HOW MUCH CAN A DEAD MAN DO?

At my husband's funeral, after everyone had left the chapel, the Lord directed me to go over to the casket. He told me to look into the casket and He said to me: "Tell Me, What do you see?"

I answered: "I see a dead man, Lord." Then the Lord asked me: "How much can a dead man do?"

I responded by saying: "A dead man can do nothing, Lord."

Then the Lord said: "What is the difference (meaning there was none) between the lie in the churches, and the lie in the garden?"

I asked: "Lord, What LIE in the Churches?" He said: "That you can be as God"

I was puzzled by His answer, so I asked Him: "They are not teaching us to be like God in the CHRISTIAN churches -are they, Lord?"

He responded by asking me: "How much can a dead man do?" Since His question didn't seem to me to be an answer to my question, I asked Him: "Lord, are we on the same subject?" To which He responded: "Yes." then He repeated His question with the following emphasis: "How much can a DEAD man do?"

I answered with emphasis, saying: "A dead man can do NOTHING, Lord."

Then the Lord asked me: "If you are dead and your life is hidden in God in Christ, why are YOU trying to be like Jesus?"

So I asked Him: "I am not supposed to be like Jesus, Lord?" To which He replied: "I am the Lord, I am God there is none like Me, nor will ever there be." And I answered, "that is what Your word says, Lord."

Then I asked the Lord: "If I am not supposed to be like Jesus, what am I supposed to be?

In answer to my question, the Lord called my attention to a wreath a the foot of my husband's casket and He asked me: "What does it say on that wreath?"

I said: It says: "R.I.P."

To which He replied: "I am your Peace."

During the short space of time spent in the chapel that night, the Lord ministered to me concerning many things. The Lord reminded me how He had told me that we are not called to be like Jesus, ("it is a burden too heavy to be born for My people to try to be like God".) He showed me that there is no difference in His sight between the lie in the garden (ye shall be as God) and the LIE that you are to be like Jesus, or that you are to be Christ-like.

A Christian's first reaction to that kind of statement is that it cannot be true, that it cannot be from the Lord because every Christian knows that we are supposed to be Christ-like... but our understanding of our own Christ-like-ness is wrong!

Man himself cannot be "Christ-like" [there is none like Him] but we can (by grace through faith in Jesus Christ) "put on Christ" and with OUR life reckoned as dead in Him, asking the Father by His Spirit to hide us in the likness of Him (which is, in Jesus Christ) who is Himself the express image of the Father!

The truth is "you cannot be like Jesus" because Jesus is the LORD, and He is God, and there is none like Him nor will ever there be..." The Lord has shown me that WE (man, Adam) are not called to be LIKE Jesus, we are called to "put on Christ" -we are called to be clothed with Christ, and to be hid in the likeness of Him who is the express image of the Father, "in the Lord" Jesus Christ!

And when the Lord finished explaining that to me, then the Lord said, "instead of asking Me to make you like Jesus, why don't you ask Me to hide you in Christ... instead of asking Me to make "you" like Jesus, just ask "Jesus to be Jesus" for you, -in your place.

When I asked the Lord if it pleased Him to give me a practical example of what He meant by "us not trying to be like Jesus" the Lord asked me, "What happens when you pray and ask Me to make you patient?" As soon as the Lord said that, I laughed. And the Lord asked me, "Why do you laugh?" So I answered honestly according to what my own experience had been, I said, "everyone who knows anything, knows better than to pray for patience." The Lord asked me, "Why?" so I continued by explaining (again in my own experience) "every time I pray and ask You to make me patient (enable me to be patient) then all hell breaks loose!" (meaning all kinds of things seem crop up to test "my patience")

Again, the Lord asked, "Why? [does that happen]" I said, "I don't know, Lord" (thinking to myself "THOU knowest Lord") In answer the Lord explained: "When you pray and you ask ME to make YOU patient, I have to [send things to] let you see that YOU cannot BE PATIENT." [There's something about those "to be" verbs that has something to do with the Lord alone.]

The Lord began to minister how we pray amiss (we even pray according to man's inner desire to be "like" God.) But we forget that HE alone is "perfect Patience" and that we cannot "be" patient or "be" LIKE God. In His sight by asking Him to make us patient, we do not realize that we are in effect really asking Him to make us like God.

Once I began to understand that, I asked the Lord, "then what should I pray?" And the Lord answered, "Pray that I will take your impatience (away) and that I will hide you in Myself. Pary that I Myself will be patience for you "through Jesus Christ". We are to pray that Jesus Himself will "be patience" for us "on our behalf" or "in our stead", i.e., by Jesus, instead of us.

When I asked for a second example, the Lord asked, "What happens when you (meaning man) ask Me "to make you" wise?" In asking this, He immediately gave unspoken understanding that we [mankind] really is incapable of "using wisdom wisely". The Lord caused me to understand that even with all the wisdom He could give to any man, man could still not use wisdom wisely and that we would still "blow it" -like Solomon did.

Please Note: I am not trying to give a verbatim "word for word" report of what the Lord said, I am only trying to relate or describe for you understanding the Lord conveyed to me and am doing so more or less in own my words, not the Lord's :-)

It was at this point that I remembered the scripture clearly tells us, "if any man lacks wisdom, let him ask" and so I asked the Lord about that verse; I told that Lord that in His word it says that we are to ask for wisdom and the Lord replied, "Yes (but/however) Wisdom is not "a what", wisdom is A Who. Wisdom is not some thing for us to use to direct ourselves as we will or as we see fit according to what seems right in our own sight.

