"The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, says the LORD of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, says the LORD of hosts." (Hag 2:9)
His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. (Rev 19:12-13, ESV2011)
What do you think of when you hear someone says, “the word of God?” Or they hold up a Bible for all to see at the same time, leaving you no doubt. Yes, the Bible is the word of God, but the Bible in itself alone is as dead as the extinct dodo bird. There is more to the Word than that, MUCH more! Consider this important passage,
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. (John 1:1-4, ESV2011)
To hear some Bible preachers you would think that John wrote, “In the beginning was the Bible and the Bible was with God, and the Bible was God.” No, Jesus was in the very beginning of creation and He will continue to the very end. As for the Bible as we know it, it did not come into its prominence until after the invention of the Gutenberg press where it could be printed in mass and made available to all believers. Various great men–to whom we will be forever indebted–translated the Bible into their own languages. Some of them paid for their efforts with their lives.
Many of us have found out the hard way that the Bible can be deadly in the hands of manipulative teachers and preachers who emphasize their interpretations (and self importance) more than the need of believers to yield to the leading of the Holy Spirit as their Teacher. Paul addressed this very thing.
Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming [out] from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (2Cor 3:5-6, ESV2011)
In the early 70’s when we were part of “the Jesus Movement,” before long we fell under the influence of a man with much personal charisma who taught us from the Bible. After all, he knew the Bible better than any of us, so naturally we submitted to his teaching. We eventually became his slaves, obeying his every word and desire. Eventually, what Paul said became true. Without the Spirit abiding in our teachers and within us as we read the scriptures, we became “all men most miserable.” What started out with us being led of the Spirit became controlling and demonic under the thumb of a man. What Jesus said of the Jewish leaders became true in our lives as well.
The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. (Matt 23:2-4, ESV2011)
To the unbelieving Jews He said,
And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. (John 5:37-40, ESV2011)
As I was sharing these thoughts with another believer regarding the work of the Spirit they told me how John chapter 16 had come alive like never before so I decided to read it once again. Low and behold, Jesus’ words fit right in with what I have been sharing.
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. (John 16:13-15, ESV2011)
Dear saints, don’t put your trust in everyone who quotes the scriptures especially when they say one thing and do another. Remember these words of Jesus,
But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. (Matt 23:8-12, ESV2011)
Without Jesus alive within us by His Spirit, even as we search the scriptures, we will find no Life. This is not His will for He came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. Remember, abundant life in the eye of God does not consist of the things of this world, but rather the ones that are of His kingdom.
T. Austin- Sparks wrote:
“There is a heavenly background to everything in the Word of God, and it is that heavenly background which constitutes revelation that you and I need to know. If we are only seeing the things on the surface, then we have but an earthly thing after all, and that has been the trouble with God’s people all along. The great mass of Christian people today are not brought up on the language of the Holy Ghost in the Word of God. They are brought up on what so-and-so says. The things that are written in this Book have back of them something which cannot be seen, only as the Holy Spirit illumines it. Back of all things said, there is a spiritual reality and meaning for which we need a spiritual faculty. This Book can be an absolutely closed Book, though you may read it through and through, unless the Spirit of God illumines. But once the Spirit of God begins to illumine, this Book lives, it lives from end to end.” (1)
And he that takes not his cross, and follows after me, is not worthy of me. He that finds his life shall lose it: and he that loses his life for my sake shall find it. (Matt 10:38-39, KJ2000)
Have you ever wondered what it means to take up our own cross if we are to follow Jesus? Wasn’t Him suffering and dying on the cross enough? What does it mean to “find” our lives? How about losing our carnal lives that we might find our spiritual lives as we follow Jesus? This is what our personal lives of the way of the cross is all about.
One Sunday in a church meeting after suffering much rejection at the hands of the world and its Christians, I heard the Lord say to me “Why do you keep seeking the Living among the dead?” How often I have hoped to find “the right church” where the people are living out what we read in the Book of Acts and where the voice of the Holy Spirit in them is more important to obey than the intellectual admonition of the man behind the pulpit. I read that we are all a kingdom of priests and the Spirit gives each of us as members of Christ’s body something that must be shared for the whole body to manifest the fullness of Christ. We are called to be a loving family with Jesus as our brother with us all manifesting His love for one another. This shows the world who Jesus really is.
My search has taught me the meaning of what Jesus meant when He said that to be one of His disciples, we must take up our own crosses and follow Him. So what happened to Jesus as He lived out His life obeying the voice of His Father in the leading of the Holy Spirit within Him? He told the disciples what would happen to Him for obeying His Father.
Then He charged his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ. From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. (Matt 16:20-21, KJ2000)
So as I pondered what it means to follow Jesus, I remembered what was said in the context of these words. Jesus asked them, “Who do men say that I am?” The disciples gave Him a variety of answers. Then He said,” Who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” and Jesus commended him. But it was after He told them that He was about to go up to Jerusalem and suffer and die that Peter was correcting Him saying, “Be it far from you Lord!” To this Jesus said, “I rebuke you Satan, for you desire the things of men and not the things of God.” There is an old saying, “Everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die” and the disciples were of this mindset. They still had not received the Spirit of God which empowered them to be His witnesses of HIS kingdom.
Early in my walk with the Lord I came across the following verse where Paul prayed,
That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; (Phil 3:10, KJ2000)
In my enthusiasm for Christ I also prayed this as my own prayer. Little did I know what God was leading me into when He inspired that prayer. We all want to know the resurrection power of God, but what is “The fellowship of His sufferings?” Have you ever wondered why you never fit in this world and its people or even in your own earthly family? I had a totally dysfunctional family when I was growing up. My father was an alcoholic and my parents fought all the time. So, after I came to Christ and was filled with His Spirit in 1970, I found others who also who were one with Him. For the first time I knew the love of God among others who had come to Christ in that same wonderful revival that became known as “the Jesus Movement.” Many of them also came from broken families. We were not all perfect, but the love of God that was being poured out made us one. I couldn’t stay away from these precious saints. We were experiencing the family of God.
As time went on, the enemy came in and Paul’s warning to the elders of the church at Ephesus came to pass in our lives as well,
For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn everyone night and day with tears. (Acts 20:29-31, KJ2000)
The group that I was part of fell under the spell of one speaking smooth perverse things as he drew away disciples after himself. Of coarse what he taught was well seasoned with lots of scriptures. Why does God let this happen? Why do we end up experiencing so much rejection among our fellow Christians while we just want to fit in and be part of a spiritual family? Could we be experiencing “the fellowship of HIS sufferings?”
At the close of His earthly ministry we read about Christ’s “triumphant” entry into Jerusalem riding on a donkey where the people cried out, “Hosanna to the son of David,” acknowledging that He was the Messiah. Oh, the fanfare and adulation! The disciples were thinking, “At last He is being given recognition and credit where credit is due and coming to Jerusalem to be its new King.” Some were also thinking, “I wonder what will be my position in His new earthly government? Will I be setting on His throne at His right hand?”
But Jesus blew the whole thing because He went straight to the temple and started turning over the money changers’ tables, turning the sacrificial doves and animals loose and making a mess out of the market place that had the blessing of the religious establishment. He told them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but you have made it a den of thieves (Mark 11:17, KJ2000). Jesus was calling a spade a spade. The power brokers in the that temple system were not going to allow that!
And the scribes and chief priests heard it, and sought how they might destroy him: for they feared him, because all the people were astonished at his doctrine. (Mark 11:18, KJ2000)
Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man does many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation. (John 11:47-48, KJ2000)
Therefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious: and he that believes on him shall not be confounded. Unto you therefore who believe he is precious: but unto them who are disobedient, the stone which the builders rejected, the same is made the head of the corner, And, A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them who stumble at the word, being disobedient: to which also they were appointed. (1Pet 2:6-8, KJ2000)
So, what does it mean to fellowship with Jesus in His sufferings? The more we are conformed into the image of Christ and value the things of the Spirit and seek out the people that He does, the more the enemy will attack us and the majority of these attacks will come from the religious establishment just as it was with Him! Remember, one of the accusations against Jesus was that He mingled among sinners and publicans.
