Word Of Wisdom Ministries
By Cheryl Arnold

Be careful in the thing that you allow as a believer, Paul said.

What did he mean? Let’s look. This section of Romans teaches us that we need to be diligent and thoughtful in the things we allow, and don’t allow as a believer, into our lives, and into our doctrine.

Paul says that we need to avoid people who argue with us contrary to the doctrine we know to be right by what God has taught us through His word.
He has admonished us not to take part in silly back and forth over words, haggling, trying to convince. Instead, he says to remove yourself from such.

We saw Jesus saying same thing and it was also over doctrine. He said to leave them alone. They are blind and they lead the blind and both will fall into a ditch.

He doesn’t say to argue or even to persuade here. Now we are always to reason, but when we see there is no reasoning with someone…depart.

If we don’t depart, then we risk corrupting ourselves. We are admonished by Paul here in Romans 14 to make our determination about what we allow, whether it’s about a holy day, a potential idol, an activity or a doctrine we hold…and be sure about it. We are to be sure about it before God. And not to be sure about what we think but about what God has said. We had better know what He has said. We are to be as the Bereans and filter everything through the entirety of His word. He guides perfectly if our motives are pure. If our motives are not pure, then we will follow a crooked path, just as our motive is crooked.

Wow. My own church allows yoga classes at the church. It allows women to teach men in a church setting. It allows crosses and candles as implements for rituals. It is very relaxed about clinging to ways of this world. It is slack concerning doctrine.

Why am I there? They do preach the gospel and in my city there is no other church I have found that does.

I have admonished leadership every single time I see one of these offenses, but to no avail. But how scary for that are in leadership. They are slack with what they allow, and Paul says what is coming to those who do such things.

Be careful as a believer in what you allow. Are you allowing a slack mind about homosexuality in society? Abortion? Drunkenness and frivolity? Ungodly business deals and practices? Be very careful, God warns.
“Happy is the man who doesn’t condemn himself with the things he allows” ( Romans 14:22). That’s word for word.

tThank You Lord Jesus for this word today! Amen and bless your name!

Cheryl

How do we know the word of God is perfect and true? Because of fulfilled prophecy. It has predicted events to absolute perfection from the beginning of time and now in our day, 95 percent of prophetic word has been perfectly fulfilled. So in our day, we have less excuse than in any other day to not confess that yes, the word of God is true and perfect. We have seen it proved by seeing prophecy fulfilled to the letter. Abraham didn’t have that privilege. David did not. Yet they had more faith than the world today. The more the Bible has proved itself, the less mankind believes. Why? Because wickedness is greater and greater as we wait His return.

Come quickly Lord Jesus!

Amen

A good tree cannot bear bad fruit. Did you know that? It’s true. It is an established fact.

A bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Did you know that? It’s true… also an established fact.

Paul elaborated what Jesus said to us. In Romans, Paul says that an unrighteous person will bear fruit unto death. That is…bad fruit. A person who is not saved , or even, not sanctified, follows earthy ways. These are ways of the old man. They are compromising ways. They are ways that skirt the law, that skirt perfect ways. They are bad fruit. God will not honor them and they are ways of death.

A righteous person will only bear good fruit. In other words, righteous fruit…all godliness. This person is saved and sanctified. Not only do they bear good fruit but they absolutely are unable to bear bad fruit. They are not able to commit ways of unrighteousness. They only commit ways of righteousness. John elaborates on this truth. He says a man who has the seed of Christ in him cannot sin…bear fruit of unrighteousness, death. God won’t permit it. Not for long.

Sin unto death will happen. God won’t allow it.

But a sanctified person, a good tree, wants only to bear good fruit…fruit of righteousness. They are totally adverse to even the slightest unrighteousness. They only do what Christ does.

What is the result? Good fruit. Also…extreme persecution at every turn. This person is constantly having to put their foot down on the side of right and everything on this earth is against right. If it is not for Jesus, it is against Him. And Jesus is never, ever, ever for unrighteousness…even in the tiniest degree.

We can look at a life to see. What surrounds them? Is it life, joy, peace, right-doing, right- thinking? Right thinking is in strict compliance with God’s word. This person then is a good fruit bearer.

Is it confusion, misery, griping, criticism, meanness, compromise, rudeness, selfishness, anger, discontent? This is all bad fruit. It is fruit unto death, or the fruit of death. They are corrupt. They do not prefer righteousness. They are striving and frustrated. They are thankless and joyless. They are unkind, mean, trouble-makers. They can only produce bad, rotten fruit. Nothing works for them.

A tree is known by its fruit. What are you? What do you want to be? Doesn’t everyone want to produce fruit into righteousness? Then follow Him. Don’t go your own way. It’s the hard way. Trouble will come against you, but He is there to help. Do you want peace? Follow righteousness. Righteousness and Peace have kissed.

In the Lord Jesus’ Name,

Amen.

If we have been planted in the likeness of Jesus’ death, only then can we also be raised as He was in His resurrection. This is what Paul said in Romans 6:5

When I am freshly saved or born again, same thing, I am in a future certainty, raised with Him. He will resurrect all who believe. But when?

