“The Form of God”!! (Part 2)

Text: Philippians 2:5-6:

  "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God".

Topic:  "The Form of God"!!  (Part 2)

In part 1 of the “form of God” we defined “form” out of Webster as shape; general structure; the figure of a person or animal; a mold; a particular mode, kind, type, etc.; arrangement; style; a way of doing something requiring skill; a customary or conventional way of acting; ceremony; ritual; condition of mind or body; fashion; to train; instruct; to develop (habits); make up; constitute.

“Form” out of the (Greek) in this verse is from the root word (morphe’), defined as [through the idea of adjustments of parts]; shape; nature / also from the base of the word (mer’os), meaning a part or portion of the whole.

Again our being in “the form of God” is not just because we are in a flesh body, making the invisible God visible, but we’re in God’s form “inwardly” as well, as “outwardly”, because “form” is from the root word morphe’, meaning “nature”, meaning the essential quality of a thing; essence; inherent tendencies of a person. Inherent is that which exists in someone or something as a natural and inseparable quality. So God works on us from the “inside out”. Paul wrote in Galatians:

• Galatians 4:19: My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.

Formed is from morpho’o, meaning to fashion. This word is referring to that which is inward which is where the change takes place within us so that we can be in compliance or uniformity with Jesus the Christ in character and power. 1 John 4:17: As he is, so are we, in this world.

Jesus Himself went through a metamorphosis to put His flesh in us so that we could be completely “formed” into the image of God”!

• Matthew 17:1-2: And after six days Jesus takes Peter, James, and John his brother, and brings them up into a high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.

Transfigured is from metamorpho’o, meaning to transform: and also metamorphose, meaning to change. [Metamorpho’o as a verb means “to change into another form”].

That was what Jesus did, He came from Spirit to flesh (John 1:1, 14), then He went back to Spirit and He changed back to flesh and reappeared in flesh in other people after His resurrection, who are also a part of the Body of Christ.

• Matthew 27: 51-53: And the vail of the temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened; and many bodies of saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves AFTER HIS RESURRECTION, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

Luke 24: On the road to Emmaeus, He appeared to Cleophas and the other disciple, and they didn’t know who He was until He revealed Himself to them.

• Vs 30: And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them: 
• Vs 31: And their eyes were opened, and they knew him, and he vanished out of their sight.

He appeared to Mary at the tomb and she didn’t know who He was until He called her by her name:

•   John 20:15: Jesus said unto her (Mary), “Woman, why weepest thou”? “Whom seekest thou”? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, “Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away”.
• Vs 16: Jesus said unto her, “Mary”. She turned herself, and said unto him, “Rabboni; which is to say, Master”.

At this point, Mary knew that it was JESUS HIMSELF she was seeing and talking to. So that which Jesus has deposited in us of Himself is that which does not decay or has to see corruption!

• Ephesians 5:30: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

In Luke 24:36-49, when Jesus appears to the ten: they were terrified when He appeared to them and supposed they had seen a spirit: but Jesus showed them His hands and His feet and told them to handle Him, because He said in verse 39, “It is I myself”, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me have”.

That’s why Jesus is the “firstborn from the dead” (Colossians 1:18). In reality or in truth, Him being the “firstborn from the dead” means that He is the “firstborn from the resurrection”. That is because the saints that were in the spirit realm couldn’t come from behind the vail until Jesus rent the vail, from the top to the bottom (Matthew 27:51-53), which was actually Jesus’ flesh:

• Hebrews 10:19-20: Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the vail, that is to say, his flesh.

And from this point He (Jesus) stepped from behind the vail as “another body”, “CHRIST’S BODY”, which is composed of many members!!!

• Romans 12:4-5: As we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office; so we, being many, are one body in CHRIST, and every one members one of another.
• 1 Corinthians 12: 12: As the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, is one body: SO ALSO IS CHRIST!!!

The Body of Jesus was not His Body that was the Body of the Father, the Body that God chose to suffer and die in that was composed of one Man, the Man Jesus. (Carefully read) John 14:1-11:

• Vs 5-7 (Jesus says to Thomas): If you had known me you should have known my Father also: and from henceforth you know him, and have seen him.
• Vs 8: Philip said unto him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it suffices us”.
• Vs 9: Jesus said unto him, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip”? “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, show us the Father”?
• Vs 10: Believe thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwells in me, he does the works.
• Vs 11: Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake.

