Our beloved fellow Last Days Disciples, this new series of articles is titled “Marching Orders for the Stephen Generation” and its purpose is to enhance our understanding of what we Last Days Disciples can expect in the coming days… and what our Father has already provided for us in the midst of everything and anything we may face. This series will strengthen and solidify the firm foundation of Truth that Holy Spirit has been imparting to our FMM family and will increase our resolve to fulfill the exhortation we find in Ephesians 6:10-18 (TLV):
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you are able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the worldly forces of this darkness, and against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist when the times are evil, and after you have done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm then! Buckle the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. Strap up your feet in readiness with the Good News of shalom. Above all, take up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray in the Ruach on every occasion, with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, keep alert with perseverance and supplication for all the kedoshim.”
We begin with the Original Marching Orders to bring into focus the enhancements found in the Marching Orders for the Stephen Generation. And the reason for that ‘upgrade’ given to us by the Ruach HaKodesh is because we live in uncharted territory… generations before us never faced the kind of things we do. They could not have conceived civilizations slowly self- destructing after decades of demonically inspired lies and deception. Those who lived during the days of great revivals and outpourings of the Spirit would never have imagined how those fires could have died down to smoldering embers.
So knowing how much the written and Living Word has revealed about the Last Days, I exhort you to take seriously the level of equipping this series offers as we work together to advance the Kingdom of our God and prepare for the coming of His beloved Son.
Love, Mum Nancy
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The Original
Marching Orders
(First received in 1988)
Marching Orders for The Stephen Generation
(Updated adaptation made in 2021)
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The Lord gave me the original ‘Marching Orders’ in the summer of 1988. Soon afterward, He started sending the downloads for what would eventually develop into the material that the Ultimate Journey Ministry shares so successfully today with those who participate in that ministry’s support group disciple training.
But at the end of 2010, the Lord suddenly gave me the new assignment of cooperating with Him in giving birth to this current Follow Me Ministry. And so, effective January 1, 2011, this Follow Me Ministry (FMM) was born. And we’re convinced that the Marching Orders we received in 1988 are just as pertinent and necessary as ever.
So we’ve updated them to reflect the atmosphere and urgency in which the Last Days disciples of today will be required to operate. I call these Last Days Special Forces Disciples: ‘The Stephen Generation’, because they will finish constructing the ‘Highway in the Wilderness’ that will prepare the way for the Return of our risen Messiah. (See Isa. 40). And, they will have to do it amid some extremely difficult and often dangerous circumstances… regardless of the cost to them! So their level of training will need to equal, and perhaps even surpass, the profound thoroughness and intensity Stephen and his contemporaries received from the apostles.
We will have to do our work while resisting and opposing the forces of Darkness at the very time when the age-old war between Good and Evil is reaching the highest, most overpowering level of intensity that has ever been seen since the beginning of time! And we’ll have to be equipped to persevere in our service to the Lord in the most dire and apparently impossible situations in history!
This is why we will have to master the art and skill of knowing our God… and being able to interact with the Reality of His actual Presence! Only by knowing Him at that Stephen level will we be able to stand our ground and remain steadfast and overcome the enemy onslaughts throughout what will soon be engulfing the entire End Times universe!
Last Days disciples will have to be as enamored and taken up with our risen Lord as Stephen was (in chapters 6 and 7 of the book of Acts). We’ll have to be equipped to do what he did when it was his time to render his unforgettable service. We’ll have to be prepared and equipped to maintain the supernatural martyrs’ mindset focus that he maintained and displayed, during his final moments. Nothing was able to deter or stop him, or any of the other martyrs throughout history! These faithful ones truly were equipped and prepared by Holy Spirit to follow the totally focused leading and example of our crucified Lord Himself!
So the training our present generation of disciples will need at this time is of vital importance. And this reality is what these meditations are meant to help us unpack, explore, absorb, digest, and… embody… as we go through our ‘boot camp’ preparatory stages, and allow Holy Spirit to render us to be ‘combat ready’.
May we all cooperate with the Lord’s precious Holy Spirit to the maximum extent!
John Marquez
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Meditation #13
How Do Circumcised Hearts Love?
“Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love Adonai your God with ALL your heart and with ALL your soul and with ALL your strength. These words, which I am commanding you today, are to be ON YOUR HEART. You are to TEACH THEM DILIGENTLY TO YOUR CHILDREN, and speak of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up. Bind them as a sign on your hand, they are to be as frontlets between your eyes, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 TLV, Emphasis added)
“Blessed are the pure (unencumbered by Self) in heart, FOR THEY SHALL SEE GOD!” (Matthew 5:8 TLV, Emphasis added)
What does true spiritual ‘circumcision’ do for our hearts? It ‘uproots’ the affections and concerns of our heart from temporary created things and ‘transplants’ them into the soil of exclusive Covenant Union and cooperation with what the Holy Spirit is here to impart into our hearts from God’s Eternal Kingdom. It frees us to consider ourselves to be unreservedly His… in mind, heart, will, and purpose. Our union with Him expels and replaces everything that was previously in us that was unworthy of Him and His Presence.
So, in this sense, because we finally come to know God as He really is, we realize He is the one and only true Source for Everything else that is created. Only He meets our every need, so we look only to Him, and to nothing else, for provision, protection, guidance, and overall wellbeing! There is no more resistance left in us to worshipping God alone, and relying on Him for everything 100% of the time because… THERE IS NO OTHER POSSIBILITY IN EXISTENCE!
Now we realize why He must impart His Spirit to live and work in and to guide and supply us. Only Holy Spirit can deal with our needs and override our innate tendencies to selfishness, cowardice, and laziness. Only He can fill us with His Word’s Eternally Perfect Wisdom, Sanctification, Righteousness, Redemption, Holiness, and Love! And this exclusive relationship with our God is what begins to transform us into His image and likeness.
So this level of ‘circumcision’ purifies us of our original worldly, ‘Adamic’ mindsets, attitudes, and idolatrous lifestyles. It delivers us from the bondage of having to labor under our original insane Self-adoring paradigm that depicted us as being responsible for our every need and outcome outcome. That delusional slavery to Self is the worst kind of servitude possible because it leads to total frustration and devastation.
But our total union with God frees us from having to seek after alternate (but actually non-existent) sources that our deluded minds place above our one true Living God. When we elevate created things like that, we’re actually trying to dethrone and replace our Creator and Sustainer with something of our own choosing! And that amounts to declaring war against the One True Creator of all things!
So our FMM Marching Orders are intended to keep us deeply rooted in our all-out, wholehearted, ‘circumcised’ state of being where, just like Stephen, we only have eyes for our one and only true Shepherd. He is eternally REAL and infinitely more desirable than all of the other fake, non-existent, counterfeit substitutes that the powers of Darkness always try to use to capture our attention, to lure us into fatal separation from our True Life Source.
Lessons From The Sermon On The Mount
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God Says: |
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The Evidence: |
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“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. |
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(to which people look when their unbelieving hearts are driven by the fear, anxiety and insecurity that arise when they believe that God has failed them and they’re now on their own) |
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But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven |
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(that is, the joy, peace, rest and confidence that come from knowing that our Heavenly Father has already done and completed everything and is ready to provide us with everything we will ever need) |
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where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in or steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. |
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(So realize that the one true Living God is your one and only Treasure! There is no real alternative!) |
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“The eye is the lamp of the body. Therefore if your eye is good, your whole body will be full of Light. But if your eye is bad, your body will be full of Darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is Darkness, how great is the Darkness! |
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(if your eye is fixed and trained on the one true God, you will always be filled with His Light, and it will fill and radiate from you, and you’ll be able to serve as a guiding Light for other people who are stumbling around in the Darkness that comes from being separated from the God with whom they were made to be forever one.) |
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“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will stick by one and look down on the other. You cannot serve God and money.” |
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(either God is your Perfect All-Sufficient Source… or, when you don’t believe that, you are forced to chase after created things that are actually just as vain and empty and powerless as you are!) |
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“So I say to you, do not worry about your life—what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing? “Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns; yet your Father in Heaven feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.Now if in this way God clothes the grass—which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow—will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For the pagans eagerly pursue all these things; yet your Father in Heaven knows that you need all these. But seek first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you!Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:19-34 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added) |
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Beloved, the above text, and all the others like it, describe the difference between human hearts that have been circumcised, and those that are still stuck in their original, natural, earthly,Adamic Self-adoring state. Can you see that? Such hearts fixate on created things, like the religious physical circumcision ritual, or membership in the ‘right’ group, or the ‘proper’ theology, etc. When we pursue such things we’re trying to save ourselves and insure perpetual earthly wellbeing for ourselves. But true righteousness can’t be achieved by reliance on a self-originated, Self-serving created device. But many embrace the symbolic, but they continually ignore the reality which the symbol is meant to represent. So they continue to ignore the one true God… and look to false gods to rule over their hearts.
