My testimony

Rev 12:11 And THEY overcame (overcome; conquer) him because of the blood of the little Lamb, and (even) because of the word (Word?) of their witness (testimony) -- and they love not (did not love) their soul (soul-life) even to (until) death.

My testimony is knowing who I am in Him and who He is in me.
I am whatever and whomever God made me to be.
What I am (my identity) is only in Christ
Outside of Jesus, I am not.
My life (my existence, my purpose, my person, my destiny, my identity) is hid with Christ in God.
I am not in charge of my life, but Christ is.
It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in and through me.
It is no longer I who work, but God is at work in me to do His will and pleasure.
My life is a life of replacement.
I was created to be replaced (inhabited by and controlled by) Jesus.
The only other option is to be inhabited by and controlled by Adam.
Like the Vine and the branches, everything that flows in me comes from Him.
You know “me” - washed in the blood, foreordained, predestined, placed in Christ
before the world began, sanctified, justified, glorified all before I got here in flesh.
You know “me” - I am the very righteousness of God through Christ!
When God looks at me, He sees Jesus!

neither male nor female

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free,
there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus."　 Galatians 3:28


In the Church, "under the anointing," there is neither male nor female.　
We can all function as we are enabled by the Lord,
totally irrespective of gender.　
Male and female become a type of our relationship to the Lord.
As a "Bride," I am dependent and become "one" with Jesus.　
As a "son," I enter into a cooperative relationship with the Lord.　
I "rise above" the earthly as an "overcomer," and His power -
His very life begins to flow out through my life.　
I am then able to give expression to the life of the Lord,
as my life becomes the witness of His life.
We are approaching the last days,
the time of the closing out of the Church Age
and the beginning of the Millennial Kingdom,
which is the government of God ruling all mankind.
May we all female and male lay aside the old order and
embrace and recognize what the Lord is desiring to do in each of
us as individuals and in His body in these last days.

Growing Season

Salvation is a free gift, but spiritual maturity must be earned.  Jesus compared our “divine nature” to a seed that is sown into fertile soil.

“But he that received seed into the good ground is he that hears the word, and understands it; which also bears fruit, and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”  Matthew 13:23

Just as we have this “treasure” of His “divine nature” hidden within our earthen vessel, golden corn is hidden within a covering.  As we, corn also has a tassel (hair) on top.  There is a distinct gradation in ears of corn.  Not all ears of corn (nor we) come to the same level of growth, or maturity.

As this farmer waited for the rain to stop, while in a small shed at the edge of a large field of corn, the Lord made known to him that our spiritual growth as a Christian follows the same progressive development as corn, with comparable results.

“…Behold, a sower went forth to sow.”  Matthew 13:3

The intention of the sower is for the seed that has been sown to come to full maturity so there will be an abundant harvest.  The condition of the soil (our environment) has much to do with the harvest.

Some of these seeds fell by the wayside and birds ate them.  Some fell in stony places and were unable to take root.  Others fell amongst thorns and were choked out.  However, the seed that fell into fertile soil produced a harvest that was either thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold.

So also, as being a spiritual baby, the Lord “sows” His divine nature within us, intending it to develop to full maturity.  He uses this parable to teach us that our “inner attitudes and desires” (good soil), along with the “things” that we permit in our life experience (wayside, stony places, thorns), greatly affect our rate of spiritual growth.

If the tomatoes in our garden are still green when the first frost comes, they can be picked and placed on a window sill where the sun can shine on them.  They will gradually ripen and turn bright red.  However, if some thirtyfold corn that has not fully matured is placed on the same window sill, it will become dry and hard, and remain as it was.  The thirtyfold corn will not become sixty, or a hundredfold corn.  So it is in the life of a Christian.

Spiritually speaking, we are not tomatoes.  Rather, we are as these ears of corn.  Our spiritual development must take place while our “roots” are in the ground of our present environment.

Many have the mistaken idea that they will be changed on the way up.  They imagine that they will depart from this earth realm as a babe in Christ and arrive in heaven as a matured saint.  However, once our life has been lifted from the soil of His dealings, no further maturing is possible, as it is too late.  Like the ear of corn, no further change will take place.

There is a limited time for this process of our coming into spiritual maturity to be completed.  Just as the ear of corn must come to maturity during the growing season while it is attached to the root that is within the soil, so also, during our lifetime, there must be a proper response to the workings of the Lord within us.

Jesus qualified for His place in the throne with His Father by overcoming the hindrances that were in His path.

“Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered, and being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey Him”  Hebrews 5:8-9

Now He is able to say to us, “You are to overcome in the same way that I overcame.”

In using the terms of their vocation to speak to Simon and Andrew, there was the danger that they would not hear as Jesus intended.  He did not say to them, “Follow Me so you can learn how to fish for men.”  Rather Jesus spoke to them of a process that would qualify them for this higher vocation, “Come you after Me, and I will make you to become fishers of men” (Mark 1:17).

