Spoken Word #106
Conformed to His Image
Brian Kocourek
April 2, 2017
KJV Romans
8:28-30 And we know that all things work together for good to them
that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. 29For
whom he did foreknow, (That’s Ephesians 1:3-4 we were in Him before the foundations of the world)
29For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to
be conformed to the image of His Son,
that he might be the firstborn among
many brethren. Now, if Jesus Christ is the firstborn amongst
many brethren, then He is the Eldest Son in a very large family of brothers.
30 Moreover whom he did
predestinate beforehand, them he also called beforehand: and those whom he
called beforehand, them he also justified beforehand: and whom He has
already justified beforehand, them he
also has glorified already in His thoughts before the foundations of the world.
That is why the same Apostle Paul said in Ephesians 1:3-5 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: 4 According
as he hath chosen us in him before the
foundation of the world, that we should be holy (consecrated and
set apart for Him) and without blame before him (or in His
Presence). Then 5: in love He
Has predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according
to the good pleasure of his will,
So not only did He choose us or selected us out while
we were yet in Him before the foundations of the world, but He that selected us
out also for-ordained our end to be adoptable sons, conformed to the Image of
His Uniquely born, first born son Jesus. So he pre-destined our path to that
very conforming to the Image of the first born son.
Now from brother Branham's sermon the Rising of the Son, pp118.
117 And
so is it today. We don't try to be some big person. We don't care what
the people say about us. Our name ain't nothing; it's His Name.
Our life is nothing; it's
His Life. It's His power, not our power. And there's only one
thing that we love to do, is see Him glorified. And how can it be? When He's glorified in us by His
resurrection that's in us. We see Him represented again as He was, today.
Did you get that? See? Our desire is not to be glorified. Our
desire is not some big name. Our desire is not boost some church, or make more
in the Sunday school, or try to bring in, hogtie, push in, offer picnic party,
or bring stars, buttons, or something else like that. That's not our desire. Our desire is to see Him
glorified. Glorify what? Not with self-pride, but in us, our lives, to prove that
He is alive and living in us. If I can get myself out of the way, so when William
Branham not even thought of, and you not even thought of, till we can see Jesus
glorified among us, see Him, that's our desire. That's the quick,
gives us the Quickening Power. And it gives us joy to know that we are with Him, both flesh
and bone of Him, being the Bride of Him, and seeing His same vindicated methods
proving in us that He is now risen from the dead. See? No wonder
He said, "Fear not."
118 For now (Notice.), we are redeemed by Him and now risen with Him.
That's what Easter means to the people: risen with Him. Notice. Now, we have His
Spirit in us, the Abstract deed, fully paid. No. You don't say, "Well, I
hope I make it." You've
already made it. Not, "I will make it"; "I've already made it."
I never made it; He
made it for me. See? Not me, Him."Well, Brother Branham,
they say..." I don't care what they say there; He made it for me. That's
all I want to, I'm caring about. I just want to see Him manifested. How can you do it? Call
Him down? No. He's
in you. See? He's in you. "Well then, Lord, if I can get myself out of the way, You can manifest,
... myself. How can You do it? Because You ordained it so: 'All that the Father has given Me will come'" Notice. Glory.
There is a principle that
brother Branham gives us in order for us to conform to the image of Christ. And
he says we must get ourselves out of the way...
And from the Spoken Word is the Original Seed, in paragraph 83 All of God's sons must be the same. Yes, sir. To be born of the Word and Spirit brings us
back to the spoken Word again like in John 3.
See? To be born of the Water and the Spirit, what does it do? Then it brings you right back again unto the
place of where you should've been at the beginning…
And I would like to add, where were we at the
beginning? The way God saw us in Himself before the foundations of the world.
Then brother Branham says, …See? That's the reason of Christ's death:
brings us right back again to where? Sons
of God.
Now, then let’s jump forward to paragraph 85
where he says,
85 Now, now, this brings you
right back to the spoken Word. Then we
are God's Word made manifest. See? Jesus said the same thing. "He
that believeth on Me, the things that--Who I am, what I come for
and the purpose I do, to bring a man
back to believe the Word of God and take nothing else with it, the
works that I do, He will do also." There you are.
