Graceriver

The English come from England, the Irish from Ireland. Christians come from a country called "In Christ". In this message is asked a question; How did the Church become so religious that many of us have never walked in the liberty and blessing of this new state?

"The highest quality of life there is, is the life of a person who believes that God is their Father."

It was always God’s intention that living waters will flow and that they will flow from His temple, His Church, into the earth. This morning's message from River City was the second part of a teaching on how the words of the Spirit are opening the eyes of the Church. The extraordinary supernatural testimony of Jesus, (the Spirit of prophecy), the declaration of the scandalous extent of God's grace, is enabling the Church to see what the Spirit sees about us, that we may see and speak in the Spirit to this generation, words that no man has ever spoken over them.

"At last. Spirit of my Spirit!" In God’s eyes, every Christian is a very good Christian, because in God’s eyes …..no-one ever made or makes themselves a Christian! This morning's message in River City was a declaration of who we are in God's eyes and how the Holy Spirit gives us God's eyes.

The Holy Spirit, through the apostle Paul, pleaded with Christians that they have been given not the spirit of the world (spirit of NOT YET) but they have been given the Spirit that comes from God that they may know the things that have been freely given, the things that are already theirs, NOW. Look at what the Spirit is saying to the church in Paul’s generation and tell me that this is not what the Spirit is saying NOW to the Church in our generation. "....we plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. 2 For He says: “In an acceptable time I have heard you, And in the day of salvation I have helped you.”[a] Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. (2Cor.6:1,2)

The language of the Spirit is from the country/Kingdom He sees us to be in: Christ! This is the language He speak to us in. He speak to us as people "in Christ". In fact the Holy Spirit addresses the Church in this language throughout the epistles to every church, no matter what the state of their behaviour, no matter what the direction or exhortation or teaching given, it is spoken in the same language, the language of a place called “in Christ”. Most of us as believers have not grown to see ourselves as in Christ because the language we have been taught to speak throughout most of our church life, is not the language of In Christ, the language of union, but rather the language of separation. That’s the language that man-made religion speaks in, for it is the language of our feelings, the language of the natural man who only sees this world through his natural senses and to whom the realities of the Spirit are foolishness.

My self alone, my self apart from God, has always lived a selfish life. That is what selves do. Dogs bark, Cats meow and selves live selfish lives. Religion’s answer to the self-life, is to exhort it to try harder to reach the heights of the Spirit. Religion points men to themselves and that is why religion doesn’t work, for your self can never be your hope, for your self is your problem. As a self, you can never be good as God is good, for God is not a self. He doesn’t have a self-life. He has never been alone. Right from the beginning, life to God has always been communion. God did not say, “I am going to make man in my image.” He said, “Come let us make man in our image.” Through the body of Christ, God has reconciled the selfish world to Himself, so that all who will accept God’s way of life, Christ (God’s Way, God’s Truth, God’s Life), no longer have to live alone, but can begin to live from and live in communion with God.

The subject of this message is the fundamental difference between man's idea of holiness and God's. If its not good news....it ain't the gospel! This message was given by pastor Phelim Doherty at River City Apostolic Church in Derry, Northern Ireland on May 21st 2017. Other such messages can be heard at www.graceriver.org/church-podcasts This message was podcast originally under the title "Self-righteousness: a bridge too short!"

A talk given by Phelim Doherty on the subject of grace, faith and revival during the 2017 'The Father we never' knew teaching day at River City Church in Derry.