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GOSPEL PARABLES 16 GOOD SAMARITAN

GOSPEL PARABLES 16 GOOD SAMARITAN
The background to this parable is yet another story about the Jewish Pharisees and legalists taking opportunity to appear righteous in front of Jesus for the sake of impressing the crowds. To do this they would pose theological questions to Jesus for which they believed they had a smart answer. A lawyer (an expert in Mosaic law) decided he would ask Jesus a question that he could himself answer brilliantly and then parry with Jesus to and fro, and so appear to be as wise if not wiser than Jesus. 

Luke 10:25 And then a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered back, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.” And Jesus said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will have life.” But he wanted to justify himself (appear righteous) and said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?” (pl??sion; a person that is near or close in a variety of ways). 
Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. (These people are distancing themselves – the opposite to becoming near and close as neighbours)
But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ 
Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbour to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”
Jesus had just told a story of a man who was found beaten and helpless and left for dead. When Jesus told them that a priest came by, the crowd’s hopes were raised, only to fall when he passed by without helping. Next, a Levite arrived, and the crowd’s hope rose once more, but he too distanced himself from the injured man, leaving the crowd wondering about who was next. The crowd might have expected a Jewish man to be the hero, and perhaps this story was about the privileged religious leaders of the day, but Jesus was not trying to make that statement, and in any case, many may have even excused the priests and Levites, knowing that priests and Levites were bound by special rules when it came to touching the dead. (Jesus was saying something else) - And the big surprise was that a despised Samaritan was the compassionate hero in the story and what he did highlighted the true meaning of mercy and loving our neighbour.

Jesus is not making a point that Samaritans are better people than Jews, or that all priests and Levites are hard hearted people. The shock element of who is who in this story is more about the fact that you can’t predict where and when true compassion is going to occur just by having preconceived ideas about a person’s role or status or tribal identity. The parable points out that genuine mercy and compassion is always seen when one person helps another person who is in a helpless or vulnerable or deprived situation by coming close rather than by distancing themselves. And the real issue here is that Jesus proclaims showing mercy as I would say the core relational value of the Kingdom of God. And this just happens to be the answer that the smart lawyer finally gives to Jesus about ‘who is my neighbour’. The Lawyer decisively said to Jesus ‘The one who showed him mercy.’

It is mercy that generates closeness and acceptance and mercy responds to the vulnerability that we all feel as limited human beings. This is also seen in God’s creation even by animals of all varieties in coming to the aid of a helpless young fledgling of a totally different and distinct species. God has woven his mercy into the world of all living creatures. A big goose mothering a baby cat and a cat playing with  a baby bird (and 100 more examples)

There is a lot of talk about mercy and compassion these days but sometimes it seems kind of shallow like a superficial compassion. It's more about looking merciful and virtuous than actually caring, and it's more about having the correct moral high ground than actually helping people. And that can actually lead to some needy people adopting a victim mentality where they start to see themselves as helpless and always needing to be rescued. This can be dangerous because if someone or some special identity group can convince people that they're helpless then they can control them. And in today’s global culture there are people in power that cultivate that kind of dependency to stay in control.

And in this parable Jesus upholds this powerful theme of mercy as the overarching core value of God’s love and compassion throughout the Bible. Mercy is not only a feeling of compassion – it is a healing energy that generates concern and care and closeness like no other demonstration of love and faith. But mercy loses its healing power when it is done out of obligation or duty or condescension or guilt – that is not how God works.
We see God’s powerful nature of mercy and compassion on display everywhere in the Bible and we see it emphasised in the writings of at least seven of the Old Testament prophets. And David in the Psalms passionately proclaims the enduring mercy of God about ninety times. 

God’s mercy is first seen in the Bible in the book of Exodus Chapter 25 where God commands Moses to construct a mercy seat to cover the Ark of the Covenant which contained the presence of God in the tabernacle and the temple. It was crafted from pure gold which represented the very nature of God, and it shows how God’s desire is to be intimately near to his people, not distant or removed but right at the centre of Israel’s life and worship. It is the place where God meets humanity, not with condemnation but with a desire to show grace. The mercy seat was flanked by two angelic beings called cherubim, with their wings spread over it and their faces turned toward it as though even the heavenly beings are in awe of God’s loving compassion expressed through His mercy and emphasizing the sacredness of this place.

The nature of God’s mercy is also that it does not ignore sin or negate justice because mercy gives people enough time to consider their attitudes and behaviour and change before the consequences of their behaviour overtake them. 
‘The Bible also says The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.’ (Lamentations 2:22).
In the New Testament God’s mercy is seen in Hebrews chapter eight where God’s mercy is central to our understanding of how near and close God wants to be with us. The Old Covenant focused on adherence to the Law, and people having to do rituals of washings and sacrifices to come near to him. But in the New Covenant God writes the Commandments in our hearts and Jesus comes to dwell within us and give us his heart of obedience to the Father’s will in all things.
‘For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people… for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their unrighteousness (being out of alignment with me), and I will remember their sins no more.” (Hebrews 8:10)
God’s mercy draws us close to himself by pulling us out of our self-conscious mindset of imperfection and unworthiness which makes us feel at a distance from him. Our sense of helplessness can become a pathway towards God and not a pathway into isolation. 

We are called to be vessels of God’s mercy in a world that desperately needs it, and the Holy Spirit within us will always be prompting us to respond mercifully to others as he carries that compassion of the Father and Jesus to those around us. Jesus was ‘moved’ with compassion physically (plagchnizomai – in his inner body) when he saw the helplessness of the crowds around him. (Matthew 14:14).

The Bible says that mercy triumphs over judgement (James2:13) but it also says that people who show no mercy to others will receive judgement without mercy for their wrongdoing in the form of the unpleasant consequences of their wrongdoing. This is a sad reminder of how a person can unwittingly choke off the flow of God’s mercy even to their own self. The key to keeping the flow of God’s mercy open is to start by opening ourselves up to God’s mercy which endures forever. We make it something between God and ourselves and seek to live in his acceptance of us in our weakness and helplessness. That humble movement of our heart towards God is the truest expression of genuine faith that a person can have, and the Bible says that our hearts are purified by faith (Acts 10). From within that sea of God’s mercy we can look with eyes of mercy upon another person in their helplessness and that draws us into their need.

