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Dear reader, please do not misunderstand me, I am not saying that as a believer there is absolutely no possibility of us ever being sick.Of course there is for our mortal bodies can still be still impacted upon by the forces of nature whilst we tabernacle here in this tent of the flesh. But even as with the outward symptoms of illness, there is the inward contimination, dysfunction or whatever has led to poor outward physical health, the same holds true for our spiritual wellbeing.

Indeed my point is that if we are healthy in the spirit of our minds physically we can enjoy fulness of life. and if and when ill health interrupts the flow of life from God we can know complete recovery through faith in God's Word (written and incarnational).  

Yes my friend even in the midst of the frailty of the physical human condition in society today, the possibility is equally available to us the redeemed to enjoy a quality of physical wellbeing that reflects and testifies to the spiritual and emotional well-being we know and enjoy through divine union with God in Christ.

In the New Testament we can infer that the primary cause of sickness among believers today ought to be that one primary cause which the Apostle Paul identified in his letter to the Saints at Corinth (chapter 11: 17-34 Amplified Bible). There we get the understanding that general physical sickness, ill health and poor well being in the life of the believer comes mainly as the result of 'not discerning the Lord's Body' (vs.29). We see that what is meant by the Body of the Lord as we read the preceding and following verses (from vs.20-34) is the corporate Body of Believers over whom Christ is head. 

Where self control, temperance (fruit of the Spirit) are not availed of and walked, remaining carnally minded (expressed here specifically in gluttony) believers expose themselves, leaves themselves open to judgement and discipline by the Lord. This is a very serious matter in the context of our lives today in a world where christian faith and community is largely and widely misrepresented in religious ritual which has an outward form of godliness that denies the power thereof.

That greater matter in relation to our enjoying full and complete life in Christ we will come to as we go on, but for now, for the purpose at hand we merely touch on this in a brief and specific way as it relates to physical wellbeing as a reflection of spiritual and emotional wellbeing through abiding union with God in Christ.

We are saying here that we as the Lord's people can walk in wholeness, complete wholeness today because of Christ accompliishments for us through His death burial and resurrection. Resurrection life is the bithright of the redeemed. And this is not just for eternity, resurrection life is ours to embrace and enjoy now! Recall with me our Lord's very own words "I am come that they might have life and that more abundantly."

Indeed the thief is come only to kill, steal and destroy. What are you permitting to be stolen from you as you passively play the 'churchianity game'? Are you remaining exposed and vulnerable to sickness and infirmity to your physical wellbeing because of an incomplete initiation into christ. As your brother in the Lord I encourage you dear reader, I appeal to you for the sake of your enjoyment of that which is your born again brthright. 

Lay hold of the Lord for wisdom and insight as to what spiritual exercise you need to practice to enjoy the fulness of abundant life in Him. Is there an eldership in your local fellowship who will come at your request, pray for the sick with the laying on of hands that you should completely recover? This is your birthright in the household of faith in Christ. Is your local church such a community that lays hold of such promises? Or is the Lord hindered, the Holy Spirit prevented from bringing preeminence to Chrst in this way in the midst of your gathering? This ought not to be so.

Whether the local fellowship is passifist or zealot makes no difference. Zealots walks around trying in the zeal of their flesh to 'convert' everybody, judging everybody, in self righteousness and ignorance taking pride in the academc knowledge of their puffed up minds. Such ones who think they are standing need to urgently take heed to themselves lest they fall. Zeal that is not according to intimate experiential immediate and present knowledge of the Lord as living in and among the Saints always does more harm than good.

The pacifist believer has recieved a tradition of men that regards God as remote and disinterested in the intimate details of our lives. Such ones pride themselves on observing the rituals of their specific sects and are often either apathetic or all together indifferent to the cause in the advancing of His kingdom in the lives of lost and perishing souls.

As it relates to the zealot specifically, evidence of the harm brought about by good intentions without accurate revelational insight and revelation from the Holy Spirit is readily available to us all (yes this writer included) with reflection upon our lives in religion. If we are prepared to examine critically what our assumptions and presumptions have led us to conclude, to say and do in Jesus name; when we aided only the traditions of men being fed to us as the doctrine of God, we would be in greater earnest to know the Lord himself and not just what we hear of Him from our peers and Elders.

