The Livng One

I woke this morning with my spirit understanding a work of Satan.  I had to search my mind for a word that described it and I saw a picture of a baby with a pacifier.  I knew that was the description I needed.  Jesus described it in Matthew 25 as being asleep.  It is a condition common in this water-realm in which we live.  We are constantly being lulled into passivity and drawn away from intensity.  We reason that this is normal and that we cannot live with continual intense emotion or focus.  The Life in eternity--the spirit realm--is vibrant and reality.  The Holy Spirit seeks to lead us to a connection with this Life and we know it in flashes of revelation, joy, peace and love that are far above our normal knowledge or response.  John saw the intensity of color, sound and perception when he was in the spirit described in the first chapter of The Revelation.  He had never seen Jesus as he saw Him then, not even as the resurrected Jesus appearing to them before His ascension.  Revelation 1:17-18 (NASB) ¹⁷ When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, ¹⁸ and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.

If we are aware, we see warnings of this passivity in many places.  Doctors repeatedly say, "Exercise," teachers repeatedly emphasize study, churches stress prayer and Bible reading, signs warn drivers of road conditions, curves and schools to alert them, and in the Bible prophets give warnings of future events.  But history shows that mankind loses out to the passivity that robs them of the grasp of what they once had.  The nation Israel lost the glory of connection to God that obedience to His Law gave them.  The Church has lost the power that connection by the Holy Spirit to the Head of the Church gave her.  The United States has a Constitution that was forged by men who had known bondage and fought for freedom and knew the danger of losing that freedom.  It was not given to regulate the citizens' behavior but the government that could enslave them.  It is for freedom that Jesus has set us free from sin and it is our passivity toward that freedom that can enslave us to sin again.

How does a pacifier work?  By satisfying a normal need in us by a deceptive substitute.  How was Israel wooed away from God to idol worship.  God put in man the need to worship.  We have the choice of what we worship.  Satan makes the false attractive by putting it "in our face".  If we see something that is "valued" by the "successful", it becomes attractive.  Seeing it constantly praised, we begin to evaluate it and soon we begin to "need" it.  Babies are born with the instinct to suck.  If hungry, they begin to make a sucking motion.  A pacifier will cause a temporary contentment.  Our spirit has a hunger.  Natural food can be a pacifier, a game, a book, an activity or any distraction can be a pacifier to that spiritual hunger.  If denied long enough, the spirit becomes lukewarm toward God and content with the pacifier.

God's Way to Triumph

Revelation 1:8-10 (NIV) ⁸ “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”  ⁹ I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.
To know what God has entrusted to us, we have to contemplate what Jesus earned for us in His obedience, and His connection to the Father in total trust.  We celebrate His birth and rejoice in His coming to us.  But we pass over the complete vulnerability to which He subjected Himself  for our sake.  He not only took on our likeness, He took on our vulnerability.  We are born in weakness, totally in need of someone else to care for us.  God provides this in the marriage covenant and He honors the covenant response we give to Him when we love, care and guide the ones He entrusts to our care.  He put Joseph and Mary in that place for Jesus.  Joseph responded by quickly obeying each prompting of God.  Even after Jesus, at the age of twelve, began obeying His Father, He submitted to the care and instruction of His earthly father and mother.

There is a patient endurance that is required that we reach into Jesus to be overcomers.  The Way to the triumph of God is revealed in Jesus.  Because of the enemy of God, Satan, we are vulnerable in this realm to the hatred he has for the followers of Jesus.  Persecution has not yet been as open and as deadly in America as in other countries, but the door is opening for that.  Jesus is the model of 'man in God's image' that we follow.  John 15:18-21(NASB) ¹⁸ “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. ¹⁹ If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. ²⁰ Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. ²¹ But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me. 

We are not only vulnerable to the hatred of Satan, but to our own adamic nature.  We are enhanced in bondage to it by our focus.  If this age, with all of its 'gadgets' and 'modern thinking', is our desire, we will be looking and desiring what is offered.  The closer we draw to the Lord, the more the world fades in its fascination.  The 'things' that do not satisfy are no contest when "we taste and see that the Lord is good".

Another vulnerability is our idea of success.  Jesus faced these vulnerabilities when Satan tempted Him in His wilderness experience.  If we take our concept of success from the world, we will be in bondage to that.  In I Corinthians 4:2, Paul gives us the requirement for success in our Christian progress.  ² Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.   Our opinions and ideals must be a part of our surrender when we yield our will to see His accomplished.  Our small kingdom must be swallowed in His Kingdom.  It is the way of life revealed in the "Lord's prayer" that we recite. 

The Revelation reveals the glory and dominion of His Kingdom.  We see the glory of the majestic, victorious King Who walked out the Way to this triumph.  We follow Him.