Notice that Jesus did not say “Go.”  Rather, He said “Come.”  The “call” is to first come to Him.  We must “come” (our attitude and desire) to the “place” (good ground) where He will be able to bring about the changes within us that will qualify us to fish for men, rather than fishing for fish.

The seed that fell into “wayside soil” missed the furrow in which He works.  The “good ground” is where the divine plow turns the soil.  This plow overturns our ways and exposes all that hinders our spiritual growth.  Unless we are careful, we will step aside when we see this plow coming our way.

The problem with the “divine plow” going down the furrow of our life experience is that it turns every thing upside down.  This enables the Lord to get at the inner problems that are buried deep within us.  Now, He is able to change us at the very root of our being.   If we will rightly respond and cooperate, that which grows into full maturity will bring forth an abundant harvest; thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold.

Our Path

Our “present attainment” of spiritual life and experience is the place to which we have been brought through Jesus Christ our Lord. All this is a preliminary training school for the ages yet to come. It is in the “here and now” that we make certain qualifications for our placement in the eternal ages. These qualifications will not be given to us spontaneously, when we get there. Rather, we are being qualified for them here, during this present time.

Then, in the eternal ages, that which has been acquired through discipline and training - through the surrender of our old life to the resurrection of the new - all of this will be projected upon another (higher) plane of living in the ages that are yet to come. Whatever we build up of spiritual value, vigor, and vision, during our lifetime - this is all that the Lord will take of us into eternity.

The method by which this is being accomplished will be the “way” in which we presently live - our reactions to the Word, and to the movings of the Holy Spirit. These are the mechanics which the Lord uses to trace the image and likeness of His Son upon our immortal spirit.

We who have been touched by eternal truth and are seeking to go further, must have a correct perspective and goal. The Lord is very busy building His Body, of which we are a member, training it and doing a thousand things within and through it, so in “that day” there will be something glorious and beautiful to be presented to our Lord, when we stand in His presence.

The day is coming when we will cast our crowns at His feet. This crown is made up of all that we have become, so that we may be presented to the Ancient of Days as the Bride of Christ.

Each of us has a certain degree of spiritual hunger. This hunger rests on certain levels of spiritual obedience and experience, ever seeking to take us further. Thus, there is a continual, progressive development in our spiritual living, moving us from one place of discovery and life, on into another level of discovery and life, and on to another. This speaks of “the spiritual ascent of our being back to the heart of God.” We do not belong here; we are here for just a few fleeting years of training and discipline, and then we will be taken.

We are to continually move from one level of spiritual understanding and experience to another. This is determined by the amount of spiritual illumination that we have obtained through our responses to the Lord’s presence, and His workings within us. Because we are reacting agents, we learn our lessons through these experiences. We were made this way in the structural law of our being so this might be possible.

I have many very real spiritual experiences in God, however, these do not make me less practical in my daily pattern of life experience. I have discovered that I must carefully order my steps, as I walk with the Lord. I must be continually sensitive to His voice and responsive to His presence. Then He will guide my path, as He disciplines and trains me in order to push me up into a higher order of spiritual reality and life.

Mind of Christ

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”  Philippians 2:5-8

Our experience and testimony should parallel that of our Lord Jesus Christ.  There is a particular quality of spiritual life and experience that our Lord expects to find that is both resident and developing within each of us, to bring us into spiritual maturity.

“Then answered Jesus and said to them, Verily, verily, I say to you, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do: for whatsoever things He does, these also does the Son likewise. I can of My own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and My judgment is just; because I seek not My own will, but the will of the Father who has sent Me.”  John 5:19, 30

“I can of My own self do nothing.”  In total submission, our Lord experienced an active daily personal relationship with His Father.

The Church of our day is recorded in Scripture as presenting a witness which indicates that many are living in a lesser realm of spirituality and experience.

“Because you say, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and know not that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.”  Revelation 3:17

The Lord is saying that this end-time Church (Laodicea) is still a spiritual baby (naked), when they should have grown into spiritual maturity.  Their lack of spiritual growth is the result of not embracing the “mind-set” of the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 2:5

Had they done this, their testimony would have been quite different.  Therefore, a word of correction is given:

“I counsel you (each one of us) to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that you might be rich; and white raiment, that you might be clothed, and that the shame of your nakedness do not appear; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you might see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.”  Revelation 3:18-19 

There is a present urgency in which we should be living according to the ordained pattern (let this mind be in you) which was given to govern and guide our spiritual life and growth.  This “pattern” (this mind… which was also in Christ Jesus) was manifestly lived to its fullest before us, by our Lord Jesus Christ.

“For it became Him... to make the captain of their salvation perfect (spiritually mature) through sufferings.”  Hebrews 2:10

Because of who He is (Deity), Jesus was “judicially” qualified to become our Saviour.  However, through life experience, He emptied Himself of Deity (Philippians 2:6-7), and “experientially” qualified Himself, by overcoming every obstacle that He faced, in order to become our Saviour.

“Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered; And being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation to all them who obey Him.”  Hebrews 5:8-9

Because Jesus willingly laid aside His “judicial” position (who He is), through His “experiential” relationship to His Father (what He does) He was able to live out His commitment to always do His Father’s will, and to please His Father in all that He experienced.

