As I walk each morning I am always on the lookout for deer. It is a heavily forested area I walk through and so it can be difficult to see anything. Of course you could walk at dusk or dawn and increase your chance of seeing them, but you just never know. I was walking the other day and looking into the foliage and suddenly realized that I was looking right at the deer and she was looking right back at me. It was as if just one second before she was invisible but then she just appeared before my very eyes and I wondered how I did not see her before. I took my grandson with me a few times, I really wanted him to see the deer, he really wanted to see them. I took him at the right time and the right places but we never saw one.
I thought about the manifest presence of God. I thought about seeking God. I thought about the wind and how we never know where it will blow next. It seems to me this is the way with God. If I only walked every now and again, or gave up walking because I never saw deer, it is likely that I would never see the deer. Yet, because I walk every day and seek every day, all of a sudden, there is the deer right there, looking at me. As it is with the deer, so it is with God. He is looking for those who will search diligently for Him, in fact the word says He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. And the reward? “I am your exceeding great reward.” To ” know,” that He knows you, that He sees you, that He is watching over you. May our souls long after Him today and every day and if they do, all of a sudden, He is there.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God (Eph 2:8)
Faith delivers what Grace provides-Don’t measure your faith, measure your God (David Legge)
If faith is the evidence of things not seen, and it is , then it is first and foremost the evidence of God. We see God in the man who walks in faith. We see God in love and hope and mercy and forgiveness. We see Him in joy and peace and self-control. We see Him in all of these attributes distilled in us and we see Him more clearly the darker the background. The more difficult the circumstances of our lives then the greater the canvas for memorializing God in the hearts and minds of the world.
And so, if the unmerited favor of God first and foremost provides salvation, justification, then it also provides us with the means of how to live out that justification. Grace gives us access to faith and faith is the evidence of the man or woman who walks in close proximity to God. The closer the walk, the greater the faith. The greater the faith, the deeper the love. The deeper the love the more abundant the hope. The abundance of hope leads to an abundance of mercy and forgiveness and thankfulness.
And finally, the greater the faith the greater the expressions of joy and peace and self-control. And all of these add up to an expression of the reality of God seen in us. An expression of the reality of the unseen God. A light that pierces the darkness of this world, the hope of this world. The measure of your faith depends upon the vastness of God in your life. An all consuming relationship with God produces the greatest expressions of faith for a dying world to see.
Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ(2Co 10:5)
Its a terrible thing to be held captive by our own thoughts. How exhausting it can be when we allow them to consume us and overwhelm us. They can begin to eat away at us. They can even rob us of sleep and leave us tired and weary. I thank the Lord that He freed us and gave us the ability to take every thought into captivity and focus on Him. If a specific situation or trial has taken your mind captive today, know that there is a way of escape, you are no longer slaves to the flesh but bond-servants, willing servants to the Lord of power.
If you have been set free by the Lord then you are free indeed. You now have the power to take those thoughts captive, they must bow to the Spirit of God in you. By an act of your will, take your eyes off of that situation today and turn them to Jesus and draw close to Him and peace will flood your soul. Remember, if the Word tells us to take our thoughts captive, it is because it is possible in Him. There has been a conquest of your heart and mind and soul and in this Jesus is the conqueror. To the conqueror belongs the spoils. Your thoughts are for Him. He is a jealous God. He will have the reward of His sufferings.
Surrender any situation that drives your thoughts from the Lord. Let it die upon the cross. You take up that cross for the Lord has done the rest.. You lift your eyes to Jesus for He has done the rest. You raise your hands in worship and by the power of the Spirit you will enter into His victory. Your circumstances may not change but you will in the very midst of them. In one scenario you are a prisoner to your thoughts in the other you have taken them captive and you are victorious. Today is the day of victory. Let the Lord be high and lifted up in your heart and soul and mind, let Him be preeminent in all things, including your thoughts and you will walk in peace and victory. Enter in and take possession of the land already conquered.
How I long to look with optimistic eyes at the landscape of Christianity all across the world. And yet the sands of time gather around our feet in the depths of the bottom of the hour glass. For so long now we have desired to walk in unbroken sunshine not knowing that unbroken sunshine leads to deserts. And now we look out upon the landscape of our time and everything beautiful has dried up in the sun that we demanded. Century after century the desert has encroached upon the green fields and mountains and valleys, slowly consuming everything. If it were not for rivers in the desert then we would have died of thirst already. The rivers in the desert are Gods remnant saints.
If it were not for desert blooms then the all the color of life would be gone. There are precious few saints left who embrace the storm, who stand in the flood, who walk through the fire, who walk upon the water. Who are not delivered from the fire but by the fire and in the fire. Jesus weeps as He surveys the desert sands and the leanness of our souls. We have rejected the good deep soil of His sufferings and embraced the desires of our own hearts leaving behind something shallow,something lean that is without deep roots and something easily dried up by the sun, which we demanded.
