John 1:1 ¶ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Greek: In the beginning
was the logos, and the logos was in fellowship and communion with God, and God
was the logos.
·
·
The word of God is comprised
of the logos and the rhema word. Both
are absolutely essential in furnishing us with the fullness of God’s knowledge
and will, both as individual believers and corporately in our churches. The logos word defines God in general
concepts and ideas to give us the “big picture” of who God is.
·
·
The rhema word is a
moment-to-moment portion of the logos word uttered by the voice of God’s Spirit
and “tailored made” to equip us with God’s commands, guidance, and the
fulfillment of our needs in accordance to our specific circumstances.
·
·
With God: Not that Jesus was with God as one who was next or alongside Him,
but as one that is with God because He lives in continual fellowship and
communion with Him.
· The word was God. More correctly, “God was the logos”. Jesus, as God the Son, is first found in an
eternal and continual communion with God the Father, so He can then come to
mankind as the logos word, which translated and interpreted to us the
conceptuality of the Father.
John 1:2 The same was in the beginning with God.
·
· This one was from all eternity is in
constant communion and fellowship with God. (John repeats the theme of verse one to emphasize the
complete sufficiency of Jesus to assume the role of “God, the logos word” to humanity.
Hebrews 1:3
Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his
person, and upholding all things by the word of his power ( the rhema words put out by His dunamis power), when
he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on
high;
·
· Greek paraphrase: Who being the perfect reflection of God’s glory
(Jesus is) and the perfect expression of the
character and integrity of God’s substance, He also bears all things by the rhema word, which when
He speaks releases His acts of dunamis power, through which acts, He bears
all…..
Hebrews 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
·
·
Greek paraphrase: Through faith we understand that the worlds
and periods of times that span eternity are made, furnished and equipped,
framed, and then hung (as
completed paintings along the walls of God’s eternal plans) through His rhema word, so that what we
see today was made out of things which are invisible to the naked eye.
·
· Heb 2:4
God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with
divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?
·
· Greek paraphrase: God adding His evidence (to that of those that were
ministering for Him) both by signs and wonders, and different types of
displays of His dunamis power, and distributions of His Holy Spirit in
accordance to His will.
Romanss 15:19 Through
mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God; so that from
Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel ( I have filled
the glad tidings) of Christ.
·
·
A witness, or the bearer of testimony in the court of law,
produces sufficient evidence for a jury to reach an adequate verdict of
innocence or guilt. The ministries of
all believers should operate to produce sufficient witness of the life of Jesus
so that the jury of the world can accept or reject Him.
·
·
The “bulk of judicial testimony for His acceptance or rejection”
can only come through a combinatory evidence of the word of God, the signs of
wonders produced by miracles, and the gifts of the Holy Spirits, such as
prophecy, and physical healing (really the gifts of instantaneous cures),
all done in love.
I Sam 9: 18 Septuagint ¶ And Saul {1} drew near to Samuel into the midst of the
city, and said, Tell me now {2} which is the house of the seer? (Which is the
house of the glancing one?)
Mark 11:22 And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in (Have the “God kind” of faith, or the faith OF GOD!) God.
q q (God is in the genitive Greek case signifying possession; therefore it is “God possessing something”; in this case, “God’s possession of faith”)
Gal 2:20 I
am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in
me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith, of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave
himself for me.
(Greek: The life which I now live in the flesh, I live
in faith, this being the faith which dwells in the Son of God. (Genitive
Greek case signifying possession)
q
Now
that we comprehend that we are commanded to have the faith of the Son of God,
or that we must live in dependency to the faith, which the Lord owns, we need
to define what is the faith OF CHRIST?
q
q The faith OF
CHRIST is His rhema word. This is a crucial point!
q
q God’s rhema word is a specific word, which the Holy Spirit speaks into our
hearts when He wants to minister His purposes into a specific circumstance.
Romans 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Rhema word of God.
(Greek: So then faith gets its life from hearing,
but the type of hearing, which describes faith, must be exclusively one which
comes through the rhema word of God.
Romans 10:8 But what saith it? The rhema word is
nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the rhema word of faith,
which we preach;
q
q Every rhema word represents an itemized description of God’s measure of
faith, as He has tailored it for every situation in which He speaks the rhema word into. It is
therefore an account of what the Lord can accomplish within a particular
circumstance.
