The simplicity of the Gospel given to us by the Father, yet we still find ourselves “Drinking From The Toilet Bowl”…
via Ahtimsir Blog
I Will Not Drink From The Toilet Bowl (via Ahtimsir Blog)
April 27, 2011Forgiveness is a Fruit of the Spirit (via Ahtimsir Blog)
April 27, 2011This the absolute best heartfelt article I have ever come across on forgiveness…
via Ahtimsir Blog
Grace and Love go Hand in Hand
November 25, 2009As with most all words, grace has more than one meaning…
It can mean beauty or charm of movement. It can mean a disposition to be generous or helpful. How about mercy; or clemency? God shows us mercy and clemency.
Grace also means: Divine love and protection bestowed freely on people. Then there is the state of being protected or sanctified by the favor of God.
I believe outside of giving His only begotten Son and the Holy Spirit to us that the next important commodity that the Lord has given to us is grace…
Not just any grace, but HIS grace. Is it enough? Yes…Do we deserve it? No…But He gives it to us anyways. Freely and without question, God continues to give us this wonderful thing called GRACE. 2 Corinthians 12:9 tells us in the Lord’s own words, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”
I have recently found myself in a position where I have had to be strong enough or weak enough (I say weak enough, because through Him I become strong when I am weak) to give both grace and love to others. I don’t know about you, but for me sometimes it isn’t always an easy thing to do. To be able to give that same love that Jesus gave to us when He hung on the cross! Now that is GRACE and LOVE given and seen in its finest form. “OH” that I can be more like Him to walk more completely in these things. Amazingly enough, I find that if I can administer “grace and love” then I have also succeeded in administering forgiveness, another necessary commodity that many of us struggle with in our walk with the Lord.
I don’t like to struggle in the things of God but I do. The flesh gets in the way and I find myself acting like the world in these areas. Not meaning to but it does happen. I, at times, only walk in the first and second realms of understanding, in the physical realm of life happening all around me; looking at the circumstances and not the answer; and the second realm where the principalities and powers of darkness come together. I forget at times how to give the healing balm of grace. When this happens, then an individual isn’t walking in the third realm with the Lord; a level of understanding and grace and love and mercy; a level of power and authority that the Christ intended (not only intended) but gave to us to operate in.
I am finding on a daily basis that even though I live on this earth in a physical, fleshly body (dirt) that I have to get past the flesh (the first realm) and I have to walk past the second realm of principalities and powers and push my way into the third realm, pull it inside of me and as the Christ did, live my life with the attributes of God shining through me so that a lost and dying world may see grace, mercy, and love being given to them. At this point, restoration may begin in their lives and they can begin to live once again.
Revelation 22:21 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen
M. L. Baugh Ministries
Leave If You Want To, I’m Staying Here With Jesus…
October 6, 2009
There is a modern church doctrine that came about in the early years of the 20th century that has no Bibical/Scriptual basis, but has taken the evangelical church by storm. Sadly, it has also removed the need for the responsible Believer to prepare and grow. This doctrine is called the “Rapture of the church.”
This doctrinal mess, contradictory in all ways, is not only a false teaching that has invaded the church; it has become the most profitable cottage industry in the modern church history. Consider the popular fiction (yes, fiction, and was identified as such by the authors, themselves) series of recent years known as “Left Behind.” The authors, Jerry Jenkins and Tim Lahaye, were not the well-known celebrities they are today. Tim Lahaye and his wife Beverly were Christian Life Counselors, and Jenkins was former vice-president for the Moody Bible Institute and up until the Left Behind series dealt primarily with biographies. In no-way an expert in eschatology, he is simply a marriage and family author.
How, suddenly and with no background, experience, or credentials, they are considered the reigning experts in “the end times” eschatology. They have churned out volume after volume of “best sellers” that have made them millions of dollars while doing nothing more than repackage works whose notoriety is questionable to say the least.