The prompting of the Holy Spirit to pray for someone in their struggles and their helplessness is an exercise of God’s mercy through us, where we can have faith that God is at work supernaturally to draw that person close to him and bring them his strength and comfort. Mercy often looks like patience in everyday interactions because it resists being triggered into resentment or anger. Listening before speaking can invite a person’s heart into God’s mercy simply because they are being heard. Being listened to and heard can often lead to a person being healed. Mercy flows from heaven when we choose to respond with kindness rather than harshness even when someone is being difficult or insensitive. Mercy can simply be believing the best about others, even when there is reason to assume the worst. Mercy means refraining from judgment or harsh criticism and rather seeking to understand someone’s vulnerability. That kind of mercy can allow a person to step out of the shadows of their own darkness and into God’s transforming light.

Paul OSullivan – spiritcode.podbean.com  -  pauloss@icloud.com

GOSPEL PARABLES 15 TWO SONS

GOSPEL PARABLES 15 TWO SONS 
Today I’m sharing the parable of the Two sons from the Gospel of Matthew (21:28).
The background to the parable of the Two Sons is that the Pharisees and Jewish leaders were strongly resisting what Jesus was saying and doing and questioning his authority, as they had with John the Baptist, so Jesus speaks this parable to them,

Matthew 21:28 “What do you think of this? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ And he answered, ‘I prefer not to,’ but afterward he changed his mind and went. And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, ‘I will go, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you, for the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed John for he came to you as an upright and Godly man and you did not believe him. And even when you saw that, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him.

The Godliness and anointing and spiritual authority of John the Baptist was at the centre of the argument that the Jewish leaders were really having about the authority of Jesus - before he spoke the parable of the Two Sons. 
What did the Jewish leaders see in John the Baptist that they did not want to believe? 
They did not want to see or believe that John the Baptist was from God because if they believed that then they would have to believe that Jesus was also from God. The whole crowd saw John the Baptist baptise Jesus and they all saw the dove of the Holy Spirit appear above the head of Jesus and they heard the voice from Heaven say, ‘this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased’. As well as that, the tax collectors and prostitutes received the baptism of John the Baptist, but the Jewish leaders had refused it.

Jesus is saying a lot here about choices and preferences and our willingness to believe in Jesus and trust him and do what he says, or we may resist and walk our own path of self-advantage. We may give a nod to doing what is right because it looks good but deep down resent that we are not fully in command of our own destiny and desires, and in this story the two sons are being weighed in the balance of either determining their own destinies or doing the will of their father. This Two Sons theme occurs in another three major stories in the Bible - the stories of the prodigal son, and Jacob and Esau, and Cain and Abel. 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
In the Two Sons parable Jesus is comparing the responses of the tax collectors and prostitutes with the responses of the legalistic Pharisees and Jewish leaders, and the situation in this parable resembles the story of the prodigal son. In the Prodigal Son story the father wants to bless both the sons, but the prodigal son goes his own way then has a change of heart and discovers his heart of gratitude and love and honour for his father. The older son is self-righteous and resentful of the mercy shown to the wayward son, just as the Pharisees are resentful of the mercy Jesus shows to sinners.

In the story of the twins Jacob and Esau, the older twin Esau was entitled to the spiritual inheritance from their father Isaac, but Jacob deeply desired it for himself. And one day after Esau had been out hunting and was hungry he impetuously traded the valuable older son inheritance for a tempting bowl of Jacob’s lentil soup, and later on, Jacob deceived the blind Isaac into blessing him with the sought after inheritance instead of Esau by disguising himself as Esau. And although Jacob initially acted out of self-will, he later repented, and years later, on the eve of his meeting with Esau to make reconciliation, he had an encounter with God and wrestled with God and with his own inner conflicts, and after this encounter God granted Jacob the full blessing of the heavenly inheritance he sought.

The Two Sons parable is also a replay of the Cain and Abel story where Cain is also resentful of the approval that God gives to Abel, who offers a heartfelt sacrificial offering of the best of his flock to God, whereas Cain gives only what he is obliged to give - just like the empty hearted Pharisees. God accepts the offering of Abel but not that of the envious Cain, who murders his brother and is sentenced into exile, to wander as a lonely man with an inner emptiness and bitterness. Cain’s crime of killing Abel is also replayed in the killing of Jesus by the Jewish leaders and the shouts of ‘crucify him’ in front of Pontius Pilate. Cain’s fate of being exiled to wander the earth (Genesis 4:4) is the same as the self-righteous Pharisees who exiled themselves from a merciful and forgiving God. The Bible says that through his sacrificial offering Abel still speaks even though he died (Hebrews 11:4) and how much more through the sacrificial offering of his own life does Jesus still speak even now to all the world. 

The story of Jesus is the unique story of the Son who delighted to honour the will of his Father, and who never wavered or had to repent or regret any wrong attitudes, and Jesus stands in the midst of all of these Two Sons stories. Jesus becomes the answer of forgiveness and mercy and hope to us as a wayward humanity represented by the tax collectors and the prostitutes and the prodigal son and the unruly and deceitful Jacob. And if we go astray like lost sheep, he comes to find us.

Jesus through his patience and longsuffering also becomes the remedy to those like the self-righteous Jewish leaders or the entitled older brother of the prodigal son or the disinterested Esau, or the hapless Cain who all remained in their shadow of darkness. 
Jesus waits and peers towards the horizon to see their hearts humbled and softened and become willing to return. For a brief moment I let you go your own way, but with great compassion I will gather you… (Isaiah 54:7) 
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Jesus has embraced humanity within the length and depth and height of his love. We are the brothers and sisters of Jesus, the sons and daughters of the Father, and heirs together with him of the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus fulfilled every requirement of the Commandments because of his love for his Father and he lives within our hearts as the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus with a desire to do the Father’s will.  That means that we too can now fulfill his Commandments because they are now written on our new hearts of faith and love through the Holy Spirit that he has given to us. This redeeming love and mercy and forgiveness of God can be a great encouragement to us when we might have felt we have let God down, but then turn to him, safe within his love. This is also how we can encourage others who may have felt they have wandered too far away from God and feel there is no way back, for he has said. For a brief moment I let you go your own way, but with great compassion I will gather you.

