What is Your Sustaining Force?

The sustaining force of SALVATION is LOVE!

The sustaining force of RELIGIOUS CONVERTS is the FEAR of HELL!

Relationship with God stems from LOVE and perfect LOVE will cast out all FEAR, even the FEAR of HELL fired preachers!

The FEAR of HELL is the snare RELIGION sets to win converts and choke its members into conformity and confine them to a denominated name-tagged building called church!

LOVE will bring people to Christ and set them FREE to be the Community of the Redeemed in the Community of Humanity!

Posted by Journey Encouragement at 7:12 PM No comments :

Romans 8 Remixed

And you know that I cause everything to work together for your good because you love me and are called according to my purpose.

I knew you in advance, and I chose you to become like my Son, so that my Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And having chosen you, I called you to come to my Son.

And having called you, I gave you right standing with me. And having given you right standing with me, I glorified you (even though you haven’t experienced it yet).

What shall you say about such wonderful things? If I am for you, who can ever be against you? Since I did not spare even my own Son but gave him up for you, won’t I also give you everything else?

Who dares accuse you whom I have chosen for my own? No one—for I myself have given you my righteousness. Who then will condemn you? No one—for Christ Jesus, my Son, died for you and was raised to life for you, and he is sitting in the place of honor at my right hand, interceding for you.

Can anything ever separate you from my Son’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves you if you have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is yours through my Son, who loved you.

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate you from my love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither your fears for today nor your worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate you from my love.

No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate you from my love that is revealed in my Son, Christ Jesus your Lord.

(Based on Romans 8:28-39, NLT)

The Indefinable, Indescribable Something

I am not the every-week preacher at Grace Fellowship Church, but this week have the privilege of proclaiming God’s Word. I am looking forward to it and find myself longing for unction—what E.M. Bounds refers to as that indefinable, indescribable something. Here is what he says about unction:

Unction is that indefinable, indescribable something which an old, renowned Scotch preacher describes thus: “There is sometimes somewhat in preaching that cannot be ascribed either to matter or expression, and cannot be described what it is, or from whence it cometh, but with a sweet violence it pierceth into the heart and affections and comes immediately from the Word; but if there be any way to obtain such a thing, it is by the heavenly disposition of the speaker.”

We call it unction. It is this unction which makes the word of God “quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” It is this unction which gives the words of the preacher such point, sharpness, and power, and which creates such friction and stir in many a dead congregation. The same truths have been told in the strictness of the letter, smooth as human oil could make them; but no signs of life, not a pulse throb; all as peaceful as the grave and as dead. The same preacher in the meanwhile receives a baptism of this unction, the divine inflatus is on him, the letter of the Word has been embellished and fired by this mysterious power, and the throbbings of life begin — life which receives or life which resists. The unction pervades and convicts the conscience and breaks the heart.

This divine unction is the feature which separates and distinguishes true gospel preaching from all other methods of presenting the truth, and which creates a wide spiritual chasm between the preacher who has it and the one who has it not. It backs and impregns revealed truth with all the energy of God. Unction is simply putting God in his own word and on his own preachers.

By mighty and great prayerfulness and by continual prayerfulness, it is all potential and personal to the preacher; it inspires and clarifies his intellect, gives insight and grasp and projecting power; it gives to the preacher heart power, which is greater than head power; and tenderness, purity, force flow from the heart by it. Enlargement, freedom, fullness of thought, directness and simplicity of utterance are the fruits of this unction.

What of unction? It is the indefinable in preaching which makes it preaching. It is that which distinguishes and separates preaching from all mere human addresses. It is the divine in preaching.