The Body of the Father that was composed of one Man, the Man Jesus was the body that He chose to suffer and die in! This is the “Father’s house” (Jesus’ Body) spoken of in John 14:1, that contains the many mansions (or dwelling places of God which we are). But it wasn’t until the vail of the temple was rent, which was Jesus’ flesh, that He could expose (reveal) who His Body (Jesus’ Body) was after His resurrection, which is a many membered Body, which is CHRIST’S BODY!!!

• 1 Corinthians 12: 12: As the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, is one body: SO ALSO IS CHRIST!!!

God is a Spirit (John 4:24), but He has always had “a body” of people to manifest Himself through!

This is "the mystery of God"!  God without "man" is Spirit without form or Spirit without a body!  If God leaves man out of the equation, God is Spirit without form!

God has always been Spirit throughout the endless eons of time even before He made man, but He chose not to be by Himself, therefore He makes man and he makes him (male & female) in his own image, after his likeness (Genesis 1:26).

• Psalm 8:4: What is man (enowsh [a mortal]) that thou are mindful (zarkar' [to mark so as to recognize or remember]) of him?  And the son of man (aw-dawm - Adam [to show blood in the face; immortal]) that thou visitest (paqad' [oversee; care for; enjoin]) him?

Man was the "crown" of God's creation.  God knew what "man" was when He said in (Genesis 1:24) "Let the earth bring forth the living creature": and God knew what man would become when "He made him (male & female) in his image, after his likeness (Genesis 1:26).

God knew that the time would come when He (God Himself) would "visit" man and His "visitation" would be to take on the very nature of man upon Himself by becoming man so as to bring man back into oneness with Him.

• Philippians 2:5: Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,
• Vs 6: Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.
• Vs 7: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
• V8: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

In order for God to help man, He had to become what man is and that's flesh, yet He (God) retained and maintained His identity as the Spirit God!  It's God becoming what you and I are and you and I becoming what God is!  As he is, so are we, in this world (1 John 4:17)!

•  Genesis 2:7: And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils, the breath of life, and man became a living soul.

This “forming” process of man took place in man’s “mind”! How do I know that? I’m glad you asked.

• Isaiah 26:3: Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusts in thee.

Perfect is from the root word tamam', meaning complete; finished; whole; accomplished, perfect, sound, to have integrity.

Peace is from the word shalowm’, meaning, to be safe; well, happy; friendly; health; prosperity; favor; rest. It goes to another root word shalam’ and that means to be safe (in mind, body or estate); to be (make) completed; to be friendly; restore; that is perfect; (make) prosper (ous).

Mind is from the root word yetser, meaning a form; conception (purpose); frame; imagination; mind; work.

But this word “MIND” in Isaiah 26:3, is from the same root word that “FORMED” in Genesis 2:7 is from which is yatsar’, defined as the idea of squeezing into shape; to mold into a form; especially as a potter; to determine (form a resolution [the act or result of resolving something]): fashion, frame, make, earthen, purposed; to press, be narrow; be in distress; be straitened.

• Genesis 2:7: And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils, the breath of life, and man became a living soul.

"Formed" like the word “mind” in Isaiah 26:3, is the root word yatsar’, which is a squeezing into shape; to mold into a form; especially as a potter; to determine (form a resolution[the act or result of resolving something]): fashion, frame, make, earthen, purposed; to press, be narrow; be in distress; be straitened (in straits); be vexed.

Remember as Romans 12:2 states: “Be ye transformed (changed) by the renewing (renovating; refreshing) of your mind”: [nous] (intellect [not just the ability to understand knowledge but also to accept it]; mind (divine or human; in thought, feeling, or will, understanding).

What the LORD God was doing to “man” (male & female), was, putting them through a pressurized process to bring them from the state of mortality to immortality; corruption to incorruption; darkness to light; death to life!

So the LORD God breathed into man’s “nostrils”: which was his aph, (face; countenance; forehead), his cerebrum which contains five lobes: frontal; parietal; temporal; occipital; insula]. This is from the Concepts of Human Anatomy and Physiology, by Kent M. Van De Graaff and Stuart Ira Fox. But I’m only going to touch on the “frontal lobe”. The frontal lobe is responsible for voluntary motor control of skeletal muscles; personality; higher intellectual processes (concentration; planning; and decision making); verbal communication!

