself. Because my ideas of how to do good are never right. I have to be led by God’s ideas. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.. (Rom 7:18) I do will to do good. But I don’t know how to do good or how to perform it. But look at what Paul says here. Who knows the things of a man except the spirit of man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. (1Cor 2:11) In order to do good I have to know what the Spirit of God wants to do and I have to be in contact with the Spirit of God to find that out. The problem with the Romans 7 man is he is not in contact with the Spirit of God. So he sees the principal: For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. (Rom 7:19-20) So sin dwells in me. My mind wants to do good. I want to be a good person, but the sin in the flesh is stopping me. Evil is present with me the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. Oh wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? (Rom 7:21-24) Now you can see this in carnal “christians” with good intentions. Mrs. V. had good intentions. She reads the Bible and prays and witnesses and things like that. However, we recently saw that she did not have the ability to know what the Spirit was doing in the present tense, meaning right now in the church service, and she interfered with the service in a shameful way. She has failed to become Spiritual. So being carnal in her “christianity,” everything she does comes out of her own mind and that is flesh. Even though she is trying to do good it isn’t happening because she is not under the power of and obedience to the Spirit. So what she does gets in the way of the Spirit – she scatters and doesn’t gather. That is because she hasn’t crucified her flesh. She is not having a faith for Jesus to lead her by the Spirit. So what she does is not done in faith but out of her own understanding so she is not trusting in the Lord to lead her. Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; (Prov 3:5) For to be carnally minded is death, but to be Spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Rom 8:6-8) What is the problem Mrs. V. has been having? She cannot please God. She cannot even please the church, so how can she please God? She cannot contribute to the edification of the church, so how can she please God? Obviously everyone who is Spiritual in the church is working in unity to produce an edification of the church in Christ. We are seeing greater things happen; more powerful works of the Spirit; more miraculous healings. But with Mrs. V. it isn’t happening, because she is in the flesh and it is not possible to do anything to contribute to the work of God when you are in the flesh. Flesh cannot serve God. So she sticks out like a sore thumb. Everyone in the church has known for a long time that something is wrong with Mrs. V. Whatever she does doesn’t work. The reason it doesn’t work isn’t because of a bad intention. The reason it doesn’t work is because she doesn’t walk in the Spirit. She hasn’t put on Christ. So her religion becomes the kind of religion that is coming out of man’s head. In such a case, whatever is going on is not true Christianity, but it is more like buddhism. You don’t get born again when you become a buddhist. You just get convinced in your head. You don’t get born again if you’re a muslim or a mormon or any of those religions. You just get converted in your mind. Anybody can be in a religion just because they decide to by their human will. But to be in Christ, you have to be born again. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12-13) You have to be supernaturally born again. It is not a mere mental conversion. It does have to start in the mind because you must see that you need it. You must see what it means to be born of God. So there is a place where you have to realize whether you are in Christ or not. For as to what Mrs. V. did last night when the church was looking for her to repent, all she said was “I know this is a real church and I know the pastor is a real man of God.” Well, that’s fine but it won’t save you. You cannot trust in the fact that you recognize what is a real church or that you recognize a real man of God. That doesn’t make you saved. It is better than being blind that you see that, but to be saved you have to be born of God. So in this church there is a real man of God, there is a real church, and there are real brethren, but are you real? For you to be a real Christian you must have the Spirit of Christ in control of your life. If you don’t have the Spirit of Christ you are not His. (Rom 8:9) Now Jesus has talked to me on many occasions. Several times He rebuked me. When Jesus talks, He edifies and He straightens you out. One of the things that I have been very strongly aware of in my communion with Christ is that we have all kinds of people saying that they belong to Christ but He doesn’t claim them. He disregards them. Jesus has shown me and told me, “They don’t belong to Me if they don’t obey Me. The one that belongs to Me obeys Me and My sheep know My voice and they won’t follow another.” So when you have somebody in this condition that Mrs. V. was in; in an intellectual way she believes in Jesus, she believes the Word of God is true, she believes this church is real, she believes this pastor is real, but she doesn’t obey Jesus. Jesus doesn’t lead her. Her flesh leads her. She is led by impulse. She is led by her own understanding of things. She is led by her own