Love Liberty Christ Dwells Within You

Liberty Or Love

The issue of eating meat that has been sacrificed to idols is no longer a problem in the Church.

Therefore, Paul's exhortation in I Corinthians 8 may seem to be most irrelevant for us today.

However, this chapter contains certain principles about spiritual liberty that are important for us to know and that will be a tremendous blessing to us.


  Now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies. 

If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know; but if anyone loves God, he is known by Him.

Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that[b]there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and that there is no God but one. 

 For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is but one God,the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.

However not all men have this knowledge; but some, being accustomed to the idol until now, eat food as if it were sacrificed to an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled.

 But food will not commend us to God; we are neither the worse if we do not eat, nor the better if we do eat. 

 But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. 

For if someone sees you, who have knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols? 

For through your knowledge he who is weak is ruined, the brother for whose sake Christ died. 

And so, by sinning against the brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.

Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble.
 I Corinthians 8:1-13.


  Paul presented a different kind of thinking than most people are prepared for.

Even today the issue in Christianity often seems to be legalism versus freedom in the grace of God.

Freedom can be misunderstood by those who have been delivered from legalism.

Legalistic teaching dictates what a believer can do and what he cannot do.

But when the revelation of grace comes to a believer, the prohibitions are suddenly removed and are no longer an issue of sin.

Then he feels free to take certain liberties.


  Paul wrote in Titus 1:15: To the pure, all things are pure, but  to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled.

The impure look upon everything differently than do the pure.

Former legalistic teaching often dictated a certain manner of dress.

The young people of this generation have no idea how many sermons were preached condemning bobbed hair and short dresses, particularly in the twenties.

When a woman was converted to Christ, she was required to "clip the stitch and let down the hem."

Only then was she considered truly converted.


  When the grace of God is preached, styles of dress are not an issue.

In warm weather many Christians wear very little, thinking that in the free grace of God it does not matter.

Actually, many problems can come from dressing in that manner.

In her will to be free, a girl may decide to dress in a provocative manner, thus turning some weak brother to lustful thoughts and becoming the occasion of a great deal of condemnation within him.

Then she cannot justify herself by saying," Well, that's his problem.

My liberty is one thing, and it is up to him to look out for himself."

They recognized that by sinning against your brother and wounding his conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.


  Anyone who becomes a part of the restoration of the New Testament Church, and desires to walk with God as a son of God, must realize that his personal liberty is not to be the issue.

It is true that Romans 8:21 speaks of the glorious liberty of the sons of God, but those who walk in that liberty must understand that they are bound by a law of love from which there will never be any liberation.

After the Lord has liberated us from all other legalism, then the law of love binds us, and we recognize that the Christ in our brother must not be offended.


  In I Corinthians 8 Paul was talking about one or more individuals who perhaps had some very serious problems.

Behind the heathen temple where animals were sacrificed to an idol, there was a little concession.

Here people could buy meat for a low price, or eat a meal that had been prepared by the temple attendants.

They cooked the meat from the sacrifices, adding a few spices.

Sometimes the Christians who did not have much money came here to get a good meal or to buy some meat.

These Christians looked upon themselves as free and not under the law.

But when a brother came along who had formerly worshiped in that idol's temple, and he saw the Christians eating the meat of the sacrifices, it was a big occasion of stumbling for him.

God had delivered him from the power of the demons that were associated with that idol; and when he saw the freedom of these Christians, he stumbled.

For that reason Paul wrote, " If food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, that I might not cause my brother to stumble."


  On the other hand, there is also a danger of insisting on extreme conformity, in which you do certain things because everyone else expects it of you.

Some people will try to make you measure up to their standards.

At times you must absolutely go against their demands, because they are trying to lay down rules that are a stumbling block to the whole issue of liberty in Christ.


  Many Christians will be offended because God's present moving in the earth is non-denominational.

In reality, denominationalism is not even scriptural; it is anti scriptural.

There are many areas that are open issues on which Christians must take their stand in the Lord.

When you come into a walk with God, you are delivered from Babylonian denominations.

So if someone is offended when you criticize Babylon, you can not allow that to become an issue.


  In the matters of food and dress and similar issues, you should have freedom and liberty.

Yet you should not demand conformity, but rather have a compassion for your weak brother, so that you do not cause him to stumble in his weakness.

Many illustrations could be given of areas where liberty can be taken too far.

One man may insist on his freedom to drink wine.

His brother, who has been delivered by God from alcoholism, may associate drinking with devil power.

Be careful with your liberty.

Do not offend your brother for whom Christ died.

Realize that the law of love supersedes your liberty.

