Matthew 10:23 Let’s Dive In

 

“When people realize it is the living God you are presenting and not some idol that makes them feel good, they are going to turn on you, even people in your own family. There is a great irony here: proclaiming so much love, experiencing so much hate! But don’t quit. Don’t cave in. It is all well worth it in the end. It is not success you are after in such times but survival. Be survivors! Before you’ve run out of options, the Son of Man will have arrived."the Message

 

 

Whenever they persecute you in one town, flee to another! I tell you the truth, you will not finish going through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes. NET

 

"In the end of days, you will only have two choices, self-sacrifice or idolatry!" Art Katz 

The God of Jacob is Our God

 “ Though it may seem elementary or self-evident to state it, to be a Christian means to be in conscious covenant relationship with Israel’s God.  An abstract “belief in God” is far removed from faith in the God of the Bible; He is not to be relegated to man’s concept of Him.  He identifies Himself as the “God of Jacob.”  It is only in this God-specified concreteness that He can function as God for the Gentiles.  To reject that particularity is in fact to reject God and  forfeit the benefit of that relationship. “. Art Katz 

We, gentile believers are grafted into THEIR vine, made a part of THEIR commonwealth, blessed to be included in THEIR covenant and promises.

THE GOD OF JACOB IS GOD MOST HIGH!  By the grace of God He is our God. As the times of the end approach we gentiles will be given more and more opportunities to show our appreciation to a people who will be targeted for and by the wrath of the anti christ more and more. Our association with them will make us targets! Disassociating from them will be the cowards way out and will invoke the ultimate wrath of God, “DEPART FROM ME I NEVER KNEW YOU!”

Trauma Bond

 Stranger Things (the TV series) had a good emphasis on trauma bonding among the young people.

I just finished the series so it is fresh in my mind. 

Art Katz has another great message to listen to. "Israel the Suffering Servant".  Listening to it and thinking about trauma bonding.  

We have that with the Messiah of Israel when we are going through persecution because of living a life that reflects His nature and character.  Israel and Jews will have that with us as we walk through the tribulation together.  Israel will have it with their Messiah when as Zechariah prophecies they see HIM who they have pierced.

Amen, maranatha.

http://artkatzministries.org/audio-messages/k-325-israel-the-suffering-servant/

The Great Falling Away

 Art Katz has a 3 part teaching on Cain and Abel.

It is unparalleled in its insight and how it brings that event, that relationship right into our modern lives.

It is one thing to say God loved Cain so much HE was willing to allow the sacrifice of Abel.

It is another thing to realize the followers of the Messiah of Israel, "we" are Abel.

Our call, our destiny when we cry Henani, "Here am I, send me." is not some comfortable road to glory, it is death to self, and daily death, and possibly physical death all because this evil age is NOT OUR HOME. 

A "church" this is wholly and completely unprepared for this destiny is ripe for the great falling away.

Where does the pre-trib rapture lie come from?

The divine rebel who states repeatedly, "Did God really say?"   Because God really said, we are to endure to the END.  Not ever did He say, 7 years before the end I will return and whisk you away before it gets ugly.

Believe the lie and you will be part of the great falling away.

The love of many will grow cold, because they expected God to love them like they love themselves. They did not have His glory as their highest goal.  Their comfort, their self-preservation that is the number 1 priority.

"You're never gonna let me down."   BEWARE of what you are singing.

God Wants

 “ God wants exuberant, chaste, virtuous souls who testify of His reality, and live with remarkable freedom in the power of the new life, because they have acknowledged that in the old life there is no man good, no not one. ”   Art Katz  “David’s Cry For Mercy” 

Years ago a friend coined the term “wage mercy”.  As I read Art’s words about the beautiful Psalm 51, it seems to me we have only one job, to give away the mercy that has been given to us.

This will involve real spiritual warfare in the coming days when showing mercy to a Jew could cost you your life.

Let’s practice, look for opportunities to wage mercy.

The Privilege of Injustice by Art Katz

 "Happiness brought by the physical change in circumstances versus joy brought about by distress."

This little quote taken from Art's message has a deep truth.

If we use God as an "errand boy" who comes when we call and does our bidding, He is not God, we are.