So you see, God wants all His children to be like the
first born son. That is His purpose in having many Sons. And we are ordained to
be conformed to that Image. And since that Image was the expressed Image of the
Father according to Hebrews 1:3 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time
past unto the fathers through the prophets, 2 Hath
in these last days spoken unto us in His Son,
whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; 3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the
express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his
power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of
the Majesty on high; 4 Being made so much better than the angels, as
he hath by inheritance obtained a more
excellent name than they. 5 For unto which of the angels said he at
any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And
again, I will be to him a Father, and he
shall be to me a Son?
Now, in getting back to
what brother Branham was saying, …86 Why is it not
being done today? It's hybrid, bastard children, mixed up. It don't, it's a
mule; it don't know what it believes.
A mule don't know who his daddy is, who his mama is. He don't... He's no
pedigree; there's nothing to him. He's a illegitimate creature. That's the way any person that claims to
believe God and don't believe His Word will take a denominational creed and
breed it with the Word. See, you're
not of God; you're dead. You can't be dead and alive at the same time. So even the Word of God don't even grow.
You're just playing the part of a hypocrite. Let that go for bishop, priest,
cardinal or whoever it might be. That's right. It's got to be the Word or you're dead, just a illegitimate child. And God's Word... God part won't grow. You might grow in the same field as we're
getting to directly, but you're sure not in the fold. It won't grow.
So you see, if we were in God before the foundations
of the world, and as Paul said in Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet it is not I that is living, but Christ is living in me:
and the life which I am now living in the flesh, I am living by the faith of
the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. So it is not
I that am living, but Christ, the anointed Life of the Father that was in His
firstborn Son, that is also living itself out in me.
That is what Paul also said in Colossians 3:1 If
ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ
sitteth on the right hand of God. 2 Set your
affection on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For ye are dead, and your
life is hid with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also
appear with him in glory.
That means we must come to the place where we are
willing to die out to self. We must come like Jesus to the place where we are
not trying to dodge the new birth, but we are willing to surrender ourselves to
it. So it is not what you do, but what you just surrender yourself to. Brother Branham said in , Hebrews 7 part 2 57-0922 P:43 God takes men and makes them different, not man taking God
and becoming different. God takes men and makes him different. It's not what
you do, what you will, what you think; it's what God does.
To whom
is arm of Lord revealed? 50-0824 P:42 Now, the first thing
you must do, is surrender yourself entirely to Christ, and surrender your mind to His Word. "Lord,
I won't act upon my own feelings, upon my own thoughts. I will only act upon
Your Word. I'll have no control of my own thoughts concerning it. I will act
upon Your Word." Now, get that straight.
How can
I overcome 63-0825M P:48 See, if the little baby keeps trying,
"Oh, I can do it; I can do it." And he's just everywhere; He can't do
it. Neither can you; neither can I. But if we just hold still and let Him do
it, just yield to Him, "Here, Lord, here I am. Just let me be nothing. And
I yield; You put my hand in the right place." That's the victory; that's
overcoming. The thing you have to overcome is yourself, your
ideas, your things, and surrender yourself to Him. He overcome
for you. He knows the way; we don't.
Uncertain
sound 60-1218 P:61 …it's God's love and mercy measured out to
you to take It. Don't cost you one thing. Only thing It costs you, is just to surrender your life to Him, and
receive It. How simple. Just forget all you ever knew and just surrender yourself to Him. And that's how It comes, is just
receive, receiving It that way.
It
wasn't so from the beginning 60-0306 P:47 Every man's got to be born
again, and this sinful nature killed in him, and a new Man born in him, which
is Christ Jesus, the Son of God. Then you surrender yourself
completely to Christ, and Christ comes in, and writes a book of
acts through you. How I know that's the truth, my friend, how I know it's the
truth.
Christianity
verses idolatry 61-1217 P:90 We, in His image, a living image of a
living God. When you surrender yourself
to God, and God comes into you, what does it make you? A living image of God.