Covenant Response

For so many years I have 'just read' the last book, The Revelation, and found the blessing God gives in reading it.  I have never tried to 'understand', but, just read it.  Amazingly, two things began to become clear.  God, moving steadily toward the goal of covenant with man, reaches His goal.  Satan, in opposition to God, moves man toward his goal.  Man, determinedly or unknowingly giving a covenant response, moves in the direction he faces.  In the wisdom of God, covenant is the means by which God governs this realm and how He will achieve His purpose of making "man in Our image".  (Genesis 1:26)  We have the privilege of responding to God in covenant.  All through history God has given a covenant under which mankind could live and respond.  Until the Abrahamic covenant, all mankind was under the covenant of marriage given to Adam.  God established the order by the authority given to the man establishing his family and building his city.  God responded to mankind under the covenant response to the head of the family.  It was how cities were built and teaching, learning and order were established.  Satan's opposition to this was homosexuality, rebellion, murder, and chaos.  Noah was still living and teaching, fulfilling his role as a patriarch under God's blessing, when Abraham was born in Seth's line.   Abraham knew and understood the pattern of life that pleased God and worshipped Him.  To him, God committed the responsibility of establishing God's covenant for a nation.  Abraham believed God and was faithful to the covenant God gave him.  Jesus was not only born under this covenant, but His genealogy is traced to Adam.  All mankind is under the covenant Jesus made with God for us.  All mankind is under covenant.  To ignore or refuse God's covenants is separation from God.  Satan knows this.  As the thief he is, he has robbed people of the understanding of covenant and, in so doing, has robbed the earth of knowing and moving in the glory of giving a covenant response.   But, God has given to His church the gift of the Holy Spirit to teach and guide her into the glory He has ordained to be her portion.

In The Revelation, we see God at work in those who look to Him and give that covenant response of love, obedience and trust.  We see the 'knee-jerk' response of the nations to Satan's hatred of God.  We see the end result of both Satan's and God's purpose.  Through the entire book, it is revealed to us, the privilege we have of giving to God the response of our nature yielding to His nature, and with patience and trust, moving with Him to His triumph.

Identity - Jesus

Revelation 1:1-6 (NASB) 1 The 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, ² who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. ³ Blessed 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.  ⁴ John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, ⁵ and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood

John saw his beloved Messiah in a new way.  Exalted and majestic in His eternal Kingdom, yet connected by His right to rule the kingdoms of the earth, for He is the faithful witness.  It is important that we know to that which He was the faithful witness.  The kingdoms of this earth do not know, and it is to them that we are to be witnesses.  Jesus was the faithful witness of His Father while walking on this earth in our likeness.  He witnessed to His nature.  Hebrews 1:1-4 (PHILLIPS)  ^1-4 God, who gave our forefathers many different glimpses of the truth in the words of the prophets, has now, at the end of the present age, given us the truth in the Son. Through the Son God made the whole universe, and to the Son he has ordained that all creation shall ultimately belong. This Son, radiance of the glory of God, flawless expression of the nature of God, himself the upholding principle of all that is, effected in person the reconciliation between God and man and then took his seat at the right hand of the majesty on high—thus proving himself, by the more glorious name that he has won, far greater than all the angels of God.  He was filled with the fullness of God.  He revealed the purpose of God to make man in God's image.   His command to "Follow Me!" was more than a walking where He led.  It is to know Him, become one with His nature, His purpose, and His Life.  It is to emulate His obedience and His connection with the Father.  We can only do this by the gift God has given us in the Holy Spirit's ministry into us.  By the Holy Spirit's control, we can be emptied of our human nature and take on His Nature.  We can love with His Love, forgive, be merciful, compassionate, kind and obedient to Him.  We can be an extension of Him, doing His will and carrying out His work.  I John 4:16-18 (Phillips) ^16b-18 God is love, and the man whose life is lived in love does, in fact, live in God, and God does, in fact, live in him. So our love for him grows more and more, filling us with complete confidence for the day when he shall judge all men—for we realise that our life in this world is actually his life lived in us. Love contains no fear—indeed fully-developed love expels every particle of fear, for fear always contains some of the torture of feeling guilty. This means that the man who lives in fear has not yet had his love perfected. 

We give up our "rights to our own will" and become bondslaves of our Lord.  It is the beginning of walking where He leads and becoming the witness to this world of God's Love and purpose.

