http://www.isaiah58.com/music/DarrenPrater/Darren%20Prater%20-%20Beyond%20The%20Cross.mp3

Hey John,

I was thinking about the Sacrifice of Christ today, and how if it wasn’t for Jesus saying yes to his Father, that he was willing to go to the cross and suffer and die for us, then He would not have ascended to his Father and offered himself as the sacrifice for us, and there would not have been a sacrifice for us at all. Jesus was the only one worthy, and if it wasn’t for Him, God’s Baptism of the Spirit would not have been made available to us, and we wouldn’t be where we are today. There is no way to understand the things the Lord has given you for us, and all of God’s people, on the other side of the cross. It really did take Jesus for us to have what we have!

That made me think of my song “Beyond the Cross”, so I sat down at my desk and pulled it up and sang through it. These lines really stood out to me:

Beyond the cross is mercy, beyond the cross is fire

Beyond is understanding, that’s meant to take you higher

Beyond the cross is knowledge, wealth and wisdom too

Beyond the cross, salvation, that’s meant for me and you

These words come from the “higher power” that Brother Earl sings about, far greater than any thoughts I could have on my own. Without God having mercy on us, there would be no understanding of anything. I am thankful He gives it, and thankful to have it. I believe that there has been a lot of good for everyone to come out of these readings in Acts, among all the other good readings we have done together. Thank you for all the work you have done to get it to us.

Darren

 

John,

As we go thru this new understanding, quite often thoughts come to mind of words and events that the disciples experienced with Jesus.  When you mentioned Peter being the rock, the scene came to mind where Jesus told him, “Flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my Father which is in heaven,” and “Upon this rock I will build my called-out ones.”

Going thru this study of Acts gives you a taste of how it must have felt when the words of the Lord would come back to the disciples’ remembrance.  Even with the holy Ghost, they still needed a revelation to understand what God had said and was doing. What mercy God shows to his people!  Since the disciples witnessed and felt the  power of the Spirit, and still missed some things, I can’t help but ponder over this question: is what we are learning part of a preparation to help us not follow in those footsteps but to learn to just go with the spirit and forget what we think?

Until just a couple of meetings ago, I really didn’t know that Christianity and the Roman Empire were the same thing. I would have confessed that I knew it was true, but I really didn’t understand that I didn’t KNOW it was true.

Sitting here, I have to wonder, if you don’t really know something is true that you have learned is true, is that doubt, unbelief, or just a tradition?  I can’t explain how that precious experience makes me feel. Events like this are so sweet to my soul!  God, please give  me more anchors so I can’t be moved by things around me or by my own thoughts.

I remember Uncle Joe said the only thing a person knows is their own experiences with God.

Thanks for feeding us.

Wendell 🙂

God Keep My Heart Open To What You Are Saying:

 

 

Hey John,

Greetings from California. So far from you all. :o(  Wish I could beem myself out there just to chat over a cup of coffee.

Anyway, just wanted to tell you how I loved the lesson about Psalm 119, how I could read it switching any word about the law with “the Spirit.” How it came alive for me! I love what you have taught me, what the Spirit is showing me. The Word of God has come alive. What a different experience it was reading the Bible before. Love to you all!

Patty

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Good to hear from you, Patty!

Yes, learning the truth is exciting, isn’t it?​  The first step is learning what is in the Bible (that is our part), and the second is for the Spirit to put what we have learned together for us.  What riches of wisdom there are in the Spirit!  Keep sowing the seeds you are sowing, the seeds of time and effort to get to know the Bible, and the harvest of revelation will come in!

Love for all of us here.

jdc

 

Pastor John,

I had a short dream the other night where the Lord was giving you so many new thoughts you could hardly write them all down. Then I heard, “This knowledge and understanding increases the bloodflow through the body!”

See you tonight,

Amy F

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Well, Amy, that certainly is the way things are right now!  Pray for me, that i can get it all done as I work on the Acts notes.  But it is so good!  The blood (of Christ) certainly was flowing freely last night, wasn’t it?

I love what the psalmist wrote:

Psalm 139

17.How precious  are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them!

18a.If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand.”

 It is a wonderful thing to me, to have such faithful and wise saints as you in the body here, ​all of us rejoicing in the wisdom, power, and goodness of God.  Sometimes I feel so rich, and fellowship with saints who know and love God is my treasure!

Pastor John

Hi John,

My, my, what wonderful feelings tonight!  I had never had that thought about the disciples not even knowing there was a new covenant when it came – even years afterwards.  Wow.  Tonight felt just like what Amy F. said she heard the Lord tell her in her dream: “This knowledge and understanding increases the blood flow through the body.”  You could just feel it coursing through you tonight!