So that is what we want to be by God’s Grace this morning, just living
image of the living God, just Like his First born son was. But we must die to
self, and we must surrender our hearts and our minds to God and accept every
word that he says, as our guide, and as our instructions for how to Live and
how to Love.
Jesus said, "the things I speak are what my Father commanded me what to
say." There you are, that’s how to be the Son in the Image of
the first born.
Listen to what Jesus said of His relationship with the father. In John 12: 49-50
"For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should
say, and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is life
everlasting: whatsoever I speak
therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak."
And He also said in John 5:19
"the Father
works and I work hitherto." Not, my own ideas of what I think
my Father might want me to do, or say. No, that’s not it at all. That would be
our own mental reasoning. But He said, the Son can do nothing but what He sees the father do, that
doeth the son likewise.
From his sermon From that time 60-0302 P:21 Brother Branham said, And she got down on her
knees, and I asked her to pray. And she prayed for a few moments; she looked
over at me, and she said, "Brother Branham, I now am going to make a new
start." I said, "Sis, it won't do one bit of good. You're going just
exactly the same road you've been over. It won't work. "And she said,
"I mean it in my heart." I said, "I know you do, but that
devil's stronger than any mental powers that you could put to him. That's the
reason I don't believe in an intellectual religion. I believe a man's got to be
born again of the Holy Spirit. It's got
to be deeper than your thinking, it’s got to be an experience." And
she said, "What must I do?" I said, "Just stay right
there." And we prayed and prayed. I went ahead and prayed with some people
and come back. She was praying. I come back to her again, and after while I
come back, and she was deeply in sincerity. In a few moments, she raised up,
with tears running down her cheek; she looked me in the face. She said,
"Brother Branham, something's happened." I said, "You don't have
to turn no new pages now." The woman's married and got a family, and a
lovely, sweet, born again Holy Spirit filled saint. 'Cause God could take her
back to a place where she started to do wrong. That's His goodness, and from
that time, she was a changed woman. From the time of a young girl, to at one
time she was evil. God taken her back, and from that time she was different.
You see, God is not coming for a people who think his Message is just a
new creed or something. And the
Doctrine of Christ is not theology to be argued over, no, not at all. The Doctrine of Christ is a reality of your
position in the family of God.
The Doctrine of Christ, to know it and understand it from your heart will bring with it the same Life
that was in the first born son, and you will see your own life become a
reflection of His Life. Because God wants to live out your life for you, in
your own set of circumstances.
Paul said in Ephesians 4:11 And he gave some, apostles; and some,
prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;12 For
the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying (that’s the building up) of the body of Christ:
13 Till we all come in the unity of The Faith, and of the
knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man,(that’s a mature
man) unto the
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ: (You see without the
knowledge of the Son of God, without the Revelation of Jesus Christ and our
understanding of the relationship between the Father and His First Born son, we
would never know how to act as children of God. We will never grow up.) Paul
said, 14 That we henceforth be no
more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of
doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning
craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; 15 But
speaking the truth in love, may grow up
into him in all things, which is the head, even
Christ: 16 From
whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every
joint supplieth, according to the effectual working (that is the
energy of God) in
the measure of every part,(so it matters not what measure you have
been given, that same energy of God will work in you in the same way, in the
same nature and with the same results that it worked in the whole, and it will) maketh increase of
the body unto the edifying of itself in love.
The trials and tests God gives to each of you are very unique to your own
life circumstances, and God wants your vessel to reflect Himself through your
circumstances. And it matters not who
you are. My circumstances are different with my wife’s circumstances and hers
are different from our daughters. And each of my daughters have a set of
circumstances that are unique to them, And God wants to live out their lives
and show Himself the same yesterday, today and forever in each of our lives.
No matter who you are, if you are a son or daughter of God, he wants to borrow
your body, so just loan it to him, or
give it to Him, Just surrender
your self to Him that he might use your vessel to manifest His life through it.
