Understanding Migration

Topic: Understanding Migration

             

Greetings Sons of God:

When we think of the word migration many times we think to the Great Migrations of Africa with the animals as they move from place to place during particular seasons.  Many times they are moving from a place where what is necessary to sustain life at the time becomes depleted and they migrate to a place where those resources are available.  I bring up the Great Migration as a backdrop for this entire discussion because so many of us do not realize that our maturity in Christ is a journey that requires us to migrate.  Our migration is not all necessarily physical though at times it can be but most of our migration happens in the mind.  The Scriptures speak of renewing your mind daily that you may be “transformed”.  What are we being transformed into?  We are being transformed into the likeness of Christ. Now for this to be a reality you must view salvation as a journey and simply a one-step process where you get saved and simply wait around for the return of the Lord.  No…. the Scriptures say this: 

Philippians 2:12,13: Wherefore my beloved as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling .  For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. 

So Paul emphasizes to the church at Philippi to “work out” their own salvation.  What are we working out?  We are working out to restore the order of rule within ourselves where the soul comes under the rule of the spirit where your spirit and the Holy Spirit are one.  Second that you are maturing to the likeness and image of your Heavenly Father that you may represent Him to do His will and advance His Kingdom.  Unfortunately in the church instead of working out our salvation we tend to relax in our belief that “we are saved”  but yet our actions and mindset have not changed and we still live according to the ways of the world.  This is extremely dangerous because Jesus warns of those who call him Lord: 

Matthew 7:21-23:  Not every one that saith unto me, Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is heaven.  Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied  in thy name?  and in thy name have cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works?  And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity 

So when we speak of migration in the spiritual we speak of growing accurately and progressively and building the House (family) of God trans-generationally.  This the journey not just individually but also corporately. 

In the next message we will take a testimony within the Scripture and explain the principles required for us to migrate to the fullness of Christ.   

Peace, Love and Grace,

Calvin Calhoun, Jr.

Embracing Inevitable and Progressive Change

Topic: Embracing Inevitable and Progressive Change

Greetings:

Repentance is the first step to embracing the change to access the grace for the current time or kairos of God.  What we do know is that we are being changed glory to glory and if we are changing and maturing then change is a mandatory process and as change comes we must embrace it knowing the change is moving us closer to the fullness of Christ. 

1 John 3:2: Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we SHALL BE: but we KNOW  that, when He shall appear WE SHALL BE LIKE HIM;  for we shall see Him as He is.

Remember the creation is waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God to be set free into the liberty of the sons.  The Kingdom of God is consistently advancing and it is imperative that if you want to continue in this flow of grace you must change and move with His grace.   The advancing of the Kingdom is the spreading of the rule of God.  The Kingdom of God is not about taking over physical geographical areas as we know the advancing of kingdoms in the earth.  The kingdoms of men seek to subdue physical territory.  The Kingdom of God first seeks to rule over the hearts of men and by the hearts of men the rulership of God is spread person to person.  By consequence as more sons embrace their identity and rule as their Father desires the entire earth we come under the rule of God and the kingdoms of men will be shaken and made null and void because they fall short to fulfilling the true hearts and desires of mankind.       

Salvation is a progressive reality!  The Scriptures say that we should work out our salvation with fear and trembling.  By working out our salvation, Christ appears so the words we speak are made manifest before mankind to confirm who we are and who we belong to.  Salvation is not just a one-step process.  Think about this:  After confessing your salvation and being baptized how will someone know or even you know that you are saved if your character and behavior does not change?  This is why God tells the believer not to dabble or serve sin because it separates you from God but it also conforms you to the way of the world and you cannot help someone from that position because then you would be living a double-standard.  The Scriptures say a double-minded individual is unstable in all their ways.  But we as sons have a single-mind, the mind of Christ.  So we are called to press to towards the mark of the prize.  Our pressing requires us to constantly change as grace moves and matures us and if we press to that mark we will achieve our prize which is Christ-likeness and the Scripture 1 John 3:2 tells us that we will shall be like Him!..   Embrace the journey, embrace the change to press to the perfect will of God! 

Grace and Peace,

Calvin Calhoun

Beginning Restitution

Topic: Beginning Restitution

Greetings:

Very simply put restitution begins with one word found throughout the Scriptures and it is always preceded by this call whenever God is about to do anything and that word is “Repent”.  It was a change of mindset that caused the fall in the Garden of Eden and it will require a change of mindset to bring the restitution of all things for the return of Christ.  The Father understands that we tend to adjust to the climates we are put in.  He will give us instruction to a thing and me carry that out but it is not until God decides in His time or kairos, that we need to change our mind from the thing we were doing to the thing He is now doing.  When Israel would fall into sin there was a consistent cry of repentance to the nation.  God in a particular time would accept the sacrifice of a lamb and its blood shed for the atonement of sin for the nation, but now, no longer will the blood of a lamb do because the lamb changed from a four-footed animal to two-legged man in Jesus Christ and now we have access to the Father through Christ for our sins to be forgiven no longer needing the shedding of blood from a lamb.   In times past it was the Temple at Jerusalem where the presence of God resided on Earth in the inner court of the Holiest of All but no longer does God’s presence dwell within a temple made by the hands of man but within a Corporate Man, the Body of Christ.  

In one of the most important notes when we discuss the 6 elementary doctrines of Hebrews 6, the very first elementary doctrine is Repentance from Dead Works.  When John the Baptist, full of the Holy Spirit cries from the wilderness, He cries “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand (Matthew 3:2).   When Jesus began to preach the message to the world was “Repent”.  It was not hell…it was Repent.  Even today that is still the message that brings about change.  We are being changed glory to glory and as we mature to the measure of the fullness of Christ it will require us to repent on every level as we shift from the rule of the soul to the fullness of the rule of the Spirit that we obey Christ with all our heart, soul and mind. 

Romans 12:2: And be not conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. 

2 Corinthians 7:9-10:  Now I rejoice not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing.  For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the worketh death. 

To experience godly sorrow is good because it shows a true conviction and contrition within the believer for the need to change their mind from a current behavior to one that makes them like their Heavenly Father.   We who have submitted to grace knows this feeling and at first it is sad but it also lifts the burden and oppression of the wrong mindset knowing that you are being “transformed” into the image and likeness of the Father.  

Psalm 51:17:  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and contrite heart, O God , thou wilt not despise.  

Repentance is the first step to every stage of restitution that brings us to the fullness of the measure of Christ.  Let us not harden our hearts but embrace the necessary changes that bring about the manifestation of the sons of God.

Peace and Grace,

Calvin Calhoun, Jr.