The Ascended Christ

Revelation 1:11-16 (NLT)11 It said, “Write in a book everything you see, and send it to the seven churches in the cities of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.” 12 When I turned to see who was speaking to me, I saw seven gold lampstands. 13 And standing in the middle of the lampstands was someone like the Son of Man. He was wearing a long robe with a gold sash across his chest. 14 His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow. And his eyes were like flames of fire. 15 His feet were like polished bronze refined in a furnace, and his voice thundered like mighty ocean waves. 16 He held seven stars in his right hand, and a sharp two-edged sword came from his mouth. And his face was like the sun in all its brilliance.

In the 13th verse, John uses a description sounding like verse 13 in the seventh chapter of Daniel that Jesus used to "justify" the Sanhedrin to crucify Him. Daniel had the revelation of The Triumphant Christ and now John, who had known Him as his Messiah walking in His ministry to this realm, now sees Him in His Majestic Office standing in triumphant victory as Head of the Church. John fell at His feet as though dead. This revelation of Jesus in His Ascended glory came after John had gone about ministering, as the Holy Spirit led him, his witness of the resurrection of Jesus. Nothing he had known of Jesus, either in His ministry, death or in His appearances after His resurrection, prepared him to behold the Ascended Christ. The magnitude of His glory, His holy God-majestic appearance and the sound beyond natural description of His voice, caused John to be as one dead. It was the end of any human related identification. Now he faced the eternal God triumphant in the accomplished work of redeeming and perfecting man in the image of God. I am reminded of Ezekiel and Daniel when they had revelations of God's splendor and became incapable of holding up physically to such revelation. Any religious imagery is lost when He is revealed in His glory. Moses had a physical reaction to being exposed to His glory. We need desperately to have such an awakening!

Revelation 1:17-18(NLT)17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as if I were dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid! I am the First and the Last. 18 I am the living one. I died, but look—I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave. New meaning to familiar territory! Bringing up from human understanding to spirit awareness, Jesus ministers with the same love and compassion that John is familiar. Now the realization of Who Jesus is, was and ever will be, dawned in John's heart. He will never again be able to relate to Jesus as he had once known Him. He realized the privilege he had been given to walk as one of His disciples. We see it in his first epistle. I John 1:1-4(NLT) 1 We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. 2 This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy.

In these verses in the Revelation, Jesus pronounces in covenant language His identity and position in covenant. He is ABLE to present an eternal covenant to His church. The open-ended expectation is to produce the desire of God--man in His image. His Love, His Life, His Nature and His Glory are to be shared with His Church. The response that is expected is to be exposed to, accepted and walked in of all He has provided. We will come to understand these expectations as we look at the letters to the seven churches. As we study these letters, we will see greater revelation of Whom we are responding and recognize the human tendency to fail in this response so we can be on guard and overcome that human failure in our own selves. I pray the Spirit will open our eyes and hearts to see more than we have ever seen in these passages. The Lord bless you and open your spirits to all He has reserved for this day for His Church to walk in and so minister.

NOW Revelation

Revelation 1:1-3 (NASB) 1The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John, 2who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. 3Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near.

God reveals to us in these verses His desire to reveal and share His unfolding plan for this realm with His bond-servants. Many read this book and seek to interpret it into a vision of the future. First, it is a revelation of Jesus Christ. Second, the blessing is on those who read, who hear, and who heed the words of this book. But I think the key is in the definition of the name to whom it is written: "bondslaves". What is a bondslave? Moses gave us a clear picture of what God calls a bondslave in Exodus. Exodus 21:1-6 NLT
1 “These are the regulations you must present to Israel. 2 “If you buy a Hebrew slave, he may serve for no more than six years. Set him free in the seventh year, and he will owe you nothing for his freedom. 3 If he was single when he became your slave, he shall leave single. But if he was married before he became a slave, then his wife must be freed with him. 4 “If his master gave him a wife while he was a slave and they had sons or daughters, then only the man will be free in the seventh year, but his wife and children will still belong to his master. 5 But the slave may declare, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children. I don’t want to go free.’ 6 If he does this, his master must present him before God. Then his master must take him to the door or doorpost and publicly pierce his ear with an awl. After that, the slave will serve his master for life.

