The Nature of Regeneration

Thursday, October 6, 2016
Heavenly Healing Ministries
To God be the Glory!
Mon, Thu 7pm EST
Live: 641-715-3660 code: 406878#
Recorded: 641-715-3659 code: 406878#

Word of the Day

Thank you Jesus for all your blessings! Praise the Lord!

We give you all the glory! You are worthy to be praised!

Thank you for joining us today! If you are new to this blog, please take the time to post a comment on what you have read today and let us know what you think. We value your opinion. For those joining us who have followed us since the beginning, this blog is designed for Heavenly Healing Ministries to share the Word of the Day and teach on the Word of God.

"When it is pleased God...to reveal His Son in me..." (Galatians 1:15-16).
IF JESUS CHRIST is going to regenerate me, what is the problem He faces? It is simply this- I have a heredity in which I had no say or decision; I am not holy, nor am I likely to be; and if all Jesus Christ can do is tell me that I must be holy, His teaching only causes me to despair. But if Jesus Christ is truly a regenerator, someone who can put His own heredity of holiness into me, them I can begin to see what He means when He says that you have to be holy. Redemption means that Jesus Christ can put into anyone the hereditary nature that was in Himself, and all the standards He gives us are based on that nature- His teaching is meant to be applied to the life which He puts within us. The proper part is simply to agree with God's verdict on sin as judged on the Cross of Christ.
     The New Testament teaching about regeneration is that when a person is hit by his own sense of need, God will put the Holy Spirit into his spirit, and his personal spirit will be energized by the Spirit of the Son of God- "...until Christ is formed in you" (Galatians 4:19). The moral miracle of redemption is that God can put a new nature into me through which I can live a totally new life. When I finally reach the edge of my need and know my own limitations, then Jesus says, "Blessed are you..." (Matthew 5:11). But I must get to that point. God cannot put into me, the responsible moral person that I am, the nature that was in Jesus Christ unless I am aware of my need for it.
     Just as the nature of sin entered into the human race through one man, the Holy Spirit entered into the human race through another Man (see Romans 5:12-19). And redemption means that I can be delivered from the heredity of sin, and that through Jesus Christ I can receive a pure and spotless heredity, namely, the Holy Spirit.

The Nature of Degeneration

Wednesday, October 5, 2016
Heavenly Healing Ministries
To God be the Glory!
Mon, Thu 7pm EST
Live: 641-715-3660 code: 406878#
Recorded: 641-715-3659 code: 406878#

Word of the Day

Thank you Jesus for all your blessings! Praise the Lord!

We give you all the glory! You are worthy to be praised!

Thank you for joining us today! If you are new to this blog, please take the time to post a comment on what you have read today and let us know what you think. We value your opinion. For those joining us who have followed us since the beginning, this blog is designed for Heavenly Healing Ministries to share the Word of the Day and teach on the Word of God.

"Just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned..." (Romans 5:12).
THE BIBLE does not say that God punished the human race for one man's sin, but that the nature of sin, namely, my claim to my right to myself, entered into the human race through one man. But it also says that another Man took upon Himself the sin of the human race and put it away- an infinitely more profound revelation (see Hebrews 9:26). The nature of sin is not immorality and wrongdoing, but the nature of self-realization which leads us to say, " I am my own god." This nature may exhibit itself in proper morality or in improper immorality, but it always has a common basis-my claim to my right to myself. When our Lord faced either people with all the forces of evil in them, or people who were clean-living. moral, and upright, He paid no attention to the moral degradation of one, nor any attention to the moral attainment of the other. He looked at something we do not see, namely, the nature of man (see John 2:25).
     Sin is something I am born with and cannot touch- only God touches sin through redemption. It is through the Cross of Christ that God redeemed the entire human race from the possibility of damnation through the heredity of sin. God nowhere holds a person responsible for having the heredity of sin, and does not condemn anyone because of it. Condemnation comes when I realize that Jesus Christ came to deliver me from this heredity of sin, and yet I refuse to let Him do so. From that moment I begin to get the seal of damnation. "This is the condemnation [and the  critical moment], that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light..."(John 3:19).

