Our skills reach their highest purpose in this day. You have been selected by God for this moment. Those skills will reach there highest meaning now because you brought yourself to God. And when He has you, He has what you have. These skills are his because you are his. For this day of special visitation He asked that you be led by Him, that you be used by Him, that you have the privilege of being accompanied by Him, and He asks and has made provision that you be like Him. Made like Him in your nature and in the work that you're doing.
My message this morning, I believe is something that has meaning and can become a part of everyday of our lives. It's not something that we hear and we move away from to something else. When God has made a statement, when God has laid a plan, that plan is fulfilled and goes into action. Praise God. But in this challenge of yielding ourselves to God, we cannot be what he wants us to be without His help, His power. So along time ago before He ever made the earth, God laid a plan where you could do the thing that God wanted you to do and that was by the help of His Holy Spirit.
Now there are a lot of different ideas out in the world today as to what this charismatic movement represents. Jesus received the promise of the Father and gave His Spirit to us. This was planned before the world was ever made. It was God's concern. One of God's priorities is that you be filled with the Holy Spirit. In speaking to me about this he said you can find reference to this when God gave Moses the plan for the tabernacle. Well, that tabernacle was actually a little miniature of God's great plan for the whole earth. He said it was taken from a pattern in heaven and given to Moses. There were some feasts that Israel was asked to observe. And each of these seven feasts referred to and symbolized these seven priorities that God has.
Well, one of these was the feast of Pentecost. It was something that was so important to God. It followed 50 days after the feast of Passover. The feast of Passover was symbolized by the separate stocks of wheat that were being waved before the Lord symbolizing the individual lives of the believers before Pentecost. There they were, these individual Christians. But God said, "I'm going to turn these individual Christians into a solid body, into a church; His body of believers. So the day of Pentecost 50 days later, instead of the single stocks of wheat, the wheat was ground into flour. And it was needed and made into loaves. Now on that day the feast was called the feast of Pentecost where the individual believers were all blended into one. God made it so real on that day of Pentecost and he had it recorded, they were all with one accord, they were all blended together. All of those individual disciples where each of them were going their own way, now they were all blended together, His body. Praise God.
Now God cannot stand sin, He cannot look upon sin. God has made a covering for us, His perfect Son, Jesus. The very word atonement means covering and he has covered us with that atonement. But so that we could see and His church, His believers would be able to know when they look at themselves and see some things that aren't perfect, they'd look at others and see some things that aren't perfect, they would not be discouraged and say I guess God didn't do His job. Do you know what God told them to do so that it would be a true picture? God wants us to know that in ourselves we're undone. There's a lot of weakness, there's a lot of imperfection. And we cannot be accepted on the basis of how good we are. Though his plan is that we become like Jesus, and His Spirit has been given to us to help us fulfill this plan. We can never be accepted on the basis of how good we are.
We have to be accepted on the basis of what Jesus Christ has done for us. And He's covered us. So in showing this symbolically how important it was, He said to Moses, "Take some leaven which is a type of sin and mix the leaven in this bread and this bread is a type of the church. There are some things that may not be perfect but the atonement is covering them. And they're accepted in the atonement. But he said when they come to me for fellowship as an individual he said at the table of showbread there was absolutely no leaven in that bread. He said, "When I sit there and I look at them and I talk with them their lives are covered, it's all gone." Hallelujah. The coming of the Holy Spirit was not just to give us a good time. There were two purposes that God had in mind. The first purpose was to give you power to be like Jesus. God wants us like Jesus. He sees us like Jesus. He wants the world to see us like Jesus. So he said if you're going to look like Him you are to have his nature, his Spirit. So I want you to have the Spirit of Jesus in you. And so on that day of Pentecost when the Spirit was outpoured, it was not the dynamic things that they were doing that stirred up Jerusalem.
satan thought that he had put Jesus to death; his followers thought that they had put Jesus to death. But God said, "I'm going to give this nature, this same Spirit that motivated and made Jesus what He was, I'm going to give that same Spirit to all of the people that follow Him. And so on that day the Spirit was given and the world didn't know what in the world to think. They didn't know what happened. They said, "Here we put him to death, we put Jesus to death, he gave us so much trouble, just one person. And now here we find Jesus is walking all over the place. People who have His Spirit within them are all over the place."
God wants to produce His own likeness in us by His Spirit. Unless you have the Spirit of Jesus, you will not be like Jesus. He's given us His Spirit. The reason for the coming of the Spirit was to give us power to be like Jesus. The second purpose was giving us power to do like Jesus. And that is power to help us accomplish the things that Jesus accomplished in alleviating the hurts, the cares, and the needs of people. Do you know that the manifestations and the ministries of the Holy Spirit were never given just to be signs for people? The Lord would never perform a sign just to show people a sign. Do you know why He performed those miracles? Somebody had a need and Jesus cared about people and He wanted to alleviate the need. Praise God. And God is still doing that today. He said where people are hurting that's where I live, and I want to lift those burdens and I have some people that I have poured the Spirit of Jesus into.
So remember this, the first thing, you can never do like Jesus, have that power to do, it will never work until you recognize the power to be. That's called the fruit of the Spirit, the likeness of Jesus in your life. This is the truth. Go out with that Spirit of Jesus; let the world see Jesus in you. What the world needs is Jesus, just a glimpse of Him. The world needs Jesus more than food, more than clothing, more than peace, more than anything because He becomes to them all that they need. Jesus, all we need is in Jesus. So we have been selected by God today in whatever position we're in to be a Jesus. Let the world see Him through us. Isn't that a beautiful task that God gave you to do, to be like Jesus? I just love some of those choruses, "To be like Jesus, to be like Him."
