Sevens: Week 2

[Jim Watt]

"*TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE" MINISTRIES*

*Jim & Marie Watt*

*Tel: 253.874.4265 -- Email: jmbetter at gmail.com*

*Web: www.2rbetter.org*

*2008-10-19
<http://www.2rbetter.org/>*


   *WEEK 2 - SUNDAY*

*JESUS: LOVED BY AND WELL-PLEASING TO THE FATHER*


 *Luke 3:22 (3:19-22) "And the Holy :Spirit descended in bodily form, as a
dove, upon him, and a voice came out of heaven, You are my :son the beloved;
in you I am well pleased."*


 The highest self-disclosure that Jesus makes of Himself is that He is
Perfect Everything, giving Perfect Everything, Inspiring Perfect Everything,
enabling Perfect Everything, and commanding Perfect Everything.


 He is the most precious being of all because He is God, the Eternal Christ
and the perfect man on the plane of our suffering and need; He is the
perfect Word made perfect flesh, the perfect Ideal perfectly realized and
manifested. He is the perfect man, perfectly self-offered, resurrected and
glorified, and on the throne of God and the universe. He is the perfect
beginning of the new heaven and earth.


 He is the perfect Body as well as the perfect Soul. In Him the perfect
spirit has attained the perfect form and concretion, and (as Whitehead has
observed) the whole movement of the Divine Spirit is toward concretion. He
is perfect God on the throne of man, and perfect man on the throne of God.


 Best of all for us, He is the perfect Lover as well as perfect Love, loving
us into loving even our enemies in order to make them His friends and ours,
loving the most unlovable, making them lovable and loving.



 *DAY 1 - JESUS: PERFECT PROPHET, AND GIVER OF PROPHETIC MINISTRY*


 The Pre-incarnate Jesus said, *"Let there be light, and there was light." *And
He has shed abroad in our heart light and love and life. For some of us, He
has given the prophetic ministry (Romans 12:6-8). This is more than the gift
or manifestation of 1 Corinthians 12:8-11, and links with the word of
wisdom, the word of knowledge, the discernings of spirits and the gift of
faith: to bless the church, His body. Gifts from God are not for the
receiver, but for His body. It is more blessed to give than to receive.
Receivers only - are indeed like the Dead Sea; but receivers and immediate
givers are like Lake Galilee. Jesus received that He might give, and when
His free Spirit has His way in us, we are led to experience the same joy,
delight and blessing of giving. We give *for the common good*!


 So, we too can bring light into this darkened world, as with glad
abandonment we learn to be "Channels only" for the Blessed Master. O, He is
worthy! O, He is wonderful!



 *WEEK 2 - MONDAY*

*JESUS: TURNS TO GOOD ALL TURNED OVER TO HIM*


 *Romans 8:28 (26-30) "And we know that to them that love :God :God works
all things together for good, to those who are called according to hispurpose.
*


 In Him everything is opportunity; He turns everything to good that is
turned over to Him, the seeming worst as well as the certain best. In Him,
there is as much Heaven on the way to Heaven that one wonders how Heaven
itself can be much better that the going to Heaven. As the happy sister on
the way there put it, "When I get to Heaven, if they don't let me in, I am
going to shout all around Heaven telling how good it is to come to Heaven."
It is also true that there is so much hell going to hell that even the most
stupid and perverse should have enough of it before getting there and like
the Prodigal Son repent and turn Homeward.


 Jesus redeems and makes best uses of even the worst past. He more than
forgives us: He turns our liabilities into assets and self-made hells into
Heaven. No matter how badly we mess life when we turn the messer and the
mess over to Him, He unmesses the messer, and makes an asset of the mess.



 *DAY 2 - JESUS, PERFECT SERVANT: EXHORTING US TO BE LIKE HIMSELF*


 Jesus gloried not in the position of Deity He left; not in the perfect
manifestation of the Father through Him as the Son of Man; not in His
miracles; but that He could minister to us, poor lost humanity, by giving
His life a *ransom* for us. His Atoning-Redemptive work on the Cross He came
to do, that *we* might be *reconciled* to God by His blood, and become
recipients of the Paraclete, the other Comforter, through His Resurrection
and Ascension. It was in His humble ministry that He gloried. It was in
washing His disciples' feet that He set us an example in humility and
ministry. Here we see the Servant-spirit of our God.