ideas. And her impulses and ideas are always contrary to Christ. Every time it turns out she is doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. Because you can’t be outside of Jesus’ Kingdom and still be serving Him. To be in the Kingdom of Jesus you must have Him as your Head and you must be guided perceptibly by His Spirit. And you cannot be edifying the church with religious things that you write down out of your own head and bring to church, if you do not have a sense of what the Spirit is saying right now in church. You must know by the Spirit what is the right move to make right now in church. You know if it’s time to prophesy. You know if it is right to share. You know what the right subject to share is because you know the Spirit. To do this you must have a relationship with the Spirit of God. That relationship begins at home in your own prayer closet and it continues in everything else you do. You are to be praying without ceasing. (1Thes 5:17) You are to do all things to the glory of God. You are to follow the presence of Christ, in the sense that you are seeking Him and depending on Him to lead you in all things and you have faith that He will be with you at all times. That is not what Mrs. V. was doing. That is also not what the Baptist are doing and it is not what 99.99% of the Christians around us do. They do not have a faith for Jesus to lead them in that way. They have “religion” and they may even go to church regularly. And they go through some motions of agreement with God. But when it comes time to know what is God telling them to do right now, they do not know how to hear Him. We are teaching you in “My Father’s House” how to hear God and how to know His Spirit. We are teaching you how to be able to examine yourself to know whether Christ is in you. (2Cor 13:5) Service after service we expose the lies of the false churches and false “christians.” We also show you how to recognize the Christ Spirit in the true church. You can see these truths in our Glory of His Grace books like “Sons and Servants” or “Be Zealous.” You cannot be lukewarm and claim you have Jesus in you because Jesus is zealous. You can see it in the things pertaining to perfection. Jesus will not fail nor be discouraged till He establishes perfect righteousness in the church, in the earth, and in you and me if we will let Him. (Isa 42:4) You see it in Paul where he says, Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. To this end I also labor, striving, according to His working that works in me mightily. (Col 1:28-29) You see it in the word striving; there is zeal in that word. You can see it in the book of James where he talks about the Spirit: do you think the scripture says in vain the Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously. (James 4:5) Could we not say strives jealously? Strives to get us into the perfection that pleases Jesus. The Spirit of Jesus wants to perfect the bride so He can come for the bride. He cannot come for the bride when the bride is spotted and wrinkled and going to be embarrassed because her clothes are dirty. He is not going to come when she is half naked. He is coming for a glorious bride. Jesus loves the bride very much, and wants to come to her, but He must sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the Word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. (Eph 5:26-27) So He is striving to perfect her so He can come for her. Now tell me if that Spirit is in you? Because if Jesus is in you, you cannot be content just to sit there doing nothing when there is such an awesome work to be done to get the bride ready for Christ’s return. If you are part of that bride, you want to see Him because you love Him. So you can look at these various things and see very certainly whether Christ is in you or not. You can see from Ephesians: endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (Eph 4:3) Which then goes on to say that we will speak the truth in love and grow up into all things into Him who is the Head – Christ, from whom the whole body, every part doing its share, causes the growth of the body in love. (Eph 4:15-16) If the Spirit is in you to keep the unity of the Spirit, then the Spirit must be in you to do your part in working to perfect the body. Now, is that Spirit working through you? If it is not, then you cannot say that Christ is in you and we cannot believe you are His. The salvation that Christ has given us, contrary to what the false church around us thinks, is not that Jesus just loves us and wants to save us in some independent fashion where you just believe in Him and its like you go to bed and one day you awake in Heaven and you didn’t really do anything. Jesus is working energetically through the brethren to save us. That’s what this Ephesians four passage demonstrates. Jesus is using me to help you to know how to minister to each other so that you can perfect each other. He is perfecting the bride through the body. He is perfecting the body through the members. So if His Spirit is in you, you will most certainly be participating vigorously in this perfecting work. You will be helping the brethren powerfully in some manner. That means when you come to church, you will bring something into the services that will be truly edifying to share with your brothers and sisters. Because Christ is in you He will not waste any opportunity to perfect the bride. But it also means that what each believer brings has to be effectual. What