Restoration Ministries International

December 16, 2024

Celebrating The King of Kings and Lord of Lords

Dear Friends in Christ Jesus our Lord,

Please click on the title, Celebrating The King of Kings and Lord of Lords to download our next Potpourri. We know that this email isn’t like the Christmas cards you may send or receive this holiday season. But we're disheartened if you celebrate Christmas without the love of Christ for those you’ll be spending it with. We'd far rather you bring the deliverance and healing powers of our Lord Jesus into your Christmas and be His redemptive ambassador and peacemaker. Please make Christ preeminent in your Christmas!

Mike & Sue

 

 

December 6, 2024

Make Experiencing Christ's Love Foremost This Christmas

Dear Friends in Christ Jesus our Lord,

 

Please download our latest Potpourri please click on the title, Serving Our Lord Jesus Is To Be His Peacemaker. As we've repeatedly attested, for you to abide in the love-abounding relationship which our Lord Jesus offers you is to be His redemptive ambassador. Extending to others this grace He's given you often includes you being His peacemaker. This special responsibility of loving service to our Lord means you reconcile relationships which have been marred by persistent apprehension. This much-needed role is possible because the genuinely born again are indwelled by the Holy Spirit. But you can't be used by the Spirit to reconcile relationships if you quash Him through demonic strongholds remaining in your own soul and/or if you tolerate unconfessed sin in your own life. You’ll discover this Potpourri beneficial if you are upright in heart in your relationship with our Lord Jesus and truly want to see your family and those you care about experience the fulness of our Lord’s love. 

 

It's sad that at Christmas time so many Christians can get caught up in the tasks and events of the holiday season, i.e, “Doing Christmas”. Too many mirror what so many congregations and even ministries are so focused on, their tasks or the events at hand. But from heaven's vantage point, so much of this is "horizontally-driven", whether to make people happy or to increase revenue during this "season of giving". Lamentably, this focus on activity diminishes the Bible's supreme emphasis on WHY our Father sent His Son Jesus to become man on our behalf. (Just ask the children in your life or even fellow churchgoers why Christmas is so special to them. Will anyone respond it's because Jesus needed to be born fully human in order to die sinlessly for our sins?) Studies reveal that European/US Christianity is predominantly task-driven and organizationally-driven. Any of us can get caught up in the activity of being “Christian” yet neglect or overlook the divine relationships which are so clearly presented especially in the New Covenant: our heavenly Father's purposes and glory, the rule of our Lord Jesus, and guidance by the Holy Spirit. The reality of these divine relationships are a key reason our Father is restoring the relationally centered experience of our Lord’s first followers – the biblical Hebraic foundations.

 

📌It's our heart's desire that you and those you really care about would experience, as Scripture clearly describes, a divine interactive relationship with our heavenly Father and our Lord Jesus through the indwelling Holy Spirit. Your particular denomination's belief system and its multitude of activities and programs may have been your longstanding primary spiritual focus. That's why we’ve been exposing the bondage of religion which anti-Semitic theology introduced: so that you might instead fully experience the freedom of relationship that is yours to possess in the New Covenant. 

 

“Make me a channel of Your peace…”

(click on the above title to hear Susan Boyle's rendition of this song)

 

All too often your close relationships can be beset by persistent apprehension which needs to be confronted so that reconciliation can come about. Sometimes this relational predicament requires a peacemaker to intervene. This Potpourri we are sending is the latest in a series of materials we've shared over the years which warn that wherever persistent apprehension exists in relationships, it blocks you from experiencing the pure love of our Lord Jesus. Persistent apprehension exists wherever ill feelings or bitterness or resentment remain unconfronted especially within a family or faith family. One clear indicator that persistent apprehension is affecting your relationships is that people talk behind each other’s back (Hebrew: lashon hara). They gossip to others about whomever they hold ill feelings against, often slandering that person. When persistent apprehension affects you, your gossip or slander imparts negative information about a specific person who is involved in the apprehension web. You're also doing evil from God's perspective when you tell only part of the truth about that person and your situation because you want to hurt him or her (see 2Corinthians 12:20; Matthew 15:18-20; 1Peter 2:1,2).

 

❌Persistent apprehension is often misidentified as “co-dependency” in psychiatry, and is all too prevalent in families and faith families today. But from a spiritual perspective, persistent apprehension is caused by undemolished strongholds and unconfessed sins. Many Christians tolerate relational tension the same way unbelievers do, revealing that they don't have the love, forgiveness and compassion of our Lord Jesus. If this describes you, your family or faith family, we want to help you. 

