In This Issue
1. This Next Place of Spirit Reality Beyond Revival
2. Fire On The Earth
3. News Headlines
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- This Next Place of Spirit Reality Beyond Revival
By Ron McGatlin
We are nearing the goal or end of a journey. We are now at a fresh new place on the long journey of becoming Spirit Sons in a new Spirit city whose builder and maker is God – a Spirit city coming down from Heaven – a pattern city to guide the world in the ways of Heaven on Planet Earth – a spiritual place where Spirit God dwells unhindered among and within His people on earth.
My dear friends, the change of this new place is eminent and so much greater than where we have been and what we have known that it is in the category of indescribable. A beautiful spiritual description in parabolic natural terms is written in the Book of Revelation, Chapters 21 and 22. The Spirit city of New Jerusalem is the act of living in “Spirit-reality” in and with God. It is life in the Spirit now coming down from heaven. Many of us are entering this place in which nothing that defiles can ever enter or exist (Rev 21:27). All that God has done with man from the beginning was headed toward this place of New Jerusalem, Bride of Christ life on earth.
From the days of old, this time or place has been in the spirits and minds of God’s called out chosen foundational pioneers who searched for this city to rule and reign in the land of God’s promise.
This epic journey is documented and prophesied in the Bible. Many men and women have portions of their life’s works or words recorded in God-given writings of history and prophecy as well as living words of wisdom that have charted the past and chartered the course to the final goal of the plan and works of God in and with man.
Here are a few of the names of some of those who have done great works in this journey:
Abraham presented the fathering and the movement toward that which was to come.
Moses’ life and works painted a huge mural of the characteristics of the life and journey from the beginning that gives foundational definition to the design of God.
Joshua added the final strokes to the painting of Moses and pictured the victory of God with His people.
Elijah, Isaiah, and all the prophets of old gave detail pictures of that which God was and is doing.
King David, the Shepherd King gave clearer definition and fathering of the nature and specifics of that which God was doing.
All that had gone before was pointing toward the coming of Christ Jesus and His kingdom on earth. Though John the Baptist was in the New Testament, he was the last of the Old Testament order of prophets looking forward to Christ. John came in the spirit of Elijah (Mat 11:13-14). He announced and introduced Christ Jesus and His kingdom come to earth which finished his personal work.
Christ Jesus gave birth to the reality of Spirit God abiding in man and not only showed the way but became “The Way” – the seed and sprout of the kingdom of God ruling city of God among and within man. The beginning of the New Covenant – the new creation man in the New Jerusalem City of God ruling the new creation world on Planet Earth.
Christ Jesus is the first born of many Sons whom He is bringing to glory. “For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings (Hebrews 2:10).”
After the cross, resurrection, ascension, and the promised coming of the empowering Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Peter, James, and John with the rest of the twelve “apostles of the Lamb” along with Paul the apostle to the Gentiles carried the gospel of Christ and His kingdom to all the known world at that time. Christ was working with them by the Holy Spirit. “And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Amen.” (Matthew 16:20)
The Spirit of Christ by the Holy Ghost was working in and with the first century Disciples of Christ with supernatural signs and wonders that touched the known world with the truth of the good news (gospel) of the kingdom of God come to earth in Christ Jesus. Supernatural miracles demonstrated the kingdom of God and the reality of Christ to the people and multitudes believed in Christ Jesus.
The awesome church of the first century after a few centuries became religious and lost the Holy Spirit power and guidance. The gospel of the kingdom was lost to the many intellectual doctrines of man’s reasoning of scripture without the Holy Spirit’s powerful work and guidance.
THE SPIRIT POWER RETURNED
In recent centuries the power and the guidance of the Holy Spirit / Holy Ghost began to be restored to all who would receive it. The return of the greater fullness of the Holy Spirit has opened the way for the revelation of God’s kingdom in man on earth to be restored. The work of the Holy Spirit includes bringing the Spirit of Christ to abide within the people of God. The character and nature of Christ Jesus can now abide within us by the Spirit of Christ in us by the Holy Spirit. “To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27).
The predominant characteristic of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is LOVE. “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love (1 John 4:8).”