The Place of Ministry

Monday, October 3, 2016
Heavenly Healing Ministries
To God be the Glory!
Mon, Thu 7pm EST
Live: 641-715-3660 code: 406878#
Recorded: 641-715-3659 code: 406878#

Word of the Day

Thank you Jesus for all your blessings! Praise the Lord!

We give you all the glory! You are worthy to be praised!

Thank you for joining us today! If you are new to this blog, please take the time to post a comment on what you have read today and let us know what you think. We value your opinion. For those joining us who have followed us since the beginning, this blog is designed for Heavenly Healing Ministries to share the Word of the Day and teach on the Word of God.

"He said to them, 'This kind [of unclean spirit] can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting'" (Mark 9:29).
HIS DISCIPLES asked Him privately, 'Why could we not cast it out?'" (9:28). The answer lies in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. "This kind can come out by nothing but" concentrating on Him, and then doubling and redoubling that concentration on Him. We can remain powerless forever, as the disciples were in this situation, by trying to do God's work without concentrating on His power, and by following instead the ideas that we draw from our own nature. We actually slander and dishonor God by our very eagerness to serve Him without knowing Him.
     When you are brought face to face with a difficult situation and nothing happens externally, you can still know that freedom and release will be given because of your continued concentration on Jesus Christ. Your duty in service and ministry is to see that there is nothing between Jesus and yourself. Is there anything between you and Jesus right now? If there is, you must get through it, not by ignoring it as an irritation, or by going up and over it, but by facing it and getting through into the presence of Jesus Christ. Then that very problem itself, and all that you have been through in connection with it, will glorify Jesus Christ in a way that you will never know until you see Him face to face.
     We must be able to "mount up with wings like eagles" (Isaiah 40:31), but we must also know how to come down. The power of the saint lies in the coming down and in the living that is done in the valley. Paul said, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13) and what he was referring to were mostly humiliating things. And yet it is in our power to refuse to be humiliated and to say, "No, thank you, I much prefer to be on the mountaintop with God." Can I face things as they actually are in the light of the reality of Jesus Christ, or do things as they really are destroy my faith in Him, and put me into a panic?

The "Go" of Unconditional Identification

Wednesday, September 28, 2016
Heavenly Healing Ministries
To God be the Glory!
Mon, Thu 7pm EST
Live: 641-715-3660 code: 406878#
Recorded: 641-715-3659 code: 406878#

Word of the Day

Thank you Jesus for all your blessings! Praise the Lord!

We give you all the glory! You are worthy to be praised!

Thank you for joining us today! If you are new to this blog, please take the time to post a comment on what you have read today and let us know what you think. We value your opinion. For those joining us who have followed us since the beginning, this blog is designed for Heavenly Healing Ministries to share the Word of the Day and teach on the Word of God.

"Jesus...said to him, 'One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor...and come, take up the cross, and follow Me'" (Mark 10:21).
THE RICH young ruler had the controlling passion to be perfect. When he saw Jesus Christ, he wanted to be like Him. Our Lord never places anyone's personal holiness above everything else when He calls a disciple. Jesus' primary consideration is my absolute annihilation of my right to myself and my identification with Him, which means having a relationship with Him in which there are no other relationships. Luke 14:26 has nothing to do with salvation or sanctification, but deals solely with unconditional identification with Jesus Christ. Very few of us truly know what is meant by the absolute "go" of unconditional identification with, and abandonment and surrender to, Jesus.
     "Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him..." (Mark 10:21). This look of Jesus will require breaking your heart away forever from allegiance to any other person or thing. Has Jesus ever looked in this way at you? This look of Jesus transforms, penetrates, and captivates. Where you are soft and pliable with God is where the Lord has looked at you. If you are hard and vindictive, insistent on having your own way, and always certain that the other person is more  likely to be in the wrong than you are, then there are whole areas of your nature that have never been transformed by His gaze. "One thing you lack..." From Jesus Christ's perspective, oneness with Him, with nothing between, is the only good thing,
     "...sell whatever you have..." I must humble myself until I am merely a living person. I must essentially renounce possessions of all kinds, not for salvation (for only one thing saves a person and that is absolute reliance in faith upon Jesus Christ), but to follow Jesus. "...come...and follow Me." And the road is the way He went.
 

