The title of this piece is ” The valley is the gateway to the mountaintop.” How can one be in a valley and take a few steps and be on the mountaintop? In this post the valley is trials and tribulations and the mountaintop is the manifest presence of God. Can I tell you that you are never nearer God than when life comes against you and threatens to overwhelm you. And so, if there is indeed a gateway that leads from the valley to the mountaintop then what is the key that opens the gate? Can I suggest that it is attitude?

What is your attitude when you face the trials of life? Can you truthfully say that your attitude is one of thankfulness? Now I am not talking about thanking God for the very trial that afflicts you, although I do believe that the mature saint who has walked through many fires and passed through many waters can reach a point where he has learned to be content no matter what situation he finds himself in. No, I am talking about being able to thank God for who He is and what He has done for you. Is this the thrust of your life? Can you “enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.” (Psalm 100:4) When you do this you are taking your eyes of your circumstances and lifting them to God. Your circumstances is the valley, when you see God you are on the mountaintop.

The saint who has learned to look at his or her life through the eyes of the Spirit, who can see beyond the scope of his current trials, who can see the majesty and the glory of God, who can see eternity stretch out before him, he is the saint who will find God in the midst of his calamity. I want you to think about Paul and Silas in Acts 16. They had been sharing the Gospel and seeing people saved. They were about God’s business and so perfectly innocent, yet they find themselves receiving 39 stripes or lashes, which often times killed a man, and then being flung into prison. Now, the jailer put them in the deepest part of the dungeon and had their feet put in stocks. Can I suggest that there was much room for self-pity and no apparent cause for rejoicing. Yet we see that they, at midnight no less, began to pray and sing praises unto God.

Perhaps you find yourself in a very dark place, a deep valley or a dark dungeon of circumstances from which you can see no way out? Can I suggest to you dear saint that you are but a hairs-breath away from the glorious presence of God. David says to God in psalm 139, where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I were to fly to the heavens you are there, if I were to find myself in a bed in hell, there you would be. If I were to take the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost ends of the earth, there you would be. And we could add that if one were to find themselves in a deep dungeon, shackled and bleeding and in complete darkness, there you would be in the midst. This is what Paul and Silas found as they decided, by an act of their will and according to the attitude that guided them, to pray and sing praises unto God.

We see that when they did this, they were a witness to all the other prisoners, the prisoners could hear them and must have marveled. Can I suggest that when we display this kind of attitude in the midst of our trials then the unsaved and the unlearned marvel as well. It is one thing to pray and sing praises to God when all is well with us, yet it is something other-worldly to pray and sing the praises of God when we are surrounded by darkness and find ourselves without any natural hope. The supernatural is unleashed by the un-natural act of praising God and giving thanks despite our circumstances. To many times the Christian church has chased after the miraculous so that they can prove to a dying world that there is a supernatural God in heaven. Yet how many opportunities have been missed to ” bring God down,” in the midst of our calamities?

Satan says to God about Job that he only worships him because of the blessing that God has bestowed upon him. Satan accuses and says that if these blessings were removed, if he was given entrance through the hedge that God had around Job, that Job would simply curse God and die. You see, the way that we truly give glory to God and bring down His power is to confound the darkness that we find ourselves in. When we cry out to God and give Him thanks and praise in the deepest part of the valley, we will find ourselves loosed from the darkness that had previously contained us and a door is opened to us, a gate swings open and we find ourselves on the mountaintop. True freedom is delivered to us by God and no prison nor any darkness nor any set of circumstances can contain the power of God, quite the opposite. To discover this secret is to throw of the chains of the reality of this world and exchange them for wings that allow us to fly away to the mountaintop of the Kingdom of God which is our true reality.

For the prisoners sake we willingly take our place in the valley. We step down from that place of glory and walk through this world with all of its trials and darkness. Yet we do it knowing that our reality is Jesus Himself and His kingdom, a kingdom that we are already walking in. Can you see it brothers and sisters? Can you lift up your eyes right now and see the Kingdom reality of God? It is there and it is more real than the world that we see with our human eyes. When we can do this we can cause two worlds to collide, we can bring the supernatural reality of God and His light into the darkness of this world.

Act 16:26 And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one’s bands were loosed.

Shall we shake this world to its very foundation? Shall we shake our own lives and the lives of our families and friends? Shall we step out of the deepest valley and onto the highest mountaintop of His manifest presence? The power of God already resides within you, for greater is He that is within you than He that is in the world. Do you believe this? Can you pray and give thanks and praise the living God no matter where you find yourself today? It is the key to loosing the bands of the enslaved, to bring the reality of God’s kingdom right into the darkness. The mountaintop comes down to the valley. Christ came down to earth. God steps down and walks among men. He is God amongst us, will you call on Him today?

And there came a messenger unto Job, and said, The oxen were plowing, and the asses feeding beside them: And the Sabeans fell upon them, and took them away; yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The fire of God is fallen from heaven, and hath burned up the sheep, and the servants, and consumed them; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried them away, yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house: And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD. In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly. (Job 1:14-22)

Horatio Spafford lost most of his business in the great Chicago fire of 1871. Just two years later a great economic depression hit all but ruining Spafford. He decided to move to Europe but at the last-minute had to take care of business so he sent his wife and children ahead and planned to join them later. In the middle of the voyage the boat sunk and all four of his children were drowned. Later, as he sailed to join his wife who survived, he passed the very spot where the ship went down and he retired to his cabin and wrote the now famous hymn ” It is well with my soul.”

