On Being On Fire for God

Be on fire for God! The Greek word, Zeo or zelos means “to boil with heat; be hot.” English words such as fervent, [fever] zealous, and jealous are used in translation. Note that zealous is a positive, while jealous is a negative. Both are boiling hot emotions. “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.” (Romans 12:11, NIV)

Text: Luke 21:34-36
Key Verse: "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;" (II Thessalonians 2:3)

Apostasy and falling away describe the same condition. Both are translated from the same Greek word, meaning “defection from truth, rebellion, turning away.” Reprobate and castaway [unapproved, rejected, worthless,] are synonyms. (See II Corinthians 9:27.) Apostasy is an attitude of the last days.

I. End-time Attitudes – A Falling Away Shall Come - II Thessalonians 2:3
Laodicea – prophetic – Last in the list of the seven churches of Asia - "because thou art lukewarm... I will spue thee out of My mouth!" (Revelation 3:15-19) Compare with what we see and hear today.
Note: End time promises embrace both "a great falling away" and "a great ingathering." (Harvest Revival!)
The “great falling away” and the “great revival” will be simultaneous!
    A. The Actions of Apostasy – II Timothy 4:3-4
        1. Always a trading down in value
        2. The “great falling away” must come first... before...
        3. “The ‘dusk’ of degeneration.” – John 9:4
        4. Satan/robber/deceiver/ tempter - BUT - we’re drawn by our own lusts – James 1:14
        5. “Itching ears” turn to “fables” (fiction, myths, tales)
    B. The Path of Apostasy – Romans 1:21-32
        1. Darkening of the Heart – Vs. 21 ("...the love of many shall wax cold" - Matthew 6:23; 24:12)
        2. Uncleanness – Vs. 22 (moral impurity - I Thessalonians 4:17)
        3. Vile Affections – Vs. 26 (perversion/s - I Corinthians 6:9-10)
        4. A Reprobate Mind – Vs. 28 (carnal mind is at enmity with God - Romans 8:7)
    C. The Ultimate End of Apostasy – Philippians 3:18-19
        1. Eternal Damnation (the act of turning away becomes permanent -the only hope is total repentance)
        2. At the 4th stage – Conscience seared (I Timothy 4:2) - No longer want to repent.
        3. No one can sin & stay at the same level of iniquity. Consider Lot, his wife & family, Esau,
             and Saul. Sin is like a lure that draws men into ever descending degrees of separation from God and
             Truth - James 1:14-15 (See also Hebrews 2:1-3; 6:4-8; 10:26-31; 12:25; Numbers 15:30.)
II. Antidote — Be Fervent in Spirit! – Romans 12:11 – H20 @ 212degrees=boil (& steam) - BUT! Cold water into boiling water does NOT heat the cold water; rather, it cools the boiling water!
    A. Be Prepared – for the coming of the Lord – Luke 21:34-36
        1. Wise & Foolish – Matthew 25:1-13 - all 10: virgins, oil, lamps, slept, lamps went out, & heard
              the midnight cry...  however, the wise had a reserve supply of oil, the foolish did not.
        2. Surfeiting, Drunkenness, Cares –cool fervency - taken unawares. Does it just happen? No!
    B. Be Expectant – Titus 2:11-13 – denying... looking... [See Matthew 24:44; Luke 24:36.]
        1. Ready and Expecting – Earnest expectation creates readiness! - Revelation 16:15

Internalizing: God hates lukewarmness! He'd rather we be one or the other - cold or hot. Be zealous! Keep your spiritual temperature at fever pitch! Feed the fever! Fervency: prevents getting caught in the falling away – AND – prepares us for the coming great revival.

Like Lot's wife and Demas, some trade eternal life for this present world; sound Bible doctrine for lust, Truth for fables, Worship for entertainment. They reach for gain in this world and lose their eternal soul in the process. Falling away (apostasy) is a downward spiral that leads to eternal damnation. Be fervent Amid Apostasy! Be on fire for God!

Special Note: What you're reading are my lesson notes from the Adult Sunday School lesson I taught on April 6, 2014.  It was requested that I post my notes online. These notes are from the 2013/14 Adult Teacher's Manual, published by Word Aflame; United Pentecostal Church International, Hazelwood, Missouri.

