The God of Eternity

"I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever."
Solomon, in Ecclesiastes 3:14

Bro. John:

I want to share something that the Lord gave me today about how important it is to submit ourselves to God’s love.

Yielding to the Spirit IS submitting to God’s love. It is letting God love us. I was thinking on that this morning, and how God has a purpose in everything that He does. The Lord spoke to me and said, "I am the God for Eternity." Then He began to teach me what that meant.

God is not a "temporary fixer-upper." What He does for us when we yield to His Spirit goes towards readiness for Eternity. His touches are FOR Eternity. He does something in our souls that is lasting. God is FOR Eternity! And what He does for us is for Eternity! He is not offering His love to us for us to sit and watch it fall. What else can you call the Spirit than the love of God in action? It is only in submitting and yielding to that love through His Spirit that we will find the "forever" touches that will prepare us to live with the "God for Eternity". Nothing is temporary with Him. He means it for Eternity.

When I woke up this morning, I got my coffee and was going to catch up on the news. The Lord said, "Why don’t you spend some time with me?" Praise God! I am so glad that I did. I started reading in Colossians, and then was led to read in Ecclesiastes, and ended in Joshua 7. God had something for me in every place I read. The news reports would have been temporary; what God had for me took my heart towards Eternity.

Later in the day, thinking about what the Lord had shown me earlier, I found in Ecclesiastes 3:14 what Solomon said: "I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: Nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it; and God doeth it, that men should fear before him."

Sandy
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Thank you, Sandy. That is so good!

I learned from your testimony that when God is blessing us, He is doing something in us and for us that He intends to last forever. He is not preparing us just to survive the next few hours. He is the God of eternal things. If we understand that, then when God blesses us, we will be more likely to hold on to our blessings.

Now, we know that when God blesses, the blessing doesn’t decrease. It is an eternal thing. If we lose the joy, it is not because God didn’t give us enough of it; rather, it is because we went somewhere where the blessing was not. We left it behind. When I thought on that, I realized that holding on to the blessings God gives us is what the Bible calls being faithful. We are faithful when we refuse to leave the place where God blesses us. We are faithful when we refuse to be drawn into a quarrel, or join in a dishonest scheme, or go anywhere, spiritually, where God’s blessings are not given. The faithful man stays in that spiritual place where God blesses.
Let’s hold on to the attitude that God blesses. Let’s keep walking in the way that God blesses. Let’s keep confessing Christ and loving our neighbor as ourselves because those are "places" where God blesses.

Your testimony reminded me of some words from Darren’s new song (what a holy song that is!): "Doesn’t everybody know the feelings last forever?" Our fellowship in Christ lasts forever, for, being from God, it is a forever thing. May God give us strength to stand fast in the place of that holy fellowship and not be lured away by the flesh or by unclean spirits.

Pastor John

A Greater Is Here

"Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on to perfection. . ."
Hebrews 6:1

In the verse above, "leaving" does not mean denying or ignoring; it means building upon. All the truth God reveals now builds upon truth that was revealed before.

No one truly understands or believes in John the Baptist’s baptism until he understands and believes that John’s baptism is no longer to be practiced. The truth of "one baptism" does not deny or ignore John’s baptism; it simply leaves it behind as we are brought nearer to God. If there is anyone on earth still making the animal sacrifices that Moses commanded, that person does not understand animal sacrifice as well as I do because I have left it behind. By the grace of God, I have believed those sacrifices were of God, but I am now closer to God than the Old Testament characters who had to perform such sacrifices. In Christ, I am beyond those works of the Law. In Christ, I understand those animal sacrifices, and, understanding them, I do not participate in them.

Jesus didn’t deny that Solomon had wisdom from God, but he did say that "a greater than Solomon is here." He did not deny or ignore the fact that Moses’ tabernacle or, later, the Temple in Jerusalem was holy, but he did say, "in this place, is one greater than the temple." He knew the story of Jonah was true and that the whole population of Nineveh, over one hundred twenty thousand people, including their king, repented at Jonah’s preaching. But he told a group of Pharisees, "a greater than Jonah is here." We do not deny the truth God revealed to the prophets and elders of Israel by leaving their revelation behind to draw closer to God. On the contrary, we deny that Jesus is greater than those Old Covenant men and objects when we do not leave them behind.

Paul knew that the Law of Moses was holy (Rom 7:12). He did not deny that. He made it perfectly clear to all his listeners that he understood the glory of God was in the Law and its ceremonies. Nevertheless, he had left those things behind as he built upon them to view the surpassing excellency of Christ. He wrote, "Now if the ministry of death written in letters engraved on stones was so glorious that the sons of Israel were not able to look steadily upon Moses’ face because of the glory of his countenance (which glory is being brought to an end), how is the ministry of the Spirit not more glorious? If there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound with glory. For indeed, that which was made glorious has come to have no glory in comparison to the surpassing glory of Christ." (2Cor.3:7-10). Paul neither denied nor ignored the holiness of the things God had given to Israel, but he left them behind. He rose above them to live in the Spirit of Christ.

In Christ, we leave behind what once were holy things, such as holy days and Sabbaths, physical circumcision, an earthly temple, the burning of incense, and ceremonial robes. We do not deny those things were of God. We leave Moses behind because a greater than Moses has come. We leave behind the burning of incense that God commanded Israel because, in Christ, we have a better kind of fire, so much purer and more acceptable to God that the old kind loses all its glory. We leave behind the animal sacrifices God commanded because a greater sacrifice has now been made, one that was so precious in God’s sight that He is now willing to forgive all the sins that have ever been committed by mankind on earth, if those people will simply approach Him in the name of Jesus for it.

Paul spoke of certain men who "profess to know God, but in works they deny Him" (Tit. 1:16). This is a wise observation. There are many who profess to know that Jesus is Lord of all, but they continue performing ceremonies as if he is not. Their works deny what their mouths profess. Don’t let your works make your words worthless. If the Messiah has really come, then let us act like it and leave behind all those things God once used to foreshadow his coming.

This is a far better covenant than the first one, so much better, in fact, that every holy and good thing in the first covenant has lost its glory. We do not deny or ignore the fact that God anointed certain people and things under the Old Covenant; still, we have left it behind because Jesus, a greater than all those people and things is here, and we refuse to deny him.