True circumcision is not about outward rituals and religious activities. It’s also not essentially about being joined to ‘Jewish’ or ‘Catholic’ or ‘Charismatic’ or ‘Islamic’ or ‘Buddhist’ or any other created theology… or a ‘spiritual’ type of philosophy or ritualistic practice. Those things are all earthly, Man-created, temporary categories! What God’s Word requires goes much deeper than that. God wants you, not your devices! Your True, Eternal, Living Creator intends to abide and operate from within you… on your behalf… and on behalf of whoever and whatever may happen to be around you – forever! In other words, it’s about whether or not you, and the others around, will ever submit to Life Himself and allow Him to transform you into His Word’s image and likeness, or not!
“Therefore, if the uncircumcised (Gentile) keeps the righteous decrees of the Torah (in his heart), will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? Indeed, the one not circumcised physically who fulfills the Torah will judge you who—even with the written code and circumcision—break the Torah. For one is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision something visible in the flesh. Rather, the (authentic God-redeemed) Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart—in Spirit not in letter. His praise is not from men, but from God!” (Romans 2:26-29 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added)
So to really get hold of what God is revealing through these texts, let’s go all the way back to square one… the basic fundamental fact about who God is, and what every speck of His Creation actually is, in relation to Him who is the Creator of everything else. And He chose Man to serve as His prime example:
“Then Adonai Elohim formed the man out of the dust from the ground and He breathed into his nostrils a breath of life—so the man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7 TLV, Emphasis added)
This basic, primeval, ‘square one’ vantage point lets us know that in terms of man’s essence and ongoing existence (regardless of ethnicity, color, religion, culture, educational or financial or societal station in life), God is 100% responsible for what we are, and what we can have, and what we can do or aspire to achieve. In itself, dust is dead, inert, and helpless! It can do nothing for itself or by itself, nor can it do anything for anyone or anything else! So we can do nothing simply by relying on the accident of birth, or by exerting will power and Self-initiative to join ourselves to created things. Apart from its Creator, dust has no choice, no initiative, no agendas, and no self-sustaining life!
So the ongoing story of what happens to the first man, and all the others that descend from him, is not at all about the dust from which they are made. It’s 100% about the Creator of that dust! He is the sole Origin and Source of the dust, and whatever is going to happen to and through that dust in space and time! So our hearts must be circumcised of all Self-reliance and false sources of hope and wellbeing as we move into the future!
Another way of saying this is: in ourselves we’re dead! And only in God, and from God, can we ever hope to have life! So, the proper attitude and lifestyle for us is to continually look to, and rely upon, and depend on, and receive everything from the sustaining Breath of our Creator… God’s Holy Spirit who is given to us by the Authority of His Living Word. So God is our one and only Source of Life! And everything we creatures need, can only be found in Him:
“In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were made through Him, and apart from Him nothing was made that has come into being. In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the Darkness, and the Darkness has not overpowered it!” (John 1:1-5 TLV, Emphasis added)
Our physical makeup and spirit, mind, will, affections, talents, gifts and future accomplishments, all originate in, and spring from, the Goodness and Faithful Love of our Creator! That’s why the will and affections of our hearts must always remain united to, and dependent upon the Reality of He who is Life and Truth personified! Our only choice is to live FROM Him, abiding in continual dependent interaction with Him. He IS the Supplier of whatever we will ever need! So nothing short of the Reality of His Perfect Presence will do! We dare not settle for anything less! And this is why we must always be following Him and receiving what we need, directly from Him… by the workings of His indwelling Holy Spirit.
So… even when those around us keep rejecting God, refusing to believe, and follow His Word, and live instead in bitter opposition to Him… God is still the one who maintains them in existence and provides everything they are and have and are able to do! He does this even for His demonic enemies, without discrimination or exception! But of course, they refuse to admit or acknowledge this. Nevertheless, the Lord’s disciples must always keep this in mind and acknowledge our Creator and Sustainer for all that He is to us, and to the rest of Creation.