That is what Life is all about. It’s not seeing what you can do with this
vessel, but allowing god to use it to see what He will do with it. When I was
in Africa traveling from
Well, after unloading all ten ministers, we got it fixed and proceeded
towards Choma
When I go overseas and speak to brothers who live in such a different
world than we live in, yet I see that God wants to live through them no less
than he lived out His life through His son Jesus. And that is because God has
already ordained it, and so He has set the circumstances that surround your
life. He did it, not you. It was not good luck that placed you where you are?
It was God who set you where you are today. Psalms
37:23
“The footsteps of the righteous are ordered of the Lord, and he delights
in his way.” Proverbs 16:9 A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD
directeth his steps. Proverbs 3: In all thy ways acknowledge
him, and he shall direct thy paths.
He promised us that he would not place upon us what we could not bear,
that is why you are here and they are over there. You couldn't take what they
have to put up with and they could not withstand Laodicea as well as you can.
So where I see the problem with the church today is that the people want
to dodge what God has for them. We do not accept that our set of circumstances
means anything to God. But it does. And your unique sort of trial is there to
build His own character in you.
From his sermon, Balm of Gilead 61-0218 P:55 Brother
Branham said, You know, the new birth's what people want
to dodge; they want to dodge the issue. So the devil patches it up, says,
"When you believe, that's when you're born again."
That's not right. Listen, any birth, as I said before, any birth is a mess. I
don't care where it's at. If it's in the pig pen, it's a mess. A mess of pigs
being born out there, it's a horrible thing. If it was out in the field when a
calf's born, it's a horrible thing, nasty mess. If it's out in the pink
decorated hospital room, it's still a mess. And the new birth is a mess. But
you have to have that messy thing to bring forth new life. Amen. That's what's the matter with the people
today. They're afraid it'll wash some of the paint off their face and make
them straighten up. They got the toxine, but they don't want to take it. And
God's going to ask you why someday, didn't you do it? Why didn't you? There's
toxine; there's balm in
Turning northward
61-0129 P:20 These
twin revivals, one brings forth a man that's supposed to be intellectual; most
have been schooled. They're trying to
dodge that issue of new birth. The church is trying to dodge it. Today we
take people in by water baptisms, put them in the church by water baptism. You
might put them in the church by water baptism, but you'll never put them into
Christ by water baptism. You got to be born in there by the Spirit. That's
right. As I've often said, I say again. I don't care what kind of a birth it
is, any birth is a mess. If it's in a pig pen, or if it's in a corn shock, or
if it's is a pink decorated hospital room, it's a mess. And so is the new birth
a mess. It'll make you do things that
you never thought you'd do. It'll make you weep, bawl, cry, and raise up
your hands, and turn all kinds of shines, and everything else. And you'll act
disgraceful before a starchy, self-styled group. But you don't care, as long as
you get birth out of it.
Why
61-0128 P:46 Now
the thing of it is, that they're trying
to dodge that new birth. They got
too much prestige. They got too much head knowledge. Whenever you get to a
place that you feel you're just a little better than somebody else, when you
get to a place that you think that your stand in life is just a little higher
than the other one, you ain't going to get it anyhow. That's right. But there's
one thing about the new birth: it'll make a tuxedo suit and a pair of overalls
put their arms around one another, call each other "Brother." It'll make
a gingham dress and a silk dress put their arms around one another, and call
each other "Sister," whenever you really get down to business with
God. That's right.
Notice that brother Branham said the people have too much prestige. We
must learn to surrender our prestige to God.
Meanest
man in Santa Maria 62-0630E P:83 And
the new birth is the same thing. It's a mess. But it comes life out of that
mess. Only way you can receive life, is through a birth. It's messy, but it
makes life. People try to dodge it.
Now, listen, All men try to dodge what God has for them. Even Jesus
Christ Himself tried to dodge what God had for him, did you know that? Jesus
Christ, our eldest Brother. The first born of God tried to dodge the Cross, but
after praying all night he just surrendered Himself to God’s will for His Life.
Now, that is not my opinion, that was what a vindicated Prophet of God said.
