Monthly Archives: May 2010

The Call, To Once Again Earnestly Seek Him

Posted on May 23, 2010 by mcalmond

(ESV) Amos 5:4 For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel: “Seek me and live; 5 but do not seek Bethel, and do not enter into Gilgal or cross over to Beersheba; for Gilgal shall surely go into exile, and Bethel shall come to nothing.”

The imperative here is to the Lord’s own people and it is a call for his people to seek, look to and focus their eyes and ears upon Him. This command comes with a promise which correspondingly is the promise of life, of a certainty of life that escapes God’s coming judgment. This escape is to be the product of obedience, of obedience to the imperative of earnestly seeking the Lord God Almighty.

Judgment is coming and I know that we all do not desire to be around when it comes, nor then do we look forward to its coming. However, there is a promise that if we earnestly seek him, draw nearer to him, He will see us through those times ahead in the power of His life, His zoe life, His ageless and powerful life. Yes, we need to draw nearer to He who desires to cover us under the shelter of His wings in the midst of the storms of life that lay just ahead.

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Categories: A Simple Faith, Awakening, Believer, Breaking Forth, Calling, Church, Dependency, Exhortation, Foundations, Grace, Hope, Perseverance, Prayer, Simplicity, Spirit, Spiritual Warfare, Steadfastness, Stirrings, Training, Truth, Word of God | Leave a comment

Drifting Is Always Dangerous

Posted on May 20, 2010 by mcalmond

Hebrews 2:1-4 (ESV) Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. 2 For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, 3 how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, 4 while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

This is a very powerful text. It is a warning text. It openly and passionately warns of the all too easy and yet very subtle process of drifting away from the core message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The “Therefore” is there because it is a carry over from the first chapter in which the writer has and is presenting Christ Jesus as He who is much greater than the angels who were involved in presenting the Law to Moses and the nation of Israel. He clearly declares that since the very message that was presented by the angels came as reliably the Word of God and as such came with a very real accountability with consequence, how much so is this message of hope and Salvation that has come through God’s very own Son, the Lord Jesus?

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Categories: A Simple Faith, Awakening, Belief System, Believer, Confidence, Core Values, Covering, Exhortation, Faith, Flesh, Following Through, Grace, Growing in Faith, illumination, In Spirit and In Truth, Inspiration, Isolation, Open Ears, Perseverance, Protection, Spiritual Warfare, Steadfastness, The Lord Jesus, Word, Word of God | 1 Comment

Which Is Most Important…Anointing or ?

Posted on May 16, 2010 by mcalmond

Eph 6:16-18 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; 17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, ESV

Preaching is something that I have occasionally trained others to do. This is not because I am so great at preaching or because I have such a great understanding concerning it. No, this is simply because there have been times that I needed to do so. One of the difficulties, at least for me, in teaching others to preach, is how to help them experience a genuine flow of Godly anointing in preaching while yet being hermeneutically and homiletically sound. I do not mean to state this, in a way that sounds like homiletics or hermeneutics and genuine anointing are opposed to each other. I simply mean that one can be homiletically and hermeneutically sound, while missing the anointing of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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Categories: Anointing, Faith, Grace, Hermeneutics, Homiletics, illumination, Now Word, Prophetic, Prophetic Revelation, Revelation, Rhema, Son and Holy Spirit, Source, Spirit, Spirit of Truth, Teaching, Training, Transformation, Word, Word of God | 2 Comments

Just Thinking About Faith, Conclusion

Posted on May 15, 2010 by mcalmond

While in truth this isn’t all that could be thought out loud about faith, especially saving faith, however it is the conclusion of this series on or concerning true saving faith or genuinely godly faith.

I had stated in “Just Thinking Out Loud About Faith, Part Two, that, “I believe that the Lord will use this natural ability in man to have faith, to believe (to trust), as a seed base, as soil for His revelation of the truth to be planted in (Matt 13:1-9; 18-23) and hopefully, by His grace and corresponding gift of faith, will come to bear the fruit of genuine salvation”.