Luke 1:37 For with God nothing( Rhema word) shall be impossible.
q q (The English is a poor translation:
Greek: For with God every rhema word has the (indwelling) dunamis power to come to pass.
q q Secondly, the rhema word not only carries
with it God’s measure of faith, but also God’s measure of dunamis power
adapted for, and greater than the circumstance into which God speaks it into,
assuring God a complete victory.
q q Thirdly, every rhema word reveals the Person of Christ. As Christ is revealed, the faith and power that He possesses, is manifested alongside with Him.
Romans 10:6 But the righteousness which is of faith
speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven?
(that is, to bring Christ down from above:)
7 Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that
is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)
8
8
But what saith
it? The rhema Word
is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the rhema word of faith,
which we preach;
q q
Verse six and seven of Romans
ten tells us that we are not forced to take extraordinary measures to bring the
Lord down from heaven or to bring up from the dead. In other words, we do not have to travel far and wide to find the
Lord. As we go on to verse eight we
suddenly find that the apostle Paul has switched gears from the Lord Jesus and
is now talking about the rhema word. He
says that Christ is not far from us, because the rhema word is near to us; even
in our mouth and in our heart.
Therefore the rhema word is the revelation of the Person
of the Lord Jesus Christ, or is what brings the Lord Jesus to us as we walk in
the Spirit.
q q
In verse eight of John
chapter seventeen, likewise, we observe that the rhema word
reveals the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
How then, do we learn to walk in the Spirit and live
our lives by God’s measure of faith?
q
q The first step is to learn how to hear and discern
the rhema word, which are the voice and the faith of God.
q
q We must realize that the Lord Jesus in a non-stop
fashion lives His life in us, as He dwells within us. Every work, which the Lord executes, is translated to us in our
spirit as a rhema word. It is the rhema
word, which shows us, what the Lord does within us.
q
q We can go on to say that the more
effective and discerning we are to live by the rhema word, the
more that we will be in tune with that the Lord in us and what he desires to
do. This futuristic aspect of the
Lord’s rhema word is prophecy.
John 16:13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
q q In John five nineteen and twenty Jesus teaches us the secret of Christian life and ministry!
John 5:19 Then answered Jesus and said unto them,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth,
these also doeth the Son likewise.
20
20 For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that
himself doeth: and he
will shew him
greater works than these, that ye may marvel.
q q
Jesus only does what He sees
the Father do. The seeing obviously is
not physical, but spiritual. In fact Jesus greatest responsibility at all times
is to continuously discern what the Father does in Him as His works become
manifested to the Lord Jesus by the rhema word.
q q
Herein lies
ministry in the power of signs and wonders.
It is our constant discernment of the works of Jesus within us, and our
faithful execution of His rhema words without to the world at large, that
brings forth the power of God into this world,
Luke 1:37 For with God nothing( Rhema word) shall be impossible.
(The English is a poor translation:
Greek: For with God every rhema word has the (indwelling) dunamis power to come to pass.
q q
When we
accurately hear and minister a rhema word to a certain individual, it will have
both the dunamis power and the faith of God to accomplish what the Lord has
intended for that person. If the Lord
working within us by a rhema word tells us to rebuke a cold and we do so, His
word, full of His faith and power will heal the Person. This is how we operate by the faith of God.
q q
However, if we were supposed to rebuke the
enemy who was causing the cold, and we rebuked the cold instead, because we
have ministered to the individual out of our feelings and rational
understanding, and not by the rhema word, the person will not get healed. This is one reason why the church sees far
less healings and deliverances than what it is ought to.
q q
The rhema word is ALWAYS extremely
specific. Success in ministry therefore lies in our ministering as narrowly as
possible in accordance to the specifics of a particular rhema word.
q q
If a rhema word shows us darkness and
deception; darkness and deception must be rebuked. The more accurately that we minister in accordance to the
specifics of the rhema word, the greater will be the release of the anointing
of the Lord.
q q
Likewise, one
of the keys to our maturing in prophecy is to discern the rhema word of God and
speak it out as it is seen within, adding and subtracting nothing from it.