I love it when you feel the Spirit moving in you like that, that it answers questions you may have before you even finish asking.  Towards the end of the meeting tonight, I was thinking on the things that were said.  In my mind I was asking, “Didn’t God require the Jews to keep the Law, even after they had received the holy ghost?”  Before I could even finish thinking my question, I felt the Spirit ask me, “Where are the nine?”  I knew immediately what Jesus was saying.  Like that Samaritan man in Luke 17 – who, unlike the other nine lepers who were also healed, disobeyed the law, and instead, returned to give glory to God by honoring the Son – if one of the Jews who received the holy ghost had, from the heart, stopped following the precepts of the Law and lived only according to the new life that God had given him, God would have been pleased.

Wow – makes you hardly able to wait for what God has to show us next!

Vince

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John,

What an amazing meeting this evening.  Throughout the night, while you were preaching, it felt like syrupy-honey to me.  Real “honeycomb”….  It was just rolling down, such feelings of sweetness in the air when we talk about Him!

When the Son is honored, there is going to be truth, and healing and power present, just as you said.  That’s all the things He is!  Lifting the Son up tonight felt so good, so holy. Oh, I love to magnify Him. 

When the Son is lifted up like you lifted Him up tonight John, it’s going to be exciting.  We are going to be built up.  We are going to feel that joy.  I loved what I felt tonight….  And I loved what you said about us telling him what we are, and believing that He will keep correcting us, keep moving in us, and keep us growing in this.

I love Jesus.  I love Paul.   The Son makes us love them all.   He is great. 

Thanks for digging it out for us!

Gary

 

 

 

Hi John,

Amy and I read through the first part of the Acts notes last night, and it is feeling so good reading through it again.  Boy, it has really been stirring up some thoughts!

Amy said she went through some corrections with you this morning, and she asked you my question about whether or not there is a difference between a “resurrected” body and a body that’s been raised from the dead, and you told her that there is a difference.  The reason I had wondered is because of your comment, “It is unlikely that a resurrected body would actually feel hunger….” (from your note under Luke 24:43).

We got to talking about this at lunch today, and I remembered one key difference between Jesus’ body after he was resurrected and the bodies of those who were raised from the dead (e.g. Lazarus):  Jesus’ resurrected body contained no blood.  Then I got to thinking about how the life is in the blood (Lev. 17:11), which means that Jesus the human son of Mary, his natural life, no longer existed, for it was no longer in the body that Peter and the other apostles saw – only the life of God was there in that body.  Then Amy pointed out that in the Old Testament, animal sacrifices were made only after the blood was drained from them.  This is how it was with Jesus when he offered his crucified body to God for the sacrifice!  You probably have already told us that, but for some reason it just clicked today 🙂

Are there any other differences between a resurrected body and a body raised from the dead?  Is Jesus the one and only case of a human being resurrected?

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The New Testament speaks of a first and a second resurrection that will occur at the end of this age.  I assume that the first resurrection is called “the first resurrection” because it is the first of its kind (after Jesus, of course), and likewise, the second resurrection.  At the same time, the Bible records a number of people being raised from the dead, even in the Old Testament, and none of them are said to have been “resurrected”.

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Another part that we were talking about is the scene in Acts 1, when Jesus answers his disciples’ question, “Is this the time you will re-establish the kingdom of Israel?”, and Jesus’ response is, basically, to tell them not to concern themselves with those things, but to just go to Jerusalem to receive power and to be his witnesses.  Then Jesus is taken up into the clouds and disappears and they are left wondering (I suppose) why he left them before he even set up his earthly kingdom!  Then God sent the two angels to let the disciples know that Jesus would return in the same way that he left.  I wonder if they thought that that was why Jesus wanted them to go and wait for him in Jerusalem, because that’s where he was going to show up again, out of the clouds?  That would certainly be incentive to go and wait for him there!  It is really something how Jesus labored to get them to the place (both physically and spiritually) where they could receive what he so much wanted to give them.

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That’s a good point, Vince.  Jesus ascending into heaven would not have made the disciples stop looking for Jesus to set up an earthly kingdom.  My, what did they think?

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It felt really good reading and talking about these things.  There were so many other thoughts that we were having, but these are two that really stood out to me.  Thanks for doing this study, John.  It has been wonderful so far what Jesus is able to show us now that we have a better understanding of the Father and Son!

Vince

 

Hey Pastor John,

I just read your note after Acts 1:26.  I agree that “we must be slow to say that this method of choosing an apostle was a fleshly exercise.”  But on the other hand, I can’t help but wonder if this truly was a work of God.  If it was, then Matthias would be the only apostle that I can think of that wasn’t personally chosen by Jesus.  The other 12, including Paul, were personally chosen by Jesus.  I believe there is a scripture in the book of Revelation that says that the new Jerusalem would have 12 foundations that will have the names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb written on them.  Since Paul was personally chosen by Jesus “as one born out of time”, I am more inclined to believe that Paul would be counted as the 12th apostle.

As I said, just some thoughts.

Billy H.