Lord help us to give ourselves to keener 'seeing', 'hearing' and obeying of your voice in our hearts and lives. Help us to still ourselves internally amidst the hectic pace of things around us. The pressures and cares of the world, the constant barrage, noise and clatter even in our fellowship gatherings bemoans the fact that we make very little place for quiet contemplation/waiting on the Lord.... the Holy Spirit  

The Way, the Truth and the LIFE has for some time been stirring within us a great sense of indignation over the sickness and death that is at work among so may professing to be his disciples. Indeed, it has become so compelling that we have no desire to sojourn, to dwell among any community of ‘church goers’ who; whilst professing faith in a risen Savior, walk as the living dead full of spiritual, emotional and physical sickness and death. In so doing they resist and refuse the miraculous out workings of the grace of God, living as mere men.

Today a separation and distinction is being set forth in the spirit realm. Everything that can be shaken is being shaken, so that only the unshakeable (the eternal) might remain. We are being called today to be of such a mind as was in Christ. It is the mind of the Spirit, the mind of sonship to the heavenly Father. The mind of life from above, born from above and overcoming of all that is from death and producing of death by the Spirit of life.

  Our Lord lived and demonstrated the divine life walking in the fullness of the Holy Spirit.  Today all who are His; members of His universal Body the Church, the called out and set apart, in Him in spirit and in truth (not just in religion having a form of godliness that denies the power of God), today, these have the authority in His name to be as He was and is in this world. Our Lord had to choose to lay down His life; as He says in John 10:17-18, He received this commandment from the Father in redeeming us unto and into Himself. Again, we who are in Him are full of His life, even if our faith is as a grain of mustard seed this is still the truth. Why?

Because we are born of the incorruptible seed, the Word of life and growing increasing in our spiritual vigor and vitality by faith we enjoy greater and greater benefits of this divine union. We grow from grace to grace as the Word promises. No one and nothing can stop the inner life. No one on earth or in the heavelies can deprive us of the enjoyment of fulness and completeness of life in It cannot be taken from us by the forces of darkness. We would have to forfeit the benefit of it in our lives through neglect, through spiritual sloth. 

Having said all this we must also however be in readiness today, to lay our earthly lives down for His sake. But even this is not of our own strength, indeed nothing to do with life in Christ is by our own self effort and strength, not of our own striving and struggling to keep written ordinances and observances independent of His Holy Spirit's working in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure.

The Spirit of God has always drawn me to John’s Gospel, I find that it is nothing to be taken lightly that he refers to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved (and in saying this I am not asserting that the other three ancient Apostolic Elders; Mathew, Mark and Luke, are to be disregarded nor discarded).But John's referring to himself as 'the disciple  whom Jesus loved' is most noteworthy and instructive today. It is a unique self revalation among the testimony of all the new testimony apostles including Paul. We must be careful however to have the mind of the Holy Spirit in looking into and laying hld of what the Lord would have us to take from Him here.  

I believe that as in the spirit in which his three letters to the churches and the Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ is written, this testimony, this confession by John to being the disciple ‘whom Jesus loved’ is made in true meekness and humility of spirit. It is not meant to be a boast but a warning and guide to all disciples of Christ.

Even as Paul testifies, “follow me as I follow Christ’, I believe John;  by his frequent repetition of this phrase in reference to himself is being led by the Spirit to point us to a vital consideration in this the ending of an age.

The Spirit of God is in John encouraging us all as believers to make it our priority to be ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved”. He is here saying that in order to enjoy fullness of fellowship and life in Christ we must above all things give diligent and due regard to the cultivation of intimacy with the Lord.

We are not talking merely about 'going to meetings', 'going to church' to hear about the Lord, about getting our Sunday fix to take us through the week. It never has and never will suffice for us to only know teachings about the Lord, not just to have others testimony to us about the Lord. But we; for our own intimate enjoyment of Christ must cultivate our own intimacy with Him. We must have our own testimony of experiential and subjective knowing of the Lord for ourselves. 

 We already know something of how this is achieved. It is all about being there. It is all about the divine romance. We hear people speak of a great experience they had and they tell us with great excitement “You would have had to be there! Second hand information will not suffice.” We will all agree that being at a great sporting or entertainment event far exceeds seeing it (even if carried 'live') on television or listening to it on the radio. This is what enjoying fullness of life in Christ requires, we have to be there! Where? Abiding in His presence.

How do we come into and abide in His Consider the intimacy of the language in the testimony of the Gospels regarding this John. He lay his head upon the Lord’s bosom. His head his heart was inclined towards the Lord not only physically but spiritually also. Are we inclining our hears towards the Lord today. John's head upon His bosom meant he no doubt could hear the Lrd's heart beating. What is our proximity to Christ today? Are we so positioned, so near and so still that we can hear His heart beating.

The physical act was the overflow and outflow of John's heart response to His Lord.   Is this to say John was perfect? By no means! And this is where we must take great consolation and encouragement from the Lord’s dealings with John. It is because of his desire to be with the Lord, his desire to be there in His presence all the time that he is the disciple whom Jesus loved.