After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, “Follow me.”And leaving everything, he rose and followed him. And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:27-32, ESV2011)
This is where we will enter into the fellowship of His sufferings. The more we value the things He does and seek out those who are lost, the more we will be despised by the so-called righteous ones.
Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me. (John 15:20-21, KJ2000)
The more I pondered the rejection we have suffered at that hands of religious people, the more the prophesies about Jesus became clear to me in a personal way. David prophesied,
Because for your sake I have borne reproach; shame has covered my face. I have become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother’s children. For the zeal of your house has eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached you are fallen upon me. (Ps 69:7-9, KJ2000)
Taking up my cross and following Jesus has taken on a much deeper meaning as my wife and I have had to bear the burden of the lies about us and the rejection we have found among the religious establishment. Remember, Satan was a liar and murder from the very beginning and like Jesus told Peter, “You do not know what spirit you are of” this can sometimes apply to those who persecute us without cause.
And they that had laid hold on Jesus led him away to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were assembled… Now the chief priests, and elders, and all the council, sought false witness against Jesus, to put him to death; But found none: yea, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none. At the last came two false witnesses, and said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days. (Matt 26:57-61, KJ2000)
The temple was their power base and to speak against the temple or the High Priest was considered a death sentence. Yet, Jesus knew that that whole religious system was under the judgment of God and was about to end. As the disciples marveled at the temple buildings in Jerusalem, Jesus said, “See these buildings? Not one stone will be left upon another until it is all torn down.” By 70 AD the Roman armies came in and destroyed their temple and killed all the priests. Most of my experiences in today’s church system have taught me the meaning of taking up my cross and following Jesus. I now see the wisdom of Jesus where I read,
But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. (John 2:24-25, ESV2011)
I am reminded of Jesus’ words of warning to the disciples and us.
If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they would not have sin: but now they have no cover for their sin. He that hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no other man did, they would not have sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. But this comes to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause. (John 15:18-25, KJ2000)
So, my dear fellow saints when you are rejected and falsely accused it is all part of taking up the cross He has for us that humbles us, dealing with the natural man within us and offending the proud. Have faith and remember Christ’s words.
But when they persecute you in this city, flee into another: for verily I say unto you, You shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man comes. The disciple is not above his teacher, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his teacher, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household? Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known. What I tell you in darkness, that speak in light: and what you hear in the ear, that preach upon the housetops. (Matt 10:23-27, KJ2000)
“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, (Matt 10:16-17, ESV2011)
And finally what Peter wrote:
But if you suffer for righteousness’ sake, happy are you: and, Be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good behavior in Christ. (1Pet 3:14-16, KJ2000)
Have you ever thought, “What a raw deal. We are all being punished for our sins in this less than perfect world because Adam and Eve blew it? Paul wrote about this to the saints in Rome:
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned… For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many… For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. (Rom 5:12-17, ESV2011)
T. Austin Sparks wrote:
“He that has My commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves Me…“.
How this may apply I do not know. I trust it does not seem hard; it is not meant to be hard. It is intended to bring us into possession of the secret of things… spiritual enlargement is a question of obedience, progress according to obedience. But obedience is not an enforced response to a law in pain of judgment. This is the obedience of love, consecration and devotion. Obedience is the active side of faith. Faith and obedience are two sides of one thing and cannot be divided without destroying completeness. And obedience is the proof of faith, and faith is the demand for obedience. (1)
We who have believed into Christ and were immersed into His death by baptism have also been raised into HIS newness of life in His Spirit. It was His agape love for His Father that motivated Jesus His whole life even when it meant that He would die a terrible death on the cross. For He knew that it was not only His body that was on that cross, but all the sins of fallen man down through the ages. He was the Father’s perfect sacrificial Passover Lamb for the sins of the world.
In Genesis we read of Abraham living out this act by faith with his and Sarah’s only son.
And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, ‘My father:’ and he said, ‘Here am I, my son.’ And he said, ‘Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?’ And Abraham said, ‘My son, God will provide himself a lamb…’ (Gen 22:6-8a, KJV)
The Father has always wanted many sons and daughters to love and walk with Him just as Adam did before his fall. But Adam and Eve’s fall and being cast out from the face of God in the garden was not the final end of that thought in the mind of God. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in [Grk. eis – into] him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16, ESV2011). Through the sacrifice of Jesus, He traded our eternal death for His eternal life.
It is important to know that verses in the New Testament which speak of our initial act of saving faith often miss the depth of meaning that is behind them because of poor translations. We don’t just believe in Jesus in some kind of mental ascent, but the gift of God of saving faith places us into Christ by the Holy Spirit. Even that favorite verse of evangelical Christians, John 3:16, misses that depth of what salvation is by saying we only have to believe in Him much like we might believe in a certain political figure or our football team. The gift of salvation is an intimate act that places us IN Jesus Christ and His Spirit within us teaches us all things (See 1 John 2:27). Paul wrote,
Know you not, that so many of us as were baptized into [Grk. eis] Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that just as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of [His] life. (Rom 6:3-4, KJ2000 – emphasis added)
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:20, KJ2000 – emphasis added)
But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. (Gal 3:22, KJV – emphasis added)
Even the righteousness of God which is by thefaith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe… (Rom 3:22a, KJV – emphasis added)
We who have been crucified with Christ have met the end of our old, weak, adamic natures and we now have been raised in total newness of Life. This means that we no longer have to access our Christian walks by our own weak faith that so often fails us, but we now can live by the same faith by which Jesus lived in a loving relationship with His Father! For “without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” (Heb 11:6, ESV2011 – emphasis added)
In Christ we are all called to live in HIS life, walk by HIS faith and do HIS works not our own least any man should boast. This is what Paul was talking about when he wrote,
I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through [Grk. en in] him who strengthens me. (Phil 4:12-13, ESV2011– emphasis added)
Entering into God’s Rest
...the one who enters God’s rest has himself rested from his own works, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest… (Heb 4:10-11, ISV144– emphasis added)
This is so hard to believe isn’t it? God rested on the seventh day of creation. In John chapter one we read that the Word, Jesus Christ, made all things in the beginning and without Him was nothing made that was made. He did it all by merely speaking everything into existence. And the Word of God still speaks! Jesus told the disciples,
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. (John 14:15-17, ESV2011– emphasis added)
For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait [in God’s rest] for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. (Gal 5:5-6, ESV2011– emphasis added)
Yes, faith which abides in Christ will find its outworking through God’s love in us. It is here that we can truly rest and cease from our own religious efforts. Peter often tried to do his own “good” works because they seemed like the right thing to do at the time (calling fire down from heaven on a Samaritan village, cutting off the ear of the high priest’s servant, etc.) As a result he often received a rebuke from Jesus. There are many Marthas in Christendom, but few Marys who have “chosen the better part” resting at Jesus’ feet.
Yes, saving faith works through God’s love within us from a position of emotional rest. Without His faith working in us we are only left with dead works at best.
Whoever has my commandments and keeps them [whoever hears my commands and does them], he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” (John 14:21, ESV2011)
And at the very end He prayed for us saying,
I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. (John 17:20-23, ESV2011)
Being one with the Father and the Son as Christ’s body is abiding in His rest.
Stephen was chosen by the apostles to be a servant [deacon] of the Hellenist widows in those earliest days of the Church. Of him we read, “And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit.” It also says, “And Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people” (Acts 6:8, ESV2011). Not bad for somebody that was given the task of “waiting on tables.” But there were corrupt men of the local synagogue in Jerusalem who were jealous and hated him and they brought false witnesses against him. “But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking” (Acts 6:10, ESV2011). “And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel” (Acts 6:15, ESV2011). Stephen was facing death by stoning because of the false accusations that were being spoken against him so Stephen gave them a history lesson to show them what was in their evil hearts.
But it was Solomon who built a house for him [the first temple]. Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands, as the prophet says,“‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest? Did not my hand make all these things?’“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.” (Acts 7:47-53, ESV2011)
Did they repent when they heard these things? Not hardly!
Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” (Acts 7:54-56, ESV2011)
They were experiencing demons in their hearts, but Stephen was in the presence of Jesus and the Father. You see, this is what happens when we are no longer of this world because we seek God with our whole hearts. We become so heavenly minded that we are despised by those who build temples and religious systems with their own hands and minds and call it “the church.”
An Experience I Had in Alaska
For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. (Ps 91:11-12, ESV2011)
Last week I met with eight brothers and sisters in one of their homes and we all shared what the Lord had put on our hearts that evening after we had a meal together. For some reason I shared with them what happened to me while living on a remote island off the west coast of Alaska. I had been going through depression for many months after going through a terrible and ugly church split and on top of that the economy took a dive and there was not work to be found where we lived. I finally found work in Alaska but even that job which I had been hired to do in a wilderness area of Alaska was not going well because of a union dispute.
So one day I left the camp and decided to hike around one end of the island along the seashore. Because the tide was coming in I could not go back the way came so I tried to go over the 1500 foot high ridge that was on the crest of the island. I saw a red fox climbing up this steep mountain side and thought, “I will just follow him and find a way up the mountain and back to where I came.” This was a big mistake. You see, foxes can go where a man cannot.
The little path I was on as I followed him traversed what became a cliff face and it got narrower and narrower as I climbed until it was about half as wide as one of my feet. Below me was a crevasse in which I could see huge boulders that were at the foot of the mountain where it met the Arctic ocean. If I had fallen there, no one would have ever found me. I could not go on any further so I slowly started backing up until the path until it was wide enough to turn around. At this point my foot slipped and I started to fall head over heels down this rocky cliff face, but all of a sudden my feet landed and stuck fast on a rock. All I could do was stand there and shiver from fear. Eventually, I was able to crawl on my hands and knees until I could get down to the narrow beach from where my assent started. Once there, I had to move forward through the boulders that were at the base of the mountain until I found a more gradual tundra covered slope. Walking on foot deep tundra is very exhausting, but eventually I was able to get over the ridge top and back to the camp from where I started.
As I told this story to the group a sister named Holly spoke up and said, “Michael, though you were cutoff from your family and fellow Christians and felt all alone on that remote Island, God was with you.” I had not felt His presence for years after that very decisive church split in 1982, but Holly’s words spoke deep into my heart and I finally saw that though I felt cutoff from God for almost 14 years, He had never left me and even saved my life. It was as though He had sent an angel to stop my fall and help me down off the steep mountain. As I meditated on this and was praying this morning the following verses came to mind.
For the LORD will not forsake his people; he will not abandon his heritage;
For justice will return to the righteous, and all the upright in heart will follow it.
Who rises up for me against the wicked? Who stands up for me against evildoers?
If the LORD had not been my help, my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence.
When I thought, “My foot slips,” your steadfast love, O LORD, held me up.
(Ps 94:14-18, ESV2011 – emphasis added)
My feet slipped on that steep mountain, but His steadfast love kept me from falling to my death.
After Holly spoke those words at that home meeting last week, Jesus’ presence flooded my heart. It was like Stephen being faced with the devil in those religious Jews who were about to kill him for his faithful testimony,but he didn’t see the Devil, HE SAW JESUS! Since then I have had no fear of man, only Christ’s love.
The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks justice. The law of his God is in his heart; his steps do not slip. The wicked watches for the righteous and seeks to put him to death. The LORD will not abandon him to his power or let him be condemned when he is brought to trial. (Ps 37:30-33, ESV2011 – emphasis added)
What a loving and mighty God we serve as brothers and sisters IN Christ. Amen!
People join themselves to different denominations and churches for many different reasons. But is this a manifestation of what it means to be one IN Christ? Is Christ divided? No! He is one with the Father and with all those who are in His body, members of one another without man-made walls and divisions.
For the love of Christ constrains us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they who live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who died for them, and rose again. Therefore from now on know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet from now on know we him no more. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2Cor 5:14-17, KJ2000)
The Word of God, Jesus Christ, by His Spirit is active in those who are His to separate the grip of our souls that seek to have preeminence over our spirits.
For the WORD of God is living, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in HIS sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of HIM with whom we have to do. (Heb 4:12-13, KJ2000)
Many contribute the above passage to the power of Bible reading, but the Bible alone can not accomplish all that this passage is speaking of. Only the living Word of God can. Many Christians in the world are still living according to their own fleshly, soulish wills, intellects and emotions (their souls). There is no division of soul and spirit in them. Their old man has not passed away. The true believer has been crucified with Christ and risen again in newness of life, the Life of Christ. The problem arises after our spirit has been made alive IN Christ and our old soulish nature does not want to play second fiddle to Him. Paul wrote about this in the book of Romans.
For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwells no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that which I would not, it is no more I that does it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. (Rom 7:18-25, KJ2000)
Paul went on to write about the solution to this dilemma.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death… For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. (Rom 8:1-9, KJ2000)
The problem in Christendom is not being members of the right church organization. The problem is that many Christians today are not experiencing first-hand the Life of Christ within because they have yet to be filled with His Spirit. If we don’t have the Spirit of Christ within, we are not His nor are we yet members of His body, obeying Him as our Head.
Once we are alive IN Christ we see all of mankind differently than we did before. Like the blind man said after Jesus prayed for him a second time, “Now I see all men clearly” instead of seeing them like he did at first–as “trees walking.” We are given spiritual sight when we are made alive by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It is in this state that we cease to know men and women after the flesh, but see them as the Spirit of God sees them.
But after faith is come… you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal 3:25-28, KJ2000 – emphasis added)
What is faith? When I was a young Catholic I was told that because I was baptized by a priest I was now a member of “the Faith.” Faith is not a man-made institution, nor is it a mere mindset that we conjure up by “positive thinking.” Faith is a divine gift that comes into us from the Father that enables us to draw near to Him in a loving relationship and see things the way He does. It is here that He floods us with His love. In Him we see everyone and everything as Jesus does.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Heb 11:1, KJ2000)
Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he has consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; And having a high priest over the house of God; Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. (Heb 10:19-22, KJ2000)
For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Eph 2:8-9, KJ2000)
Faith is a miracle. With hearts filled with His faith, we can boldly enter into His presence as His children. Here we can pray according to His will and know that He hears us and will answer.
In Jesus’ final prayer on earth we read:
Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also who shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that you have sent me. (John 17:20-21, KJ2000)
It is here in divine oneness with the Father and the Son that we have our testimony before the world as Christ’s living body, directed by Him as our Head. Of the newly born-from-above church of the first century the Spirit in them made all the difference and their witness had power, “…These that have turned the world upside down are come here also.”(Acts 17:6, KJ2000)
The True Church of Christ Is a Living Organism
But [we] speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, who is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body being fitly joined together and knit together by that which every joint supplies, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, makes increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. (Eph 4:15-16, KJ2000)
It is by being joined together in His Spirit as a living organism that we find the supply of Christ, just as any member of our mortal bodies gets its supply. If you cut off a member of your own body it dies and can no longer function neither does the rest of your body function as it once did. We need every member of His body to function in the fullness of Christ (see 1 Corinthians 12:12-19). The effective working of the measure of every part makes for the growth of His body. Satan seeks to divide us and destroy Christ’s body and negate its witness to a dying world. Jesus said, “The thief comes not, but to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10, KJ2000)
Bind Us Together, Lord
Bind Us Together
With Cords That Cannot Be Broken
Bind Us Together, Lord
Bind Us Together
Bind Us Together In Love
There Is Only One God,
There Is Only One King
There Is Only One Body,
That Is Why We Sing.
Bind Us Together, Lord
Bind Us Together
With Cords That Cannot Be Broken
Bind Us Together, Lord
Bind Us Together
Bind Us Together In Love
Made For The Glory Of God,
Purchased By His Precious Son;
Born With The Right To Be Clean,
For Jesus The Victory Has Won.
Bind Us Together, Lord
Bind Us Together
With Cords That Cannot Be Broken
Bind Us Together, Lord
Bind Us Together
Bind Us Together In Love
You Are The Family Of God,
You Are The Promise Divine;
You Are God’s Chosen Desire,
You Are The Glorious New Wine.
