Month: December 2016

QOTD: That Day On Calvary. 

60-0925

That Day On Calvary

“Now watch. Jesus said. Watch how He stated it. “The works that I do,” He’s doing them right now. “The works that I’m doing now, healing the sick, raising the dead, opening the eyes of the blind, these works shall you do also. You’ll do these if you believe in Me. You do these works. And then a greater than this shall you do, for I go to My Father.” 
 “A little while, and the world won’t see Me no more, yet you’ll see Me. I’ll be with you, even in you, to the end of the world. I will not leave you comfortless. I’ll pray the Father; He’ll send you another Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the world cannot receive; yet, you can receive Him.” 

Now notice. The “greater” works, was to have the Power in the Church, not only to heal the sick by prayer, cast out devils by prayer, but to impart Eternal Life to believers. The Holy Ghost was coming, and given into the hands of the Church, to impart Life. Oh! That’s what Calvary meant. It took stooped, degraded men and women, and lifted them into a place, to be sons and daughters of God, to heal the sick and to impart Eternal Life; by giving the Holy Ghost to obedient believers, men who were once unbelievers, be made believers, and impart spiritual, Eternal Life.”- Rev. W.  Branham

QOTD: Who Is This?

59-0510E

Who Is This?

“One revelation on that sacred sand, one time upon that place, man can never be the same. A man, before he should call himself a Christian, before he can identify himself, he should first have that backside-of-the-desert experience, where he met God, face to face. 
For, today, you can have any kind of an answer. You can see the Lord perform just exactly what He said do, and smart theologians will explain It away. They’ll say, “That was for another day. It was for this. Or, It’s for another age. Or, It’s wrong.” Like they said of Jesus, “He is Beelzebub, the devil. He’s a fortuneteller.” And all those things, they have an answer. 

But when a man has ever come in contact with Christ, and seen Him as Paul did, or experienced Him, there is not enough theologians in the world to ever be able to explain that experience away from a man. 

That’s the reason, today. They don’t have the experience. That’s the reason they can’t say. They’re all saying, “Who is This? What is This? Where does It come from?” They don’t have the answer. Why? Because, all they know is a theology that some church has made. Not “to know theology” is Life. Not “to know the Bible” is Life. 

But “to know Him” is Life. “To know Him” as your personal Saviour, as the One Who has filled you with His Presence. You were there when it happened. There’s nobody can take It away from you. There’s no one can explain It away for you. When that experience happens to you, you know Who He is. To me, He is Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever.”-Rev W.Branham 

QOTD: Five Definite Identifications Of The True Church Of The Living God. 

60-0911E

“And, that, God is the Doctor. He’s a Doctor of the soul. He’s a Doctor of salvation. And He educated a man in His Own Theology, Peter, an unlearned man that couldn’t even read his name when it was wrote before him. But He give him the Holy Spirit, and give him the pencil to write the Doctrine about. So, on the Day of Pentecost, he wrote the Prescription. Let’s see what he wrote. Dr. Simon Peter, let’s see what your Prescription is for salvation. Let’s see what It was wrote out for. 
Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their hearts, and said unto Peter and…the rest…the apostles, Men and brethren, what can we do? 

 (Watch out, you got the keys.) Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. 

For the promise is unto you, and to your children,…to them that’s far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. 

That’s the Prescription. Don’t doctor It up; you’ll kill your patient. That’s what’s the matter with a lot of these people talking this, “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” They’re killing a lot of spiritual people, doctored with the wrong thing.”

Rev. William M. Branham

QOTD: Jesus Christ The Same Yesterday Today And Forever. 

52-0810E

“…in the garden of Eden, there’s two trees; one was knowledge and one was faith. One was Life. One was death of knowledge, other one was life by faith. And as long as they eat by faith of this tree, all right, they lived. But when he got on this tree, he died. The first bite he took, he separated himself from God. And man continually has been biting off of that tree. And every time he takes a bite by knowledge, he destroys himself. God destroy nothing. Man destroys himself through knowledge. 
Look, he bit hisself off some gun powder, kills his comrades. He bit hisself off of an automobile off the tree, kills more than all the wars put together. Is that right? Knowledge, knowledge, eating off that tree. He has got hisself an hydrogen bomb now; I wonder what he’s going to do with that. See? 
But the trouble of it is, these people, they figure up so much, on this tree of knowledge, then when they can’t figure it out any longer, they say, “bosh with all of it.” 
Listen, in the Name of the Lord, listen: When you can’t figure out any more, that’s the time to believe.”