The power of God is by His love: unconditional, total love that consumes all evil, erases all faults, removes all sin, and brings us into perfect alignment with the ways and plans of God. All the law is fulfilled by love. All miracle-working power from God flows by love. All striving and stress is removed by love. Love removes all sin and takes away the desire or tendency to sin. Righteousness is generated by love. Peace flows by love. Faith works by love. The kingdom of God is formed and held together by love. Without love there is no kingdom of God on earth.
Natural Man Does Not Receive the Things of the Spirit
A natural human being cannot know or experience the reality of the love of God apart from the Holy Spirit. He or she may know some things about the love of God and may experience some of the results of God’s love. However, until he or she experiences the Holy Spirit pouring the fullness of the love of God into his or her heart and life, it is impossible to know the all-consuming power of love that burns out all impurities and removes all fear and all need – thus causing us to abide in perfect peace with life abundant to give to all others around us.
We cannot be deeply offended. Discernment and understanding are greatly increased. Gifts of the Spirit are abundant to minister to others and never used for show or personal gain. Works of faith are effortless and limited only to what God is saying and doing.
Religion has nothing to do with the real love and power of the peace of God that flows supernaturally in and through the people of God. Religious systems are one of the greatest hindrances to the all-consuming love transporting us into the New Jerusalem city of God. Religious spirits are powerful and can be erroneously accepted as the works of God. Always the people entrapped in religion believe that their religion and its leaders are light from God and that the spirits working around them are from God. When in truth they are spirits of darkness posing as angels of light.
The Christian religion is often a mixture of truth and light mixed with deceit and darkness. The intentions of the people and the leaders are almost always good and noble, at least as they begin to seek to serve God and His people. Yet, sometimes there is such strife and difficulties in trying to carry the burdens of the people that the good intentions become failures that must remain covered with pretense to preserve their standing with the people.
We will remain eternally grateful for the truth and light of the Christian religion that has done so much in bringing many people to salvation in Christ in the past centuries. At the same time many are being made whole and becoming completely healed from the deceit and darkness that invaded the Christian religion long ago. Massive healing instantly takes place when religious doctrines and negative experiences are consumed and washed away by the all-consuming LOVE of God pouring into God’s people in this last move of God that has no end.
THE LAST MOVE OF GOD THAT WILL NOT END
Beyond the revivals and outpourings of the past decades comes an incomparable unnamed uncontrollable sovereign supernatural underground grassroots Spirit explosion of LOVE that changes the face of the earth. God will do through love what the tyrants of this world have attempted through fascism, brutal evil force, and psychological manipulations including religious tyrants.
All of the remaining world will be gathered under one Head, the Lord and King of all, Christ Jesus. One Spirit will prevail across the land in the hearts and lives of the people of Planet Earth. The Holy Spirit of God shall fill every heart with pure holy love from heaven changing the nature of the people of the world that will affect every aspect of life on earth.
The thousands of scattered kingdom forerunners will bring forth the love of God by the Spirit of God in the people around them, and the whole world will be filled with the glory or nature of God on earth as it is in heaven.
All the elements of the world will be affected. The animals will be restored to what they were in the Garden of Eden. The vegetation of the earth will again prosper greatly, and the fruit of the land shall be great on the planet that will be known as the planet of love, the kingdom of God.
Dear Friends, this move begins now with you and me and others scattered across the world who are being consumed by the love of God and are receiving the word of the kingdom with great joy.
Much of the world and its systems will crash and burn, but the kingdom of God is forever and of its increase there is no end.
LOVE NEVER FAILS!
Ron McGatlin, February 28, 2016
www.openheaven.com
basileia@earthlink.net
- Fire On The Earth
“I came to cast fire on the earth…” Jesus
By David Orton
“God is in the process of shaping a new wineskin—a post-denominational and organic ecclesia, pointing the way to a more complete restoration of the apostolic ideal found in Christ and his 1st century apostles.