Bind Us Together, Lord
Bind Us Together
With Cords That Cannot Be Broken
Bind Us Together, Lord
Bind Us Together
Bind Us Together In Love
What is the “world”? Is this word kosmos in the New Testament Greek speaking of the earth? Not most of the time; rather it is speaking of the systems on this orb that are ruled over by “the prince of this world” and Jesus said this about it:
“…for the prince of this world comes, and has nothing in me. But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go from here.” (John 14:30-31, KJ2000)
Oh yes, dear Christian, “let us rise up and go” from this world system, its emotions, its drives and its ways of thinking and acting! A brother sent me this quote recently,
“Christianity began in Palestine as an experience, it moved to Greece and became a philosophy, it moved to Italy and became an institution, it moved to Europe and became a culture, and it moved to America and became a business! We’ve left the experience [of Holy Spirit guided lives] long behind.” [1]
So true! Speaking for the opposite of this in a positive light, T. Austin- Sparks wrote:
You only need to read John to see how unattached everything is, how everything is lifted clean out of this world, and everything is bound up with the fact that Christ is in heaven, and that the Lord’s people are here, but not here; here, but not known; in the world, but not of it; a mystery people in this world so far as the world is concerned… unrecognized, unknown. And yet by that very means and for that very reason, the most potent force that this universe knows: the spiritual, hidden, secret people of God in this earth. To take hold of Christianity and mold it, and shape it, and systematize it, and crystallize it, and make it some mighty movement here; with its roots here, with all its associations such as man can see, appreciate and approve; to register itself upon the ordinary consciousness of this world as being something; all of that is contrary to the Word of God and is contrary to spiritual life and spiritual power. Christ is in heaven, and we are lifted out, translated, seated together with Him in the heavenlies. Our present purpose in this world is testimony only, by which others will be taken out of the nations, a people for His name. – T. Austin-Sparks [2]
It seems that every attack of the enemy is an effort to bring our focus and thoughts away from God and HIS kingdom and down to this world and the system that rules over it. Think about our daily existence. Aren’t we consumed with the cares and pleasures of this life? How much of our thoughts are focused on Jesus who sits at the right hand of God and His Spirit who abides in us? Even if we have thoughts and works that are by Him, how long until the enemy redirects those thoughts and works down to this worldly level? Isn’t that what Satan was trying to do when Jesus was being tempted in the wilderness?
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. ”But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’” Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him. (Matt 4:1-11, ESV2011)
Jesus had just been Baptized by John the baptizer and empowered with the Holy Spirit, symbolized by the dove at His baptism that had just taken place, and the Spirit lead Him into the wilderness. The same thing happened to Paul after His encounter with the Living Christ on the road to Damascus. He spent the following three years in the Damascus wilderness. In our new found zeal and excitement after becoming Spirit filled, we want to run right out and do exploits “for God.” Yet the most important thing Jesus (yes even He had to learn obedience through the things He suffered) and Paul learned was that there is no good thing in our flesh, and as Jesus said, “apart from Me you can do NOTHING!”
In Christ’s temptation Satan was trying to get Him to do anything, absolutely ANYTHING apart from hearing it from His Father, but He was not moved from His place IN the Father. This temptation was constantly put before Him all through the gospel accounts, even by His disciples. Satan knows that if we are bent on doing God’s work, he must pull that work down to an earthly level. So what happens? We are first tempted to ask men for the support of “our ministry” so we can do the work and still eat and have a roof over our heads, right? Young aspiring people who want to go out and preach for God are encouraged to go around to the churches and get pledges from people to support their work as missionaries or find a pulpit to preach from where the people will support them. “And the tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” How many of us seek First the kingdom of God and HIS righteousness and [let] all these other things be added unto us?
Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Oh yes! We must go to the holy city and do our works there! The people of that city cry out, “So you are a Christian? What church are you going to? Who is your pastor? Who is your covering?” The city of Christendom is there waiting with its embrace that squeezes the life of the Spirit out of you until you are conformed into their image and not the image of Christ. There is room for lives ruled by the Spirit there.
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’”
I remember a “holy man” of renown in our area whom I met with one time in my spiritual youth. After I told Him what God put on my heart he said, “You have a good message, but if you would just tone it down and soften it a bit you would find more Christian platforms from which to get your message out.” Yes, the devil took me to that high mountain, the mountain of Christendom, and tempted me to tailor what God had put in me so that I could have all their kingdoms open to me. I refused and as a result it is like Sparks wrote.
“Everything is lifted clean out of this world, and everything is bound up with the fact that Christ is in heaven, and that the Lord’s people are here, but not here; here, but not known; in the world, but not of it; a mystery people in this world so far as the world is concerned… unrecognized, unknown. And yet by that very means and for that very reason, the most potent force that this universe knows: the spiritual, hidden, secret people of God in this earth.”
This is why Jesus said even of Himself, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown.” (Luke 4:24, ESV2011)
In Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho, a town filled with churches and church Christians, I am totally unknown, especially among all the pastors and potentates of these churches or their people. Yet, as I wait on the leading of the Lord it is His “little ones” that He puts me in touch with at a restaurant here or a grocery store there in my daily life, even on the street in front of my house as when I talked to a young man working on the sewer line one day. God shows up with His divine appointments as we keep our eyes upon HIS kingdom more often that we realize. God is not about pulpits. Jesus didn’t spent all His time in synagogues or in the temple. In fact, more than once the leaders and the mob wanted to kill Him because He spoke the truth.
No, if we really do seek HIS kingdom and not the kingdoms of men or try to establish our own “ministry” kingdom, we will be “known, yet unknown” just as Paul said. In America everything is about grandeur-ism! Bigger is better. “I want it now and I want it biggy sized!” It’s all about “the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life.” And that is the mindset we come into the kingdom of God with. This is why the flesh has to be nailed to the cross of Christ. The way of the cross is all about decrease that He might increase in and through us.The carnal man seeks after a sign, something tangible to the five senses. He wants something he can see and put his hands on and possess, and so did the leaders of the Jews. They wanted Him to establish a worldly kingdom that they could be part of and rule over.
Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” (Luke 17:20-21, ESV2011)
Dear saints, the kingdom of God is not found in bricks and mortar or in Christian City. It is being built in seclusion in the midst of us, in our hearts as we seek FIRST HIS Kingdom. Peter wrote,
As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious,you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1Pet 2:4-5, ESV2011)
Dear readers, may you be found standing IN Him alone in all your lives then you will have done all to stand against the temptations of the devil.
The following is a letter by T. Austin-Sparks written in the early 1950’s. If what he wrote about back then was true, how much truer it must be 70 years later as we watch society crumble, the church turn into a business instead of the relational family of God with Jesus as its only Head and evil arise all around us filling the void caused by its internal decay? The salt has lost its saltiness and is being trodden under the feet of men because it is so earth bound and without a heavenly vision or ability to stem the tide of Satan’s cohorts. What Sparks wrote below that happened to Judaism in Israel is surely coming down the pike for Christendom. It already has in many parts of the world with the onslaught of Islam and Communism. Remember, what is seen is temporary and will be shaken so that those things that are not seen and eternal will be all that remains – the true spiritual house of God IN Christ made of living stones.
BELOVED OF GOD,
With this last issue of the paper for this year (and it will not reach many of you until very near the end of the year) I feel a strong desire and urge to look back and on with you. For myself, it has been a very full year. So far as movements are concerned, the fullest year of my life. I have travelled by air alone twenty-six thousand miles, and quite a bit in other ways. This has involved many conferences, meetings, etc. so that there has been a very great deal given out. To this must be added all the ministries and labours of my colleagues and fellow-workers. This is not mentioned just as news or information, although it will show that “a great and effectual door” is opened to us. But I mention this because it will indicate that we are not spending our time up in some corner, imagining things, and ministering to hypothetical situations. We are in immediate and direct touch with the spiritual and actual situation as represented by a very large area. We have no hesitation, though much sorrow, in saying that the situation spiritually is very, very sad and deplorable. It is our well-considered and deeply-rooted conviction that some great and drastic judgment from heaven of Christendom is absolutely imperative. We are equally convinced that it has commenced and is moving obdurately and inflexibly across the world. Just as the Assyrians were the instrument under the sovereignty of God to sift Israel in the last dispensation, so it is most likely that the power moving over the earth today – a combination of Satanic forces with human instruments – is going to test the whole of Christendom as to its real spiritual measure. This may very well be the counterpart of what took place is the year 70 A.D. when Judaism was shaken to its foundations and fell. The Scriptures quite definitely foretell a tribulation coming upon “the whole world to try them that are upon the earth”. This is something much more than Jewry.
The words quoted from the prophet seem yet to be capable of a fuller-ranged fulfilment than even the above-mentioned ‘shaking’. “Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also the heavens”. (Hebrews 12:26,27).
There is no doubt that the Letter to the Hebrews was a supreme effort to get Christian believers detached from an earthly form of Christianity, and attached to Christ in heaven. That effort had as one of its strong reasons the fact that a great shaking was foretold, foreseen, and imminent. That shaking was to be in two parts, an earlier and a latter; an entirely earthly, and later an earthly and heavenly combined. The effect of the shaking, and, indeed, the purpose of it, would be to test everything as to abiding values. The former and earthly shaking was Jewish, but it had all the elements in principle and type of the latter.
In the destruction of Jerusalem – toward which the Letter pointed – the whole earth was shaken so far as Jewry was concerned. The Temple, as the focal point of that whole world, crashed even with the ground. The priesthood, as gathered up in the high-priestly order, passed away. The temple service ended, and the nation ceased to be an integrated and unified people.
These were things capable of being removed. And yet how long they had stood! What forces they had withstood! What confidence there was that they could never cease to be! How assured they were that God was so bound up with it all that it could never be destroyed and cease to be! How they fought and clung to it to the last terrible extremity! But it was of no avail. God was no longer wanting the framework and earthly system, which had taken so much room, and energy, and expenditure, before the really spiritual was reached. The percentage of spiritual value was so small after all, and spiritual interests lay so far along the labyrinthine ways of religious machinery and tradition, that it was not worth while. The means to the end was not immediate, that is, there was far too big a distance between the means and the end. There was no immediate touch with the real Divine requirement, and there was far too much that was intermediate. And so it had to go, and, rather than preserve it, God Himself shook it.
What remained after the shaking was just that, and that only, which was Christ in a spiritual and heavenly way: Christ in heaven, and here by His Spirit, the gathering point, or occasion of assembling; Christ in heaven the High Priest and Sacrifice; the order of God’s house here a purely spiritual and heavenly one – not formal, arranged, imposed, imitated, or material. Order grows out of life, and if that life is Divine, and unchecked, Divine order will be spontaneous.
The amazing thing is how blind and unbelieving Christian people are, and therefore how unwilling to seek to know the way of the ‘unshakable’. In a very small part of our lifetime the phrase ‘world evangelization’ (from one part to another) has been rendered unusable, and all that mighty machine is having to be revised. Countries which were until quite recently the greatest spheres of ‘missionary’ activity are now closed as such. There is a feverish race to try to move ahead of the flood in other countries which are already encircled and undermined. In those overrun countries nothing but a true and living knowledge of the Lord is stemming the tide. The framework and organized structure of Christianity is gone. Deeply, stealthily, and irresistibly this sinister work is paving the way for swift and paralysing movements in all the rest of the world, as much in the West as in the East. The result will be the same everywhere, little as it may seem possible because of long traditions and strong establishments. It seems a terrible thing, even to think, but as we have touched so very much of what is called ‘Christianity’ we are bound to believe that, because vast numbers who call themselves Christian are in an utterly false position, and the system itself has become so largely an earthly, traditional, formal, and unspiritual thing, this world-wide shaking is quite necessary and will be eventually justified. If we were writing a treatise, we could show that what is called ‘Christianity’ is really the greatest enemy of Christ.
It will be seen that it is not a matter of substituting another and better system for an old and poor or bad one. Some people seem to think that it is all or largely a matter of the order, technique, and form, and if we returned to the ‘New Testament’ form or order of churches all would be well. The fact is that, while certain things characterized the New Testament churches, the New Testament does not give us a complete pattern according to which churches are to be set up or formed! There is no blue-print for churches in the New Testament, and to try to form New Testament churches is only to create another system which may be as legal, sectarian and dead as others. Churches, like the Church, are organisms which spring out of life, which life itself springs out of the Cross of Christ wrought into the very being of believers. Unless believers are crucified people, there can be no true expression of the Church.
This brings us to our particular point. What is the pressing imperative in view of this oncoming flood of testing, which has already carried away very many of those who were called Christian, and even evangelical Christians?
Surely there is only one answer:- On the one hand, a ministry which has as its substance and object the “rooting and grounding”, the establishing, the building up, of believers, the real increase of “the measure of Christ”. This must get behind evangelism, so that the work is deep, not superficial; enduring, not transient; intrinsic, not general! On the other hand, believers must really take stock of their Christianity. Is it just a tradition, an assumption, an external system, the thing which is common acceptance – more or less? Or is it really “by revelation of Jesus Christ” in the heart? A real walk with God, and a growing knowledge of Christ, a life in the Spirit? God has said it: the things which can be shaken will be. What have we got that, being unshakable, will remain? [1]
Then this message from the Lord came to Solomon:“Concerning this Temple that you’re building, if you live your life according to my statutes, carry out my ordinances, and keep all of my commands, and live according to them, then I will do what I promised to your father David. I will reside among the Israelis and will never abandon my people Israel.” (1Kgs 6:11-13, ISV – emphasis added)
Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; my covenant which they broke, although I was a husband unto them, says the LORD: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, says the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, says the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. (Jer 31:31-34, KJ2000 – emphasis added)
In the last few days my heart was disturbed by news reports coming from the middle-east where people are dying as they try to leave Afghanistan. Why did the American administration pull the army and marines out first? I am a veteran of the Vietnam war and I see so many similarities to how that war ended with millions who were loyal to the American cause, “to save the world from communism,” were trapped in a ruthless communist takeover facing death or imprisonment. When this happened back then, all I could think of was “All those millions of lives wasted for nothing!” It was personal for me because I knew some of the men who died over there. After the fall of Saigon and months of being depressed, I finally came into my Father’s rest, believing that this was all part of what had to take place so that I would quit seeking the political answers the kingdoms of this world provide and turn to Christ for everything needed in my life.
This time around, after being pulled down into that mess in the middle-east and feeling anger and depression set in, through the prayer of myself and others I was set free before that crisis was over. It is here in this victory that I am able to see what Isaiah was prophesying about in a personal way.
Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. (Isa 60:1-2, ESV2011)
Susanne Schuberth recently posted a blog article [1] that focused on the following verses,
“In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” (John 14:20 ESV)
“In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” (John 16: 23-24 ESV)
“In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.” (John 16:26-27 ESV)
She wrote somethings in that article that got my attention.
“Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” Can it be that simple? You and I ask God something, whether it is a prayer or a question that bothered us for a long time already, we receive an answer, our prayer is answered shortly and therefore our joy increases with every additional request answered. While our joy is increasing, we somehow automatically turn away from our old ways of thinking and reasoning since we realize that in God’s person alone ALL questions that could ever be asked are answered. Furthermore, He provides everything we might ever need because He is a loving Father! His presence is so breathtaking to our own spirit that our whole life on earth turns into a shadow of sorts, compared with His wonderful light, life, and love that keep drawing us further and further upward…
I commented the following on her blog,
Susanne, thank you for sharing those wonderful verses from Jesus’ words [and what you learned from them]. I had to read them again and again for they are deep. I was reading T. A. Sparks and He was pointing out that the Father is ours to have a personal relationship with if we are IN Christ as the Father is in Him. We who are living and walking in the Spirit are one with Him in all that we ask and do. His will is our will. It is no longer living like we are earthly orphans left behind to be alone because Jesus went to be with the Father. This is why Jesus called the Holy Spirit our Comforter. To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to live lives inside the Holy of Holies in Heaven [which is Christ Himself].
In Hebrews we read:
Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus ,by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having a great priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart in fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our body washed with pure water: (Heb 10:19-22, ERV)
In That Day You Will Ask In My Name…
Jesus said in the verses above that we should ask anything of the Father in His name. What does this mean? Some teach that we can ask for anything we want and it will be ours?. This reminds me of the story of Aladdin who found a magic lamp with a genie inside. All he had to do was rub the lamp and out popped the genie saying, “Yes, Master, what can I do for you?” I’m sorry, but James had something to say about this kind of carnal thinking in the church.
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? … You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you… (Jas 4:1-8, ESV2011)
God does not feed our flesh with all its worldly desires. To do so would be to inhibit our spiritual growth IN Christ. So often I have heard church people add on to the end of their requests from God, “And we ask all these thing in Jesus’ mighty name, Amen!” To ask anything in His name, J-E-S-U-S, is not some kind of magic incantation that God has to obey! He is not our private genie! To pray this way is all so shallow and worldly, bordering on superstition. I continued to comment the following on Susanne’s blog:
As I meditated on this I could see that we first have to be IN Christ in all that that relationship means. To be “IN Jesus’ name” is to be in His very person-hood and thus in ALL that HE is in our relationship with the Father. Here all that the Father wishes for Him and for us is the same for we are one with them. It is not to use “magic” words that get God to move according to our own fleshly desires. All three of the verses [from John’s gospel] you shared are speaking of a believer’s relationship with the Father IN Christ in which we are “keeping that channel open” by being quick to listen to the Spirit and obey the will of the Father and confessing our faults when we miss it. Jesus’ words in this verse come to mind and they say it all,
“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things [the needs of our lives as human beings] will be added to you.” (Matt 6:33, ESV2011)
It is a matter having the mind of Christ operating within us and our lives and wants redirected accordingly. With God it is all about us living according to HIS good pleasure (living in HIS kingdom and HIS righteousness), not the pleasures of our old natures. This is the very attitude of Jesus Himself (both here on earth and in heaven) the one who lives IN HIS name.
Speaking of what the phrase “in that day” means, someone pointed out that God does not tell time with a clock or calendar in view, but rather He goes so by eras. The previous spiritual era was the era of Moses, Israel and the Law. Some say that the era of His grace came in with the advent of Jesus Christ.
Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines Era – a fixed point in time from which a series of years is reckoned.
When Jesus said “In that day…” The day He is speaking of is the one in God’s time table we are living in at present. It started when the Holy Spirit was sent to dwell in those who believed in Him on the day of Pentecost. Before that day the Spirit would move on different vessels of God, but up until that time He never llved in them and this makes all the difference with the level of intimacy we enjoy with our Father and Jesus today. We who believe in Christ and have His Spirit within us we are IN that day.
Growing IN Christ As We Learn of Him
As I thought on this issue of the Father answering all our questions as they come up, it occurred to me that the He could not answer all that is entailed in each of our questions in one fell swoop. Even answering one question about His kingdom spread over time would take longer than our time here on earth. He sees from His infinite perspective and we have to grow into each portion He shows us before the next facet of the answer can be given us. That growth requires experience and sometimes trials and suffering. Paul wrote:
…But we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Rom 5:3-5, ESV2011)
The natural man learns by accumulating knowledge and so often pride wells up with it, but when God teaches us, it requires a change in our hearts. This is why it is such a delusion to think that we can get a degree in theology and a title to go with it so we can have it all figured out and go out and teach others. As Paul said, “If any man thinks he knows something let him know this, he knows nothing at all as he should.” We have all known teenagers that we have tried to talk with and no matter what the subject is they think they already know all about it. When we think we know all about things, we quit learning and become unteachable.
As we grow in Christ we come to understand that the call of God is an upward call and that growth in the Spirit requires not only spiritual knowledge, but being released from the downward pull of this world. Until that release has been worked in us, we will never know what it means to dwell in heavenly places in Christ (see Ephesians 2:4-7). Being lead into all truth is a life changing process that should start in our lifetimes. What we may have learned from reading a verse in the Bible ten years ago is not what He is showing us from the same verse today. As we grow into a thing He shows us, we are no longer the same person with the same perspective of God because His truths take hold in us and change us and we grow to know Him more perfectly. I believe Isiah prophesied of this very thing.
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given… and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor… of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end… (Isa 9:6-7, ESV2011)
To grow into our heavenly place IN Christ is to welcome the increase of His governing influence in our lives. And living in His perfect will for us is to know His wonderful peace within. When He answers a question, especially when the answer involves the increase of HIS kingdom, it becomes a seed that keeps growing inside us. This is why Paul, after many years of being taught by Jesus Christ was able to write from his heart, “Not that I have yet attained or were already perfected, but I press on for the HIGH calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Yes, Paul was given a “high calling” right from his encounter with Jesus on the Damascus road. In fact, after many years he met with the other apostles who were still in Jerusalem and he as able to say afterwards, “…they added nothing to me.” Nobody knew Jesus after the Spirit like Paul. He knew that the Jesus who had confronted him was so big that in his lifetime he would never be able to encompass that Infinite Being and all that it means to be IN Christ.
Susanne Schuberth wrote in the comment section of her blog article:
“I [have] asked God things about my personal life, about trials, and similar things about which I was not so sure I had heard from Him rightly before. When He allows these questions to be raised in His presence, then He answers them as it was the Holy Spirit who nudged us to ask. Moreover, God’s presence is so calming that our questions seem to disappear most of the time. That reminds me of the following Scripture, “Be still, and know that I am God.” (Ps 46:10 ESV)
This is a profound discovery. I think that these two states of being–“in His presence” and “In His name,”– are referring to the same thing. When we are abiding in His rest, our panicky, restless and questioning natures are calmed to the point we can hear our Father’s heart for us. It is here we commune with Him in the quietness of our souls, Spirit to spirit. David wrote of this very thing.
Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor my eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me. Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child. (Ps 131:1-2, AKJV)
Years ago a pastor asked me how I was doing and I answered, “Not too bad under the circumstances.” To this he replied, “What are you doing under there?” We spend way too much of our lives living under what is being thrown at us by Satan and the world. Imagine the spiritual reality that Paul and Barnabas must have been dwelling in. After being flogged and chained to a prison wall in total darkness, they were able to sing praises to the living God. In that moment of heart felt love for Jesus, their praise literally brought the house down and broke the chains that bound them! Now, THAT is living above one’s circumstances! When Paul was imprisoned by the Emperor Nero in Rome, he was able to write, “Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ…” He might have been a prisoner of Nero as the world saw it, but he was in heavenly places IN Christ Jesus. It is in this place of resting in His loving presence that all those things that were so important in our daily lives seem to melt away and by faith they are placed under HIS authority. It is here that we find perfect faith, joy, peace and perfect love that casts out all our fears. It is here that we can arise and shine and have the glory of the Lord rising upon us.
Dear Father, please do whatever it takes in our lives to bring us into your heavenly reality IN Christ Jesus. Amen.
We are familiar with the saying, “It is the darkest just before the dawn.” This is also a spiritual truth. Look at the account of creation.
And the earth was without form [chaos], and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light:” and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. (Gen 1:2-5, KJ2000 – emphasis added)
The above passage is rich with spiritual meaning. God is all about light because He is the Father of it. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (Jas 1:17, KJ2000). The story of creation begins with darkness but ends with light. Notice how it starts with spiritual darkness, but ends with His spiritual light shining forth from His people.
Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. (Isa 60:1-2, ESV2011)
One might read the above verses about creation and think that it is talking about an absence of photons that made all this darkness. Yet, the sources of light as we know them–the sun, moon and stars–were not created until the fourth day! The darkness we read about here is caused by a lack of spiritual light, the presence of God’s Spirit, yet the earth begins in darkness. (I believe that this darkness and chaos on the earth was the result of the battle between the archangel Michael and his angels and Lucifer and those seduced by him when Satan was cast down to the earth [see Revelation 12:7-9]). Into this situation God said, “Let there be light” and there was light and God saw that it was good.” The word good in a spiritual context is always descriptive of God and His will. When Jesus was called “Good Master” by a Pharisee, He stopped him in his tracks by saying, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” So you see when God calls something “good,” it is because He is in it. He is our source of Light, and without His light we dwell in darkness. Also notice that God counts time differently than we do. He starts out with the evening and darkness. Our days start at midnight. They start in darkness and end in darkness. Not so with God. So we read in the creation account, “And the evening and the morning were the first day.” His Light always “gets the final word” with God. He and those who are His are always victorious in anything He does. Darkness never prevails if we abide in Him instead of getting sucked in by the Prince of Darkness.
When we come to Christ, it’s because our Father has said, “Let there be Light” It’s the life of Christ that gives us light. John wrote about Jesus saying,
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. (John 1:1-4, KJV – emphasis added)
Paul wrote,
But all things, when their true nature is seen, are made manifest by His light: because everything which is made clear is light. For this reason he says, “Be awake, you who are sleeping, and come up from among the dead, and Christ will be your light.” (Eph 5:13-14, BBE)
We were once dead in our sins, but now we have been made alive IN Christ. We started out our lives in spiritual darkness and God set out to reclaim us from the domain of the devil. He is the father of darkness and Adam and Eve chose to rebel against God by following the incitements of Satan against God’s command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The serpent said to Eve, “For God knows that if you eat of this tree you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.” He was offering them a short cut to be gods without being in submission to their Creator. But Eve saw that the tree was pleasant to look upon, that it was good to eat and it would make her wise, so she ate of its fruit and gave it to Adam and he did eat and immediately they saw that they were naked. Guilt entered into their lives for the first time. This was the first fruit of this new knowledge that they acquired. So they hid themselves from God and mankind has been in darkness ever since.
But God had a plan in mind to circumvent Satan’s ploy from the beginning. He would send His Son in the form of a man to die for our sins in our place. And not only that, He would put His Spirit within us and write His laws upon our new hearts (See Jerimiah 31:32 and Ezekiel 11:19). Paul wrote,
Therefore as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. (Rom 5:18-19, KJ2000)
At some point in our life’s journey we discover that we are bankrupt and can’t live our life without making mess of it and we call out to Him for help. And by His grace we become born again and His Spirit is placed within us. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, but that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
This “evening and morning” in our lives is our first day in His Spirit realm. But His creation process continues on in us. The light of God within us is forever taking new ground and the increase of His government within us never ends. God said in the beginning, “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness.” He created Adam and Eve in His own image, but the likeness part is a process and needs our cooperation if we are to be made like Christ. The Apostle John wrote,
Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. (1John 3:2-3, ESV2011)
And how do we go about purifying ourselves when we are so helpless? Paul gave us the answer.
Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. (Rom 6:13, ESV2011)
Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word. (2Thess 2:16-17, ESV2011)
It is all done by Jesus Christ Himself and our Father. All we can do is yield to them while they do the work, This is what it means to walk by faith and to enter into His seventh day rest.
Why Must We Go Through a Spiritual Wilderness?
At some point by His grace, God has to do a deeper work in us than was done at the point when we became born again. We start out thinking (or are told), now that we are born again, that we need to join a church. Never mind that according to the scriptures all who are born from above and have the Spirit within them ARE the Church of God! Soon, we find one and as we attend that church the teachings of the pastor become our all. But the scripture says that Christ is our All in all. The problem with all this is knowledge puffs us up and makes us proud (see 1 Corinthians 8:1). Then pride starts to grow within us and God has to resist the proud, even as He gives grace to the humble. Darkness starts to cast its shadow over us once again because Jesus warned,
But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. (Matt 23:8-10, ESV2011)
David knew that God was His all when he wrote, “The LORD is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” But our church leaders insist that we need human shepherds and teachers even though God has put His Spirit within us. Men can be a help in our walk as long as they don’t take the place of Jesus in our lives, but all too often this is what happens. In our immaturity we sit in our padded nests with mouths open, expecting the holy man up front to give us all we need. Yet, Jesus told us that the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, would lead us into all truth not man. About this usurping of the Holy Spirit in our lives, Apostle John warned,
I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. But the anointing [the Holy Spirit] that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him. (1John 2:26-27, ESV2011)
In order to do this deeper work in us He has to dislodge our need for human teachers and all that we have learned that was not from Him. These things block His light from going deeper within our hearts. I think it was A. W. Tozer that said, “God seems to be more interested in un-teaching us than filling our minds with new information.”
It is here that our Father has to take drastic action. Dislodging false teachings of men from our souls is especially difficult when we think they were put there by God. He has to put us back in a time of darkness where no new input comes into our souls from the outside. During this time we are cut off from all Christian fellowship. Even reading the Bible seems blah to us. Our soul is starved of any new input that could puff us up. But during this time He teaches us in a way that our flesh cannot capitalize on it. He subliminally gives us His spiritual food that we can draw from later. If He were to do anything overt in us, our flesh would seize it, get puffed up and try to minister to others once again The flesh would even try and package up what He is teaching us so it can be sold! All that old self centered motivation has to die. He cuts us off from all external support and we find ourselves in what has been called a wilderness experience or the dark night of the soul. As we try to search out what has happened to us, we soon find that the Bible is full of God’s people who had to dwell in a time of wilderness and being a prisoner in their lives; Moses, David, Elijah, John the Baptist, many of the prophets, Paul of Tarsus, the Apostle John and even Jesus had to suffer being cut off from the land of the living and their own people for a season. I never heard this truth from any pulpit ministry because it is strange to most of them. Like Jesus said, “Your time is always, but my time is not yet come.” No, God has to teach each of us these things by His Spirit if we are to go on in Christ and not just spend our lives in a lukewarm Laodicean church. Isaiah spoke of this spiritual condition among those who fear the Lord,
Who is among you that fears the LORD, that obeys the voice of his servant, that walks in darkness, and has no light? let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay on his God. (Isa 50:10, AKJV)
There are many “evenings and mornings” in our spiritual lives in Christ because our God is like a refiner’s fire. His gold (the righteousness of Christ) within us is heated and let cool seven times in the fire to remove all the soulish human dross that mingles with it. But the first firing we go through is the worst because it is totally strange to us and we think that Father has cast us out and forsaken us. Like David and Jesus on the cross, we cry out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!” But somehow the faith of Christ within us sustains us through this terrible time of testing. T. Austin-Sparks wrote,
“And when they had sung a hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives. Then said Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended in me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. But after I am raised up, I will go before you into Galilee” (Matt. 26:30-32).
Here the Mount is the place of the eclipse of all the earthly. It is rather remarkable and impressive how one thing moves into another like this. It is as though you are in one continuous, unbroken movement; the Mount of Olives bringing out in clear revelation this thing which has to go [Jesus had just spoken the words found in Matthew ch. 24 and told them that the whole temple system would be destroyed and eventually much of the earth and its people before the end comes], and the Mount of Olives again showing how it is going [to be], and bringing them right into the eclipse of all that. They were still clinging, still holding on for something here. Now it is shown that that is going into midnight, going to be blotted out, and so far as they are tied up with it, they are going to be blotted out, they will go with it if they are bound up with it, and their only hope is that they come out on to other ground altogether.
What a terrific thing is the breaking of the earthly and the natural things! Just look at these men when this word was fulfilled – all made to stumble, offended because of Him, scattered abroad, disintegrated in every way; personally in themselves, broken to pieces, shattered; among themselves, scattered, no one trusting the other’s report. Nobody is being trusted. Yes, a real scattering in every way. What a shattering thing it is to be delivered from the old, earthly attachment, even in the things of God. Your world goes to pieces. When God brings you into view of His real spiritual order of things, the real nature of His work in this dispensation, your world eclipses, disintegrates, and you go into the dark, you do not know where you are. You have lost one world and so far you are not [gone] right through into the other. It is midnight. [1]
This pretty well describes what I had to go through starting in May of 1980 when Mount Saint Helens blew up and we were downwind and covered with ash. But that was only the start of Him blowing away all that I thought was of Him in my life, because my wonderful church fellowship disintegrated shortly thereafter and I was soon cut off on every side, even financially.
