When Jesus cried, “It is finished” on the cross, something ended, and when He rose from the grave, something started. The law of sin and death was conquered. The lamb that had been slain from the foundation of the world was manifested. The law that was unto death was replaced by the law of life in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:2). When He rose from the grave, Jesus brought forth a redeemed people. Believers are a part of the resurrection life of Jesus. Our body, soul, and spirit have been redeemed from the curse of sin and death. If we will believe, our bodies no longer have to suffer. The body has been cleansed by the blood of Jesus. There is a greater truth than healing that the Lord wants us to understand. As divine life is ours, so is divine health. As members of the perfect body of Christ, sickness will be taken away, and healing will be for a sign to the unbelievers. This is not to be taken as some strange teaching, but it is a basic fact of our redemption. Jesus has paid the price for our total redemption. It is ours by believing and receiving the complete plan of redemption.

One of the hardest things to do is nothing. Nothing is what Jesus has left for us to do. This does not mean that there will be no activity on our part, but it does mean that it will not be us doing it for God. God will be doing the work through us, and at the same time we will be changing into what He wants. The plan of God works without us making it work, our part is to believe Him. The sons of God will be what the Father wants and nothing more or less. It is possible to create our own ministry, but only God can produce in you His true ministry. Our whole life now depends on the will of the Father and what He wants us to do.

If we plan our own lives, how can we say as did Paul, “...I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me...” (Galatians 2:20)?

The Christ within wants to be able to show forth His glory to the world through us. This takes us completely out of the way of the law of death and puts us in the law of the Spirit of life. Now instead of living by the letter of the Word, the Word becomes spirit and life in us. The Word of God is the same Word, only now it is alive in us. It is God's Word that makes us complete after  our sins are forgiven. As the Word opens to our understanding what Jesus is, this knowledge then makes His plan of redemption for the whole man ours. Please do not think that all of this takes place overnight. Just because your favorite minister gave forth a truth and you understood it, does not make it yours. The truth only becomes yours as God brings you to the place you can use it. The need for God's healing power should not cause you condemnation. He knows that each time we reach out to Him, our understanding of Him is becoming more perfect.

Jesus is Lord not only of our lives, but of our salvation too. Without Him there would be no redemption and no inheritance with God. Jesus has made it possible for us to ask the Father and receive from Him what we ask. It is true that God is faithful to His Word. His Word is His will to us. It is important for us to remember that we are joint-heirs with Jesus—not His boss. Even though we are joint-heirs, Jesus is still the head of the body. It is the head that decides what is best for the body. It is possible for the body to tell the head what it needs, but it is up to the head to know what is best for the need. The plan of God for us is complete in Jesus.

Not everything is given to us at once. It is true that everything that has been won for us is ours. The thing that makes it so wonderful is that it is ours as a body. No one ministry, or member of the body, is able to carry out the plan of God alone. Togetherness, or unity, is becoming a very needful part of this closer walk with the Master in the Spirit. It is not a person Jesus is wanting, but a body of which He is head. The perfect man of Ephesians 4:13 will not be us as individuals, but us as a member of that many-membered body. The Spirit is bringing us together, not so we can build another large man-made church, but that we will be able to move as a body in all parts of the world. One of the great things that has been so important for us to realize is that what has been happening all over the world today by the Spirit of God has been done outside of what we have called churches. It has been God showing us that we do not need the large buildings for Him to move. Great and wonderful changes have been taking place in the lives of people in the most unusual places: ballrooms, school gyms, auditoriums of all kinds, store buildings, and, of course, we must not forget homes. This has shown to us that the church is not some building. The church is God's people wherever they may gather together. According to Acts 28:30-31, the Apostle Paul preached two years in his own hired house.

This has truly been God's move, and no one can take the glory for it but God. If it has been His move from the beginning, why should it not continue to be His move. We have not been ordained to move the Spirit, but the Spirit has been ordained of God to move us. There is a work going on in the children of God that the eye of man cannot see. Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, and we are with Him in heavenly places. I wish we could take the time to go over each little detail, but there is no room at this time. God will reveal to you what we have gotten you started in, and that will make it even more glorious to you. The work of the cross is greater than we have seen so far.

GRIEVE NOT THE SPIRIT (Ephesians 4:29-32)

One of the greatest things that the Spirit has to offer a believer is freedom from bondage. One of the quickest ways to grieve the Spirit is for the believers, once freed, to go back under what the Spirit has freed them from. Remember that the Spirit has but one Lord and that is Jesus. However, the Spirit is housed in our bodies once we have received it.

Just as you had to come out of formal religious orders to receive the Holy Spirit, so must you remain out of them to be used of the Holy Spirit. Fellowships that have been formed in order that they may worship God in Spirit and truth must not impose the same laws that kept the Spirit of God from moving in the fellowships or church groups that they came out of. The Spirit must be allowed expression in our lives and places of worship.

The denomination that I was in did not believe that tongues were the sign for receiving the Holy Spirit. When I received the sign of tongues I had to leave my denomination. I would have had to quench the Holy Spirit and despise prophesyings in order to stay. The Word of God tells us not to do either. 1 Thessalonians 5:19-20.

In the passage of scripture from Ephesians, where we get this phrase “grieve not the Spirit,” it is talking about communication. As Spirit-filled believers, our communication should be edifying. It grieves the Spirit when we minister and speak the same hopeless words to each other that the world speaks. In the Spirit we are to speak only good edifying things to each other. This is easier said than done, but it can be done in the Spirit.

Man can only see the visible things that surround him. But the Spirit sees Jesus who is in the image of God and has everything under control. “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him” (Colossians 2:6).

The Holy Spirit is our guide into the things of the Lord. We are to be led by the Spirit and not try to lead the Spirit. In order for the Spirit to have the freedom to lead us, we must come out from under man's control.

Jesus is to be the head of all things to the believer. “For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power” (Colossians 2:9-10).

 Only in the Spirit can we know this complete and wonderful place of dwelling in Jesus. The powers of darkness can no longer keep true believers from receiving the fulness of Jesus into their lives. There is no reason to stop what God has started. This only grieves the Holy Spirit. It is time to come out of worldly man-made religions and come into Jesus. The Word of God should be the words that come forth from the mouths of true believers.

No longer should those that are filled with the Holy Spirit speak as the world does. Our message must be reassuring and edifying.

Far too long, the chosen of the Lord have come out of bondage only to allow man once again to lead them into greater bondage. The Spirit of God moves and draws the people from following after man to following Jesus, but it does not take long for man to want to reorganize things. It is the same old bondage, just new leadership. Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would lead us into all truth. God has not set lords over us. Only Jesus is to be Lord over His people.

True unity can only come through the Spirit of God. Jesus asked the Father, “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee...” Whether we want to be one or not, we are going to be one in the Spirit. You know that we cannot be one in the natural. Every one of us are from different backgrounds. In the natural we would probably clash. We may clash already in the natural, but the Spirit is causing us to become one. The ultimate potential is there already. At present the Holy Spirit is teaching us to flow with each other in the Spirit. Let us lay aside the robe of flesh, lay aside the creation in the natural and begin to flow together in the Spirit. This is when the Spirit really begins to take over, when we stop flowing with man and start flowing together in the Spirit. It is ingathering time, and we are to be gathered unto Him, JESUS.