And then this shallow thing turns to dust and is blown away by the wind, nothing grows and the desert comes. At that time shall it be said to this people and to Jerusalem, A dry wind of the high places in the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, not to fan, nor to cleanse (Jer 4:11) This ill wind that blows upon Christendom is not to fan nor to cleanse but to judge. A strong unstoppable wind that does not blow in a cool refreshing rain but rather a strong hot wind that dries up everything and turns it into desert wilderness. The shallow thing turns to dust and is blown away.
In front of our very eyes the shallow things are turning to dust. That which has no root is drying up. Those whose hearts were only ever for the cares of this world are being choked by the weeds and the thorns. Not so slowly now the good seed is being revealed that lies in the depths of good soil. Those who were planted in the depths by the waters of life shall bloom even as the desert consumes the whole world. The roots are firmly established and are held unmovable by Truth. Wisdom flows down into the very heart of them and nourishes them.
The world is a barren wasteland. There is something in the atmosphere and the world is willingly breathing it in. More insidious than any virus. They breathe it in to their very souls to their eternal damnation. Their hearts are poisoned and their spirits are totally corrupted in preparation for the terrible day of the Lord. They are only ever wicked and their thoughts are continuously for evil. As it was in the days of Noah, so is our day just as the Lord prophesied it would be.
Our sufferings is our nourishment saints. Our infirmities is His glory. Our dying to this world is the last vestiges of life. This life that comes from death is the eternal life of Christ in us, the hope and the glory. For out of the great desert, out of the gross darkness, God has commanded light to shine forth as a witness to the whole world. We are that light. As the whole world falls, we have been called to stand. As the whole world is consumed into the sinking sands of death and sin, we have been called to stand upon the solid Rock of life and Holiness. Stand fast saints, the Lord is at the door.
The congregation, the gathered, the called out ones are, in and of themselves a set of instruments. Each a vital part of the orchestra and without such there can be no genuine praise and worship. Without the instruments of God making beautiful expressions composed by the Holy Spirit all we have is professional music and a professional speaker. The true instruments remain silent. And the one who fine tunes each and every one of these instruments is dismayed to see that they are silenced. .
The people hear manufactured music that lulls them to spiritual sleep. They have long forgotten that they themselves are instruments in the hands of the Master musician. When the orchestra of God has been silenced, when the conductor has been usurped, then all we are left with is noise, clanging symbols and sounding brass. Only as the full orchestra plays, conducted by the Holy Spirit Himself, can the hearts be pierced rather than be dulled and lulled into a state of slow death. For the symphony to rise to heaven all instruments must be engaged. This is the Body, all moving together, conducted by majesty and producing a magnificent holy sound that brings down the weight of heaven’s glory. We have been drowned by the noise of silence. Sparks rise up and dance in the darkness from the fires of our own making. Oh to God that the usurpers would fall and the preeminent One would take His rightful place.
In Romans 1:28 we see that men are given over to a reprobate mind. There comes a time when men are given over to this mindset. The word reprobate means to be cast away, rejected, something that no longer has a value. It is a truly frightening word. I would like to argue that the world in general has been given over to a reprobate mindset. It is the final dispensation. Not to be confused with Dispensationalism. I am no dispenastionalist. When I use the word dispensation I use it in its plain simple meaning. A set order that is replaced by a paradigm shift.
I would like to put it to you that we are in the midst of a paradigm shift that is written about in Romans 1:28. It started with that which is known as the church, the great religious institutions of the world called after the name of Jesus Christ, Christians in Christendom. It has fallen, it fell first. Judgement began there. And then the world. Now the argument would be that the world was already fallen. I agree with that. It was fallen right from the beginning. It was why Jesus came. No, the paradigm shift is that men, with full knowledge, completely and utterly reject God and all that is holy. They are, in a sense, without excuse.
Right has become wrong. That which lurked in the alleyways and the shadows, now parades itself down Main St. The saints have been forcibly removed into the alleyways. Night has become day. Darkness now presents itself as light and has been embraced. The children are being slaughtered by the millions in the womb and those who are not slaughtered are corrupted by the institutions of men with the aid of willing parents. Justice has been totally corrupted and taken over by the reprobates and is now a wing of the armed all out rebellion against Truth.
There have been many “evil days,” in the history of our world. Yet there is a day written about in the Scriptures. The weapons of our warfare are such that we can stand in “that evil day.” There is a culmination of “evil days,’ and we are living in them. It is when hell spews forth its contents and drowns all the world in its vomit. It is the time of gross darkness. The kind of darkness that covered the earth when Jesus hung on the cross. It is the greatest of all darknesses and it comes before the greatest of all lights. Dawn comes in the morning but we as saints must stand in the darkest night.
We who are alive and remain today have been called for such a time as this. God equips those that He calls and He makes no mistakes. When He calls Gideon a mighty man of valor it is because that is exactly what God saw in him, even although Gideon complained that he was the weakest man from the weakest clan. It did not matter what Gideon thought, it only mattered what God stated and that God would bring to pass that which He said would come to pass. You, saint, are God’s mighty men and women of valor and you have been called to stand in such a time as this. You are a child of the living God and you have His molten Truth running through your veins. This Truth that has so captivated you will not be wrestled from you.