Just a few hours earlier before Jesus let them know that all they related to as the kingdom of God would be done away with, these disciples wanted to take Jesus on a tour of the temple buildings to show Him their wonders, but to this Jesus replied, “You see all these things? I tell you not one stone will be left upon another until it is all thrown down.” Before the last one of them would die, Jerusalem and the temple would be destroyed and raised to the ground by the Roman army. Their religious beliefs still had a hold on them. They were still enamored with the things of this world, earthy things like “my ministry” in His new earthly government arguing over who would sit on His right and who would sit on His left. And on top of all that Jesus, their Messiah, told them He was leaving them and not setting up an earthly kingdom at all, but that God’s kingdom was spiritual and was within them and it would not come with outward observation. In fact He prophesied against that bloody city that they worshiped in saying,
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” (Matt 23:37-39, ESV2011)
It was no different for me. After some time He made it clear to me that I would never be a platform speaker in front of the masses in Christendom as I had envisioned. Like Jesus said about a seed, unless it falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone, but if it does it will bring forth much fruit. That which falls into the ground and dies is not the same thing that springs forth. I never dreamed that He would have me write what He had been showing me since 1980. In the natural, writing and the English language were my weakest subject in school and He would not have it any other way. All that book learning and any degrees I had accumulated were worthless in His sight along with most of what I had learned sitting at the feet of Christian teachers. It only got in the way. Not one stone would be left upon another in my life. It all had to go so there could be a NEW Easter rising in me. If you want to read my testimony about this period of my life it can be found here.[2]
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (Rom 6:4, ESV2011)
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 5:16-18, ESV2011)
And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new…” (Rev 21:5, ESV2011)
In our modern industrial culture, we seldom have to wait for much of anything. Everything is about speed and efficiency. If we want carrots we don’t need to go out and plant carrot seeds and wait two or more months to pick them. We just go down to the corner market and buy some carrots. When we want our prepared meal done fast, we go to a fast food restaurant and order it. Five minutes later we are eating! Years ago we would turn on our TV sets and then have to wait for a minute or more for the tubes to warm up before we had a picture and sound, but now with flat screens the picture comes on in less than four seconds. In the past a couple who wanted to get married waited a minimum of six months during what was called the “engagement period,” while they got to know one another better before they married. Here in my town, two people can meet in a tavern, go down to the city hall the next morning, fill out the papers, plop down a filing fee, walk across the street to the Hitching Post with two witnesses and the deed is done. They will even provide the two witnesses! But there is a saying, “The best things in life come to those who wait.” There is more wisdom to that than we might know.
In Isaiah there is a verse about waiting that most of us have read many times. We would all like to soar like an eagle, run and not become weary, etc… but waiting… not so much.
But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. (Isa 40:31, KJV)
Several years ago I was seeking the Lord about what it means to “wait upon” Him. It turned out to be much deeper than the KJV translators revealed. I understood that it is dangerous to get an idea or read something in the Bible, claim it, and run out and try to make it happen on my own. I have known Christians in the so-called “Faith Movement” that post pictures of material possessions on their refrigerator doors and pray to get them every time they walk by. You know that teaching, “Name it and claim it.” “Blab it and grab it.” I soon learned that praying and waiting on God to make things happen could be a test to see if He would do what He had promised. Or I could be like Abraham, the “father of faith,” who got tired of waiting for his wife to get pregnant, went to bed with Sarah’s slave girl, and got a son. This Ishmael was born 13 years before God moved to finally heal Sarah’s womb and Isaac, the child of promise, was born. During this time the slave girl mocked Sarah, and when Isaac was still a baby Ishmael persecuted him. We know how all that ended up. As my dear wife has often said, “Act in haste, repent at leisure.”
As I was looking up Isaiah 40:31, knowing that there was more here than meets the eye, I was amazed at what I found. The Hebrew word translated “wait” meant so much more than it does in our English language.
In the above photo we see shocks of grain bound together with ropes made of twisted stalks the way grain was harvested in biblical times.
So what is happening to us while we wait on God? He makes us wait so we will grow up spiritually until we are bound together with Him in His will in the matter we pray about. More importantly, that we are bound together in the love of the Father and the Son that we might be one in them even as they are one (see John 17:20-23). Only those who are bound together in His love are truly free, because Satan is constantly tempting us to be bound to his will. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.” (John 8:36, KJ2000)
The Father and Jesus not only want to bind us together with them, but the same is true of two of His dear saints that are bound together in the love of Christ. Why? In Ecclesiastes we read, “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their work. And if one has a fall, the other will give him a hand; but unhappy is the man who is by himself, because he has no helper” (Eccl 4:9-10, BBE). And this, “And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken” (Eccl 4:12, ESV2011). It’s no wonder Jesus sent out the disciples by twos with His authority to heal, cast out demons, do miracles and announce, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” This “threefold cord” is not easily assailed by the devil.
Almost eight years ago Susanne Schuberth [1] shared the following quote from T. Austin-Sparks on our blog and its truth is more evident to me today than ever.
Two saints, simple, humble and unimportant in this world, but really meeting together in the Spirit, can be a functioning instrument of Him to whom has been committed all authority in heaven and on earth. With them all these old limitations can be dismissed and they can at one moment touch all the ends of the earth. Do you believe that? That is really the meaning of our glorying in Christ risen. It has to be something more than emotion, and more than glorious doctrine; yes, more than a truth to which we give some assent…. If it is true that we are one with a risen, enthroned Lord, it ought to have tremendous repercussions. May it be so! [2]
Our enemy loves to pick-off those in ministry who think they have everything in themselves that is needed to minister to God’s people. We see those who have unquestioned authority in the churches fall one after another, because in their own minds they are above listening to the council of others. Once I had seen the danger of being alone I started praying that He would send another believer that I could walk together with in His light. He has been progressively answering this prayer. When we are joined together by Jesus the other person often sees a pitfall that we can’t and when it comes to spiritual revelation, they often have another piece of the picture that we haven’t seen. When both parts are allowed to be joined we see the whole. I have found that God had been working in both lives to bring them to a place where He could fit them together. Once again we see His timing at work. These things cannot be rushed because it is a spiritual house He is building, not one made with human hands.
Another thing I discovered about Isaiah 40:31 was the meaning of the word “renew” in “shall renew their strength.” With a superficial reading of this, one might conclude that if we wait on Him, God will renew our existing strength and make us stronger. Not! This word in the Hebrew is:
H2498 חָלַף chalaph (chaw-laf’) v. Often translated to change or be changed.
God is not interested in renewing our old natural strength that is often demonstrated by our strong self-will. He is after a NEW creation IN Christ! Paul understood this. He wrote that when he was weak that Christ was made perfect within him. Consider this verse:
Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come! (2Cor 5:17, AMP)
If we wait for the entwining of ourselves by the Spirit with the Father and the Son, we will truly be made into NEW creations. If we get ahead of His leading and try to accomplish His work by our own might and abilities (that of our natural man; the emotions, will and intellect), He will let us run ourselves into the ground by exhaustion trying to get things done. Remember Jesus’ words, “The flesh profits nothing” and “Apart from me you can do nothing.”
So, dear saints, it is in His will that we mount up with wings as eagles and walk and not faint from that of trying to do His work without Him, but this will only happens if our old nature of relying on self is broken and we have come to rely totally on Him. Our Father wants many sons and daughters who exist by His strength for His glory just as Jesus did here on earth for He only did the works He saw His Father doing (see John 10:37&38). We can only do His works from a position of spiritual rest, believing that He will accomplish what HE wills once we get out of the way.
So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his [own] works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. (see Heb 4:9-11, ESV2011)
Yes, if we do not abide in His rest but run ahead of Him or do His work by our own strength, it is considered by Him as disobedience. As Paul wrote, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.”
A Wilderness Voice 