The Cross
and The Rhema Word
q q
Our ability or
inability to hear and discern the rhema word of God has a great deal to do with
how deeply we allow the cross of the Lord Jesus to work in our lives. As I have taught before, the work of the
cross of Christ daily kills off our diseased self-life.
q q
Our self-life
is plagued by the emotional tumults and noises of sins, hurts, fears and
bondages. The tumults of our fettered
soul drown out the small still voice of the rhema word of God. As the cross of Christ kills off what is not
of the Lord, we become free and healed, and our souls become stilled in
subjection to the voice of the rhema word of God. The deeper the cross of Christ works in us, the more stilled our
inner life will become, and the ‘louder” will become the rhema word of God in
our hearts
q q
The work of the
cross is only completely effective in a life of uncompromising obedience to the
Lord. There are no shortcuts! An attitude of continual yieldedness to
God’s will is absolutely essential for us to function be the rhema word of God.
Practice
Makes Perfect
q
The first time
that we encounter God speaking within us it might come as a fluttering in our hearts,
sweaty hands, and an unstoppable desire “to give a word”. Other times the word of the Lord comes to us
as something that we know, that we know.
These are examples of rhema words.
q q
If we regard
ourselves as obedient believers who embrace the cross, and are indeed learning
to hear God’s rhema word, then our next step must be to put into play that old
adage, “practice makes perfect.”
q q
Whenever the
Lord speaks to us a rhema word, we must learn to“step out in faith” to obey
it. There is not two ways about
it! We know that the rhema word is
God’s measure of faith brought into a specific circumstance. Since the rhema is word that made up of
faith, it will take our faith to discern it within, and execute it
without. This is why the apostle James
says the following.
James 2:20 But wilt thou
know, O vain man, that
faith without works is
dead?
(Greek: ..that faith apart from works is a corpse)
q
q
In Hebrews five and fourteen
we are taught the necessity of stepping out in faith again, and again, so that
our discernment will mature sufficiently, and we will be able to distinguish
between the rhema word of God in our spirits, and the desires of the flesh in
our souls.
Hebrews 5:14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised ( Greek word; naked (gymnos) and also gymnastics) to discern both good and evil.
(Greek: But
only for the mature and spiritually fully-grown man or woman that is attaining
to Christ’s character belongs solid food.
Even to him, or her, who has a developed the habit of entering into
fellowship with spiritual perception and discernment that can distinguish the
good from the evil. Their mature
perception and discernment blossoming as the result of spiritual training
performed like athletes as they have voluntarily discarded and became naked
from all worldly things, so that their spiritual training may be vigorous and
unhindered.
John 14:10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?
the (Rhema words)
that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in
me, he doeth the works.
·
·
We now see in John 14:10 that
the rhema words of the Spirit are the translation of the Father’s works within
us. The translated rhema words contain
the power of God to make the works of the Father come to pass.
·
·
Philippians tells us that the
Father is constantly empowering us and showing us His works as He speaks one
rhema word after another in our hearts.
·
·
We work out or complete our
salvation, step by step, as we obey the rhema word. The Lord never requires us
to obey Him without a rhema word that will empower us with the discernment to
know His will, and then provides us with God’s power so that His activity can
be effectively displayed through us as we obey the discerned word.
·
·
Let us go to another example
of how we are to walk with the Lord.
John 17:8 For I have given unto them the RHEMA WORDS which thou gavest me;
and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have
believed that thou didst send me.
·
·
We can now victoriously walk out of that sin since we now operate in
God’s wisdom and prudence. The rhema word has given to us the power of God
found in the works of the Father and the revealed Christ to carry them out for
us. All we need to do is to be faithful to obey every rhema word. If we have not received the portion of the
revealed Christ for the specified sin, and try to overcome it by ourselves we
fall into the law whose job is simply to expose our sinfulness. If we do it by the portion of the Lord’s
revelation within us, we operate by the grace or labor of Christ to which sin
has no dominion over.
Mark 2:5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick
of the palsy, Son, thy
sins be forgiven thee.
·
· Verse five tells us that Jesus saw
their faith. This is the same Greek
word for “instinctively knowing.”
Whenever Jesus instinctively sees a grain of pure faith in us, He always acts.