Paul O’Sullivan – spiritcode.podbean.com  (pauloss@icloud.com)

GOSPEL PARABLES 14 A SERVANT MINDSET

GOSPEL PARABLES 14 A SERVANT MINDSET 

The background to this parable in Luke is Jesus answering his apostles when they asked him to increase their faith. He said to them ‘If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.’ Luke 17:6 Having that kind of spiritual authority no doubt impressed them, and they would probably have then expected to hear a master class tutorial on gaining great faith. But in the next verse Jesus taught them a parable about having a servant mindset. 
Verse 7 Which one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep would say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? Would he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? Does he thank the servant because he did what was assigned to him? It’s the same with you, so when you have done all you were told to do, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”

They would have had no problem agreeing with what Jesus said about servants. There weren’t any workplace relation issues in those days or fair-work conditions or overtime.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              The point was that a servant worked until the day’s work was done, and certainly wouldn’t expect to sit down in scruffy work clothes and have a meal before the master of the house had eaten, as preparing the master’s meal was part of the day’s work anyway. And that meant having to wash and put on the right clothing and then having their own meal separately. 
They would have agreed about no thankyous or bonuses – work is work and serving is serving - so get used to it. And being an unworthy servant simply points to the relative status of master and servant. It does not mean being a worthless servant – because they get fired.  So what is the takeaway here in this parable?

There are a few stipulations that get special mention – know your place – Don’t expect privilege or applause and dress appropriately, and implicit in this is don’t grumble. And while these are fine qualities for a good employee the message just doesn’t send the soul heavenwards. In fact, there appears to be nothing inspiring about this parable at all.

But then Heaven lifts this mundane story into its highest glory and we see that Jesus is giving the apostles the key to unlocking the Kingdom power of God into the world - a master class of the dawning of a new kind of heavenly power that would reorder the nature of power – a power that was not our power over people but God’s power with people. And we see that Jesus is setting the stage here for the apostles to embrace a mindset of loving service as he himself had done. Jesus was answering their request to him to increase their faith. He was teaching them that having the kind of faith that released the power of the Kingdom of God did not mean that they possessed that power within themselves. They would become endued with God’s power at his will and timing as they embraced his servant nature mindset, and as they heard and obeyed his word in any given situation. The world did not know about this and still doesn’t and this has always been on offer to the Church and waiting to be fully embraced in these days of such neediness and destitution of the human soul.

God does not supernaturally empower people who lord themselves over other people or coerce them to do their own bidding. Our faith is the assurance that God is at work in the world of the unseen, and we see God’s power in action as we become partakers of his Divine servant nature. Jesus diligently taught them this a number of times. 
Matthew 20:25 Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

The Bible tells us in Philippians how Jesus lived within this faith and power when he writes ‘Have this mind(set) among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God something to be clutched onto, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, (Philippians 2:5)

We can know God’s presence with us in many ways, in worship or prayer or meditation in his word, but in our serving that is born out of God’s love and faith and not born out of sheer duty or just to be impressive we can touch the empowering presence of God. 

Jesus graphically turned the tables on his apostles’ cultural perspective of masters and servants and status and self-importance when he expressed not only his servant nature but his devoted love to the apostles at the Last Supper.

John 13:3-9 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you will have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” (Peter went into overkill as usual)

When he said to Peter ‘you will have no share with me’ he was saying that Peter could only share the Divine empowering and authority as he let the grace of the serving nature of Jesus flow through him to others. 
And Jesus has more to say to those who have valued that ‘share with him’ mindset. 
Jesus is waiting to come as the bridegroom to his own wedding feast and he wants to demonstrate his love and care and appreciation to all the faithful servants who are waiting for him. And he desires to lavish his warmest hospitality upon
his close and cherished guests and attendants. He says, 
Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning and be like people who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them. (Luke 12:35)

This servant mindset is always able to be conscious of considering two things at once. The first part is about us and what we are doing and the second part is about what God is doing.

The first part about us is being conscious that we are doing the best we can and accepting that our service will not be perfect but our heart of willingness to help and bless can be as perfectly selfless as we can manage. It is also about dealing with our human expectations of being appreciated or even thanked or wanting to feel affirmed. We can manage that mostly by focussing on the fact that we are doing this as unto the Lord and not only for people. Jesus said ‘when you do this you are doing it for me’ (Matthew 25:40)

That brings us to the second part about being conscious of what God is doing. 
God sees what we do as an act of love to himself and as an act of faith in him and now we see the answer to  the request that the apostles had for Jesus about increasing their faith.     
The Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit at these times that God is working through our faith in him to bring about his supernatural outcome of blessing upon the ones we are serving. We leave that result in God’s hands and in his timing. But the awareness of his love and closeness to us at these times brings an instant spiritual blessing to us.  And it is in this atmosphere of his loving attendance to us where God assures us of his creative reordering of all things in that place in our world to come into alignment with his will.
Thank you lord that you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD – forever Amen..

Paul O’Sullivan – spiritcode.podbean.com – email - pauloss@icloud.com

 

GOSPEL PARABLES 13 THE GOOD SHEPHERD AND DOORKEEPERS

GOSPEL PARABLES 13 THE GOOD SHEPHERD AND DOORKEEPERS
We are continuing in the Parables today with the narrative of the shepherd and the sheep and we previously discussed the story of the shepherd who goes out to find the lost sheep and bring it back to the sheepfold. All the Gospel parables come from Matthew and Mark and Luke, however John does record this one and only parable of the Good shepherd which is not found in any of the other Gospels. In this parable Jesus tells us that as the Good shepherd he is the only door to the sheepfold. 

John 10:1-5 “I tell you the truth, anyone who sneaks over the wall of a sheepfold, rather than going through the door, must surely be a thief and a robber! 

Jesus had said that he was ‘sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’ (Matthew 15:24). And in the first verse in this parable, he is describing the tragic story of how the sheep flock of the house of Israel had been taken into slavery and captivity many times by alien nations like Egypt and Babylon and Assyria, who climbed over or broke down the wall of the sheepfold and robbed and destroyed God’s flock. Jesus continues, 

But the one who enters through the door is the shepherd of the sheep, and the doorkeeper opens the door to him, and the sheep recognize the shepherd’s voice and come to him. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. After he has gathered his own flock, he walks ahead of them, and they follow him because they know his voice. They won’t follow a stranger; they will run from him because they don’t know his voice.

Jesus is talking here to a crowd of Jewish people, some of whom did hear his voice and believe while many others rejected his voice and chose to listen to the voice of legalism and tradition or political power instead of the words of life. But the people were unsure where Jesus was taking this story and they began to express their confusion, so Jesus had to take this story to its fulfillment and reveal himself to them as the Good Shepherd, not only of the house of Israel but of the whole earth. Reading on.