When Grace Appears

Text: "And now for a little space grace hath been shewed from the LORD our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in His holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, and give us a little reviving in our bondage." (Ezra 9:8)

The word grace in the Old Testament was used more to describe man's activities than God's. Multiple times we read how individuals wanted to find grace in the sight of another pertaining to some request they'd made. But their understanding of grace from God was narrow at best. Ezra's prayer of repentance for his nation and himself is the first to mention grace from God. Later, Zechariah prophesied of the grace to come. "And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn." (Zechariah 12:10)

But grace (as we perceive it today,) appeared with the New Testament revelation of Jesus Christ. "And of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." (John 1:16-17) Since then, "...the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men." (Titus 2:11)

When grace appears... we are justified freely, (Romans 3:24) we access it by faith, (Romans 5:2) it is God's, and the gift of His grace is Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:15)

When grace appears... it calls us, (Galatians 1:6,15) it comes in abundance and brings the gift of righteousness, (Romans 5:17) it abounds, far surpassing the power of sin and death, (Romans 5:20) and it reigns through righteousness unto eternal life. (Romans 5:21)

When grace appears...  its abundance makes our hearts thankful, and, through our thanksgiving, redounds to the glory of God. (II Corinthians 4:15)

When grace appears... we receive everlasting consolation and good hope. (II Thessalonians 2:16)

When grace appears... we can come boldly to the Throne of grace and find grace to help in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:16)

When grace appears... it's a never-ending supply, there's always more where that came from! (James 4:6)

When grace appears... it is sufficient to meet our need. (II Corinthians 12:9)

When grace appears... it keeps on working, all the way to the end, and will be there when you see Jesus in all His glory. (I Peter 1:13)

When grace appears... it, with peace, is a multiplier; (II Peter 1:2) you can grow in it. (II Peter 3:18)

Cautions concerning grace... receive not the grace of God in vain, (II Corinthians 6:1) do not frustrate the grace of God, (Galatians 2:21) if you think you are justified by the law, Christ has become of no effect unto you, you have fallen from grace. (Galatians 5:4)

Psalm 119 - Special Requests

Taken from Psalm119:25-40

Consider adopting these requests (as made by the Psalmist,) as your own. Meditate on them. Ponder them. Embrace them. You'll find that the more you absorb of the Word of God, the greater will be your peace, your understanding, and your ability to see life's events from His perspective.

"Thy Word have I hidden in mine heart, that I might not sin against Thee. ...Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law." (Psalm 119:11, 18) "For the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword,piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." (Hebrews 4:12)

Verse 25 introduces the word, "quicken." We'll deal with that concept as we complete this thought.

Verse 26 - "Teach me Thy statutes." One must first learn what God's statutes are. This understanding is foundational (vital) to every study endeavor.

Verse 27 - "Make me to understand the way of Thy precepts." In order to follow God's commandments whole-heartedly, we must understand (know) "the way." Thomas' question was, "...How can we know the way?" Jesus' answer gave the key. "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me." (John 14:4-6)

Verse 29 - "Remove from me the way of lying." Requesting the removal of something so foreign to a love of the truth as lies and deceit, is like an insurance policy. Not only do we need to know the truth, we also need to be able to discern and avoid the false; false ways, false teachings, false doctrine, false brethren, false thinking... and fables too!

Verse 33 - "Teach me, O LORD, the way of Thy Statutes." We need to understand the way of the matter, God's mindset and thinking. His Word is careful to make it plain - both the what and the why.

Verse 34 - "Give me understanding." Understanding comes by illumination. The Holy Ghost is a teacher and the only way to truly understand the Word written by men who were inspired by the Holy Ghost, is to have that same Holy Ghost indwelling.

Verse 35 - "Make me to go in the path of Thy commandments." In another place, the Word says, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD." When the Lord, (through His Word, His Spirit, and His
ministry,) directs our path; safety is assured, nourishment is continual, and living water completely satisfies.

Verse 36 - "Incline my heart unto Thy testimonies." Invite Him to lead you to the place where your desire and delight is found in the Lord and His provision. Our God keeps His Word! If He said it... He'll do it!

Verse 37 - "Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity." Ask for spiritual blinders, specifically to things that turn you away from your Lord. The old song says, "Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face; And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, In the light of His glory and grace."

Verse 38 - "Stablish Thy Word unto Thy servant." It's one thing to read, "Forever, O LORD, Thy Word is settled in heaven." It's another thing when the Word proves itself to you, personally. When you've found the answer to your need in the pages of God's Word, applied it, and it worked out to your good, you gain immeasureable reassurance and the confidence to trust Him and His word again and again.

Verse 39 - "Turn away my reproach which I fear." Even with the help of the Word of God, the Spirit of God, and the man of God, human nature is prone to weakness and failure/s. Hebrews 13:17 says when those who give account (your pastor/s and leaders,) have to do it with grief, that is "not profitable." The answer for the weakness of the flesh is keeping short accounts and repentance is key. For when we repent and confess our sins, He is faithful. He forgives us and cleanses us from all unrighteousness! That's how He turns away our reproach!