The "Go" of Renunciation

Monday, September 27, 2016
Heavenly Healing Ministries
To God be the Glory!
Mon, Thu 7pm EST
Live: 641-715-3660 code: 406878#
Recorded: 641-715-3659 code: 406878#

Word of the Day

Thank you Jesus for all your blessings! Praise the Lord!

We give you all the glory! You are worthy to be praised!

Thank you for joining us today! If you are new to this blog, please take the time to post a comment on what you have read today and let us know what you think. We value your opinion. For those joining us who have followed us since the beginning, this blog is designed for Heavenly Healing Ministries to share the Word of the Day and teach on the Word of God.

"...someone said to Him, 'Lord, I will follow You wherever You go'" (Luke 9:57).
OUR LORD'S attitude toward this man was one of severe discouragement, "for he knew what was in man" (John 2:25). We would have said, "I can't imagine why He lost the opportunity of winning that man! Imagine being so cold to him and turning him away so discouraged!" Never apologize for your Lord. The words of the Lord hurt and offend until there is nothing left to be hurt or offended. Jesus Christ had no tenderness whatsoever toward anything that was ultimately going to ruin a person in his service to God. Our Lord's answers were not based on some whim or impulsive thought, but on the knowledge of what was in man. If the Spirit of God brings to your mind a word of the Lord that hurts you, you  can be sure that there is something in you that He wants to hurt to the point of its death.
     Luke 9:58. These words destroy the argument of serving Jesus Christ because it is a pleasant thing to do. And the strictness of the rejection that He demands of me allows for nothing to remain in my life but my Lord, myself, and a sense of desperate hope. He says that I must let everyone else come or go, and that I must be guided solely by my relationship to Him. And He says, "...the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."
     Luke 9:59. This man did not want to disappoint Jesus, nor did he want to show a lack of respect for his father. We put our sense of loyalty to our relatives ahead of our loyalty to Jesus Christ, forcing Him to take last place. When your loyalties conflict, always obey Jesus Christ whatever the cost.
     Luke 9:61. The person who says, "Lord, I will follow You, but...," is the person who is intensely ready to go, but never goes. This man has reservations about going. The exacting call of Jesus has no room for good-byes; good-byes, as we often use them, are pagan, not Christian, because they divert us from the call. Once the call of God comes to you, start going and never stop.

Praying to God in Secret

Friday, September 16, 2016
Heavenly Healing Ministries
To God be the Glory!
Mon, Thu 7pm EST
Live: 641-715-3660 code: 406878#
Recorded: 641-715-3659 code: 406878#

Word of the Day

Thank you Jesus for all your blessings! Praise the Lord!

We give you all the glory! You are worthy to be praised!

Thank you for joining us today! If you are new to this blog, please take the time to post a comment on what you have read today and let us know what you think. We value your opinion. For those joining us who have followed us since the beginning, this blog is designed for Heavenly Healing Ministries to share the Word of the Day and teach on the Word of God.

"When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut the door, pray toy your Father who is in the secret place..."( Matthew 6:6).
THE PRIMARY thought in the area of religion is- keep your eyes on God, not on people. Your motivation should not be the desire to be known as a praying person. Find an inner room in which to pray where no one even knows you are praying, shut the door, and talk to God in secret. Have no motivation other than to know your Father in heaven. It is impossible to carry on your life as a disciple without definite times of secret prayer.
     "When you pray, do not use vain repetitions..." (6:7). God does not hear us because we pray earnestly- He hears us solely on the basis of redemption. God is never impressed by our earnestness. Prayer is not simply getting things from God- that is only the most elementary kind of prayer. Prayer is coming into perfect fellowship and oneness with God. If the Son of God has been formed in us through regeneration (see Galatians 4:19), then He will continue to press on beyond our common sense and will change our attitude about the things for which we pray.
     "Everyone who asks receives..." (Matthew 7:8). We pray religious nonsense without even involving our will, and then we say that God did not answer- but in reality, we have never asked for anything. Jesus said, "...you will ask what you desire..." (John 15:7). Asking means that our will must be involved. Whenever Jesus talked about prayer, He spoke with wonderful childlike simplicity. Then we respond with our critical attitude, saying, "Yes, but even Jesus said that we must ask." But remember that we have to ask things of God that are in keeping with the God whom Jesus Christ revealed.