  If you come from a background of legalism, you may need to assert yourself to break through the chains that have been laid upon you.

But realize, also, that after you have broken through, you no longer have a point to prove.

Therefore, back off and be considerate.

Have enough love in your spirit to appreciate the freedom you have in the grace of God, but realize that with this freedom one rule governs your heart- and that is love.

Do not make an issue of your liberty when that liberty is definitely going to wound Christ.


  Christ is identifying Himself thoroughly and completely with each one in the Body of Christ.

Therefore if you offend a brother, you sin against Christ because Christ is in him.

Regardless of how foolish he may be, Christ is in that brother to such an extent that everything you do to him as a human being you are doing to Christ.


  Paul wrote in I Corinthians 6:5:

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?

Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot?

May it never be!

Christ today is not one individual.

As the body is not one member, but many members, so also is Christ ( I Corinthians 12:12 ).


He shed His blood to redeem you from your sins, in order that as He comes forth in your life, you can be thoroughly and completely in Him, a living part of Himself.

Jesus did not shed his blood to save you as an individual.

He came to save you from your individuality.

He shed His precious blood to release you from your sins as an individual, to release you from your individuality, and to bring you into absolute oneness with Himself.

The first thing He had to do was to pay the price and get rid of all the debt that was against you, and then to swallow you up in Himself.

Every day that you live, you become a little bit less of a human being, and a little more of Christ than you were the day before.


  When a brother first accepts Jesus Christ, he may have many strange ideas, but you still must see the Christ coming forth in him.

No matter how confused he is mentally, God is getting his heart together, and down in his heart Christ lives.

Regardless of how inadequate, immature, and undeveloped that person is, he is a member of Christ; and what you do to him, you are doing to Christ.


  That man must also be convinced that what He does to himself, he is doing to Christ.

During a time of discouragement, he may go out and get drunk.

This means the he got Christ drunk.

Perhaps you object to that kind of thinking.

Do you prefer Paul's way of expressing it?

He said, " If you have sexual intercourse with a harlot, you are bringing Christ into an adulterous, fornicating situation."

What you do to the body, the temple of the Holy Spirit where Christ dwells, you are doing to Christ.


  There will have to be a new respect and reverence for the Christ who dwells within us.

We shall come to know one another not after the flesh, but as fellow members of Christ.

God's end - time move is more than restoration of the New Testament Church in a many membered body.

Only to see individuals move in a ministry was never God's plan, but rather to see the Body of Christ come together, to see the Son of God manifested in many sons.

It is not the manifestation of you as a son, but the manifestation of Christ, the pattern Son, in you.

Every member in the Body will conform to Him.

Every member will take on the same life and the same being, the same nature and the same oneness.


  Ask God to give you a Kingdom conscience so great, that although you would give your life for the liberty that is yours in Christ, you would also relinquish, as Paul did, great segments of your liberty so that you never offend Christ in a brother.

To the Jews Paul was like a Jew; to the slaves he was like a slave; to the free he was like a free man; to the Gentiles he could talk like a Gentile.

What was his key?

He said, " I have become all things to all men" ( I Corinthians 9:19-22 ).

He was not saying, "I am a man of a thousand faces."

Rather, he was saying, "I conform myself as a man who shall be restrained.

The Christ within me can relate to the Christ in my brother, even though that brother is warped in his concepts, and his background leads him in another direction completely."


  When your relationship with your brother is right, then your liberty is not threatened.

Do not make an issue out of the liberties you have which your brother does not have.

Realize that Christ died for him.

Come to the place where you love Christ so much that you will not be an offense to your brother.

The issue is never liberty; the issue is love.

Blueberries Reverse Age Related Memory Problems

Dang, I forgot to post this this morning...

"Now what was I going to tell you..."

Scientists Find Blueberries Reverse Age Related Memory Deficits

Phytochemical-rich foods, such as blueberries, are not only healthy food choices, they may actually be able to reverse age-related memory problems.

That's the conclusion of a study by a research team from the University of Reading and the Peninsula Medical School in England.

Scientists Find Blueberries Reverse Age Related Memory Deficits

Foods Containing Phytochemicals.

 Phytochemicals are compounds that are produced by plants ("phyto" means "plant").

They are found in fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, and other plants.

 Some of these phytochemicals are believed to protect cells from damage that could lead to cancer.

Half Of People Click Anything Sent To Them (arstechnica.com)

Want to know why phishing continues to be one of the most common security issue? 

https://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-click-here-button-image14957087

 CLICK HERE

 
Half of the people will click on anything without thinking twice ArsTechnica reports:

 A study by researchers at a university in Germany found that about half of the subjects in a recent experiment clicked on links from strangers in e-mails and Facebook messages -- even though most of them claimed to be aware of the risks.