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Categories: A Simple Faith, Belief System, Believer, Core Values, Covering, Faith, God Faith, Growing in Faith, Hope, Questions, Salvation, Standing in Faith, Truth, Word of God, Work of God | Leave a comment

Just Thinking About Faith, Part Five

Posted on May 12, 2010 by mcalmond

Matthew 7:21-23 (ESV) “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Therefore, we need to make sure that people are genuinely born again, converted, regenerated, by God’s grace and through God’s faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

I believe we also need to have, as Paul obviously understood in Galatians, a deep seated burden to contend with and for people until Christ is fully formed in them. One of the by products of this, “simply a choice salvation message”, is that we also seem to have lost our burden to actually disciple, to mentor, and genuinely raise up believers unto a full maturity of faith in and of the Lord Jesus Christ! It is genuinely far more difficult, if not truly impossible, to disciple those who are not actually born again and are merely operating out their natural capacities of faith and belief, but not operating out of a genuinely Holy Spirit empowered life that comes with authentic God given regeneration and conversion.

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Categories: A Simple Faith, Believer, Church, Confidence, Core Values, Faith, God Faith, Ministry, Questions, Salvation, Standing in Faith, Truth, Word of God, Work of God | 2 Comments

Just Thinking About Faith, Part Four

Posted on May 10, 2010 by mcalmond

Note: as I have been out of town for a few days, I am sorry this comes a little late. However, let us continue on with our discussion regarding Faith.

Eph 2:8-10 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. ESV

Let me share with you a rather lengthy quote, from John MacArthur. I think that it is worth posting it all. He is answering his own question of why people won’t listen to the voices of those who are and have been crying out for true lordship faith.

“Well, I think the answer is because the appeals of an easy believism get outward results. Did you get that? I think they get outward results. People respond, you make the gospel easy, people respond, people come forward, they come down the aisle, you count the numbers, so many were saved. And what we have today is a form of evangelism that was really stylized and popularized by Charles G. Finney who developed the invitational system as we know it today, …”

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Categories: A Simple Faith, Belief System, Believer, Confidence, Core Values, Faith, Flesh, God Faith, Growing in Faith, Hope, Salvation, Standing in Faith, Steadfastness, Truth, Word of God, Work of God | 1 Comment

Just Thinking About Faith, Part Three

Posted on May 3, 2010 by mcalmond

As we continue to declare that all faith is not the same faith, nor is it automatically, “Saving Faith”, let us pick this up again with a brief quote from John MacArthur.

He says, “There is a false faith, a dreamy faith, an illusion that changes nothing, that’s not saving faith. You come all the way down into the modern time and you read writer after writer after writer affirming the necessity for a true faith which results in an absolutely and totally transformed life.”

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Categories: A Simple Faith, Belief System, Believer, Confidence, Dependency, Faith, Flesh, Foundations, God Faith, Growing in Faith, In Spirit and In Truth, Promises, Questions, Salvation, Standing in Faith, Steadfastness, Truth, Word of God, Work of God | Leave a comment

Just Thinking About Faith, Part Two

Posted on May 2, 2010 by mcalmond

As we continue our series of “Just Thinking Out Loud… About Faith”, let us do so with a few statements:

1. I genuinely believe that there is man’s natural ability to have faith, to believe.

2. I also genuinely believe that this natural ability is not the saving faith, the kind of faith we see in God’s Word that is essential for our salvation.

However I do believe that the Lord will use this natural ability in man to have faith, to believe (to trust), as a seed base, as soil for His revelation of the truth to be planted in (Matt 13:1-9; 18-23) and hopefully, by his grace and corresponding gift of faith, will come to bear the fruit of genuine salvation (Rom 12:3; Eph 2:8-9).

Man’s faith (James 2:19; believe, referring to an intellectual or mental assent kind of faith, something that even demons have) while important, it is not, as previously stated, the same as God faith, or in other words, genuine saving faith. Therefore I believe that we make a serious mistake when we simply assume without question, without examination (2Cor 13:5), that all professions of faith are equal and are the result of the one and same kind of faith, God faith. In other words, we error when we fail to distinguish between man’s natural ability to have faith, belief or trust, and that which is authentically God’s saving faith and is an authentic work of God’s grace.

Presumptions are all too often very dangerous and in this case, they can be eternally so.

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Categories: A Simple Faith, Belief System, Believer, Confidence, Core Values, Faith, Flesh, God Faith, Growing in Faith, In Spirit and In Truth, Man's Faith, Questions, Salvation, Standing in Faith, Steadfastness, Truth, Word of God, Work of God | Leave a comment

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