Vs.6-14 Those who heard Jesus use this illustration didn’t understand what he meant, so he explained it to them: “I tell you the truth, I am the door of the sheep(fold) – for the sheep. All who came before me were thieves and robbers. But the true sheep did not listen to them. Yes, I am the door. Those who come in through me will be saved. They will come and go freely and will find good pastures. The thief’s purpose is to rob and to kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.

In the first part of the parable the door is described as the door ‘to’ the sheep (eis) that the doorkeeper opens for the one true Shepherd, who is Jesus. But we have now just seen in the second part of the parable that Jesus describes himself as the door ‘of/for’ the sheep. Jesus has become our door to the Kingdom of God where we experience life in the family of God with him and the Father and the Holy Spirit and one another - Those who come in through me will be saved. 
Jesus continues.
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep. A hired hand will run when he sees a wolf coming. He will abandon the sheep because they don’t belong to him and he isn’t their shepherd. And so the wolf attacks them and scatters the flock. The hired hand runs away because he’s working only for the money and doesn’t really care about the sheep. “I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me, just as my Father knows me and I know the Father. So I sacrifice my life for the sheep.
Jesus then proclaims the awesome prophetic purpose of this parable about the rest of humanity becoming his sheep. 
I have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock with one shepherd -Israel will come back in.
There is one very important character mentioned in the beginning of this story that we must be careful not to overlook -  the doorkeeper. And there are some important doorkeepers in the Bible that need to be known and understood. A doorkeeper is one who gives Jesus access to the sheep as the Good Shepherd who is the door for the sheep into the Kingdom of God. There was a doorkeeper for Jesus from before the very beginning of time and the creation of the earth. And there have been doorkeepers as the door for Jesus right up to his death and resurrection and there have been doorkeepers right up to this present time. I want to list what I believe are seven doorkeepers that give access to the door of our Shepherd Jesus.

         The first doorkeeper was Father God who committed his Son to us before the foundation of the world and sent him into the earth for humanity. (Ephesians 1:3-4)
         The prophets were doorkeepers anointed by the Holy Spirit to open the ears of God’s people to the Messiah Jesus.  And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself (Luke 24:27).
         Mary as the human mother of Jesus was the doorkeeper who carried him in her womb for humanity through the work of the Holy Spirit. (Isaiah 7:14)
         John the Baptist as the most anointed of all the prophets was the doorkeeper sent to prepare the way of the Lord and pronounce Jesus as ‘The Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world’ where the Holy Spirit appeared as a dove upon Jesus at his baptism. (John 1:6-9,29)
         The Holy Spirit was the doorkeeper always within Jesus, who took him into the wilderness to be tempted after his baptism and then accompanied Jesus on the earth throughout his ministry. He was the doorkeeper that opened the eyes and ears of those who beheld Jesus as the Messiah then heard him speak and saw him die and witnessed his resurrection and his ascension into Heaven. (John 6:63)
         The Holy spirit who fell upon all of humanity at Pentecost (Acts 2:17) was the doorkeeper for every person that entered the world (John1:9) to reveal Jesus as the shepherd who lives for his sheep and who goes out looking for any lost sheep to carry them home.  ‘For you were like sheep going astray but have now returned to the Shepherd and keeper of your souls.’ (1Peter 2:25).

         The final doorkeepers are all those who carry the life of Jesus within them and are willing to lay down their souls for the life of Jesus to be seen in them, and the empowerment for us to do that is the gift and grace of the Holy Spirit. Jesus told his disciples before he returned to the Father in Heaven, how the Holy Spirit would operate in them to let their lives on earth bear witness to the fact that he was alive and active within them in the earth.
He said The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. (John 14:26). 
He also said when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth… He will testify of Me (martyre??) and you also will bear witness (martyre??). (John15.26). We saw in the parable we just read that ‘the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.’
There are two ways that the Holy Spirit in our lives acts as a doorkeeper Jesus. The first way is for us to keep the door open for people in our lives to find faith in Jesus. We can be consciously aware by our faith and our prayer that we can release the power of the Holy Spirit through our simple obedience to what he directs us to do and to say.
Paul spoke about the doorkeeper ministry of the Holy Spirit in and through his own life. 
He prayed for a door of utterance to be given to him that he might declare the mystery of Christ (Colossians 4:2). He did not put confidence in his own natural ability to open doors to release the supernatural power of God for peoples’ lives. His own testimony of his ministry was For we also are (humanly) weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you. The Holy Spirit does things behind the scenes.                                                                   Jesus spoke to his disciples about bearing witness to him and that now applies to us who believe in Jesus, and this means that the life we live is evidence that God lives through us and that we carry the reality of the life of God within us, not just concepts or opinions about God. 

The second way that the doorkeeper work of the Holy Spirit occurs is the hidden way he sovereignly works in every person’s heart in his unceasing desire to turn their hearts towards faith in God’s goodness and love. Jesus explained it this way ‘And when the Helper has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment’. (John 16:8). He reveals the darkness in every human heart and the corruption that is in the world, and he reveals what is upright and in alignment with God’s will in every human heart. The Holy Spirit becomes the light of judgement that divides between the light and darkness and he unveils the reward for what is good and the sentence upon what is evil.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
It is good to be aware that the Holy Spirit is the unceasing inner tugging upon the heart of every person on the planet regardless of their religious or cultural background. The soul of mankind opposes and resists this tugging on our conscience concerning God’s truth about who we are and who he is. This is because of our self-determined mindset of independence – our own self-serving idea of what is right and wrong, and good and evil.  The Holy Spirit had been the doorkeeper piercing the mind and heart of the apostle Paul to bring him to this encounter with Jesus where he entered through Jesus the door into the Kingdom of Heaven.
Our life of faith is our conscious awareness that the Holy Spirit is working in both of these ways in our own circumstances, and we can live in constant hope and expectation of seeing people being drawn to the Kingdom of God and entering through the door into eternal life.

GOSPEL PARABLES 12 THE ONE LOST SHEEP

GOSPEL PARABLES 12 THE ONE LOST SHEEP 
This story is about God’s determination to leave ninety-nine sheep to go and find the one sheep that has gone astray and become lost, and to bring it home. The parable is found in both Matthew and in Luke and while the story of the shepherd and the sheep are the same there is a different emphasis on the nature of the lost sheep in each account.
In Matthew the lost sheep is a little child who has gone astray and in Luke it is a sinner who has become lost.
Matthew 18:10 Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven. For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.
Matthew 18:11 What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying? And if he should find it he rejoices more over that sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray. Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.