Identity

I have found that questions are better for me than answers.  The wrong answer can lead me astray but a question will keep me searching.  Recently, I have seen a question, printed or verbal, repeated several times.  The asking may be intended to demean, but the question is not new.  "Who is Jesus?"  The first verse in The Revelation also raises another question in my mind, "Who am I?"  Revelation 1:1 (NIV)  The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,   (NASB)  The 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, and (HCSB)  The revelation of Jesus Christ that God gave Him to show His slaves what must quickly take place. He sent it and signified it through His angel to His slave John,
I give you three translations because of two words. 'Servant, bondservant, or slave?'  Most translations say servant.  A few use bondservant.  I believe the Holman use of slave is to try to reveal that there is a deeper meaning than servant.  Each of these has a very different meaning.  A servant serves for a wage.  A slave must serve for he is not his own.  A bondslave or bondservant has made a choice to give his life to his master.  He relinquishes all rights to his own control and surrenders it to his master.  Deuteronomy 15:12-17 (NIV) ¹² If any of your people—Hebrew men or women—sell themselves to you and serve you six years, in the seventh year you must let them go free. ¹³ And when you release them, do not send them away empty-handed. ¹⁴ Supply them liberally from your flock, your threshing floor and your winepress. Give to them as the Lord your God has blessed you. ¹⁵ Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you. That is why I give you this command today.  ¹⁶ But if your servant says to you, “I do not want to leave you,” because he loves you and your family and is well off with you, ¹⁷ then take an awl and push it through his earlobe into the door, and he will become your servant for life. Do the same for your female servant.  John saw himself as a bondservant of Jesus, His Lord and Master. 

The second word is 'take place soon, or quickly take place.'  I believe it is 'quickly take place.'  The happenings follow quickly once judgment has been reached.  Much of the happenings are warnings of judgment to come, for God in His mercy, gives warnings so that people have the opportunity to repent.  These warnings do not follow as quickly as actual judgment, for God's judgment is swift and final.  The reign of our King over the nations will reveal and teach righteousness.  That does not mean that all will respond, but the final judgment will end all unrighteousness.

The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, is a key phrase to us, for it reveals those to whom the revelation is given.  This does not necessarily mean the understanding of the events is given, but the revelation of Jesus Christ in that which happens will be given to those who have chosen to willingly give their lives and the control over to the Lord of their lives.  The blessing is on those who read, and does not require understanding.  You will receive insight to the holiness, awesome Presence and power of Almighty God as you read this book so many ignore.  The Revelation is not so much a map for the endtime but to reveal the realm of Spirit and our response to God.  There is more revealed in the Old Testament concerning this time.  John received a glimpse of the Ascended Christ.  He had known Him in the flesh, in His crucifixion, and in His resurrected body.  Now he caught a glimpse of the glorified Jesus Who rules and reigns.

The Power of Yielding, Jeremiah

Jeremiah 1:13-19 (NLT) ¹³ Then the Lord spoke to me again and asked, “What do you see now?”

And I replied, “I see a pot of boiling water, spilling from the north.” ¹⁴ “Yes,” the Lord said, “for terror from the north will boil out on the people of this land. ¹⁵ Listen! I am calling the armies of the kingdoms of the north to come to Jerusalem. I, the Lord, have spoken!  “They will set their thrones at the gates of the city.  They will attack its walls and all the other towns of Judah.  ¹⁶ I will pronounce judgment on my people for all their evil—for deserting me and burning incense to other gods.  Yes, they worship idols made with their own hands!  ¹⁷ “Get up and prepare for action.  Go out and tell them everything I tell you to say.  Do not be afraid of them, or I will make you look foolish in front of them.  ¹⁸ For see, today I have made you strong like a fortified city that cannot be captured, like an iron pillar or a bronze wall.  You will stand against the whole land—the kings, officials, priests, and people of Judah.  ¹⁹ They will fight you, but they will fail.  For I am with you, and I will take care of you.  I, the Lord, have spoken!” 

In a former blog I spoke of Joshua, who saw the judgment of God against Israel for not believing His Word and desiring to return to their bondage.  He stood in a place where he had to be courageous to follow in obedience the Word of the Lord.  In this passage we see Jeremiah receiving a Word that demands him to be courageous to be obedient.  Recently, I was with my husband as he and a group of veterans were being questioned about their service in WWII.  The question was asked by a young lady, "Were you afraid?"  They all said they were on the night before they were to go into battle, but after the battle started they did not have time to be afraid.  They just had to press on.  I thought of our Christian experience.  We have not been tested in persecution like some countries or as the early Christians.  But we are undoubtedly going to see God's judgment on our land for its many sins.  In studying Paul's admonition to the Ephesians concerning the need to stand strong and put on the full armor of God to fight the assignment of Satan to destroy the work of God, I realize this is a timely message for American Christians.  We are seeing a swift move away from God in this country.  But we are also seeing an awakening that has never been before.  More courage to speak out and to stand firm will be exhibited than we have ever seen.  But the basic nature of armor, while to protect you, is of an offensive nature rather than defensive.  We do not see armor mounted unless there is an understanding that to stand firm, we must engage the enemy.  But we are not fighting flesh and blood.  Man as such is not our enemy.  It is Satan who has the assignment to destroy.  He will use others as his instruments but we have to be able to discern the enemy in this battle.

