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Jan 30 2015
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Where the Spirit of the Lord is, There is Liberty

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“Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” II Corinthians 3:17

One of the last things a lost sinner would ever consider a Christian to be, is a person who has a great deal of liberty. To a heathen, being a Christian means bondage to rules; it means that they can’t do any of the things they love. Think about it: How can anyone that loves sin understand that it is bondage? They don’t understand that once a person becomes born again, their desires change. Some things they used to like to do, they will hate; some things they used to hate, they will love to do. This is the work of the Spirit, and this work, which is called sanctification, will continue in the believer’s life.

Only the believer in Jesus Christ can ever understand how a person can turn from living for their own ways and desires, surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and walk around totally liberated. A woman, who loves God, will experience much more liberty than any of the top leading ladies in the woman’s “liberation” movement. This world will never understand that in the Lord, surrender means freedom, and self-promotion means bondage. What can be awfully frustrating is when Christians don’t understand it either. The reason they don’t get it is because they don’t experience the liberty in serving Christ. The more we hang onto our carnal life, the more in bondage we are to it. The more we lay down our lives, the greater the liberty we will walk in.

Just like living in sin is not true liberty, religious rules are a source of bondage. Men have an attraction to rules. Liberty in the Spirit is what is missing in a lot of religious organizations. Some of these organizations started in the Spirit, but have since turned to the flesh. Paul rebuked the Galatians for the same thing; “Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3).

One thing is certain. According to II Corinthians 3:17, if the Spirit is present in our midst, there will be a liberty that frees us from being bound to manmade religious rules. I want to tell you a true story of an encounter I had with a group that had religious rules. This experience, though it had a form of godliness, was the worst demonic experience I have ever encountered.

Some years ago, a young man from my church, named Tim, and myself, were planning to go to Alabama for a camp meeting. Some men we knew here in Wisconsin, invited us to stop by their revival meetings they were having in Ohio the same week we would be making our way down to Alabama. They said if we would attend they would put us up for the night. We decided to head out the day before our meeting started so we could stop at their meeting. After the meeting we greeted a few of the men we had previously met back in Wisconsin, and we were greeted by others that were in attendance. We were then introduced to the family with whom we would be spending the night. We followed them to their house, which was quite a ways out in the country.

After we arrived we had a meal with them. There was some fellowship at the table, but not the real koinonia that Tim and I were accustomed to. Not long after we ate, we were shown the bedrooms where we would be sleeping. In order for Tim and me to have our own rooms, they had their two children share a room. Before I got comfortable I went into the room where the two children were, and I was talking and joking with them. Then I went back to my room. I was wearing a long sleeve dress shirt and a pair of dress pants. I took off my shirt and had a white T shirt underneath. I grabbed my tooth brush and tooth paste and headed to the bathroom, only to find it was occupied. So in dress pants and a T shirt, I went back to visit the two children. Upon entering their room their eyes got really wide. I said something like, “are you afraid of me now?” Then I went back to my room to wait until I could get in the bathroom.

While I was standing there in my room, the man of the house (notice I have not called him brother?) approached me with a very mean spirit and dropped this bomb on me. He said, “Listen, we don’t show our arms around this house. If my children see your arms they will be offended.” I was devastated when he said that to me. It was too late; they already saw my arms. I didn’t know what to say, so I said, “I can appreciate that.” I don’t know why I said that because I did not appreciate it at all. Why didn’t someone tell me they had this rule, which I never found in the bible? I could have either submitted to their rule or turned down the offer to stay at their house, but it was too late. I felt terrible. Every part of me felt like I violated their household.

Let me tell you, it was hard to fall asleep that night. Tim and I were up early the next morning and left without any breakfast. We headed out to the camp meeting in Alabama. Throughout the day, I was haunted by this event that took place. I felt a very heavy condemnation hanging over me. When I got to the meeting in Alabama that evening, I shared my experience with some other ministers that were there. However, condemnation was still hanging over me. Nothing changed by the next morning. After breakfast I called an evangelist friend and told him what happened. He told me that it was the spirit of heaviness that the bible talks about. “..the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;..”(Isaiah 61:3)

I immediately understood that this whole experience was demonic. It was as if demons had followed Tim and I out of that house in Ohio and traveled with us in my car. I went back into the church, had a few ministers pray for me, and the condemnation immediately left.

The devil is very protective of one of his greatest deceptions: RELIGION. He gets awfully angry if you don’t obey his rules. I learned two things that day: the difference between conviction and condemnation, and that the demonic forces are very protective over their religion.