"Quicken me" occurs three times in these few verses. "Quicken me according to Thy Word," (v 25,) "Quicken Thou me in Thy way," (v 37,) and, "Quicken me in Thy Word." (v 40) Notice the nuances; according to Thy Word, in Thy way, and, in Thy Word. This "quickening" makes the Word alive in our hearts and lives. We then can be used to share the Word and bless the lives of those around us. The quickened Word becomes a "rhema word," which is a word sent forth to quicken.

Glossary:
According - v. in agreement, in harmony.
Precept - n. a command or directive given as a rule of action or conduct.
Quicken - v. to become alive, to receive life, to stimulate.
Reproach - v. 1.) to blame, censure, upbraid, 2.) to be a cause of blame or a discredit to.
Stablish - v. 1.) to found or build on a firm or stable basis, 2.) to show to be valid or true.
Statute - n. law; a permanent, established rule.

mjk - 3/2/2012

Wonder of Wonders!

Wonder of wonders, Amazing grace,

That JESUS in love would die in my place;

Marvelous mystery that ALL my past history -

Should become HIS story! To GOD be all Glory!

[See Ephesians 2:4-7.]

by mjk ~ April 11, 2011

Love, Trust, Know...

It was just a brief encounter in a local store. One of the clerks there is a child of God who attends a nearby Apostolic Church. As we talked, she mentioned the illness of a mutual friend and then spoke of a recent tongues and interpretation this friend had given... “My people love Me, but they do not trust Me because they do not ‘know’ Me.” Though I did not hear them when they were originally spoken, these words have not left my mind since I heard them.

I wonder, how often is the Lord frustrated by our unwillingness to trust Him? To ‘know’ Him? He counseled us to “learn” of Him, for He is meek and lowly in heart. He promised we would find rest for our souls – yet our human nature is unwilling to invest the time and effort necessary to achieve this kind of knowing. So we struggle on in our dilemmas, living way beneath the power available to us. The Apostle Paul longed to ‘know’ Him in the power of His resurrection and in the fellowship of His suffering. Ah! Our human nature likes the resurrection power part, but we cringe from the death and suffering that precedes that resurrection.

That brings us to the other two words; love and trust. It is a given that in order to trust someone you have to know them. But romance novels are built on the premise of infatuation and instant attraction. Evidently, you can love without trust, but such love is shallow and can’t endure the pressure and heat of time. Anything you can “fall” in love with easily can just as easily be swept away by a new infatuation. Shallow love is easily replaced. But love born of knowledge has a strong foundation and becomes the birthplace of trust.

A child’s trust is built on experience. All they know is that their mother and/or father have been the central point of their existence and so they tend to trust even in the most scary times. We’ve heard the story of the child who jumped into his father's arms from the window of a burning building. A teenager or an adult might have questioned the father’s strength and ability to catch him, but the little child has not learned to doubt, so “what if?” never crosses his mind. He leaps – fully trusting his father to catch him. All he knows is what he’s learned from and about his father and mother. His trust is based on that knowledge. It’s a heavy parental responsibility but one that has made weak men strong.

Is it any wonder why Jesus said, “except ye become as a little child, you cannot enter into the Kingdom of heaven”? The trust a child displays is born of his love and his knowledge. You may say, “Some parents are not trustworthy!” and this may be true of earthly, sinful parents – but if you know God, you know it is not true of your Heavenly Father. “His strength is made perfect in [our] weakness.”

Even when His answer is “No” – He has promised never to leave or forsake you. He goes with you and gets under the yoke with you even in the most difficult of times; when you’ve failed, when you’re sinking, when your body is wracked with pain, when your heart is broken, when your mind skitters about in panic, when the enemy comes in like a flood, when you’re perplexed and don’t know what to do, when you’re between a rock and a hard place. Whatever the circumstance, if you know Him and His Word, your love can anchor itself in that knowledge, and, like that little child, take a leap of faith into His waiting arms.

“Perfect love casteth out fear.” The more experiences you’ve had, the more times you’ve depended on His Word and His promise, the more you have seen His hand at work in your life and in the life of others, the more you know of His Word and His Character; the better you are able to trust Him and obey without fear. Obedience is the measuring stick of trust. Abraham trusted God’s promise and bound Isaac to the altar. Noah trusted God’s Word and built an ark to the saving of his house. Mary trusted God and yielded her body and her reputation to bring the Lamb of God into the world.

Lord, haste the day when Your people love You and trust You because they know You!


Marjorie Kinnee
July, 2009

Because of Love!