Luke 15:1 Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him. And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, “This Man receives sinners and eats with them.” So He spoke this parable to them, saying:

Luke 15:4 What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.

These two stories show us the unlimited scope of the ministry of Jesus in in his determination to search out and find every soul that has taken a wrong path for whatever reason and to carry them back on his shoulders to safety. It is not only the little children going astray who may be deprived to one degree or another of the foundational wisdom and nurture they need in their lives. It is the grown-up adult going astray who has made up his or her own mind about what they choose in serving their own desires, good or bad.

The one overarching principle of this determination of our good shepherd is that God also allows us to choose our own determined way even though we get lost. God has us set on his trajectory for our life and we veer off. And Jesus is determined to find us even if we are hiding from him, just as God found Adam who was determined to hide from him after he had sinned. 
The parable says that Jesus comes to seek and to save that which was lost. (Matthew 18:14).

He said in that parable it is not the will (Thelema) of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. The word perish is appolymai - to ruin, destroy, waste a life. The word used for ‘will’ in that verse is Thelema which means a ‘determined intention of the will’ 
Another word used for ‘will’ in the Bible is boloumai which means more of a heartfelt longing. The Bible tells us that God’s will touches both of these meanings because Peter writes about this heartfelt longing of the will of God in the same context of bringing peoples’ hearts back to his love. He writes ‘God is longsuffering toward us, not willing (boloumai – his heartfelt desire) that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.  (2Peter 3:9)

When Jesus puts that lost sheep on his shoulders to bring him back he is putting humanity on his shoulders to bring them back to the Father. God is confident in the power of his own determined love to have this to happen. That can overcome any and every dark and selfish thing that would try to obstruct God from accomplishing his good will for his beloved mankind. That is the overarching principle of God’s determined good will for us. 

God’s determined will is infinitely greater than our will. 
But how can God eliminate the obstacles of darkness that beguile us and lead us astray?

The first obstacle of darkness was Satan, the serpent, Lucifer, the devil because of his own deception and pride in the beginning. He was one of the highest created spiritual beings that beheld the face of God. And as a lesser spiritual being than God he was of necessity flawed and imperfect, and he sank to the depth of his flawed spiritual nature in his deception and pride. He then set about to destroy the good will design of God for his beloved humanity which Satan knew was also a lesser being than God, and even made a little lower than his own angelic self. He is allowed by God to exercise his own determined evil will upon mankind and tempt them to fall.
The second obstacle is the potential inner darkness of every human soul, because this vulnerability of humanity’s unformed character and desire for self-advantage and self-protection allowed mankind to fall.

James explains that second obstacle of our self serving humanity this way. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death (mindset of separation from God). (James1:14).

God overcame the first obstacle of darkness by sending Jesus because Satan could not overcome the sinless nature of Jesus. But God still allowed Satan to tempt him. And it is through the overcoming power of Jesus that we are able to overcome darkness because Jesus has given us his life to live, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

In another startling test case for humanity in the Old Testament God allowed Satan to tempt a man called Job and greatly afflict him. Satan asked God for permission to do the afflicting because he said that Job was only being righteous before God because he was so materially blessed. Satan was allowed to strip Job of his wealth and health and family – the lot. The Bible says Job was blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil. Job was deemed to be the ‘greatest man in all the East’ having many children and great wealth and wisdom and influence. But Job aimed higher than his own self advantage or self-protection. He said ‘though he slay me I will yet serve him’. Job overcame the built in bias of hostility that the carnal human soul has toward God and he trusted in God’s wisdom and love and determined will to save him in the end, and by ‘in the end’ I mean Job’s statement during his ordeal when he said I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes. How my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19:25)

The Bible says about Job. for the LORD had accepted Job. And the LORD restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before and the Bible also says The LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; (Job 42).
Job let go of something of himself to God that he could have clung on to. He could have become stuck in resentment as a victim of injustice. He could have listened to his wife who said, ‘curse God and die’.
Job sacrificially let go of many things in his adversity into the vault of God’s love and determined good will for him. Fsith came alive in him and he believed and received God’s blessing. His surrendered faith in God’s love and goodness and his letting go of his own determined will for God’s determined good will released an abundance of blessing even for his mean spirited friends because Job prayed for them. We can pray like that.

Another Old Testament man, Abraham, learned that faith was letting God’s will override his own determined will in times of adversity. He sacrificially let go of his only son Isaac and obediently offered him as a sacrifice back to God, trusting that God had a perfect solution to complete his perfect will in the earth through him. Abraham’s faith not only received his son back but received through Isaac the nation of Israel and ultimately the whole of humanity.

The Father is the model of sacrificial letting go in letting his Son Jesus go for us and receiving him back in glory, and bringing humanity with him. 
Jesus is the model of sacrificially letting go of his own human self-life in adversity in order for his Divine life to come alive in us. 
How do we let go in adversity? When adversity blocks us from getting what we want. That adversity seems to oppose what is best for us. An impetuous reaction to that adversity mentally and emotionally dispels our peace and we become conscious of confusion or disorder.
Suppose that we make a simple error of judgement and go too quickly through a stop sign because time is acting against us (consequences). Time is not the adversary nor is the stop sign– our impatience is. Consciously letting go of that impatience and trusting that God is always reordering all things according to his good will, then allows God to flood in with his peace. That letting go has now become an act of faith in God and we will see God’s perfect result supernaturally manifested in our life. Through faith and patience we inherit the promise (Hebrews 6:12)

There are many ways in which we can learn to let go of our own unconscious resistance to what God may have in mind in achieving his will instead of us clinging onto how we prefer to manage things. Our resistance may be our own fear and anxiety and because we expect something bad to happen, we allow fear and doubt to freeze us into inactivity. That is letting go of hope instead of letting go of fear. The Bible says that we have this hope as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, (Hebrews 6:19)
That means that in that frozen moment of fear we can anchor our soul by remembering that God is present with us and actively reordering all things together for our good in the world of the unseen, behind the veil. We cling to that anchor and find the freedom and courage in adversity to act with hope and expectation of God’s determined good will to come to pass. 
As the parable says it is not the will (Thelema) of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish - to ruin, destroy, or waste our life. Because of our faith in God’s determined good will for our lives we can receive from God his best for us in this life and in the next. Glory to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to his power that works in us. Amen.  
Paul O’Sullivan spiritcode.podbean.com

GOSPEL PARABLES 11 THREE LOAVES AT THE MIDNIGHT HOUR

GOSPEL PARABLES 11 THREE LOAVES AT THE MIDNIGHT HOUR

We are continuing in the three stories of the three loaves of bread that reveal what is hidden in these stories about the work of the three Person of the Trinity in our lives, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The background of this parable is that Jesus has just taught his disciples the Lord’s Prayer – the Our Father, urging them to confidently reach out to our Heavenly Father in their times of need.