So the real issue about Man is whether he will awake to this inescapable Reality, or not! Will we finally acknowledge our Creator and respond to Him in love, gratitude and obedient faith? This intimate, cooperative, interactive union with Him is what this awesome Divine Uncreated Being intends for us. This is how He wants the chosen disciples of His Living Word to live. He called us to serve as living examples for all of the others who are still clueless. So in earthly physical reality human marriage is the symbolic representation of what God wants each of us to have with His Living Word, through whom He reveals Himself to us, and through whom He does everything we will ever need to raise, protect and provide for His Eternal Family!
And so, the dynamic of looking to alternate counterfeit sources for our provision, protection and wellbeing is what God calls ‘spiritual adultery’ or idolatry. For humans to look to and trust in substitute gods or alternate sources is actually to separate themselves from the one true and only Life Source! And of course, if and when we do that, we die, and are on the way to reverting all the way back to that original, helpless, inert pile of dust from which we all first emerged! So this is why God considers these matters to be of utmost importance for our wellbeing. His heart’s desire is to make available the wonderful God-empowered Life and Destiny with which He wants to bless and endow us all!
Once we know the Truth about how God desires to elevate, endow, and secure us by His side forever, it should automatically become our heart’s desire to abide in, and draw from, Him whatever we need…at all times… in all things… with total endless, grateful, cooperation and obedient trust!
“But now, having been set free from sin and having become enslaved to God, you have your fruit resulting in Holiness. And the outcome is Eternal Life. For sin’s payment is death, but God’s gracious Gift is Eternal Life in Messiah Yeshua our Lord!” (Romans 6:22-23 TLV, Emphasis added)
So now we see that in a human heart that is truly circumcised, all traces of Self-life or radical independence from God have been removed. A circumcised heart is the identifying symbol, similar to a wedding ring, that spouses wear on their fingers, to proclaim to the world around them, that they are no longer ‘single’ or ‘available.’ They are married or bonded and made to be one with another person to whom they are wedded for life. But in this case, the Spouse is Almighty God Himself, who never dies!!
“Praise Adonai, for He is good, for His lovingkindness endures forever. Praise the God of gods, for His lovingkindness endures forever. Praise the Lord of lords, for His lovingkindness endures forever, who alone did great wonders, for His lovingkindness endures forever, who made the heavens by wisdom, for His lovingkindness endures forever…” (Psalm 136: 1-5 TLV)
This eternal union is the purpose for which God intended the human race to come into being. And it is this supernatural Reality of this awesome undying everlasting love bond and mutual faithfulness that God intends to display before His defeated and devasted demonic enemies! They claimed that God can’t be trusted, and that we humans are incapable of trusting God simply because He is worthy of it.
“This favor was given to me, the very least of His kedoshim (saints), to proclaim to the Gentiles the endless riches of the Messiah and to bring to light the plan of the mystery—which for ages was hidden in God, who created all things. The purpose is that THROUGH MESSIAH’S COMMUNITY, THE MULTI-FACETED WISDOM OF GOD MIGHT BE MADE KNOWN TO THE (demonic) RULERS AND AUTHORITIES IN THE HEAVENLY PLACES, which is in keeping with the eternal purpose that He carried out in Messiah Yeshua our Lord.” (Ephesians 3:8-11 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added)
Ever since the beginning, The Accuser (ha’satan in Hebrew) has rejected and denied the Self-Revelation God has given to us through His Living and written Word. God revealed that He is worthy of infinite, airtight faith, hope, trust, and Blood Covenant Loyalty. But the powers of Darkness continually accuse God of being fraudulent and that His claims to divinity and sovereignty, and to our total trust, are unfounded and deceptive. They maintain that God is unworthy of our faith and devotion, and so their rebellion against our Creator involves us humans, whether we realize it or not. They have placed us in the middle of the tremendous struggle throughout the heavenly realms, that has been raging unceasingly since the very first moment our physical universe came into being!
Where The Battle For Our Minds Began
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was chaos and waste, Darkness was on the surface of the deep, and the Ruach Elohim (Spirit of God) was hovering upon the surface of the water.” (Genesis 1:1-2 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added)
The Father of Lies not only attacks God’s reputation and credibility, but he also comes after us and does his utmost to destroy our faith and trust in God! He keeps trying to get us to separate ourselves from Him, by luring us to our deaths with lies, deceptive ruses, schemes and myriads of empty enticements:
“The serpent said to the woman, “You most assuredly won’t die! For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:4-5 TLV)
Do you see what the accuser did? He managed to pry Eve’s mind and heart away from the beautiful original heart union God had personally established between Himself and the first two humans. Up to that point they were one with God and one with each other. And God, who is eternal Life, was able to keep breathing the Breath (Spirit) of His Life into them to sustain and provide everything for them. But when the Serpent managed to get her to doubt God’s sincere Love and the Self-less intent of His heart toward her and her husband, he got them to mistrust God and so they backed away and separated themselves from Him and began to look elsewhere for other sources of wellbeing and fulfillment. And, just as God had warned, as soon as they severed themselves from their Life Source, and assumed a radically independent posture, they separated themselves from Life… and Death and Delusion too over within them!