Missionary Weapons

Sunday, September 11, 2016
Heavenly Healing Ministries
To God be the Glory!
Mon, Thu 7pm EST
Live: 641-715-3660 code: 406878#
Recorded: 641-715-3659 code: 406878#

Word of the Day

Thank you Jesus for all your blessings! Praise the Lord!

We give you all the glory! You are worthy to be praised!

Thank you for joining us today! If you are new to this blog, please take the time to post a comment on what you have read today and let us know what you think. We value your opinion. For those joining us who have followed us since the beginning, this blog is designed for Heavenly Healing Ministries to share the Word of the Day and teach on the Word of God.

"If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet" (John 13:14).
MINISTERING in Everyday Opportunities. Ministering in everyday opportunities that surround us does not mean that we select our own surroundings- it means being God's very special choice to be available for use in any of the seemingly random surroundings which He has engineered for us. The very character we exhibit in our present surroundings is an indication of what we will be like in other surroundings.
     The things Jesus did were the most menial of everyday tasks, and this is an indication that it takes all of God's power in me to accomplish even the most common tasks in His way. Can I use a towel as He did? Towels, dishes, sandals, and all the other ordinary thins in our lives reveal what we are made of more quickly that anything else. It takes God Almighty Incarnate in us to do the most menial duty as it ought to be done.
     Jesus said, "I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you"(13:15). Notice the kind of people that God brings around you,and you will be humiliated once you realize that this is actually His way of revealing to you the kind of person you have been to Him. Now He says we should exhibit to those around us exactly what He has exhibited to us.
      Do you find yourself responding by saying, "Oh, I will do all that once I'm out on the mission field"? Talking in this way is like trying to produce the weapons of war while while in the trenches of the battlefield- you will be killed while trying to do it.
     We have to go the "second mile" with God (see Matthew 5:41). Yet some of us become worn out in the first ten steps. Then we say, "Well, I'll just wait until I get closer to the next big crisis in my life." But if we do not steadily minister in everyday opportunities, we will do nothing when the crisis comes.

Do It Yourself

Friday, September 96
Heavenly Healing Ministries
To God be the Glory!
Mon, Thu 7pm EST
Live: 641-715-3660 code: 406878#
Recorded: 641-715-3659 code: 406878#

Word of the Day

Thank you Jesus for all your blessings! Praise the Lord!

We give you all the glory! You are worthy to be praised!

Thank you for joining us today! If you are new to this blog, please take the time to post a comment on what you have read today and let us know what you think. We value your opinion. For those joining us who have followed us since the beginning, this blog is designed for Heavenly Healing Ministries to share the Word of the Day and teach on the Word of God.

"...bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ..." (II Corinthians 10:5). DETERMINEDLY Discipline Other Things. This is another difficult aspect of the strenuous nature of sainthood. Paul said, according to the Moffatt translation of this verse, "...I take every project prisoner to make it obey Christ..." So much Christian work today has never been disciplined, but has simply come into being by impulse! In our Lord's life every project was disciplined to the will of His Father. There was never the slightest tendency to follow the impulse of His own will as distinct from His Father's will- "the Son can do nothing of Himself..." (John 5:19). Then compare this with what we do- we take "every thought" or project that comes to us by impulse and jump into action immediately, instead of imprisoning and disciplining ourselves to obey Christ.
     Practical work for Christians is greatly overemphasized today, and the saints who are "bringing every thought into captivity" are criticized and told that they are not determined, and that they lack zeal for God or zeal for the souls for others. But true determination and zeal are found in obeying God, not in the inclination to serve Him that arises from our own undisciplined human nature. It is unconceivable, but true nevertheless, that saints are not "bringing every thought [and project] into captivity," but are simply doing work for God that has been instigated by their own human nature, and has not been made spiritual through determined discipline.
     We have a tendency to forget that a person is not only committed to Jesus Christ for salvation, but is also committed, responsible, and accountable to Jesus Christ's view of God, the world, and of sin and the devil. This means that each person must recognize the responsibility to "be transformed by the renewing of [his] mind..." (Romans 12:2).

