The persistent peril through the ages of Christianity is to crystallize itself into something set, something fixed. You have some light, some revelation, something of the immensity of truth, just a fragment of it, and it is not long before you begin to form that into a set system and make it the limit, saying that this is what people must believe, they must come within this horizon, and they must behave like this. It becomes a system again: "You must... you must not!" and there is no difference between that and the Old Testament "Thou shalt... thou shalt not!"

Christianity has fallen into that peril, and is continually doing it, circumscribing the great revelation, making Christ smaller than He is, crystallizing truth into something fixed and set: "This is how..." and the meaning of that is: "This is the ultimate." Now you notice that when the Spirit did come, as we have the record in the Book of the Acts, the one thing that these old Jewish disciples experienced was a marvelous emancipation from that bondage of Judaism; and how the Holy Spirit was working all along against any fixed barriers!

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My wife and I went to pay our respects and farewell an old friend at a funeral service. We knew the couple were churchgoers and which denomination to which they belonged, yet I found the service to be quite a culture shock, as it was conducted in a tradition far removed from that to which we were accustomed.

I could handle the responsive readings from the Word, even though they were displayed on an impersonal screen at the front (I prefer the feel of a Bible in my hand), but I was unable to put any feeling behind the written prayers.

All through my life, in four different denominations (I was recognized as a minister of the gospel in three of them), public prayers were always straight from the heart and never read. Period. To us, reading written prayers never even made it to the ceiling! The only exception was the prayer the Lord taught his disciples, and some even disliked that in a public service. I'm told it is good to get out of your comfort zone, and I was certainly uncomfortable as I stood and listened to those around me saying the prayers and responding at the right moment when the minister read his bit.

I once viewed on television a re-run of an interview with Pastor E.V. Hill of the Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, California. A powerful preacher of the gospel and an advocate of black rights, he was asked to give the invocation at the second inauguration of Richard Nixon as President in 1973. A week or two before, he received a call from the inauguration committee asking if they could have a copy of the prayer for the order of service. Pastor Hill replied, "But I haven't prayed it yet!" God bless him! They eventually understood the tradition he was coming from and allowed the change in the usual proceedings for such an important event.

I'm not saying a tradition other than my own is wrong, but I still cannot get my head around how a prayer read from a screen or prayer book can be an "earnest, heartfelt prayer." We took our prayer examples from the book of Acts, such as "And when they had prayed, the place was shaken..." (4:31) and "Peter... knelt down and prayed; and turning to the body he said, Tabitha, arise. And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up" (9:40), and see also Acts 16:25 and 28:8. I'm all for prayer that gets results!

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"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (verse 1 ESV), and the rest of the verse as given in KJV, NKJV, Amplified, etc., does not appear in the most ancient manuscripts and has been interpolated from verse 4 by later scribes (copyists). "There is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus", period. I thank God I am not condemned because I read the Sunday paper. I thank God I am not condemned because I go to the movie theatre or I participate in mixed bathing or any of the other injunctions that one of my former denominations insisted I obey. I now have no condemnation. You too should realize there is no condemnation from God for ever, as you are in Christ Jesus.

I suspect nearly everybody reading this has heard the verse before, time and time again. It is not a license to sin; it is your liberty in Christ. There is a difference. Just because there is no condemnation you do not say "I'm going to go out on Saturday night and paint the town red" and hope that God forgives you Sunday morning. We used to have the saying about young men who would go out and sow their wild oats on Saturday night and pray for a crop failure on Sunday morning! "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." There is only one question you have to ask, Am I in Christ Jesus? And if I know that I know that I know I'm in Christ Jesus and reckon the fact, and present myself to God as that, there is therefore now no condemnation.

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?" (Romans 8:35). This not to do with our love towards Christ, but Christ's love to us, as is also apparent in verse 39. Seven items are mentioned as possible challenges to separate us from the love of Christ. All will try but all will fail.

Paul gives a solid and unequivocal answer in verse 37, "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." When God says "No", that's exactly what He means. "More than conquerors" is from a Greek word only used here in the New Testament. "Overwhelming victory is ours through Christ" (NLT). Know it, reckon it, accept it. You, yes you, are a victor because Christ is a victor; it is "through him who loved us". Act, talk, look like a conqueror. Like my friend Jack Hunt always said, "Walk down the street as if you own one side and you're thinking about buying the other!"

-- Adapted from Peter Wade's new book In Christ, Christ In: The power of your position and His prescence.