Rev. William M. Branham

My “Christmiss” Message. 

Mankind has been studying the written Word since it was given. What was “perfect” found a way to be expressed in man’s futile imperfect symbols, letters and language.  

Prior to Creation, there was only one language or tongue that was spoken. The only thing needed to be written was already expressed perfectly in the heavens, and creation.

There was no need for man’s understanding or translation because our purpose was to believe in God and not to become a God.

To follow His precepts and not to create our own. 

Creation had no business in creating anything, not even in child bearing if it was outside God’s will.  But because we fell from God’s will, everything that man had created since then has created more death than life.

We were made in the image of God but WE WERE NOT GOD nor did we have the maturity to take on more than what God provided and advised. 

And if we studied the Tower of Babel, we can now understand why God was angered.

Because nothing will ever replace God’s original language or line of communication via our intimacy with the Holy Spirit. 

But if there is a lesson to be learned by the religious people during Jesus’s time and throughout history, and even here in 2016, it is that there is a difference between what is “written” and what is prophesied.  

Many knew, studied and recited the written “Word” but missed the “Word” when it became flesh in Jesus Christ, go figure? 

John 5:46 NIV

“If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.”

The same goes with the prophecy of Moses, and all of the martyrs of the gospel before and after Christ.

Our faulty hearts want knowledge, but we really want faith, we think we want gifts, but we want the giver of the gifts, we want healing but we truly want the healer.

We think we need “counseling” but we really want The Counselor. We have been deceived that it is all about sacrifice, when it is love that we truly desire.

I can go on forever on these examples, but let us go to a book that is heavy on prophecy, the book of ISAIAH and may the Holy Spirit speak to you intimately as it has spoken to me. 

◄ Isaiah 65 ►

New Living Translation
Judgment and Final Salvation

1The LORD says,
“I was ready to respond, but no one asked for help.

I was ready to be found, but no one was looking for me.

I said, ‘Here I am, here I am!’

to a nation that did not call on my name.

2All day long I opened my arms to a rebellious people.

But they follow their own evil paths

and their own crooked schemes.

3All day long they insult me to my face

by worshiping idols in their sacred gardens.

They burn incense on pagan altars.

4At night they go out among the graves,

worshiping the dead.

They eat the flesh of pigs

and make stews with other forbidden foods.

5Yet they say to each other,

‘Don’t come too close or you will defile me!

I am holier than you!’

These people are a stench in my nostrils,

an acrid smell that never goes away.

6“Look, my decree is written out in front of me:

I will not stand silent;”

May this chapter humble your hearts as it has humbled mine.  

My Lord, I come before you voluntarily to be humbled. No longer do I desire a Father’s scorn or discipline from you to be moved into the right direction.

My humility and pride I surrendered this year and now for 2017.

I desire a ministry like yours, a ministry that many do not desire. A ministry that builds faith and love vs. pride and sacrifice. 

I desire a more intimate relationship with you in 2017 my Lord. A relationship that is more than a father is to his son and more than that of a friend, I desire a love and bond that is sacred between a husband and his bride. 

Your people the Jews, and your Word also prophesy that the number “17” is about “complete victory and overcoming our enemies” and that is what I ask for the new year.

In accordance to your will of faith, hope and love in your name, Jesus Christ, amen.  

“In the book of 1Corinthians the thirteenth chapter, the seventeenth mention of the word ‘love’ comes when the apostle Paul states that it is the GREATEST gift of all (1Corinthians 13:13).”

The Meaning of 17 in the Bible

Brotherly love,

Ray Evangelista

The Fate of Faith in Perfection. 

John 1 NIV

“45Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”46“Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked. “Come and see,” said Philip.”

People will always go and listen to God where they have the faith to listen to Him. 

Whether it is a priest, ordained bible scholar, or even someone non-ordained (like a simple son of a carpenter).  It solely relies in one’s child-like faith to lead us into a more intimate relationship with God. 
Now the entity that takes the greatest FAITH to hear the gospel is what is pleasing to God.  For what we often deem FOOLISH,  God holds very great in His heart.  

It takes great FAITH to be reverend or to be still and to “hear” God in creation. How can something that is temporary point to something eternal? 