For this to occur much will need to change—in fact, it cries out that “fire fall on the earth!” (Lk 12:49). These words of Jesus describe his mission. As one sent to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mtt 15:24), they allude not only to his role as Messiah, but also as the Prophet, climaxing the long succession of prophets sent to Israel, calling them back to covenant fidelity—to purity of heart before the Lord, and thus, to her calling as a missionary nation to the whole earth:
5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel. Exodus 19:5–6 ESV
Jesus ministry, as the final prophet to Israel, was to presage the judgement (restorative discipline) that was about to befall her. This was culminating the long history of biblical prophets who consistently called God’s people back to the stipulations of the covenant — that is, to “ … love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Mtt 22:37 ESV, cited by Jesus from Deut 6:5).
However, a covenant not only has stipulations, but also sanctions. It was of these that all the prophets warned. And so, Jesus follows the declaration of his mission to “cast fire on the earth” with the challenge that they do not “ … know how to interpret the present time [kairos]” (Lk 12:56 ESV). This begs the question as to what they should have been observing so as to understand their “time” (kairos)—very simply, the sanctions of the covenant; that is, the covenant consequences of their disobedience. Israel was willfully blind to the fact that Roman occupation was exactly that! In line with the touchstone of Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26 – that disobedience produces dispossession – the prophetic interpretation of Israel’s predicament was that they were under a judgement of God, albeit designed for their ultimate restoration (see Rom 11). The fire that was about to fall on the “earth” (literally land, alluding to Israel as the Promised Land) was the fall of Jerusalem, the predicted destruction of the temple, and their expulsion from the ‘land’ in 70 AD—a mere 40 years on; significantly a biblical generation, in fulfilment of Jesus’ Olivet discourse and prophecy (see Mtt 24).
My conviction is this—we, in the 21st century West, are in the exact predicament of the Israel of the 1st century. Despite the positive fruits of the faith, the West’s church and culture, generally, could now be described as apostate and neo-pagan respectively. Like Israel of the first century despite its long history of divine visitation and privilege, we too – because of our disobedience – are rapidly approaching the culmination of a long line of incremental judgements. This last century, in spite of significant spiritual outpourings (Pentecostal Revival early century and Charismatic Renewal mid-century), saw two catastrophic world wars and a major depression without a demonstrable recognition – from either the church or wider culture – of “the present time (kairos)” — that is, that we are living in the consequences of violating the covenant that God has made with humankind; first in the garden, then through Israel, and finally in Christ and to the nations that receive him (historically the West); both wars and economic problems are included among these consequences – or curses (see Deut 28 and Lev 26).
To whom much is given, much is required (Lk 12:48). Also like Israel, the ‘previously Christian’ West – in fact, the product of the gospel and its cultural impact – privileged with the revelation of God and the covenant blessings (including prosperity and freedom) has “ … forsaken … the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jer 2:13 ESV); and thus, is now weighed in the balance and found wanting. Turning to the false gods of humanism and statism – exposed in the 20th century as “broken cisterns” – the West has come under a divine discipline. Interpreting Israel’s present predicament as covenant consequences (see Rom 9-11), it is time to heed Paul’s application warning the Gentile church:
Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen [Israel], but God’s kindness to you [Gentiles], provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. Rom 11:22 ESV
What has happened to Israel – her temporary dispossession – can also happen to us!
The Western church’s fall – dramatically displayed in its existential and humanist theologies on one hand, and its market driven agendas on the other – has invited covenantal consequences, and like Israel, unless she turns, is about to be “cut off” — that is, dispossessed.
As Jesus warned:
You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty again? It is good for nothing anymore, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. Matt 5:13 NASB
Our espousal of false gods and value systems has invited the ire of God. As a church and culture we are in the process of being expelled – under the discipline of God – from the ‘land’ of kingdom authority and power. And this will escalate – through a neo-pagan post-Christian culture, war, economic recession, and intimidation of radical Islam – until we break and fall on our faces. No amount of triumphalist ‘dominion’ posturing will override the dealings of God. Not until we own our corporate sin will we see the spiritual breakthrough and kingdom advance for which we labour and pray.
The call, therefore, is for radical repentance and reformation—a rending of our hearts and a mending of our ways, the dismantling of false value systems and idolatrous power structures. This then demands real changes as to why and how we do ‘church’.”
