CRUSHED GRAPES MINISTRY |
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Frank B. Smith, Director |
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April 28,29, 2006 Dear Father, You are my portion in this life, my hope and my delight. And, I love You. May Your love inspire and encourage me. Keep my focus clear as I live out the life of Your Son in this wicked and perverse generation. Help me to be in actuality the child You created me to be. Let it not just be theoretical or philosophical, but a literal truth lived out by Your Spirit and life within me. Dear Friends and Loved Ones, I wrote the article, “Who Am I really?” in connection with the tract “The Twelve Steps and the New Man.” I encourage you to download this from the Crushed Grapes Website and rejoice in who you are. It deals with our essential nature as NOT, NEGATIVE, NO LONGER a sinner, but a saint. I am a righteous, forgiven, washed, child of God. I would like to now go beyond this and share some deeper insights and applications about our essential nature. Maybe just saying them in ways we are not used to hearing will help us grasp the truth. Not only am I no longer a sinner, and no longer live under condemnation, I am also a member of a different race and part of a different creation. I am an informed citizen of another realm that is often at cross-purposes with national governments, even with this great republic that many of us call home. In my mind’s eye, I see a picture of a ham radio operator who is very involved with the people receiving his signals. He is in one place, but greatly involved in the place to which he is broadcasting. I am not here on planet earth sending signals to heavenly realms asking for things; I am actually here in the heavenly realms asking for things to happen on earth, and then, in my genuine identity (Christ) I function on the earth as His Body. I (we) do not resemble His Body, I (we) are not like His Body, we are His Body. When I, or any of us, speak, Christ speaks. When and where we walk, Christ walks. When and where we dance, Christ dances. When or where we love, Christ loves. Even when I am all alone, I pray, “Our Father.” That is, me, the Frank Smith expression of Christ, a form of the living God, and Christ Himself Who lives in me are together praying to our Father. I am in Christ, as Christ, with Christ in me. Yet it goes beyond “Christ in me” towards the reality that this very life I am living is Christ. Some people (many) react to this kind of presentation as “This is too far out. I don’t see it that way. I am trying to live a good Christian, but this is over the top. This is not reality. Etc. Etc.” If you reacted that way, maybe you are trying to live a schizophrenic life style. Maybe you are trying to de-radicalize the gospel. It might even be possible that you have not been born new from above – have not died with Jesus on the cross in the waters of baptism, and raised with Him to this new life. If this has popped your bubble or upset you, repent and make peace with God. Get your life oriented around the truth, Jesus the Messiah, Whose Body you are. If you realize you have not really crossed over from death into life, do it as fast as you can – immediately. Ask Him to birth you into His Kingdom and then find any Christian and ask them to baptize you ASAP – like immediately, not after some period of instruction or cooling off. We are awaiting His glorious appearing, and in the meantime He continues to appear more and more in deeper and more awesome ways. His Body is glorious now, what will it be when the Head also appears again? The New Wine and Wineskins retreat and conference in Oregon was one of those visitations. I am basking in the blessing, but invigorated to go and tell the world. Sarah continues her battles and struggles. The doctors have scheduled a lymph-node ectomy in May. Thank you for continuing to stand with us for her healing and restoration. I will keep updating her condition. God bless you dear fellow member of Christ, dear CHRISTian, dear little Christ. May He be glorified by your life and loving acts of service and sharing. Maranatha! Soon and very soon. Hallelujah! Love in Christ, Frank
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