·
· Thy sins be forgiven thee. The bondage is broken and your sins are
released and sent far away from you so that they no longer afflict you with
paralysis. The Lord Jesus’ command for
the forgiveness of sins in this case is in the Greek perfect tense. The Greek perfect tense is an aorist or an
accomplished event but with effects or impact that lasts forever.
Mark 2:8 And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within
themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts?\
·
·
Perceived: The
word for perceive is defined as having a thorough, accurate, and precise
knowledge of an object, so that by our thorough understanding of it we can
grasp it and make it our own. Jesus’
command of spiritual gifts was so complete and the clarity of the Father’s
voice was so precise within Him, that His discernment of the rhema word was
thorough.
·
·
We must minister in the same thorough,
accurate and precise knowledge of the rhema word. It is required that we accurately discern a malady as caused by a
generational or habitual sin, a demon, or just a simple sickness.
·
·
For example, there are number of occasions
in which physical sicknesses are directly caused by the demonic, and unless the
demonic is taken care of, the person will never be healed, no matter how much
faith we have.
Mark 5:30 And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes?
·
· Knowing: As with the word perceived in Mark 2:8; Jesus knew in this
same accurate and through knowledge of the rhema word, that dunamis power had
gone out of Him.
· · The woman’s faith released the dunamis power of God! A pure grain of faith always releases the dunamis power of God!
1
Tim
1:3
I thank God,
whom I serve(our religious service to the Lord)
from my forefathers with pure
(free from evil, innocent because it is free from evil, and resulting in
nothing that the devil or man can point an accusatory finger at)
conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night
and day;
·
The voice of
the Lord is in our conscience
·
· The conscience is a simple barometer of
what dwells in our lives. A pure
conscience reflects a life that has nothing for the devil to hold on to and
keep us in bondage, or for the worse of heathen to lawfully charge us with
wrongdoing.
·
· Serve:
There are
different aspects that describe the Christian as a servant of the Lord. One is the servant in the capacity of his or
her relationship to God. Yes, our
relationship with God is always one of sons or daughters. Our sonship however must be executed in the
capacity of “love slaves” of the Lord Jesus Christ or what is called a “doulos.” The second aspect is the servant in the
capacity of his or her ministry by the use of spiritual gifts. This is the “diakonos”. The third type, which is the one mentioned in verse three, is the
servant in the capacity of rendering general religious service versus another
type of occupation. This is “latreo”
· The bottom line is that for believers to
serve in their religious occupation, it must be done with a pure conscience.
I Tim 1:5 ¶ Now the end of the commandment is
charity out of a pure
heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned:
· · Secondly is our conscience. Watchman Nee tells us that the conscience is a component of or a barometer of the voice of the Holy Spirit. Let us look at what the apostle Paul has to tell us about the conscience.
Romans 2:15 Which shew the work of the law written in
their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the
mean while accusing or else excusing one another;
· · Greek: Their consciences also bearing witness with their hearts, and between one another (in their conscience) their collective thoughts constantly accusing or defending. (Seems like the operation of the voice of the Holy Spirit!)
· ·
Romans 9:1
I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me
witness in the Holy Ghost,
· · My conscience bears witness to me in the realm or world that belongs to the Holy Spirit. (My conscience operates within the world that belongs to the Holy Spirit.)
2 Corinthians 1:12 For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that
in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of
God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to
you-ward.
·
· We use the testimony (of accusing or defending) that our conscience gives to conduct
ourselves in this world.
2 Timothy 1:3 I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers
with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my
prayers night and day;
· · I thank God whom I render religious service to…in a world that belongs to a pure conscience.
John
5:20 For the Father loveth the Son, and
sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater works
than these, that ye may marvel.
Greek: For the Father is fond of the Son
and shows Him all things that He does in a way that can be proven and for
proof, and greater than these works will he show you with the
goal in His mind that you may wonder.
· Ministers of God must know that continually, at all moments, the Father is exhibiting within them all that He does in way that the minister can understand and prove the work of God, and then manifest it as proof into the world. The well is always uncovered, and always gushing and bubbling in us. The rhema word is continually at operation within every believer at all times, and in all places. If we cannot hear the rhema word, we must find out why.
Mat 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
·
·
By
every rhema word that proceeds from moment to moment out of God’s mouth.