In this spot as in countless others in the word, we see that Jesus had do die in order to be resurrected. So do we. But we are talking about “planted in His likeness”. The old man has to be planted if he wants to be raised. He has to die like Jesus if he wants to be raised new like Jesus.

A believer has to be planted ( meaning the seed dies and is planted in the ground) in order to be raised new.

How many believers are walking around unplanted? A lot. Most. They won’t be raptured if they are alive when the rapture comes. They will have to be planted in death as He was before that can happen. So they will be resurrected, but only after they endure the wrath of the Lamb during the last 3.5 years, which will plant them. They will be beheaded and be planted, then resurrected after the second coming of Christ.

Those believers who walk in their old ways and remain in old habits won’t hear His call at the rapture. You have to be planted in the likeness of His death to be raised up.

All those that died before then a physical death will rise up in the resurrection at the rapture. They were literally planted in death.

But Romans 12 tells us that God desires a living sacrifice of believers. That means we die while alive and are planted in death while alive. We submit and are changed.

There is no wonder that the things which are hard to understand in the word are kept from the disobedient. Their disobedience blinds them. They cannot hear.
They have spent their time bolstering the flesh rather than dying to self. They cling only to doctrines that build-up the flesh, and reject the doctrine of slaying the old man. They therefore can’t be “planted with Him in His death” because the old man won’t die.

Have mercy on us Lord.

Amen.

In verse 20, we see that before Paul says that those who will be purged from all iniquity (meaning sin) will be sanctified, he tells us that in a great house (the house of God perhaps?) there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth. Isn’t this verse telling us along with many others that in God’s family are those who have been purged of sin and those who haven’t yet? I think so. Now look: The believer is to purge himself. It is up to us to be righteous by purging our sin. We have to kill it, remember.

Then the next group to be caught up with christ at the rapture ( remember we who are alive will not precede those who are dead in Christ) will be those who did die to self rule while alive ( the sanctified, the righteous or the overcomers). I believe that only the overcomers will be raptured.

Then the unthinkable happens I believe. The saved, but still serving self at the time of His catching us up, will be cast into the great tribulation with the unbelievers (Rev. 2&3). They are saved and will be sanctified, but because they refused to do it while they had the chance, they will be martyred during the great tribulation for their faith. They are the beheaded saints. They refused to purify their own hearts, they were double- minded, so now He will do it. We must be pure in heart to see God.

I know that 144,000 Jews are taken to a safe place until Christ comes, but the others who were saved but not sanctified before Christ catches up the church will have to have to experience a death like every other believer ever has in order to be sanctified, or considered righteous or holy (“We must through much tribulation enter the Kingdom of God” ; Acts 14). The flesh must be killed one way or another to be purified. And since these saved but not sanctified believers are alive at the rapture…a very peculiar group…they must now enter the great tribulation to die. Death frees us from sin. Again, blessed are the dead who die on the Lord. This means that those who were not sanctified but died a physical death before the rapture are blessed indeed. But so are the beheaded saints. They will also die in the Lord. This group is more accountable than any group in history because they were flooded with truth and still snubbed it by remaining double-minded. They will have lost so many rewards in Heaven; so many because they loved their lives and would not lose them. They did not desire righteousness. They would not learn righteousness while they had the chance, so now they will. He will do it.

It doesn’t appear so. We see when He cast the legion of demons out of a man in Gadarenes the man was so happy and elated that he begged Jesus if he could go with Him to the next town proclaiming the good news with Him. Jesus said, no.

Instead, the man was instructed to stay where he was and tell his family and those around him, what Jesus has done for him. And the Bible says that’s what he did. It’s the same today.

There is a period a maturing that needs to take place before a believer can go harvesting with Jesus. Also, demon possession can only happen with the permission of the heart it possesses. There is something here. And this man didn’t have just a demon but thousands.

Remember that in God’s house (His family) there are vessels of honor and of dishonor. All are saved, yes, but which ones had propensity for idols and which did not?

We have to be fit for the work of harvesting. Jesus said unless we abide in Him we cannot produce any fruit (harvest). He doesn’t say we aren’t saved.

There are different types of sin. Just because the man longed to go with Jesus into the harvest, doesn’t mean he was suited for it.

God sends apostles. They are fit. The Biblical definition for an apostle is a follower who is obedient and who has seen Jesus, either when He was here before the ascension or in a dream or vision as Paul did.

An apostle is sent because they obey. Because they obey, they know doctrine, whether it is of God or not. They discern. Because they obey and know doctrine they do not follow false doctrine. Because they don’t follow false doctrine they can speak solid truth, un-compromised. They can go into the harvest and gather.

How long will we have to stay back once we’ve received Life eternal?

Bless His perfect and holy name!

Amen.

God. Yes. Knowing Him in Christ. Yes. But these are given. Love. Absolutely.

Today however, the thought came into my head that this waiting period my husband and I are in, trying to decide where we go next, not only in homes but also professions, is the most valuable thing, it is.

We have always gone from one waiting period to the next. It’s always very difficult but I have to say that it does get easier with all the practice we’ve had, now 25 years as children of God.