If we accept and cry out for Him to help us grow through distressing times, we are in a position to know a deeper Joy.

We need to grow in our trust and begin to comprehend the amount of work yet to be done by the Spirit as He transforms us into the image of Yeshua.

humility

 Art Katz tells the story of thinking he was going in one direction with his life and when he put the decision before the community, one of the youngest members of the community stood up and nervously said words that Art immediately knew were from God and would completly change his decision/direction.

That ability to stay humble, to stay in a place of humility is key. Many haven fallen beacuse they forsook community, the turned away from being in the lives of others in such a close way that they could be corrected.

Beware, satan, only has the same three tricks all these thousands of years, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.

Cling to the one whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light.

Israel and the Grafted in, Ever Grateful, Ever Humble Gentile Brethren

 

"I believe the great purpose of Israel's election is to show the nature and character of redeeming love" Reggie Kelly  Which is the nature and character of God, which is being worked into those who follow the Lamb.

 

 "...you have come to a condition of being a bride adorned for the Bridegroom having the glory of God, and this is that glory, His nature, His compassion, His mercy. He is waiting for a bride who is like Him and not just some American plastic counterfeit." Art Katz "Becoming a Prophetic Church Part 5 Psalm 102" 

 

The wisdom of God displayed on the cross is that willing, sacrificial love is the one force in the universe that is the ring that rules them all.  

 

Satan has a counterfeit, he always does.  With the promise of a heavenly reward, he lures people to willingly blow themselves up.  They do not know what they are doing.  It is being done from a selfish motivation and with violent intent to take the lives of others.  It is nearly impossible to fight against an enemy who is willing to die in the act of killing you.  

 

But the wisdom from above seeks for a way to save you, even if it is at the cost of their life.  This kind of love is what the followers of the Lamb who was slain are learning in the day to day, moment by moment opportunities that come to die to self.  The flesh has a kingdom and a brick is removed from that kingdom every time you choose to go lower.  This is the release of the love of God through you.

The light shines, the salt preserves, Yeshua becomes the firstborn of many sons.

There is no higher call.

There is no greater purpose.

 

 

 

 

The Veil of Self

This recording of a message by Art Katz was recommended to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbIwumBChe8

This is a transcript of it for those who prefer reading.
http://artkatzministries.org/articles/the-veil-of-self/

I put my ear buds in and went for a walk while listening to it for the 2nd or 3rd time.

God was faithful to meet me, in His mercy.

I asked Him what part of my self was in the way, keeping me from the full enjoyment of being within the veil of the holy of holies, which is part of the amazing Salvation that Yeshua has purchased for all those who trust in His life, death, and resurrection.

I knew the way that He would reveal self is when I honestly looked at my interactions with others and the times when I react totally in my flesh and turn from the Spirit.

Self-assertion was the first area that He brought up.  I have in my head a limited amount of time or effort that I am willing to give to another, I always consider it to be an over-the-top, nobody-else-would-do-this-much, amount of time and energy, but when that set time is over, I am done, and God, our faithful, merciful, Father who knows what is best for us and loves us too much to not make sure we get it, will set it up that someone says, or a call bell goes off at work, or something happens that requires, "just one more thing", and at that point the self rises up and even if I do the request it is not done in love so it is a farce, typically, I groan, moan and let it be known that "this is too much", but guess what, that moment after being asked to do "just one more thing" is the moment where the life, love, and power of God could come in and receive all the glory.  We we are beyond ourselves as Paul says in a few places, that is the place of weakness and death, where God's power and resurrection life can come in and be the most real thing on the planet!  So self-assertion had to go to the cross, both as a moment in time and as a continual ever unfolding way of living, the process that we are all in.

Self-judging was next up.  Every word ever spoken in thought or judgement against another could be traced back to the root of self, "to his own master he stands or falls".  I am nobody's master.  Any unveiling or revealing of a weakness of another that comes to me, is to be taken to prayer, and a cry for mercy for them.  One word, thought or attitude of judgement, reveals self-judging in me and that needs to go to the cross, both as a one time event and as a continual cleansing.