In this Truth is the way and the life. Your very life, your eternal life. You are so taken by it that you love not your life unto death. You stand by the Blood of the Lamb and the Word of your testimony. Your testimony, your witness, is your changed life by the power of God and your all consuming love for the Truth. They may beat us down but they shall not extinguish the light. All day long they can slaughter us like lambs but our Blood cries out still and God hears.
A chosen people, a Holy generation, a royal priesthood called for such a day as this. In this final dispensation we shall see the fulfillment of the great call from Jesus in John 17 that we would be one as He and His Father are one and that we shall be where the glory is. We shall see the fulfillment of Matthew 24 that he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.(Mat 24:13-14)
The time has come to endure until the end and the world will see the Gospel of the Kingdom preached as a witness. The martyrs are called as witnesses against the reprobates. And then the end shall come.
Rev 4:1 After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven:
A door opened in heaven!! What is this, what can it mean? If such a door existed and we had access to it should we not find it and walk through it? Just a few sentences earlier we hear about the door;Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.(Rev 3:20)
There is, it seems, a door that we as children of God can open, and when that door is opened we can sit down with the Lord at His banqueting table, glory to God. Again a few sentences before that we hear Jesus say I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.(Rev 3:8)
This open door to glory, this door to heaven, this access to the throne room belongs to the child of God. The ability to come before the Father and bow down and cry out Abba uniquely belongs to the enduring overcoming child of the living God. No man can shut this door, no power on earth can shut this door, Satan himself cannot shut this door. It has been given by the hand of God to His child and no one can rob him of it.
This is the glories of walking with the Lord with an open heart, to walk in His presence and according to His ways. This is the promise of Jesus to His faithful followers, that no matter what happens, no matter how dark the hour , no matter how fierce the opposition, the saints can walk in the glories of God and have access to His throne and to His presence and that He would keep them from the hour of temptation.
Now that word keep is better translated guard. To the loving Church who does not deny the name of Jesus and keeps His word, He guards them from that hour of temptation that is coming upon the world. Temptation loses its power for those who draw near to Jesus. To draw near to Jesus we must have an open door in our hearts, our hearts must be open to His glories and then we shall have the power to stand fast and let no man steal our crown.
My hope is in the Christ that dwells within my heart.
It also lies within my Lord who quenches every dart
The Christ who came and died for me and raised me from the dead
And who for you and me , gladly died and bled
My hope is in the Lord my God who whispers in my ear
The Christ who by His very walk conquered every fear
The Christ who showed me how to live and also how to die
The Christ who taught me how to run and also how to fly
He is my sunrise in the morning at the breaking of the dawn
And by His hand transformed me and forever He holds on
He is my sunset in the evening at the end of every day
He came to show me how to walk, to walk a different way
He is the beginning and the end and everything in between
He is the power that transformed me, by His Blood I was made clean
Rising from the ashes of sin and death and hell
He raised me up to where He was and there forever I shall dwell.
Act 17:28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being.
The Lord is the very source of our lives. We breathe because He first breathed life into us. The very essence of our lives , our existence, depended upon and depends upon God, whether men know this or not. He holds it all together. Not only is He the creator but He is the very fabric of all that exists. We move because He created these bodies and we think because God created our minds. This is the universal truth of all men whether they care to acknowledge it or not.
Now the twice born man is very different from the once born man. He no longer lives, in the sense that he merely exists. It is now Christ that lives in Him. He is a new creation in Christ and is a son of the living God. The Father and the Son have taken up residence in Him by the power of the Holy Spirit. So his life is now supernatural. Yes he exists, he lives, but its no longer he but Christ in him. This body of the saint that was once only a vehicle for the soul of man, is now the residence of the most High God. The life that he now lives is maintained and sustained by faith.
To move in God is to walk in the manifest presence of the Lord. In the natural, to move means to go from one place to another. In the supernatural, to move in God is to draw deeper into the heart of the Father. And from that place comes power, and so we can move in the power of God. We can move in the love of God. We can move in forgiveness and grace and discernment. Like the natural man, when the spiritual man moves, he is moving from one place to another. It is part of his spiritual journey home, from precept to precept. Ever closer, ever deeper.
Our being is our very existence. Every human being exists in time and space. Yet the man or woman who is born again now exists not only in time and space, but in the Kingdom of God that was and is and is to come. When we have our being in Him by virtue of the new birth we live and move and have our being in the Kingdom of God. We breathe rarified air. Our atmosphere is different from the rest of humanity. We breath in the poison of the world and we breath out life. In the place of darkness we bring life from the light of God like spiritual photosynthesis.