Today is communion Sunday and one of the ways we can be like Him is to recognize what God has really done for us. One of the other priorities that came first was God's appreciation of the blood of Jesus Christ. God's recognition, His feeling toward that blood, its top priority that we recognize our position in the Lord. In that it refers to the body of the Lord. This truth that I brought you at the last communion service discerning His Body is not a truth that we brought to fill up a little time on a Sunday morning and then move on to something else, something that would give us a little shot in the arm for that time. It's something that God has promised to recognize forever. And He wants us to be able to recognize it forever. And with that in mind I'm going to read again words that the audible voice of the Spirit gave to me a month ago. I've read these many times in times of devotion because I know where it came from. Often times these truths take several hearings to really have the meaning that God intended.
The Holy Spirit said, "Write, preserve the words I have spoken to you. They shall become a light to many. I will not only minister through you but I will accompany these words and give them life wherever sent even as I have already given wings to my messages brought to you by the angel of the Lord. Fear not to speak in His name for the words I give are not your words but His words and are established forever. Are they not found in his eternal living word? Long closed doors of many peoples and nations will be penetrated by these words of life. I command the hosts of the Lord who have been sent forth for this hour to hasten the gathering together unto Him a people for his name and to prepare them for that great day of the Lord. They will both precede and follow these words from the Father to make ready the people, to scatter the forces of darkness, and to gently care for the multitudes who will hear. Because of the accusations of satan, because of the daily reminders of sin, of failure, and of human weakness you often forget what He has done for you. You must be reminded, you must remember, God in His wisdom has provided a time and a way for this to be accomplished. This is the purpose of His holy communion, a time to remember what He has done. Here he asks us to look upon His body. To see your sin and the sins of the world placed on Him by God. Every lie, every sin against yourself or others, murder, all adultery, all immorality, all dishonesty, all cheating, all rebellion and idolatry, all enmity through witchcraft and Satanism, yes everything with which you could be charged with is laid on Him. He has become sin bearing the concentrated dregs of the rottenness of billions of people. He points to his body, to your sin and tells you your sin is already judged, you are free. As you behold him smitten of God with the searing stroke of His judgment you see there the canceled sin of the world. With this reminder of your peace with Him you can speed the message to the world, that you can come now you have been accepted, that God's wrath has been turned away. The heart of his plan is the sacrifice of Jesus. He tasted death for you. See him as the spotless Lamb prepared. See him now, the sin bearer coming before God with filthy garments. See him stricken of God. See him now as the high priest sprinkling His blood in heaven over the book of the covenant. See him totally remove the need for pardon by removing the remembrance of sin." Hallelujah.
Today as we observe once again at communion time he asks us to discern, to see this body that was made sin and absorbed the stroke of God's wrath that was directed towards us. He diverted that stroke of judgment and wrath to his own body. You remember in that service I emphasized to you the meaning of that burned sacrifice. God chose that this sacrifice of the Old Testament be burned in order to perfectly symbolize the fiery stroke of His judgment upon his perfect sacrifice Jesus. And so as that body of that sacrifice, that heifer was turned to ashes. All of the sins of that Old Testament time that were placed upon that heifer were burned. And those ashes were held in remembrance, taken and placed in a clean place where they could be recognized as the cleansing and the acceptance, and the mark of acceptance of the people that came and put their faith in that sacrifice. So Jesus came and I want to read from Hebrews 10. As you see not a little piece of bread, but as you see it, see there the ashes, see there the cinders of those sins that satan would hold up before you and accuse you of. See there those sins that he would remind you of day after day. There they are, already judged, nothing but empty cinders. There power to hurt you destroyed.
So God says He has made a plan where as we observe this time we can close out the many voices of the world, the accusations of satan and we can look again and say there is the remains of my sin. Hebrews 10:4. He's speaking here about what Jesus did. "For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Therefore when He came into the world he said, "Sacrifice and offering you would not, but a body have you prepared for Me?" In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you had no pleasure," then he said, "I come in the volume in the book it was written of me to do thy will oh God." Above when he said sacrifice you would not, these only cause the sin to be covered a year at a time. Then He said, "I have come to do your will oh God. We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all. "Every priest stands daily ministering an offering which can never take away sins. But this man after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever sat down on the right hand of God. For by one offering he had perfected forever those that are sanctified."
What does sanctified mean? God's meaning of sanctification is the adaptation of His life to the human body. Those who have accepted His life have been covered; have been made part of His family. One sacrifice forever. So today ask God to let you see the burned cinders of sins that have plagued you. See not only those things that have been a part of your past, the idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, wrath, all of these things. See not only those things but there are some things as you behold ashes of things that you have not even committed yet that may happen tomorrow or the next day as you may be ensnared in some way. There's not going to be some other sacrifice. Every sin of this whole world was laid on Him. He became sin for us and the stroke of God's judgment hit it. A man can go out and can say I'm going to take care of my own death penalty. But God is calling and he said "the news is good, you can come now, you can be accepted, and somebody else took your place."
Today as you observe this communion would you ask God to help you to see what it really means to see His body? When you see His body you will see your sins are already gone, they're judged. And you can say in your heart, "I am free. I have been accepted." Discern, see His body. And as you see it you will not be a sick Christian, a weak Christian. You will be a strong Christian because of what Jesus has done. I encourage those of you who may have never accepted Christ as of yet to partake of this communion. I'd like to have you take of the cup and of the bread and as you hold it in your hand just send up a word to the Lord, "Father I'm putting my faith in what You've done." And God is going to be made happy because of what you've done. People who have struggled and wrestled with sin, honest hearted believers, when God has allowed them to catch a glimpse of His body, and there they have seen the burned out cinders of these things that they were struggling with, immediately God helped them to rise above that thing. Would you carry this message to somebody this week? Let them know that the stroke of God's wrath has been diverted. Jesus took it.
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