Re: Another interpretation of this parable...

V: MST, anyone can read all my posts on here and see I have never discouraged anyone from running to the Lord as fast as they possibly want too, or said anything about how I see no need to do that myself. Show me please where I have said that.

E: Dear Vektek, You appeared to be criticizing the idea of running hard after Jesus, taking the kingdom of heaven by force to enter into the kingdom of heaven as a "work". You appeared to be saying that if a person sows heavily to the Spirit to come more deeply into the presence of God, this was "a work" which you reject. You seemed to discourage people from the experiment of attempting the sow to the Spirit in 90% of their free time because this in it's specifics was not a direct quote from the bible.

v: I don't care if you are talking about salvation or not, you are still trying to bring people under bondage, making up your own rules and regulations for everyone to follow, that are not even in the bible.

e: Not making up any rules, just passing along what the Lord Jesus taught. If you don't like His words, please take it up with Him directly, i am just His surrendered servant! No doubt you feel He puts us under bondage when he says pick up your cross and follow me, sell all that you own and follow me, stop sinning, be perfect therefore as i am perfect, etc etc etc. My recommendation to people to try sowing to the Spirit in 90% of their free time was not a rule, just a helpful suggestion to anybody who wants more Jesus and wants to embrace the essence of what He taught. I am sorry that you are unable to see this.

v: But if everyone would follow your suggestion to stop reading the bible so much, then they won't know the difference will they?

e: People are more in love with their bibles than they are with the Living God and they worship their bibles as if it were God while neglecting being led by the Holy Spirit. What a shame. Would it kill anyone to just sit in God's presence for 2 hours, connecting their hearts to His in intimate loving personal relationship and just listening... without a bible in their hands just once? I feel that for many it has become like mothers teet. At some point, it's important to experience God directly, not only through the words of other people who experienced Him directly. The bible idoloters follow in the footsteps of the pharisees and are equally blind. They read the gospels, seeing what the pharisees were like and can not begin to see the parallels in their own lives, starting with the worship of ink on paper rather than true intimacy with the living God.

v: How convenient would that be? lol Just like the Roman Catholics. :)

e: The founders of catholicism certainly made a mess of things, creating a false religion of man, but hankfully Jesus is still to be found within this false system to the true seeker and many catholics have found beautiful relationship with the Living God. I recommend worshiping the Living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, not a book and not anything else. This is easiest done from outside of a false system.

v: There is an important scripture that you may have never read but that sets the rest of us free that understand it.

Galations 3:3
O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

e: Wow vektek, do you really see yourself as having been set free?! Do you really see yourself as not being bewitched into lies of man?! Once again, you need the Holy Spirit to help you to discern all scriptures together. You celebrate these words of Paul as if you understand them and reject many very clear teachings of the Lord Jesus which speak of the need for us to give up all to follow Him. Paul also talks about working out our salvation with fear and trembling. How do you reconcile this with your understanding of Gal 3? What does it mean to you to "work our your own salvation with fear and trembling"? Why are you not accusing Paul of forcing you into bondage with his own rules? How do you feel about "i forbid that women teach" and "women be silent in church" by the way?

v: I live by faith, the ONLY way to be perfected, and not by yours or anyone else's rules and regulations.

e: You live by falsely interpreting your bible, and rejecting your own part in running after the Living God while i live by the Spirit as a new creation in Christ running after Him as fast as i can all day every day by His Spirit, though initially the Spirit leading was not as overwhelmingly strong as it is now, so it required much more initial effort to respond to His voice.

v: I will not follow your guidance on how to be closer to the Lord, but I will follow the Holy Spirit's guidance. There is a HUGE difference!

e: I have seen no evidence of you being a follower of the Holy Spirit. Religious spirits and spirits of bible idolotry, yes, plenty of evidence for that. You will not follow my suggestion and that is your choice. It was never intended as a law, just a helpful suggestion to those who are genuinely hungry for more of Him and a certain way to get there. Certainly this is not a popular suggestion for the spiritually complacent and for those deceived into believing we have no part whatsoever in coming into deeper relationship with the Living God, that He does it all and we can thus be lazy.

v: And bottom line, I know much of your doctrine lines up with Pentecostalism, and I do not agree with the Pentacostal doctrines.

e: Please tell me the specifics about what i believe. Pentacostalism has a lot of religion in it that i do not agree with whatsoever including their own set of rules and the idea that tongues must accompany the baptism in the Holy Spirit. I belong to the Lord and i let Him teach me His truth and have yet to see any denomination that i agree with entirely. Listening only to Him makes me extremely independent of man and man's doctrines. I am happy to hear Holy Spirit through anybody though and be taught by Him through them, but it all must be discerned every time. If ever Holy Spirit speaks through you vektek, i will recognize and receive it.

v: The Pentacostal doctrines are not biblical. For example, the two baptisms doctrine, which you are always talking about. There is one Baptism in the Holy Spirit, just one!

e: What happened to the 120 in the upper room? Did they all get water baptized in that place? The pentacostals have it right that water baptism is separate from holy Spirit baptism. Perhaps you are blind to the several scriptures which all make this distinction clear including the one where John the baptist says, I baptize with water but there is one coming after me whose sandals i am not worthy to untie and He will baptize with the Holy Spirit and Fire".

v: Ephesians 4:5
One Lord, one faith, ONE baptism.

e: Once again, you need the Holy Spirit to interpret this for you, because obviously by the scriptures, water baptism is separate from Holy Spirit baptism.

v: The Pentacostals made up two baptisms so they could separate the "superior" christians with the more "lowly" Christians, and of course that so fits with how you like to see it all too, doesn't it?

e: Seems to me they simply read Matthew 3:11 “As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire, as well as
acts chapter 1:4, 5 and 8, Acts 2: 1-4 and various other scriptures. I don't see it as superior vs. lowly thing and i love everybody including unbelievers but for those who have not received the baptism, just as had been true of the 120 before pentacost, there certainly is MORE and for those open to being helped towards receiving this immense blessing (of course not you Vektek, i know i know!) , i would love to pray with them and offer this help freely. It is also my belief that apart from basic re-infillings, this baptism or some other major breakthrough blessing can happen multiple times in our lives as we are taken from glory to glory to glory.

