God Appears and Wow!

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Forget what you heard, recognize what you see.  I know you heard the rumors.  Now here’s the real me.

What Yeshua must be assumed to have said as he travelled all over the Holy Land had to look like the opening paragraph of this message. Attitudes to him were all over the place. He respected the things that deserved respect, and that my friends, was not everything. What he had to display was new and surprising. I love the way he cleaned lepers and forgave sin. Those two activities accentuate the real God’s attitudes and methods.

Unbelief: wow

I think it is safe to say that even a little faith was hard to find in Israel and its absence disturbed and discouraged him.

And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching.

Mark 6:6

Respect for the respectable. Wow.

When Jesus heard these things, he marvelled at him, and turned him about, and said unto the people that followed him, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.

Luke 7:9

A notabable appearance

Demon exorcism and disability

Matthew 9:33
And when the devil was cast out, the dumb spake: and the multitudes marvelled, saying, It was never so seen in Israel.

Good mistaken for evil – oh my

The devil does not do good things.

Matthew 9:34
But the Pharisees said, He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils.

Safe!

eejoseph, ,

Then he brought them outside and said, “Men, what must I do to be saved?”

Acts 16:30

Are Christians trafficking in guilt and illness? What raises such a question?  The lipservice given to the Sinai Covenant and the essential reality of falling short of God’s glory.   Since claiming sinless nature or conduct is false (1 John 1:7-10) and since no Christian is in perfect health we can say guilt over sin and illness are being used to oppress and harass the elect.

“Be saved” is passive action. Passive action puts the person receiving the action as the actor. I must be saved, but who saves me is the question that will sniff out the truffle. As long as people keep separating the promise that makes lost people sons of God from generosity no safe space exists. Nothing is guaranteed. There is no real gift.

Here are two pairs of passive action and active action.

  • He was saved by grace
  • Grace saved him
  • They are often kissed by their mother
  • Their mother kisses them often.

Simple vs Infinite


Who is doing the kissing? Who is doing the saving?

In Ephesians 2 :8 “saved” is also passive but it is definitely not an ordinary (finite) action word. It is the linked condition or identity to “you”. Sesosmenoi (safe or saved) is like a colour or some other quality: in this case persons are sesosmenoi.
We cannot twist “saved” into an active statement such as
• Grace saved you
• Grace saved you through faith

Paul is describing an outcome or status. You are safe by grace through faith.
Saved, though it is a based on a verb, lacks person. It has the characteristics of a verb except for person (actor)
• I
• You (one or more)
• He / she
• We
• They
It is a statement of fact, not action.
You are light.
You were blind
You are my friends

Need to come and let Christ save us

This is one of many cases where translations have failed to state what the text says. One is safe and cannot drag works into the picture, except perhaps if one wants to brag about one’s contribution to the redemption that is exclusively by Lamb’s blood.  Moreover, if one accepts that Yeshua’s gift of the Holy Spirit is a downpayment towards (or a guarantee of) resurrection one cannot harbour the thought that Yeshua’s eternal will can be thwarted by human will or action. He did not need our will to shed grace on us, and he certainly does not need it to keep us graced. We only needed to come to him.  We only needed to surrender our record and efforts to set ourselves right. Apparently most of us stil do.

Stone Potential Activated

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And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.

Matthew 3:9

Abraham has children who are not the result of his energies and the super-religious are still thinking that ancestry has a place in God’s plan for the human race. When the time came to wake up to this news  – that Abraham’s children can never claim to be his because of their energy –  the people slept on.

Who your parents are is immaterial to God

Stone potential is still at the heart of God’s generosity to humanity.  The benefits of God’s intervention are not decided by our works, or obedience, or efforts, or who our ancestors are.   The identity we now have – saved – is a gift. Please do not get this wrong. Identity comes before good deeds.

By grace you are saved and not by means of works.

Eph. 2:8

Our Lord’s messenger aimed this saying at a generation who thought they could fake a response to the call for change. Abraham’s descendants through Isaac were showing that they were on their way to complete the record of resistance to God and good talk about doing God’s work or will. He called them vipers.

Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Luke 3:7

For the reader of the New Testament the diversity of stones is hard to miss and the problem of stone identity remains to this day, especially when we realize that we too are stones. Each stone is uniquely designed for unique purposes to serve Abraham’s destiny.

The idea that stones can just sit there and become Abraham’s children is a shocking idea, especially when one has had no patterns but heavy burdens and hard work. The rest the Lord offers seems like a fantasy! Men, who think they have a defining role in building God’s building, can be expected to misidentify God’s anointed.

To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious,

1 Peter 2:4

There is definitely riveting drama in the cornerstone’s reception.

Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?

Matthew 21:42

Our stone identity comes from One called “living”, and the living evidently needs to be distinguished from the stones that have come from death (the same as the darkness). Christ is the lifegiving stone.