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The certainty and the assurance that was right at the root of his (Paul's) Christian life and service came because of this one thing: he'd seen everything in Jesus. Everything... in Jesus. What liberation that brought to him! What emancipation! We have often said here that there was no power in this world that could have turned that rabid, fanatical Jew, Saul of Tarsus, into a Christian and a lover of Jesus of Nazareth. No power in this world that could have done that, but just seeing Jesus Himself in this way, and that did it, that did it! He was emancipated, he was free!

No wonder of all his writings the fiercest, the fieriest is his letter to the Galatians, the letter of our liberty in Christ and it begins with this "God revealed His Son in me and that set me free from all other things" (verse 16). No use telling people that this and that, and the other thing are a limitation and that they should seek enlargement by getting out of it. That is an unfruitful, unprofitable, indeed that's a dangerous line to take with anybody. But again, if only we can bring Christ... with all His Divine significance and meaning and comprehensiveness to them and the Holy Spirit can reveal Him in their hearts... oh, that will do it! That will do it; they will never again be content with anything that limits them to the grave clothes of religion.

It delivered Paul from Judaism as nothing else would have done. The way of an escape, the way of enlargement, the way of endurance is to see Jesus. It is not by learning, that is, it is not by the schools. Paul had all of the schools, he did, of religion. He didn't get it through the schools and we'll never get it through the schools; along that line of the technical instruction of things Christian or religious. This is not a merely mental or academic or intellectual thing at all. It is a work of the Holy Spirit.

From: Revelation of Jesus Christ, Chapter 7, read the whole book online.

For strength to overcome and press on, only a revelation by the Holy Spirit in us can suffice — but it can! A revelation that is within one's spirit and not a mental appreciation of truth, even though it is truth about God. Oh, the power to be able to say "I KNOW," not "I have heard or read," but "I KNOW." It is an experience nothing can rob us of. It is absolutely essential to have this revelation by the Holy Spirit because we have to meet forces of evil against which nothing can stand save that which is of God. "In pressure Thou hast enlarged me." How? Because of the constant uprising of the Life within. Trouble, trial, sorrow... we are subject to these things, they are common to all men, but we rise above them through the "strength of His might" within.

We are strong because of the Light given in the knowledge of God — Ephesians 1:19. This is a growing revelation. Paul is writing to the Ephesian saints, and what a wonderful history these had! See Paul's words to them in parting (Acts 20:17-38). To such he says, "That ye may be strengthened to apprehend," showing the necessity for the mighty power of God in bringing through revelation. The enemy mightily withstands revelation; to mar or hinder that, he'll stop at nothing!

Light and Strength go together; endurance is by revelation, "I know." Establishment in the truth by revelation of the truth, this brings an impact on Satan and his hosts; light leading to might. When the Lord opens eyes you see what happens, "the eyes of your heart being enlightened, that ye may know" this is the result of opened eyes. "Knowing that He that raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also with Jesus" – II Corinthians 4:14.

From: The Cross and the City of God, Chapter 4, read the whole book online.

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II Timothy 1:7: "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." Sound mind is a bad translation; a better one is discipline. God says, to build this strange, mystical thing--the new man--"I will give you, first of all, POWER, then love and a sound mind [discipline]."

Now, why did He begin with power? Because power is the dynamic by which the whole thing is made manifest. No need messing around trying to get love or something else. The whole thing is based on a dynamic power God furnishes, which is the Holy Spirit. You will find the same order in the Old and New Testament, and in your heart and mine. Whenever you See an arrangement like that in the Bible, leave it the way it is written. Some would put love first, instead of power, but we can't change it. There is a divine order.

From creation on, everything that we have comes through the power of the Spirit: (In the Old Testament the word is ruach, and in the New Testament it is pneuma). They both have the same idea of breath or life--the outbreathing, ruach; the breath of God--that is Spirit; that is Life; pneuma, breath--pneumonia, pneumatic tire, air, breath, spirit; all come from the same word.

Why do we have the breath of Life? Because we can't receive anything in creation without it. We have it in the life of Jesus. He was conceived by the Spirit; born of the Spirit; baptized in the Spirit; He ministered in the Spirit. His whole life moved in the power of God, called the Holy Spirit, and He lived in it, moved in it, ministered in it; and even when He died, the resurrection was by the Eternal Spirit. If all that was needed in the life of Jesus, how much more we need the power of the Spirit in our lives! We can't get anywhere without the Holy Spirit.

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