From his sermon, Souls in prison now 63-1110M
P:94 Brother Branham said, I've
told you the Truth. I've hated to do it, not hating because I don't want to do
what God tells me to, but I love you. I don't want to hurt you, so what am I
going to do? But pure Divine love will drive you to do it. Jesus even prayed
to dodge the cross. "Is it possible that the cup should pass,"
said, "nevertheless, not My will, Thine."
And from his sermon, God hiding Himself
in simplicity 63-0412E P:132 When you surrender
fully, He'll come in fully. But until you surrender, He can't come in fully.
Surrender. Surrender your thoughts; surrender
your thinking; surrender your life;
surrender your all; surrender your prestige. Surrender everything to Him now,
and He'll come in and fill you with the Holy Ghost. That's what He's here to
do.
Again from pp 87 of the spoken Word is the original Seed
brother Branham said, All right. All right, we notice then. See, the spoken
Word... Then we are God's Word made
manifest. That's how God wants His church: is to manifest Himself.
How can He manifest Himself unless His Own Seed is in
that person? How can you use your own thoughts and God
manifest Himself through you? How can you take your own belief and
say, "Well, my pastor teaches... My creed says that this... days of
miracles..." How you going to do
that and then be a manifested son of God? How you going to do it? The death
of Jesus wasn't nothing to you. "Oh, I accept Him as my Saviour." You
don't. You say you do, but you don't. Your
works proves what you are. Jesus said the same thing. "If you think I
am illegitimately born..."They said, "We're Abraham's son and need
nobody to teach us." Said, "If
you was Abraham's children, you'd know Me." See? Said, "Which one
of you condemns Me of sin (unbelief)? Show
Me one thing that God promised of Me that ain't fulfilled. Show Me one thing that the Father promised that
I haven't fulfilled. (Sin is unbelief.) Let's see you produce it
then." That de-horned them. See? Certainly. Said, "Who's accusing Me?
Who can condemn Me with sin (unbelief)?" See? "If I don't believe,
then why is the Father doing through Me
like He's doing, every Word that He promised? Now, let Me see where you got
it in yours."
What brother Branham is telling us here is that we are
ordained to reflect the image of the original seed. And that could not be
possible unless we have the life that was in the first born seed. For if we
have the life, then we have the nature, for the two are one in the sense the
nature of the life is the reflected attributes and manifested characteristics
of the life in the seed. Look, if we are so absorbed by our own daily life we
can not let Christ live it for us.
Paul
said in Romans
13:8-10 Don't
run up debts, except for the huge debt of love you owe each other. When you
love others, you complete what the law has been after all along. The law says
don't sleep with another person's spouse, don't take someone's life, don't take
what isn't yours, don't always be wanting what you don't have, and any other
"don't" you can think of finally adds up to this: Love other people
as well as you do yourself. You can't go wrong when you love others. When you
add up everything in the law, the sum total is love. 11 But make sure that you don't get so absorbed and exhausted in taking
care of all your day-to-day obligations that you lose track of the time and
doze off, oblivious to God. The night is about over, dawn is about to
break. Be up and awake to what God is
doing! God is putting the finishing
touches on the work he began when we first believed. We can't afford to
waste a minute, must not squander these precious daylight hours in frivolity
and indulgence, in sleeping around and dissipation, in bickering and grabbing
everything in sight. Get out of bed and get
dressed! Don't loiter and linger, waiting until the very last minute. Dress yourselves in Christ, and be up
and about!
So in putting on Christ
we must put off self. And Paul said in Philippians 2:5 Let this mind be in you, which
was also in Christ Jesus:
That is what God wants.
Jesus
Christ the same 55-0806 P:19 You have to move your thoughts. You have to
move your thinking, and get away from reason and move your thoughts from your
own way of thinking to what God thinks. "Let the mind that was in Christ Jesus be in
you." And then when you
begin to think His thoughts, you'll begin to live His life and do the things
that He did. See what I mean? Now, because it's not you; it's
Christ.
Look, what we are saying is not positive thinking. The devil has positive
thinking, but we do not want that. We want the Mind of Christ to be in us. That
is what we want. That is what God wants. He wants us to be conformed to the
image of His first born Son who came forth in His Own image.