God likes doing things in threes and sure enough there was a third area He wanted to bring up on our walk.  Self-provider.  The way that this shows up in my life is when it is pointed out that something in me, my parenting, my salary, my way of living, is not good enough, and I react in defensive anger, I am thinking that I am the provider, I am not the provider.  God will provide, and has provided everything necessary for life and godliness.  A friend pointed out that when Isaac's wife, asked for children, Isaac prayed.  When Jacob's wife Rachel asked for children, Jacob got angry and defensive, "What do you expect from me, I can't open your womb and give you children!"  See the difference, Isaac rested in the Provider, and Jacob took it as if he was the self-provider for his family.  That one is very clear to me and I feel God had already started a good work in this area, so that goes to the cross as a one time event and as an on-going "giving up" whenever it comes up in every day life.

Thank You Faithful Merciful God!

Indictment of "churchianity" and the benefits of the curse.

 9/11 TI have listened to hundreds of teachings by Art Katz and more than a few teachings from the guys at the Daniel Training Institute.  When I pull out a section and transcribe it, I can guarantee that you are getting the 'best of the best.'  Enjoy!

This w                 This was a statement in a message that Art made after 9/11 and it has proven to be very true!                 “What our dear President (Bush) does not know, when those planes crashed into those towers the world has changed and will not ever again be the same.  Not only have the rules changed the rules have been removed.  You are not going to find the bad guys at the “OK Corral” and get rid of them, with a few blasts and go back to things as they were.  This is a whole other world and new considerations have come with that act of violence that need to be recognized and patriotism as we have understood it and even the Christianity that we are happy that the President has obtained is inadequate to meet the level at which this crisis has come. “

                 “Systems are predictable and safe, organisms are messy.  Crisis reveals and absolute crisis reveals absolutely.  The truth of our condition is not revealed in our comfort, the truth of our condition is revealed when crisis strikes unsuspectingly and suddenly and what is revealed then is the truth that has ever and always been our condition but has been concealed until the crisis has revealed it. “

                 "The ‘churchianity system’ allows for mediocrity and late Saturday night viewing because one knows that “Pastor” is going to bring a nice biblically sound message which the audience is not expected to heed.  It is not to challenge to change but to fill the slot provided for a Biblical presentation.  We are willing to pay a man who can to that ably.  This is a travesty against God’s purpose for the church.  This satisfies the religious requirement but does not make any personal demand.  The whole level of church is reduced to a pedestrian achievement. Essentially the perpetuation of itself as a religious system providing predictable and minimal services on a schedule that does not distract from the more vital and predominately worldly interest of its ."   Art Katz  from the message “9/11 Tragedy”

                     “Repentance and Faith”

                “We love to define ourselves (what good Christians we are) when our health is good, money is plentiful, and friends and favor abound, but God brings/allows the curse to fall on humanity and we are put in situations that discipline us to bring out authentic faith, which is believing in what you do not see.  God wants us to know reality and truth about our own condition and that is “found out” when the three main aspects of the curse enter our lives: strife, hunger and the body of death.  When those things enter our lives through various events we find out who we are.  Recognizing this reality and repenting of any self life left, is then the path to the resurrection life of God.  The body of death is our stumbling block, what joyful news, that “you are dead and your life is hidden with Christ in God. “

Paris and the Bride of Christ

Paging through people's thoughts on Paris to see what is out there because the "truth" is always deeper than the surface. This was posted by a woman named Victoria Boyd and it is a true word on many levels.." I see that the consequences of today's brutal actions are far reaching and ongoing. Remember that our battle is not against flesh and blood. Innocent blood shed will empower the principalities over this region. As always, political spirits will rise in response to political spirits. Leaders of nations will band together in some sort of 'solidarity' and pass laws that will restrict freedom for the average citizen, but make no difference to those that want to see Jews and Christians annihilated ...
Believers who move in the opposite spirit will see heaven move in response to our prayers. It's the goodness and kindness of the Lord that leads to repentance, and it's a move of goodness that we need to sweep Europe, both in words and in deed. I pray that this tragedy will stir the hearts of believers across the globe to put action to their 'outrage', and get our heads out of the sand, thinking that this will never come to our safe hometowns."

and this from Art Katz on the bride of Christ

"This is the thing to which you are called union with Christ, so that you might say with Paul, 'For me to live is Christ.'  This is the end of the whole colossal redemptive drama of God, a bride adorned for the bridegroom having the glory of God being like Him, as Him, with Him as one."

From this message    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrGGvYprWhI

He Lived By the Word of God

http://followthelamb.net/23/SID23365.mp3 it starts at about 1 hour and 4 minutes.

Art Katz in the message Absolute Surrender does something I only have heard him do one time in all of the sermons I have listened to.  His voice rises, and rises and becomes a loud shout by the end of this part of the speaking.  
"Your impatience and unwillingness to wait for the revelation of God related to your decision, is because your self-gratification is more important than your obedience to God.  You haven't asked, 'Lord what would you have for me to do?' And not to move until He will answer, even if it kills you, because you love Him so much that obedience to Him is much more important than your own gratification.  You will stay by the brook and be fed by the ravens even till the stream dries up. 'But Art we've got common sense, the stream is drying up, we need to make some other type of preparation, we've got to find some other source of supply.'
Elijah never moved by such reckonings as that.  He would prefer to perish by a stream that had dried up, than that he should initiate by his own skull some other course of action...He did not move until the word of the Lord came unto him saying, 'Arise and get thee to Zarephath Sidon for I have commanded a widow woman there to feed thee.' So he arose and went and did according to the word of the Lord.
He didn't live by streams,
He didn't live by circumstance,
He didn't live by human logic and reason,
He lived by the word of God!  (and there is no other living than that.)"

Art Katz quotes that speak of suffering in a way no one else can.

So the question comes, "Haven't you listened to that Art Katz teaching a hundred times?" Then on 101, I truly hear this for the first time and I am glad I listened just one more time....#1)   "The more profound the calling, the more profound the preparation, the more necessity for suffering in its attainment. The only reason why you stagger at this, that Israel would have to bear this logic is because you've not received it for yourself, because you don't see the necessity for suffering in the fulfillment of your call and your destiny. That is why your walk and your service is less than and other, than God's apostolic and prophetic intention. You are shrinking from the suffering that is intrinsic to the preparation of any vessel that is to be used by God in the things that pertain to His glory. Because you are unwilling for it yourself you shrink from Israel having to consider it." Message entitled. "Jewish Unbelief"
#2)  "You need a prophetic and priestly intrusion.  You need someone to blow the whistle on things you accepted as normative and thought that was what this life as all about.  This comes from priestly men who see through the apparent things and whose hearts palpitate for the glory of God, and know that there is a sinister world that conspires against truth, against reality, against eternity.  This is the priestly function to show things as God Himself see them to those who would otherwise be mesmerized and live their lives fruitlessly and die that way."  Message entitle "An OVerview of the Mystery of Israel"
#3)"The entrance into the ultimate calling of the 'body of believers' is suffering that is received with gratitude as coming from the hand of God, in His great sovereignty, wisdom and necessity as that which precedes the glory."  Message entitled "Israel the Suffering Servant Part 2"
When God makes us aware of the 'truth of our condition' deep heart felt repugnance at our own efforts takes over, we realize in the very core of our being that we need a Savior and that salvation is from the wrath of God, justly and rightly executed on sin.

