Paddling Around the Edge 1/1 Wednesday Wisdom

May all of you have a blessed new year!

Our souls have caught just a little flash, a little larger revelation of the living God through the blessed Word and through the Holy Spirit, the divine power to make it real.  But my brother, beyond our soul is the great ocean of God.  We are just paddling around on the edge yet.

-- John G. Lake

Blind to the Power of God 12/31 Tuesday Truth

The marvel is that men have remained blind to the power of God so long. How was it that you and I, raised in Christian homes, reading the Word of God, praying to our Father God, failed to comprehend that the power of God through Christ was able to save a man from all his sins and all his sicknesses?

-- John G. Lake

The Purpose of Jesus 12/30 Monday Meditation

We contend, therefore, that the purpose of Jesus was not to save souls only.  His purpose was to save men -- to save their body from sickness, their soul from sin, their spirit from death.  And to this end He gave eternal life to the spirit, peace to the soul, healing to the body, and all are available to every man.

-- John G. Lake

An Unlimited Life 12/20 Friday Faith

I will not be posting next week.  This will be the last post until December 30.  Wishing all of you a Christ-filled Christmas!  

Paul declares, "He gave some apostles, some evangelists and some pastors and teachers." What for? "Till we all come into the likeness of the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:11, 13).  Bless God.  Not a limited life, but an unlimited life.  The idea of Christ, the idea of God was that every man, through Jesus Christ, through being joined to Him by the Holy Spirit, should be transformed into Christ's perfect image.  Glory be to God.  Christ within and Christ without.  Christ in your spirit, Christ in your soul, and Christ in your body,  Not only living His life, but performing His works by the grace of God.  That is the Gospel of the Son of God. 

-- John G. Lake

Don't Apologize for Christianity 12/19 Thursday Thoughts

Christianity is not a thing to be apologized for.  Christianity was the living, conscious life and power of the living God, transmitted into the nature of man until, bless God, man's nature is transformed by the living touch and the very spirit, soul, and being is energized and filled by His life.  Thus you become indeed, as Christ intended, a veritable Christ.

-- John G. Lake

Triumph Everywhere 12/18 Wednesday Wisdom

There is a union between the Christ and the Christian that is so deep, so pure, so sweet, so real that the very conditions of the human spirit are transmitted to His, and the conditions of the Christ's Spirit are transmitted to ours.  It is because of the continuous inflow of the Spirit of Christ in our heart that we appreciate or realize His power and triumph.  It lifts man above his surroundings and causes him to triumph anywhere and everywhere.

-- John G. Lake

All Things New (Part 2) 12/17 Tuesday Truth

[The new life] is reflected in a new gentleness, a new kindness, a new cheerfulness, and a new love.
The new life brings with it a new power, a new protection, a new message, a new responsibility, a new rest, and a new shout of victory.  We are a new creation in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17). 

--John G. Lake

All New Things (part 1) 12/16 Monday Meditation

Consider the result of being born into the family of God.  It means a new Father, a new Savior, a new Captain, a new armor, a new Physician, a new Comforter, a new Guide, a new Teacher, a new Truth.
It brings within, a new heart, a new mind, a new grace, a new hope, a new peace, a new joy, a new calmness, a new outlook on life, and a new purpose for living and being.
(to be continued)
-- John G. Lake

Christianity Stands Unique 12/13 Friday Faith

Christianity stands today absolutely unique.  No other religion on earth has our hope, or our consciousness, or our power.  I fear sometimes that we moderns somehow have lost the spirit of original Christianity.  We have lost the smash of it.  We have lost the charge of it.  We have lost the overcoming of it.  We are begging the devil for a place in the world, apologizing for our faith in God, trying to conform our religion to the mind of the world.

-- John G. Lake

Immortality 12/12 Thursday Thoughts

In our day, we have almost come to the place where the world is being taught to believe that the message of Christianity is morality -- be decent, don't act like a pig, keep the beast under control.  That is about the message of modern Christianity.  Jesus Christ never wasted His time establishing mere morality.  Jesus Christ, the Son of God, declared immortality to be the goal of Christianity, its attainment, the purpose of God for you and me.   "I will raise him up at the last day," said Jesus.  "I will give him eternal life."  "The dead in Christ shall rise first." 

-- John G. Lake

An Openness to God Only 12/11 Wednesday Wisdom

I tell you, beloved, it is not necessary for people to be dominated by evil, nor by evil spirits.  Instead of being dominated, Christians should exercise dominion and control other forces... Jesus taught us to close the mind, to close the heart, to close the being against all that is evil; to live with an openness to God only, so that the sunlight of God shines in.  The glory radiance of God shines in, but everything that is dark is shut out.

-- John G. Lake

The Man With Christ in Him 12/10 Tuesday Truth

The man with Christ in him, the Holy Ghost, is greater than any other power in the world.  All other natural and evil powers are less than God, even Satan himself is a lesser power.   Man with God in him is greater than Satan.  This is the reason that God says to the believer, he shall cast out devils.  "Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world" (I John 4:4).

-- John G. Lake

Something Will Happen Then 12/9 Monday Meditation

God's purposes come to pass when your heart and mine gets the real God cry, and the real God prayer comes into our spirits and the real God yearning gets our natures.  Something is going to happen then.

-- John G. Lake

Bring Our Hearts Back 12/6 Friday Faith

At the end of the first 300 years of the Christian era, there were millions of Christians.  Christianity was an aggressive power.  Christianity went into the heart of heathendom to undo their superstitions, to break down their psychological forces, to leave the consciousness of Jesus Christ in the heart, to heal the sick, to raise the dead.  Oh, God in heaven, bring our hearts back to it.  Christianity was a conquering force.

-- John G. Lake

The Sanest Man 12/5 Thursday Thoughts

The sanest man is the man that believes God and stands on His promises and knows the secret of His power, receives the Holy Ghost and gives Him sway in his life and goes out in the name of the Lord Jesus to command the will of God and bring it to pass in the world.

-- John G. Lake

A Faith Triumphant 12/4 Wednesday Wisdom

Your spirit life is fruitful and built up and enriched by communion with the Father and by reading His Word.  And your spirit becomes strong and vigorous.  There issues from it a faith that is triumphant and creative.  I venture to say this:  The men and women who are weak in faith, that once were mighty in faith, are so because they have stopped feeding on the Word of God and stopped close, intimate fellowship with the Father. 

-- John G. Lake

Quotes from John G. Lake 12/3 Tuesday Truth

I have finished the quotes from Advanced Bible Studies by E. W. Kenyon.  I am switching now to quotes from the complete sermons of John G. Lake (1870-1935).  It's been four years since I did a series of Lake's quotes.  My purpose in Lep's Faith Quotes is to quote from Pentecostal pioneers whom the reader will not encounter in modern devotionals.  John G. Lake was one of the best known healing evangelists a century ago, with a ministry in South Africa and America.  He eventually located his ministry in Spokane, Washington.  To learn more, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Lake. 

In those early centuries of Christianity, Christianity did not go into the world apologizing.  It went to slay the powers of darkness and undo the works of the devil, and it lived in holy triumph. 

-- John G. Lake

More Than a Conqueror 12/2 Monday Meditation

Just as Jesus dared to say, "I am the vine, and ye are the branches"; or, "I am the light of this world"; you say, "I am what He says I am."  More than even that you can say, "I can do what He says I can do."
Philippians 4:13, "I can do all things in him who strengthenth me."
You see, we are moving out of the realm of weakness into the realm of victory; and you can say, "I am more than a conqueror, for I am complete in Him who is the head of all principalities."

-- E. W. Kenyon