22And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, 23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. NKJV
He is in charge of it all, has the final word on everything. At the center of all this, Christ rules the church. The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ’s body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.  Eph. 1:22-23 MSG

Summary:
Jesus is the head of the church, which is the fullness of the manifestation of the presence of Jesus in the earth.

It’s hard to imagine that this is God’s opinion of His church as expressed through Paul by the Holy Spirit.  When we look at our weakness, sin, failings instead of God’s testimony, we often disqualify ourselves, so we must believe and act according to God’s counsel… we, the believers in Jesus Christ, are the fullness of the manifestation of Jesus in the earth.  Blessings, Grover

Listen to this WordByte on Christianbody.net radio.

As the politicians continue in their daily tasks of stealing election and perpetuating their positions of power, we are reminded that the LOVE of money is the root of all evil. How sad it will be when those who spend their lives in the endeavor of accumulation, stand before the Great White Throne and say themselves, "Now I'll get what I deserve!"

They sure will.

 
By Dick Carmack
 
The Devil and “Most Senior Demon Honorable Screwtape” were having a lunch of “Broiled Jr. Devil” (those that had messed up) with dessert of frozen bureaucrat. They also had table guests from the CIA, NSA, FBI and the White House, all of whom knew all about the mega-data collection processes called “facebook, twitter etc…” That’s the internet system that has been set up to build dossiers (info files) on every living person on earth, so in case of need, it would all be there in black and white.
Screwtape, sweating profusely, screwed up his courage and said, “Sir.”
“What is it Skull and Bones?” the Devil asked.
“Sir.” He ventured again, half-afraid he would be eaten for lunch tomorrow after the news he had to deliver,
“Sir, we have a problem. It seems things have not gone according to plan.”

This is a really good look at the prophetic end times from the perspective of the David and Goliath story.  God is preparing His people to "do exploits" and fully represent Him in these times.  Do you identify with Goliath, Saul, or David in this story?
Blessings,
​Grover

 
DAVID AND GOLIATH - An End-Time View
by Hadyn Olsen

Recently, after reading the account of this historic meeting between David and Goliath, I was struck by the significance of it's message concerning the end time period that we are entering into.

Far more than a children's story, this account speaks of the collision of two kingdoms. The kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan.

There are a number of times in the Scriptures that we witness such a dramatic encounter between these two kingdoms. We may think of the time of Moses and the
exodus from Egypt, the plagues and the Red Sea. We may think of Joshua and Jericho - or Elijah on Mt. Carmel. Then of course there is the Lord Jesus Himself and the many occasions of His demonstrating the kingdom.

In all these events we see something of the nature of these two opposite kingdoms, and of the superiority of God's kingdom over Satan's. We may also learn something concerning our own lives and of the conflict we face from day to day. Each of these historic events may teach us of the things God wants us to know and the victory He wants us to share.


We are coming to a time when we shall witness another great collison between God's kingdom and Satan's. No doubt it shall be as great, if not greater than all the others that have preceded it. And it shall be a time when once again, God displays His all-surpassing greatness and dominion over Satan.

To this end our spirit's cry, 'Come Lord Jesus'.

This is an excellent short article by Charles E Newbold that puts a real perspective on our modern teaching of the gospel.  The apostle Paul said something similar in 1 Cor.: 1:22.
​Blessing, Grover

Jesus Plus Nothing
May 3, 2013
Charles Elliott Newbold, Jr.

​A preacher once boasted, “I preach faith, and it works.” I wanted to respond. Perhaps I should have said, “I preach Christ crucified, and He works.” In 1 Corinthians 1:22-24, Paul, the apostle, made this claim, “I preach Christ crucified.” He was arguing against the teachings of a sect of Jewish converts to Christ who had wormed their way into the belief system of new Gentile believers. They were preaching Christ plus circumcision—proclaiming that the non-Jewish believers had to first be circumcised as Jews in order to be of Christ. These false teachers were referred to as Judaizers, or the circumcision party. Paul lamented, “O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been evidently set forth, crucified among you?” Galatians 3:1.

​This is the trend if we do not carefully guard the truth of the gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ: When we preach “Christ plus something,” it soon reverses into “something plus Christ.” Left unchecked, it becomes “something plus nothing.” The “something” else becomes another gospel. Christ is omitted altogether. That is not good news! Ultimately, though, when we come to understand the fullness and sufficiency of Christ in us, we will resolve to preach Christ plus nothing.