LOVE TRUTH - Art Katz

"Truth is expensive and painful, and yet I have not an end of praise for the God who is the God of truth, and whose Spirit is eminently and first the Spirit of truth before He is the Spirit of power.  And more than we have realized the absence of Pentecostal power is in exact proportion to the absence of the Spirit of truth in the earth and among God's people.  And if you want again to see Apostolic glory, which is more than "Amens" and "Hallelujahs", if you want to see again the shadow of a simple fisherman falling on the sick and healing them if you want to see signs and wonders following I think that God is going to have to restore the Spirit of truth to us in such proportion as that if any man come among us and give a part and allow that to appear for the whole, the Spirit of God shall kill him on the spot and he should be carried out feet first.  How many of us would be willing for the restoration of the severity of God, the divine severity of God against a partial lie in order to enjoy again the magnitude of the glory of the Spirit of power that existed in the apostolic age?  Do you hear what I am saying?  There is a world dying for the want of the demonstration of this power, and it shall not return until God's people are willing also for the magnitude of truth, because the Spirit of power is first the Spirit of truth and when that Dove departs He takes His power with Him also.  And if you will understand this and I... I am not trying to be loving, I am loving...how much in our charismatic sessions ... I am not speaking about these immediate days, but experiences that we have all had, when we come away with a leaden feeling and the "Amens" and "Hallelujahs" rattle in our ears, but some how our souls have not been uplifted, how much of that has had been an  exercise seeking to fill the void, which would be filled had the Holy Dove  been there in fullness...  Oh children love truth.  Love truth and you will not love it except you be wiling to suffer for it.  And if you are willing to suffer for it, you will find yourself at the cross.  For surely is there one among us in whom there is no deceit, no acting, no posturing, no deception, no subtlety of lies, no ambition of heart, no braggadocio and vehement statement, "Yea though all the world deny you, yet will  I deny you never."  There is a cross to which God is bidding his people come, if they are to be established in this last age, from which we shrink because it is painful, but when we see Him who suffered for the truth, when we see the God who is truth, crucified we are willing also to enter into that portion of suffering which is ours.  We can say with Paul, "that the suffering of the present time is not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us."  (Suffering and glory)   Art Katz  transcribed by me over a period of about 30 minutes because I found it to be soooo very precious.  the message is
"The Cross of Christ 2 of 3"
http://www.sermonindex.net/modules/mydownloads/singlefile.php?lid=21349&commentView=itemComments

the Christian life = total destitution

The people of God come to a fullness when they recognize and live in the place of total destitution. John 15:5 " I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing."

A question  How does the idea of "total destitution" connect in with "that bears much fruit"? Are they not the opposing sides?

My reply Excellent question to spur further discussion. The specific kind of "total destitution" that I am talking about is that of knowing that in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing. The fulness of God can only flow out of one who is empty, who recognizes, that they are "undone" "a man of unclean lips among a people of unclean lips" "Righteousness belongs to You, O Lord, but to us open shame " The recognition that all of our "life" is flowing out of the vine, and we are just the branch, destitute of life, if not for your connection, our 100% dependence on the vine. In the last two Bible Studies that Tom Quinlan hosts, "Paul's Gospel in the Old Testament" Session 11 and 12, the truth that the fullness of the gentiles is actually the revealing of a people who are at the end of their strength, corporately having no strength of their own, corporately wholly dependent, absolutely surrendered to God. (I have watched and read about so many charismatically gifted people who would bear fruit for a season and then grab a tiny sliver of the glory, and then crash and burn, a total cleansing of self-righteousness, a total rejection of any "claim" upon grace is what we need and what the Lord is searching for.)

and an “add on”  And from the place of "total destitution" the will of God reigns and the love of God flows and the compassion of God heals, unhindered by the "flesh", bearing much fruit all for the glory of His Name

Fresh wind

The emphasis on "Christ in you, the hope of glory."  is not new to me, God started me out in 1983 with the truth of "Christ in you."  It is not new, but it is fresh, in this season.  God's love, His delight, in us, the fact that somehow He uses (redeems) even sin, and forces it to draw us closer to Him, amazes me.  At one point in a teaching Dalton Thomas says, something like, "He even used our sin, to set us free of sin."  When men banded together to see Jesus crucified, they were sinning, sin which they and we are held accountable for, but somehow, God grabs a hold of that evil act, and says, this 'sin' is what I will use to set the world free from 'sin.'
In another teaching Dalton shares the strangeness of God punishing Saul, for what appears to be a minor infraction, and forgiving David for what appears to be a horrible, unforgivable, well-planned, multitude of sins.  It all goes back to the heart.  Saul's heart was one of rebellion against God, David's heart was one of tenderness toward God.  The sin does not intimidate God, He is always and ever looking at the heart.

Grace is dangerous, teaching grace is dangerous.  It 'appears' to soft and lenient.

It is a challenge to teach grace while acknowledging the God who will "one day" judge it all.

Art Katz, often echoed, Paul's cry, "Who is sufficient for these things?"

God help us, take full control, open our eyes.