The breath of life or the (chay – khah’ee), is that which made man (male & female) alive; strong. The LORD God caused them to come alive and live! These people were already in existence and breathing, but not “living”! But the “breath” of the LORD God revived them; made them alive; gave them eternal life; nourished them; preserved them alive; quickened; recovered; repaired; restored eternal life into them, and caused them to be made whole in God.

These Adam people (body of people) came to know who God was to them and who they were to God, which were His ambassadors or representatives in the earth by possessing God’s mind becoming "the form of God" in the earth!

What the LORD God breathed into them was naphach’, meaning He puffed, inflated, kindled [to set on fire], ignited their interest, feelings, etc, in God that caused them to catch fire, become aroused or excited in relation to the things of God and functioned in the knowledge and power of the Living God in and over the earth! The LORD God’s breath, which was the “breath of life” was His neshamah’ [which was a puff, wind, vital breath, His Spirit, divine inspiration (mental or emotional excitement; any stimulus to creative thought or action), and intellect (ability to not only understand knowledge but also to accept it)] that He breathed into the “male and female Adam”.

• Genesis 1:26: And God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth”.
• Vs 27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

This verse lets us know that Adam was not just “one man” as we were told and some are still preaching, but Adam was a body of people composed of both “male and female”!

• Genesis 5:1-2: This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.

  When the LORD God breathed into Adam, He was literally breathing God’s blood into Him.

• Leviticus 17:11: The life of the flesh is in the blood.

Blood is from the root word “dawm”. All God did was "Ad" (add) His blood to “aw-dawm” or “Ad-am” which is the root word for man in Hebrew! (I hope you caught that revelation). I can also state, that all God had to do was “Ad” (add) - “AM”, to man and he (male & female) became the “I AM GOD” in the earth.

Now you can better understand Exodus 3 when God sent Moses into Egypt to deliver His people:

• Vs 13: And Moses said unto God, “Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, what is his name”? "What shall I say unto them"?
• Vs 14: And God said unto Moses, “I AM THAT I AM: and he said, thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you”. What Moses was saying in other words was this: “I AM the God that has come in flesh form to deliver you”!

If you don’t believe that Moses was God, look at what God said in Exodus 7:1: And the LORD said unto Moses. “See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet”!

In reality we are “gods” as well: or as Jesus was – God in flesh form: John 1:1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: Vs 2: And the same (we [you and I]) was in the beginning with God: Vs 14: And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us: 1 John 4:17: As he is, so are we, in this world. 

John 10: (the Jews try to arrest Jesus and wanted to stone Him because He said that God was His Father):

• Vs 32: Jesus answered them, "Many good works have I showed you from my Father; for which of those works do you stone me"?
•  Vs 33: The Jews answered him, saying, “For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God”.
• Vs 34: Jesus answered them “Is it not written in your law, I said, you are gods”?
• Psalm 82:1: God stands in the congregation of the mighty; he judges among the gods.
• Vs 6: I have said, “You are gods; and all of you are children of the Most High”.

That “name” “I AM” is even today applied to “US”, God’s people, the “Body of Christ”!

• Exodus 3:15: And God said moreover unto Moses, “thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: THIS IS MY NAME FOREVER, AND THIS IS MY MEMORIAL UNTO ALL GENERATIONS”!

In relation to us “being in the form of God”, now you can better understand Genesis 1:2: And the earth was “without form” and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

God has never made anything without form, because everything He created and spoke into existence had form, but when chaos set into the creation, things became without form.

The “earth” that became without form was not the dirt, but people that had lost “the form” of God (God mindedness; His wisdom; His knowledge, spirit fellow-ship with Him, immortality, etc): and void (empty of God’s dominion, authority, and power, His very life), and fell from immortality to mortality. These people the “morning stars, and sons of God” spoken of in Job 38:7, lost their divinity (that which was eternal life) and drifted back into their humanity (that which pertained to destruction and death).

There were “worlds” here before the one we’re in was manifested:

Hebrews 11:3: Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

So with Christ being “formed” in us is the metamorphosis we go through or the pressurized processes God puts us through as He did with the Adam race of people when God Himself replenished the earth. It is not to break us but make us and bring us from a caterpillar stage to the stage of a beautiful butterfly, as He did with Adam.  And what He’s now doing is making us (the church) CHRIST in the earth, so that we can do what He did when He walked the earth in the Body He had as a man!