The Great I AM – the all-seeing, all-knowing, all-sufficient, all-encompassing, all-wise, all-powerful, all-majestic, all-perfection, all-holy One dwelt in a realm our human minds cannot grasp. Isaiah glimpsed it – the Throne room with angels, 24/7/365-1/4, crying, “Holy, holy, holy…the earth is full of His glory!” – the train that fills…, the incense, the fragrance, the worship, the purity, the aura, the perfection, the altar, and the coals from off the altar… (Isaiah 6) Heaven’s splendor is beyond human imagination. Yet all that God is – He laid aside and took on Himself human flesh – because of love!

The angels were created to worship and they pleased Him. But He longed for full fellowship with someone who would choose Him above all other attractions. So, He created a perfect environment and placed a perfect candidate in it – one with whom He could freely fellowship – because of love!

How He enjoyed that fellowship, those walks and talks in the cool of the day. His heart knew great joy in those days. Yet, all-knowing, all-seeing, He watched as Eve listened to the serpent and Adam joined her. He watched as they believed the lie and tore fig leaves away from their life source, making a futile covering of dead things. The rupture of the fellowship He had with Adam was more painful to Him than it was to Adam. Something had to be done to restore that fellowship and there was only one solution. (It had been planned before time.) His love constrained Him.

Webster says constrained is to compel by physical, moral, or circumstantial force; oblige.] He instituted blood covering for sin. Mankind continued wayward. Noah found grace. Abraham chose to follow freely. That choice caused God to covenant with him and his children. But weakness was deeply imbedded. God’s chosen people, Israel, also fell. Idolatry, pride and fullness of bread pulled them away from their Life Source. In their folly, they made coverings of dead things. (Isaiah 28:20; 30:1) They too, believed the lie that mankind could somehow engineer his own salvation by human means.

Sad to say, even with all these examples of what not to do, we are no different. We still listen to the lie, thinking that by our goodness or by some chance of Divine oversight or neglect, we can cruise into a relationship based on our priorities and agendas. It never ceases to amaze me how persistent He is. “For God so loved…” His love constrains Him.

Knowing full well the price reconciliation would exact, Holy God, who was all-powerful, placed Himself “in the hands of sinful men” (Luke 24:7) and because of that love, He allowed them to do with Him as they would. Beaten, mocked, spat on, tortured, crucified and buried – man did his worst. What those Roman soldiers did that day was an open acting out of what mankind has been doing all along. “But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) Hebrews lets us know where His priorities were. “For the joy that was set before Him – He endured the cross, despising the shame!” (Hebrews 12:2-3) Note that the joy to come was first and foremost in His mind. All the rest was something to be endured, to be considered as nothing by comparison.

Man’s mess required God’s best. His love, His desire for Heart to heart fellowship – not just here and now, but for all eternity – constrained Him to bridge the awful gulf. (Colossians 1:21-22) There was no way for us to reach to Him but He willingly bankrupted heaven to make a way out of no way… All because of love!

“Oh, the love that drew salvation’s plan,
Oh, the grace that brought it down to man,
Oh, the awful gulf that God did span –
At Calvary!”

The Kindness of God

When I consider the kindness of God toward us, my heart is overwhelmed with thanksgiving. The knowledge that He granted repentance to me is precious indeed. His kindness, goodness and faithfulness are so intertwined with His mercy as to be one in One. While we were unlovable, He loved us. When we didn't even love ourselves, He had compassion on us. He saw us in our sins and set about to make a way to redeem us from our own folly. What love! The wonderful old song says...

"Oh, the love that drew salvation's plan,

Oh, the grace that brought it down to man,

Oh, the mighty gulf that God did span - At Calvary!

Mercy there was great and grace was free,

Pardon there was multiplied to me,

There my burdened soul found liberty - At Calvary!"

From the outset, He created a beautiful universe - sun, moon, planets, stars, galaxies - all are evidence of His creative genius. The earth on which we roam is filled with wonders. Lush greens, beautiful blues, flowers of every hue, shape, size and scent, a wide variety of animal life, each with it's own contribution to the whole - and all this wonder and beauty was bestowed upon the object of His affection - man.

He gives men abundant blessings; family, friends and the joy and hope found in the laughter of children. Summer and winter and seed time and harvest; the seasons merge and with them tender, green shoots become fields of golden grain. Then comes the harvest when work is fast and furious and the rejoicing when the harvest is in the barn and there is rest for everyone and everything.

All nature reminds us of His love. Each season reinforces our understanding of His kindness toward us. He planned it that way... gentle nudges from eternity, beckoning, wooing, entreating.

The Bible says He is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

• "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - His eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." (Romans 1:20, NIV)
• "...Thus saith the Lord, Turn ye even to Me with all your heart, with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your heart, and not your garments. Turn unto the Lord your God: for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness..." (Joel 2:12-13)
• "With everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer." (Isaiah 54:8)
• "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is Thy faithfulness." (Lamentations 3:19-20)
• "...The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance." (Romans 2:4)