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Getting Exicited About The Kingdom

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Rhys 🕊:
Thanks for that. I like this passage from Ray below. Overcoming issues in my life seems to help and I get more focused on God when I do. I guess it’s the tough training that we have to go through which makes it hard to get excited at the time


From: CAN WE LOSE GOD’S SPIRIT AND EONIAN LIFE? . Biblestudy March 2008

http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,7047.0.html

"TO HIM THAT OVERCOMES"

No matter how hard these things are they are benefits, all of this doing of this stuff is called OVERCOMING. I have a lot of stuff to overcome yet.

Here is an interesting thing. You live a while and you overcome certain sins. God gives you the victory over them and you feel good about that. Then your conscience is clean, because you can look back yesterday and you know in your heart and mind you were not flagrantly, willingly, willfully, knowingly sinning, practicing sin. You were trying to do what’s right, you are getting in the habit and the routine of doing what’s right.

Then low and behold you have to do it all over again. How so? God sends a bigger trial, bigger. What happens? Well with the same capacity of spirituality that you had yesterday and was making progress, it’s not enough to beat this trial today, it’s not enough. If you don’t get help from someplace, then you are going down. Is this a secret to any of you? It’s like whoa, I thought we were doing pretty good when I wiped out some of those other hurdles, you know (I kind of amuse myself with God sometimes). I thought that was a pretty good victory there. Now it’s not some strange thing from outer space, it’s the same trials you always have. Paul says;

1Peter 4:12 Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:

These are things that are common, these are common to humanity, they just get bigger. I could deal with that, but now God hits me with this and this amount of spirituality from yesterday isn’t going to take care of this problem today. That’s what it means when we have to grow in grace and knowledge. Grace trains us, now you’ve got to grow in your training.

It’s like you go to boat camp in army. They call it basic training. Why is it basic? Because what you do the first week gets harder the second week and the third and forth. It gets harder, but you get good at doing the stuff that was hard on the first day. Now they give you stuff that’s harder yet.

Low and behold if you should ever want to be an officer. Boy they really put the thumb screws to you then. I use to just hang around the corner in Fort Knox, Kentucky and watch. They would be training officers out on the grounds and I would just watch and I would pretend, could I take that kind of harassment and physical excursion, if I were trying to be an officer. It’s pretty tough, pretty tough stuff.

So it’s all overcoming. Paul likens this to overcoming and John wrote the first three chapters of Revelation, “To him that overcomes.”

Repenting of your past sins, accepting Jesus as your Saviour and receiving God’s Spirit does not pronounce you “SAVED.” It is not the conclusion of your spiritual life, but rather the very beginning.

What Paul did is called “overcoming,” and it’s the hardest thing in life to do, but the rewards are high. A few fringe benefits are:

Access to the TREE OF LIFE, which means you will be given immortality, never die again or fear death or worry about death.

You avoid THE SECOND DEATH, which is not only the second death spiritually, but all the judgment and stuff that goes with it. Why? Because you are judged now, if you are judged here you don’t need to be judged and condemned with the world later.

You get a NEW NAME, this means a lot of things, but it’s like you have to believe in the name and the name is everything that it represents and not just a new name, a better name.

POWER over the nation.

RIGHTEOUS garments, which mean we will be clothed in a perfect attitude, perfect righteousness.

Your new name will be CONFESSED BEFORE GOD THE FATHER.

Made a PILLAR, a mainstay, a vital support in the Temple of God.

SIT WITH CHRIST IN HIS THRONE.
(Rev. 2 & 3)

That’s a lot of good stuff. In fact here’s a problem with it. It’s too profound, we almost don’t even meditate on it. See if you could go into some kind of training and after so long you would be like a cabinet member of the president of the United States, you would say that would be pretty neat. You might put up with a lot to go into some kind of training like that, because you would hob knob with the president on Air Force One, that a pretty neat plane. You would meet all the other royalty around the world and so on and that would be pretty good.

Don’t you reckon this is a little higher calling then that? It is a high calling! Really high! Probably too high for our spirit to take it in. We’re just... oh okay that is pretty cool. But it really is great and I suppose, I’m thinking the further we go in life, if we believe these things, then it becomes more tangible. Not only will we believe them and think about them, we’ll start expecting them. Where the King James uses hope the Concordant uses expectation. We will expect it, we’ll be looking for it that much.

___________________________________________
That’s how I feel too in the last paragraph that it’s too high for my spirit to take in and it blows my mind when I think about to too much.

I recall a time when I was praying one night and was standing at the time and I felt a voice tell me to sit down. It was pretty clear so I did. Then from the outside wall of the house I could sense someone walk in and they walked up to me and looked down on me and for the next 30 minutes they were speaking things into my life. I don’t know what but I could feel it each time and a change happening. After that they turned and walked away. I tried to stop whoever it was because I wanted to talk to them and for them to stay longer as it was so good but they had to leave.

It was a strange experience but a wonderful one. Something I will never forget. Maybe if I knew what exactly what was being said it would have been too much for me to fathom. So I just go on day by day and as God enables me to deal with my issues. It’s a tough process but a worthwhile one. I find myself thinking more and more know that I just have to trust Him through the fiery trial and grow in grace and knowledge.

I have to say I get times when I am quite excited but they seem to be short live. I’m glad they happen as I feel quite encouraged when they do. Perhaps if it was too much I would be too overwhelmed by it all. It’s a high calling and there seems much to be done.


Rhys

Heidi:
"I find myself thinking more and more know that I just have to trust Him through the fiery trial and grow in grace and knowledge."

That is soo true Rhys. It is during these trials that we should be rejoicing because it is teaching us to overcome.  I always ask God for the grace to understand that which He is trying to teach me and the knowledge to help me to apply it so that I can become more like Jesus.  I rejoice when the going gets tough and the tough gets going.  ;D

Heidi
PS my husband and I visit Whakatane last week, what a beautiful city....I love the cliff and town centre, stopped at the south africa shop and bought some biltong!

Rhys 🕊:
Very true Heidi. Great to hear from you.

Shame I didn't know you were coming here I would of rolled out the red carpet and got some trumpet players in.

God bless

Rhys

Heidi:
 ;) red carpet hey  ::) he-he-he

Kat:

Hi Rhys,

Heb 12:1  Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
v. 2  looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

We have a truly "great cloud of witnesses," the Scripture to help in our search for the truth and then to add to that we have the work that Ray has done to help explain these truths to us.

I think what Ray meant about it being 'real,' is that if we truly believe and anticipate being in the kingdom, then it would be on our mind a lot. I mean I think we look at it as something really far off, but it could potentially be very near. If we knew that it was right around the corner that would probably change the way and how much we thought about it.

I think about the kingdom a lot, not because I think I can figure it all out, but because I do hope and long for it and maybe God will help my understanding with a few things.

We just have to do the best we can with what we are given and we've been given quite a lot here and certainly in the Scriptures. As long as we are striving we have hope of making it. Whether it's near or far off, I don't think we can look at this race as a sprint, but more like a marathon, so we have to stick to it for the long haul.

mercy, peace and love
Kat

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