Often we speak of being carriers of the
Good News Message, and this is true we are carriers. However, we are to
be much more than carriers. We are to be (The Message), the Word living
in us in such a degree that we are living it before men; our lives on display
before men; Jesus working with us to heal all who are sick and diseased.
Paul was a carrier of messages, yet he
was (The Message), Christ in Him the Hope of Glory. Today it is Christ in
us (each believer) as the Hope of Glory. We not only carriers of the
message, but the word alive we too are often carried. And, yet with all the
grace carrying there is a "Walk".
Eze.
36:27
And I will put
my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my
statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
There is a place we must come to where
we recognize and live in unity with the Spirit of God.
Gal.
5:25
If we live in the Spirit,
let us also walk in the Spirit.
Eph.
2:2
Wherein in time past
ye walked according to the course of this world, according
to the prince of the power
of the air, the spirit that now
worketh in the children of disobedience:
Gal.
5:16
This I
say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not
fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Walking in the flesh is summed up in
Gal. 5:19-21
Now the works of the flesh are manifest,
which are these;
- · Adultery,
- · Fornication,
- · Uncleanness,
- · Lasciviousness,
- · Idolatry,
- · Witchcraft,
- · Hatred,
- · Variance,
- · Emulations,
- · Wrath,
- · Strife,
- · Seditions,
- · Heresies,
- · Envyings,
- · Murders,
- · Drunkenness,
- · Revellings, and such like:
- of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they
- which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
It is not enough for us to talk the talk
(as in delivering a message of goodness) we must live well. We cannot fulfill the lust of the flesh and
set godly examples before men, neither can we walk in the flesh and call
ourselves Spirit led people.
I do not suggest we are perfect outside
the precious blood of Jesus. However, I
do suggest a life of on going change. A life that entails repentance and
laboring toward something better through a grace offered us at a tremendous
price.
Jesus speaks to us right after reciting
the beatitudes says:
“Let your light so shine before men, that they
may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”
He did not say, "Let your light so shine
before men, that they hear only the message you carry". Carrying of the message is of upmost
importance, however to carry a gospel you refuse to live is a hypocritical dead
religion.
Jesus also expressed that latter in
Matthews teachings as he spoke these words concerning the Scribes and the
Pharisees… “but do not ye after their works: for they say,
and do not”.
Our Brother James also expresses that if any of
us are hearers only, and not doers of the word we deceive ourselves.
James
1:22
But
be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
So it is not complicated to see in just
a few scriptures that we are not only to hear the message and to carry the
message of Christ, but we are to be living Messages.
Peter called us lively stones in I Pe. 2:5:
Ye
also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to
offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
The Message we are to be becomes easy
when we yield to all that has been provided for us through Christ Jesus. He came to us as a living example. The very
idea we speak of for ourselves in this blog.
Jesus knew who He was and what He was sent
to do, so He not only spoke of the goodness of the Father and of the Fathers
greatness in power to usward who believes, but He lived it before men.
However, He did not live it alone, nor are we ask to live it alone. We have been sent a helper one just like Jesus himself to live
in us and to be with us. One who leads us, teaches us,
stands by us, unctions us, aides us in prayer, and comforts us. One who is everything that Jesus was
and is to us while we are here in planet earth.
In Johns teaching Jesus is praying in Chapter 17, He is calling out to the
Father on behalf of the us (the church) and in this says:
… thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that
thou hast sent me.
Jesus even at one time told the people, “Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye
believed not: (but) the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of
me.” (John 10:25)
Our lives should align with our words, because a belief system that has no corresponding
actions is dead. But a true belief
system is active and powerful in it's working.
Even our faith is dead without works. Our lives are not to be merely a life of words
alone. But words that move God, Angels, others, and ourselves to action.
Act
1:8 amplified
“But you shall receive power (“dunamis”) - ability, efficiency and might - when the Holy
Spirit has come upon you; and you shall
be My witnesses in Jerusalem and
all Judea and Samaria and to the ends - the very bounds - of the earth”.
Many people believe to be a witness is only
to say something. I agree a witness has a voice and should be saying something.
However, saying needs corresponding actions.
“Dunamis”
is a Greek word for Power and means:
“act of power” (Young’s); “miraculous power,
ability” (Strong’s); “natural capability, inherent power; capability of
anything, ability to perform any-thing; then, absolutely, not merely power
capable of action, but, power in action” (Bullinger’s).
So let the Word this year become Power in Action! Let us become a message sent, one that comes
with gifting and power on behalf of others.
Jesus working
with us to heal all who are sick and diseased!
