For the clergy to organize themselves with one rank over another until they are finally headed up by a president is a manifestation of the antichrist spirit, regardless of how wonderful and necessary it may seem. It is nothing but human reasoning taking the place of the Word.

William M. Branham, “A Resume of the Ages”, An Exposition of the Seven Church Ages

Did you know that you can have all the form of “Church”, and not have God?

Let’s take a little walk down history lane.  1 Kings 18 shows a good “church service”.  Two of them, in fact.  Two churches, on the same hill-top, eaching having services.  One service was the first church of the Baal prophets, complete with altar, worship service, sacrifice, and even wood.  I hear they sat somewhere near 850 faithful, plus the general congregation.  The second, was the much smaller one.  It wasn’t nearly as fancy.  In fact, I hear it was all wet.  But, they too, had their altar, their wood, their sacrifice.  And, they only had one minister, instead of the hundreds.  But, they seemed happy, so why not let them be?

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Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

John 14:6

It doesn’t matter what version you read it in, Jesus is the way, He is THE Truth, and He is the life, the only life.  The gospel is the power of God unto salvation for all that believe (1 Peter 1:5).

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Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

Matthew 7:21-23

The Way is not power, it is faithfulness.  The path is not promotion, it is servant-hood.  The gift is not yours, it is theirs (2 Corinthians 1:6).  The road is not wide, it is narrow.

Jesus said plainly, unless you hate father, mother, sister, brother, children, spouse, even your own life, you cannot be His disciple (Luke 14:26).  He said quite distinctly that if you love someone else more than Him, you are not worthy of Him (Matthew 10:37).

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Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

James 1:27

Paul wrote that the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love (Galatians 5:6).  True religion is a good thing, as opposed to the thing commonly called the “religious spirit”, aka, the demonic force of blindness, deafness, and mere rules.  True religion expresses faith through an attitude of love.  The word “expresses” here means it does something.  As James wrote elsewhere, faith without works is dead (James 2:26).  Religion does something, it is both forward and reserved, but always after some goal.

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The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”

Matthew 13:10

1 Peter 1:8 talks about “joy unspeakable” and “full of glory”.  Suppose you had experienced this “joy unspeakable”, and had to explain it to someone else.  How would you do that?  Well, about the best way you could put it would be that it is, in fact, “joy”, and, it’s so incredible, it’s “unspeakable”, so that words do not even seem to do it justice.  That would be about it.  You could, perhaps, get a few more adjectives in there.  It was so “glorious”.  But, unless someone else had even seen “glorious”, they wouldn’t get it.  You would be more or less stuck, unable to explain it to them.

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According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it.  For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.  Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw,  each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work.  If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward.  If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

1 Corinthians 3:10-15

A man set out one day to build something in following after God.  He did only what He sees the Father do, He spoke only His Father gave Him.  He wrote no books, built no organization, established no hierarchy, and built no buildings.  His work stands today, outside of time, outside of everything.

Today, we establish works.  We build buildings.  We write manuals and church government manuals.  We learn, study, and write leadership guides.

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In case you want to know, it costs everything.

Jesus said, Unless you hate your life, you cannot be His disciple (Luke 14:26).  He said that unless you forsake everything, you cannot be His disciple.  He said, you will always love one and hate the other.  Wavering between two opinions only lasts so long.

In case you want to know, it does cost everything.  And, you can’t go back.  If you look at the life of Lot, you can’t even LOOK back (Luke 17:32).

Consider it this way, you were dead in your transgressions and sins.  There was nothing in your old flesh that could be patched up.  God didn’t fix your heart, He gave you a new one!

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They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

Acts 2:42

After the day of Pentecost, after the outpouring of the Spirit, and after the 3000 who were saved in an afternoon through Peter’s stand and preaching, this short verse describes what they considered important.

This verse has several similar to it in the New Testament, as a word study on such words as “devoted” demonstrates, but it is the first, listing four parts that were what they “devoted themselves to”.  Whether it was an exhaustive list is not the point, but simply that these four were important enough to be mentioned.

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By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.

Hebrews 11:3

The whole of the Christian walk is in the unseen, which manifests into the seen.

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For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12

In waves of revival, manifestations come and go.  Many opinions are formed, shared, and contested with.  But, one thing remains, and that is the Eternal Kingdom of God, the mystery of the Holy Spirit, Christ within, “God With Us”, Emmanuel.

That which we see is not always what it is, and that which we cannot see often goes unnoticed, undiscerned, and hence, under  addressed.

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