Paul understood what a bondslave meant. He declared himself a bondslave of Jesus Christ many tmes in his letters. I believe a person becomes a bondslave when the revelation of the love of God comes to that person so strongly that immediately the response is love for God. I John 4:19 (NASB)We love, because He first loved us. We love God with a human love that is grateful for salvation and all the provisions we receive from Him until the revelation of the magnitude of His Love hits our spirit and we humbly bow before him in the awe of such love. Then the Holy Spirit begins to teach us to love God and our fellowman. It is a teaching process we are allowed to enter. It is beyond human capacity to love as God loves with mercy and forgiveness, with longsuffering patience and care that goes beyond human endurance, but perseveres in any circumstance. But to love God because we have the revelation of His love for us, is life changing. We begin the process of change into His image.

We begin the process of knowing His love when we give the covenant response of obedience to His Word. "Judge not, less you be judged." No criticism, no critical opinions expressed of anyone, and no turning away from anyone no matter how "different" from you they may be are words we choose to interpret our own way, but they remain expectations of your response to God's love for you. When you take the first step and begin to seek His help to respond as He desires, the Holy Spirit begins to open the Word of God to you and strengthen your desire. He leads you on the path to know beyond human capacity. He teaches you to yield to God, to bow in humility, to worship in your spirit and to walk in Jesus' footsteps. The Holy Spirit becomes your most valuable asset. Your appreciation becomes a childlike connection to a beloved teacher. You look to Him for guidance and wisdom and follow in childlike acceptance. The Holy Spirit will begin to reveal to you Who He is. He becomes the earnest of your inheritance--God in you to lead you to become a part of the dwelling place of God eternally. Such Love to give us such a destiny!

John was a bondslave. He had the humble response to God's Love. He had no control over his life, he had gone to the doorpost and received the eternal sign of committed servitude. He had willingly had his ear pierced to show his lifelong position as a love slave. Now, God gives to him the response of a revelation of Jesus Christ.

No longer would John limit his knowledge of Jesus as One Who had walked on the earth, died for him and rose from the dead and ascended to heaven. Now his worship would go beyond his gratitude for eternal salvation. His worship would be directed to the eternal glory of the exalted Lord of Lords Who seeks to exalt His Church to share in His Glory. No wonder that John could write to little children, sons and fathers, for after such a revelation of Jesus Christ, he could no longer see the church as man's efforts. The Church is God's workmanship, created to unite God's children into that fellowship in which God can dwell. One Body of which Jesus is the Head. One City in which there is no need for a temple for God dwells there. Oh, that we might have such a revelation of Jesus Christ!

Expectation Revealed

How does God reveal to us His expectation of us? I am sure your immediate response is The Word, or you might say, Jesus. Of course, however, I have found hidden depths in most everything that is obvious. People, for example, are seldom what they first appear to be when you get to know them. Another is the Scripture. How can we read it year after year and study it day after day and continually come up with a fresh revelation that is awesome? Why do scientists study so diligently for so many years and suddenly find a breakthrough? Sometimes people will ask me if I know someone. My first response is that I know of them. Reading a book written by someone does not necessarily mean you know the author. Living with a person is opportunity to know them but until you are allowed to share their thoughts and motivations, their dreams and goals, their setbacks and their reactions to them, you still do not know them. Even after 62 years of marriage to the same man, I find new depths in him.

Why does God ask us to seek Him with our whole heart so He can be found of us? Matthew 7:7-8(NLT) 7 “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. The Greek verbs used here are on going verbs and the verbs used are progressive in nature. Asking is one level but knocking is a much higher level of the same process. Hosea 6:3 (NLT) 3 Oh, that we might know the Lord! Let us press on to know him. He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn or the coming of rains in early spring.”

God first began to reveal His Nature and purpose through the Names He gave to man. When man first began to gain knowledge, names were very important and expressed something about that person. But, as names were given to infants, people had to either change their name or gain additional names. God gave a Name to a person when He wanted that person to not only relate to Him in that Name, but to reveal that relationship through his life. Moses became a different man because of his relationship to God after He gained relationship wtih the I AM.

I am beginning a new series of lessons on the names of Jesus in the book of the Revelation. I hope this will be a revelation to you personally as you begin to see the revelation of God's expectation that is revealed in the Name by which He approaches us. In the message to each church, a different Name is used to show the expectation of that church and their failure to respond. I hope you will follow these and they will mean as much to you as they have to me. Just remember, we have a responsibility to respond to the truth we have received. Continue to grow in your relationship to Him and He will lead you deeper.

