Word Of Wisdom Ministries
By Cheryl Arnold

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.

A prerequisite for new birth in Christ, salvation, there must be repentance. There is no repentance until there has been a recognition of my own sinfulness, and desperate need for God.

So few are saved. So few know they are unworthy. So many think their good works make them fit for the Kingdom of God. Jesus has told us in many ways this truth yet so few know it.

Good works are a dime a dozen yet dead works, because they are done with a heart of flesh.

True repentance is easy to spot. It has so mutilated a heart of flesh, that all that heart can do is to grab hold of Jesus’ garment. We have religion by the truck loads. We have Jesus claimers by the truckloads. We have true repentant, born again believers in short supply.

God says in Ecclesiastes  that He gives wisdom, knowledge and understanding to those in whom He delights.

Amen

Who has them? Jesus does. Who else? To whom soever He gives them. To whom does He give them? He gives them to those He can trust with them…the inner circle. A mature believer has the keys if He has given them to him.

Who is the mature believer? He is sanctified. God has sanctified him and He has told him so. This is the believer who God sends out and has power over sickness and unclean spirits. He has the power given to him by God to bind on earth and in Heaven what he sees fit. He has the power given by God to retain or remit sins…all as God’s ambassador.

He operates with the full mind of Christ and at all times. He is a doer if the word and not a hearer only.

The fervent and effective prayers of the faithful avail much.

Bless Him for such goodness that He would welcome to His table all who will come.

Amen.

I remember once a long time ago in a women’s Bible study, a sweet young girl said something so profound to our group that it made an impression, and I have found myself using this truth time and again.

You might be in a dark time, and you might just be in the blues, but in both situations the same truth applies.

Remember how it was in the light, go back there in your heart and mind in order to be refreshed and to gain a true perspective. A true perspective for the believer is always light, and bright light at that.

My husband was telling me about a story he heard on TV and it was bringing him to tears. It was hurting my heart too until I went to Jesus with it and got His viewpoint and immediately the agony of heart left.

David called this “encouraging yourself in the Lord”. We do this by remembering His faithfulness in the past. If I am sitting on a boring day, stuck in one place and having a particularly lonely time, many sad thoughts flooding my mind, I have learned to stop and go back to where I know the Light is. It always re adjusts my thinking and I am out of the blue funk in a blink, and able to deal with the blue time in a real way…fleeting and temporary.

My favorite day of the week is Monday. Here’s why: I love the routine and comfort of my ordinary life. I’m not that fond of weekends really and especially dislike holidays except for Passover, Thanksgiving and birthdays and anniversaries. Weekends tend to be too loose, a little boring unless there is a project going on, and can just be kind of blah if I know there are people in my life who are alone on these days and possibly sad and I can’t really do that much to help.

Monday is wonderful because the world starts up again and things are moving and things are getting done. For me, I either will have an appointment with a customer, then make my way back home to sew for a few hours, or I’ll stop by my daughters house to watch the grandchildren awhile while she sews a bit, and then make my way home.

While I sew I turn on my favorite Bible teachers and listen to fantastic teaching and news while I sew. Usually around 3-4 my husband calls and says he will be home soon and we go grab coffee and maybe look at some potential property to buy, and pay the kids a visit. Back home after that, and it’s time to make supper and settle in for the night. It’s a dreamy life for me and I treasure every second of it.

So on a blue day, for whatever reason it’s blue, I will go back to Monday in my mind when I am at my sewing machine with my teaching playing and then coffee with my husband. This is light to me. It is all filled with God’s presence and His goodness, and hope abounds, and eternity is within reach in my minds eye. Pure joy.

When all is light, perspective is clear and true. For the believer, it is filled with expectation of eternity with God, and it’s right around the corner, and it is what my heart longs for. It is New Jerusalem coming, and soon, and it’s where all is right, well, eternally well and is where my heart belongs.

Remember the Light. When darkness comes in any degree, remember the Light.

Amen

Chapter 15 of Crucified, Getting the Mind of Christ

Are we in the very last moments? I believe the answer to that question is yes. How long will it be? I don’t know. But I I have a new understanding of what the Holy Spirit has revealed to us in the word. With a close look we can see something. I know that it is widely understood that Jesus said even the Son of Man new not the day nor the hour but only his Father in heaven new.

But He knows now. This is why: Jesus did lay down some of His omniscience while He was here in the flesh. At the time He said that, He did not know. But when He returned to His glory He knew… He is God; the fullness of God… He knows.

Beginning with that thought, I am going to add here something that was really all tied together for me just the day before yesterday. It is a pretty solemn and serious message and I am not writing it as doctrine, but I strongly believe that the Scriptures paint a clear picture of what I am going to say.

This book has been finished for a very long time now but because of what I believe God showed me, I am pressed to add it here at the end. It is a message that I kept coming to from the very moment I started writing this book. It was something I did not want to think about, so I barely touched on it in the book. I hint to it but really that is all.

