Monthly Archives: June 2018

Knowing One Another by the Spirit

by Michael

Jesus baptism

From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2Cor 5:16-17, ESV2011)

How often we have heard it said, “Oh, how wonderful it would have been to be with Jesus as He walked the earth 2000 years ago!” There is one thing to remember here, though. We would not have been given the Holy Spirit by which to know Him and, like the Jews of that time, would only know Him and regard Him according to our natural man and not with spiritual eyes to see Him as His Father does. Isaiah prophesied about Him saying, “For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.” Even his own disciple, Nathaniel, said of Jesus, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?”

Jesus was born into a poor family and grew up in a backwater town in Israel. He was a lowly carpenter’s son, so in the natural He was not highly regarded. It was by the power of the Spirit that people could recognize Him for who He was,  and now we can see Him as He is by the power of His Spirit in us. Many of us have studied the Bible hoping to come to know Jesus in a closer way. Yet without divine revelation we can never know Him after the Spirit. Isaiah prophesied:

For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite. (Isa 57:15, ESV2011)

Jesus prayed:

“I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.” (Luke 10:21, ESV2011)

Jesus said that we must become as a child in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. We who have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us know Christ after the Spirit, not by our fleshly desires for Him to be what we want Him to be for us. We often hear Him speak to us and some of us have even had Him appear to us in a personal way. Yet, Paul writes that we should have this same spiritual interaction (after the spirit and not after the flesh) when it comes to knowing our fellow saints.

One time some elders in a church I was attending were putting me down to the pastor. This man was different from most pastors I had encountered in my Christian walk. He said to them, “You don’t know Michael as I do, because God has shown me his heart.” Most of us are still a “work in progress” in the hands of the Lord and it is easy for us to be critical of our fellow believers if we only know one another “according to the flesh.” But God knows our final end from the beginning (see Isaiah 46:10). That thing that He has started in us, He has promised to finish! He invites us to pray and ask Him how HE sees and regards those around us who we encounter in our daily lives.

Little David was about to be overlooked by Samuel when the prophet was sent by God to the house of Jessie to choose a new king over Israel. Samuel was about to choose one of David’s big handsome brothers instead of him. David was the youngest son but he had a heart after God that none of His big brothers had. So God said to Samuel:

“Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature… For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” (1Sam 16:7, ESV2011)

In our natural humanity we are drawn to “the beautiful people.” We tend to shun people who are dwarfed or overweight or deformed or socially inept, but God looks on their hearts and invites us to know them as HE does. How quickly we judge and shun someone for their outward appearance or their awkward personality. Or worse, we look on the outward beauty of a person and desire it instead of getting to know them after the Spirit.

Once I was on a church “worship team.” I got to be up front of everyone as we performed. We would often practice a bit before the service and one Sunday morning as I walked into the auditorium, the Lord drew my attention to a deformed young man in a wheelchair who was severely handicapped. The Lord said to me, “What you have done to the LEAST of these you have done unto me.” Right then He was giving me an opportunity to really worship Him by spending time with and showing this person His love. He got so excited when I knelt down by him and sang a simple song to him about the love of Jesus. From then on I have remembered Jesus’ words, “Verily I say unto you, Since you have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, you have done it unto me… Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

Standing on God’s Vast Heavenly Shore

by Michael

pexels-photo-103889

T. Austin-Sparks, wrote:

And what is true at the beginning is true all the way along. There is no end to Divine revelation; there is no end to our seeing. Oh, how little we have seen, how little we know, of the vast stores of Divine intention and thought and purpose and meaning. We stand and paddle on the shores of this vast ocean of God and of His purposes and meanings in our creation. How little we know about it! – and we are not going to know until we have deep heart exercise. But it is there, and it is there for us, and oh, we have got to come in this way – “so much the more.” (1)

In the above excerpt Sparks was using the story of blind Bartimeaus, who upon hearing that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by, he cried out to Him for help. The surrounding crowd tried to silence him, “but he cried the more a great deal, ‘You son of David, have mercy on me.'” His persistence was rewarded and he received his sight. God rewards those who cry out for spiritual sight, too.

Just a few days ago the Lord showed me (call it a vision or whatever) a picture of myself. I had been contemplating what Jesus said to Nathaniel about Him being the stairway to heaven upon which the angels (Grk. Angelos– messengers) were ascending and descending. Jesus later told them that He would come again in the form of His Holy Spirit who would lead them into all truth.  Divine vision and insight is a gift from God, not a product of intellectual pursuit.

In this vision I was standing under a transparent pipe that was almost the size of my head that was filled with light coming down from heaven and He told me that it was mine if I would stand still under it instead of running around doing the things that were not being done by HIS leading. Honestly, I have been living the “retired life” without seeking Him each day as to what His will for me for that day and each moment is.

Many years ago, not long after I was filled with His Spirit he gave me a dream. In that dream I was on a darkened stage and all of a sudden a spotlight from the back of the auditorium came on and there was a round spot of light in front of me that was large enough for me to step into, which I did. Soon that light went out and as I waited another spot lit up on the stage not far from me so I stepped into it. This went on until I had gone most of the way around that dark stage and finally I was in the back corner. Then it shined onto a small flight of stairs that led down to an exit door and as I pushed through it was a bright sunny day outside… no more darkness!

My life has been like that. There have been times when God’s light and presence was very pronounced and seasons (more often than not) that I was groping in spiritual darkness, waiting for Him to turn the light on again. One of those dark periods was 14 years long. It was my “dark night of the soul” or “wilderness period.” God used that to tear down many of my former suppositions (the traditions of men) of what Christianity has become and replace it with the design intent of Christ and His Father. He also got to the root of a lot of pride in me that was masking itself as “spirituality.”

Putting this all together with what I shared from brother Sparks in the above quote, I can say that he is right. “Oh how little we have seen.” How little we know about the purposes of God because we often get a little insight and we settle down and camp right there. He shines His light, but are we faithful to step into it and leave our comparative spiritual darkness behind? Apostle Paul wrote,

“If any man thinks he knows something, let him know this; he knows nothing as he ought to know.”

Dear saints, may we have a “deep heart exercise” to explore the depths and the riches that are ours in Christ Jesus and grow in our personal knowledge of Him and the Father. Amen.

(1) http://www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/000843.html