What is an expectation?

That is a crazy title! Everyone knows what an expectation is. And therein lies the problem! I have been married for many years and have counseled many married people. I believe the basic problem in a marriage is the lack of communication on a deep, personal level. I think people say what they feel people want to hear and hide what they really feel because of certain fears or reluctance to share. To truly understand a covenant there has to be a sharing of the expectation of that covenant. We want to hear from the other person why they have instigated the covenant or why they responded to it. How often young couples ask each other, "Do you love me?", just because they want to hear it spoken. Communication on this level is vital for a healthy marriage.

Do we understand God's expectation? I looked intently at God's relationship with the nation Israel. It began with His covenant with Abraham and continually progressed through the prophets. God wanted a relationship with that nation. He had certain expectations from them as a nation as well as individuals. I want us to look at the corporate relationship. God expected to be revealed to the world through this nation's response to Him. He was willing to be their King and take a vital role in their protection and prosperity. In so doing, the world around them would know that Israel served a living, powerful, majestic God and so reveal the lie of mute idols. He would lead them through prophets and meet them through the priests. Their covenant response to Him through their trust and obedience to His Law would create the interaction of their covenant relationship. They would be blessed by Him and all the nations would see the evidence of a Living, Eternal God. But what happened? The nation Israel chose to be like the other nations and actually began to worship their gods! This began when Moses came down from the mountain, Sinai, with His face glowing from beholding Jehovah, the God of Israel! They chose not to have that vital relationship with Him but to be represented by Moses and let him be the go-between!

In the progressive unveiling of God's plan to achieve His purpose of creating man in His image, we see the church of the New Covenant. What did Jesus say He wanted? He asked His disciples to be witnesses of His resurrection! He wanted the world around them to know they worshipped a Living, Eternal God. They were to tarry in Jerusalem until they were filled with the same Spirit that filled Jesus as He walked among them and led them. They were to continue His ministry, doing as He had been doing with them. Their covenant response was to reveal His resurrection by yielding to the Spirit of God as He yielded. They were to continue to follow Him, now guided by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus said He was returning to a church without spot or wrinkle, a victorious church prepared as a bride to welcome her Bridegroom. Only as we, His Church, yield to the Holy Spirit to reveal the Living Lord through us, and we give to Him the covenant response to be witnesses of His Resurrection, are we going to be to the world around us what God wants us to be. We cannot desire to be like the world and reveal a Living Savior. His love, His mercy, His forgiveness and His total surrender of His will to the Father's will must live in us as our first response to the circumstances and false worship of this world. Only our total surrender to Him can produce this in us.

We have a challenge before us to give to God the Covenant response he expects from us!

The Worship That is Due His Name

Every covenant has a declared purpose (a reason for it to exist) and declared expectation of response. The person or persons initiating the covenant must be capable of carrying out their promise of protection (covering) and give assurance of the extent of its time of effectiveness. Abraham had no doubt of God's ability to carry through on a covenant's viability, but he had a great amount of disbelief on his own worthiness and ability. For the most part, this is true of all of us. This gives the enemy a weapon to use against us and is often a most effective tool. Condemnation and an inability to comprehend the love of God are two of the most common reasons for not giving to God the response He is seeking.

The enemy has used ignorance of covenant, man's progressive knowledge into "modern" thinking, and a total disregard of Who God is to draw human beings away from the knowledge of God and divert worship to himself. People might not recognize the purpose the enemy has in getting their focus on their self and their circumstances as a worship of the enemy, but that is because they do not understand worship.We seem to seek "a bottom line" for everything and to me, the bottom line for this is found in Colossians 3:17. "Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father."

This verse shows us the essence of man and the strength of covenant and our response to that covenant. Who are we? We are a spirit, we have a soul and we live in a body. We have had a legitimate entrance into this realm through the birth canal. While we are in this body we have an opportunity to enter into covenant with God and become His heir in an eternity with Him. Our spirit and our soul find expression in our body. What we do and say originate in our soul. This is why the soul must find salvation and the Scripture points out we "are being saved". Our spirit is made alive in God because of Jesus' sacrifice. (Man's spirit became separated from God in Adam's sin and so died.) But our human nature (also a result of Adam's sin) is found in our soul and that must be redeemed. As our spirit is fed by the Word and is strengthened by the "exercise" of our faith, we overcome what comes out of our nature to the saving of our soul. We do this by the Blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony. We identify with Jesus in His sacrifice for us and we reveal that identification by our speaking. When we cease speaking what is within our own soul and speak the victory of Jesus over this realm, we are speaking our salvation or our release from the bondage of Adam's sin. This is the beginning of true worship.

