We I got saved in 1971, I left the secular band that I was playing in. I turned my life and my talent towards the Lord. It seems to me that the Lord honored that and helped me turn my music God ward. I met some other guys and we started a Christian band playing at churches and coffee houses around the Midwest. Those were exciting days during the Jesus Revolution, many people were coming to Christ. It truly was a wonderful time of revival and in gathering. I found myself putting scripture to music, trying to capture something of the Spirit of the Word. I have done this for many years with the help of the Helper. I put the Lord’s Prayer to music and entitled it Our Father, hope you are touched by it.
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I have always loved the KJV version of John 6:63, “It is the Spirit that quickeneth!”. It might be because my first Bible was a KJV (King James Version), after a while I switched to the NASB (New American Standard Bible). The NASB says “it is the Spirit that gives life”. The Greek word there means “To make that which was dead to live, cause to live, quicken”.
If left to ourselves, we could try to figure out what that means. But we do have examples in the Bible to help us. The first one is in Matthew 16 when Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do men say that I am?”. Peter was the one who said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!”. Jesus commends Peter and tells him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven”. It was the Spirit that quickened Peter!
How long had Peter walked with Jesus before he had received this divine revelation? This for him was a foretaste of what was going to happen to him on the day of Pentecost. This revelation by the Spirit had not happened to any of the other disciples. Peter along with the other disciples would still abandon Jesus at the crucifixion. Peter himself would deny the Lord three times. But that did not mean that Peter did not still love the Lord. What a trial it was for them.
What changed at Pentecost? Peter and the disciples were completely “quickened”, they were made alive by what Jesus had promised. In John 14:16 Jesus told the disciples “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; 17that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be in you”. What a difference! When Peter preached at Pentecost, he is a different person, he is a Spiritual man, quickened and helped by the Spirit. It says that three thousand were saved and baptized and filled with the Spirit. That promised Helper, the “Spirit of Truth” is still available to us today through Christ. Oh how we need help to walk the Christian life!
In John 7, Jesus tells us, “If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified”. At Pentecost, the Spirit became available to the disciples and to us!! The Helper that Jesus promised to send came!!
Think about it, Jesus tells us we can receive the Spirit, the Helper, and have “living water flowing out of our innermost being”! We will receive spiritual blessings, or communications of divine grace, in so great an abundance, that we shall not only be refreshed and comforted and helped ourselves, but we shall be instrumental in refreshing and comforting and helping others. Is that not why the Spiritual gifts are given, for the common good? It is not just for our own blessing; it is to flow from our innermost being to others as the Spirit leads.
If we can be reminded of this and ask the Lord to continually be a Help to us, would there be more outpouring not only on ourselves but outward to others? I encourage you to seek the Lord more concerning this, and to meditate more on His Word. Deepen your relationship with the Lord, “for out of your innermost being will flow rivers of living water”.
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The Psalms have been so important in my life! Our lives are filled with ups and downs! I have been so encouraged by the Psalms in my down times over the years, if the Lord had not been my strength, I would have failed. My enemies were too strong for me. Psalm 18:17 “He delivered me from my strong enemy, And from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me”.
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In Acts 1, we find Jesus giving final instructions to the disciples before His ascension into Heaven. They are still not quite understanding what is going to transpire when the Holy Spirit comes upon them. They are still thinking in worldly terms. In Acts 1:6-8 it says- “So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
It is interesting that they asked this question. It was the wrong question! It was not answered by Jesus. Did they not remember that earlier in His Ministry, Jesus had predicted the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple (Matt 24)? Did they not remember that? They saw His glory and power, and naturally thought about the restoration of the kingdom to Israel. They still had a natural mindset. Jesus did not answer them, and He did not remind them of what He had prophesied against Jerusalem. About 40 years later, the destruction that He had predicted came to Jerusalem. In 70 AD, Titus, the future Roman emperor, worked his way thru Israel, destroying city after city, and eventually destroying all of Israel and the temple.
After Jesus had ascended to heaven and before the siege of Jerusalem, the church age began. God used the Apostles mightily during those years. Heb 2:4 “And God confirmed the message by giving signs and wonders and various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit whenever He chose”. The Gospel went out to Jews and Greeks, to ALL the nations! Never before had this happened! The kingdom of God had come!!!!
When they had asked Him if He was going to restore the kingdom to Israel, He told them that it was not for them to know the times or the seasons. Jesus’ teaching had been all about the Kingdom of God having come to earth, about the circumcised in heart, Jews and gentiles!! The true Israel. The promises of God are for those who are children of the promise– it is the work of the sovereign God, creating children out of what no human being can do. By faith in Jesus, all people can be reckoned as part of the Kingdom of God. I don’t think the disciples understood this till after Pentecost. But God used them to fulfill the great mandate, that all the nations would hear the Gospel message and the message of the Kingdom of God. Their understanding was opened when they received the Holy Spirit. Their mind was no longer set on natural things, but on Spiritual things. What a difference! What a Kingdom!
May we all have our hearts and minds set on the Kingdom of God!!