Luke 11:5 And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me… The word ‘bother’ in Greek is parecho –which means to reach out confidently – and possibly pushing the envelope) the door is now shut and my children are asleep.

 

 

But the man, confident of his friend’s loyalty keeps on entreating him, and that tugs on his friend’s heart. So Jesus says that even though the door is shut, the reaching out is rewarded and the man opens the door and gives his friend as much bread as he wants, not just because of the friendship but because of his friend’s presumptive confidence and trust in him and in his goodness of heart. Jesus is saying here that a confident entreaty draws a helpful response which is different to a demand which creates a distance. 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Jesus continues ‘so I say to you ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 
Jesus then re-emphasises big-heartedness the Father in the Lord’s Prayer and says
If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or a scorpion instead of an egg? If you then, being human, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11:9-11)

In this story we see that Jesus is the friend in the middle of the three friends. We are the friend in need of bread in the first place and we go to our friend Jesus, and he goes to his friend the Father who is the friend that has all the bread, and who always provides above and beyond our daily bread. This story also contains a prophetic message for the end times because the request is made at the midnight hour - prophetic of the end times when great darkness will cover the earth – and how God’s desire is for people to receive the Holy Spirit in that time. Jesus says to us ‘your Heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask’ – those who keep on asking, keep on seeking and knocking on the door

The end time message of the midnight hour throughout the Bible from Exodus to revelation includes three things.
a) God’s judgement upon the words of darkness, 
b) People being set free from the chains of spiritual bondage in their lives,
c)  The time for Jesus to receive his bride, the Church. The last thing that God did in his work of creation was to present Eve as a bride to Adam created from Adam’s side. The last thing that God will do in his work of redemption will be to present his Church to Jesus as his bride. She is brought forth from the life of Jesus – from his side that was pierced on the cross. We will look at each of the midnight hour prophetic messages.

a) Judgement upon darkness. It was at the midnight hour that God delivered Israel out of Egypt and pronounced judgement upon Pharoah and the false gods of Egypt. 
Exodus 12:29 At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt.
Midnight hour judgement will expose the corruption that is in the world at the end times and many false idols in peoples’ lives will be destroyed. 

b) Freedom from spiritual bondage. Reading from the Book of Acts when Paul and Silas were in prison in Philippi for peaching the Gospel. ‘At about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the prison doors were opened, and everyone’s chains fell off. 

c) The time for Jesus to receive his bride, the Church. The midnight hour is the prelude to the wedding of Jesus and his bride. This is a time when the church will have been made ready as seen in so many Scriptures, and the Bible tells the story of the time when some of the bridesmaids went to sleep while the bridegroom is being delayed, ‘at midnight a cry was heard Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!' (Matthew 25:6). The wise bridesmaids had oil in their lamps and went out to meet him, but some of the bridesmaids had no oil in their lamps - speaking of those who have neglected the gift of the Holy Spirit in their lives. The foolish bridesmaids who were without the oil of the Holy Spirit were told to go and get the oil for themselves from the one who had the oil, and when they went to receive, they were told that the door was now shut. It will be a time of desperate seeking and enquiry, and I believe that by the grace of God many will knock, and the door will be opened - many will ask and they will receive the Holy Spirit. 

There is also the wedding story of the king who gave a wedding banquet for his son and wanted to fill his house with guests so he sends out messengers to tell people to come to the wedding, but everyone is too busy to attend (Matthew 22:1) The king was greatly disappointed and commanded his servants fill his house with guests. ‘And those servants went out on the crossroads and got together as many as they found, both bad and good, so the room in which the wedding feast was held was filled with guests.
Those highways and byways people would have made their best effort to wear their best wedding garment out of respect and gratitude to the king. But there was one man who had not bothered about a wedding and had no respect or gratitude and when the king saw that man he told his servants to put him out of the wedding feast and into the ‘outer darkness’ of the midnight hour.

The final end time wedding story in the Bible is of Jesus and his bride, and as we have seen, it involves three categories of people, 1) The bride and bridal party attendants, 2) The guests, 3) The ones on the fringe who either only just make it or end up in the outer darkness. If people live in shadows they end up in darkness. It is in that place of outer darkness where some vital decisions will have to be made by many people one day.

In the book of Revelation Ch.11 we are given the same story in a picture of the end time Church as the Temple. The three Temple areas are the inner sanctuary of the Most Holy Place inside the veil, signifying the many Christians who abide in a close relationship with Jesus, and then the inner court outside the veil where the priests ministered at the altar of incense, signifying the many Christians who faithfully serve and worship the Lord, and then there’s the outer court for the Nations – (ethnos), which is a mixed multitude of people. The apostle John is told to measure (metron) both the number of people in each of the three temple areas and the spiritual commitment of the people in those three areas. Note – sanctuary not only means holy place – it’s a place  of safety.
‘A reed as a measuring rod was then given to me, shaped like a staff, and I was told ‘Rise up and measure the sanctuary (Most Holy Place) of God and the altar of incense, and number those who worship there. But leave out measuring the outer court of the temple of God; for it is given over to the Nations, and they will trample the holy city underfoot for 42 months (three and a half years)’. 