we were seeing with the example of what Mrs. V. was bringing was that it was useless and there was no value in it. Well that can’t be Jesus. Jesus would never give you something useless. So when someone is “sharing” something that isn’t working; it’s not perfecting anybody, or it’s putting people to sleep; boring people, embarrassing people, then in every way we know that this person doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ. Mrs. V. is not the only one we’ve had to deal with on this subject. We have dealt with it in many of our children when they come to the Bible studies with lame offerings. When you see someone bringing in something that is not effectual, then you have to rebuke them and tell them that did not come from Jesus. Jesus doesn’t do anything that is not effectual. “That must have come from your own head, or some obvious observation that everyone already knows. You must press in to find what the Spirit has for you, and not settle for the easy things.” “Strive to enter in through the narrow gate,” Jesus says. Many will try to get in who won’t be able to because they are taking the broad and easy way. (Matt 7:13) But the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force. (Matt 11:12) The violent ones press in. They are not content to be ordinary or lukewarm. They are not content to bring a mediocre offering that just seems to fulfill the duty of religion, “okay I have a verse to share”. It isn’t enough to have a verse to share. I have to have a verse that will actually help my brothers and sisters. It is not enough to just have a prayer. I must have a prayer that will actually help the church. My prayer must cause God to actually bless them. I am not content to look like I am working, but rather I must actually be producing good fruit. I can’t be content just to go through the “motions”. There has to be real usefulness in my labors. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. (1Cor 9:26) That is the Spirit of Truth, not pretending to fight but really fighting the good fight of faith and making real progress in building up the church. When Paul says that the church is the pillar and ground of the truth, that means the true church is not blinding their eyes, saying, “Oh I guess it will all work out. Jesus will take care of everything. He said that He will give me fruit that will remain so I don’t have to be concerned about it.” The real Christian says “Jesus I need to know that my fruit is good. I need confirmations. You must show me that what I’m doing is actually working.” I can’t allow myself to be deceived by false hopes and dead faith and such as that because my attitude must be to work out my salvation with fear and trembling. (Phil 2:12) This is too important for me to miss. The big enemy has always been deception. What is the deceiver trying to do? He wants to tell you that you are okay when you are not. He will tell you that you are bearing fruit when you are not. I am not content to have the appearance of being a Christian without the substance – the shadow but not the reality. I can tell when somebody is sharing something that isn’t helping anyone. I can tell when their offering is a rehash leftover that has mold on it and it is not fit to eat. I can tell when it has been copied from somebody else and it isn’t real. “I hate robbery for burnt offering.” (Isa 61:8) And I can tell when the sharing comes from God because I have 1st John 2:27 in me. I have an anointing to recognize the truth that comes from God and so do all the real Christians. So when somebody isn’t producing we know it. When somebody is in the Spirit we know that too. In a so-called “church” where nobody is in the Spirit it is very difficult to get people Spiritual. They have so many people around them that aren’t Spiritual that they don’t see they have a problem. But in “My Father’s House” often we’ll have a service in which there is only one person in the church that isn’t spiritual, like Mrs. V. Well she will not be able to cover that up. In Christ’s true church when somebody isn’t right it is going to come out and it is going to be seen and here it was. We have times when one of the children will fall out and we have to get them back in. We watch them to be sure they are in good shape Spiritually. Love is the reason we watch over one another. What does the Word say? “forsake not the assembling of yourselves together but so much the more as you see the day approaching. Exhort one another to love and good works.” (Heb 10:24-25)You are praying for one another. You are confessing your faults to one another. (James 5:16) The church is interacting to be sure to keep each member in the Spirit. Because if you get out of the Spirit you are not His; you don’t belong to Jesus and you don’t produce good fruit. And if you do not abide in Me, Jesus says He will cut you off and you will be thrown away into the fires of hell. (John 15:6) And He will cut you off. Jesus is not this wussy, anything goes, love everybody guy. Jesus is the one who says “to save the church, My elect, My bride, whom I love, I will cut off the offending member.” deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? (1Cor 5:5-6) “And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.” (Matt 5:30) Jesus is quite capable of destroying one member to save the others and He does it often. God is a good Father. He is the kind of Father who will protect the family and cut off the enemy that will hurt His family because