Status Updates From What shall this man do?

“Some murmur when trials befall them, and find in them only limitation, restriction, and death; others praise God in the trials, and find in them the pathway to enlargement, liberation and abundance of life.”

I love the Bring Back Reality bit. “‘Mt dear brothers!…all your knowledge of these nice Scriptural details would avail you nothing if, when the need arose, you did not know how to cast out demons!’ Today we have become too civilized, and as a result, we often close the door to God.” Agreed.

“The spiritualizing away of divine things is the desperate expedient of people who do not possess the reality. Many dear folk amass spiritual and prophetic truth only, I fear, to build for themselves with it an unreal world.”

Great insight on the double emphasis on the law given by Moses, and Grace and truth from Jesus. “Truth will always make demands, and Grace will always be there to meet them.”

All who call on the Name “are to depart from unrighteousness…When we see spiritual breakdown around us, we are to look to ourselves.”

As citizens of a foreign power, delivered from the usurper (Prince of Darkness), we are neither subject to that usurper any longer nor do we power any allegiance. Agreed.

“So on the night when Peter lay in prison, the church throughout Jerusalem got to its knees and prayed earnestly, and all Herod’s authority was as nothing before the response of heaven to that prayer. Another Kingdom had invaded his territory”. Couldn’t agree more, but this conflicts with the assertion that “man has been given power to make way for, or to obstruct, the power of God.” Hah.

“So for the building up of His Church, God emphasizes the ministry of the Word above the ministry of works. The Church is not to trust in miracles, for they may only lead to outward things. Israel in the desert constantly touched God’s works, but missed His life. So did the multitudes in the Gospels…”

“Many think that if nothing goes visibly wrong in the Church, then all is well. But to be thus unable to discern what is life and what is death is a fatal lack. We shall not know when we are being attacked.”

“Gifts are not to be dispensed with ….but to set the greatest store by them is still to ‘think as a child’ in spiritual things….To-day, many minister by gifts; comparatively few by life….Their display establishes faith, but with an increasing measure of spiritual life in the church, the need to depend on them becomes less, and so does the danger of pride that accompanies them.”

“Many, sad to say, pray prayers which have neither consciousness of sin nor love to God in them. One can only describe them as angels’ prayers, for they bear none of the marks of the prayers of God’s children.”

“To create an earthly thing is easy for us. If we are content with an outward, technical Christianity-a ‘movement’ based on an earthly foundation, with an earthly structure and organization-then it is quite possible to do the thing ourselves. But we have been apprehended for something utterly different from this.”

“May God have mercy on the clever people, who give with one hand what they take with the other!” Amen.

“No, as the fire will one day prove, work that is dependent on feelings or on the wind of revival is of little use to God. When God commands, feelings or no feelings, we must learn to do. Such values are costly…Only a high price buys costly stones. Many a time we shall want to cry out, ‘This is costing too much!’l

“What then is the Church? It is the structure of living stones founded upon a rock. And what is that rock? Here it is that we need to be very clear. It is a confession based upon a revelation of a Person.”

“God is not satisfied with single, separate Christians. When we believed on the Lord and partook of Him we became members of His body.”

Incorporates a quote from another book that really resonated, about the purpose of the Christian life. “Some people do not seem to have any earthen vessel; they are disembodied spirits, not human beings-or at least that is what they try to be! But to hold onto the ploughing whilst wiping our tears-this is Christianity, it is the transcending of the earthen vessel by the treasure within.”