Does Rob Rufus go too far?
Just before this post.... I have been nominated for an SA Blog Award 2014! I would really appreciate your support, just by taking litera...
We know that the Kingdom of Heaven is a kind of “now and not yet”. We live in a reality where the Kingdom of our God has not entirely invaded the kingdom of this world. It is His intention, and He wants it to happen, but it has not fully happened, yet...
This means that there could well be times in our lives when we suffer unexpected and seemingly unnecessary loss. But we do not live with such an expectation. We live with the reality, but not the expectation. By living with such an expectation we are blocking the channels through which God's Kingdom can invade.
This means that when I lay hands on the sick, each and every one, every dead person I lay my hands on, I must expect the fullness of the Kingdom of Heaven to invade Earth at that given moment for that given situation. Just because I may be living in a seemingly alternative reality to what I may have seen before does not change the fact that the Kingdom of Heaven wants to and can fully invade that circumstance.
If I have any doubt just because of what I have or haven't seen before means that I do not entirely believe the promises Jesus made. My circumstances do not determine the Truth of what Jesus bought for me, and what He promised me. How can they? Those past circumstances are merely reminders that this kingdom of Earth needs the Kingdom of Heaven to invade it more than ever before!
What we must learn is that this Earth has been under immense bondage and slavery since the “fall”, and it does not quite know how to handle the invasion of the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven is a completely different reality to what is known here on Earth.
This Earth is in a great darkness. People say God is omnipresent. He is everywhere. And while that is theoretically true, I have difficulty believing He is in the cells of cancer that are ravaging a beautiful young lady of only 25 years old giving her only weeks to live and leaving her family shattered. Or that He would be in the cells of an HIV virus weakening a young boy to the slivers of his skin and bone, leaving him but months away from his deathbed. Is God in that? Tell me!!! Is God in that? HOW CAN HE BE????
NO!!!! I am sorry, but God is NOT in that!! He is not in that cell and He is not in that virus!!!
He walked with Adam and Eve in reality. Not theoretically. When He moved them out of that garden, He placed them in a world where He was not. It was a world He had indeed created. But legally according to what they had done, He justly cursed the land and from that moment that land has been crying out and groaning ever since.
My friend, the time has come for us to stop dancing around pathetic theological ideas that pander to our Earthly circumstances and that we rise up and see that there is an alternative reality waiting to BURST into this reality. It is the Kingdom. The Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom that was before. The Kingdom of our God. My friend, the kingdoms of this world SHALL BECOME the Kingdoms of our Most High God. Through us. Because of what Jesus the Christ has done for us. Paid for us. Bought for us.
His Price was far too high to expect anything less. I for one will not allow circumstances to alter what I see promised to me by my Father in His Holy-Spirit inspired Word. For His Glory always. That the world may know.
The Kingdom of Heaven
We know that the Kingdom of Heaven is a kind of “now and not yet”. We live in a reality where the Kingdom of our God has not entirely inva...
Grace is fresh. Every day. Not just any grace, like the grace you may receive from a friend when you've wronged them. Or the grace from the tax man. Those too are great. But the Grace of God revealed in the Person and subsequent death of Christ Jesus is fresh every single day. Every minute of every hour. And I want to live there forever!
I don't know if I am different, and if I'm a little strange, but I can't get enough of understanding the deep truths and realities of God's unbelievable Grace for mankind!
This morning I was paging through some books and just "refuelling", and was reminded and reawakened to the beauties of this Glorious Gospel. Enjoy...
"For most people, it takes more unlearning than learning to understand the fullness of God's Grace and the Glories of the New Covenant!"
DR Andrew Farley
"When one misreads Scripture, it is as dangerous as the captain of a ship misreading a tide chart in shallow waters."
DR Andrew Farley
"You can listen to a whole bunch of Gospel-centred, Grace preaching. But such is the nature of the flesh that all it takes is one works-based sermon to abandon the Glorious Gospel and slip back into a faith based on works."