Brothers and sister, let us reckon this to be so as we live and move in this world. Know who you are and know your place in this world. You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Pet 2:9)
Psa 1:3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
The heart of those who receive the word with gladness, in whom the seed finds a ready and deep soil, is the tree planted by the rivers of water. The good tree is good in any season by virtue of its closeness to the eternal resource of the river of the living God. Dear saint, do you meditate on the Word of God every day? Do you hide it away in your heart and absorb it into your very soul until it becomes a very part of you? Are you like the branch abiding in the vine? Jesus tells us in John chapter eight that if we continue in the Word, which means to abide in it, remain in it, stand on it, endure with it, dwell in it, then you shall know the Truth and the Truth shall set you free.
The word “know,” here is of particular interest. In order to be free we must daily walk in and with the Word, and when we do that we shall “know.” To know Christ is to be free. It does not say to know about Him or to know off Him, it says to know the Truth. We must be intimate with the Lord if we are to walk in the freedom that He had gained for us on Calvary. Jesus gave us many instructions. We were to take up our cross daily if we were to be His disciples. We were to abide in His word daily if we were to be His disciples. And so, when we do these things we begin to grow in maturity. We are able to draw from an inexhaustible source of power and love and mercy and forgiveness. We are able to draw from it because of our proximity to this power for we are like a tree planted by the rivers of life.
Because of this, we become a source of blessing for others in season and out of season, for we are evergreen trees. In the darkest coldest winters we still retain our foliage. We saints whose delight is in the Lord and His Word and His commands, become vessels that hold and retain grace and love and mercy and forgiveness because it is flowing in and through us directly from Christ Himself. He waters us that we may water others. He comforts us so that we may comfort others with that very comfort He comforted us with. It is the cycle of our Spiritual life in the Kingdom. He invests in us all these things, not to bury them or greedily keep them to ourselves, but to gladly and with great joy share them with others. Freely you have been given and now freely you must give.
Col 2:15 And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
When we suffer for His sake brothers and sisters and rejoice in the midst of it, then we disarm principalities and powers. We “prove,” to that old ancient liar that this is exactly what he is and we do it all by the indwelling power of the risen Christ. He has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a sound mind. His perfect love demonstrated through us casts out all fear and makes a public spectacle of principalities and powers.
It diametrically opposes the powers that be who lie and would have us believe that force must be met with force, that evil must be rendered for evil for good to triumph. Jesus overcame them on the cross and He cried out to His Father to forgive His enemies. The first martyr Stephen cries out even as He was being cruelly stoned, that this would not be held against the ones stoning Him. This is the power of God that breaks ancient chains of evil and establishes the witness of Christ to the world and to the principalities and powers.
You have been called to this brothers and sisters and it is a high and noble calling. It is a calling that requires our old man and woman to die. For in the flesh we are no different from anyone else in the world. We would simply be frail creatures who could laugh only when the going is good, who could be happy only in the midst of prosperous circumstances and who could praise God only as long as He “blesses” us. Yet in this higher ground that we have been called to, we praise God not only from the mountaintops but from the lowest valley’s. We praise God whether we walk as free men on this earth or chained with fetters of iron.
We praise God for better or for worse. We praise God in sickness and in health, we praise God whether rich or poor. We who love our spouses know that this is our commitment we make to them, we who love God know that His calling is on another level altogether. The marriage of the flesh is one thing and it is noble, the marriage of the Spirit is high and lifted up and it is holy. We are one flesh in our marriages. We are one spirit in Jesus. When we walk according to that spirit we walk in power and in love and with a perfect peace that triumphs over principalities and powers for all the world to see. Your light is the life that draws the world to Jesus.
Act 17:28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being,
If we are passionate worshipers of Jesus, then everything else is secondary. If Jesus is the primary object of our passions, then everything else becomes the by-product. If we ever get that wrong, we cease to be effective. If soul winning is our primary object, we cease to be effective soul winners. If faith is our primary object then we cannot be faithful. If Holiness is our primary object than we cannot be holy. If revival is our primary object then we will never see revival. Outside of Jesus being the primary object of our lives then we immediately begin to lose ground in every aspect of our walk, whether we are pastors or teachers or whatever role we have in the Body.
I would argue that the saints who have rocked this world for Jesus are the saints who have walked in intimate communion with Him. He is the source of all love and majesty and glory and power. Only by abiding in Him ( Him being our primary object) can we walk in forgiveness and mercy and grace. Out of the abundance of the passion that we experience as we walk with Jesus as our grand obsession comes the overflow that changes those around us and brings light into a dark world. Are you being ineffective in your walk? Have you wondered why? Is Jesus the primary object of your life? Is there joy in you life? Is there glory in your life? Are you an over-comer? Do you have a thankful spirit?
Listen saints, if Jesus is truly the primary object of your life then what flows from that is love, joy, peace, faithfulness, thankfulness, forgiveness and so on. How often have I heard a saint say, on any one of the aforementioned issues “I need to work on that.” That is quite exactly wrong. No amount of “work,” can muster up joy nor thankfulness nor love nor any of the issues of the heart. He must be our all in all. In Him we live and move and have our being. Jesus Himself is the answer to any problem you are having, any problem. The answer lies in Him alone, the answer lies before the throne.
