Obedience is better than sacrifice! David Eells begins this teaching in Matt. 4:1, after Jesus was baptized and anointed with power. "Then Jesus was led up, by the Spirit, into the wilderness to be tested by the devil." Jesus was baptized by the Spirit. It was the Spirit who led Jesus into the wilderness, to be tempted by the devil.
Jesus had just been anointed with power by the Spirit of God. God led Him through the trial so that the temptation by the devil would make a way to perfection, to maturity. God uses our trials, for the same purpose, in all of us, too.
God allows trials in our lives for our good; to see if we will use the trial to serve our flesh, or serve God. In choosing to walk in the Spirit and serve God, we are walking in the light, and we get more of God. This is God's method to mature and perfect us in our walk in Christ.
James 1:13 says, "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempts no man, but each man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lusts and enticed."
Matt. 4:2, "And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He afterward hungered. And the tempter came..." In denying Himself food, Jesus denied Himself. He put the lusts of His flesh to death, and it enabled Him to use the power God gave Him to overcome all the other temptations from the devil.
Jesus, through His temptations, had to be made in all things like His brethren. He came as a Spirit-filled man in order to be used by God.
Isaiah 58 tells us a spiritual fast of denying our self is more important than the physical fast, which has no real spiritual focus. We can do a physical fast, yet not really die to our flesh, but still satisfy our desires and ambitions while walking in sin.
Any time we give our flesh its way, we are feeding it. Living out the spiritual fast that God requires, does not allow us to walk in sin. Any time we give our flesh its way, we are feeding it. When we bear our cross and deny our flesh and it dies. Luke 14:27 says, "Whoever doth not bear His own cross cannot be my disciple."
Isaiah 58 says, "...Behold, in the day of your fast ye find your own pleasure, and exact all your labors." The old man was still living in the midst of their fast, doing their own thing. "Ye fast for strife and contention, and smite with the fist of wickedness, to make your voice heard on high."
God will not hear us when we afflict our souls, yet still serve sin and self. The fast God chooses is to break off wickedness, set free the oppressed, feed the hungry, bring in the homeless, and clothe the naked.
This continual fast is the fast God requires; not feeding our old man, not pointing the finger and speaking wickedly, but sacrificing our lives for the needs of others. This is doing something for God and His kingdom. The continual fast is the fast that God receives, not the fast that was under the law. "Then thou shalt call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry and He will say, Here I am." Isaiah 58:9
Please continue to join us in part 8 of this 9 part series, "What Has Been Shall Be."
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WHAT HAS BEEN SHALL BE, PART:8
The foundation for this series is, that everything that has happened in the Word of God is a prophecy about what will happen in the future. The first happening is, in effect, a prophecy of what will happen in a worldwide way.
This opens up a whole new world of prophetic revelation for end-time events. To this, we have eyewitnesses of scripture. Ecc. 1:9 says, "That which hath been is that which shall be, and that which hath been done is that which shall be done. There is no new thing under the sun."
Things that were never thought to be prophetic in nature, we now see, tells us of the future. For instance, everything that happened in the gospels will happen again, but with the characters multiplied many times over.
People become multitudes or corporate bodies, just as the body of Christ today is much bigger than it originally was. Jesus, the Man-Child, now is a corporate body on Earth.
The body of Judas is much larger. The bodies of the Harlot and Beast are much larger.
By watching this series you will gain a greater understanding of How God repeats history on much larger scales over and over again throughout time.
This series is based on a book by the same title, "What Has Been Shall Be" and is available free of charge on our website.
Watch Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4:
Part 5:
Part 6:
Part 7:
Part 9:
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