The Simple Gospel 12/1 Friday Faith

Men have mystified and philosophized the Gospel of Jesus, but the Gospel is as simple as can be. Just as God lived and operated through the body of the man, Jesus, so Jesus, the Man on the throne, operated in and through the Christian, also through His body, the Church, in the world. Just as Jesus was representative of God the Father, so the Church is the representative of Christ. And as Jesus yielded Himself unto all righteousness, so the Church should yield herself to do all the will of God. --John G. Lake

Co-Partner With God, Part 2 11/30 Thursday Thoughts

Just as Jesus Christ was the human body through which the living Spirit was ministered to mankind, so God has arranged that the living Church -- not the dead member, but the living Church, alive with the Spirit of the living God -- should minister that quickening life to another and thereby become a co-partner, a co-laborer together with God. Blessed be His name forever. -- John G. Lake

Co-partner 11/29 Wednesday Wisdom

Isn't it a marvelous, wonderful thing that God has ordained an arrangement whereby man becomes God's own co-partner and co-laborer in the ministry of the Spirit? -- John G. Lake

The Ministry of the Spirit 11/28 Tuesday Truth

The ministry of the Christian is the ministry of the Spirit. He not only ministers words to another, but he ministers the Spirit of God. It is the Spirit of God that inhabits the words, that speaks to the spirit of another and reveals Christ in and through him. -- John G. Lake

Abundant Life 11/21 Tuesday Truth

This will be my last post until probably Tuesday, Nov. 28, Happy Thanksgiving! Jesus said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). The reason we have the more abundant life is because that, receiving God into our being, all the springs of our being are quickened by His living presence. Consequently, if we are living today and we receive God, we live life in a fuller measure. We live life with a greater energy, because we become the recipients of the energy of the living God in additiion to our normal energy, through the reception of His being, His nature, His life into ours. -- John G. Lake

All That Jesus Was 11/20 Monday Meditation

Tomorrow's post will be the last one until about Tuesday, November 28. Happy Thanksgiving! All that Jesus was to the world He purposed that the Church of Christ should be. First, He blessed the world through His own physical personality. Second, He established a physical body, composed of many members, joined in one by the Spirit of God. When He established the second body, the Church, He never intended that it should be of lesser authority or of lesser power than the first. It was His real purpose that the second body, the Church, should exercise and fully accomplish all that the first had done. -- John G. Lake

Not Worthwhile 11/17 Friday Faith

Tuesday, Nov. 21 will be my last post until probably Tuesday, Nov. 28. Happy Thanksgiving! If you and I had as much faith to believe it [the defeat of Satan] as we have to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is our Savior, we would have mighty little trouble with the devil or his power while we walk through this world. It is not worthwhile talking about a man [the devil] after he is whipped out. -- John G. Lake

Talking About the Devil 11/16 Thursday Thoughts

I do not spend much time in talking about the devil. The Lord took care of him, bless God. He has the keys of hell and of death, and He has mastered that individual and the condition once and for all. --John G. Lake

The Groaner 11/15 Wednesday Wisdom

I have always wondered how a Christian could be anything less than an optimist. It is a sad thing when you hear Christians with a groan in them. When I meet the groaner I say in my heart, "God, move the man on into the place where he comprehends what Christianity is." The Christian with a groan in him never moved the world except to groan. -- John G. Lake

Holiness and Power 11/14 Tuesday Truth

Not long ago I stood before great audiences of the churchmen of the world. They said, "Through all your ministry there is one note. It is a call for power." They said, "Do you not think it would be better if the Church was calling for holiness instead of power?" And I replied, "She will never obtain the one without the other. There is something larger than holiness. It is the nature of God." -- John G. Lake

Hunger 11/13 Monday Meditation

"Blessed are they that hunger." Bless God! What are we hungering for, a little bit of God? Enough to take us through this old world where we will have the dry rot and be stunted and then squeeze into heaven? "Blessed are they that hunger," for the nature and power and love and understanding of God. Why? "They shall be filled." Bless God!

The Call of the Soul 11/10 Friday Faith

Is there a note of despair in your heart? Have you not attained the thing your soul covets? Have you desired to be like that sinless, unselfish, sickless one? God will answer the call of your soul. You shall have your heart's desire. But before that call becomes answerable it must be the paramount call of your being. It is when it becomes the paramount issue of the soul that the answer comes. Jesus knew. That is the reason He said, "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." -- John G. Lake

Everything Else Secondary 11/9 Thursday Thoughts

The spiritual action that takes place within the nature of man, that strong desire for God -- His ways, His love, His knowledge, His power -- causes everything else, perhaps unconsciously to himself, to become secondary. -- John G. Lake

Think Not (#2) 11/8 Wednesday Wisdom

Think not to come within the court of God with stain upon thy garments. Think not that heaven can smile upon a nature fouled through evil contact. Think not that Christ can dwell in temples seared by flames of hate. No! The heart of man must first be purged by holy fire and washed from every stain by cleansing blood. Know ye not that he whose nature is akin to God's must ever feel the purging power of Christ within? -- John G. Lake

Think Not (#1) 11/7 Tuesday Truth

Think not that thou shalt attain the highest in God until within thine own soul a heavenly longing to be like Him who gave His life for us possesses thine heart. -- John G. Lake

God's Will 11/6 Monday Meditation

It was not in God's will or purpose for man to live in pain, in sorrow, in sickness, and in poverty. But on the other hand it is God's purpose and intent of Jesus that mankind should be redeemed from sin, from sickness, and from death, bless God. -- John G. Lake

Separate Yourself 11/3 Friday Faith

"Prepare ye the way of the Lord, Make His paths straight." You want God to come and bless your own life? Then separate yourself from the superficialities and formalities that have possessed your mind and taken your attention, and come back with directness and simplicity to God and He will bless your soul. -- John G. Lake

Holy Ghost or Smile of the World? 11/2 Thursday Thoughts

This is an appropriate post for All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day. It was that consciousness of God's presence and God's power in the disciples and the Church of the first four centuries that wrote across the pages of history the wonderful, wonderful record of Christianity of the first four hundred years. There were thirty million Christian martyrs, those who were slaughtered in the Christian wars, etc. Thirty million gave up their lives for the Christ. There was a spirit that made it so intense, so powerful, that had such a power of induction that the world got out. Bless God. But there came a day when the Church traded the communion of the Holy Ghost for the smile of the world, and then the long, long night of the middle centuries followed. -- John G. Lake