What will win this battle?  We look to Jesus for our example.  In His life in this realm, He did the will of the Father and won many followers as well as enemies who wanted to kill Him.  He lived revealing the Father.  He lived a perfect life, fulfilling the Law and the prophets, not retaliating nor defending but speaking what the Father said and doing what the Father did.  He will return to a perfect church without spot or wrinkle or any blemish, a Bride made ready for her Beloved.  This is how we will win the Victory.  By putting aside our natural desires and responses and allowing the Holy Spirit to work the nature of Jesus in us.  By having the courage to stand against all opposition and let the Holy Spirit give us the words to say, to reveal the nature of God in all His love, mercy, forgiveness and grace, we will be moving into Satan's territory to reveal his nature and assignment

The Power of Separation

II Corinthians 6:17 (ESV) ¹⁶ What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ¹⁷ Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, ¹⁸ and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”  (These 3 references are from Leviticus 26:12, Jeremiah 32:38, and Ezekiel 37:27)

It was the Abrahamic Covenant that Abraham's descendants would be enslaved in Egypt and that God would bring them out.  Man can enslave, but God brings them out!  Human nature can enslave us, but God has provided the way to set us free.  The crucifixion of Jesus, the shedding of His Blood, has set us free.  The application of the Blood is the force that brings us to separation.  Recently, in speaking of death, we identified the death God pronounced if Adam ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, as the separation from God.  Man lives in death.  Jesus set us free by providing the way.  When God was preparing the Israelites to leave Egypt, He told them to kill a lamb for a household and apply the blood on the doorposts of their house.  The death Angel would pass over that house.  The lamb provided the way but the man had to apply the blood for deliverance.  My husband brought it closer to us when he said, 'The only way we can die to self is to be separated from it.'  It is easier to be separated from a country than from our Adamic nature.  The Israelites came out of Egypt but not their enslaved mentality.  It took a wilderness journey to prepare Israel to enter God's promise.  How much wandering in desolation will it take for us to be separated from our desire for this realm's promise to appropriate God's promise?  Many have made heaven just a glorified improvement of this realm.   In reality, if we have not been separated from the desires of this realm, our soul will go into eternity with those same desires.  If you have a habit that you must satisfy, that craving will not die when you are separated from your body.  It will be a torment to you in eternity.  We have this "wilderness journey" to give us the opportunity to desire to be closer to His Presence, trust Him, and follow His leading.  Joshua, as a young man, chose to stay close to the Tent of Meeting.  He and Caleb entered into God's Promise.

What is God's desire for us?  That we be in the image of God.  Jesus came in the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of  His Being.  The Holy Spirit is at work in us to shape us into the image of Jesus, changing our nature to be as His.  II Corinthians 10:5-6 (NKJV) ⁵ casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, ⁶ and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.  We are the ones responsible for yielding to the Holy Spirit, to obey God's Word and to stay close to His Presence.  He has promised He will never leave us, and He stands ready to set us free.

The Fear of the Lord

Proverbs 1:7 (NLT) ⁷ Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.  I woke this morning with this Scripture and the  drive to hear more from the Spirit concerning the fear of the Lord.  I was led to Isaiah 11:1-2 (ESV) There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.  ² And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.  A very interesting thing I found as I traced "fear of the Lord" back to the Hebrew root word.  This fear is not the same as our understanding of the word.  The Hebrew uses a different word for that type of fear.  The 'fear of the Lord' stems from the root word for sheepskin.

John 10:14-16  (NASB) ¹⁴ I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, ¹⁵ even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. ¹⁶ I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.  John 10:22-28 ²² At that time the Feast of the Dedication took place at Jerusalem; ²³ it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon. ²⁴ The Jews then gathered around Him, and were saying to Him, “How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.” ²⁵ Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father’s name, these testify of Me. ²⁶ But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep. ²⁷ My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; ²⁸ and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.

Becoming His sheep opens the door to true knowledge.  Because He laid down His life for us, our spirit is born into His Family, and His death, resurrection and ascension gives us the opportunity to be filled with the Holy Spirit.  His anointing teaches and guides us to follow Jesus.  The same Spirit that filled Jesus.  "The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord."  You do not understand the fear of the Lord until you become a sheep!

This world feeds at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  They do not have the Spirit of knowledge!  I have often said, 'you do not eat of both trees at the same time.  It is why Adam and Eve were driven from the garden.  You feed on the tree of Life--Jesus--by the Holy Spirit Who lives in you.'  You separate your self from the fears of this world, the anxiety and desires of the flesh nature by identifying with the life and victory of Jesus.  We follow our Shepherd.

The Power of Yielding

In feeding on His Word and looking to Jesus, my spirit has learned some valuable truths.  God's ways are revealed to us in His Word and in the experiences we encounter in following Jesus.  God interacts through His covenants as man responds.  Our responses are very important to our understanding.  Obedience and trust are two very big responses that develop true submission in our spirit.  Our minds and emotions get in the way of both obedience and trust.  It takes great dependence on God to do either.  Our dependence on God is built by faith in His ability, His character, and His Nature of love.  It is also built by the strength of our response to adore, to appreciate, and our determination to go all the way with Him and to ignore every "exit sign" to go our own way.