“God cannot hear the prayers on our lips often because the desires of our heart after the world cry out to Him much more strongly and loudly than the our desires for Him.” 
― Andrew Murray

Jesus mandated that His disciples and followers learn and practice forgiveness.  Not only are Christians to forgive repeatedly (e.g. Matthew 18:21-22; Luke 17:3-4), but also to practice forgiveness in order to be forgiven by God (Matthew 6:14-15; Mark 11:25-26; Luke 6:37).  But for many people, true forgiveness is a difficult task.  Webster defines 'forgive' as "1,  grant pardon for (something) or to (someone).  2,  remit (a debt)  3,  cease to resent."  I suggest that the third definition may be the most difficult to accomplish.  How many times do we hear someone unhappily say, "I'll forgive you, but I won't forget."  Is that the forgiveness our Lord taught?  So how does one go about truly forgiving someone?  I believe there is a wonderful lesson on forgiveness in the words of Joseph, who was one of the Old Testament figures who foretold of Jesus' life and nature.  (There is a wonderful book, Joseph:  Loved, Despised And Exalted, by F. B. Meyer, in which Christ-like aspects of Joseph and his life are repeatedly pointed out.)  After Joseph was wrongfully sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, then wronged again by his Egyptian master's wife, but through his God-given ability to be blessed in all situations, and to interpret dreams, he rose to the second-in-command position over all of Egypt.  In that position, Joseph then had a chance to have power over his food-seeking brothers in a severe famine.  Would Joseph get his revenge?  But Joseph's own words told about his heart for God, and give us a lesson today on forgiveness.  It was in the names of his two sons, beginning with that of his first son:
     Genesis 41:51  [NKJV]  Joseph called the name of his firstborn Manasseh, "For God has
          caused me to forget all my toil and all my father's house."
That statement alone gives us a formula for forgiving in our own lives, as broken down this way:

As Jesus overlooked Jerusalem on His last trip into that city, He openly wept for Jerusalem, and said, among other things, "If you had known, . . . the things that make for your peace!" (Luke 19:41-42).  The implication was, of course, that the chosen people of Jerusalem and Israel should have known from the Scriptures that Jesus, as the Messiah, brought them everlasting peace, but they missed it.  To their devastation!  And that peace seems still to be getting missed today.
Of what was Jesus speaking?  We know that peace was a common Old Testament word.  But there were prophesies in The Prophets which specifically referred to Jesus' coming:  1) one of His names was the "Prince of Peace" (Isa 9:6); 2) when "the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, . . . the work of righteousness will be peace" (Isa 32:15-17); 3) "the chastisement for our peace (NIV: the punishment that brought us peace) was upon Him" (Isa 53:5); 4) there would be future rejoicing in Jerusalem, who would be "extended peace like a river" (Isa 66:12) 5) the LORD told captive Israel that He had good thoughts for them, "thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." (Jer 29:11); and 6) the LORD promised Israel one Shepherd, through David, and a "covenant of peace" (Ezek 34:23-25).  These are just some of the examples of Old Testament promises of peace for God's chosen people, often through the coming of the Messiah. 

I (Grover) read an article this morning that I just have to share.  J. Lee Grady wrote this article in Charisma Magazine defining "four fatal flaws" of the charismatic movement.  This probably applies in spirit to other movements as well, and certainly is a warning as we all pray for the "next move of God."   Anyway, here's his take on this subject:

FOUR FATAL FLAWS that RUIN MINISTRIES
by J. Lee Grady 

I spend a lot of time investing in young leaders-and I constantly urge them to learn from the mistakes we made in the previous move of God. I appreciate the positive things the Holy Spirit did during the charismatic movement, but we made a mess because we didn´t lead with integrity.

Years ago I was part of a group of men who spent several years together praying, seeking the Lord and studying piles of books and literature (and the Word) believing that if we got all the New Testament patterns and procedures down that our church would be in a position to be able to demonstrate the fullness of NT church life.  We diligently studied the first century church, church fathers, the pre-Constantine church history, Catholic church, Reformation church, and every other historical or traditional movement we could find.  I have to say that I learned a bunch in that time, but that much of it had little to do with spiritual life.  Of course God used it to change and form my Christian paradigm and, hopefully, to contrast the difference between Christianity the religion and Christianity the life.

The scripture above is the only New Testament window that we have where we see what a NT meeting looks like.  Seems strange that the Holy Spirit would only describe such a meeting once in the entire book, leaving so much to be speculated on.  But I believe that this was entirely by design.  If God had described it in detail, most of us would cast it in concrete and make THIS meeting the standard for every meeting of His church!

So... what does the New Testament meeting look like?  Let's move through this scripture and make a few notes: