Infusion Magazine | August 2019 | Issue 23

ISSUE 23 // AUGUST 2019

“Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests unto His God and Father; to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”

Revelation 1:5-6

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ow I love the Word of God! Revealed in every line of God’s Word is the fullness of our salvation in Christ Jesus and our identity in Christ.

God has called us to be kings. This means that he wants us to have dominion. This is the authority we are given as believers. We are called to reign, to exercise His authority.

1 Peter 2:9 says, “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness and into His marvelous light.”

God has also called us to be priests, to approach the Throne of Grace with boldness. As priests, we are the ones who weep between the porch and the altar, by which God makes His will known and releases His purposes.

As we seek God’s face, we not only understand our identity; His person is revealed to us. He is the God of eternity, and we are called to fulfill His eternal purpose for our lives.

It is absolutely vital in these last days for us to live for God’s eternal purposes and not our own. In Ecclesiastes 3:11, the Word of God says, “Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.” Think about that! God has set eternity in your heart! He wants you to be aware of His eternal purpose, to know that you were made for such a time as this!

Does your heart beat for eternity? When eternity beats in your heart, you do not need someone else’s affirmation.

You live only for Jesus. Your heart becomes His heart; your vision becomes His vision.

I must ask you this burning question: does your life count for eternity? Does your ministry count for eternity?

Are you living with eternity in your heart? Jesus said that He is coming quickly!

“I watched till thrones were put in place, and the Ancient of Days was seated; His garment was white as snow, and the hair of His head was like pure wool. His throne was a fiery flame, its wheels a burning fire; a fiery stream issued and came forth from before Him. A thousand thousands ministered to Him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him. The court was seated, and the books were opened,” Daniel 7:9-10.

When was the last time you thought about standing before God’s judgment? You may not know this, but there will come a day when you will stand before the Lamb, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. The Court in Heaven will be seated and the books will be opened!

The Bible speaks of two judgments. One is called the Great White Throne Judgment. That judgment is for those who never received Christ as their Savior. The Word says in Revelation that the books were opened and there was no place found for them.

But there is another seat. The Bible calls it the Judgment Seat of Christ. That is not for the sinner; friend, it is for the believer! You say, “But I am born again.” I know. But it is for you. This is for the kings and priests. The books will be opened and our works will be tested.

“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad,” 2 Corinthians 5:10.

“For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward.

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If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire,” 1 Corinthians 3:11-15.

When I kneel before the Throne of God, I do not want to be empty handed. It is there that we will truly understand the meaning of our eternal reward. It is the “well done, good and faithful servant” that every one of us longs to hear from God. The Bible speaks of five crowns that are given to those who are faithful and endure to the end. When the books are opened and your life is revealed, if your works have come through the fire, Christ will place a crown on your head.

In Revelation, it says, “Let no man steal your crown.” What good would it be if I saw millions of souls come to Christ, but I allowed the enemy to steal my crown? This is why we must constantly allow the Holy Spirit to reveal God’s will in our lives and not our own desires if we want our lives to count for eternity.

There is great revelation given to us through the crowns in God’s Word.

The first crown I want to show you is the Incorruptible Crown. 1 Corinthians 9:24-25 says, “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize?

Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things.

Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown.”

Most people would not want to go through the rigors of being a professional athlete, much less be willing to sacrifice in order to successfully compete in a professional sport.

Just as we respect, honor, and pay these athletes for performing for us, God will also reward His own spiritual athletes if they are willing to complete what may be a difficult mission or call.

May the Holy Spirit help us to be faithful to our eternal purpose!

In the next edition of Infusion Magazine, I will continue this teaching of The Eternal Crown, Part Two.

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B Y : LY D I A S . M A R R O W

We always describe ourselves as “The Shake The Nations Team.” We say that because that is precisely what we mean. We are a unit. We are brothers and sisters. We have different responsibilities, but we only have one purpose: to lift the name of Jesus Christ and preach His Gospel to the lost in every nation God sends us to. It was an honor for our team to accompany Evangelist Nathan as he preached the Gospel to the nation of El Salvador.

Certainly, many teams walk onto the soccer field in that stadium. They compete for some trophy or cup, and they desire the praise of the athletic community. But when the Shake The Nations Team walked onto that hot soccer field this April, we competed for a much loftier prize. We went after the souls of men, women, boys, and girls.

For this Gospel Campaign, we chose to broadcast the meetings live around the world via the internet. I joined the media team to host the broadcast, so we went early to set up the day before the meetings were scheduled to begin.

As we walked into the stadium, I had such a sense of God’s presence, as though He was already waiting for us on the field. I looked at every empty seat in that stadium and realized that in the campaign, those seats would be filled with people who wanted an encounter with God. We were so excited!

Those precious people were so hungry for God! I walked throughout the stadium with tears in my eyes as I watched

them. Many of them sat in the sun for hours to secure their place in the stadium. And they were not just sitting idly in their seats. They sat in the blazing afternoon sun with their hands lifted toward Heaven, asking God to pour out His Spirit on their land. Nobody had to encourage them to seek the Lord. They went after Him with such determination.

The God we serve has never let anyone walk away from His table hungry. Oh, He met us on that field! Thousands of people filled that stadium and sang at the top of their lungs, “Receive all of the glory, receive all of the honor, precious son of God!” Waves of the glory of God crashed over all of us as Jesus was lifted high. I couldn’t help but wonder what Heaven will be like, when untold millions sing the praises of God around the Throne. Maybe we saw a tiny glimpse on that field.

When Evangelist Nathan took the pulpit to preach the Gospel, it was as though every person leaned in to listen.

In fact, on the last night of the campaign, thousands of people rushed to the altar to get saved before Evangelist Nathan could even call them to the altar.

As I stood to the side of the platform, the salvation response was beyond what I could comprehend.

Evangelist Nathan asked for those receiving Jesus for the first time to raise their hands. Almost every hand was lifted. It was difficult to see where the altar call ended. I was weeping before the Lord at such a response.

It was breathtaking.

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“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

-Jim Elliot

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As we gave God praise for so many souls being born again, the healing power of God began to break out all over the field. Evangelist Nathan was calling out words of knowledge, and suddenly, people were lifting walkers in the air and passing them to the front. Then they began to pass crutches and canes up to the front, because the people who had been using them no longer needed them! Someone handed me some X-rays on the second night to show what God had done in their back. All around the platform, people were waving their hands in the air to testify to their healing. It was like the most wonderful pandemonium I have ever seen. We took testimonies for such a long time, but we probably only heard a fraction of what happened. What a mighty God we serve!

We are still hearing from national leaders in El Salvador about the impact that Gospel Campaign made, and testimonies are still coming in. All we can do is give God all the glory for meeting us on that field.

He is truly shaking that nation!

In the month of June, the team went to the nation of Ecuador for the very first time. If you are unfamiliar with that nation, this is where the missionary Jim Elliot and his four friends attempted to take the Gospel to a tribe in the jungle. They tried to say hello, and they were speared to death. They gave their lives for trying to share Jesus. Some may call that a waste, but the impact those men and their wives made is extraordinary. There are churches all over that nation now. And in the same country that speared those men for trying to introduce them to Jesus, we stood and sang, “Waymaker, Miracle Worker, Promise Keeper, Light in the darkness, that is who You are!”

God is opening a door in Ecuador for the Gospel to be preached and for God’s power to be demonstrated.

We saw cancer disappear, spines straighten, and so many souls come into the Kingdom. As the people of Ecuador responded to the Lord, I could not help but remember the words of Jim Elliot: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

Thank God that Jim Elliot blazed a pioneering trail into Ecuador. May many more souls come to Christ in that nation!

One thing is for sure: it is time for the nations of Central and South America! God is moving in such a powerful way, and over the next eighteen months, we are going to be holding more Gospel Campaigns there. We would love for you to join us as a part of our prayer team.

The heartbeat of Shake The Nations Ministries is reaching the lost through Gospel Campaigns. We love to be a blessing to the Body of Christ, but for us, there is nothing quite like standing on a field and preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are a team, and this is what God has assigned us to do.

Thank you for standing with us in the harvest. We praise God for every healing and every life touched. May God continue to shake the nations!

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eric gilmour

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is voice rang like a trumpet in my soul. Clear, full and bright with heavenly tones, “God alone sees the heart and the heart alone sees God!” As he wiped the rolling tear from his cheek, he repeated, “God alone sees the heart and the heart alone sees God.” This statement was very difficult for my fifteen-year-old mind to understand, but I felt my spirit receive it. Freshly born again, I sat in the first few rows watching Steve Hill plead with men to surrender to the love of God in Christ.

His voice was the voice of the Holy Spirit to me. I still bleed from the arrow he shot into my chest in 1996.

His fatherhood in the faith is very special to me. Some nights I am awakened by the sound of his voice echoing in my spirit, “Don’t ever slow down going after God.” Even though Steve has gone on to be with the One he lived his life declaring, I feel sometimes as if he is watching me.

Like he is strangely with me in some way. This morning 1 2 / / T H E H E A R T O F T H E M AT T E R

I remembered these words, “God alone sees the heart and the heart alone sees God.” God’s voice poetically rumbles through Isaiah (29:11-14).

Imagine a book filled with the vision of God set on your lap.

When you eagerly seek to give your eyes to the riches of its content, you discover that the book is sealed and you are unable to open it. Though you hold the glorious revealing in your hand, you are unable to actually receive anything from it. You pry and pull to no avail because it is locked

by God Himself.

This is God’s imagery to describe the life of those who withheld their hearts from Him. Externals fall miserably short of what God desires from man. Rituals and tradition are not the heart of the matter. Unless the heart is surrendered, man will never see God. The heart seems to be the window through which God and man can sense one another. We may “draw near with our words,

GOD ALONE SEES THE HEART AND THE HEART ALONE SEES GOD.

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and honor Him with our lips” and yet our “hearts be far from Him.” For one reason or another, we refuse to relinquish our hearts and our worship consists of traditions learned by routine, dead, habitual mechanics. In the midst of morality, theology and worship, men remain blind to God, unable to see Him searching, longing to be loved.

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I leave you with the words of Brother Lawrence from the timeless classic, “The Practice of the Presence of God.” “...all bodily spiritual disciplines and exercises are useless.

All that is needed to bring us to union with God is love...the shortest way to God is to go straight to Him by a continual exercise of love and doing everything for His sake.”

I write this to encourage you to freshly set your affection upon the heavenly Bridegroom. The more I am around this modern Pentecostal movement, the more I see that Jesus is eclipsed by our “disciplines” and “routines” of “spirituality” and “pursuit.” We end up saying with Jason Upton, “I get so thirsty trying to find Your presence that I forget to stop and take a drink.”

Jesus is more beautiful than our practices.

Jesus is more faithful than our disciplines.

Jesus is more precious than our victories.

Discover more from Eric Gilmour www.youtube.com/ewgilmour.

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“Having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.” - 1 Peter 1:23

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he Bible teaches us that sin entered into the world through one man’s disobedience, and because of that, death came to all humanity. The evidence of the sinful nature in the human race is the fact that death is present. We were created in the image and likeness of God. We were never created to die. Sickness is another evidence of our sinful nature as our bodies were not created to get sick. Therefore, the human race has inherited the sinful nature of Adam and Eve. We are not sinners because we sin; the truth is that we sin because we are sinners. The psalmist says in Psalms 51:5, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.”

God placed our legacy seed inside Adam, but our legacy seed became corrupt because of sin. Our bloodline became tainted and destiny seemed like it would be nullified; however, the prophetic word echoed throughout the universe that an incorruptible seed would bring forth salvation. Genesis 3:15 says, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”

Jesus came down as a seed to be sown into the ground to bring forth much fruit. That’s why the Bible says in John 12:24, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.”

Jesus was sown into the ground as a seed, but He rose up from the ground on the third day. He is the incorruptible seed that crushed the serpent’s head and brought us a new inheritance! We all die in Adam, but are now made alive through Christ. Our inheritance includes the forgiveness of sins, adoption as God’s children, being sealed by the Holy Spirit, and the promise of eternal life.

by // MAURICIO CANALES

14 // THE INCORRUPTIBLE SEED

We are born again through the incorruptible seed by receiving Christ as our Lord and Savior. We are a new creation because Christ is formed inside of us. We now have God’s divine nature on the inside of us through the Holy Spirit of God. It is Christ in us, the hope of glory!

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BY: LYDIA S. MARROW “Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men! For He satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with goodness,� Psalm 107:8-9.

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unger is when your body notifies you that you need nourishment. It is a compelling desire for food. Hunger can be painful. It can make you feel weak. But it is essential to our survival, because it lets us know that there is a need in our lives. Simply put, hunger is the force that drives us to the table.

How often have we said we were hungry for God, but in reality, we were not willing to make more time for Him? Could it be that we say what we need to say at church to make ourselves look good?