My own experience has been determined by the example of others, my faith that God is faithful and His Word is the light to my path and that Jesus was sent by God to show us, and to be, the way to be in God's image.  His Spirit has been my Guide, my Teacher and the strength to follow and stay in the Way.  That said, let us look at some of the examples of people who lived in, what I think, were very troubling and even frightening times.

Joshua had followed Moses and Aaron very carefully and faithfully.  We see no hesitation in his following their direction.  But suddenly, he stands now in the position that has been emptied by the death of Moses, and he has to hear from God to lead the people on into possessing the land promised to them.  His training and his own positioning himself to stay close to the center of God's revealed Presence, gave him confidence in his hearing God.  (I find the most prevalent problem people express to me is the question of hearing from God and how do they know it is God.)  The word of God to Joshua is very much a necessary word to us today.  Joshua 1:5-9 (NASB) ⁵ No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you. ⁶ Be strong and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. ⁷ Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go. ⁸ This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. ⁹ Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

When you face life's discouraging, frightening, audacious circumstances, you have a choice.  Be anxious, be discouraged, be intimidated or take your stand, be strong and very courageous.  One translation says, "courage then, play the man!" (Knox Bible) We have our end of the covenant to hold up--we respond to His strength!  Jesus faced the scorn of man, the hatred and the pain of their persecution with courage and strength of purpose.  We follow the Lamb!

Going Forward

I have spoken often of the progressive action of God, always moving forward to His goal, man in His image.  But what is the appearance of the next step?  We know the Word speaks of the Bride and we know the next covenant will be sealed at the wedding supper of the Lamb.  But what are we to expect in these days in which we live?  It is something I have pondered and searched the Scriptures.  I see a repeating pattern in the actions and emotions of those who have lived in similar times--that period between the fulfilling of one covenant to be prepared for the very "loud" time of "hands on" when God moves to bring a people forward to another covenant.  I am thankful to God for allowing me to live in such a time.  I would not have been happy in those "silent" times in history.  I love seeing the Hand of God moving His people into position for His next great action.  I hope I am alive to see the glorious day of the Lord, but I know, if not, I will be in that cloud of witnesses who have watched the unfolding of this progress.

One thing I see preceeds such a time is the growing hunger and searching for personal awareness a meeting with God can bring.  This can be a painful time for I see a human effort gets people sidetracked.  Saul in his desire to please God jumped in to kill Christians because he saw the covenant he was under as the final word of God and was "in danger" by those Christians.  When he finally was taught by The Spirit, Paul gave us some of the most profound teaching on "going on to know the Lord".  But Abram had the same difficulty in his understanding God's Word to him.  He was under the covenant that God had given Adam and knew the anointing that rested on the patriarchs to cover their families and teach them of God's ways, but he had no son.  Though God had promised to give him a son, Abraham sought to please God by producing Ishmael by Hagar.  Both of these men knew the pain of their own actions, but God still accomplished His will.

I see the hunger growing and we have seen some painful human action as some have tried to generate action by their own efforts.  But God is faithful.  We will be that church without spot or wrinkle, a Bride made ready for her Beloved.  But we may not look like a Bride.  We may look more like Joel's army!  But our appearance will not be shaped by our efforts but by The Spirit.  The glow of glory will not be painted on, it will be the real evidence of time spent in the presence of our King, learning the humility of prostating before the throne of His Majesty, being imprinted with His Nature.

Who Is Building?

Luke 14:27-30 (NASB) ²⁷ Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. ²⁸ For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? ²⁹ Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, ³⁰ saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’  This portion of Scripture keeps coming back to me, and as I meditate on it, the emphasis changes and deepens. 

Jesus came to cut the covenant with the Father that would open a deeper relationship with Him at a time when Israel was not ruled by a king but by the religious rulers under Caesar.  These were so immersed in the ritual, or works, of the Law they ignored the purpose of the Law was to bring them to God, Who promised them the Messiah and a better covenant.  By ignoring the Voice of the Spirit, they saw only the work of keeping the Law.  By ignoring the Voice of the Spirit, we see only the condemnation of not measuring up because of not recognizing God's provision of a greater salvation.  God is not asking us to "build an access to God" as men did when they built the tower of Babel.  God built the bridge to Him by sending His Son.  Jesus IS the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Psalm 127:1(NASB)  Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman keeps awake in vain.  When we do not see the completed work of Jesus, we fail to see the door that is opened to us.  The children of Israel stood outside of the promised land and said, We cannot enter.  Because of their lack of faith to trust God to fight for them, God swore they would not enter His Rest.  Because we wallow in condemnation and guilt, we do not enter His Rest.  His blood has never lost the power to save and deliver to the uttermost.  We overcome our own weakness and the condemning lie of Satan by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.  We identify with the finished work of Jesus to take us into His likeness, His inheritance and His joy.

Why Can We Not Finish?

