Prayer is an important expression of trust. (NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible)

In today’s Church, many great sermons have inspired crowds to have little to denote association with Christ’s commission to preach the Gospel, with signs following.

Mark 16:15-17

15 And then he told them, “Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone. 16 Anyone who believes and is baptized will be saved. But anyone who refuses to believe will be condemned. 17 These miraculous signs will accompany those who believe: (NLT)

RAPTURE READY 2

Val Gunter; Editor

The Gospel deviated from saving men’s souls from a burning Hell to psychological massaging alter-ego.

Worst yet, some churches won’t allow preaching about sin and Hell.

The primary function of the Church is to make disciples for the Lord while working together in their communities, demonstrating Yeshua’s love and compassion even for the non-Christian. 

This body of believers is called Ekklesia; the called out.

Ekklesia is the ones who the Jewish Messiah, Yeshua, has sealed or sanctified unto Himself. The Lord will return for His faithful. According to Jewish Traditions, it’s believed that waiting on the Lord is similar to a Jewish engagement. The engagement to a betrothed couple is more significant than the wedding. Unlike western countries, the bride and groom do not set the date of the wedding. 

Only the father has that privilege to set the date. 

Even though both parties have signed a marriage contract, the bridegroom can terminate the arrangement if he finds the bride has been unfaithful.

Here is the part every Christian should understand. The groom will come at an hour that the bride is unaware of; she is supposed to burn a lamp filled with oil to confer her love for her husband. The brighter the Lamp indicates her willingness to send the message to onlookers of the intense love for her groom. If she allows the oil to burn at low levels, the low combusting flames will stain her dress, and if the groom finds a stain on her dress, he will divorce her because of evidence of a lukewarm heart with low expectations, disbeliefs, and skepticisms.

How is it that Mary and Martha’s experience was Identical but yielded different results. Yeshua, King of Glory was about to discharge the miracle power that will give peace and hope to those who placed their trust in the Lamb of God’s ability to raise the dead. With the shout of the voice of and Arcangel, the dead in Christ shall rise from the grave.

Martha and Mary’s difference is that Martha ran out to the Messiah to let Him know that Lazerus, my brother is dead, and it’s all your fault. Perhaps Martha saw Yeshua as, you are here for us, so do what you do.

By contrast, Mary saw the suffering Messiah coming to give Himself for a ransom for our sin, which will save the lost from a burning Hell. Mary fell on her face, unlike Martha, and worshipped Christ our Lord. Amazingly, Yeshua stops walking where Martha meets Him and didn’t move from that spot until mary healed the moment with worship. Then the Lord said, “where have you laid him?”

The Satanic and dangerous thinking is the thought that GOD owes us something. And some people became angry with God who felt entitled.

Revelation 2:3-5

3 I know you are enduring patiently and are bearing up for My name’s sake, and you have not fainted or become exhausted or grown weary.

4 But I have this [one charge to make] against you: that you have left (abandoned) the love that you had at first [you have deserted Me, your first love].

5 Remember then from what heights you have fallen. Repent (change the inner man to meet God’s will) and do the works you did previously [when first you knew the Lord], or else I will visit you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you change your mind and repent. (AMPC)

Since the prophets, the Holy Spirit foretold of the approach of the King of Kings coming for His prepared Bride. The King of Glory, A King sent to collect the essences of the embodied souls of the “Called-Out Ones; the Ekklēsía.”

The Human Soul became the “Ekklēsía” by following written instructions of behavior. Both the Old Testament believers, who were called “synagogue,” and the New Testament “Ekklēsía” meant a worshipping body. The current world system of today offers many idols or time stealing distractions. And a few people discover why one searches for GOD.

However, the all-powerful GOD of the Hebrew nation warned HIS people to denounce this world system of love for sin, sex, Occult practices, and self-importance. The architect of both Old and New Testaments planned to destroy the contaminations of this world system by the Kingdom of Darkness. ADONAI attempted to sanctify Israel to HIMSELF, but because the Law had not the power to keep, it caused Israel not to see that ADONAI was keeping them out of HELL. 

At last, the realization was that Humans struggled with rules and regulations.

Again ADONAI, GOD of Israel, saw that the only hope for HIS people was to pour his Holy Spirit into them. At the feast on Pentecost, ADONAI will write on their hearts the Law of ADONAI, only if they are willing. The HOLY SPIRIT would teach the people of GOD how they should grow into His gift of grace and mercy.

The Son of Yahweh came and exposed the evil empire of SATAN, the instigator and lying wonder, who tempted Israel to sin against ADONAI.

But, Yeshua [Christ] would come and teach us all the deceptions of the Fallen Angel of God, plus leave HIS SPIRIT as guide and Teacher.

Jude 1:1

 Jude (Amplified Bible – AMP)

When the Messiah returns, will He find His people trusting the Word of GOD?

Those who use the Complete Jewish Bible, know how the English word “faith” was misunderstood and abused by the celebrity Preacher who builds million dollar ministries changing “Grace and Mercy into a License to sin.

Jude 1:3-4

3 Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I was compelled to write to you [urgently] appealing that you fight strenuously for [the defense of] the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints [the faith that is the sum of Christian belief that was given verbally to believers]. 4 For certain people have crept in unnoticed [just as if they were sneaking in by a side door]. They are ungodly persons whose condemnation was predicted long ago, for they distort the grace of our God into decadence and immoral freedom [viewing it as an opportunity to do whatever they want], and deny and disown our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. (Amplified Bible – AMP)

Luke 18:8

8 … But when the Son of Man comes, will he find this trust on the earth at all?” (CJB)

Romans 6:1-5

 1 WHAT SHALL we say [to all this]? Are we to remain in sin in order that God’s grace (favor and mercy) may multiply and overflow?

