Lectures Versus Conversations

Posted on October 1, 2024 by LovingLikeGod.com

To begin with, it’s difficult to take up an offering for a conversation. But that’s not so bad, because lectures and lecturers don’t really lend themselves to the pursuit of truth. Truth is best found in Christ centered conversation, not man centered lectures, because Christ is the TRUTH!

Truth is a threat to lecturers because it tends to mess up their agenda. Once we come to conclusions, the pursuit of TRUTH comes to a grinding halt. At that point we just have a battle of agendas. Conclusions are dead-end streets where the pursuit of Truth is concerned. Eternity is the goal of Truth, and TRUTH is the object of eternity.

“Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, (conversation) we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” Ephesians 4:14-16 NIV

The first thing we need for such a conversation is:

Love!

P.S. For that we need a revelation of the Cross!

  • By Jay Ferris, originally posted April 2012
Posted in J.Ferris: Reposts with Notes | Tagged | 3 Comments

Flesh vs. Spirit

Posted on September 24, 2024 by LovingLikeGod.com

In our understanding of spiritual passion, we need to be constantly redirected away from the passion of romantic flesh and into the passion of the Divine Romance. In the Spirit there are no gender specific body parts. Words can help us to test the things of the flesh, but they can’t take us to a place where only the Spirit can go.

In short, relationships from God are akin to being born of God. They aren’t a matter of human decision or husband’s will:

“Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” John 1:13 KJV

It’s kind of like the guy who wanted out of the military. He kept on saying, “that’s not it” to everything he saw, and everyplace he went. Nobody could do anything with him, or stop him, so they finally wrote up his formal discharge and invited him into the office to sign it. It was only afterward that he finally said, “That’s it.”

You know you’ve finally gotten out of the system, and into someplace new, only when you get there. But meanwhile, there’s no verbal set of instructions as to how to get there. Just pray that you do.

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.  Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” Ephesians 3:14-21 NIV

Love!

  • By Jay Ferris, originally posted April, 2012
Posted in J.Ferris: Relationships | Leave a comment

Religion is systematic slavery

Posted on September 17, 2024 by LovingLikeGod.com

slave shipSystematic Theology is an oxymoron. God is not a system. God is Spirit!

“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” – John 4:24

The citizenship of the Kingdom of God is composed of lovers. The citizenship of earthly kingdoms, and the prostitute with whom they keep company, (i.e. Babylon the Great, mother of Harlots) is made up of merchants of one kind or another — all with an agenda of getting.

These merchants range from those who sit in the market place crying out, “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn,” Matthew 11:17,

all the way to: “The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargoes any more [i.e. cargoes including the… ] the bodies and souls of men.” – Revelation 18:11a, 13b.

Slave traders buy and sell the bodies of men, but who can buy and sell the souls of men?

Religious merchants. These merchants include the kings of this earth:

“When the kings of the earth who committed adultery with her and shared her luxury see the smoke of her burning, they will weep and mourn over her. Terrified at her torment, they will stand far off and cry: ‘Woe! Woe, O great city, O Babylon, city of power! In one hour your doom has come.” – Revelation 18:9,10.

Kings commit the same adultery as the merchants, but their interests are not quite the same; the kings want pure power, and the merchants want purchasing power. All the jewelry of Babylon – the gold, silver and precious jewels – are displays of this power. In the case of kings and those in authority, this power may in the first instance be preeminence. “I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not. Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church.” “3rd” John 9, 10.

There is a leadership – a kingship of sorts that is in a position to buy and sell the souls of men. This is religious leadership. Beware!

Love!

P.S. Please don’t speak to me of Catholic indulgences, by now there have been far too many Protestant indulgences to justify such a narrow understanding.

  • By Jay Ferris, originally posted April, 2012
Posted in J.Ferris: Reposts with Notes | Leave a comment