“…I do always those things that please Him.”  John 8:29

Jesus never acted on His own, apart from the revealed will of His Father.  This resulted in a never-before-seen authority in His ministry, as His Word and His Life had become one.

“And they were astonished at His doctrine: for He taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.”  Mark 1:22

It is the desire of the Father that we experience at least a “measure” of identification with our Lord.  Our being religious, or our knowing facts about Jesus in itself is not enough.  We are called to experientially know the Lord (that I may know Him).  As we die to our self-life (the power of His resurrection), we will come to the place of “identification” with Jesus in the “fellowship of His sufferings:”

“That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death.”  Philippians 3:10

Unless we submit to this “pattern” of life, we will not be ready to be identified with Him in the glory to come.

“When He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe….”  II Thessalonians 1:10

For this to be worked out in our lives, we must come to both understand and experience “His mind.”   Only then can we relate to the things that He went through, and as a result, find our place of identification with Him in His throne, which He desires us to have.

 It had been prophesied in Micah 5:2 that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem.  However, Jesus allowed the knowledge of His birth in Bethlehem to become obscure.  Thus, “Jesus of Bethlehem” became known as “Jesus of Nazareth.”  It was commonly said of Him, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?  Shall Christ come out of Galilee?  Search and look: for out of Galilee arises no prophet” (John 1:46; 7:41, 52).

To the natural eye, it could not be known that He was the Christ.  A true knowing of His identity could only come by revelation.  The Church leaders, along with the multitudes of that day, failed to see the Messiah, “Jesus of Bethlehem,” through the garb of “Jesus of Nazareth.”

Jesus had purposely allowed a reproach to remain upon Himself, so that only those who had a “spiritual eye” would understand who He really is.  The Apostle Paul, who understood this, prayed, “The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you might know...” (Ephesians 1:18).

“He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised and we esteemed Him not…He came to His own, and His own received Him not.”  Isaiah 53:3; John 1:11

Jesus did not fit into the “pattern” of life and ministry that was expected of Him by the religious leaders of that day.  This lack of spiritual understanding and perception in mankind was heartbreaking to Jesus.  He intensely desired to be known and understood.

It was only after the completion of two years of ministry that Jesus dared to ask His disciples a most crucial question: “Who am I?” (Matthew 16:15).  He asked this question knowing that His true identity could not be known by outward observation, but only through hearing from His Father, who had sent Him.

The sorrow, grief, and rejection as foretold in Isaiah 53 was intensely felt by Jesus at this moment, as He awaited their answer to His question.

“And Simon Peter answered and said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  Matthew 16:16

Jesus was overjoyed; Peter had come to see beyond “Jesus of Nazareth.”

“And Jesus answered and said to him, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood (outward observation) has not revealed it to you, but My Father (inward revelation) which is in heaven.”  Matthew 16:17

In other words, Jesus said: “Simon, you now have an ear to hear. You have come into the experience of hearing from the Father, even as I hear from Him.  Now, you will be able to obey Him, even as I fully obey Him.”  The disciples had come to the place of spiritual perception.  They could see beyond the surface manifestation of “Jesus of Nazareth.”

Now, Jesus could say, “You are Peter (a small stone that is of the same substance as I), and upon this rock (the ability to hear and obey the Father) I will build My Church” (Matthew 16:18).

The future of the Church hung upon their giving the right answer to this question that Jesus had asked concerning His identity.  The nature and function of the Church is to be “spiritual,” not “natural.”  Therefore, Jesus had permitted this reproach to be upon Himself, that His disciples would look to the Father above, as the source for building the Church.

“From that time forth began Jesus to show....”  The disciples had to see beyond the guise of “Jesus of Nazareth” before He could lead them on.  Now, they were in the place where they would hear from above, and all that was left for Him to accomplish was to prepare them for His death on the cross.

In the early days of the Pentecostal movement, speaking in “Tongues” was considered to be a reproach.  Today this reproach is gone, as it is popular to be Spirit-filled and function in the gifts.  However, there is yet a reproach (sonship).  For those who have a discerning eye and see beyond the present movement, and who seek to come into full maturity as an overcomer, the reproach remains.

God always wraps His best in a package for which few are willing to pay the price.  “Jesus of Nazareth” had no apparent value.  It was said: “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?”  The same question is yet being asked by those who are not willing to go further in spiritual things - “I see no value or purpose in this, let us stay with the past; it is safe and accepted.”

In Hebrews 13:13, we are exhorted to “Go forth therefore to Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.”  Today, many are pressing onward, seeking all that He has for them.  These are willing to pay the price of identity with the reproach of “Jesus of Nazareth” in order to gain the pearl of great price.

Are you willing to embrace His “mind,” knowing that it will require the death of all that is Adamic and religious, and the bearing of “His reproach?”

“Wherefore God also has highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name.”  Philippians 2:9

Then we also, being of the same mind (being one with Him), will partake with Him in the glory to come.