 The researchers at the Friedrich-Alexander University (FAU) of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, led by FAU Computer Science Department Chair Dr Zinaida Benenson, revealed the initial results of the study at this month's Black Hat security conference. 

Simulated "spear phishing" attacks were sent to 1,700 test subjects -- university students -- from fake accounts. 

The e-mail and Facebook accounts were set up with the ten most common names in the age group of the targets. 

The Facebook profiles had varying levels of publicly accessible profile and timeline data -- some with public photos and profile photos, and others with minimal data. 

The messages claimed the links were to photos taken at a New Year's Eve party held a week before the study. 

Two sets of messages were sent out: in the first, the targets were addressed by their first name; in the second, they were not addressed by name, but more general information about the event allegedly photographed was given.

 Links sent resolved to a webpage with the message "access denied," but the site logged the clicks by each student.

Pray For The Sick

Praying for the sick 

 

Brant Baker would say, "I have learned to yield to the Holy Spirit.

 

Brant Baker has nothing to offer, it is all Jesus.

 I am nothing at all.

 If God can use a nobody like me He can use anybody."

Oral Roberts said,  

"I have been asked many times what the anointing is.
 
 I searched the scriptures for every instance when individuals or groups felt God's anointing. 

I saw that by experiencing the presence of God, they were able to do mighty exploits for the Lord. 

I saw, too, that when the anointing of God's Spirit did not rise up in them, they were as ordinary in themselves and in their works as any of us are today.

 There was no halo around them. They were not superman or super women. They were believers but still flesh and blood.

I focused on Luke 4:18, Jesus said to the people in the synagogue in Nazareth,where He had grown up:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor,
He hath sent me to heal the broken hearted,
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty them that are bruised.

The revelation came to me that the anointing is a time when God separates you from yourself and fills you with His glory so that when you speak it's like God speaking, and when you act it's like God acting. 

You are yourself, but you are not yourself. 

I mean, you have not taken leave of your senses. 

Still, you are keenly aware that another self-the Spirit of God Himself-has taken over and is, at that time, in full charge of you, and you are acting under His divine unction or guidance and power from above.

The glory of the Lord that comes upon you at the time of anointing removes all fear, fills you with a holy boldness, and gives you revelational knowledge of how and what to do.

 It is an incomparable experience. God who is in you is now flowing up by His Spirit from your belly area (your inner being) and giving you a covering that Satan cannot penetrate (see John 7:38-39).

The difficulty that I have when the anointing comes upon me...in the heat of this experience I have an insatiable desire to literally drive the sickness or disease or demon or fear or poverty or any other destructive power out of the person.

\ I confess it is a driving force possessing me far beyond any powers of my own. 

My normal compassion appears to be multiplied a thousand times.

 My urgency to rid the person of the tormenting power of Satan almost consumes me.

The tangible presence of God- is not mine.

 It belongs to God. 

The prophet Elijah said, "Let God be God" 1 Kings 18:24.

 That is exactly what I had to learn to do"

God loves us. God will move through each of us.

And these signs shall follow all who believe, they shall lay their hands upon the sick, who will recover.
Mark 16:17

We read the scriptural accounts of healing miracles and we wish Jesus were here to cure the sick in our day and age. 

With more and more hospitals being built, doctors unable to keep up with the needs of an increasing population, and many illnesses still considered incurable, we could certainly use this charism of healing.

The Good News is, we do have the healing love of Jesus Christ with us today. 

The gifts of healing manifested by the Lord have been delegated to each person who accepts Jesus as his Savior, believing him to be the Son of God.

Before He was crucified, Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever believes in me will perform the same works as I do myself, he will perform even greater works, because I am going to the Father" John 14:12.

Jesus was telling the disciples that ministering to the blind, the halt and the lame was not going to stop when He was no longer visible. 

The commission to carry on the healing work was given to "whoever believes in Him. 

The works would be even greater because they would no longer be performed by one man, but by everyone who professes Jesus as Lord.

Jesus made us extensions of Himself in order that multitudes of people could be touched and cured by His love. He has no hands to lay on the sick but our hands.

 If, as Christians, we really believe the Lord dwells within us, then it should not come as a surprise that we can pray for the sick and they will be healed. 

We merely provide the vehicle through which the love of God can shine forth.

Christians are accustomed to thinking that the gift of healing is reserved for certain individuals who receive a supernatural calling from God to go forth and heal. 

All of us can pray over the sick. 

Whoever means whoever. 

"Whoever believes in me will perform the same works as I do myself, he will perform even greater works, because I am going to the Father."