But this is the FATE of FAITH, it will always take great FAITH to receive a gospel of perfection from imperfection or a gospel of maturity from us who are immature.  However this is God’s will. 

The TRUE meaning of PERFECT biblically via Hebrew/Greek translations is simply about being mature. 

“The word “perfect” that we often use in religious conversation is frequently misunderstood. We tend to apply an unqualified philosophical meaning to it and have it mean “without flaw” or “without error” or put it into other absolute categories. It then becomes easy to say that Jesus’ command in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:48), “Be therefore perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect,” is a laudable goal, but one that is impossible for human beings to achieve sicne we cannot possibly be perfect. That is even easier to do from certain doctrinal or theological positions that assume human beings can never respond to God beyond their contaminated sinful nature (see Body and Soul).

The problem in this thinking is that the Hebrew word (tam or tamim) does not carry the meaning of “without flaw” as does the term “perfect” in English. It normally means complete or mature or healthy (for example, Lev 22:21). That meaning of mature dominates most use of the equivalent Greek term in the New Testament (telos). Something, or someone, can be complete or mature yet not be “without flaw.” In fact, it is much easier to be mature and still have flaws, than it is to be without error or without flaw. Many people are mature, but few if any are “without flaw.” A six year old can be mature, and still have a lot of growing to do, just like a person can be “holy” and have a lot to learn about spiritual maturity.” – Dennis Bratcher, PhD

Dennis R. Bratcher: Is a Treasurer and Executive Director – A retired professor of Old Testament; he has earned the PhD in Biblical studies from Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, and has served as a educator in the church for more than 25 years. He is an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene, and has recently served on staff at a United Methodist church.

So hopefully this short note had planted a seed of compassion, love and an open mind to how God can truly use anyone and anything to draw us nearer to Him.   

It is simply a matter of faith and where we choose this relationship with God starts and ends.   

So to truly grow as a Christian, is to desire to be more intimate and mature on the things of God.   And as we grow, the less offended we become because there is something about feeling loved that inspires, encourages and produces confidence and compassion.

If we are to be the light and salt of the world, I pray it is because of our maturity and compassion in Christ.  

As always, God’s speed and love.

Ray Evangelista

Intro: The Origin of Dreams

“dream interpretation becomes very difficult due to the fact that the left hemisphere is forced to interpret what the right brain has created using a language the left brain does not understand.” – The Dream State

“While your whole brain works together, there are certain things that the right side and left side specialize in. The left side is the timekeeper, is concerned with words, reading, talking, math, logic and all that jazz. The right side is visual, spatial, emotional.

I was reading an article that explained how dreaming is unilateral, or, the majority of only one side of the brain is functioning at a certain time while asleep. The reason it’s so hard to write down dreams is because REM sleep is driven by the right side of your brain. Since the right side doesn’t care about time, it’s often difficult to figure out the sequence of events, or about how long it took for something to happen. 

It’s why you can’t read anything in a dream… that’s the left side’s job! Telling time also gets funked up because of this. The lack of the logic part of your brain makes you believe that stupid stuff in your dream is completely natural.
“Therefore, due to the lateralized remembrance of dreams, the left hemisphere of the brain must access the memories of the right brain when a person is asked to describe a dream or even to remember it. To access the memory banks of the right hemisphere, the left hemisphere must use the corpus callosum or anterior commissure. The left hemisphere of the brain is involved primarily in the encoding and recall of verbal, temporal sequential, and language related memories. As a result, dream interpretation becomes very difficult due to the fact that the left hemisphere is forced to interpret what the right brain has created using a language the left brain does not understand”

I think that’s so cool! I guess when you go lucid, you make the left side of your brain wake up to a certain degree.” – link

REFERENCE

Interesting isn’t it? 

I believe that when we dream, either good or bad, both are positive signs that our body, Spirit and soul is finally leaning on the “philosophical” or abstract side of our brains for answers vs. the concrete intellectual answers that will never fill this void in our heart. 

I have faith that this revelation will plant a seed of love in your heart and til my next note on this topic, I pray that you all will stay reminded of God’s unconditional love, even in your darkest hour. 

In the name of Jesus Christ, who defines what is abstract and what is unpredictable as the wind, 

Amen. 

Brotherly love, 

Ray Evangelista