Do It Yourself

Thursday, September 8, 2016
Heavenly Healing Ministries
To God be the Glory!
Mon, Thu 7pm EST
Live: 641-715-3660 code: 406878#
Recorded: 641-715-3659 code: 406878#

Word of the Day

Thank you Jesus for all your blessings! Praise the Lord!

We give you all the glory! You are worthy to be praised!

Thank you for joining us today! If you are new to this blog, please take the time to post a comment on what you have read today and let us know what you think. We value your opinion. For those joining us who have followed us since the beginning, this blog is designed for Heavenly Healing Ministries to share the Word of the Day and teach on the Word of God.

"...casting down arguments and every  high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God..."( II Corinthians 10:5).
DETERMINEDLY Demolish Some Things. Deliverance from sin is not the same as deliverance from human nature. There are things in human nature, such as prejudices, that the saint can only destroy through sheer neglect. But there are other things that have to be destroyed through violence, that is, through God's divine strength imparted by His Spirit. There some things over which we are not to fight, but only to "stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord..." (Exodus 14:13). But every theory or thought that raises itself up as a fortified barrier "against the knowledge of God" is to be determinedly demolished by drawing on God's power, not through human effort or by compromise (see II Corinthians 10:4).
     It is only when God has transformed our nature and we have entered into the experience of sanctification that the fight begins. The warfare is not against sin; we can never fight against sin- Jesus Christ conquered that in His redemption of us. The conflict is waged over turning our natural life into a spiritual life. This is never done easily, nor does God intend that it be so. It is accomplished only through a series of moral choices. God does not make us holy in the sense that He makes our character holy. He makes us holy in the sense that He has made us innocent before Him. And then we have to turn that innocence into holy character through the moral choices we make. These choices are continually opposed and hostile to the things of our natural life which have become so deeply enriched the very things that raise themselves up as fortified barriers "against the knowledge of God." We can either turn back, making ourselves of no value to the kingdom of God, or we can determinedly demolish these things, allowing Jesus to bring another son to glory (see Hebrews 2:10).

Fountains of Blessings

Wednesday, September 7, 2016
Heavenly Healing Ministries
To God be the Glory!
Mon, Thu 7pm EST
Live: 641-715-3660 code: 406878#
Recorded: 641-715-3659 code: 406878#

Word of the Day

Thank you Jesus for all your blessings! Praise the Lord!

We give you all the glory! You are worthy to be praised!

Thank you for joining us today! If you are new to this blog, please take the time to post a comment on what you have read today and let us know what you think. We value your opinion. For those joining us who have followed us since the beginning, this blog is designed for Heavenly Healing Ministries to share the Word of the Day and teach on the Word of God.

"The water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life" (John 4:14).
THE PICTURE our Lord described here is not that of a simple stream but an overflowing fountain. Continue to "be filled" (Ephesians 5:18) and the sweetness of your vital relationship to Jesus will flow as generously out of you as it has been given to you. If you find that His life is not springing up as it should, you are to blame- something is obstructing the flow. Was Jesus saying to stay focused on the Source so that you may be blessed personally? No, you are to focus on the Source so that out of you "will flow rivers of living water" - irrepressible life (John 7:38).
     We are to be fountains through which Jesus can flow as "rivers of living water" in blessing to everyone. Yet some of us are like the Dead Sea, always recovering but never giving, because our relationship is not right with the Lord Jesus. As surely as we receive blessings from Him, He will pour out blessings through us. But whenever the blessings are not being poured out in the same measure they are received, there is a defect in our relationship with Him. Is there anything between you and Jesus Christ? Is there anything hindering your faith in Him? If not, then Jesus says that out of you "will flow rivers of living water." It is not a blessing that you pass on, or an experience that you share with others, but a river that continually flows through you. Stay at the Source, closely guarding your faith in Jesus Christ and your relationship to Him, and there will be a steady flow into the lives of others with no dryness or deadness whatsoever.
      Is it excessive to say that rivers will flow out of one individual believer? Do you look at yourself and say, " But I don't see the rivers?" Through the history of God's work you will usually find that He has started with the obscure, the unknown, the ignored, but with those who have  been steadfastly true to Jesus Christ.