Whatever you seek to achieve in the Kingdom of God comes directly from the depths of your relationship with Him. Find a man who is passionate about sports and he will bore your pants off speaking about it. Find a man who is passionate about politics and he will rip your shirt of telling you all about the latest policies and issues and the state of the world. Find a man who is truly passionate about Jesus and you will find a man who is changing the world. Out of the abundance of our passion flows the power of God.
The Holy Spirit does not become my spirit. He invades my spirit and lifts my personality into a right relationship with God. That means I can begin now to work out what God has worked in. The Holy Spirit enables me to fulfill all the commands of God and I am without excuse for not fulfilling them. Absolute almighty ability is packed into my spirit and to say “I can’t,” if I have received the Holy Spirit is unconscious blasphemy. (Oswald Chambers)
What Chambers is teaching here flies in the face of most modern Evangelical teaching. He reaches up to the highest mark and tells us that we are without excuse when we cry that we cannot reach it. Compare that to modern Evangelical teaching that reaches down into the lowest mark by telling people that they are merely sinners saved by grace. Can you see the difference? Chambers makes the bold statement that those who say they can’t are unconscious blasphemers. I might say that he is being generous by using the word unconscious.
The Holy Spirit, when he enters into a man or woman, invades them. We understand the word “invade.” It has violent connotations. It is a takeover. And as with every successful invasion, all rebellion must be put down. It is the same with us. The flesh wars against the Spirit. Our own personal spirits are willing, but our flesh is weak. The Holy Spirit empowers us to overcome the flesh until we understand that we are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus through the power of His Spirit.
If we indeed have been invaded by the Holy Spirit and delivered out of captivity, captivity from what? We have been delivered from the power of sin. This teaching, in all its many facets, that Jesus came to deliver us from hell is not true. That might be a byproduct of our salvation, but it was not nor is the primary object. The primary object is that we were delivered from the power of sin and its consequences, it’s consequences being death, eternal death. We were guilty of sin and we were already condemned. The crime was sin, the punishment is hell. The gift is deliverance from sin and the reward of that is eternal life with God.
Imagine being delivered from the power of sin and you go right on sinning and you excuse it by saying “I can’t stop it.’ If that is your mindset that I would have to question whether you have actually been delivered. I would question whether you have been invaded by the Holy Spirit. I am a city boy and I know nothing about trees. For the most part, I cannot identify them other than them being green and having branches. Yet, I know what an apple looks like. If I see apples hanging from a tree, then I can, with all the confidence of a tree expert, tell you that it is an apple tree.
If you have been delivered from sin, I will know that by the fruits I see. In otherwords you will be known by your fruits. If you have no fruits and all you have is “I am just a sinner saved by grace,” then I would consider you to be on very shaky ground. Listen to what Chambers follows up with to the above quote……………
“Do you mean to tell me that God can search me to the innermost recesses of my dreams, my innermost motives, and find nothing to blame? That God Almighty can bring the winnowing fan of His Spirit and search out my thoughts and imaginations and find nothing to blame? Who can stand before God and say ” My hands are clean, my heart is pure”? Who can climb the hill of the Lord ( see Psalm 24:3-4) No one under heaven, saving the one who has been readjusted at the cross of Christ. That one can stand before the scrutiny of God and know with a knowledge that passes knowledge that the work of God’s Son in her or in him passes the scrutiny of God. No soul ever gets there except by the sovereign grace of God through the Atonement.”
When was the last time you heard that kind of preaching? You have everything that you need in Christ Jesus through His work and by His Spirit to live an exemplary life and to be an extraordinary witness for His glory. You can walk this walk with clean hands. You can walk this walk with a pure heart. Psalm 16:3 speaks of the saints of the earth, they are describes as the excellent ones, the magnificent ones, the noble ones on the earth. This is our calling and this is what we have been enabled to be. To deny this is blasphemy. you are denying the power of God that has invaded and conquered your willing hearts.
And now that we have been conquered, He enables us to be conquerors, in fact more than conquerors in Christ Jesus. The question in Romans 8:35 is “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ”? The context comes in the next few words. Shall tribulation? Shall distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? These are the battles of the noble ones, the saints on earth, and yet in spite of all these things we conquer, in fact we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. We are saints on the earth, we are God’s excellent ones and nothing that exists, whether angels or principalities of powers nor anything in your life right now nor anything to come can change who we are and who we love and who we are loved by. No matter how high we ascend or even if we found ourselves in the depths and death has come knocking at our door, nothing can separate us from the love of God which has, forever taken up residence in our hearts through Christ by His Spirit.
Your calling is a high one brothers and sisters. Never let anything persuade you otherwise. Will you walk according to your calling? Will you walk in the nobility of Christ who lives and reigns in you? Will you present to God clean hands and a pure heart? What would stop you from doing so? Whatever it is you have been empowered to overcome it and walk in the beauty of Holiness. Begin today to walk in the holiness of God through Christ our Lord by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Php 4:11 Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.