 Behold it and weep, all proud men, all those of Hubris. Yes, wail and
mourn, and identify yourself with the humble, serving Savior, who shares His
Easy Yoke, and Light Burden with us, if we will humble ourselves through
identification to join Him in His Servant Spirit. O, the humility of Jesus!
O, the humility of God! O, the arrogance and pride of man. Humble us, Lord.
Lord, we humble ourselves, join You and identify ourselves with You in Your
humility and servant spirit of ministry.



 *WEEK 2 - TUESDAY*

*PUTTING JESUS FIRST: CAUSES ALL ELSE TO PROSPER*


 *Matthew 6:33 (6:19-34) "But seek you first his :kingdom, and
:righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you."*


 Moreover, in Him, the redemption of the present also redeems the past. I
was permitted to see this over forty years ago. It has helped me personally
and it has also helped me to help others immeasurably. Recently I found in *The
Great Divorce,* that C. S. Lewis has put the same thought exceptionally well
in saying that when we enter into Heaven (here or anywhere), Heaven begins
to extend backwards, and that if we choose Heaven in preference to earth,
our whole earth experience becomes an adjunct to Heaven. We lose the earth
as we put earth first. If we put first the best of all, we get the Best of
All, and in getting that we get everything. Put first the Kingdom of God,
and the kingdoms of this world become ours as well as His. Put the interest
of the soul first and the body gets health and redemption and immortality.
In Jesus we lose nothing worth keeping and get everything worth having.
Moreover, all potentialities of good are brought to perfection through union
with Him.


 In Him, not only the law and prophecy of the Chosen People are fulfilled,
but also all the light everywhere is brought to bright burning. He is the
one whom all the seekers are looking for.



 *DAY 3 - JESUS, PERFECT TEACHER: OPENING OUR EARS TO HEAR GOD'S WORD*


 Healing of the Land and of the Family Tree is almost necessary before a
prayer team is able to function in unity. Hindrances of the past, both in
the individual as well as the possibility of occult bondage coming down upon
us from our heritage, can be removed on the basis of 2 Chronicles 7:14.


 But who points these issues up in such clarity that motivation comes upon
us, enabling us to deal effectively with these hindrances? The Anointed
Teacher! Hear these Messianic words: *"The Lord Jehovah has given me the
tongue of them that are taught, that I may know how to sustain with words
him that is weary: he wakens morning by morning, he wakens my ear to hear as
they that are taught. **5 **The Lord Jehovah has opened my ear, and I was
not rebellious, neither turned away backward" (Isaiah 50:4-5).*


 An Anointed Teacher and Counselor causes healing to flow back into our
past, and into the future. By Him we are touched body, soul and spirit.
Jesus as the Son of Man on earth did this for all who believed on Him, and
He is no respecter of persons - He will do it through us. In the Romans
12:6-8 seven-fold listing, one out of every seven believers will function in
a pre-eminent teacher mode, coloring with this all other, lesser gifts. What
a blessing! And the resurrected Christ, opens the teacher's ears by His
Spirit, to speak timely, healing words to the weary.


 And, it is good to note - that as God dispenses these 7 ministries to
individuals, this grace also applies to each local church, each city church,
each area, state or province, and each nation! What grace!



 *WEEK 2 - WEDNESDAY*

*APART FROM JESUS - WE CAN DO NOTHING*


 *John 15:5 (1-16) "I am the vine, you are the branches: Who abides in me,
and I in him, the same bears much fruit: for apart from me you can do
nothing."*


 He is the One they need who seek to do His works and follow His example
without being in union with Him. We start out to follow His example and
teachings and when we find a crisis, we find that we need Him to come and
reign and guide from within as well as from without. As good as are His
teachings, and as precious as is His example, we must have the Teacher and
have Him both without and within us. His example and teaching need to be
supplemented by Him and His spirit and His presence. We need Him every hour
and every minute, as well as His teaching and example, to teach us what to
say right now, and what to do right now. For He still tells one man who
wants to join Him and His little company to go back home and tell what great
things the Lord has done for him. He still tells another man who wants to
remain at home for a funeral to let the dead bury the dead and to come with
Him who raises the dead, for He conducts resurrections instead of funerals.
He still tells a rich young "ruler" that if he would be perfect he should
sell all and give it all to the poor and follow Him. He still calls "Peter"
and "John" to leave their homes and business (not to sell them) and to
follow Him. Later He uses "Peter's" home for a healing center, and the home
of "John" as a haven for His own mother. He still tells His "disciples" to
take no purse nor script and no extra change of clothes, for they will be
well provided for; at another time He tells them if they have a purse to
carry it along.



