Go on to Perfection By Sharon Killion E-mail, sparrow557@aol.com Website, cherubimnetwork.com/brokenbread
	Recently I’ve been mulling over some foundational truths. Obviously if our foundation is faulty, the whole structure built upon it will crumble. Most Christians would say to you that we are no longer under the law. I would disagree. OK…Don’t click me off yet! Give me an opportunity to fully explain. In the Old Testament law we were told not to commit adultery, and then Jesus came and cast His Light upon this and showed us a higher way…"don’t even look upon a woman to lust after her." The O.T. law said "do not murder," and then our Lord magnified this truth for us to understand that if we became angry with our brother we were committing murder. Notice the pattern… What was set forth in the O.T. law has been expanded in this N.T. era. Our responsibility is not less, it is greater! Jesus didn’t come to do away with the law, but came to fulfill it. To further expand the meaning, He is fulfilling it in His people on a day to day basis. He is providing the grace, by the power of the Holy Spirit, for us to experientially walk out this law of love. He is making a people to be the expression of His love, His ways and His life in the earth. This doesn’t mean we carelessly live any old way. We must see that the standard has been raised…the bar has been raised, and we must strive to press in to this higher order of life. “(Not in our own strength) for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you (energizing and creating in you the power and desire), both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight.” (Phil.2: 13 Amp) In the O.T. we were told “love your neighbor and hate your enemy,” but now we know the standard is much higher. We are to “love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.” In the O.T. if someone were ripped off, they had recourse to get their stuff back, but Jesus tells us if someone wants to take your undershirt, let him have your coat also. Jesus, speaking to the scribes and Pharisees in Matt 23:23, said that they gave a tithe of their mint, and dill and cumin, and have neglected and omitted the weightier matters of the Law-right and justice and mercy and fidelity. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. Jesus is here endorsing the tithe! Oh, no, not that! Surely we’re no longer under that law! If my premise is correct, and all the examples previously stated are accurate, then not only are we to tithe, but more than tithe. I submit to you that we are no longer our own…we have been bought with a price…The question we should ask is “how much of the money we earn should we keep?” In Ephesians 4:28 Paul (under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit says), “Let the thief steal no more (the thief of Mal.3:8,9 ?), but rather let him be industrious, making an honest living with his own hands, so that he may be able to give to those in need.”(Amp) Work for a living or work for a giving? Jesus told us, “it is more blessed to give than to receive.” He made it clear that we are to lay up treasures in heaven, not on the earth. Sisters and brothers, what are we doing? How are we living the gospel? Are we willing to sell our birthright (the high calling of God in Christ Jesus) for a bowl of pottage? Are we using our God given resources to satisfy our temporal wants? Are we wasting our substance like a prodigal son on riotous living? In Hebrews 6:1, 2 we are told to not lay again the foundational principles, but to go on to perfection (maturity). In other words we should be fully established in the elementary things and have this solid foundation to build upon. Much of the issues before stated are simply elementary principles. Paul goes on in verse 7 and 8 and asks us to look at the fruit that the soil of our lives is producing. In verse 8 it sounds like a deja vue of Mark 4:19. “If that same soil persistently bears thorns and thistles, it is considered worthless and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned.”(Amp) What are the thorns and thistles of Mark 4:19? They are the “cares and anxieties of the world and distractions of the age, and the pleasure and delight and false glamour and deceitfulness of riches, and the craving and passionate desire for other things that creep in and choke and suffocate the Word, and it becomes fruitless.”(Amp) Galations 6 tells us to “be not deceived, God is not mocked, whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap.” We pride ourselves as being Third Day people (see earlier writings) and yet we are needing to be taught again the first principles. Some of us think we are in the Third room (the Holiest of Holies) when we are actually at the Altar of Incense and have only tasted (going in and out) the heavenly gift. Are we holding Him up to contempt and shame and public disgrace (nailing Him to the cross afresh) by the lives we’re living? (Heb 6:6-8) We are His workmanship, created unto good works…are we not? We must not just be hearers of the Word, but doers, if we want our house to stand in the evil day. Just knowing the Word is not enough! We must do it! The storm is surely coming (it is really here) to shake everything that can be shaken, so that only that which cannot be shaken may remain and continue. (paraphrase Heb.12:27) “Who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fuller’s soap; He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and He will purify the son’s of Levi, and refine them like gold and silver, that they may offer to the Lord offerings in righteousness.” (Mal.3:2,3 Amp) Selah. I long to go on to truly know the Lord!