THE FINAL FOCUS

THE FINAL FOCUS

                As a young person growing up in the halls of evangelism, I used to listen to the complex array of doctrines that were being preached every night. As I listened I concluded that of the people that embraced these doctrines, 99% of them would never be able to share them with others due to their complexity and often hard to prove torturing of the scriptures.

                If it had not been for the Gospel music that attended these meetings, the real truth would hardly have been preached at all. Out of 28 nights of doctrine only one night was devoted to presenting Jesus Christ and even that presentation was weak because the Holy Spirit was used more or less as a byword rather than the living substance of the presence of Christ in our lives.

                So when I became old enough to leave home, I walked away from the “Truth” as well and I went into the world for a time. There was no relationship to hold me, only facts and rules.

                Any time we present doctrine apart from Christ and apart from His Holy Spirit, as the empowering presence of Christ in us that transforms us into His image; that teaching becomes a distorted Gospel. Any doctrine that is presented apart from our growth into the image of Christ, by the power of Christ, is also a detached and therefore distorted teaching.

                So when Paul, in speaking to Timothy tells him saying: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.“ …He is talking about the doctrine that He preached which was Christ and Him crucified and Christ in you the only hope of glory.

                Paul summarily discounted all of the traditions he had grown up with and leaving it all behind he said:

                “But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith, that I might know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” Phil 3:7-11

                The Gospel of the Kingdom that must go to the world in these last days then is the gospel of Christ… not as a mascot, or a word by which we identify ourselves, but the very sum and substance of our lives by which power we attain to “the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”  Ephesians 4:13

                This knowledge, this knowing, is a kind of knowing that is reserved only for a husband and wife who know each other and the two become one and that coming together produces the fruit of the Spirit… the fruit of the womb unto new birth by the power of the resurrection.

                The fact that the world is unable to endure sound doctrine today has nothing to do with a rejection of church teaching concerning all the points of doctrine which people argue over. The rejection of doctrine that we see in the world and in the church today is a rejection of the Person of Jesus Christ and the sanctified life that He offers us through His Holy Spirit.

                Therefore we offer up a false grace by which we bypass all growth in Christ, to promise a salvation in which at His coming Jesus Christ will have to say, “I never knew you.” I never entered into you. We never became one. We never conceived a new child in you. My covenant with you was never engaged. Our love never consummated. You have no oil of My presence. You are not wearing My full armor. You are not even wearing my robe of righteousness. You have been drinking of the wine of Babylon and not the wine of My Covenant. I cannot recognize you as one of mine.

                The final Gospel to go to the world is a Gospel of oneness with Christ. When we wear His robe of righteousness we can speak with His authority. When we put on that robe, demons have to flee as though we are Christ. Sickness has to go. Hearts must be mended… lives transformed… salvation comes to those who look and live. It is all about Christ and none of it us. But we must put on Christ.

                Gal. 3:26-29 says: For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

                When we wear the robe of Christ’s righteousness, our self-identity is swallowed up in Him. We are now as Christ in the world. We speak with His authority. We do only those things which we see the Father doing and say only those things which we hear the Father saying. Whatever mission we may have embarked on in the beginning, we are now on a mission to seek and to save the lost… to heal the sick and cleanse the lepers, to restore sight to the blind and to preach the acceptable year of the Lord”… and since we are now living in the time of judgment we must now add to this “The day of vengeance of our God.” Isaiah 61:1, 2.

                “And I heard another angel flying in mid heaven having the eternal Gospel to those who live on the earth… saying: “Fear God and give glory to Him for the hour of His judgment has come, and worship Him who made the heavens and the earth.” Rev 14:6, 7

                His credentials are impeccable. He created the heavens and the earth. It is all about Him… for He is now living in me and He has commissioned me as His ambassador in a foreign land.  I must have only one message and I must only represent the One. He is both Creator and Savior of mankind. Only in Him can we find salvation.

                On the final day of the Feast of Tabernacles Jesus stood up and shouted to the crowd: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart (belly, innermost being) will flow rivers of living water.” John 7:37, 38

                Jesus is quoted in John 7:37, 38 as saying this, but He in turn was drawing from Isaiah 12… a text around which the Feast of Tabernacles is built. To get the real meaning of this text we must first of all understand that the Hebrew word for Salvation is “Yeshua.” Gabriel told Mary that she should call His name Yeshua for He will save His people from their sins. So imagine how greatly the air was pregnant with meaning on that day when Jesus stood in their midst as they were singing this song. (And I will use the Hebrew word for salvation)

“Behold, God us my YESHUA

I will trust and not be afraid

For the Lord God has become my strength and song,

And He has become my YESHUA

Therefore you will joyously draw water

From the springs of YESHUA: Isa. 12:2, 3

                No wonder Jesus stood up and cried out to the people: "If anyone thirsts. Let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, Out of His belly (heart, innermost being) will flow rivers of living water.

                My friends, it is all about Jesus. And the sooner we make it our one heart’s desire to be formed by His Holy Spirit into His image. TH SOONER WE WILL BE ABLE TO EFFECTIVELY PREACH HIM TO THE WORLD. There is no other Gospel to be preached other than to come fully out of EGYPT/Babylon and fully into Christ. In Him dwelt all of the fullness of the godhead in bodily form and in Him you have been made complete and He is the head over all rule and authority; and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.  Col. 2:9-12.

                Then Paul’s conclusion to all of this was as follows: “Therefore, let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day; things which are a MERE SHADOW OF WHAT IS TO COME;  but the SUBSTANCE BELONGS TO CHRIST. Col 2:16, 17.

                Again I say the last message to go to the world is Jesus Himself. We must enter fully into Him and He fully into us as Jesus prayed in John 17:22… so that we will be one even as He and His Father are one. He said: “And the glory which Thou hast given Me, I have given to them; that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and Thou in Me that they may be perfected in unity, that the world may know that Thou didst send Me and didst love them, even as Thou didst love Me.” John 17:22-23.

                So to us who live in the end of this age of gross darkness Jesus is saying: “Arise, shine; for your light has come! And the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.” Isa. 60:1

                Friends, we need to get this message deep in our hearts and live by it. God is about to come to His threshing floor with winnowing fork in hand. Everything that is not born of His Spirit is going to be shaken out. The secrets of men in places of leadership both in the church and in government will be exposed. From the top down the church will be shaken to the very core so that the only thing left when all is said and done will be that which Jesus Christ has built.

                Bonnie and I have dedicated ourselves without reserve to God’s process of sanctification. It has nothing to do with legalism and everything to do with living by the power of Christ and doing His work in the world. In this that lies before us we feel like mere babes. It almost seems like uncharted territory. After all, Jesus is calling this last generation to finish that which every generation before us has been unable to finish. We must carry the baton to the finish line. Therefore we must draw upon a strength far greater than our own. We are asking Jesus to bring us into maturity… into the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” Ephesians 4:13. It is: Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit saith the Lord of hosts.” Zech. 4:6b

                To do what Jesus is calling us to do in these last days, our focus must be fully upon Him.