Broadcast notes 2.22.11

I'm outward bound, today...won't you join me?
We are going to 'lay ahold of Him like He has laid ahold of us",
Philippians 3:12


Let Heaven invade your space right now....
let the things of this earth grow dim to you right now, let your inner man 'slip the surly bonds of earth'...outward bound into the very Heart of God, to investigate the tresures that He has laid up for us in Christ, Colossians 2:3.


"The Cycle of Faith...."
A child of God has a supernatural deposit in him, a measure (Romans 12:3) of the 'God-kind of faith', (Mark 11:22).  Jesus 'breathed' this into you when you were born again, re-Fathered from above.  He is the Author of that faith in you (Hebrews 12:2).
This 'faith' is of heavenly origin and it will 'lead' you to live a 'Heaven-above-earth' life in this world, a super-natural life....above, beyond, outside of this four dimensional world in which we live.


This faith starts at a point and continues to a point...to 'present you in the Father's presence without spot or wrinkle'.


Your becoming conscious of this faith will enable you to enjoy the full benefits of Jesus death, burial and resurrection.


REMEMBER....BECOME CONSCIOUS OF:
YOU ARE NOT A HUMAN HAVING A SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE, YOU ARE A SPIRIT HAVE A HUMAN EXPERIENCE!


ZOE (zo-a) is what energizes your measure of the God-kind of faith....God's Life energizes everything in the natural world, atoms on up.  He does this in His capacity as Creator.


The billowing Cloud of His Power filling everything, sustaining everything.
Isaiah 6.1&4
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 Colossians 1

 ^13-14God rescued us from dead-end alleys and dark dungeons. He's set us up in the kingdom of the Son he loves so much, the Son who got us out of the pit we were in, got rid of the sins we were doomed to keep repeating.  

^15-18We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God's original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.

 ^18-20He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.

 ^21-23You yourselves are a case study of what he does. At one time you all had your backs turned to God, thinking rebellious thoughts of him, giving him trouble every chance you got. But now, by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for you, Christ brought you over to God's side and put your lives together, whole and holy in his presence. You don't walk away from a gift like that! You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted. There is no other Message—just this one. Every creature under heaven gets this same Message. I, Paul, am a messenger of this Message.

 ^24-25I want you to know how glad I am that it's me sitting here in this jail and not you. There's a lot of suffering to be entered into in this world—the kind of suffering Christ takes on. I welcome the chance to take my share in the church's part of that suffering. When I became a servant in this church, I experienced this suffering as a sheer gift, God's way of helping me serve you, laying out the whole truth.

 ^26-29This mystery has been kept in the dark for a long time, but now it's out in the open. God wanted everyone, not just Jews, to know this rich and glorious secret inside and out, regardless of their background, regardless of their religious standing. The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, so therefore you can look forward to sharing in God's glory. It's that simple. That is the substance of our Message. We preach Christ, warning people not to add to the Message. We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity. To be mature is to be basic. Christ! No more, no less. That's what I'm working so hard at day after day, year after year, doing my best with the energy God so generously gives me.

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 God's Power is released through His Word.
That Word sustains all of Creation...
Hebrews 1:3
".....upholding all things by the WORD OF HIS POWER."


God's Power sustains the New Creation that He has put on the inside of you:
2 Corinthians 5:17
"If any man be in Christ he is a new creation, old things have passed away, behold all things become new and all things (in that new creation) are of God."

Christian Consciousness

Chicago, Illinois, July 16,1920

John G. Lake

If there is a wonderful single word that expresses what God is trying to develop in us. The word is CONSCIOUSNESS. I love it. It is an amazing word. Consciousness means, THAT WHICH THE SOUL KNOWS.

God's purpose, and the purpose of real religion, is to create in the nature of man a consciousness of God.

CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS is superior to every other known consciousness.

I want to declare that Christianity stands superior to every other form of religion under the heavens and in the whole earth; that no other religion under the heavens has the same consciousness of God or the same means of producing a consciousness of God that Christianity possesses.

In 1893 in this city, was the great Chicago World's Fair. Among the features of the fair was a Congress on Religions. I have always felt that if Christianity could not demonstrate her superiority over every other religion, then Christianity has not the place and power that Jesus Christ said Christianity had in the world.

But the result of that Congress of Religions was that Christianity was so poorly presented, that the Indian philosophers ran away with the whole thing.

And fellow Christians, there began in my soul a prayer that Almighty God would reveal in my soul what the real secret of real Christianity is, in order that in this world Christians might become kings and priests, and demonstrate the superiority of the religion of the Son of God beyond that of every other in the whole earth.

