We have briefly studied three phases of development, maturity, and operations in the church. For the purpose of this study, “Taking the Land,” I would categorize them:

1) Taking the land
2) Occupying the land
3) Making the land fruitful

As the Coalition nations have found in Iraq, taking the land and occupying it are two different things. I do not fault the Bush Administration for this, as they had requested over 100 million dollars just to study this before the war, and it was cut from the appropriations bill by Congress. Therefore, they went in...

We can and will spend eternity getting to know the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and I don't think we will ever exhaust what can be learned. For all of the increase of knowledge that we have experienced on earth in the last century, one doctor told me that the most we know about the human body is maybe as much as 30 percent. When I asked him how much he thought psychiatrists knew about the mind, he estimated 5 percent. I think we know even less about the spirit of man. Yet, we are told in I...

Since the ascension of the Lord Jesus, He has been working through His body, the church, by the Holy Spirit. This is the new creation that greatly transcends the original creation. In the beginning, God walked with man, but now He comes to dwell in man. This is the greatest of all benefits of the New Covenant, and as Paul wrote in II Corinthians 3, it is better than what Moses had even though he had to put a veil over his face because of the glory. As Paul later wrote in Colossians 1:25-27:
 

The biblical day began with evening and then morning. Likewise, throughout Scripture it usually became darker before the light would be given. Therefore, when troubles come we should always look expectantly for the light.

Because of wrong or extreme applications of some teachings on faith, there are many Christians who will not listen to warnings about anything bad happening. They believe that if they have enough faith nothing bad will happen. They are usually the least prepared for troubles and the least able to cope with them when they do come, proving ultimately to have the weakest faith of...

The most mature Christians will be evidenced by their ability to appreciate and embrace those who are different, but are of the same faith in Christ. Only when we start to understand and appreciate the differences in the different parts of the body will we ever fit together properly, learn to function together, and thereby multiply our fruitfulness.

We need to understand and learn to separate our Phase I, II, and III operations. People who are best in each one should keep them vitally connected so that the fruit of one is built upon by the next one. It...