The difference between  cornerstone (Christ), foundation (the apostles) and ourselves needs to be recognized lest we elevate ourselves to a seat we cannot occupy. Far too many people have refused to submit to apostolic witness due to a plethora of agents calling themselves apostles and prophets (even bishop is thought to be some kind of authority like the eyewitnesses of our Lord). Be that as it may, there is only one foundation and our contemporaries (in all the succeeding generations) could not possible be that foundation. The foundation was set, and needs no addition.

And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; Ephesians 2:20

Certain stones are irrelevant because they only kill

But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:

2 Corinthians 3:7

Every time you run away from something that Yeshua said or something the Apostle said to insist on something that a prophet said or something that Moses said you are denying yourself activation as a living stone in the spiritual house Christ is trying to building.

The most dangerous stone pictures are the two tablets and the rejection of the chief cornerstone. They each serve their purpose, but to avoid becoming mired in blocking behaviours. We have to reject the proposition that anyone today has a leg to stand on treating people as outsiders, common or unclean. Ask Peter! He got caught eating with Gentiles and was raked over the coals by the allies of James and corrected by Paul. No living stone can go back to those deadly attitudes and practices that came from Moses about outsiders, common or unclean. It is truly surprising what the apostolic record has to say about the reversal of outsider and unclean.

Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.

Titus 1:15

God Sent His Son

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It is not only an obstacle to germination and growth when birds snatch the sowed seed away, there is also the emboldment of the birds.  This is a panel from the Parable of the Sower.  We have to connect demons with the uninformed person and the uninformed person with the law. It is to the devil’s interest for people to be either in possession of no truth or in possession of something they think is the truth.

When any one hears the Message of the Kingdom without understanding it, the Evil One comes and snatches away what has been sown in his mind. This is the man meant by the seed which was sown along the path.

Matthew 13:19

Who is guilty of misunderstanding the Messianic message? First there are Jews: Messiah was born in their midst. Then there are the rest of us who either follow the Jews or create our own corrupt imaginations instead of believing the liberating good news.

Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Romans 3:19-20

“People under law” is very specific and cannot be interpreted as anything but “sinners”. They are the only people for whom the law was written or given. Condemnation is not God’s active work: it is ours by rejecting the path of faith in the only satisfaction (propitiation). Condemnation is not the result of misbehavior (sin, missteps, transgression, or rebellion): the unbelief we harbour keeps us out of God’s rest.

Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for men-stealers , for liars, for promise breakers, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine; According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust. 1 Timothy 1:9-11

We can always reverse our choices: Tables of Condemnation or Rest in the Way, Truth and Life.

What victory looks like

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And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.

Revelation of John 15:2

This is a precious graphic to me. I relate, even now in this life, to the guitar (harp κιθαρα, kithara,) possession, but more salient are the songs the victorious sing.

And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.

Revelation of John 15:3

Moses’ Song and the Lamb’s Song

That had better be two songs, because Moses and Yeshua are not identical twins. If the song of each is to be related to achievement Moses has a failed and eclipsed law and Lamb has his laid down and retrieved life, guaranteeing salvation to believers, and sealing the promise with the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Does not make one Christian

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  • All day talk about God dnmoc
  • Calling Jesus “Lord” dnmoc
  • Calling Jesus “king” dnmoc.
  • Joining a carefully chosen church dnmoc.
  • Using Jesus’ name – to perform miracles, to exercise demons, and to do wonders – dnmoc.
  • Pledging obedience dnmoc

We should not be surprised to find that many Christian communities are estranged from Christ. There are things that unequivocally disqualify followers, of which eminently are:

  • Bigotry
  • Nepotism
  • More Moses than Jesus doctrine
  • Secondhand witnesses (vs apostolic witnesses)

Sin – one hundred or one, committed – does not make a person of less or more value to God. In fact, the “one lost sheep” swamps the Shepherd’s attention!

Good works do not make a person of less or more value to God. There are no kudos for doing our duty.

And so with you–when you have done all that you have been told, still say ‘We are but useless servants; we have done no more than we ought to have done.'”

Luke 17:10

All that we can add to “BELIEVE AND CONFESS the death and resurrection of Christ” is pollution and mutilation. Like the attempt to sneak circumcision into the Way, pronouncements about salvation over and above Believe and Confess are oppressive, deceptive, and damnable. We know that nothing saves but Lamb’s blood.

Unconverted men with liberating power

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The thought that one of the people exercising authority in your faith community and shaping lives may be unconverted should terrify us and comfort us because of the benefits to victims of demon-possession and medical illness.

And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.



In Matthew 10:1 we learn that authority over demons, sickness and disease can be a phenomenon outside of Christian conviction.

At the end of Luke’s gospel Peter is still unconverted and it must be acknowledged that this is the case for all of them since conversion requires Christ to give the Holy Spirit so that one can become a child of God.

But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.

Luke 22:32

One does not even need to be in the group of Christ followers. The case of the strange exorcist illustrates this.

And John answered him, saying, Master,we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us: and we forbad him, because he followeth not us. But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me.

Mark 9:38-39


We can expect unconverted people to be a part of this phenomenon in the 2nd millennium after Pentecost. Sobering and highly and disturbing.