Luke 4 gives us a lesson in this true worship. It is of the spirit. Jesus came walking out the Way for us. His spirit was totally pure and His relationship with the Father was of total Oneness. This is our goal. Everytime something impure comes out of your soul and finds expression in your mouth or action, immediately repent and put it under the Blood and let the Word of God fill your mouth. This response is all God needs to bring change in you. The Word that shaped the creation of all that is created will shape you. The same Spirit that energized creation will energize your creation into His image. The response of praise may not only be in your mouth but sung by the choirs of heaven. This is worship!

Whatever is done on this earth has an eternal echo.

The nature of the Holy Spirit

John 14:16-20 English Standard Version (ESV)16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17even 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. 18"I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

In all five versions that I read, none of them included the Greek definite article "the" before the word "truth" in vs. 17. I mention this because it is important. Jesus said, "I am the Way, The Truth and the Life." This is the ministry of God in Jesus to this realm. The ministry of God in the Holy Spirit is energy of God. We see this most clearly in the first chapter of Genesis. The Spirit hovers over the face of the deep waiting for the Word of creation. Jesus speaks the Word defining the activity. The Spirit energizes it into being. God, The Father, pronounces it "good" and seals it into His covenant with this realm.

This same process continues in our lives. The Word comes to our spirit, the Holy Spirit energizes it into our spirit and the Father seals it to us. We are His workmanship for it is God Who is at work in you to will and to do of His good pleasure. Jesus did the works He did because He was full of the Holy Spirit. In this way, you, too, will do the works He did. Never belittle the Holy Spirit by denying Him the right to move through you to do the works God has ordained before the foundation of the earth.

The Holy Spirit is God leading you into His desire. The Nature of God, found in Jesus on this earth, is called the "fruit of the Spirit" and is the manifestation of the Spirit having control in you. The Power of God, enegizing cells of our body into health and renewal, performing miracles, motivating and leading us in His ways, is the Holy Spirit in action, doing the will of God in you. The Holy Spirit uses your tongue to speak God's Word in prophecy or in a language you did not learn, or in the interpreting of that language. The Holy Spirit in you can do anything the Father wants to accomplish on earth. The Holy Spirit links us to the Father and reveals God to us. He teaches us to worship, to live under His anointing, to walk in the ways of God and to reveal His glory.

Don't let the riches God has provided for us sit idly on the shelf. Surrender yourself to Him and let God use you to do His will.

Authority in covenant

Matthew 7:28-29 (NLT) 28 When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, 29 for he taught with real authority—quite unlike their teachers of religious law.

Jesus did not come preaching or teaching the Law and the Prophets. He came to fulfill the Covenant of the Law and take on the curse of the broken covenant in our place. He fulfilled the prophetic word of His first coming and His words of teaching not only brought new meaning to the Law but were the expectation of a New Covenant He was to cut for mankind. He lived out the Law and the expectation of those early covenants. His response to the Father was obedience that was entirely focused on the Father. He did nothing of Himself but only what He saw the Father doing and spoke only what the Father gave Him to say. When He says to us, "Follow Me", He reveals the Way to live in covenant response. Only by the Holy Spirit can we do this. However, the responsibility to clear the way for the Spirit to do this lies with us. We must overcome, by the Blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony, those agendas of our human nature and its control over us that hinder the Holy Spirit from leading us and revealing the Father to us.

Most of Jesus' words of ministry were veiled by speaking in parables. But the understanding the Spirit brings to us in these parables is clearly the expectation of God in the New Covenant. This goes against our human nature and leads us into His Nature. Trying to fulfill anything Jesus said by our human capability becomes religious. Only by the Spirit can we please God. Jesus did nothing of Himself. That should be a lesson that tops every other lesson we can learn. If Jesus, sinless and without guile, needed the Holy Spirit to reveal and maintain the Oneness with the Father on which Jesus relied, how much more do we need to carefully follow the Spirit's leading?