 

That's why we're sending you this Potpourri before Christmas: so that you may be a channel for our Lord’s peace and love. Plan ahead before you'll be gathering with family or faith family this holiday to identify any unresolved apprehension in their relationships. Beforehand ask those with whom you’ll be sharing a meal if they are experiencing persistent apprehension with anyone, especially those who will be at the get-together. In other words, we encourage you to bring the grace of our Lord Jesus into your gathering. Be His peacemaker so that His love may be experienced by everyone you deeply care for. Relational apprehension shouldn’t be found among any of those who matter to you!

 

Many years ago a Christian family with four children lived next to us in Colorado Springs. Mike repeatedly tried to help the husband overcome his lax approach to dealing with the persistent apprehension in his marriage and family. Then the day came when we finished packing a U-Haul to move to Connecticut to care for Mike’s Mom. This man came to Mike, wrapped his arms around him and moaned with deep regret, “I outlasted you!” Mike nodded sadly. Not long after we moved away, his wife divorced him. Please don’t outlast us!

 

“Blessed are the pure in heart [the upright], for they shall see God. 

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God” (Matthew 5:8,9).

If you're a grandparent or father or mother for whom our Lord Jesus matters even a bit, please heed this: Don’t give yourself rest until all forms of relational apprehension are removed from you and your family, “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you are rooted and grounded in [His] love” (Ephesians 3:17; see 3:14-19). <Click here> to download a one-page guide which will greatly help you be a peacemaker between others, or if you’re imprisoned in persistent apprehension about someone else. This Christmas season is the time to put Christ in the center of it. You grandparents and fathers and mothers especially need to use this opportunity to be our Lord’s peacemakers of relational healing among people you truly care about. 

 

✔️Please take note of this in confronting persistent apprehension: 

No matter what form of gospel you've embraced or by what means you may believe you're going to be welcomed in heaven, we strongly encourage you to be hypervigilant about meeting our Lord's criteria for entry: "For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins" (Matthew 6:14,15). There is no "gospel" that can overrule this criteria. So we encourage you out of love for your Lord and for those dear to you to hunt down any ill feelings or bitterness and resentment among those you deeply care for prior to this Christmas. And make sure that you too are squeaky clean and fully available for our Lord to use you as a peacemaker if need be.

 

Spiritual and moral darkness surrounds this nation. Way back in 1985 we talked with the editor of an influential Christian magazine, and her words remain with us today: “Until the 1950s Christianity influenced society. Since then society has a much more powerful influence on Christianity.” We began warning 40 years ago that the US would become like swarms of antagonistic insects at war with each other. And it has! Apprehension is all around. But don’t let apprehension of any sort have even the slightest toehold in your family and faith family. Instead, be our Lord’s peacemaker by confronting and removing apprehension from those who matter to you.

 

A heads-up. Soon the events which are coming nationwide and worldwide will cause many Christians to discover which of the life attributes of the genuinely born again they really possess. (We pointed out the Scriptural attributes of the genuinely born again in our previous Potpourri. We hope to send out a more extensive discussion of these biblical attributes in our next Potpourri.) Please take this to heart. Now is the time for you to be the upright peacemaking grandparent or parent to your own progeny. May our Lord Jesus guide you in making Him the centerpiece of your Christmas together. And please pass this Potpourri along to others you know who need to rid themselves of persistent apprehension, as well as to those He would use as peacemakers.

Mike & Sue

 

P.S. We truly thank our Lord Jesus and those of you who continue to intercede for us. Our prayer for you is that you would experience not only His love, but also feel your participation in this ministry with us, a ministry which by His grace has spread around the world. Your prayers and our prayer walks are the Holy Spirit's means of imparting His revelation and wisdom to us to share with you. Please don’t give up praying on our behalf! By grace our obedience to our heavenly Father’s purpose for us and our loving regard for you have helped us persist. We know that our ministry in sharing the Hebraic foundations will be ending at some point. But we're assured that these truths will go forth through the upright of heart who have an interactive love relationship with our Father and our Lord Jesus.

 

November 22, 2024

Can your faith withstand persecution?

Dear Dear Friends in Christ Jesus our Lord,

Please download our latest Potpourri, “Christian Deists” Do Not Belong To Christ! For some time now we have been emphasizing the Biblical truth that to be genuinely born again is a love-grounded way of life of obedient trust that's established on the preeminence of our heavenly Father's purposes and glory, and the rule of our Lord Jesus in your heart and life. The presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit verifies to the genuinely born again that they are indeed the Father’s child (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6). It’s the Spirit dwelling within you Who guides you in fulfilling Father’s purposes under the rule of our Lord Jesus. All these realities are clearly presented in Scripture for you to see and live by once you’re free of any anti-Semitic interpretation of it. 