 *DAY 4 - JESUS, PERFECT EXHORTER: MAKING US ABLE MOTIVATORS*


 We constantly need the Spirit of Jesus within for a specific R*E*ma word on
what to do. Should we *answer a fool according to his folly lest he be wise
in his own conceits? *or, *Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest we
become like him (Proverbs 26:4-5)? *The written word does not have the
answer: but the Spirit of Jesus within intuitively shows us the proper word
of exhortation. To be a true exhorter, one must abide constantly and in
intimacy with Jesus.


 All fretting, confusion and frustration flee away as we rest in the
assurance that God within us has the right and best answer at just the right
time for *every* occasion! What a load that takes off of us. The
responsibility is not ours, but *His*. Don't premeditate what to say when
you are brought before rulers to give an answer for your doings; at the
proper moment the Spirit of your Father will show you what to say.


 Then, as those in the church with this ministry prove themselves, and learn
to excel, it moves from a "branch" ministry of exhortation into a "root"
office of the evangelist. Can God do this? Remember Stephen and Philip.
Because of their faithfulness as deacons and exhorters, God promoted them to
serve as evangelists, the logical outgrowth of the exhorter.


 Look to the Savior mighty to save. Look to God on the throne of the
universe and on the throne of your heart.



 *WEEK 2 - THURSDAY*

*THE HOLY SPIRIT: ENHANCES ALL OF JESUS IN US*


 *John 15:26 (17-27) "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send you
from the Father, the Spirit of the truth, who goes forth from the Father, HE
shall witness of me."*


 Moreover, we need to receive the other Comforter, the Holy Spirit, the
Spirit of truth that He went away to receive and to give. He especially
commanded His disciples not to go out to do His work until they received the
gift of the Holy Spirit which would give them power, certainty and authority
(Acts 2:33).


 Jesus gives us His own perfect joy and makes our joy full (John 15:11). He
gives us His own Spirit and brings ours to perfection. He gives us His own
mind and wisdom and makes our own amazing. He gives us His own perfect body
and makes ours perfect. If we have humor, gaiety and laughter, motivated by
love, these will not be taken away but heightened.


 A New York friend, who ministered in the spirit with unusual joy and
laughter, was asked by someone who evidently objected to his levity if he
thought Jesus ever laughed. His reply was: "I do not know about that, but He
has fixed me up so I can." When the children of Israel returned from
captivity, their mouths were full of song and singing and laughter (Psalm
126). When a certain man with a sense of humor was conducting an informal
forum with a group of students of the Yale Divinity School, one of them
said, "Say, is that humor of yours native or does it belong up in the
country where you live?" The answer of course is that all of our natural
gifts are heightened and none of them taken away. The natural is redeemed
and brought to its highest capability by the supernatural, and through the
natural the supernatural is given human means for revealing itself.



 *DAY 5 - JESUS: BRIDGE, BALANCE AND PERFECT LIFE THROUGH US*


 Jesus is the Perfect Manifestation of the Father, and assigns to each of us
our individual and unique ministry. Each of us has one of the 7 Romans
12:6-8 ministries that surpasses and colors the other 6. He puts in each of
us the gift of *giving*, but one out of seven of us outshines in this
ministry. Then from among a few of the many with *giving*, He selects one
like the apostle Paul, who so gives of himself in Christ, that he is as a
Niagara Falls pouring forth the power, beauty and fruitfulness of the Lord
Jesus. It is no longer Paul living, but Christ in him mightily doing the
works (Galatians 2:20). When we commit ourselves fully to the Lordship of
Jesus, and choose to manifest all we are and do and say in the spirit of His
love - then we too can join the ranks of Paul - not to function in his
ministry and his gifting, but to see Jesus do through us as uniquely as He
did through Paul. According to Ephesians 3:7, the apostle explains that the
effectiveness and fruitfulness of his ministry is because of the "d*o*-reA,"
the *gift* of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38), which Jesus gives to all willing
to be used completely by Him. That is, the baptism in the Holy Spirit is
reserved for those who *obey* Him (Acts 5:32).