Why it
had to be shepherds 64-1221 P:40 If
you're thinking contrary to the Word; forget your thinking. Think on
the Word."
Future
home 64-0802 P:76 Now, many of you wonder how that
discernment comes? I'm going to tell you. See, it's a word that I say, and it isn't my thinking, 'cause I don't know.
I don't know of the thinking of it. How can I tell you who you are and where
you come from, when I don't know you? How can I tell you what you done ten
years ago, when I never seen you in my life? How can I tell you where you do
and what you'll do ten years from now? How do I know the future? But it is Somebody Else's thought." Let the mind that was
in Christ be in you. Let
the mind that was in Christ be in you." See, then it isn't your
thinking; it's His thinking through you, and you're not
expressing your own words; you're expressing His Words.
God's
gifts always find place 63-1222 P:44 God
works through human beings to redeem human beings. He can take you, work
through you to redeem humanity, if you'll completely dedicate everything you
are .If you're a young woman, dedicate your morals. You're a young man,
dedicate your morals, dedicate your mind, dedicate your thinking,
dedicate your heart, dedicate your soul, dedicate all you
are and let Christ work through that. What a glorious thing.
Who is
this 59-1004M P:34 …a supernatural God cannot change His nature
to fit people's nature. People has to change their
nature to fit God's supernatural plan. And that's why people cry,
"Who is this?" It's God in the midst of His people. They don't
understand it. God will never come to your level; you'll have to come to His. God will not come to your requirement; you have to come to God's. And then
when that requirement is met upon a promise that God made to redeem the people.
If that requirement has met, your entire being changes; your
thinking changes. Your habits change. Everything about you changes. Your desires
change. Your living changes. Your habits change. You change. Everything about you changes, 'cause there's a new life in
you.
Can we
see Jesus 58-0619E P:14 You
have to have God on the inside before you can see Him on the outside. And there's
many people that doesn't seem to understand what God is. But He has to come in,
and look through your eyes, use your
eyes, and your mind, your thinking, and your sight, your emotion, all has to be
fully controlled by God.
Door to
the heart 58-0316E P:42 Oh, you want Him to be your Saviour, but He
wants to be your Lord. Lord is rulership. He wants to be your Ruler, not just
your Saviour only. You want Him as a Saviour, but what about being your Lord, that'll control you, control your emotions, control your thinking,
control your every fiber of you, that you could say like the man
years ago who let Him in, "For me to live is Christ and to die is
gain." Let Him in, in that way to be Ruler and Lord over you.
Door
inside door 58-0209E P:31 You must let Him be the supreme Ruler. That
is, He's over all. He's over your opinions. He's over everything that you have.
He's over your emotions. He's over your ideas. He's controls
every fiber of your thinking. Everything that you are you should turn it over to Him, if
He's going to be your Saviour and your Lord.
Junction
of time 56-0115 P:21 The
unsearchable, the unreasonable thinking of man can never comprehend the
miraculous. You have to come in contact with omnipotence. Then when you do
that, you're in contact with the supernatural. Your life
change, your thinking's change, your mind change, you're made different.
Your sickness is finished. God's great power moves in. Moses at the
bush. He saw and heard the omnipotent, and he seen the miraculous. God wasn't satisfied with giving Moses just
a message to go down and preach along to the Egyptians and to preach to the
Israelites. God the omnipotent and the miraculous God wasn't a
God if He just reveal it to one man.
Faith of
Abraham 55-1118 P:21 And
every believer in here is a Christian tonight, because, not that you're good,
but because God was good to call you. You
couldn't come yourself; your nature's against you. You just couldn't, as I said
the other night, make a pig believe he's wrong eating slop, because it's his
nature. See? Now, the only... A leopard could not change his spots. No matter
how bad he would lick, he'd only brighten it. And you don't want reformation;
you don't want to try to reform, or do a little better, you've got to be
changed completely inside, and the nature come from within, and it'll work out.