David Orton
www.lifemessenger.org
3. News Headlines
Prayer Alert for USA From Dutch Sheets – 3/2/2016
“Be very careful. Pray. Listen to your heart where Holy Spirit lives. I promise you—we’re voting for the destiny of our nation.” Regarding the upcoming elections, prayerfully agree with me that: We vote for a person of decency and honor (integrity matters). We vote for humility (which God exalts), morality and righteousness (which exalts a nation). more>
| Family with 10 children escaped Islamic State, hid in cattle truck – 3/1/2016 They tried living under Islamic State rule in Raqqa, what once was paradise for them became a hell that forced them to flee, walking 185 miles and eluding military check points in danger of death. Carnage was on all sides in their native land. If they weren’t suffering under ISIS militants , they were running from constant bombardments conducted by Russians and Syrians. Full Article » |
| Iraq: Christians’ homes being seized by Muslim militia aligned with Iran – 3/1/2016 The homes, belongings and finances of Iraqi Christians are being seized by Muslim militia backed by Iran, Christian members of the Iraqi Parliament said. The military units, directed by Iranian advisers, are supposedly combating ISIS in a loose coalition with the U.S.When they lose their properties, the Iraqi Christians are forced to flee and resettle elsewhere. Full Article » |
| Grace, cessation doubts, and miracles in war-torn Syria – 3/1/2016 “Even though in our minds we say it’s a great tragedy, still there’s a silver lining.” “Many people within Syria are now finding the love of Jesus Christ. “In the midst of the great crisis within Syria, you see God is still gracious to people.” One of the goals of the Syria cessation was to allow humanitarian aid to reach nearly 5 million Syrians who are in desperate need. Full Article » |
| Muslim doctor converts to Christianity and plants 50 churches – 3/1/2016 Living in one of the most unreached places in the world, devout Muslim Sanjay’s whole life changed when he was healed from cancer. Sanjay* gave his life to Jesus and now, despite persecution, shares the gospel with everyone he meets. Sanjay has led hundreds to faith in Jesus and planted 50 small churches for believers with Muslim backgrounds. Full Article » |
| The Israeli Mother Risking All to Save Syrian Lives – 3/1/2016 Several times a year an Israeli Jew, goes undercover to organize a mission of humanitarian aid for Syria’s increasingly desperate and starving people. She’s not alone. Some 200 or so Israeli volunteers working for her nonprofit, Il4Syrians, have also been operating in stealth mode since the revolution began in 2011. “It’s always frightening. We know we are on our own.” Full Article » |
| Chinese Pastor Sentenced to More than a Decade in Prison for Resisting Cross Removal – 3/1/2016 1,200 crosses have been removed from churches and other buildings in Zhejiang. A court has sentenced a pastor to 14 years in prison and his wife to 12 years. The couple, who were arrested last August, were targeted for their efforts to defend their church against an order to remove its cross. The court fined them $20,000 and confiscated $92,000 from them. Full Article » |
| Jewish group predicts Obama will head U.N. after he leaves presidency – 3/1/2016 The editorial staff of The Jewish Voice predicts that Barack Obama will lead the UN as Secretary General after he finishes his current term as president of the US. There is concern about Obama leading a UN dominated by “radical Islamist nations” and others opposed to the U.S. “Iran and ISIS to whom he has granted benefits to acquire nuclear weapons. Full Article » |
| Haiti: flooding, constitutional upheaval – 3/1/2016 For close to a month, Haiti was in a leadership vacuum. Former president Marcel Martelly completed his term and stepped down February 7 without a successor, which put the already unstable country into a constitutional crisis. At a time with political upheaval, the country’s second-largest city, Cap-Haitien, was hit by terrible floods. Full Article » |
| Combating the harsh impact of winter on Syrian refugees – 3/1/2016 More than 13 million men, women and children are still displaced and in need of assistance. With the local Church in Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, and Syria to provide food, water, and more. We’ve been trying to get blankets, mattresses, warm clothing. Then a big thing is fuel for the stoves, little cook stoves that can be used safely inside of the shelters.” Full Article » |
| Cities of Refuge – 3/1/2016 We are going to see heaven and earth come back into agreement and alignment. There is going to be a major shift. Cities of refuge will have a blueprint carrying governmental authority to administrate the Kingdom. They will operate under the laws of heaven. A city of refuge is a place of government, a place where God’s Kingdom is established. Full Article » |
| More Top News Headlines » |
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