He loves His family. You better be very careful when Jesus refers to the five foolish virgins not getting into heaven. You better not be a fool! You better not be a hypocrite. If you aren’t going to produce fruit then Jesus won’t know you. He’ll cut you off! The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. You better fear the Lord and walk before Him in fear and trembling. You better be praying for Him to make sure that you are giving a good offering which is not offensive to Him and will be a true help to the church. You must get to where in every step you take you are depending on Him to show you what to do and not trusting in your own understanding and not being presumptuous about it. The reality of this salvation is that you are either led by the Spirit or you are an enemy to God. Galatians tells us that those who are born of the flesh are enemies of God and they persecute those who are born of the Spirit. (Gal 4:29) And that is what happens. Who in this church backtalks the pastor except Mrs. V.? Nobody else! Why? Because she has a different spirit in her. All the things that have been going on are a revelation and a manifestation of the true Spirit versus the false and everyone can see it. Mrs. V. you have a different spirit in you. And you have been rebuked and rebuked and rebuked and you’ve never taken it to heart. And I pray that this time you will truly repent and go home and get a true Christian relationship established with Jesus where Jesus is in control of everything that you do. We will only have real Christianity here in “My Father’s House.” And we stand contrary to the foolishness that calls itself “christianity” around us. If you are in one of these foolish churches you can deceive yourself into thinking you’re saved when you are nowhere near saved, because if you don’t have Jesus in you then you aren’t saved. But if you have Jesus in you, you will be bringing real fruit and doing things that cause the brethren and the whole church to be benefited by what you do because Jesus blesses His people and blesses His church through His people. If Jesus is in you He doesn’t cause confusion in the church by behaving in ways contrary to His Word towards the brethren. If Jesus is in you He doesn’t get in the way of what the Spiritual people are doing, and He doesn’t embarrass the church with ungodly and unspiritual behavior because none of those things are Jesus in you. So what you should be seeing here is, this “christianity” that many of you have been in is not the real thing. The real Christianity is the real Spirit of Jesus and it is perceptible and you can tell if someone really has the Spirit of Jesus. You can tell if Christ is in you by what you do. You can tell by whether you are getting confirmations such as when you speak a prophecy or share a testimony that it turns out to be in agreement with the subject your pastor preaches on and you didn’t have any idea he was intending to preach on that subject – but God used you to confirm the Word. Or the thing that you share sets one of the brethren free and you didn’t know they even had that problem. But after you shared this person testifies to the supernatural grace of God working in you. And you can see this tremendous interworking of the supernatural Spirit of God who sees what needs to be done and has a believer do it even when that believer doesn’t really see why it needs to be done. But we hear God and do what God says to do and then God shows us it was the very thing that was necessary to bless and help someone. And that is Christ in us, ministering grace to the brethren. So we have this continual supernatural confirmation that God is working through the members to help each other, often times without the members even knowing what the problems in their brethren are but they do hear and do what God says to do. Now you know a tree by its fruit. So we have an absolute solid and infallible proof that the Spirit of God is working here because we can see by the abundant supernatural activity of God in bringing forth good fruit that God is here. And we are bearing good fruit because we are in the good tree – branches in the vine of Christ. “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” “By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.” (John 15:5,8) And we can rejoice in this because we know that we abide in Him because of the Spirit whom He has given us. And we know that we abide in Him and He in us because He has given us His Spirit. (1John 3:24; 4:13) So I can tell by the passion I have to do God’s work and by the good fruit I am bearing that Christ’s Spirit is in me. I can see that Christ’s Spirit is in many of you. You can tell when the Spirit is in you. You can tell that is Jesus in me doing that. That “for me to live is Christ.” (Phil 1:21) That, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Gal 2:20) That everything I do and purpose is the fulfilling of Christ’s will and call upon me. I have no life of my own anymore. For me to live is to do what Christ is doing. As He is, so are we in this world. (1John 4:17) It is because Jesus is in me! I know it is Jesus because look at what He does. Now when you know that Jesus is in you, then what does that mean? That means you are His. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. (Rom 8:9) I know I have His Spirit so I know I am His and He is mine. I know I am not in the flesh, so I have this extraordinary hope of salvation and an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled awaiting me in His Kingdom. Now the real church and the real people of God are always expressing the Spirit of Jesus who works through them to will and to do of His good pleasure. (Phil 2:13) And it is that continual confirmation of Christ being in you that lets you know that you are saved. And it gives a true believer great joy to know that he is actually very useful to God. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, so that you may be established-- (Rom 1:11) We can see the true people of God, the real Christians, are always pressing in; they want to and have to see Jesus’ Spirit working in them to do good works all the time. Look at Paul here, he is always trying to help. If I know I have the Spirit of Christ that is a confirmation that I am crucified, I am dead, that I abide in Him and Christ lives in me and I truly want Him to live in me all the time. And when Christ is living in me He will always be doing something that is helpful to the Kingdom and the brethren in some very effectual way. Yes, Jesus in us knows we have necessities and He helps us get those things done. But that is not what we live for. We live to accomplish God’s work and express the life of the risen Christ. And we want to see Him and we want to know that He is reigning in us all the time. So the true brethren are always crucifying their flesh and calling upon Christ to live and reign in them and to be in control of all things at all times in them. A young brother recently went through what you went through Mrs. V. There was a time when he wasn’t bringing in useful things. The problem is that brother R. is a youngster, new in the Lord and you have been here 12 years. After all these years you still don’t have a real Christianity when these young people who have been saved for 2 years or less are becoming real Christians. “Christ in you the hope of glory!” So brother R. is at the place where he knows that every time he gets up to pray or share before the congregation he has to be in communion with Christ. “Lord help me to do this right.” It isn’t the attitude of “I have something that I know I can share so now I can relax and just get up and share it.” I never feel that way, and I am a pastor and an apostle and I know the Bible better than anyone you’ve met and I never feel like “Oh I can just go in there and share it.” It’s always “Lord help me to preach this right. Help me to share it effectually. Help me to say it in the way that it needs to be said and the way that it can be well understood by Your people.” I never have self confidence in this work. Always it is faith in Jesus, a depending on Him to make it work. As soon as you start thinking that “I can do it” then you are in the flesh and you are depending on yourself. And apart from Christ it isn’t going to work and it will not help anybody. The only person who can help anybody in this world, and the only person who can help anybody in this church, is Jesus. I can’t help you unless Jesus in me helps you. So what I am doing is calling upon Jesus and trusting in Jesus to help you through me. “Jesus, use me to help them.” That continual depending on the Lord, obeying the Lord, and seeking for the Lord to use you is what Jesus is talking about when He says abide in me, because you can’t do anything apart from Me. You have to abide in the vine. So to be His what has to be flowing through this branch is the Spirit of Christ. If the Spirit of Jesus is flowing through me then you get fed and you know that you are getting fed. The fruit is effectual, it is helping you and it is showing you something that is building your faith or setting you free from something. It is notably good fruit. Because Jesus is supernaturally working through one of His to help you. And when your turn comes to help a brother it must be Jesus working supernaturally through you to help him. That is the way that Jesus operates in this earth. That is why we are called a temple to His Spirit. What are you supposed to find in God’s temple? Help from God, because God is there. And what is the temple of God in the earth today? It is you and me if we are His. It is the people that depend upon Jesus’ Spirit in them to help each other through each other by drawing from His grace by faith that works through love, which is Christ’s love for the brethren, “Lord help me to help them. Lord you love them, I love them and we have to do something that really helps, so use me, work through me, and make the work effectual.” Now that is real Christianity. When that is going on, we know that it is going on because we know when the Spirit of Christ is touching us when one of the brothers or sisters is prophesying or sharing. We know when it is coming from God. And when it isn’t coming from God, we know that too, because we have Jesus’ Spirit in us. (1John 2:27) We know what is of Him and what isn’t. To the beginners, the people that are new at this, it sometimes seems a little bit scary. But that is the way it ought to be. Because if it wasn’t scary, you would be confident in yourself and that would be flesh. But when you get on your knees and say, “Lord I don’t want to be an embarrassment to the church. I don’t want to do something wrong. Help me do right.” When you really depend on Him and trust in Him to help then Jesus will show up. When you have that kind of fear of disappointing God in you, then that is the fear of the Lord and the beginning of wisdom. That is real