Luke 14:27-30 (KJV) ²⁷ And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.  ²⁸ For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?  ²⁹ Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, ³⁰ Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.

Jesus linked this parable to His statement concerning being a disciple.  The cost of the "building" is to bear our cross and follow Jesus.  Jesus finished His work on earth.  He lived the life of "man in God's image".  If we look closely at the life of Jesus, we see "the bottom line" is expressed in John 5:30 (NASB) ³⁰ “I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.   To walk out for us the Way, to be the Way, and to reveal to us the Way, Jesus lived the life of God's expectation: man in God's image.  For us to truly say, "I can do nothing of my own initiative", we will have overcome our flesh nature and taken on His nature.  To die to self and desire nothing but the Will of the Father, we will be following Jesus in the truest sense.

What will it cost us to accomplish this?  To bring every thought into obedience of Jesus Christ, to bring every imagination into His control, and, to so subdue our tongue, that we speak only what the Spirit gives us to say.  I don't know about you, but I have a great amount of work to do to enter into His rest.  But that is what His rest means to us: to cease from our own works.  To be anxious for nothing is a labor to enter into His rest.  To cease from our vain imaginations is a labor to enter into His rest.  Yet to labor thus is to cease from our own works.  We are not passive, doing nothing.  We enter the flow of His works.  We build in conjunction with Him to see His Will accomplished.  We allow His peace to rule our hearts and minds.

What Are We Building?

Luke 14:27-30 (KJV) ²⁷ And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.  ²⁸ For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?  ²⁹ Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, ³⁰ Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.

As I meditate on this passage, I am impressed at how often we can read Scripture and because we read it often, pass over key words of Jesus.  He spoke what He heard the Father say, yet we often take it very casually.  There is nothing included in the Bible that does not carry a message for us.  The portion in Genesus concerning the tower of Babel is not just there for a historical reference.  It is a warning that man tries to make his own access to God.  Christians do the same.  That is what we call the "legalistic approach".  There is no simple answer to our building our own "tower".  Our imaginations take over and we spend time dwelling on imaginative "answers" to our circumstantial problem.  Then we pray that "answer" to God and are discouraged when God does not respond to our instructive prayer.  The next step in our building our tower is to get people to agree with us and try to get God to respond.  If we remain in our self-destructive path, God may very well give us what we are asking.  This does not wake us from our sleep, but it does give us a clue as to why so many Christians are speaking differently. 

God speaks a clarion call.  When the clamor of "self" is quieted, we can hear the Spirit speak.  When the cry goes forth, 'The Bridegoom is coming', all the believers will waken.  When Jesus gave this parable, He stressed the need to purchase is heeded, the knowledge of where to go to purchase is followed, but the timing is wrong.  The I AM is in the present moment.  We don't take vacations from following Him.  The above verse again stresses the need to "bear our cross, and come after" Jesus.  Go to your quiet place and listen.  Let Him speak to you so you follow Him.  The circumstance you seek to remove may be the Lord guiding you away from your "self" and into Him.

Build the foundation

Luke 14:27-30 (KJV) ²⁷ And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.  ²⁸ For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?  ²⁹ Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, ³⁰ Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.
Another lesson from this portion of Scripture concerns the foundation.  We have been taught much about foundations in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.  In this portion, Jesus is speaking of the one laid by man.  If we know, and understand, or not, a foundation is laid by a believer in the early teaching he hears when he first becomes a new creature in Christ.  What he is taught, how he heeds, is going to determine the development of who he becomes.  No matter how faulty or limited the teaching is, much is determined by the hunger of the individual to know God.  The one who goes to the Word and hungers to be fed, is the person God will guide by His Spirit to the well of Living Water.  God has laid a foundation, from the very beginning, of the path the seeker shall take to find the hidden treasure of a relationship with God that will shape him into God's image.  This is where the cost is disclosed.  It costs a person time and perseverance to seek to be fed by God.  God provides, but man must pay the personal cost to obtain. 
In Isaiah are many scriptures that have hidden treasure.  Isaiah 30:15 (NASB) ¹⁵ For thus the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said, “In repentance and rest you will be saved, in quietness and trust is your strength.”  But you were not willing...  The Hebrew word "shaqat", here translated "quietness",  carries the meaning of "laying down toward rest."  A tranquility of the mind and emotion.  It is the root word used for "rest" in Isaiah 28:12 (NASB) ¹² He who said to them, “Here is rest, give rest to the weary,” and, “Here is repose,” but they would not listen.  God was speaking of the promised land He had given to them to be a nation that would worship Him and heed His Law.  The covenant God made with Abraham, deepened with Moses, was enough to make a glorious nation, witnessing of the Almighty.  The covenant Jesus made with the Father is enough to make a glorious Church, witnessing of the Almighty and His purpose.  Man's required response to the covenant covering him has always been one of obedience and trust.  Abraham's response to God's covenant demand was one of obedience and trust.  All through the Scriptures we have the example set before us of men who walked in obedience and trust and so persevered.  God's Word calls them saints.  Jesus, The Way, walked out obedience and trust.  He is saying to us, "Follow Me."

