Transcription from our 7-30-10 service


From last week…

1 Corinthians 2: 9But, on the contrary, as the Scripture says, What eye has not seen and ear has not heard and has not entered into the heart of man, [all that] God has prepared (made and keeps ready) for those who love Him [who hold Him in affectionate reverence, promptly obeying Him and gratefully recognizing the benefits He has bestowed].

I’ve shared with you just a small fraction of it. How do I tell you what it’s like to live in heaven while on this earth? How do I help you understand the beauty of what you’re forfeiting every day because you’re not paying the price? Some will say: Well, I didn’t know there was a price to pay. I had no idea about the stuff you’re talking about. Okay, that is fair, but now that you do, what will you do about it? Please don’t go home and live the same way you used to live. It has not entered into the heart of man—all that God has prepared and made and keeps ready for those who love Him, who hold Him in affectionate reverence, promptly obeying Him and gratefully recognizing the benefits He has bestowed on us. Yet to us God has unveiled and revealed them by and through His Spirit for the Spirit of holiness searches diligently, exploring and examining everything, even sounding the profound and bottomless things of God. The divine councils and the things hidden and beyond man’s scrutiny—the deep things of God—and to whom does He reveal it? If you go to the supermarket and you want a loaf of bread, do you just go in, pick it up and walk out? No, you have to pay for it; there is a price! And if you want the manna of heaven there is also a price, it’s just a different price. You don’t pay for it with a dollar bill, you pay for it with faithfulness, obedience, humility, desire, passion, prayer, love, purity. And what happens after a season of time when God has begun to work these things into your heart? You get to this place where if someone were to hand you a million dollars it would be meaningless to you compared simply to having the virtue of humility. If the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to you and said: What would you prefer to have? The spirit of deep humility such as Moses and I walked in or would you rather have a million dollars to do the work of My kingdom? Of course you would want to put the money into the kingdom—that would be wonderful. But to have the spirit of humility where your soul has undergone this divine work—an etching of the nature of Christ on the inside of you where your soul has been changed, rearranged, set into this pool of the nature of God!

You know, there is nothing you could be offered that would make you willing to give that up. You have come to realize that living in the virtues of Christ is of greater value than all the gold in the world. No one has to tell you that—it’s something that is deep in your heart. If He strips everything of this world from you and you find yourself just kind of hovelled there and you’ve got a little room with a bed, nightstand and Bible—you would know nothing but contentment because He is there with you and you realize that He has taken away all of the distractions from seeing His glorious face and it becomes your cocoon of promise and rest and joy. Everything else—all that the world has to offer—is too heavy when it sits on the soul or the heart improperly; it is too heavy, cumbersome and distracting. There was a day when you loved to have beautiful pictures on you wall, but not anymore, because they distract you from the face of God—I’m telling you the truth. This world is not what makes you happy; if you haven’t figured that out by now then you never will. Your happiness, your joy, your peace and sense of security, your wellbeing is in Him alone. Not one thing or one person can add to what He gives but they can certainly take away if you let them.

Where do you want to be on the day that America is taken over by the One World Government? Where do you want to be—on the fence? Do you want to be sitting on that fence saying to yourself: “I’m so angry about all I’ve had to go through just to be a Christian? It’s been nothing but hard times and suffering—this last five years or six years or ten years. I’m so angry. Why didn’t God protect me or take me home before this time came? What about the rapture—I was told there would be a rapture and this wouldn’t happen until we, the chosen ones, were gone and yet here I am. Here I am and here is that which we have learned about from the beginning. The man of sin is here and so am I and I’m angry! Why didn’t God protect me? Why didn’t He rapture me?” Don’t you know that there will be many Christians that will say those exact things and act in that very way and the Bible says there will be a great falling away. This is the time; this is the season; this is the moment to take another look at your soul and reckon it according to righteousness and according to the vision of God.

He saw you as so important, valuable and precious in His sight that He was willing to pour out His very blood to buy you and to call you His own. If He saw you as so precious that he was willing to go to the great pain and agony of the cross to make you His own—should you not also see yourself as equally precious as He does? And if you see yourself in the same divine preciousness, you are going to remove from your soul everything that harms it. I tell you, the ways of the world bring great harm to your soul—acting like you’re not Christian when you are a Christian because of all the mental things that you put your mind through—and all of the wicked things that you put your heart through. They are damaging to your soul. When you reckon yourself in the same beauty that Jesus sees you in, you’re going to say, “I’ll have none of that sinful way; I won’t let that touch my sacred and holy soul. This is the house of God; the temple of my Master. This temple is to house majesty, not sin. I’m going to quit being a duplicitous person, double-minded in all my ways, because the beauty of His holiness is what I desire for my sacred soul.” When you begin to see yourself through the eyes of Christ, your actions and your attitudes, your thoughts and emotions will change. You will begin to desire to protect yourself in the way that He desires to protect you. You’re not going to be so concerned whether you step on a briar, but you will be very concerned whether or not you lie. You’re not going to be concerned about whether or not you stub your toe or you knee hurts in the morning but you’re going to be very concerned about whether or not you’re walking in the ways of holiness. Until you see yourself through His eyes, you will keep stuff in the world where He belongs, not realizing how incredibly damaging it is to your nature, your character and your precious soul. He wants you to house His glory—that’s all—and He gave us the Word to teach us how to become the temple of God.

I’m not talking about the temple where-in God dwells in the outer court. I’m talking about where you and He share the Holy of Holies. He wants all of you. He doesn’t just want your morning, your afternoon, evening and night. Nope, He wants your will, your rights. He wants your every thought and your every heart beat—He wants to know that His Spirit can nudge you just a little bit and you will drop everything you though you needed to do that day to do what He wants you to do. He wants all of you—all! He doesn’t want to have to play second to anything and He has the right to have all, doesn’t He?

Just talk with Him, “Lord Jesus, You are so marvelous; You are so marvelous! You are so marvelous…” Just talk to Him. Do you want to keep living the way you’ve been living? Would you like to change it a bit? Would you like to have more of God and less of you? John the Baptist said I must decrease and He must increase. Talk to Jesus. Share your heart. He is here for you and will help you become the man or woman of God He created you to be! Just submit to Him and allow Him to do the work within.

In His Amazing Love,
Nita Johnson