wisdom. It is real wisdom to be very careful about serving the Lord and serving Him in a way that glorifies Him and serving the brethren in a way that is truly useful. It is real wisdom to be very cautious and not presumptuous about it. But the other ditch is to do nothing. To do nothing is a sin too. To do nothing is to be a fruitless branch. To do nothing is to do nobody any good. When the real brethren get to Heaven and our works are being judged we are going to testify for one another. If the men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment and condemn this wicked and perverse generation then the people of Christ are the flip side of that; we’re going to testify for the righteous in the judgment. Like when I was under attack by the devil, this brother gave me a word in season that lifted me up. There will be an awesome testimony service in Heaven. Every good thing the righteous have done in Christ will be brought to light by every brother and sister who was blessed by it. People we don’t know will stand up and say, “When that Glory of His Grace book came to me it set me free, it saved me!” There will be no reward for you in Heaven unless there is a testimony as to why you deserve the reward because of what you did for the Lord, or a brother – or could we say, “What you let the Lord do through you because of your love and faith in Christ.” And that is one reason why you will be accepted in the Beloved. Jesus said to make friends with unrighteous mammon so they will accept you into everlasting habitations. (Luke 16:9) And the real Christian is devoting his life to making friends with the people whom he will live with forever in Heaven; the Lord and the elect. And when the time comes, God will not let anyone into the Kingdom who hasn’t been a blessing to the elect. Why would He? The elect are going to confirm who gets in by their testimonies. They will say yes this was a precious brother or sister like Dorcas, “Oh, look at all the kind and merciful things she did for us; Peter you have to raise her. You have to let Dorcas into the Kingdom. She was such a blessing to us all.” Well Dorcas was so precious to the church that Peter raised her from the dead. And that is what you are aiming for: to be raised from the dead. You should be such a glory to God, such a blessing to the church, that when we get into the Kingdom many of the brethren will be seeking you out to thank you that you were such a blessing to them – that they made it in because of things you did that truly helped. Salvation is a corporate thing. It is the members of Christ’s body saving each other because of the Christ in them. And unless you are in a real church where that is happening, you won’t be saved. When that is not happening in such “churches” people are not being saved. You don’t have the right to define christianity your own way and then get into Jesus’ Heaven, because to get into Jesus’ Kingdom you must comply with Jesus’ own definition of Christianity. And that is what He is doing here, at “My Father’s House” – teaching His definition of church, His definition of grace, His definition of believers. The frightening thing about this is how many people can be like Mrs. V. For years you can be in a real church and yet never be in the Spirit of Christ. She was not His, because some kind of a lie in her head or heart was keeping her out. She was thinking she was saved when she wasn’t. There is no evidence she made any contribution to the edification of the church, in fact, the evidence was contrary over and over again and she wouldn’t look at the evidence. She didn’t think her problems had anything to do with her salvation. She would say, “I know this is a real church. I know pastor is a man of God, so I am saved.” No you are not. You are not saved until you have the Spirit of Christ in you. When you have the Spirit of Christ in you that is when you know that you are saved. And when you have the Spirit of Christ in you, you will be bearing much fruit – good fruit – that everybody in the church can see is good fruit. (John 15:5) “Grieve not the Holy Spirit by which you have been sealed unto the day of redemption.” (Eph 4:30) The Spirit of Christ in me, the Holy Spirit in me is my salvation and if you want to stay saved you must never do anything that might make Him leave. Grieve not the Holy Spirit. If you live according to the flesh you will die but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live. (Rom 8:13) Mrs. V. had not put to death the deeds of the body. The deeds of the body were controlling her. That body has to be put to death. Whatever you are doing that is independent of God is iniquity. You have to put a stop to what you are doing on your own and not let the power of that iniquity in the flesh control you, push you around. You cannot let your own understanding push you around; that is iniquity too. You have to kill these things so the Spirit can rule. If you continue to let the flesh rule then the Spirit can’t rule. If you continue to let the flesh rule then you will be worth nothing to the church or to God. Therefore you must crucify the flesh. And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (Gal 5:24) You must call upon Christ in faith for the power of His Spirit to put the flesh to death. For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. (Rom 8:13) Most of the time with someone like Mrs. V. there must be a death, burial, and resurrection. First she must see the problem that