Saint of God, understand this, God convicts, the devil condemns. Religion is demonic bondage, but the Spirit is liberty. Not liberty to sin, but liberty to not have to obey sin. If the devil can’t trap you in sin, he will try to trap you with religious rules. Your deliverance is in the presence of the Spirit of God; “..where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” (Galatians 5:1)

Jan 30 2015
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Speak The Same Thing

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“Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” I Cor. 1:10

“Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: 6That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 7Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God.” Rom. 15:5-7

The testimony of the early church, taken right from the bible, is they were in “one accord” in the upper room. Even after about a ten day span, they were still in “one accord” on the day of Pentecost. I wonder how united my church would be, if we spent ten days together. Anyway, the early church had a unity that is not seen today, not because we can’t have it, but because we don’t believe it can be. Often our idea of unity, is for us all to share the same cause or all belong to the same denomination or all agree to the same creed written by authors other than those who penned our bible. These things can bring some degree of unity for some people, but then another group forms that has their own cause and creed. That is why we have so much division today in the church. Add to that, the lack of love and concern for one another, and it is easy to see why the church doesn’t get along with each other.

The reason the early church had such a unity is because they were fully surrendered to Christ. He told them to wait in Jerusalem for the promised Holy Spirit. So, they all waited together. While in that room, there were no saints determined to carry out their own agenda. They were not jockeying for position, but willingly came under Peter’s leadership. They were praying together and were holding to the Old Testament scriptures, so much so, that they were literally fulfilling scripture by appointing someone to take Judas’ place. You can’t believe the word of God much better than that. We see this true unity in the early church, but true Christian unity has escaped our generation.

How is it, that millions of Christians, can all read the same book called the bible, declare that it is the unadulterated word of God, insist that it holds the highest authority over their life, and yet there be so many disagreements amongst us? I know there are many saints that really want unity. If you don’t want unity there is something desperately wrong with your spiritual man. God created us because He wants to share His kingdom with us, He created us because He wants to have a love relationship with us. When Christ entered us upon salvation, the desire of God came with Him. The desire for love and unity came with Him. As we mature in the Lord, so does our love for God increase, and as our love for God increases, so does our love for mankind, especially our brothers and sisters in Christ.

When I met my wife Joy, I thought she was pretty. She was willing to let me date her, and I did. I found out she was a nice girl too, but I just liked her in those first several months of seeing her. One day I realized I loved her and wanted to be with her more, so much more that I asked her to marry me. We got married and 6 years later we got saved. Joy gave birth to 3 sons who all married and gave us 9 grandchildren. You know what? I still want to be with Joy, even more. I want to be around my sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren too. This is the nature of families. Even more, it is the nature of God. Adam didn’t even finish his first assignment, of naming the animals in the garden, before he was asking where his companion is.

It is only natural for Christians to want unity, and because of that desire for unity, many prayer meetings, conferences, workshops and such have been held for the main purpose of uniting the body of Christ. Who can hold it against those that try such things? I commend them for their effort to bring unity to the body. However, they are going about it the difficult way. Unity is much easier to achieve than one might think.

First you have to believe that we really can have true unity. Paul would never had told us to speak the same thing if we couldn’t; he would have never told us that there should be no divisions amongst us, if it weren’t possible for it to be so. I Corinthians 1:10 is one of those verses in the bible that it seems many Christians really don’t believe. They have shrugged off the possibility that we could have true spiritual unity in the church, years ago.

As I said, to have unity is a very simple thing. Romans 15:5 holds the answer. It says, “Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus:” It is right there as plain as can be; our unity must be “according to Christ Jesus.” It is not according to Terry Fischer, it isn’t according to The Church In Wisconsin, it isn’t according to you, or your church or your creed or your denomination. I am not asking you all to think like me, or for us all to think like one of you. I am asking us all to get the mind of Christ. However, for this to happen, we all have to be teachable. You and I cannot be stubborn in our hearts and say, “this is the way I always believed and I am not changing.” Let’s be honest church, with all the different doctrines we have, someone has to be wrong. Are you willing to change the way you think if the scriptures and the Spirit of truth prove you wrong? My mentor told me, “You don’t look to the bible to prove yourself right, you look to the bible to prove what’s right.” If you and I have a contrary interpretation of a verse in the bible, either I am wrong, or you are wrong, or we are both wrong. We can’t both be right. The Spirit of truth would never teach opposing views and leave us confused and divided. So with that said, it is up to us to be teachable, no matter how long and how well trained we may be. Let’s not agree to disagree, let’s agree to get the mind of Christ and have unity according to Christ Jesus. I am one that believes we will have it. I plead with you to determine in your heart that we can have unity, and that you will cooperate toward that end.