LIFT HIM UP

THANK YOU FATHER.

Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.
Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

The Word is the truth and when it is turned on it can't be put out.

So we have deeds and then we have a description of deeds.
There is a huge difference between professing to want souls saved and wanting to carry the title of filling the biggest tent and franchising at the most rapid rate.

The covetousness behind wanting to have your name known as the fastest growing something or other and fill seats so that you are interviewed for magazines, on television and radio because someone else has that status eliminates the love of the lost and accentuates the love of self.

Deeds will get your name in the paper as someone who is doing something but where are the souls in the seats really at?
A whole lot of folks are doing something, Jehovah's Witnesses are doing something every week but souls and situations remain the same.

QUALITY WILL INCREASE QUANTITY

I love Joel and Victoria Osteen and there was a time when I didn't get their ministry at all.
I used to think " How come he doesn't tell the people that they are going to hell and that they will be cursed if they don't do this or do that?"
The answer is because that isn't what God assigned him to do.

So as I meditated on John chapter 3 the Spirit teaches me so that I am equipped and can equip others.

The LORD guided me to study John.
John the Baptist was the one who his assignment was to prepare the way of the LORD.
Elizabeth's son.
John preached repent and be baptized for the Lord is at hand.

John had students of his own who followed him and believed what he was teaching repented and were baptized.
Because it was true what he was teaching because it was written what John was teaching.
Moses and Isaiah and the other prophets had prophesied of the coming of the LORD Jesus Christ.

John went about doing what he was supposed to do.

The LORD Jesus did come and was baptized in the Jordan by John and John's student's were told, "This is He, The One that I have spoken of whose shoes I am not even worthy to untie. John told those who followed him that the One in whose name they were baptizing had come.
Look, The Lamb Of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

The Lord was baptized and The Spirit of God came from heaven and rested on Him, The One who would baptize with The Holy Spirit.

The LORD'S ministry began and He and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where He spent some time teaching there and people were baptized.

Now John continued to baptize near Salim because there was plenty of water there, and people were constantly coming to be baptized. (John had not yet been put in prison)John wasn't going to send them away.
An argument between some of John's student's and a certain Jew developed over the matter of ceremonial washing.
Religious traditions things to keep the people on a leash.

So his student's came to John, and said to him, Rabbi the one that you baptized in the Jordan, the one that you testified to us about, He is baptizing and all of the people are going to Him.

Deeds.
Light is shined on religious motives here.
If the goal is souls saved why would there be a problem with anyone else baptizing in the name of Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit especially Christ Himself?

Why would there be a problem with the truth being told?

There is a reason that Christ didn't entrust Himself to the religious leader's, because He knew what was in their hearts.
They who said to The LORD, who are you to drive anything out?
It took us 46 years to build this ministry and you say that you will tear it down and build it back up in 3 days...

Yes, that is what He said after He had overturned the tables of the moneychangers driving them out and scattering their coins.

John replied and taught his student's saying,

No man can have anything unless God gives it to him.

Religion had taught them that unless the Sanhedrin gave permission men couldn't carry their mats on the Sabbath.
You can't be healed because we won't allow it, unless we give authority you can't teach.

They were so enveloped in religion even after following John that they believed that Christ needed John's permission to baptize.
It wasn't Christ who was baptizing it was His disciples and they had been given that authority by God not men.

John went on to teach them.
You your selves can testify that when I was asked by those religious men that I told even them that I was not The Anointed one, neither Elijah nor anything else except the voice crying out in the desert saying," Prepare the way of the LORD." (Paraphrased)
You know that I am not The Anointed One but that I was sent ahead of Him.
These souls don't belong to me they belong to the bridegroom.
The best man serves and attends to the bridegroom and waits and listens for Him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice.

John said, That joy is mine, and it is now complete.
He must become greater; I must become less.

Can you find anyone who has this mindset today?
Some folks believe that they are Jesus, John, Paul and Elijah.
You are Henry and I am Lolita and we have Christ in us we are not God, He is The Father and Jeus Christ is LORD not us.

We are here to lift Jesus up, not our program.
Everyone is trying to capitalize on someone elses brand of something.
Can you find an article that lifts Jesus up and allows His deeds to shine while their own deeds fade into the back?

That is what John did.
Because John lifted Jesus up men were drawn to Jesus and after a while they were only drawn to Jesus.

Who is on your custom made pedestal?

Spirit and Truth.
John 3:17-30
LOVE Y'ALL :)
SDWGTMTD