• John 14:12: He that believes on me, the works that I do, shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do: because I go to my Father.

Jesus’ going to the Father was not Him sailing off up somewhere beyond the blue, but it was Him transitioning from the “flesh man Jesus” back to Spirit out of which He had come and being redeposited into another flesh body, the Church, which we are, which is CHRIST'S BODY in the earth, the dwelling place of the Father now, present in us!

We are all a part of the whole:

• 1 Corinthians 12:12: For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, is one body: so also is CHRIST.
• Colossians 2:17: [speaking of the law]: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of CHRIST!

Our being in “the form of God” as Jesus was is us the sons of God (male and female)  manifesting God’s fruit:

• Galatians 5:22:-23: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
• Revelation 22:2: In the midst of the street of it, and of either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 
• {The twelve manner of fruit: (wisdom; understanding; counsel; might; knowledge; fear (reverence of God); divine health; perfect peace; dominion; authority; power; eternal life).

And we the sons of God walking in obedience to our Heavenly Father:

• Mark 15:15: And he said unto them, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature”.
• Vs 16: He that believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believes not shall be damned.
• Vs 17: And these signs shall follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
• Vs 18: They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

So allow Philippians 2:5-6 to be manifested in your life: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal (not above but like) with God".

We are the “FORM OFGOD” in the earth! "As he is, so are we, in this world" (1 John 4:17).

Pastor Gracie Perry

“THE FORM OF GOD”! (Part 1)

Text: Philippians 2:5-6:

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God.

Form (web): (n): shape; general structure; the figure of a person or animal; a mold; a particular mode, kind, type, etc.; arrangement; style; a way of doing something requiring skill; a customary or conventional way of acting; ceremony; ritual; condition of mind or body; fashion; to train; instruct; to develop (habits); make up; constitute.

Form (Greek) (morphe’) [through the idea of adjustments of parts]; shape; (fig) nature / also from the base of the word mer’os, meaning a part or portion of the whole.

• John 13:8: Peter said unto him, “Thou shall never wash my feet”. Jesus answered him, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part (mer’os) with me”.

Wash is from the root word nip’to, meaning to cleanse. Synonyms for “cleanse” are: (n) pure; spotless: (adj) unadulterated; sterilize; white.

The word “white” in the definition of “wash”, denotes the “righteousness of God”, which is what we become through and in Christ Jesus. 2 Corinthians 5:21: For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

When Peter got the revelation, he said: (vs 9): “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head”.

• Revelation 14-15: His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; and his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters

Why were His head and hairs white like wool as white as snow? It denoted the purity of Jesus being the perfect sacrificial Lamb of God that died for the sins of the world. His eyes as a flame of fire, denoting the brilliance and glory of God that His people become in the earth:

• Hebrews 1:7: And of the angels he says, “Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire”.
•   Proverbs 15:3: The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.   [We are God’s eyes in the earth as well as His hands and His feet].
• Revelation 1:15: And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.

We (God's people) are God’s “feet” in the earth! We must go through the furnace (of the fire of purification process) to make it into the place that Jesus Himself was and is in, which is perfection.

                                          

Another definition of wash is “ablution” (a type of baptism or emergence, (dip) [to rise as from a fluid; to become visible or apparent; evolve]: submerge (to place or sink beneath the surface, as of water).

• Luke 12:49-50: I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished?

This is the baptism of the “fire of the judgment" of God, which is the fulfillment of:

• Psalm 16:10: For thou will not leave my soul in hell; neither will thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Also Acts 2:27.
• Romans 6:3-4: Know you not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

That’s because we’ve been raised with him. Raised (egei’ro) (the idea of collecting one’s faculties): to waken, rouse (from sleep, from sitting or lying, from disease, from death; obscurity; inactivity; ruins; nonexistence); rise; rise again; raised again; lift up; stand. So when the “Head” (Christ) of the body got up, He got the body (us-the church) up with Him!!

• Revelation 20:6: Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
• (Back to): Revelation 20: 4-5: And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished.

“This is the first resurrection”: [Those that overcome the systems of men]! Those that get hold of the revelation truth that the fullness of Christ is in us right now and we are already overcomers of sin, death, hell and the grave – and we are God's ambassadors: (2 Corinthians 5:20): Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us:  we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God:  we are God's priests and kings: (Revelation 1:6): And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen: (Revelation 5:10): And hast made us unto our God kings and priests:  and we shall reign on (over) the earth (right here and right now - not up beyond the blue)!!