But get it right inside at the beginning. And you begin with
a soul before the world was ever formed, when God created man in His own image.
Images
of Christ 59-0525 P:39 Church membership
is all right. I have nothing against it, or any of those things. But, brother, to be a Christian means to be
conformed to the image of Christ. We want to be living images,
not pack an image, but be an image of the Lord Jesus.
Romans
8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be
the firstborn among many brethren.
God's
provided way 64-0206E P:16 You
have to die. You have to die before you can
be reborn. Any seed has to die before it's regenerated again. Unless
it dies, it abides alone. A man's got to die to his own
thinking. He's got to die to the thinking of anything but God's Word, and come
His way. That's God's ground. We
don't meet Him on our thoughts. We meet Him on what He said do. That's
God's provided way for us. People dodge it; they don't want it. But it's true
just the same. It'll... It produces death, and you have to die, die to your
thinking." Well, I know the Bible says it, but I can't understand it."
Then stay there till God reveals it. That's right. It's got... That's the new
birth.
Spirit
of truth 63-0118 P:13 Now, it's such a marvelous thing, and yet
it's so simple if we would just stop and think. We press, we quiver, we fear,
we get in flusterations and doubts just thinking. "Well, must I press
in?" It isn't that. It's just yielding (See?) realizing that you're
nothing, and just let Him completely take you over, take over your
thinking, take over...Now, I don't mean to walk up to Christ
with just a blank mind. I don't mean that. You come to Him in your right mind,
and in a penitent mind, and humble. And then say, "Lord Jesus, here am I.
Now, it's written here in Your Word that You had many things yet to say to the
disciples. You said they could not bear them now, and perhaps that's our case
today. We cannot understand them."
Oneness
62-0211 P:102 What is it? You've got to get
with the Word, get yourself killed out. I'm persuaded that many of
us, friends, have received the Holy Ghost, but we just receive enough Holy
Ghost in us to make us to a place where we don't want to lie, we don't want to
steal, we don't want to do anything. But God wants to fill every
fiber of His church; He wants to fill your thinking; He wants to fill your
mind. He wants to fill every bit of you, just make you completely, totally dead
to yourself or to your thinking, just so surrendered in God till His Word's
just living right through you. You don't know nothing else but God's
Word; just stay right with His Word; It is Life. "My Words are Life,"
said Jesus. He's placed with them, teachers believing the Bible, prophets that
say the truth, that say, show the same prophecy that they've always did down
through the age. What's He done? He's showing Himself alive among them,
confirming His Word. His Word, the
Token
the 63-0901M P:110 As we see the great ensign of the time at
hand, warning us: time is at hand... Oh, take this solemnly. We should love one
another. Oh, my. We should be so in love. Don't never speak evil against one
another. If somebody makes a mistake,
pray for him, right quick. We are together in this with God. We are
brothers and sisters. Oh, live godly. Live like daughters of God. Live
like sons of God. Live sweet, kind, humble. Let no evil come in
your mind in your thinking; just--just dismiss it. If it knocks on the door,
take it away, just show your Token.
Just keep walking. "I'm under the Blood."
Conferences
63-0608 P:68 You must be born again. Everything has to
die away. All your theology, all your thinking, all you ever
was or ever expect to be, your life and everything else dies away.
And then the Holy Spirit comes in. That's when you take off hats, shoes, stand
before God. "Nothing in my arms I
bring, simply to thy cross I cling." That's where Moses had to come,
where he could obey what God said do: the Burning Bush Conference. Then God
said, "I'll show you My glory now," after he was willing to go. And
he went down in
He that
is in you 63-1110E P:80 "Greater is He that's in you, than he
that's in the world." What is in you that's greater? It's Christ, the
anointed; God that was in Christ is in
you. "Greater
is He that's in you, than he that's in the world."
Then if He is in you, it's not you any
more living; it's Him living in you. See? It's not your thinking and what
you would think about this; it's what He said about this. See? Then if He is in
you, He absolutely would not deny what He said. He couldn't do it. But He would
keep what He has said, and He's trying to find that person that He can
vindicate Himself through.
Let us pray...