The question is, are you content? I would argue that the whole world is looking for contentment. I certainly thought when I became a Christian that the Church would be packed full of contented people, you can imagine my disappointment. It seemed to me that most folk that I met in the church were very much like the world when it came to contentment. The world makes every mistake possible while attempting to achieve contentment, yet so do many Christians. Many people in the world believe that contentment comes through material possessions and good personal relationships. While these things are nice, they could never possibly bring the deep kind of contentment that Paul is talking about.
Now some good Christian folk would argue that your personal relationship with Jesus brings you the kind of contentment Paul is speaking about in this particular Scripture, it’s simply not true but it makes it possible. In fact only through Jesus is it possible, but He aint doing it for you. Paul had to learn to be content. It was not a question of his relationship with Jesus, rather it was a question of enduring and overcoming as he walked through fire and flood. There are choices to be made as we move along the narrow path of life. We choose to endure. We choose to give thanks. We overcome much as Jesus did in the garden when He submits His will to the Father’s.
The key word I would argue in understanding this is “learned.” He had learned to be content, there was no magic wand. No one came along and laid hands on him and suddenly he was full of contentment. Paul, time and again had to walk through the fire and continue to praise God. We see in another Scripture that we are admonished not to be anxious at all but to pray and give thanks and make supplication to God and if we did that, something supernatural would happen, a supernatural peace that passes all understanding would actually stand guard over our hearts.
Can you praise God today in spite of your circumstances? If you learn to do this, if you walk through the fire with your hands held high, trusting in God, you will come to the place that Paul came to. You will discover that peace and contentment will have nothing to do with your circumstances, which are ever-changing, but have everything to do with praising and trusting in God who is never-changing. Choose to praise the Lord in the lower reaches of the dungeon, and you will learn to be content.
One day the Lord will rend the heavens and His glory will flow down the mountains and fill every valley with His majesty. The seas will flee away at His presence. The mountains will humbly bow and say ” Glory , glory to the risen King.” The sun will turn its face away in shame for it has been outdone by the brilliance of His illumination. A mere flickering candle in comparison to His unadulterated light. The moon and the stars will cry out ” Holy, Holy is He who was and is and forever shall be.”
And every voice from every tongue will say “Jesus,” and acknowledge the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And the beasts of the earth will fall down and cover their faces and then the lion will rise up and approach the lamb and they will lay down together. And every knee shall bow in every tribe and in every nation and even the hordes of hell will fall silent as He approaches. The earth itself will grow silent and shall be still and then a glorious noise will begin to arise and will fill the earth, it will fill the sea it will fill the night skies and it will fill the whole universe.
And all that will be heard will be the choirs of angels, that heavenly choir and the glory of God will not only cover the earth but will fill up everything that there is or has ever been. Gods saints will rise on this glorious symphony, they will arise in the updrafts of His glory and majesty and it will carry them into the heart of God. And those who rejected this magnificent glory will fall and their cries will be heard as they fall into the depths of darkness forever.
Luther did not invent a new doctrine when he announced that we are saved by grace through faith and not of works. He rediscovered it and presented it to a church that had long ago forgotten this most fundamental and vital aspect of what it means to be saved. This most basic fundamental truth was lost in religiosity and liturgy many centuries before. The clergy had robbed the laity. Century after century Christendom slowly drifted away, each generation losing something from the previous generation until they were totally adrift from the Truth. Once they were totally adrift from the truth then with every passing century the errors solidified and grew in strength. Walls like Jericho rose up and stood, formidable.
Then comes Luther and as he hammered that nail into the door, the whole of Christendom shook. A bloody revolution then ensued as the clergy, keepers of the error and the status quo, fought with all of their might against this upstart priest of no account who was challenging their religion and their liturgy. I believe a similar revolution would have to take place today in order to rediscover the truths of 1 Cor 14 and how we interact in gatherings. The sign gifts and their purpose of edifying the saints and the unsaved and the unlearned have fallen into disuse and have been forgotten. God help this starving and dying generation. If we do not have eyes to see then we cannot be fed. The walls of Jericho were rebuilt after the reformation. Brick upon brick, stone upon stone, error upon error.
We need to rediscover, once again, the fundamental truths of our faith as it is plainly written in the Scriptures. Who has dared to bypass or take away from the Holy Word of God? Do they not know that they shall be removed from the book of life? The walls of religion and the devastating clergy/laity divide need to come down. And if they will not then the saints need to abandon those strongholds. We need a mass exodus from behind those walls. We need to allow God Himself to be a wall of fire around us. Dear saint, you must follow the fire by night and the cloud by day and not the doctrines of the Nicolations. You cannot be immersed in the culture of religion, which is a mere reflection of the prevailing culture around us, and serve God at the same time.
There is a great gulf between our perception of provision and what we think of when think of work. The Lord makes provision for His children. Does He have expectations? Yes. Yet, the context of duty must be in light of a proper understanding of His provision. As in all things, the Lord is interested in why we do a thing rather than what we do. Two identical actions, with different motivations, can be to one a blessing and light, and to another a curse and darkness. Let me try and illustrate.