she is in the flesh and not in the Spirit, that she has been religious like the man in Romans 7. He has been religious but he is still in the flesh and that’s where she has been. Now you have to get into the Spirit. To get into the Spirit the flesh must die. For the flesh to die, you must stop doing everything that you were doing in the flesh. Which means what? You don’t even try to share like you used to. You don’t even try to explain a scripture or a testimony. You kill these things because the source of everything you were doing wasn’t of God therefore you have to stop doing it and cut that source off. You don’t let it work, but you keep it buried until it decays and it rots and until it isn’t going to get up again. Then you wait on the Lord to raise you. You trust Him to give you a scripture, or a testimony or something that you know is from the Spirit. And when He gives you something it will be something from a recognizably different source than before. You will know that it isn’t you this time but it is God. Then when you bring it in everyone in church will know that this isn’t the old Mrs. V., this is the new Mrs. V., the new creation. Because they will know that the source of what you share is from God too. You cannot do this by yourself. You can’t correct yourself without God’s help in this matter. Flesh can’t correct flesh – self can’t fix self. The problem is that self has been in control. That self has to die. Then you must let Jesus raise you and bring forth His new born again Spirit in you. That new Spirit will be tender hearted, very sensitive to what is going on in everyone around you. You will learn to recognize what God is doing in the service. Now when people are getting in touch with God, you will be able to see it. You will be able to sit in the service absolutely silently and yet you will be able to know what the Spirit is doing. You will be getting confirmations. You will be sensing when a prophecy will come and it will. You will understand the sharing. Very soon you will recognize that the Spirit that is in us is in you. About that time God will be ready to use you. If you are faithful to pray and stay in faith, you will find that God will crucify you, bury you, and then raise you. And when you come back you will be a new person. It will be God working through you. That is what He prophesied to you Mrs. V. And that is the only way it works, when you do it in Him, and when it is Him working in and through you. Prophecy: Where My Spirit is not free to move through the brethren to minister through one member to the other members and another member to other members, where My Spirit is not free to function in that way such a place is not My church. Only where My Spirit can work freely through the brethren can I expose who is in My Spirit and who is not. Only where My Spirit can move freely through the brethren can those who are in My Spirit learn to know they are in My Spirit and those who are not see they are not. In these places, those synagogues of Satan, who claim to be My churches while they magnify the flesh, I tell you they do not have My Spirit. But they cannot see they don’t, because they never see My Spirit do anything amongst them, because where flesh is free I am not free to move. If I am not free to move then they are not free to see. They cannot even judge themselves to see whether My Spirit is in them. But in this place I have shown a bright light here that anyone who comes in who has the heart to see the truth can tell whether Christ is in them or not. Because in this place I have a people in which My Spirit does abide and does move. And whatever is in step with that is of Me and whatever is not, is not of Me and does not know Me. And this is the way I will have church wherever I have church because if you do not have My Spirit you are not Mine. But here I am going to show people how to have My Spirit so they can be Mine, saith the Lord. (Prophecy delivered at "My Father's House") Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?-- unless indeed you are disqualified. (2Cor 13:5) You have to determine for sure that Jesus is in you. If He isn’t in you, you are not His. If He is in you then you can tell because He will be doing through you the things that He did in the scriptures. Because as He is, so are we in this world. (1John 4:17) He is doing the things the Bible says He will be doing – washing and perfecting the bride. That He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the Word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. (Eph 5:26-27) If Jesus is in you then for this reason the Son of God was manifest that He might destroy the works of the devil. (1John 3:8) If He is in you, He will be establishing righteousness, defeating the devil in every encounter and unmasking the devil’s lies every place He goes. I can tell Jesus is in me. I can tell by the wicked lies that Jesus in me is continually exposing in the false church and false christians. He is doing it and I know He is doing it. Jesus in me is zealous for His truth and zealous for His church. He is not letting any of these false churches, false christians get away with their lies; lies which are purposed to keep Christ’s elect in bondage and darkness. Jesus is bringing them down. Recently we completed a new issue of The Glory of His Grace titled, Saved by Righteousness. I tell you in the Lord that no preacher is even fit to preach Christ’s Gospel if they don’t understand the truths