So in the following text, we’ll see how the accuser continues to try to keep all the rest of us separated from God. So let’s consider Job. He was just another human, like us. He had also inherited the fallen Sin-corrupted state of his original parents. He too was mortal; and his nature had also been damaged by Sin. Nevertheless, he had learned to believe and trust God. And God judged him to be righteous as a result. That was the situation when the book of Job begins. And soon after the fallen Sin-loving Father of Lies entered the scene, God brought His friend Job to the Accuser’s attention! Thus God was entrusting His reputation to the care of His friend Job… and Job had no idea that this was even taking place!
“Adonai said to the satan, “Did you notice my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth—a blameless and upright man, who fears God and spurns evil.”
“Then the satan responded to Adonai, saying, “Does Job fear God for nothing? (that is, does he really serve You free of charge, just for who You are?) Have you not made a hedge around him, his household, and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands and his possessions have increased in the land. But now, stretch out Your hand and strike everything he has, and he will certainly curse You to Your face!” (Job 1:8-11 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added)
So, in His Infinite Authenticity, Integrity, and Openness, to get to the Truth and reveal it to all of Creation, God appointed Satan (the Accuser) to serve as the chief prosecutor and cross-examiner for the Sin-corrupted mortally wounded humans that were originally intended to serve as God’s image and likeness. And He challenges Satan to do his best to prove his libelous slanders against God and His people so that Truth can always be brought out into the Light. In addition, He even permits His faithful people to be summoned to appear as witnesses in the cosmic court of law so Satan can make his rigorous cross-examinations and put Almighty God and His faithful people to the test. So those of us who claim to love, trust, and serve God, are being repeatedly summoned to the stand to testify and back up our claims that God can be trusted, and that we actually are His faithful and loyal Covenant friends, allies, and devoted servants.
“Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, so that He may lift you up at the appropriate time. Cast all your worries on Him, for He cares for you. Stay alert! Watch out! Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, searching for someone to devour.Stand up against him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being laid upon your brothers and sisters throughout the world. After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace—who has called you into His Eternal Glory in Messiah—will Himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you!” (1 Peter 5:6-10 TLV, Emphasis added)
So the issue becomes clearer and more sharply focused. Separation from God means Death, both physical and spiritual. But close union with Him, even amid firestorms of demonic temptations, ensures Eternal Life and a share in the Fullness of the Life contained in His Living Word! The Word is our indwelling Messiah King, Lord, Commander, and Shepherd. And He leads us through the demonic minefields and, as long as we rely on Him, He empowers and motivates us and takes us across the Finish Line, into the Inheritance we will thereafter share with Him. Thus He makes us co-heirs with His risen Son, and we remain filled with His everlasting Joy, Peace, Rest and glorious participation in God’s Perfect Fullness!
Our destiny is to be truly one with our God… shining in the blazing brilliance of Eternal Covenant Love with each other. And that piercing Light blinds the powers of Darkness… and gives living proof that their claims are vain, empty, puffs of smoke. The awesome, abiding, to-the-death, faith, hope, and love that we are destined and empowered by Holy Spirit to render to our Heavenly Father is unassailable proof that reveals that our love for Him is genuine, and that God doesn’t have to pay us off in order to persuade us to render it! No, we love our God for His own sake, purely because of who He is! All that He is and all He has done gives ample proof that He and His revelations and claims are absolutely rock solid TRUE and worthy of our undying faith and trust! He most justly and appropriately deserves the airtight faith, trust and reliance of every one of His creations.
So now can you see how important our FMM Marching Orders are? They are essential for our continued wellbeing and preparation for the times when we will be summoned to give an accounting for ourselves, and for the God we claim to serve in the Last Days Arena of Testimony!
Additional Articles in this series (available at www.follow-me-ministries.org website)