 

In this Potpourri we warn you about the pervasive "Christian Deism” which nullifies everything we've just stated above. You can recognize Deism's deceptive influence in Christian thought and worldview through the obsessive reliance on human reasoning. If you're influenced by Deism, you make decisions and choices based solely on whether its conducive to your wants or point of view. The will of our heavenly Father doesn’t even enter your thinking. 

 

During this past presidential election, "Christian Deism” was readily apparent in the obsessive reliance on reasoning by many Christians. The notion that any mere human, whether Trump or Harris, can save this sin-dominated country through human reason without widespread repentance should be absurd for any God-honoring, Bible-believing Christian. It's like the "Christian Deists" were saying to our Father, “It’s up to us and our reasoning powers to bring order out of chaos. You just stay out of the way!” As long as any Christian seeks to be in charge of their own lives and lean on their own rationale to make decisions and solve problems without any regard for •the rule of our Lord Jesus •or Father’s will •or the guidance of the Holy Spirit, then Deism owns them! And in many cases, REALLY OWNS THEM!

 

We're telling you this because the Holy Spirit is warning you through us that persecution is just on the horizon in this nation. Wherever in the world that tyranny and one-man domination exists, our brothers and sisters in the faith are being persecuted. In this nation the foundations have already been laid. It's certainly evident that Christian Deists have no objections when other humans are treated in a manner they wouldn't want to be treated. This violation of God's command is the basis of human injustice: "So in everything, do to others [or don't do] what you would have them do to you [or not want done to you],  for this sums up the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 7:12). 

 

Please be aware of the forthcoming persecution of the genuinely born again which will follow closely on the heels of widespread prejudice and injustice toward minorities and non-whites. "Christian Deists” in their "does it benefit me" reasoning will be among the first to "conveniently" deny our Lord Jesus through their silence or even rationalized participation in injustice. And they'll also lead the way in being Judases who betray the genuinely born again. Christian history reveals this tragic pattern again and again. ‼️We encourage you this holiday season to discuss with those you love this possibility of both forthcoming persecution as well as where each of you stands regarding whether Jesus truly is Lord of your lives. (The two of us have already prayerfully decided that when persecution comes, we won't defend ourselves at the cost of harming someone else.) Why don't you ask each other during your time together this holiday season what each of you would do during times of persecution and why you would do it. Settle for yourselves whether you're really genuinely born again or not. And please, don't try to reason that our Lord will extend you 'grace' if you're not genuinely born from above.

 

To help you in your discussion, below is a comparison of the life attributes of the genuinely born again, and the attributes of the myopic Deist Christians. The contrast between the lives of the genuinely born again and Deists is extensive! It would be useful now for you and those close to you to evaluate the current attributes of your "Christian" life. 

 

How Many Attributes Are There In Your Christian Life?

 

The genuinely born again who are free of all vestiges of Deist domination can readily testify to the greatness of our Father the way David did: “Therefore you are great, O LORD God. For there is none like You, and there is no God besides You, according to all that we have heard with our ears” (2 Samuel 7:22). Like David's affirmation, being able to publicly speak with others about the magnificence of our heavenly Father and the loving Lordship of Jesus because of your divine experiences should come from every person who claims to be "Christian." But all too often today, many Christians are hindered in this because they are ignorant of the domination of Deism in their lives. Relying only on their reasoning, they are unable to glorify our Father through personal testimony. It's not as though the Spirit of our Lord isn't willing to help them if they repent. But the rebellious sin nature of the unrepentant in Christianity prefers Deism because it lets them rule their own lives. So please consider this. If the devil has injected Deism into your Christianity, then we hope the attached Potpourri will help you free yourself from this pervasive evil. 

 

Here's a worship song you may have heard before or even sung yourself, SPIRIT TOUCH YOUR CHURCH  by Kent Henry. The Spirit of Christ is indeed alive and at work today! And this song highlights some of what we've been emphasizing in these Potpourris which the Holy Spirit has been giving us to share with you during our prayer walks. We hope you'll be blessed by the lyrics, and that your heart is one that cares for others as our Lord Jesus cares for you.

Mike & Sue

P.S. A note of praise! We recently spent time with a retired couple whose divine testimonies uplifted us even as they told us how ours encouraged them. Over the years they'd experienced both personal interaction with the Spirit of our Lord Jesus as well as evicting demons in the precious and powerful Name of Jesus. Talking with them on such a spiritually intimate level was like a divine breath of fresh air for us! We look forward to future encounters with them to mutually build up each other in our respective journeys in Christ.