John 5:16 And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus,
and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day
John 5:17 ¶ But Jesus
answered them, My Father worketh
hitherto, and I work.
·
· Worketh is defined in exactly the same way that a company strives to be
successful in producing the services for which it is in business for.
·
· Hitherto: Until now. My Father has
been continually at work, producing the services that pertain to the business of
the kingdom of God in an unbroken flow, right through all of your Sabbaths; and
even now as we speak, He works.
·
·
And I
work: I, in like manner.
·
· This is a tremendously important
point of instruction for ministers who desire to work in the Spirit.
·
· Jesus tells us that we are
to work out into the world, what the Father works into us with exactly
the same intentions, intensity, and procedures used by the Father. Our ministry
must be a carbon copy of the Father’s ministry in us. Remember that every work of the Father is translated into a rhema
word that we can understand.
John 14:10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father,
and the Father in me? the
rhema words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father
that dwelleth in me, he
doeth the works.
·
· The greater our
understanding of the intentions, intensity, and procedures used by the Father,
the greater will be the manifestation of the flow of the well.
·
· Likewise the operation of
the gift of faith gives clarity to the rhema word
Gal
3:27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ( submerged into the domain, sphere,
or world of Christ’s influence and sovereignty ) have put on Christ (now wear Christ, whom as clothes
which totally cover us, influences and affects back through us to conform us
into His image.)
· · I once read an excellent example on Biblical baptism. In the days of Christ there was a recipe to create a “pickled” vegetable. It was said that a vegetable was BAPTISED into THE LOCATION or SPHERE of a vinegar solution. After awhile, the vinegar WORKED INSTRUMENTALLY BACK through the vegetable and “pickled” it.
· · Tofu, likewise, acquires the taste and texture of any food that it is baptized into. We can say that with whatever food the tofu is BAPTISED INTO, it is INSTRUMENTALLY influenced back by that food to make the tofu like it.
Gal
5:25 If
we live in ( Instrumental (By)) in the
Spirit, let us also walk
(Greek word which
is defined as “marching in the footsteps of a soldier”) in (Instrumental (By))
the Spirit.
·
·
Greek paraphrase) (It is a
given that we should be living our lives not in the present day world system,
but in the domain, influence, and sovereignty of the world of the Holy Spirit. Because
we are being continually affected and influenced by the Spirit, in that
influence and effect we must march in step as soldiers so that the Spirit’s
influence can go on, deepen, intensify, and continue interrupted.
·
· In the gospel of John we find number of
instances in which the Lord Jesus tells us that we are not of this world
system.
·
· In Galatians five and twenty five, we then
see the apostle Paul telling us that it is a given that we should be living in
the world of the Spirit. In Galatians
five and twenty-five we find a wonderful example of location and instrumentality. We live in the world of the Holy Spirit, and
must march as a soldier in step to the Spirit’s workings back through us as He
instrumentally influences and affect us.
·
· Paul exhorts us to live continually in the
world of the Holy Spirit, so that every action of our lives becomes permeated,
influenced, affected, and controlled by the work, power, strength, and liberty
of the Holy Spirit.
·
· Victory and liberty in the Lord is found
in proportion to how much the Spirit can control and take over our every
action. Victory is not found in our
trying to overcome. It is found in our being submerged deep enough into the
world of the Holy Spirit so that He can influence and affect us at ever point. We are filled with the Spirit, in proportion
to how much the Spirit is working back through us to influence, affect,
control, and overtake our every action of ours.
·
· Paul tells us in Galatians five and
twenty-five that our lives must be lived BY THE INSTRUMENTALITY of the Spirit’s
actions.
Gal 5:16 This
I say then, Walk( The totality of our daily activities and
the way that we conduct ourselves in them) in the Spirit) (Instrumental (BY),
and ye shall not fulfil
the lust of the flesh. (Greek double negative: and it will be impossible for you to fulfill the flesh’s strong
desire through act of your will
·
· Let us now look at Galatians five and
sixteen. The Greek word for “walk” is the sum total of our daily
affairs, and the ways in which conduct ourselves in them.
·
· Paul commands us TO BAPTISE every affair in our daily life
into the world of the Holy Spirit so that the Spirit through His
instrumentality can affect, influence, reconcile, control, and overtake every
one of those affairs.
·