But the waiting on God and the requirement of doing so as His children, is the most valuable thing there is…after salvation. The things it accomplishes in the spirit is almost in articulable. That can’t be a real word but it’s what I mean. It’s like the “word” routinous. It’s not a word but it should be. How else do you describe one who is predisposed to routine? My daughter made that one up.

The very fact that He was born in Nazareth and in a stable, revealed only to very select people, profoundly states that He has chosen to arrive in insignificance. Yet, the church is blinded by that and secures that which is insecurable, the incarnation, to a date, rather than to a place of non-locality, the heart. —-Says my husband Tim

He comes to us as our Great High Priest, having no beginning or end, neither father nor mother, the Eternal One. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.

God has purposefully shown us these truths so we wouldn’t secure His incarnation to a date or a time. He hasn’t attached it to a time, and by design…he is outside of time. He had to be a man in order to die as the Lamb. This is the only way He could be our KINSMAN Redeemer. He had to be one of us. So when did it happen? We know it was around 2020 years ago. But when in time, space and locality? I don’t know because, “Behold the Man!” Behold the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. I saw the LORD High and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. God said He was slain before He formed the world and all of creation. How then could He be slain as the man, before man was?

The Bible says “we now know Jesus no longer after the flesh…”. Let that sink in a little. Leave the elementary principles of Christ behind, and move on to perfection. We don’t know the day because that day is gone. Don’t go back. He is no longer known after that dispensation, to use a descriptive word. I have seen Him high and lifted up, have you? Celebrate His incarnation every day in your heart by obeying Him. That’s the right way. The birth of Christ is an elementary principle of Christ. He has exorted us to move on from it…

How then can we secure a day, a time, a season to His birth when God does everything He can to say…don’t!

Worth-ship. What is worth-ship? The proper definition, is to apply worth to something rightly deserving of that worth.

When we worship God, we are proclaiming His worthiness. We are proclaiming that He is worthy of our worship, our adoration and praise.

I was in church last week, and a wonderful young pastor gave a beautiful message on resting in Christ.

I have to say that a lot of the messages I hear today in church, as the days draw nearer and nearer to the Lord’s return, are what we could actually call half-baked. They are partly good but incomplete, and how good really is incomplete when it comes the the messages of God?

This particular one was about resting in Christ, which is wonderful. It is the goal and the focus of a Christian. This pastor did have the right focus to an extent, in that he emphasized our need to rest in Christ as believers…and to be formed into His image. Yes! I love that! Paul said…until you have come to the measure of the stature of the fullness in christ…

However, what he didn’t mention enough was what it takes to rest in Christ. A believer doesn’t just rest in Christ. It requires something. Paul said for example, that we should mortify the flesh. He told us to resist sin, even to the point of bloodshed. He told us to awaken to righteousness and sin not. This is what it takes to rest in christ. And this is true worship of God.

Sin is the issue. Sin is the only thing that prevents us from resting in Christ. And the only person who can truly rest in Christ is the believer who is finished with sin. And of course, all sin originates with self.

What I would love to have heard is something that a person can really rejoice in. And this is…bless His holy name…that His mercies are new every morning! This is MY rest in Christ, and it truly is His rest. I need His mercies every morning like I need air to breathe…still. As long as I’ve been walking with Him, and as much as I’ve seen Him accomplish in me, I still need His mercy every morning.

And the fact that I am aware of that, is my rest. If I as a believer were to wake every morning and think, I’ve got this, in my own strength, then His rest will elude me.

But I bless His holy name that I wake in the morning knowing that, Father in Heaven, I grab hold of your mercy this morning, and start this day with all confidence that You will teach me and help me. And the highlight of that day is the hope that He will find my heart and mind meditations worthy of His company.

A false rest would be that I am so pleased with who I have become, and I am so pleased that my heart is right and mind is right. These are biproducts of His rest and not the reason for it.

These are good things but are still fleshly confidences. It is not resting in Christ but is rather resting in my flesh…where there is no real rest.

My rest is that I know He is completing His work in me and that makes my heart soar. My rest is that He is so attentive to me that He makes known to me my trespasses right away and seeks to lead me in the right way. This is my rest. My rest is that He will not, will not give up on me…though He should, He won’t.

This is how I rejoice always in the Lord. God’s mercy towards me has to involve the knowledge of my sin. Only then can I know Him and grow more like Him. So much teaching tells us to rest in Him but leaves off the message of sin. There is no rest in Christ without the acknowledgment of sin.

If a believer is not dying to the flesh but is remaining in the sin, there is no rest for him yet. It is not possible. If his peace revolves around his need to feel worthy, then self is still who he is applying worth-ship to. It is not me who needs to feel worthy. This never works. It might for awhile but then a crash will come. God is worthy. He is worthy. This is my only rest. Knowing that is my only rest. If I am craving a feeling and an affirmation that I am worthy, then there is no rest for me. My worthiness is found only when I recede and He is lifted high. When a person seeks self worthiness he is not worshiping God.

Rest in Christ is inseparable from the acknowledgment of my sin and the rejection of it. This is the point where my heart no longer condemns me.

I must decrease and He must increase in me.