I grew up in what is known as a tenement. It was a large Victorian stone building. My American friends would call it an apartment building or block but to me that seems much to modern a name for something rather dark and foreboding as a tenement building. Thick damp stone walls. Big families crammed into tiny one or two bedroom apartments, some only having one room, we would call that a “single end.” They were cold and drafty and full of mice, often times there would be mushrooms growing out of the walls. Outside toilets meant “pots,” under the bed. Old metal baths pulled out on a Sunday night for bathing. Now, that was when I grew up, imagine what it was like one hundred and fifty years before that?
Imagine living like that for generations and then making your way across a vast ocean and finding yourself in the new world. Now imagine that you find out that you can get 160 acres, for free! You could homestead. The deal you would make is that you would work the land. You would cut down trees, remove stumps, remove all stones,till the land, plant the seed, tend the fields, bring in the harvest. Store the harvest and sell what you could in town after having made provision for your family.
If that was me in those days, you would wonder what that singing was, even when the weather was terrible. It would be me, as I chopped down tree and dug up stumps. It would be me as I tilled the land. And every day I would be in wonder of how I came upon such good fortune. I would remember where I came from often. I would remember that I had been delivered from drudgery and poverty. My work would be a joy as I kept in mind where I came from. In that sense it would not be work at all, it would all be provision.
Now consider the lazy un-thankful man. Would you hear him singing in the field? Would he be angrily carrying out his “work?” Would he be constantly complaining about the nature of his work, the weather and his aching bones? In all, the homestead act in America would offer 500 million acres of land. Only 80 million acres were ever taken and of those who did take it, in many areas the failure rate was as high as 60% Now of course there would be multiple factors in the failures, but in the end it was, for many, simply too hard.
The saints of God do not fail. They know where they came from and they never forget. They know they were dead in their sins. They know they were bound and captive to them. They know that countless generations before them died in their sin. They know they have been delivered. They know how good their God is. And so, even on the hardest days, through the toughest trials, it’s all provision for the saint. He has been given this new life and no matter what, he knows it. None of it is “work,’ to the saint, rather it is a labor of love. Your life itself is a labor of love as unto God, your redeemer.
What spirit do you have saint? Is your life a labor of love? Even when it rains, even when it snows, even when the stumps are refusing to yield as you labor to remove them? It is good to remind ourselves often of just what we were delivered from and who delivered us and gave us what we have now. Glory to God in the highest. He gives good things to His children and He knows how to train them and raise them for His will and His own good pleasure. Everything becomes a good thing when we see that it is all God’s provision.
This is the kind of love that would wait for a thousand years
The kind of love that would fill an ocean with tears
The kind of love that was birthed in heavenly places
The kind of love that shines upon a thousand faces.
This is the kind of love that would die for you instead
The kind of love that was crucified and bled
The kind of love that redeems you from all wrong
The kind of love that loved you all along
This is the kind of love that will never let you go
The kind of love that never says I told you so
The kind of love that keeps no record of wrongs
The kind of love that the birds sing in their songs
This is the kind of love that never seeks its own
The kind of love that never leaves you alone
The kind of love that forever seeks your best
The kind of love that gives your weary soul some rest
This is the kind of love that for you was crucified
The kind of love that was broken, beaten and died
The kind of love that did all of this for you
The kind of love that covers like the morning dew
This is the kind of love that never ever fails
The kind of love that would prove itself by nails
The kind of love that is crowned by a crown of thorns
The kind of love that will weather all of your storms
And in the end it is love that shall remain
It opened every door and has broken every chain
That you may live for all the world to see
That as a child of God the Son has set you free
This kind of love sets my heart aflame
This kind of love heals the blind and the lame
This kind of love means you shall never be the same
It is time to fall in love.
(Rom 6:6-7) Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin.
In the emptying process He removes the stones and rocks and the clods from our hearts and refines the flesh. The desires of this world loses all of its allure as He draws us to Himself. If we yield to the process then He draws us closer. I would love to say that in my experience it has been a one-time yielding, but no, not so simple. Time and again the calling comes. The deeper and the closer we come, oftentimes the deeper the cut. Shall we yield to the surgeon’s knife? Shall we yield to the sculptor’s chisel? I would say that only a vision of heaven itself could draw us to such yielding. It is not just a matter of revelation, inspiration is a vital aspect of our relationship with the Lord.
Just one moment in His presence. Can a single moment ruin us for the things of this world? Is it possible that after that moment the world turns to black and white? Then another miracle happens. As we begin to look at the world through those captivated eyes, the color begins to return but it’s not the color of the world, it’s the color of heaven. Now one truly sees the sunset because one has been intimate with the artist. I can see a waterfall and my spirit soars because I know the hand that crafted it. The mountains raises me up to higher places, to the place where they were born. The stars in the heavens draw my eyes upwards and my spirit follows the path of my gaze and I find myself in higher places. The hand of a child, a single ray of sunshine through the clouds, a wave that crashes onto the shore, soon enough I see my Lord in all of it. I see His beauty everywhere.
