Jer. 7:23-24 π Rom. 8:13
The present day churches, even Charismatic churches, do not fulfill the New Testament or the book of Acts pattern – they are trying to follow an ideal or process rather than Jesus and the Father Himself.
Our pattern for New Testament Christianity is Jesus Himself; any man-made panacea of trying to imitate the first century church is pharisaical and is destined for failure. Any attempt to imitate Jesus is useless; only by the purgings, cleansings and dying to self can we be conformed to His image, that He might fill all things.
An individual soul totally surrendered to Jesus, operating and ruled by the same Spirit that ruled Jesus, void of fleshly taints, hating even the garments spotted by the flesh, speaking the oracles of God, void of religious mental suggestions and programs and having finally died to man-made intellectual promptings but totally surrendered to the mind of Christ and ministering only by the ability which God gives, is God’s man for this hour.
A corporate body of these Christians, operating in this dimension, would shake everything that can be shaken; and God would be glorified in all things because, living in this relationship, no flesh would glory in His presence. The fire of God would burn this dross away before the flesh could reign ( “If you live after the flesh you shall die.” – Rom. 8:13; top ); this would produce dead men: dead to self, but alive unto God.
Our present attempts to build a New Testament Kingdom at the very best is done only in part, because we only know in part, we prophesy in part, hence we only have a part of the Kingdom. A kingdom divided against itself will not stand and eventually will be brought to desolation.
Paul said how he saw through a glass darkly the image of Christ, but now (at the end of the age) those in total surrender, total obedience and dead to the flesh would see in our image the perfect reflection of Christ, for when He comes we shall be like Him.
Our present attempts of implementing a New Testament Church have in most cases proven fruitless, and in our fleshly frustrations we have succumbed to the fleshly pressure of modern religious mechanisms to produce a true, perfect Body. (God be merciful to us all.) Fleshly, human productions can only produce the malignancy of human power, which is death. So it could be said that going toward perfection in Jesus is going to be the opposite of traditional Christianity.
The spirit behind the flesh is leading away from the true Spirit, and they that do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God. All spiritual defects must be put to death.
Jer. 7:23-24 : “…Obey My voice and I will be your God…But (they) walked in the imagination of their evil (fleshly) heart and went backward and not forward.” (top)
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