Joseph Prince
"Many Christians still walk in Old Covenant bondage. Regarding the law as a Divine ordinance for our direction, they consider themselves prepared and fitted by conversion to take up the fulfillment of the law as a natural duty."
Andrew Murray
"There is this kind of dangerous element about the true presentation of the doctrine of salvation."
DR Martin Lloyd-Jones
And I would like to emphatically share with you that I AM ABSOLUTELY, ENTIRELY, COMPLETELY UNASHAMED ABOUT THE TRUE GOSPEL OF CHRIST JESUS! FOR IN THIS GOSPEL, THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD (NOT MAN) IS REVEALED!!!!
I will never settle for anything less! I will never shrink back! This Glorious Gospel is too awesome!
I don't know if I am different, and if I'm a little strange, but I can't get enough of understanding the deep truths and realities of God's unbelievable Grace for mankind!
This morning I was paging through some books and just "refuelling", and was reminded and reawakened to the beauties of this Glorious Gospel. Enjoy...
"For most people, it takes more unlearning than learning to understand the fullness of God's Grace and the Glories of the New Covenant!"
DR Andrew Farley
"When one misreads Scripture, it is as dangerous as the captain of a ship misreading a tide chart in shallow waters."
DR Andrew Farley
"You can listen to a whole bunch of Gospel-centred, Grace preaching. But such is the nature of the flesh that all it takes is one works-based sermon to abandon the Glorious Gospel and slip back into a faith based on works."
Joseph Prince
"Many Christians still walk in Old Covenant bondage. Regarding the law as a Divine ordinance for our direction, they consider themselves prepared and fitted by conversion to take up the fulfillment of the law as a natural duty."
Andrew Murray
"There is this kind of dangerous element about the true presentation of the doctrine of salvation."
DR Martin Lloyd-Jones
And I would like to emphatically share with you that I AM ABSOLUTELY, ENTIRELY, COMPLETELY UNASHAMED ABOUT THE TRUE GOSPEL OF CHRIST JESUS! FOR IN THIS GOSPEL, THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD (NOT MAN) IS REVEALED!!!!
I will never settle for anything less! I will never shrink back! This Glorious Gospel is too awesome!
Fresh Grace
Grace is fresh. Every day. Not just any grace, like the grace you may receive from a friend when you've wronged them. Or the grace fr...
Have you discovered "Pure Grace"? Nothing less, nothing more. Grace is not a doctrine. Neither is it a topic that is visited at the pulpit every few months. Grace is the Person of Jesus Christ.
John 1:14 (ESV)
"...we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth..."
Vs 16 "And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace."
Grace is not sloppy. It is perfectly just. The brutality of the Cross shouts to the world of God's Perfect Justice; and His Perfect, Unconditional Love and Grace.
I put it to you... have you truly experienced the Pure, undiluted Grace of God only found in Christ Jesus?
Martin Luther did in the 16th Century. And the world was changed because of that discovery. Look at what Robert Farrar Capon writes of Luther's discovery:
"The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they discovered in the dusty basement of late 'medievalism' a whole cellar full of 1500 year old, 200 proof Grace: of bottle after bottle of the pure distillate of Scripture; one sip of which would convince anyone that God saved us single handedly.
The Word of the Gospel after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into Heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps, suddenly turns out to be the flat announcement that the saved were 'home before they started'.
Grace has to be drunk straight; no water, no ice, certainly no ginger-ale; neither goodness nor badness, nor the flower that bloom in the spring of super-spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case of the Pure Grace of God."
Excerpt of Robert Farrar Capon's "The Parables of the Kingdom". (Special thanks to Martin Berndt for making this available)
And so I put it to you again... Have you experienced the Pure, undiluted Grace of God?
I have. And I can never be the same. And never will be.
Have You Discovered Pure Grace?
Have you discovered "Pure Grace"? Nothing less, nothing more. Grace is not a doctrine. Neither is it a topic that is visited at...