There is a “Christian” TV network that does bi-annual fund drives to garner funds to perpetuate their next year of broadcasting. Invariably, a certain clergyman, in Texas will be featured during that particular time frame. What does this man preach? He brings out a platform wide chart of Daniel and Revelation, and then begins to spend all of his available time using scare tactics and twisting history and using a false doctrine that has no Biblical basis, whatsoever. Needless to say, the membership and offerings swell, for all involved, during this time frame.
Of what advantage has this false doctrine been to the Kingdom of God? Has it caused the body to grow in power and authority? Has it caused the body of Christ to grow in power and strength through the Holy Spirit? I would submit to all who read this, a very sound “NO” it has not caused any of these things. All it has brought forth, “is deceit and lies,” into the body of Christ. I would say that it has caused many to fall, because they don’t have the ability to measure up to all that men say that they have to do to enter in. Not withstanding, the part of the church that has turned into Christian “couch potatoes” waiting for God to whisk them away, believing themselves to be the true Bride of Christ, refusing to carry any other message, than that of a supposed “Tribulation.”
More pulpit time is dedicated to the preaching of this so-called “rapture” doctrine than any important and valuable message in the “Word of God.” They bring into this theory (that is exactly what it is, a THEORY) the coming of the anti-Christ, a man who is supposed to bring the whole world together and do great feats causing the people to rise up and worship him, as told in the “Left Behind” series written by Jekins and Lahaye. I tell you, there has always been anti-Christ, not just one but many through the ages of time and the Word of God tells us so.
Why not bring into existence, the “Kingdom of God” and the love that has to be shown to people to really draw them in? Why aren’t the people being taught how to really prepare their wedding garments, without spot or blemish? What about “Christ” like responsibility, such as in the garden, when Jesus the Christ prayed these words in Matthew 26:39: “nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” He was not afraid to do the Fathers will to bring His Kingdom into existence so that we can dwell therein and to take on the responsibility of growth, that would cause us to no longer be children, but to become the full grown Sons of the living God.
Pot Luck Dinner
August 23, 2009Pot Luck Dinner
I don’t really think so. Pot Luck has always been where a variety of food is brought to a dinner and an enjoyable way to fellowship and eat with one another.
But somehow in this hour when we so desperately need to be close to the Father and to know His perfect will in our lives, there is another type of pot luck being brought to the dinner table and it is creating a mass of hysteria and confusion in the body of Christ. Because of this no one person is getting a clear message from the Father about His perfect will in their lives.
Example: I have been praying for you and God told me that if you didn’t change your ways that judgment was getting ready to happen in your life and I am worried about you.
Example: You hurt or offended a little one and now they are confused and you are going to suffer for it because the Word says you will.
What has happened to forgiveness in the life of a child of God? When did one passing judgment from one to the other become so fashionable? I perceive that there is a spirit of disillusionment in the church today because of tasteless yet fashionable judgment being brought to the dinner table.
Judgment isn’t the only thing being brought to the table though. Condemnation has slipped in and sits there in a huge bowl steaming hot ready to be dipped into.
Example: Well, I thought they got saved last week and look at them, rushing outside to smoke a cigarette. Don’t they know that is going to send them straight to hell?
Who made you judge and jury to condemn one to death because everything isn’t perfect in their lives just the way you think it ought to be! Just maybe God has another circumstance that He wants to deal with in them first. Just maybe you didn’t hear from the Father at all but instead just don’t care for the things you see or hear and therefore believe that you have the right to judge, sentence and condemn an individual for what you see wrong within them.
Even people who have walked with the Lord for many years still make more mistakes in their lives than they care to have happen but yet they still suffer the same consequences of judgment, sentencing and condemnation. No matter how many times they ask for forgiveness and they are told that they have it the individual who says they have forgiven is still holding on to all the wrongs that they see within that person and refuse to let the garbage be buried.
Hebrews10: 15-18 Weymouth translation
And the Holy Spirit also gives us His testimony; for when He had said,
“This is the Covenant that I will make with them
After those Days,’ says the Lord:
‘I will put My laws upon their hearts and will write them on their minds’”
He adds, “And their sins and offences I will remember no longer.”
But where these have been forgiven no further offering for sin is required.