In later years I went to South Africa.

When the Boer War came on, the native people became so frightened over war between white men, they had to send to China and get two hundred thousand (200,000) Chinese.

At the same time there were in South Africa one and a half million East Indians. These represented all the cults of India.

I had a Jewish friend, Rabbi Hertz,

One day he said, "Did it ever occur to you what an amazing Congress of Religions we could have in this country? It would put the one in Chicago in 1893 in the shade."  It was eventually brought to pass.

We gathered once a week. We gave the individual a whole night if he wanted it, or two nights if he wanted it, to show the very best he could, the very depth of his peculiar religion, and the consciousness of God it produced. It was not the details of his religion we sought, but the soul of it, and the consciousness it possessed.

Indian Buddhist priest

Chinese Buddhist priest

Indian Confucianist priest

Chinese Confucianist priest

Indian Brahman priest

Chinese Brahman priest and it went on.

Eventually it came to the night that Dr. Hertz, the Jewish rabbi, was to give the secret of the Jewish religion, and to tell the consciousness of God that was produced by the Mosaic and the prophetic teachings.

When I listened to Dr. Hertz, my heart asked, "Dear God, when I get my turn to reveal what Christianity is, what am I going to say that is going to reveal Christianity as superior to Jewish dispensation, and the consciousness of God that it produced in the souls of the prophets?"

I prayed, "God, in the Name of Jesus, when it comes next Thursday night, and it is my turn to show forth Jesus Christ, what am I going to say to surmount the revelation of God that he gave?"

I gave myself to fasting and prayer and waiting on God. And one day in the quiet GOD TOLD ME THAT SECRET.

CHRISTIANITY IS ALL SUPERNATURAL, every bit of it. The philosophies are nat­ural. The Mosaic dispensation and its revelation was supernatural, but its revelation did not have

the high degree of overcoming consciousness

that belongs to Christianity.

You say, "It is the Holy Ghost." Well, the prophets had the Holy Ghost.

Why, when Moses came down from the mountain, his face shone or radiated with the glory of God so intensely the people were afraid of him, and he was compelled to wear a veil until the anointing had somewhat left his soul.

But, beloved, Christianity is more than that.

Paul declares that the glory of Moses' face was superseded. I said a moment ago, Christianity is not a natural religion. It has nothing natural in it. IT IS SUPERNATURAL from the top to the bottom, from the center to the circumference, within and without. It comes right from heaven, every bit of it. It is the divine outflow of the holy soul of the crucified, risen, glorified Son of God.

But in my Bible is seen that the Son of God saves men from their sins, and changes them by His power in their nature, so that they become like Him.

Jesus went into the grave with a divine boldness, not simply as a martyr. He was God's PRINCE, God's KING, God's SAVIOR. He went into the grave God's CONQUEROR. He was after something. He went after the power of DEATH, and He got it, and He took it captive, and He came forth from the grave. He had death and hell by the throat, and the key in His hands. He was Conqueror!

When He came forth from the grave, He came forth bringing that wonderful spirit of heavenly triumph that was begotten in the soul of Jesus because He had not failed. He had gone and done it. No longer a hope; no longer a faith; now a knowledge— God's consciousness in His heart. It was done!

Oh, yes, bless God, I am coming back to that word with which I started. The secret of Christianity is in the consciousness it produces in your soul.

In those early centuries of Christianity, Christianity did not go into the world apologizing. It went to slay the powers of darkness and undo the works of the devil, and it lived in holy triumph.

We have not yet learned to keep in touch with the powers of God. Once in a while our soul rises, and we see the flame of God accomplish this wonder and that, but beloved, Jesus Christ lived in the presence of God every hour of the day and night. Never a word proceeded from the mouth of Jesus Christ, but what was God's Word. "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life" (John 6:63).

When you and I are lost in the Son of God, and the fires of Jesus burn in our hearts, like they did in Him, our words will be the words of life and of the spirit, and there will be no death in them. But, beloved, we are on the way.

Why, Jesus was the triumphant One. Did you ever stop to think of Jesus at the throne of God? I like to think of the twentieth century Christ, not the Jesus that lived in the world two thousand years ago, not the humiliated Jesus, not Jesus dying on the cross for my sin, but the glorified, exalted Son of God at the throne of God, Who stands declaring, "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death" (Revelation 1:18). Blessed be God.

And that is the Christ Who breathes His power into your soul and mine, and that is the consciousness that is breathed from heaven in the Holy Ghost when it comes to your heart. Amen.