You have been called, you believe in Jesus Christ.

 So you see, you fit the equation.

 Conditions are right for you to start praying over the sick with an expectancy to see God heal them. Try it. 

Go out and pray over sick people and see what takes place.

I Believe In Miracles. A story of a little girl healed by Jesus, and she saw Him!

I Believe in Miracles

This is a testimony of a miracle that Kathryn told...
If you asked Kathryn what was the most remarkable healing she recalls, this is what she would have told you.

Revelation 12:11And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony...

The four-year-old child had just arrived home from the Miracle Service.

Upon entering the house she rushed up excitedly to the picture of the last supper.

"That's Him, Grandma," she exclaimed, pointing to the standing figure in the painting.

"That's Jesus! I saw Him over at Miss Kuhlman's today."

The small girl had been taken to the service that afternoon by her grandmother-one of the rare occasions that she had been taken out in public for many weeks, so appalling was her appearance.

Some eight months before, little Amelia had awakened one morning with what appeared to be patches of wet rash on her armes and legs.

Before the week was out, her entire body was covered with running sores.

The first doctor to whom she was taken diagnosed the trouble as eczema.

 He prescribed treatment, but her condition continued to worsen.

 As the days went on, the sores began to bleed badly, and her whole body had to be encased in cloths.

No water could touch her, and she had to be cleansed as gently as possible, with oil.

Her arms were wrapped in bandages, and unable to bend them, they hung straight at the child's side.

 As her grandmother says: "Her whole skin was cracked open. Blood and pus constantly oozed out. She was in continual pain, and it was torture for her to have the dressings changed. She screamed if anyone came near her."

It grew impossible to comb her hair, so covered with sores was her scalp.

 She had no eyebrows whatsoever and her eyelids had been eaten away with sores.

Her ears were actually rotting away, and one ear seemed literally to be falling off, so devoured was it by disease.

In the early stages of her disease she had been able to play with other children, but now her appearance revolted them and not only did they shun her, they were not allowed by their parents to visit her.

Before her face and head became so badly ravaged, her mother had tried to take her on a streetcar, but even then no one would sit beside her, and were reluctant to use even the seats adjacent to her.

Young as she was, Amelia was pathetically conscious of the horror she engendered in others.

She did not know why people stared, then turned away with an expression in their eyes she did not understand.

It made her intensely unhappy.

 She would often cry and say to her mother, "Why doesn't anyone like me?," until the time came that she was virtually never taken out of the house.

As long as she was able, she played around her own home.

When her mother let her help with the household chores to keep her occupied, she was pleased and proud.

But even this had to be stopped as it became increasingly painful for the child to move and impossible for her to bend her arms.

Doctor after doctor was consulted. They disagreed on diagnosis, but were in unanimous agreement on one point: whatever the malady was, it was the worst skin ailment they had ever encountered in their practice of medicine.

Finally one of the physicians on the case suggested to the family that Amelia be taken to the cancer clinic.

 Her grandmother had said to him that day, "Prayer helps, too," and the doctor had nodded.

It was at this point, while awaiting an appointment at the clinic, that Grandma gave voice to a desire she had long felt: she asked permission of the child's mother to take Amelia to one of Miss Kuhlman's services.

 A devout Roman Catholic, as was the entire family, the grandmother had become interested in the Kuhlman ministry through the radio broadcasts.

She had herself attended several services at which she felt she had been greatly helped.

Amelia's mother not only granted permission to take the child, but also agreed to pray at home during the hours of the service on the following day.

The little girl had been brought up in a religious household, and she was a child of simple and complete faith in Our Lord and His ability to perform miracles.

 She went to the service that afternoon as the faithful go to Lourdes-confident and expectant that she would be healed so that she would not hurt any more and could play once more with her little friends: so that she could go places with her mother and ride the streetcars and people would smile and want to sit beside her and not turn away with funny expressions on their faces.

But above all, as she confided to her grandmother, "I want to see Jesus.""

When I asked my son to drive us to the service," the grandmother told me later, "he demurred, 'You can't possibly take her into a crowd of people, looking as she does,' he said.

But I replied, ' Certainly I can-that is what this place is for. THEY won't mind.'"

But Amelia's uncle was not so sure.

 He waited outside for them just in case.

Once inside the auditorium, even Grandma sought to cover the child's head as best she could with her coat so that those who saw her wouldn't be frightened-for as she recalls, "Her skin was now so badly cracked that you could lay a pin in each crevice. The scanty hair that remained on her head was stuck tight to her scalp, and her ears just hung, as though they were both ready to drop off."