Resurrection in this verse (Revelation 20:6 / John 5:29) is from anas’tasis, meaning a standing up again, a resurrection from death; it’s a (moral) recovery (of spiritual truth); rising again.

•   John 5:28-29: Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.

The “graves” here are not those out in the cemeteries, but these bodies that we live in and are held in by the spirit of death due to the lack of knowledge of the Word of God.

• Ezekiel 37:12: Therefore prophesy and say unto them, “This saith the Lord God; behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel”.
• Matthew 23:27: Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.
• Luke 11:44: Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them.
• Romans 3:9-20: (the guilt of the world before God – this includes religious order): Vs 12-13: They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable: there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips.  

God said in Hosea 4:6, "My people are destroyed for the lack of knowledge".  Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” John 8:32.

When we come into the knowledge of who God is in us and who we are in Him, then we can walk out of these “graves” into the marvelous light of life and immortality, right now, not beyond the blue!!

(Exam) [Luke 16]: (Lazarus and the rich man):

• Vs 22: And it came to pass that the beggar died (Lazarus - Jesus), and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s (the Father) bosom: the rich man (Pharisee - religious people) also died and was buried:
• Vs 23: And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments and sees Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom.

“Hell” here is not down in the center of the earth or the ground. It’s from the root word “ha’des”, meaning “unseen” the place of departed souls.

[This place is in the “spirit realm” which is all around us and can’t be seen with the naked eye].

• Vs 24: And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.

This “rich man” is a type of people who wants to live by the law or traditions of men and will not accept the truth of God’s Word in its fullness when He sends it to them and will fight against “the messenger” because of the “message”.

•   2 Timothy 4:2-4: Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

But look at what God said would happen when people do this:

• 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12: And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God (not the devil) shall send them strong delusions (imposters), that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

When God sends someone to His people preaching and teaching the fullness of the Gospel, and they don’t receive it, He will send them someone (an imposter) that will preach and teach them what they want to hear or what they’re use to, a “you will overcome one of these days when you get to heaven message”, when we can have the victory “in heaven in Christ” (Ephesians 2:6), right here and right now.

• Luke 16:24: And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.

What the “rich man” was saying is this: “Jesus, while I was in my flesh body, I wouldn’t receive what you were teaching me but now I’m ready for you to “dip” (baptize me completely, right now) with your “finger” (power) with “water” (into your Word) by your Spirit and “cool” (breathe on me and refresh, replenish, revive) me from my “tongue” (language of unbelief and deliver me from this world of iniquity) that I am “tormented” (grieved; distressed) in by this “flame” (fiery blaze of judgment)! (These are definitions of these words from their root words).

• James 3:6: The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity.
• Hebrews 12:29: Our God is a consuming fire.

The “fire” is actually “God Himself”! Fire does two things, it will “purify” or it will “consume”. When God sends His Word out to His people, if we receive it, it will burn in us for “purification”, or if we reject it and fight against it, it will burn in us for “consumption”! As for the “rich man”, he was already “damned” before he went into the spirit realm because he didn’t believe the Word the Lord had already given him while he was in that flesh body. It’s just that when he died the “hell” or condition he was already in, he took it right into the spirit realm with him.

• St. John 3:17-18: For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved. He that believes on him is not condemned: but he that believes not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

That’s why we need to get hold of the “truth” of God’s Word now!

• Luke 16:25: But Abraham (typifying God the Father) said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime received thy good things, and likewise Lazarus (Jesus) evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
• Revelation 21:8: But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

In Genesis 37, Joseph dreams and his brothers envied him because of the dream, and they threw him into a pit and Midianites came along and lifted him out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver, and they brought Joseph into Egypt. He became Prime Minister under Pharaoh. No man could lift his hand or foot without Joseph’s permission (Genesis 41:44).

This was the move of God to preserve life for his family which became God’s “son”, whom God called Israel, after Jacob successfully wrestled with a man at the ford of Jabbok, Genesis 32:28-29, and obtained a blessing. Israel means contending for God; striving for God; who prevails with God; ruler-ship with God. We (His people) now are God’s Israel, not the Israel over in the Middle East!

Exodus 19, after God had brought the children of Israel out of Egyptian bondage and they had come to Mt. Sinai, vs 6, God said in relation to Israel, “And you shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. These are the words which thou shall speak unto the children of Israel”.