Consider The Cost

One of the things I have learned concerning the Scriptures is that you never see all of the depth.  We read the Bible consistently (a daily reading through the Bible once a year) and also constantly turning to the study of different passages as the Spirit leads.  There is never an end to the awesome revelation in passages once thought "known".  I want to look more closely at one such passage.  Luke 14:25-30 (PHILLIPS)

^25-27 Now as Jesus proceeded on his journey, great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and spoke to them, “If anyone comes to me without ‘hating’ his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be a disciple of mine. The man who will not take up his cross and follow in my footsteps cannot be my disciple. ^28-30 “If any of you wanted to build a tower, wouldn’t he first sit down and work out the cost of it, to see if he can afford to finish it? Otherwise, when he has laid the foundation and found himself unable to complete the building, everyone who sees it will begin to jeer at him, saying, ‘This is the man who started to build a tower but couldn’t finish it!’ 

There are several steps revealed in this passage to the completion of the "work" that God has for us in this bubble of time that we are granted to prepare for eternity.  Jesus said He had completed the work the Father had given Him.  Paul said he had "finished the course."  What is required that we have this witness?  In Matthew 7:24-27, Jesus speaks of building a house on the sand or on the rock.  In the verses preceeding this passage, Jesus made an awesome statement of the final judgment.  Matthew 7:21-23 (NASB)

²¹ “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. ²² Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ ²³ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’

How do we practice lawlessness?  How we live, how we think, how we judge the world around us.  I was thinking of a conversation I had with my mother years ago.  We were discussing styles of dress and she said that as a young girl she had to wear the hem of her dresses just at the top of her boots.  She longed for the day when she could drop the hem to the floor like "grown up women".  But when she reached the age when she could, the styles had changed and the hems were rising.  Her attitude toward this continual change became an opinion she shared with her generation.  We become locked into the "culture" of the generation we share.  We have often seen the rebellion of each generation to seek their own expression.  No matter how "modern" it may seem at the time, it will be replaced.  This happens to all phases of our culture.  If we conform to the world around us, it shapes us.  Our thoughts, our ambitions, our responses to circumstances and relationships are connected to the age because we are conformed to those of the age.  But Romans 12:2 warns us not to be conformed to this age.  Most translations say "world".  But everything moves on.  The vine of iniquity must come to fulness as well as the vine of righteousness--both grow together.  We seek to be conformed to, and follow, the One Who leads (and is) the way.  If we follow Jesus, we must be conformed to His image--not the image we see in the age around us.  This will cost us everything.  How we think, how we live and relate to everything around us becomes part of the cost.  To obtain the pearl of pricelessness, we must "sell" all we have and come to the completion of the goal set before us, conformed to His resurrection.

Awareness

When Peter stood up to speak to the crowd gathered to see the "strange thing" happening in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, he reminded them of the word of the prophet Joel by saying, "this is that spoken by the prophet Joel".  (Acts 2:16-21)  The prophet Amos revealed a most significant action of "God's ways" in Amos 3:7 (NIV) ⁷ Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets.  Peter also preached to the crowd gathered at the temple when the lame man was healed.  Acts 4:18-21 (NASB)¹⁸ But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. ¹⁹ Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; ²⁰ and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, ²¹ whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.   Jesus assured the continuation of the prophet's voice by giving to the church the ministry of the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher.  Some of the churches today acknowledge the need of, and the supply of, all five of these ministries, while others only acknowledge the ministry of the pastor.  In Jesus resided the full measure of the Holy Spirit and all five ministries.  In His ascension, He released the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to His Church and the fivefold ministry to bring the believers into maturity.  (Ephesians 4:11-13)

The New Covenant prophet has a ministry to the church to alert the church into awareness of the day in which they live and God's "present action" so that the church might remain in connection with the Head, even Jesus, our Lord.  We have wonderful teachers but the church needs the prophetic voice.  We are left to our own reactions, our own interpretations and our own opinions as well as our fears if we do not have that prophetic voice.  The Old Covenant prophet was also called a "seer".  The New Covenant prophet spoke as a seer but had a voice within the church community that kept the church alert to the action of God.  They were not allowed to sleep.  The church today needs to be awakened.  Who will declare "The Bridegoom comes!"?  The prophetic voice alerts, without the fear tactics of the world, the sounding of the trumpet and the call to alertness.  Pray that the hearts of the people will be open to hear the prophetic voice and pray that the prophet ministry be restored to your church community.