I do not want to reach the end of my life and realize that while I participated in a lot of church meetings, I never actually allowed myself to be satisfied by Jesus Christ. I refuse to be one more restless Christian, claiming His name and yet still trying to fill my life with lesser things.

When Jesus wanted to move past the casual followers to the committed disciples, He made this shocking announcement: “So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink.

He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him,’” John 6:53-56.

We have been compelled to consume the Lord. We have been invited to partake of Jesus! Jesus clearly says that if you are not hungry for all that He is, you are not abiding in Him. You have no part of Him! But in His goodness, He has set a table for us.

When God established the Tabernacle, He commanded that the Bread of His Presence be set before Him continually, because the Bread of the Presence is a meal of intimacy, where His face shines on us and we receive of His divine nature. We enjoy His presence and feast on His Word. When we do not come to His table to satisfy our hunger, we become weak and powerless.

We cannot continue to tolerate the powerless church!

This is not a normal condition, and it certainly is not one that we have the right to excuse.

In Acts 1:8, Jesus told the disciples to wait for the Holy Spirit, and He said: “but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”

In other words, we cannot represent Jesus until He has filled us by His Spirit. We cannot rightly offer Jesus to those around us until we have been satisfied in Him. You will always move toward what you are hungry for!

We have learned all the Christian catch phrases, and we even know when to turn to our neighbor and know what to say to them. But no matter what we have said, we see the truth about our hunger by what we have been using to fill up our lives. For instance, I keep saying that I need to lose the last bit of baby weight, but the truth is, I like pizza. I know that I need a salad, but I want a pizza.

We say that we want God to move in our churches, but we are so addicted to the clock on the wall that we do not have time to wait on the Lord. We say that we want to move into deeper places in worship, but we are still worrying about what other people think of us.

We say that we are hungry for Jesus, but when was the last time we feasted on His Word?

Most of our churches are moving toward filling chairs with people instead of filling people with Jesus. We will do anything to be trendy, while people are hungry for a genuine encounter with the God that we have told them is supernatural.

If you can explain everything that happens in your meetings, it is time to fast and pray until the unexplainable starts to happen. We need some services that we can only explain by saying, “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit!” Where are the services where we leave saying, “Only God could have done that!” We need something to happen that cannot be replicated by man, but can only be produced by the mighty Holy Spirit!

God, make us hungry for you until it drives us to the table once again!

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BY // SCOTT BOTTGER

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s I looked out among the sea of people in El Salvador, I scanned for our prayer team to make sure everyone was okay, and to see if anyone needed assistance. I saw prayer team shirts everywhere, pairs of men and women praying for the lost, for the sick, and casting out demons. Many of them were weeping, as God was using them in this capacity for the first time. As I counted them off to make sure they were all accounted for, I heard the Spirit of God say to me: “This is what I have called you to do.” I could not stop the tears.

We can only minister out of the depth of our own encounters. We can only take people where we have been ourselves. We cannot lead someone down a path we have never traveled ourselves.

Then, God took me back to November 2009 in a field in Africa where He got ahold of me in a way that I had never experienced. He used me in ways I had only dreamed of. I saw the power of God flow from my hands to those who were in need of miracles. This was one of the most powerful God encounters of my life besides my salvation experience. Then God spoke to me a second time and said, “I have called you to position others in a place to have the encounter you had with Me in 2009.” This brought such encouragement to me.

If I were honest with you, I do not walk onto those Gospel Campaign fields looking for healings, deliverances, or miracles. I am scanning those fields looking for the next Scott Bottger having an encounter with God that will turn their life upside down. There is a place in God that demands a response of sacrifice, a sacrifice that is only satisfied by souls.

Could it be that we are called to position people in a place where they can have an encounter with God that resembles our own? The moment I had with God ten years ago on my first Gospel Campaign with Shake The Nations had positioned me to make sure someone else could encounter Him in the same way.

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The greatest joy for me is to sit with the team after the Gospel Campaigns and hear all that God has done through them. They say things like, “I never thought God would use me in this way,” or, “I know now that I am not just called to fill a seat in the church.”

Friend, I believe that God is drawing you to a place in Him where you bring as many people to a place of encounter as you possibly can. So, let me invite you. No, let me challenge you: join us for a Gospel Campaign.

You will never be the same.

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