That outer court is the outer darkness of the midnight hour and the people there are not measured at that particular time of the three and a half years mentioned in Revelation, because before the Lord arrives the people in that place will go through the time of great tribulation. As the prophet Joel said ‘Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision (h?ârûs? – agitation and threshing and decision) for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision (Joel 3:14). It is in that time and place that people will have to decide whether they cry out to God and ask and receive the Holy Spirit or to knock and have the door opened for them, just as Jesus described in the original parable. The Father in heaven will answer those midnight hour entreaties and give the Holy Spirit to those who ask and seek and knock, as Paul writes all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Romans 10)

We do not know the times and the seasons of God but there will be times when the darkness will be at its greatest as God gives the world its warnings, and as he gives his Church his message of hope for setting people free. We are certainly in a dark time of history and God is bringing many things of the world into the light for them to be seen and judged for what they are. He is also encouraging his church to become pure of heart and prepared as a bride for his Son. We can be that friend in the parable of the three loaves that speak of the Father and Jesus and the Holy Spirit. We go to our friend Jesus on behalf of the people that we love and have some influence with, so that the Father will give them the revelation of the person of the Holy Spirit to draw close to him and reach out for him. Thank you Jesus for showing us the Father and thank you Father for being such a big-hearted Father who always provides above and beyond our daily bread – for ourselves and for those for whom we pray. Amen

 

 

GOSPEL PARABLES 10 THE LEAVEN OF THE KINGDOM

GOSPEL PARABLES 10 LEAVEN IN THE KINGDOM
We are continuing in the parables of the three loaves of bread and we saw recently that there were three stories that contain the phrase three loaves of bread. The Three loaves of bread symbolise the three Persons of the Trinity, The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit. We also found that these stories revealed the nature of each of the Persons of the Trinity and how each one works within our spirit.
We've looked at the story of Abraham and the three loaves of bread and the judgement upon Sodom and Gomorrah, and we've also looked at the story of a woman being given eagles wings by God to escape the attack of Satan in the Book of Revelation. 
Today I'm again looking more fully at the parable of the woman hiding leaven in the bread, from Matthew chapter 13.33 – the Kingdom of heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal (or three loaves of bread) till it was all leavened. Jesus uses the word egkrypto for hid instead of krypto - the only time egkrypto is ever used in the Bible - compelling us again to ask God what Jesus encrypted for us in the word leaven in this parable. 
The word leaven in the scriptures is given the meaning of corruption and sinfulness and hypocrisy, and as before we are letting Scripture interpret Scripture. Jesus said beware of the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy, for there is nothing covered that will not be revealed nor hidden that will not be known. (Luke12). Jesus is saying that all the corruption and hypocrisy that seeks to stay hidden will in due course be exposed and judged, and we're seeing that happening before our own eyes in these days. 
Practically, and in a neutral sense, leaven works through fermentation, expanding and transforming bread, and once fermentation begins, it continues until ready for baking. 

So in letting Scripture interpret Scripture we go back to the first mention of leaven in Genesis and follow that word. We find it in Genesis 19 in the story of Lot in Sodom and Gomorrah, which is part of the earlier story of Abraham and the three loaves of bread that Sarah cooked for the three messengers that Abraham called ‘My Lord’ – Adonai. We saw how Abraham prayed to the Father to spare his cousin Lot’s family from judgement in Sodom, while the two other messengers as angels went down to Sodom. Lot’s family is spared the judgement of the city, and what we find in that story is that Lot prepares a meal of unleavened bread for the two visiting angels. In his urgent desire to escape and receive the supernatural deliverance of God Lot had no time to start doing any bread leavening process or baking – he wanted out of there!

And this sets the pattern for the next mention of unleavened bread which is in Exodus when Israel escapes from Pharaoh in Egypt. Moses told the Israelites to leave in haste because there was judgement coming upon all in Egypt and all Egypt’s first born were to be killed, but the Angel of death would pass over Israel because they had sprinkled the blood of a lamb upon the doorposts of each house, so they packed all their belongings and their food and they had no time to wait for bread to be leavened and baked.(Exodus 12:15). 
So from then on, Israel were to celebrate the feast of Passover each year with unleavened bread to remind them of the significance and urgency of that miraculous deliverance from the sin and judgement in Egypt. And what we then find everywhere in the Old Testament sacrifices is that God required that Israel only use unleavened bread in their sacrificial offerings. 

Paul brings the same message of the Passover Feast into the New Testament when he admonishes the Corinthian church for the immorality that they had let into the church, and he described that behaviour as leaven. He says ‘For Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed, let us therefore celebrate the communion feast not with the old leaven of malice and evil but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, and don't you know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump. 
Paul is saying the unleavened bread at communion is a reminder of Christ's sinless sacrifice, and he tells the church to examine their hearts at Communion, and to remember his mercy and forgiveness and to remember God's miraculous work of salvation. Many Christians use unleavened bread at communion to symbolise that.
Leaven in the Old and New Testament does not seem to have gained a good reputation. 

So what does Jesus mean when he says that the Kingdom of God is like a woman (the Church) hiding leaven in three loaves of bread until the loaves are fully leavened? 
Why would Jesus say that sinfulness must grow to its fullest extent in the Kingdom of God? He’s not saying the world, he’s saying the Kingdom of God!
And how would this describe the expression of the Persons of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit working through the Church upon the spirit of Mankind? 
I had not seen or heard a satisfactory answer to this puzzle of leaven filling the Kingdom. Is there something good that reflects something of the nature of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit working upon the spirit of mankind? 
Is there something the Bible has to say about this?

Yes there is – Praise God – hiding in Leviticus 23:15. And in this Scripture it says that at the feast of Pentecost the loaves will be baked with leaven as a holy offering to the Lord, and the leaven here speaks of The Holy Spirit. Let me explain.
This is a departure from all the Old Testament sacrifices that had required that only unleavened bread was to be used with sacrificial offerings. But the significance of celebrating the harvest Festival of Pentecost gives special meaning to the leaven being used in the loaves.