 *WEEK 2 - FRIDAY*

*JESUS: THE KEY TO THE EXCHANGED LIFE*


 *2 Corinthians 8:9 (8-15) "For you know the grace of our :Lord Jesus
Christ, that, being rich, for you he became poor, that you by his :poverty
might become rich."*


 In Jesus Christ, dull people become bight and the stupid brilliant. He can
take a fisherman and make of him the writer of a Gospel. He can take almost
nothing and make it almost everything.


 While He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief because He took
upon Himself our sorrows and grief, that we may have His joy and Heavenly
bliss, nevertheless as John Mott has said, "When the ecclesiastical
bloodhounds of Jerusalem were at His heels, He told His disciples to cheer
up and willed them His joy and peace." Since His resurrection, ascension,
and gift of the Holy Spirit, and His taking His place in God's throne, His
joy and bliss are beyond human conception. You cannot be in union with Him
without sharing His joy and bliss. He will yet be known as the Man of Joy.



 *DAY 6 - JESUS, PERFECT LEADER: THE ENABLER OF EVERY ELDER*


 Jesus is the 100% Man of Faith. He did not mock us. All He did, He did as
the Son of Man, not as God. True, the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily
in Him, but from Himself as man, He did not originate one word nor one
miracle. He was completely subservient to the will of the Father; and He
said, Follow me! Live of Me as I lived of the Father. And Paul said, Follow
me, as I follow Christ - the Messiah.


 Can God in us, having complete sway over our total being, do through us
what He did through the Messiah? Of course! And Jesus said, *greater* works
than these shall you do, because I go unto My Father.


 Jesus received a perfectly human body from Mary and God, yet without sin.
In that body He succeeded where Adam failed; He redeemed us and reconciled
us to God when we were enemies, ungodly, and none of us seeking after God;
and He lives before us as perfect example of the victory one can live as a
man completely indwelt by God.


 He is our leader; He indwells all elders and leaders, and can live out
through them wise leadership and rulership. He can set elders in the Gate of
each city, and cause an Acts 15 situation to function in all cities of the
nations of the world. All praise and glory be unto Him. And to praise Jesus,
is to praise the Father, for He and the Father are one.



 *WEEK 2 - SATURDAY*

*JESUS: DELIVERS US FROM ORTHODOXY OF THE DEAD LETTER & HERESY OF THE SPIRIT
*


 *2 Corinthians 3:6 (4-6) :God "who also made us sufficient as ministers of
a new covenant; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter kills,
but the spirit gives life."*


 In Jesus we find the perfect union of the orthodoxy of fact and of the
liberal spirit. He is more orthodox than the Orthodox, more up-to-date than
the Modernist, more scientific that the Scientist. The special temptation of
the custodians of orthodoxy is to say "Lord, Lord," as a substitute for
doing His will. The special temptation of the liberal is to seek to bear the
fruit of the heavenly Vine without being in the Vine.


 Those who are seeking to do the healing and other works of Jesus that He
did and does, without union with Him and His gift of the Holy Spirit, will
be far more successful when they receive His gift and receive Him who is
already victor over the world, the flesh, the devil, and over every
limitation. What has been achieved by Him has been achieved for all, and we
enter into that achievement to the degree of our fruit-bearing union with
Him.



 *DAY 7 - JESUS, MERCIFUL ONE: WHO EQUIPS ALL PASTORAL MINISTRIES*


 Of all the 7 ministries of Romans 12:6-8, perhaps this last one of "showing
mercy" is the acme and fruition of all 7. Here is the heart of the true
pastor. Here is the heart of Jesus! Here is the heart of the Father. Here is
the 5th Beatitude: *Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain
mercy.*He who forgives shall be forgiven. When Job prayed for his 3
erring friends,
he himself was healed, forgiven, restored, and made twice the man he was
prior to his testing and trial. We have heard of the patience and endurance
of Job - may we follow in his train.


 But it is the good Spirit of Jesus in us, completely possessing us for His
*own* purposes and ends, that releases the fullness of mercy to flow through
us. Without mercy, righteousness in the Kingdom can be rigid and hard. With
mercy, it comes into beautiful balance like an ellipse, and around these 2
foci flow the beauty of the pure in heart, who see God.


 So - let Righteousness and Mercy kiss each other! Let the righteous
shepherd be tempered and balanced with mercy. Here in this balance we find
an abiding place in Jesus and the Father, and sit with Him and rule with;Him
from His Throne.



 *NOTE**: The readings of the Week are by Rufus Moseley; those of the Days
by Jim Watt*





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