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“Come let us return to the LORD. For He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us. He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day, that we may live before Him. So let us know, let us press on to know the LORD. His going forth is as certain as the dawn; And He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain watering the earth.” Hosea 6:1-3
30 years ago, after a severe trial, I put this verse to music. Maybe it will touch you.
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The Latent Power of the Soul- Preface- Watchman Nee
“When in 1924 I first called the attention of God’s children to the dividing of spirit and soul, many well-disposed brethren thought of it as merely a dispute over words having no great significance. What they failed to see was that our conflict is not concerned with word but with that which lies behind. The spirit and the soul are two totally different organs: one belongs to God, while the other belongs to man. By whatever names one may call them, they are completely distinct in substance. The peril of the believer is to confuse the spirit for the soul and the soul for the spirit, and so be deceived into accepting, the counterfeit of’ evil spirits to the unsettling of’ God’s work.
This series of articles had originally been intended to be written immediately following the completion (in 1928) of The Spiritual Man. But because of physical weakness and the heavy burden of other service, I was only able to have them published in last year’s issues of Revival magazine. In response to the request of its readers, I now put forth this booklet.
The greatest advantage in knowing the difference between spirit and soul is in perceiving the latent power of the soul and in understanding its falsification of the power of the Holy Spirit. Such knowledge is not theoretical but practical in helping people to walk in God’s way.
Just last night I was reading what F. B. Meyer once said in a meeting shortly before his earthly departure. Here is a section of it: “This is an amazing fact that never has there been so much spiritualism outside the church of Christ as is found today . . . Is it not factual that in the lower part of our human nature the stimulation of the soul is quite prevailing? Nowadays the atmosphere is so charged with the commotion of all kinds of counterfeit that the Lord seems to be calling the church to come to a higher ground.”* Today’s situation is perilous. May we “prove all things; hold fast that which is good” (1 Thess. 5.21).” Amen.
Watchman Nee March 8, 1933
The insight that Watchman Nee had in 1924 is amazing. And it is amazing how relevant that insight is for today. This information is not new, we are told about it in both the New Testament and the Old Testament. I will only share one scripture from each Testament, since serious study and meditation are encouraged.
Hebrew 4:12 “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart”. That really is the matter of the whole thing, isn’t it? Being able to judge the intentions of the heart? Since so much of what we see today has the soul as it’s source and not the Spirit. How can we sort it all out? Whenever you see hype in the church, is that not usually created by the soul? When there is a sweet presence of the Lord in our midst, you can always tell that it is “different”, is is “holy”, something that is “other”. It is “holy, set apart”.
In the Old Testament, Ezekiel 22:26 “Her priests have done violence to My law and have profaned My holy things; they have made no distinction between the holy and the profane, and they have not taught the difference between the unclean and the clean; and they hide their eyes from My sabbaths, and I am profaned among them”.
The Lord has always made a distinction between what is “holy” and what is “profane”, between what is of the “soul” and what is of the “Spirit”. It is safe to say that the Spirit is holy and set apart, and the soul is profane, unholy or as some translations put it, they are “common”. That is the distinction.
We all want God in our midst, to see Him move on our behalf. But we must learn to discern between what is of the “soul’ and what is of the “Spirit”. How do we do that? Well, we ask God to help us! We hold all things up to the light of the scriptures. We press in to the study of God’s Word. Knowing the scriptures is of vital importance. We must learn to walk by the Spirit in all things.
Free book download- The Latent Power of the Soul by Watchman Nee at
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Deuteronomy 8:2-3 “And you shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. And He humbled you and let you be hungry and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD”.
It would be a hard lesson to learn in our modern convenient culture, that God would actually allow you to go hungry. That He would actually test you to see what was in your heart. What form could that testing take in our modern world? Would there be anything off the table so to speak? There is some mystery in understanding how God works in our lives, Paul tells us in Romans 8:28 that “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose”. Does that mean all things? What will He allow in our lives in this fallen world?
One of the worst things that I can think of, that God used for good, was Jesus dying on the cross for our sins. It doesn’t get any worse than that. Who has been tested at a greater level than Jesus? Who has been abused more? Especially considering His perfect, sinless life? I do not minimize anyone’s trials or abuse. Or anyone’s severe testing! Like Jesus, we must have our own Gethsemane. We must have our own “wrestling with God” in order to find His peace with the way He has allowed things in our lives.
When we read in Genesis of Joseph and the trials that he went thru, we get a glimpse of how God can work in our lives. It shows the providence and sovereignty of God. In relation to Joseph, we read in Psalm 105:19 “Until the time that his word came to pass, the word of the LORD tested him”. Joseph was tested and came through that test. I encourage you to read the story of Joseph.
Even Paul was given a thorn in the flesh to keep him humble, God would not heal him. Can we handle that God would not heal him? In 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 Paul tells us, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, yet our inner self is being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory that is far beyond comparison. So, we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal”. When God tests us, it produces “an eternal weight of glory” that is beyond comparison.
John 16:33 “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
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A great message from my good friend Storm Bailey!
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“A little common sense is better than a weak leading”. -Zion Faith Homes
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