I want you to imagine the grief of Job. He has lost everything that he had and then he learns that all ten of his children have been killed in a Tornado. The first thing that he does is fall down and worship God. He cries out ” Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Are you not astonished brothers and sisters? Does that not run counter to much of what permeates Christendom today? God is worthy to be praised regardless of our circumstances. In doing this, Job directly refutes the accuser of our souls. He establishes the truth of God before the throne of God. Now Job’s sufferings were not over and of his anguish one can only imagine. Perhaps some of his sorest pains comes when he is accused by his friends and then abandoned by them. Horatio Spafford went on to have three more children and even then, one of his children died at the age of four with scarlet fever. The Presbyterian Church considered Spafford’s tragic circumstances as divine punishment. Men have not changed much since Job’s time. The Spafford’s left the Presbyterian Church and formed a group called ” The Overcomers.”

I want you to see brothers and sisters just what a great deception has taken hold of Christendom. I also want you to see that this is nothing new, in fact it is ancient. It goes directly back to the beginning of man and the accusation of Satan. Satan was determined to diminish God’s relationship with His creatures by smearing it. His accusation is that the love of man for God comes only through favorable circumstances. Does this very same thought not run through all of the Word of Faith movement? Does it not run through the prosperity Gospel? And not only these movements but much of Christendom. Much of what passes for Christianity is simply the avoidance of hell and the desire that by doing the right thing then God will bless us. And by ” bless,” we so often mean favorable circumstances and material things. Yet the majesty and the glory of God is to be found not in the sum of our circumstances, but is to be found in the depths of our relationship with Him. To our spouses we make vows to love them in sickness or in health, for richer or for poorer for better or for worse. This was, for so long, the foundation of a loving relationship.

We must grasp this truth that God is worthy to be praised despite our circumstances or what men may think of us. The days of deception are upon us. There will be no glory nor benefit from serving the living God and standing upon His truth. We must stand ” by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report;as deceivers and yet true; as unknown yet well known; as dying and behold we live; as chastened, and yet not killed; as sorrowful yet always rejoicing; as poor yet making many rich; as having nothing yet possessing all thing.” ( 2 Cor 6:7-10)

You see brothers and sisters we stand by the power and for the love of God. We are armed by His righteousness. In heaven we are honored but on earth dishonored. In heaven a good report but on earth an evil report. In heaven we are true yet on earth cast as deceivers. In heaven we are known yet on earth we are unknown. On earth we are dying yet in heaven we have already passed into the Kingdom of God and we have life and that more abundantly. On earth we are chastened yet we do not die but live life all the more closely to God. In may seem to the world as though we should be overcome by sorrow yet deep in our hearts no matter what the circumstances we shall fall down and worship the Living God and cry out ” Bless the Lord.” In all theses things, though it may appear that we are wretched and poor, we by our praising of God make many rich. The world may consider us to have nothing and to have lost all, yet in truth we have come to possess and be possessed by the living God and this is treasure beyond all measure. No matter what circumstances you face today and tomorrow, consider this saints, God is worthy to be praised and glorified and out love for Him is unconditional because His love for us is unconditional. We can love Him in such a manner because He first loved us in such a manner.

I have thought a lot about death in the last few weeks with the passing of my sister. I have contemplated the promises we as Christians stand upon, the truths that light our way through the often treacherous waters of this life. Life itself with all its many joys and laughter and also with its many heavy burdens is an exceedingly rich complicated tapestry. It is tightly spun on the looms of the ages. Certainly we are here today and we are gone tomorrow. The Scriptures tell us that our life, in the span of time and space, is like a vapor.

This world is definitely for the living and once someone passes they move on into a different realm in our minds. I wrote a poem about memories one time. I was not to kind to them, for they are at best, a second best ethereal realm. The period of mourning seems to be the transition from something that the soul can touch and see and hear to something that is all at once gone and the senses realize it can never interact with again.

And so its a relegation. Relegated into a wispy ever decreasing world. I think this is where my faith in a very real after world brings me great hope. It transforms what I just spoke about into something much more glorious than a slowly dying memory. The notion that she is more truly alive now than she ever was, is for me, truly astounding and she dwells in a place where there are no more tears and pain. And so that begins to work on my sadness and rather than something that is slowly dying in the recesses of my mind, something is born. This place is the wellspring of hope that does not slowly fade but becomes stronger the more we ourselves approach our own deaths.

What would we do without Jesus? He never leaves us and surrounds us with comfort and love and kindness. Out of death comes life and that life is the breath of the Spirit. I am more convinced than ever, with the passing of my sister, the shortness of this life and the importance of loving God and loving others and being unashamed of the One who is our very life even in the midst of death.

Jesus asks Martha pointedly in John 11 ” Do you believe this?.” Believe what? “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” It is a question that strikes at the heart of mankind. Jesus then says to Martha’s sister Mary “”Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?”

In the midst of my sister’s death I have seen something of the glory of God and in the seeing of it, it has raised me up in Spirit and newness of life. It makes me desire all the more to reach out my hand and take a hold of His glory and His glory is Jesus. And in the glory of God there beats the heart and wellspring of all life and it restores me and strengthens me. It sustains me in the deepest parts of who I am and it gives me the hope to know that one day I will reach out my hand as I pass from this world to the next. I will reach out and take a hold of glory and that glory will fully grasp me and take me to its realm. And there my eyes will see and know as I am known and I will rest in the glory of God.