Yet the darkness prevails and time and time again it comes against the light. Yet, out of that moment, out of His presence there is born an eternal longing that no darkness can quell just as no hand could hold back the tide. He comes. Yes and He comes again to those who would wait upon Him. How long shall we wait? However long it takes. This is the kind of love that would wait a thousand years. The kind of love that would fill an ocean with tears. The kind of love that was birthed in heavenly places. The kind of love that shines upon a thousand faces. And so we yield, and so we die to this world. And we are drawn ever closer to the next until the day comes when we step over into the world that has touched us and called to us.
There is glory in all of it. It is a grand tapestry and we are but a thread. Can we see the vision of the artist? Can we see the vision of the sculptor? It is not so important to see the vision of the artist or to see the finished sculpture, it only really matters that we see Him, Him who creates it all. And in seeing Him we see everything in a single moment. Now with eyes that have gazed upon the Master we see it all so differently. Have you seen Him? Can you see the world through the eyes of Him who made it all? It’s a glorious vision and it continually draws us.
Recall the conception that you had of holiness before you stood, by the grace of God, where you stand today. It was the conception of a breathless standing on a pinnacle for a second at a time but never with thought of being able to live there. Yet when the Holy Spirit brought you there, you found it was not a pinnacle but a plateau, a broad way, where the provision of strength and peace comes all the time, a much easier place to live that lower down.
The security of the position into which God brings His saints is such that the life is maintained without ecstasy. There is no place for ecstasy and manifestations in a normal healthy spiritual life. The emotions that are beyond the control of the will are a sign that there is something not in the secure position, something undisciplined, untrained. (Oswald Chambers-Biblical ethics)
Brother Oswald just said a lot. And it would be worth just re-reading it a few times to see where he is coming from. It is in the context of the will and what part the will plays in our lives. If the emotions rule the will, or over-rule the will then there is a problem. Emotions are wonderful things and I fully embrace them. Yet, more often that not, they are like the waves of the sea driven by winds that we cannot see. The ocean becomes broiling and heaving and destruction is never far from hand in the midst of this kind of sea.
So brother Oswald contrasts a pinnacle to a plateau. A plateau or a Mesa. A mesa is an isolated flat topped elevation or ridge which is bounded from all sides by steep hills or rock faces and stands distinctly above a surrounding plain. It stands above the plain. It is not so high as a pinnacle, but it is still high enough to separate it from its surroundings while still in the midst of its surrounding. You cannot last long on a pinnacle but you can live on the broad plain flats of an elevated plateau.
Jesus is our plateau. When our eyes are upon Jesus then we are elevated above the noise and the din and the waves of the roiling sea. Peter discovered that it was not good enough for Jesus do walk upon the water, to be elevated above the storm just for a moment, we were born from above to occupy the high ground. And our focus on Jesus is the answer. Consider these things from Scriptures that describe Jesus. He is our High Tower. He is our Rock and our Fortress. These are all places of deliverance. The righteous run into these places and they are safe.
Can you say that you live above the fray of your emotions? What wind drives you? The gales of insecurity and fears? The hurricane force winds of disaster and persecution and loss? Or are you driven by the wind of the Holy Spirit? Do you stand upon the plateau, the broad place that elevates you above the storms of the plains below? You will notice that Chambers is talking about the way that our lives are “maintained.” The everyday life. He is not denying that people have emotions or that even men and woman can have ecstatic moments in their lives, but he describe them as pinnacles as opposed to plateaus.
The Lord Himself said in John 14 that He would not leave us as orphans but rather He would send us the Holy Spirit. He begins the chapter by addressing the troubles that we would undoubtedly face in our lives. “Let not you hearts be troubled.” And again in verse 27 He says ” Let not your hearts be troubled, neither be afraid.,” because “my peace I give unto you, not as the world does.” Jesus gives us His peace. His peace is our plateau. It is quite apart from anything the world has to offer and it is very much apart from the troubles of this world.
If you find yourself without this peace brothers and sisters, then look up. Look up into Jesus. Come away with Him above the troubles of this world. He has prepared a place for us, not just in eternity, but now, it is the plateau of peace. It takes discipline and obedience and trust to climb the high walls that lead to this place. It is not for the faint of heart and it is not for the nominal Christian, whatever that means. The will, your will, must yield to His will and you must trust Jesus implicitly.
Every foothold is a victory. Every ledge is a place of rest. Looking up and not looking down is a must. Who will find themselves scaling these heights? Who among us will master their emotions by the power that the Lord has given us? When we come to this place we will find that the emotions have found their proper place. The broad place of God’s peace that surpasses all understanding gives us standing on a firm foundation, on the Rock, upon the mighty fortress of our God. High atop the high tower in the midst of the plains for all the world to see. In it, but not of it. This is our place saints, this is our place, this is His peace. Journey on my fellow pilgrims.
A Call To The Remnant 