To talk with you, one would think that the 120 in the upper room were not transformed only once the Holy Spirit fell on them. Before this baptism, they had been faithful disciples, but without the deutymous (dynamite/power). Before this, they (and you) are striving from their flesh, still in bondage to the enemy. The baptism will help people to know, understand and walk in their identity in Christ. This full identity comes to life for them as never before, even as it has come to life for me.

Vektek, you are unable to see and discern Holy Spirit immersion in people who have been immersed and since you are unable to see truth, you see only people who from your fleshly perspective you believe think they are better than you which completely misses the point that there really is a separate Holy Spirit baptism experience. You see it in Paul only because he was in the bible, but if Paul was here today speaking to you and saying anything from the Spirit that was not a direct bible quote, you would reject His words, running only to His words in the bible, just as you would reject Jesus as a false prophet, doing miracles and not speaking directly from the bible but from His Spirit just as He did 2000 years ago. People who do this remind me of what Stephen said in Acts 7:51
“You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did." An illustrious tradition of worshiping the bible and interpreting it wrongly by flesh and not by Spirit, while being unwilling and unable to recognize and worship the Living God who the book points to.

We are missing 120 testimonies about what happened uniquely to each disciple and instead all 120 of these testimonies are summarized together in 3 sentences and bible idoloters believe that covers it completely and "that must have been all that happened" or "that must have been all God wanted us to know". Not to worry, we can hear the testimonies of many today who experienced the same baptism and who too experienced amazing manifestations of God including such things as full body tingling, sometimes for 24 hours or longer accompanied by instantaneously transformed lives which often includes a vastly deepened love for God.

V: I don't care to be the lowly Christian, even if there is such a thing. Not meaning I don't care to be as close to Jesus as I possibly can, but that I don't care about a bigger mansion in heaven, or a bigger pot of gold, or riding a bigger roller coaster (that's probably what Katt Kerr would say, lol).

E: Thankfully God is not impaired by your remarkable lack of imagination! I envision such things as being placed in a position of servanthood and given many opportunities to help and bless people (similar to the life i have been blessed with now which gives me a great taste of heaven on earth), 1000x greater presence of God throughout all eternity, or 1000x greater peace or joy among other things. Aside from the joys of worshiping the Lord more amazingly than ever before, exploring Heaven and enjoying all the people in their new Spirit form, maybe being allowed to go back in time and experience the life of Jesus and maybe explore the universe. Like you, i am not materialistic and not interested in mansions and mercedes but we have to know that God will have amazing eternal rewards that we will definitely want... the good Father certainly knows how to reward His children in ways they will love.

V: I just want to be with Jesus, face to face, that's all the heaven I'll need or want. And I have Him now, but I still do not know Him fully, just like none of us do, not even you!

E: You can have him more fully here on earth than you do now, but you curse yourself from running towards this by believing that your asking, seeking and knocking, your pressing in, the surrendering of your life and giving Him, specifically seeking the laying on of hands for "baptism in the Holy Spirit" prayer, all will not be rewarded since this would constitute "works".

V: But of course, I want to know Him as fully as possible in this life, and have never ever said anything to the contrary.

E: This is great. Do you have any particular plan in mind since you already said you reject the idea of sowing to the Spirit more since you see it as a work and implied that it was bondage?

V: So go target someone else. You aren't going to get anywhere with me. Don't waste that 10% of free time you have left on me, unless you consider your bashing me and putting me in my place worshiping the Lord.

E: Yes, correcting false teachings for those with eyes to see is within my 98% sowing time, though it is not as glorious as sitting in the Lord's beautiful presence in stillness and silence, connecting my heart to His in love and listening for 2 hours. I am beginning to experience the holy of holies during these times and have no doubt that others can too.

If you will stop teaching falsely i will happily stop correcting you, but the false pearl of great price teaching and all of the false teachings attached to it could not be allowed to stand unopposed and i was definitely led to speak out, though i personally would prefer to avoid heated debates and simply treat people with kindness. My Lord Jesus had to contend against the Pharisees, called them harsh names, flipped tables and so obviously we must be open to doing the same as led if truly we are His.

I do certainly realize i have crossed over into the pearls before swine category where you are concerned that my Lord warned against, though being an open forum, hopefully there is someone else reading who will be able to receive something of value from it.

I really do wish i could help you but you have shown yourself far too stiff necked against Holy Spirit, exactly like the pharisees who preceded you. If only you were open, i believe you would receive immense breakthrough if we prayed together. I could cast out your spirits of religion, bible idolotry, false teaching, love of man's doctrines and otherwise, pray inner healing for your soul, pray for lots of Holy blessings including the baptism in the Holy Spirit which you do not believe in, but of course you are far from open to that and unless there is a miraculous change in your heart your shackles will be with you throughout the remainder of this lifetime.

Looking forward to meeting the Spirit-being Vektek in heaven who no longer is over-run by enemy influence and flesh and perhaps we can have tea together. In that place, we will finally be able to be friends and i genuinely look forward to that, wishing only that it could happen sooner. The parts of you that so wish to be my enemy will by then be burned out of you and you will be truly transformed and happy. Much love to you in the beautiful name of Jesus and take care.