The ministry of the Holy Spirit is very much misunderstood and neglected. Make friends with the Holy Spirit and give Him room within to be your Teacher. Jesus had the Holy Spirit "without measure" and He waited for the Spirit's leading. Don't rush into anything without knowing that gentle pull of His guidance. Jesus gave us the Way to be led, so take advantage of what God has provided for you. He wants you to do the works He has prepared for you to do. Listen carefully to what Jesus said. John 14:12-14 (ESV) 12"Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. 13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. This translation most carefully follows the Greek. (However, the "me" in verse 14 is not there.) Why is this translation important? Because, it is covenant language. The same authority given a woman in the marriage covenant to bear her husband's name is in this verse. It is living in His Name, responding to His authority to please Him. It is not limited to the "asking" as in prayer, but is a way of life. In the Name "Jesus" is the authority given to Adam in this realm, and the authority of the whole realm of heaven to which He answered faithfully while doing the Father's will in this realm, and by His resurrection was able to pass on to us, who are otherwise subject to this realm's limitation. Jesus is giving us the right, under the New Covenant in His Blood, to move outside of any limitation, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and do the works He did, for we are under the covering of His Name.

Understanding God's expectation

I have said so many times that God only wants our covenant response. When God's Word loses its relevancy to our daily lives, our daily lives lose response. We can actually "wake up" and realize we have not thought about God or His Word for even several days and, perhaps for some, a whole week until time to go to church again. This makes going to church our "response" and everything we do is only a religious ritual. We see this in the O.T. in the example of Israel. By the time Jesus comes to light the way, the religious rulers do not even recognize God in their midst..

Jesus did not come by the "way of the Law". He did not come under man's control. God sent John the Baptist to prepare the way. What we may not recognize is the shaping of God's hand in John's life. He became a unique vessel. Early in his life, he learned to follow the Spirit's leading and to know the Voice of God. He left the prescribed, expected path his life was to take to follow God's way. For nearly 1500 years the Law had been the guiding light for Israel. The priests knew exactly what they were supposed to do. That was right and it had been Israel's protection. But it had become habit and ritual and the response was no longer to God but to their ritual. John left that ritual and Jesus came outside of it. He came fulfilling God's prophetic Word. John came proclaiming God's prophetic Word. He spoke in the desert region far from the ornate and accepted way that had become stagnant with man's control. He prepared the way for God to speak to this realm in a "different", deeper way that was liberating for man's spirit. Jesus came speaking to the spirit of man and calling to that spirit to respond. The ones who had not listened to John were not ready to respond. Luke 7:29-30(NLT) 29 When they heard this, all the people—even the tax collectors—agreed that God’s way was right, for they had been baptized by John. 30 But the Pharisees and experts in religious law rejected God’s plan for them, for they had refused John’s baptism.

Jesus' message took out the "curse" in the law that had been so familiar to Israel. In the next few blogs I want to show you words of Jesus as He expressed the expectation of the New Covenant. He did not tell them it was a new covenant, but hit at the way they held the old covenant and responded to it. I see the way He led the people forward is again the way the Spirit is leading God's people toward a deeper relationship with Him. He is uncovering our stagnant acceptance and leading us to a liberating response to Him. We must be careful to follow closely the leading of the Spirit as we are being prepared by God to be a part of the Day of the Lord.

A Meditation

Proverbs 14:4(NLT) Without oxen a stable stays clean, but you need a strong ox for a large harvest.

Last night, our pastor gave us this Scripture on which to meditate. In doing so, I decided to pass it on to you. You may come up with many things as you do so. One of the things I thought on was the Holy Spirit in this realm. There are so many ideas concerning the Holy Spirit and I have often wondered about the strong opinions that are voiced concerning Him. These strong opinions, held within, do hinder the work of the Holy Spirit. Mainly, I suppose, because these opinions deny Him His rightful place. The ministry of Jesus on this earth was God accomplishing His plan to reach His purpose. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is God acomplishing His plan to complete His purpose. The Holy Spirit is God expressed in a definite ministry to this realm. Finite man cannot define or deny this ministry. He can only deny himself. Refusing an ox in your stable only denies you of the benefit of an ox. It does not eliminate oxen.

You might deny the speaking of a tongue you do not understand and say it is not for today. Or you might even refuse to acknowledge it is the work of the Holy Spirit. But your opinion does not eliminate the reality of the power and advantage of the Holy Spirit speaking through you. You might seek to replace the Holy Spirit's guidance and ministering within your church with man's program, but you only deny yourself of the powerful life your church can know.

You can only hurt yourself if you cannot let go and let God!