Jesus reveals in that book. Saved by Righteousness will birth real pastors into God’s Kingdom. It will birth a new move of God in the earth today, because Christ in me wrote that book. Now if Christ is in you He has to be working through you. He will be working zealously to finish this age and bring in everlasting righteousness. If Christ is in you, you could never be content to be a workless Christian, “A workless grace is a worthless grace.” You cannot do nothing and think that is Christ in you. Doing nothing is an absolute proof that Christ is not in you. How could Jesus be doing nothing when there is so much to do? There is too much perfecting of the saints that is still needed for Jesus in you to be doing nothing. If Jesus is really in you He will be doing something effectual and important to perfect the church through you. Christ – from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. (Eph 4:16) Notice the working is effective. If Jesus is in you, He will not be doing an ineffectual work. And if He is truly in you, you can rejoice that your work is good because He will be doing a real work through you. That is one way you know that you have the Spirit. I can tell by the work that He is doing through me that the Spirit is in me. “But I have a greater witness than John's; for the works which the Father has given Me to finish-- the very works that I do-- bear witness of Me, that the Father has sent Me.” (John 5:36) “Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves. Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.” (John 14:11-12) Jesus cannot be in a so-called “believer” who is content to do nothing. Jesus is not a do nothing Christ. He is a “busy about My Father’s business” Christ and He is zealous to finish the work. The person who is doing things that are not effectual cannot have Jesus in him either. Jesus is effectual and when He works He accomplishes mighty things. If Jesus is in you there will be a river of life flowing out of you. “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:38) That means the things you say and do will be a constant source of God’s life and grace to others. What we have seen with Mrs. V. is there was no well of living water. What she gave wasn’t drinkable. But what was coming from Elia, Kim, Dave; the Spiritual members of the church; there is always an abundance of life flowing from them into the brethren. Because they abide continually in Christ, life flows out of them over and over, day after day, month after month. When you listen to them share and when you listen to them speak you know you’ve been edified. One test of whether you have the Spirit of Christ or not is do you have life flowing out of you and into others? Because if you don’t have Jesus’ life flowing out of you and into the brethren then you have a kind of “believing” that is flesh and it isn’t Spiritual. Always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. So then death is working in us, but life in you. (2Cor 4:10,12) This has always been the contest. The Spiritual church has life. The fleshly church doesn’t have life; they are dead. She who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives. (1Tim 5:6) They are not going to heaven. They are intellectual, not Spiritual. They think because they agree mentally that Jesus is the Son of God, that means they are “believers” and they are “saved.” But they have no connection to the living “I am” Spirit of Christ and there is no river of life flowing out of them. “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.” (John 5:39-40) And Jesus says, “They are not Mine.” But in services at “My Father’s House” we have brethren who are continually sharing life with us and we are being edified and we can delight in coming to church because we know that when we get here we will meet Christ in our brethren. And each of us who has a real faith connection to Jesus becomes a river of life that flows to the others. That is what makes us a real church. We are like the temple in Ezekiel 47 where from the throne of that temple there is a river of life flowing and wherever it goes, whatever it touches, it gives life. And there is a river flowing from here, right here from “My Father’s House” there is a river flowing that is giving life to God’s people all over the world. Prophecy: Behold a king will reign in righteousness and princes will rule in justice. A man will be as a hiding place from the wind and a covering from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place; as a shadow of a great rock in a weary land. The eyes of those who see will not be dim. The ears of those who hear will listen. Also the heart of the rash will understand knowledge and the tongue of the stammerer will be ready to speak plainly. And I tell you, My people, this is what is happening in “My Father’s House” today. And you will continue and increase in these things through Christ in you My people who obey, who walk in My Spirit, who seek Me and delight to see and hear of My Spirit and Truth, and you will see and hear and learn many marvelous things of Me. And not only that but you will speak plainly these truths to others and you will not have rash hearts but you will have understanding and great knowledge of My Spirit for My Spirit is working in you now and will increase and will continue to work in you even more and more mightily, thus says the Lord. (Prophecy delivered at "My Father's House")
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