Well… I want to just come out with it and connect all the scriptures that seem to me to tie a knot of truth that I just can’t and tie. I keep coming back to the realization that it has to be what the word is saying. I realize that it is going to sound weird for a minute. But then just look at all the Scriptures and maybe it will become evident that what I am saying is not without merit and may in fact be true.

I believe that God is sending out a very specific message today to entice and even warn the body of Christ to “awaken to righteousness”. He has given messages of righteousness to countless believers throughout every generation. Well I think this generation is different, and very special. I think we may be the raptured generation.

This book is meant to encourage fullness in Christ. I know that God gave it to me because I never would have known any of this on my own. The way the book unfolded still has me totally amazed and dazed. He unfolded it to me and I really put forth very little effort other than obeying and writing what I was shown in the word and tying scriptures together to form this message of entire sanctification.

The word says that God‘s desire for the believer is that they would become fully sanctified (spirit, soul and body). The word also teaches that entire sanctification comes through death to self rule while alive or through physical death. All saved people will be sanctified fully but some will be sanctified fully while alive in this life. This is fullness in Christ. There must be a crucifixion with Christ. Crucifixion means a death must occur; either death by letting go of my life which is self rule ( the wheat falling to the ground to die), or death by physical death.

This generation is unique in this respect: Jesus will return for his bride at the rapture and there will be three groups of people when he does. One group will be saved and sanctified (the righteous, those who did not love their lives… Self rule).

{Those who think that righteousness is automatically given to us at salvation, consider all the scriptures I have mentioned that lead us to another conclusion, and then look at these two ideas. We are told to seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness… We seek his righteousness. Also, remember that righteousness is spoken of as a fruit that is produced after we have come to faith. Psalm 24 tells us that the one who walks up rightly with clean hands and a pure heart will receive the blessing from the LORD, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Righteousness is something we pursue once we have received salvation. It is Christ fully formed in me…This is our righteousness. And He is not fully formed (we are not mature in Christ) in the newly saved believer. This has been bad theology to just call every believer righteous. Scripture does not teach that in any way whatsoever. The righteous in Christ, are the hidden with Christ in God…the Saints, the spiritual, the mature in Christ. A carnal Christian, who is any believer who has not been sanctified, is not yet righteous.

More soon!

This is the question our Lord asks all people in Luke 18. It’s a rhetorical question. He tells us already at the beginning of this discourse in Luke that when He returns the earth will be as it was in the days of Noah and Lot.

Then He tells us what He means by that. He says business will go on as usual. People will doing their things like they’ve always done…eating, drinking, marrying… then all of a sudden, when it is least expected, He’s here, and most will be caught unaware.

You would think, that with such warnings, people would be ready. Some will be… those who are watching and praying. They are the ones who are about His business, and not caught up in the distractions of this world. Those distractions are unprofitable Jesus says.

We know by the word that He will find faith but it will be very, very scarce, compared to earth’s population at the time. In Noah’s day it was one family. In lots day it was even less than that.

The warning is severe. So why will there be so few ready? Distractions. Unprepared. All of this will be because the church for the most part has married the world and is playing religion and does not really care to know the word of God. That’s what the prophets say.

New Jerusalem is a city. It is in Heaven, in the eternal realm. It is not seen in the millennium but after the millennium. John sees a New Heaven and a New Earth, for old things have passed away. This is the end, but the beginning of all things.

From the New Earth, totally made new and redeemed, we see a new city coming down from Heaven. We even have the measurements of this city, and description of it. It is where the righteous will dwell and reign with God forever. Not all will dwell there. The ones who dwell on the new earth can travel there, but only at certain times and can only draw so near to God. They chose their lot like everyone else did.

They may have received salvation indeed and glory to God they did. But the fact that they looked to earthly things for their satisfaction and approval and help showed where their allegiance was while in the flesh.

Luke 14:10 is curious. Jesus is telling us when we are invited to a wedding ( metaphor for entering into the eternal state), that we should humbly place ourselves in the lowest place. We just might hear God say to us, friend, come up higher. Higher? Remember that New Jerusalem seems to hover above the New Earth almost as a planet but it is a city. It is near enough to be seen from the New Earth. It’s very interesting. We know this is a spiritual message because who seats themselves in a low room or high room at a wedding? It’s nonsense unless Jesus is speaking spiritual things to spiritual people. He is.

Enoch was removed and taken up to God because why? It was because he walked with God.

Elijah was received by and was gotten by God and taken UP. God’s chariot came to get him. He walked with God.

Paul was taken UP in the body maybe even, to the 3rd Heaven. Why? He walked with God.

John was caught UP In visions of Heaven, why? He walked with God.

When the Son of Man returns for His bride, she will be caught UP, and taken away with Him. Why? She walked with Him.

Jesus asked…When the Son of Man returns, will He find faith on the earth (Luke 18)?

He will. He will find His own elect. But the context of this question is when Jesus is describing the day He returns. What will He find?