Wisdom is A WHO, as it is written: Jesus Christ has been made Wisdom unto us. Jesus Christ is the power of God and HE IS also the Wisdom of God. I was counseled that instead of you asking Me to make YOU wise, ask Jesus Christ to be wisdom for you, in your place, on your behalf..."

The Lord also told me: "My people treat My Word like a what instead of a Who" (The Lord gave me understanding that this is not right in His Sight.) I was given to understand that His Word is not some thing for us to use as we see fit or for what seems right to us. God's word is not "a what" but A WHO, He is His word, God's word is A Who and we need to repent of misusing His word as we see fit and/or according to our own purposes.

Part of the call of His Spirit is to call to our remembrance the fact that Jesus Christ is Himself, the Living Word. In that same context the Lord told me, "it is not what you do with what I gave you, rather it is "what I have done" and what "I will do" with WHO I gave you."

Most of things mentioned here were conveyed while I was in the funeral chapel that night(but it was done in conjunction with many other things it had pleased the Lord to make known to me over a period of years) and so those things have been combined here to lend a better understanding of what the Lord desires to make known to His people concerning these things. It is to convey some of His testimony against our "wicked ways" but not by way of condemnation but rather to offer insight regarding what HE is saying about our wicked ways and what those wicked ways actually are in His Sight.

For man to try to be like God [or like Christ, who is God] in the manner in which we are doing in the churches is a emergence of the beguiling lie of the serpent to Eve being manifested in the teachings of the churches in the last days. I believe the Lord has given more understanding and counsel concerning the subtle devices of the enemy to show how he has crept into the churches unaware to try to destroy from within. The purpose is to expose how the enemy has been steadily shifting the focus of the gospel off of Jesus Christ and onto who man is in Christ. Off of all that HE IS and onto who "we are" in Christ, instead.

Through carnal reasoning and limited human perception of the mind of man, Satan has successfully manipulated the mind of man concering the truth of God's word [not rightly understanding the word of God "in Spirit and in Truth"] and he is wresting the scripture (turning, twisting and perverting the meaning and the intent of God's written word) in order to cause man to fulfill the Humanist manifesto in the churches.

Part of the humanist manifesto is for us, for man to "be all that we can be" instead of for Jesus to be all that HE is for us.

Satan has influenced man to reduce the word of God to just something at our disposal for us to use to help "empower us" to be godly or for us to be like the Most High God, so that WE can be all that WE can be ...to be like Jesus after the fashion of man's own pseudo-Christian counterfeit-Christlikeness [of man]. And all this comes at the expense of the call for us to rest in Him who is Himself the only true image and likeness of God because He Himself is God.

Remember, we are members of His body but we are not "Him" nor can "we" ourselves "be like Him". But we can be hid by Him and in Him who is Himself the express image and likeness of the Father. We can rest in Him as [adopted] members "of the body" of Christ, who is His Only Begotten Son.

Please understand, these things are not written to condemn the churches nor to accuse anyone of deliberately teaching error. The things the Lord has given are to lend more understanding. I believe what I have been shown is for the benefit of His Body so that we might be made aware of and be delivered from the devices of the enemy by which he has been seducing the churches. The churches are systematically being led into ignorantly preaching a humanistic gospel and in many cases a thoroughly New Age Gospel of Man complete with another Jesus and a completely "other" gospel.

From what the Lord has shown me, I believe it has been part of Satan's plan to try to bring the church under a curse. May I refer you to an incident in scripture in which Balak is depicted somewhat as a type of unwitting pawn of the enemy [in that his actions are after the working of Satan's own wicked agenda.] Satan tried to get Baalim to curse Israel but failing that, Baalim then sold out to Balak for profit.

Greedy for gain in order to prosper himself financially though Baalim would not/could not curse Israel as Balak wanted, instead Baalim showed Balak how he could get the children of Israel to bring themselves under a curse.

This is exactly what the enemy wants to do with the churches! He wants to try to maneuver us into a position where we bring judgment upon our own selves by trying to get us to preach a false gospel. Can you see why -in the Book of the Revelation of the Lord, in His Letters to the CHURCHES -the way of Baalim and Balak are mentioned? I beleive it is because Satan's plans and his devices have not changed... Satan is out to bring destruction upon God's people even if it is by means of causing them to bring a curse their own selves.)

How could Satan possibly do that? He knows that it is written, "if any man preaches another gospel, let him be accursed" -and so he has crept into the churches unaware to try to accomplish just that. Satan has come to walk to and fro among us and by coming in through the back door if you will (just as he did with Eve) he seeks to deceive and corrupt. In these last days by twisting the truth of God's word, he has purposed to manipulate the churches into [ignorantly] preaching "another jesus" and "another gospel" so that she might be cursed for doing so.

As mentioned in the Letters to the Churches in the Book of the Revelation of the Lord, the way of Baalim and Balak are a reference to Satan's plan in the last days to bring disaster upon the churches by means of propagating a Laodicean false gospel (made up of half-truth + half-error.) The enemy of our souls has sought to force the churches into an adversarial position by causing her to act in such a way that she finds herself in opposition to God Himself. But he that hath an ear, let him hear: the Lord is calling us to repent of these things! These are our wicked ways!