John's fleeing, His forsaking of Jesus as one of the twelve hours later when the soldiers came to the Garden of Gethsemane is testimony to his human frailty. There is that weakness we all experience in our fleshly minds when in the face of what we regard, what we percieve of as great adversity. We have all been guilty of retreating from being identified with the Lord in some way, at some point in time. But in John's case that was before power from above had come and indwelt and empowered his desire to be there with the Lord.

Before the Holy Spirit was given John like we, had only the desire, the good intentions but with the Holy Spirit’s infilling came power to be and do! We grieve our Lord and ourselves when we fail to walk in the spirit. We are simply without excuse for in Christ our heavenlyFather has made all provision for us. Our only recourse for grieving, quenching the Lord's Spirit in this way is to take ownership of such failings; if we confess our sins, He is faithful to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.    

That is why the witness of the selfsame Spirit is a call to abundant life in Christ. We are invited by Christ to believe on Him and in so doing be born again from above. that birth from above; through confession of Jesus as Savior and Lord, is sealed through our recieving, being filled with and walking in the Spirit from above.

This is the portion and promise of God to whosoever will come to Him believing. Such ones In the midst of the tribulation that is upon the islands of the Caribbean and everywhere else in the world today remain immoveable, steadfast always abounding in the fruit of the Spirit, prepared and equipped to bear witness in their living to the reality of incarnational life.

 In the midst of the crime, violence, social fragmentation and bshaking up of all things in earth and heaven. Despite the the divide and rule of the forces of darkness by any and all means directed against the inhabitants of the earth Church today; because the enemy knows that his time is short and is gone about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may destroy, God's elect, the seated together with Christ in heavenly places have no fear.

The local assemblies in the midst of which Christ and not self seeking has preeminence abides and thrives despite all this great opposition to God's purposes and intent for the the earth and heavens today. It is He; God Himself who is doing the shaking. He is exposing all faulty and unsure foundations.

His elect are not decieved. In the earth today the Holy Spiirt is proclaiming in Jesus Christ "Let there be Life!!"  As the darkness in the world system gets worse and worse , as the evil increases by Sodomite proportions and we continue to hear and see in the general media of increasingly high levels of acceptance of occult and sensual activity. As the forces of darkness invade all of the earth's social institutions; homes, schools, religious assemblies and the political and civic centers intended by God to uphold His will for humanity in the earth, the Lord is raising a standard against the His enemies advance. His peculiar people, His set apart, His elect are ensuring that for this present darkness their lamps have oil in them. They are taken great encouragement from speaking one with another, looking to the Lord and being strong in the power of His might.

In the midst of all adversity He is leading us on in His triumph.Personally, experientially, subjectively we His Church are increasingly knowing Him as our abundant life. But the Spirit is declarig woe to the inhabitants of the earth (those whose preoccupation, those whose heart is set upon earthly things even whilst they profess faith in God) for the dragon is descended unto them having great wrath because he knows his time is short.

Quite frankly dear reader, I remember when I was in 'churchianity' I used to get really nervous when I heard that. I would be all anxious and looking for persecution and problems from all angles. What a deliverance! What newness comes when we by God's grace we lay hold of and walk in the understanding of transformed living in the Holy Spirit.

Only then do we cease from striving, we are not unsettled then by anxiety over whether we are doing enough to please and be pleasing to God in and of ourselves. We know then that all of our self generated righteousness, all of our observance of moral codes of conduct is as filthy rags and cannot please God.

We have reckoned that old religious life, not just our unsaved life but, understand that old religious life crucified with Christ. Thus we come unreservedly to the Lord not seeking to be clothed in our own righteousness but in His only. Ever fear every anxiety associated with what is termed brimstone and fire preaching is cast away from us, is overwhelmed and thrown aside by the conviction of His presence and provision of all that we have need of in whatever circumstance our walk with Him brings us into.

It is His sufficiency to all things we have to deal with that umpires and rules the day in our hearts. This also is the expression of the abundant life. Abundance of strength, stamna, vigor for the rigors of the times! My Bajan, Lucian, Trini, Vinci brethren, let us all agressively lay hold by faith of this life. Let us all purpose in the Lord to live and enjoy full and complete lives in Christ for ourselves, our loved ones, for the testimony to the Christ in the Caribbean's sake. As our Head Christ has and is overcoming the world, so also the members of His Body on earth; joined to Him in divine union by faith in His shed blood and resurrection live for and serve Him in resurrection power by the self-same Spirit.