Amelia and her grandmother took their seats that afternoon in the rear of the auditorium-both totally unknown to me.

 During the singing toward the end of the service, Amelia poked her grandmother: "Look, Grandma," she exclaimed in loud tones, "I see Jesus up there!"

"Where?" her grandmother whispered.

Heads turned in the auditorium as the child said, "Up there! At the side of Miss Kuhlman! Look at Him-Jesus up there! And see-He has His hands out."

 Her grandmother looked down at Amelia, and then she looked again, and her heart began to pound.

The sores on the little girl's face were entirely dried up.

There was no evidence of blood or pus anywhere to be seen.

Her heart overflowed with joy and thanksgiving.

When they left the auditorium, Amelia's uncle was waiting for them.

 He took one look at the little girl and nearly fainted.

"When we got home," reports the grandmother, "she couldn't wait to tell everyone what had happened. 

The thing she told was, how she had seen Jesus.

The thing her family saw was, how her sores were all dried up.

 Her father took one look and cried 'A MIRACLE!' "

"I said nothing to anyone-I just wanted to make sure that everything was all right before I said anything about it."

The following week Amelia was again taken to the auditorium.

 In the middle of the service, the scabs covering her face and head and body began to drop off.

 "They came off her like snow falling," her grandmother said-"and I was embarrassed-for they fell all over some lady's clothes. But most of all I was thankful, and the whole time I was praising the Lord."

Thus was Amelia completely and permanently healed.

She was grateful to Jesus from the bottom of her little heart, but she was not at all surprised, for she had known all along that He could and would perform the miracle.

The little girl's skin was now flawless.

 There was no sign of a sore; no indication of a scab; no marks of any scarring.

Within a short time her washed and combed hair made a golden halo around her radiant little face.

 Her eyebrows became full and well marked; her eyelids and ears were fully restored.

One thousand people saw the condition of this child and witnessed her healing which the doctors call a miracle.

Amelia's case has moved me as much as anything that has ever happened in this ministry, and not solely because of the physical healing, of which I have seen so many equally remarkable, but because of her unquestioning faith; her unswerving certainty of the reality of the vision she had had of Jesus; and the tenacity with which she has clung, over the seven years since her healing, to her original story.

 In the beginning, friends and neighbors, although they could not deny the healing, either accused the child of making up the story or accused the grandmother of putting the idea in the child's head.

Her mother and father were at first convinced that the whole thing had been a product of a child's over-active imagination.

They talked to her at length and questioned her closely, but nothing they could say could shake her insistence that she had indeed seen the Lord.

She still comes often to the services and from time to time, I, too, have closely questioned her.

"Did you really see Jesus?" I asked again only recently to the radiant, lovely-looking eleven-year-old girl she has become.

"And where was Jesus?" "He was standing right over there by you!" "What did He look like?"

I queried once again.

"Like the picture of the sacred heart, and His arms were outstretched," she said.

"Are you positive you saw Him?" Her face aglow, she answered, "Oh, yes, it is the realest thing in my whole life!"

"How long did He stand there?"

"At least five or ten minutes," came her reply, "long after the singing had stopped and you had finished your prayer."

 She smiled then, as she said, "Oh, Miss Kuhlman, I'll never forget it as long as I live!"

The experience of this little girl was clearly not imagination or an hallucination or a delusion, but a true vision.

To a tiny, faith-filled child of four, who wanted more than anything in the world to see her Savior, Jesus had revealed Himself.

To those who persist in believing, that it is my faith which is in some way responsible for the miracles occurring under this ministry, and that my prayers carry more weight than the prayers of others, I offer Amelia's case as only one among many, in refutation of this totally mistaken notion.

I point out that at the time of this child's healing, I did not even know that the child was at the service, and therefore did not offer a special prayer for her.

I did not see her until after she had received her healing-when I heard a voice outburst, "Look Grandma, I see Jesus up there!" 

 It was only then that I ran my eyes quickly over the auditorium to determine where that small but penetrating voice was coming from, and finally saw, in the arms of some woman, a little girl gesticulating in my direction.

It was through the prayers of this child, not mine, that the power of God was released.

And it was in response to the simple faith of a little child, not mine, that Jesus lay His hand upon her small body.

I pray with everything within me, that no one shall ever see Kathryn Kuhlman in this ministry, but only the Holy Spirit.Dear God, give to us the simple faith that little children know-the faith to believe in the Living Person and Power of Jesus: the faith to look for Miracles upon this earth below.

For if we wear this simple faith wrapped like a cloak around us, we will be blessed as children are, and it is then that we will not only know ABOUT LIFE-we will know HOW TO LIVE LIFE!