Israel had become God’s wife, but she became rebellious and began worshipping idol gods. 1 kings 11, Solomon, King of Israel takes foreign wives and God raise up adversaries against him. Jeroboam Solomon’s servant turned against him because Solomon built Millo, and repaired the breaches of the city of David his father. Solomon made Jeroboam ruler over all the charge of the house of Joseph, because Jeroboam was a mighty man of valor. As Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem the Prophet Ahijah found him and caught the new garment Jeroboam had on himself and rent it into twelve pieces.

• Vs 31-33: And he said to Jeroboam, “take thee ten pieces: for thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, Behold, I will rent the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee, but he shall have one tribe for my servant David’s sake, and for Jerusalem’s sake, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel”: because that they have forsaken me, and have worshipped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Milcom the god of the children of Ammon, and have not walked in my ways, to do that which is right in mine eyes, and to keep my statutes and my judgments, as did David his father”.

 In 1 kings 12, after the death of Solomon, Rehoboam was to be made king of Israel, but by forsaking the counsel of the old men and took the counsel of the young men that said, “Make the yoke heavy on them, but lighter unto us”; and say to them, vs 10-11: “My little finger shall be thicker than my father’s loins. He chastised thee with whips, but I will chastise thee with scorpions”, the kingdom was divided. There were ten tribes north, Israel, with Jeroboam as king, and one tribe south, Judah, with Rehoboam as king.

There are those that still believe that God is going to bring the twelve tribes back to Israel and Jesus is going to set His kingdom up in Jerusalem. NOT SO!  The "kingdom" which is "power" (1 Corinthians 4:20): "peace, joy, and righteousness in the Holy Ghost" (Romans 14:17), is already established (verified; secured; installed) with us!  The Kingdom is already here!

• Luke 17:20-23: And when he was demanded of the Phairsees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, "The kingdom of God comes not with observation:  neither shall they say, lo here:  or, lo there:  for behold, the kingdom of God is within you".

In Jeremiah 3, God was married to Israel but because of her adultery God put Israel away and gave her a bill of divorce. Even though God had sent judgment from the north, vs 27: For thus saith the LORD, “The whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end”.

God has always had a remnant and He has always had a plan. God’s Israel now is not over in the Middle East, but it’s all over the land, those that believe in “Jesus the Christ”! God had already told Abraham, Genesis 12:2: I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing. Vs 3: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curses thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. Genesis 17:7: And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.

 

This promise wasn’t made to Abraham after the natural stock, but it was to CHRIST!

• Galatians 3:16: Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, and to seeds, as of many; but as of one, and to thy seed, which is CHRIST.
• 2 Corinthians 5:19: To wit, that God was in Christ (not Abraham), reconciling the world unto himself.

To reconcile means to adjust (to change so as to fit; to regulate; to adapt one-self). Adapt means to adjust to new circumstances.

• Philippians 2:7-8: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
• John 1:1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: vs 14: And the Word was made flesh.
• Romans 5:17-19: For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification to life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

Our being in the “form of God”, is not just because we have on flesh which makes the invisible God visible, but “form” is from the root word “morphe”, meaning nature. Nature (Latin is natus, “born”): the essential quality of a thing; essence; inherent tendencies of a person; kind; type. That which is “inherent” is that which exists in someone or something as a natural and inseparable quality. So God had to make adjustments within man so that he (male and female) would be acceptable dwelling places for Himself. That’s the importance of taking on the “new birth”.

• St. John 3:3: Jesus answered and said unto him, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again (regened by God’s Spirit and become who He is in the earth as Jesus was – God in flesh form), he cannot see (know or understand) the kingdom of God”.
• John 3:5: Jesus answered, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water (the Word) and of the Spirit (the very breath of God), he cannot enter into the kingdom of God”.
• Colossians 3:9-10: Lie not one to another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.

 Exodus 25:1-9: [offerings for the tabernacle]: vs 8-9: And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell amongst them. According to all that I show thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall you make it.

Sanctuary (miqdash’) a consecrated thing or place; a palace, sanctuary (of Jehovah); holy place; hallowed part / (qadash’) to (make, pronounce or observe as) clean: to ceremonially or morally sanctify; hallow; dedicate; prepare; consecrate; appointed; purified; wholly. The word qadash’ means to be set apart for the work of God; to be holy.

