Teachings

last year

Law and Grace pt. 1

Understanding the Law

Law didn’t start with Moses. Law started with God, and it started as something good, perfect, and wonderful. Before the fall, God’s life and nature WAS the law that governed all created things. I’m not talking about written or spoken rules or commandments. I mean the very life of God—who He was, how He was, what He was, His very nature, life, and light—this was a living truth or reality that never changed, and that acted upon all of His creation, bringing it into a perfect conformity to Himself, a living state of glory.

Law didn’t start with Moses. Law started with God, and it started as something good, perfect, and wonderful. Before the fall, God’s life and nature WAS the law that governed...

last year

The Gospel pt. 3

Why Hasn't My Heart Changed?

The gospel comes in power, and that power begins with light. And it is because we do not love this light and turn at its rebukes, it is because we make excuses to follow our own will, and justify ourselves against our own secret convictions, that we know so little of its power. In this way we crush the mustard seed when it is just beginning to sprout. We are unfaithful with little, and so rarely experience more.

The gospel comes in power, and that power begins with light. And it is because we do not love this light and turn at its rebukes, it is because we...

last year

The Gospel pt. 2

A Call Out of Inward Egypt

Almost every Christian is quick to say that their belief in the gospel will save them when they die. But why are we so sure that God will save us in the future, if we are refusing to let Him save us from our sin and pride and lust, RIGHT NOW? I mean, why should we expect God to save us in the next life, if we are not letting Him save us in this one?

Almost every Christian is quick to say that their belief in the gospel will save them when they die. But why are we so sure that God will save us...

last year

The Gospel pt. 1

The Power of God

The message of the gospel can be described in words and believed as words; but the thing described by these words is an experience of power. Paul says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; for it is the POWER of God.” What do you really know about the “effectual working” of this powerful gospel? Has the gospel changed your heart, cleansed your soul, given you a new Spirit, with new desires, new understanding, and a new will? Is it restoring in you the image and likeness of God that man lost in the beginning?

The message of the gospel can be described in words and believed as words; but the thing described by these words is an experience of power. Paul says, “I am...

last year

Walk in the Spirit pt. 2

Where the Spirit Leads

It is because the EXPERIENCE of inward transformation is so foreign to the Christianity of our day, that so many people become confused and discouraged when following Christ quickly leads them into the wilderness. I mentioned last time that the Spirit of God leads man somewhere that he generally does not want to go, and therefore many do not stay close to Him. What I meant was that, contrary to our desires and our expectations, the Lord leads all true followers into the wilderness, where they are made to see and feel what is really in their heart, and given an opportunity to surrender every bit of self and sin to the cross.

It is because the EXPERIENCE of inward transformation is so foreign to the Christianity of our day, that so many people become confused and discouraged when following Christ quickly leads...

2 years ago

Walk in the Spirit pt. 1

Two Guides in Every Man

On the one hand, man finds in himself an incredible force of deceptive desire arising from his flesh and aiming at the world. But he ALSO finds in himself the stirring, moving, convicting, and calling of another desire or will that comes from a very different source. And just as walking in the flesh means following and obeying the will of the flesh that comes from self and does all for self; so walking in the Spirit means following and obeying the will of the Spirit, that comes from God and does all for God.

On the one hand, man finds in himself an incredible force of deceptive desire arising from his flesh and aiming at the world. But he ALSO finds in himself the...

2 years ago

Words and the Word

As strange as it sounds, one of the greatest hindrances to truly knowing the Lord can be our familiarity with biblical words and spiritual concepts. There was a time when the Lord had to show me that, though I was very acquainted with scriptural words, I was a stranger to the spiritual realities that these words described or pointed to.

As strange as it sounds, one of the greatest hindrances to truly knowing the Lord can be our familiarity with biblical words and spiritual concepts. There was a time when...

2 years ago

The Daily Cross

The daily cross of Christ is the power of God made manifest in you to expose, to judge and to remove all that is fallen from His glory. It is not just self-denial, or ceasing to do evil. It is denial of self AND a complete subjection and resignation to the creating power, or the resurrecting power of Christ. And it is the lack of living in this way inwardly at all times before God, that keeps men and women from truly experiencing the benefit of all that Christ did outwardly for them.

The daily cross of Christ is the power of God made manifest in you to expose, to judge and to remove all that is fallen from His glory. It is...