2 Certainly not! How can we who died to sin live in it any longer?

3 Are you ignorant of the fact that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

4 We were buried therefore with Him by the baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious [power] of the Father, so we too might [habitually] live and behave in newness of life.

5 For if we have become one with Him by sharing a death like His, we shall also be [one with Him in sharing] His resurrection [by a new life lived for God]. (AMPC)

People forget that Satan is the formal High Priest of ADONAI, and the devil’s role was to awaken mighty Angels into the worship of ADONAI. The great Lucifer is the highest qualified entity to take one to the edge of truth, leaving them incapable of being recovered or regaining their foothold on the truth.

Genesis 3:1-2

 1 NOW THE serpent was more subtle and crafty than any living creature of the field which the Lord God had made. And he [Satan] said to the woman, Can it really be that God has said, You shall not eat from every tree of the garden?

2 And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit from the trees of the garden, (AMPC)

As with Adam and Eve, Satan wants to lure Christ’s body of believers into a false simplification of the Grace of GOD. Even the Book of Romans, the Book of “Grace” is clear that Grace affords man entrance into ADONAI’S Divine Proximity, and with trust GOD,  The Almighty, makes them righteous in HIS sight.

Then, with a renewed mind and clean heart, they yield themselves unto GOD, who guides them through all truth because GOD is full of Grace and Mercy. 

Romans 6:12-14

12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.

13 Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.

14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the Law but under grace. (CWSB)

Satan can blind the minds of people who are already in love with their sensual lifestyle, mostly because it was their fault because they were on the edge of truth. 2 Corinthians 4:3-4

3 But even if our Gospel (the glad tidings) also be hidden (obscured and covered up with a veil that hinders the knowledge of God), it is hidden [only] to those who are perishing and obscured [only] to those who are spiritually dying and veiled [only] to those who are lost.

4 For the god of this world has blinded the unbelievers’ minds [that they should not discern the truth], preventing them from seeing the illuminating light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ (the Messiah), Who is the Image and Likeness of God. (AMPC)

The most important message is that at Christ’s returns, He will look for faithfulness observing the doctrine overcoming sin, not a faith that assists human beings in getting something from GOD, such as Martha, but loyalty that saves the soul from a burning Hell.

Romans 6:12-23

12 Therefore, do not let sin rule in your mortal bodies, so that it makes you obey its desires; 13 and do not offer any part of yourselves to sin as an instrument for wickedness. On the contrary, offer yourselves to God as people alive from the dead, and your various parts to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will not have authority over you; because you are not under legalism but under grace.

15 Therefore, what conclusion should we reach? “Let’s go on sinning because we’re not under legalism but under grace”? Heaven forbid! 16 Don’t you know that if you present yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, then, of the one whom you are obeying, you are slaves—whether of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to being made righteous? 17 By God’s grace, you, who were once slaves to sin, obeyed from your heart the pattern of teaching to which you were exposed; 18 and after you had been set free from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness. 19 (I am using popular language because your human nature is so weak.) For just as you used to offer your various parts as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led to more lawlessness; so now offer your various parts as slaves to righteousness, which leads to being made holy, set apart for God. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in relationship to righteousness; 21 but what benefit did you derive from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end result of those things was death. 22 However, now, freed from sin and enslaved to God, you do get the benefit—it consists in being made holy, set apart for God, and its end result is eternal life. 23 For what one earns from sin is death; but eternal life is what one receives as a free gift from God, in union with the Messiah Yeshua, our Lord. (CJB)

The Church came to a halt and stopped moving forward when we began to visualized GOD as the superhero of the world, rather than the Creator of the Cosmos inside Divine harmony.

The Holy Scriptures depicts ADONAI, the God of Israel, as a loving, faithful, structured disciplinarian, merciful and full of grace, to the faithful. Furthermore, HE is the only reason any of us survives today.

In HIS longsuffering HE gives humankind a choice and a chance of existence in the most tranquil and peaceful continuation of eternity, except for a highly unstable explosion of praise.

 Birmingham’s recent 24 hour Pentecost Prayer Watch was a demonstration of unity among diverse streams within the body of Christ. One or two hour prayer and worship segments were led by eight different churches/denominations, a Messianic Jewish congregation, four houses of prayer, a women’s group, a missions organization, and representatives from the business, education, non-profit communities. The purpose was to pray for revival in our city in accordance with II Chronicles 7:13-14.

   We believe this prayer and worship is to be continued in public places at various outdoor locations in the city. Business leaders, Martin & Dr. Kayla Briggs of ULECX Market, launched the initial gathering last Saturday at Railroad Park. Living Church Ministries, Abba’s House of Prayer and a professor from a local university are assisting them in this effort. Our next gathering will again be at Railroad Park this Sunday, July 5th at 8:00 AM. Please join us as we declare Jesus as King over our city and, in faith, believe that it will become a resting place for God’s glory and His manifest presence.

Revelation 22:14-17

14 How blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they have the right to eat from the Tree of Life and go through the gates into the city! 15 Outside are the homosexuals, those involved with the occult and with drugs, the sexually immoral, murderers, idol-worshippers, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. 16 “I, Yeshua, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the Messianic communities. I am the Root and Offspring of David, the bright Morning Star. 17 The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come!’ Let anyone who hears say, ‘Come!’ And let anyone who is thirsty come—let anyone who wishes, take the water of life free of charge.” (CJB)

Please help us with a gift. Many lives are being changed worldwide by this tool of ministry. Living Church Ministries, 401 Omega Street, Birmingham, Alabama, 35205 Phone 205-323-3733

Shortcode