• Acts 7:48: Howbeit the most High dwells not in temples made with hands.
• 1 Peter 1:5: You also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
• 1 Corinthians 6:19-20: What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
• Revelation 21:3: I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

That was the purpose of God in Genesis 1:26: And God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”: vs 27: So God created man in in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Even then God wanted a place to dwell and that place was in “man”! So God didn’t only form man in His image outwardly only, but also inwardly!

• Galatians 4:19: My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.

CHRIST is christos’, the anointed, the Messiah or Jesus.  CHRIST is also chrio, through the idea of contact; to smear or rub with oil, to consecrate to an office of service: anoint. CHRIST is also from, chra’omai meaning to handle; to furnish what is needed; give an oracle; light upon; to employ or to act toward one in a given manner; entreat; use.

We can’t do anything without the “anointing”, because it’s the “anointing that destroys the yoke” Isaiah 10:27.

An “oracle” among the ancient Greeks and Romans, was the place where mediums or deities were consulted; a person of great knowledge. Oracle is from the Hebrew word debiyr’, defined as the shrine or innermost part of the sanctuary: the place from which God speaks. It’s from another root word dabar’, meaning to arrange; but used of words, to speak, commune, pronounce, utter, command, subdue, teach. [Dabar’, means “to speak or say”].

• 1 Kings 6: [Solomon’s building of the temple]: vs 19-20: And the oracle he prepared in the house within, to set there the ark of the covenant of the LORD. And the oracle in the forepart (from paniym’, meaning the face) was twenty cubits in length, and twenty cubits in breadth, and twenty cubits in the height thereof: and he overlaid it with pure gold: and so covered the altar which was of cedar.

A “cubit” was equivalent to eighteen inches – 20x18=360, which is the degree of a perfect circle. God has always spoken, is now speaking, and always will speak in perfection from eternity to eternity because He is a perfect God! In other words, God has spoken and demonstrated Himself in perfection in all three manifestations of the Godhead: God the Father in the Old Testament, Jesus Christ the Son between the Old and the New, and the manifestation of the Holy Ghost in the New Testament that’s now in the Church. And because we are God's “oracles” (mouth pieces) created in His image and after His likeness, and He does speak from “within us”, and being in the “form of God”, we too can be perfect as He is perfect.

• Matthew 5:48: Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

In addition to this the Ark of the Covenant was overlaid with “pure gold”. The same as the candlestick was in the tabernacle that Moses constructed under the instructions of God. The candlestick was the only piece of furniture that was of “pure gold”! Other pieces were overlaid with pure gold, but the candlestick which is the church, which we are, was made of “pure gold”. The pure gold is the “divine nature” of God Himself that takes us over for His glory!

•   2 Peter 1:3-4: According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
• Revelation 3:18: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou may be rich; and white raiment, that thou may be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou may see.

The candlestick is the Church, which we are, as Christ’s Body. And to confirm that we are Christ’s Body and the Church is the candlestick, let’s see what the Book of Colossians and Revelation says about it:

• Colossians 1:18: And he is the head of the body, the church (which we are): who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
• Revelation 1:20: The mystery of the seven stars which thou saw in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels (messengers) of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou saw are the seven churches.

So for people that don’t believe that they can be “perfect” while they’re in their flesh body, they will never make it to the plateau spiritually that God has ordained for them. But Jesus said it and I believe it, and that settles it for me!

•  (This is Jesus talking): Matthew 5:48: Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

This word “perfect” is from the root word “tel’ios”, meaning complete in labor, growth, mental and moral character; come of full age as Jesus Himself was. This is what God the Father has ordained for us, the Body of Christ to do:

• Ephesians 4:13: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
• Hebrews 10:14: For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.

So when we step out in the “form of God with His face” preaching and teaching the fullness of the Gospel of God’s Word as His oracles, ambassadors, representatives in the earth, we don’t have to be afraid of their faces (the religious Pharisees, and Sadducees of today) because God is with us:

• Psalm 81:10: I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide and I will fill it.
• Jeremiah 1:8: Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD.
• Luke 21:14-15: Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what you shall answer: for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.

We must be “oracles” that will fulfill Isaiah 58:1: Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgressions and the house of Jacob their sins.

• 2 Timothy 4:2: Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. •
• Vs 4: But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of your ministry.

This is how we show the "form of God" in the earth for His glory!!

Pastor Gracie Perry