Pressing Toward

When Paul speaks of "pressing toward the mark of the high calling in Christ Jesus", there is not always a clear understanding of what "pressing" means to each person.  To some, who are under legalistic teaching, it means to be more careful to do everything that is possible to do to please and be acceptable.  To some it means to study more or do more.  But perhaps the emphasis should be on the high calling more than the pressing in order to understand what Paul meant.  I believe the high calling to Paul meant God's desire to have man in God's image.  Paul saw Jesus in the exact image of the Father and wanted to have the same image reflected in himself.  I do not believe he meant ministry as the high calling.  He saw his ministry in the light of a bondservant, a privilege to serve.

In the overall content of Paul's writings, you see the desire to encourage, believe for and to exhort the believer's maturity in knowing Jesus, in becoming like Him in nature and focus on the Father.  Reading the Gospels and listening with your heart to the words of Jesus, you see His desire to reveal the heart of the Father through the Spirit and not the shallow human understanding of do's and don'ts.  It is not by accident that the most familiar verse in the Bible is John 3:16.  Everything God has done, from the creation of all things to the sending of Jesus into our realm to take our place, has been out of love--His very Being.  We cannot comprehend such love as exhibited by the Father and Jesus.  Nor can we comprehend what it means for the Spirit to abide in us.  But God is reaching for us to become far more than religious puppets.  He wants to put in us His very nature.  Jesus answered the question of the lawyer who was testing Him.  Matthew 22:36-40  (NASB) ³⁷ And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the great and foremost commandment. ³⁹ The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”

Jesus gave but one commandment for the New Covenant:  John 15:12 (ESV) ¹² “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  Each covenant God made with man channeled into the next in a progressive revelaton of relationship, but His purpose stayed the same, that man should be in the image of God.  The first covenant God showed Adam was the marriage covenant and God met man through the anointing that was given to the partriarch in the family line.  Abraham's covenant brought the family line to the nation of Israel and God met the nation Israel through the priests and the prophets.  Jesus was born of the house of David and brought the New Covenant to whosoever would receive Him, the Son of God to redeem man from sin and human nature.  To those who choose to follow Him, laying down their control and nature to His control and Nature, will be prepared to enter the final covenant as the Bride of Christ. 

It is vital that we seek the unity of the Body of Christ by responding to His covenant command to love as He loves us.  Only by the Spirit and full yielding to the Lord can we do this.  It is the very essence of God that He gives to those who diligently seek and believe to exercise freely as God does.  It carries a price to all who so seek.  It is a death to self and all of self's opinions and judgments.  We lose the right to pick and choose the ones we will love that we may love as God loves.  We love even when we are rejected and persecuted.  We love when there is no reason to love.  To be in His image, we must be like Him and be willing to manifest His forgiveness, mercy and love.  To minister His peace and His joy with His grace and mercy.  It cannot be impossible for it is God's expectation in covenant and He has paid the price for us to be enabled to become.

Endurance

James 1:2-4 (ESV) ² Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, ³ for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. ⁴ And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
(NLT) ² Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. ³ For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. ⁴ So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.
I give you two translations to consider.  This to me is a most important passage to know for it embraces one of the most important facets of our struggle to grow to maturity--our reaction to circumstances.  I admire the trait of steadfastness/endurance when I see it in people.  It is one of the traits of my husband.  He has been to me such an example of Christ-likenes and a constant inspiration to strive upward.  This, to me, is what being a light means.  Consistent, in your character and your reactions, quietly revealing the work of God in you to everyone, whether you live with them, work with them, have a friend relationship with them or have just met them.  With this kind of steadfastness, nothing will move you away from your relationship with Him.

Just what is endurance?  A question Esther asked is very revealing.  Esther 8:6 (NLT)  For how can I endure to see my people and my family slaughtered and destroyed?”  A person can develop an endurance for yourself, but what would be our reaction to seeing a family member tortured?  We have developed a passivity that comfort brings.  Financial security, comfortable surroundings, peaceful country, and daily security have robbed us of the tenacity of faith and commitment that will endure any hardship, persevere through any threat, and look steadfastly to the Lord.  The pacifier held out to Christians of the escape of a rapture, has dulled any attempt to develop such perseverance.  The early Church Christian knew what becoming a Christian meant.  Some never were Christians even a year before they were martyred.  Jesus knew what being the light meant.  Hebrews 12:1-3 (NASB) Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, ² fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. ³ For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

How do we attain to such endurance?  I fully believe it is a process that develops in us when we seek to become like Jesus.  Ask, seek and knock are not just words that Jesus gave us so we could memorize a scripture.  It is part of reaching upward, of pressing forward.  Philippians 3:7-14 is a marvelous passage to meditate, ponder and plant in your spirit.  I want to emphasize one of those verses.  ¹² Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.  Also, ponder why God gave such a wonderful goal of being in the likeness of God, and, why Jesus came in that likeness to give Himself so that goal could be reached.  It will all come down to LOVE.  Because He loved us, we love.  The first mark in this reaching upward, is to love as He loves.  Ask for it, seek it and knock until the door is opened and you truly love as He loves.  I Corinthians 13:7  (NASB) (love) ⁷ bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.