In this Scripture Israel is told that they had to celebrate the Feast of Pentecost as a harvest Festival every year. In Israel the feast is called Shavuot, meaning ‘weeks’, referring to Pentecost as the feast that comes seven weeks and one day after the Feast of Passover – fifty days – and Pente is the Greek word for fifty. 
The Sunday that followed directly after the Passover Sabbath is our Resurrection Sunday, and Israel they were to wave the first sheaf of grain of the harvest as a grain offering to the Lord -and that offering was called the first fruits of the harvest. That is a remarkable prophetic statement about Jesus who as the first man to rise from the dead is called the first fruits of the Resurrection in the Bible (1 Corinthians15:51; 1 John 3:2). The Hebrew word for first fruits is bikkurim – which means ‘the promise to come’ because the harvest fully comes 50 days later on the day of Pentecost. Jesus told his disciples to wait for the ‘promise of the Father’ (bikkurim – the promise to come) saying  ‘John baptised with water, but you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit’ (Acts 1:8). 
On that day of Pentecost (Shavuot) Israel had to offer two loaves of bread, and those two loaves were to be baked with leaven. (Note – two loaves of bread – not three! – hold that thought)

The two loaves that were leavened in the Feasts of Pentecost every year have now become three loaves of bread, and the reason for having to wait for the two loaves to become three loaves is that right up until Jesus had died on the cross and risen from the dead and ascended into heaven and sent the Holy Spirit, there were only two Persons (two loaves) operating in the earth upon the spirit of all of humanity - Jesus and the Father. The Holy Spirit had operated through prophets and kings and priests but was not being expressed into and through all of humanity until the Day of Pentecost.
On Pentecost Sunday in the book of Acts the Holy Spirit fell upon all flesh - all humanity, allowing the expression of the three Persons of the Trinity upon the spirit of all Mankind. Peter said in the Book of Acts ‘I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh’. (Acts 2.7). This is a startling example of God’s awesome attention to detail!
And in the parable that Jesus taught about the woman hiding the leaven in the bread, Jesus said that the leaven would grow to its full extent in the Kingdom of God – the leaven of the Holy Spirit – not the leaven of sin and corruption! 

Shavuot (Pentecost) was also a time for Israel to recommit to their covenant with God and to celebrate the giving of the Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai, which amazingly also fell fifty days after the first Passover of Israel in Egypt. The Law once written on tablets of clay is now written upon our hearts by the Holy Spirit – a New Covenant – part of the Third loaf blessing of the Holy Spirit.

And that is the leaven that is going to fully expand the Kingdom of God for the end time expression of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in the Church and to the world before the Lord returns. The new leaven of the Holy Spirit will fill the Church in greater measure than ever before, and we will see him expressed in greater measure than ever before - into the world, and not remaining hidden. He is the one who sheds the love of God abroad in our hearts – he is the one who leads us into all truth – he is the one who takes what Jesus says and interprets it to us in an amazingly personal and individual way for our instruction and guidance. The Bible says that on the day of Pentecost everybody heard the good things of God being spoken to them in their own language. The Holy Spirit is going to be speaking to people in the way that they understand him no matter what their cultural or religious background. The Bible says for us to ‘Be being filled’ as a continuous mindset and process of faith, and as we continue to keep on being filled, we can expect his grace for the flow of the Holy Spirit in us to be imparted to those in our world. Your Kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.

GOSPEL PARABLES 9 A WOMAN GIVEN EAGLES WINGS

GOSPEL PARABLES 9 A WOMAN GIVEN EAGLES WINGS 
Continuing in the Parables of the three loaves of bread, we saw that there were three stories that contain the phrase ‘Three loaves of bread’, and last week we did the story of Abraham and the judgement upon Sodom and Gomorrah. Today I’m looking more fully at the original three loaves parable of Jesus in Matthew 13:33 ‘The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.’ There is more to this short parable than I first thought or even imagined.

The word for ‘hid’ in that verse is egkrypto – encrypted and not the usual word– krypto. What is primarily hidden in the three loaves is the message of the three Persons of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the lives of God’s people. Jesus uses this word egkrypto which is the only time this word is ever used in the Bible and that compels us to diligently look at each word and ask God what Jesus encrypted for us to decrypt and understand. The only code that serves the truth of Scripture when following a particular word or concept through the Bible is that of letting Scripture interpret Scripture by looking at the first mention of that word or concept in the Bible and tracking it from Genesis to Revelation. 

We will start by asking who this Woman is that hides the leaven until the final stage of Kingdom growth is reached, and the first prophetic word about a Woman throughout the Bible is found in Genesis 3:15, where God judges Satan for tempting Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve’s judgement is that Adam faces hardship in tilling the ground, while Eve endures pain in childbirth. However, when God judges the serpent he introduces the Woman as a type of the Church because God says to Satan ‘And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.’  This prophecy is the archetype of spiritual warfare between the Church and Satan throughout the Scriptures.
The offspring of the Woman refers to Jesus, whose heels suffered piercing and bruising on the cross. The Church is also the Woman’s offspring through Jesus and embodies his life and continues his mission, and the Church ultimately crushes the serpent's head in the final victory of light over darkness. The Father’s prophecy in Genesis signifies that the Church triumphs in spiritual warfare through being united with Jesus in his victory. 

Paul affirms this spiritual victory in Romans 16:20, emphasizing that ‘the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly’ (tachos). Tachos means "a short space of time," and it indicates a future event that will occur for a short space of time, rather than occurring in a short space of time soon after Paul wrote it, because  it is yet to occur. A word search reveals that tachos aligns with the British meaning of the word "momentarily," which means ‘for a short space of time’, while in American English, it means "soon or in a short space of time." The key point is the brief duration of Satan's defeat rather than its immediacy and it reflects a future distinct measure of time. (We will be at LA airport momentarily – why stay at LA airport for a short space of time?)

We will continue to follow this intriguing hiddenness theme that runs throughout the story of the Church. The Church of Jesus is hidden in Jesus, and just as the Woman hid the leaven in the three loaves, the Church that is hidden in Jesus remains concealed to the world. It is not observed under the banner of any denomination or doctrine but exists within and beyond what may or may not even resemble traditional or institutional church. Church has always been truly realised in gatherings of God’s people who express the unity of the Spirit in bonds of peace (Ephesians 4:1-3), and as a people not walking in the power or appearance of worldly influence but living by faith and love in the power of Christ and in intimate relationship with him and overcoming all darkness in the earth through him. Paul speaks of the Church as the bride of Christ and he says that this conceals a great mystery. Yet it reveals the truth of a loving unity of Spirit in people whose outward lives express the hidden life of Christ within. (Ephesians 5:25-27, 32)

The Church has been given a New Testament strategy for spiritual warfare, which means that we overcome darkness from our position of authority seated with Christ in the highest place - above the Heavens. This is unlike the Old Testament spiritual warfare that Daniel was engaged in when he prayed for understanding of what would happen in the End Times (Daniel 10). 
Daniel prayed from the earth into the heavens while angels fought above him and he had to wait three weeks for the angel Gabriel to answer his prayer because Gabriel was battling the prince powers of darkness over Persia. Though we experience the buffeting of spiritual struggles on earth, the enemy is under our feet and our True spiritual warfare is in trusting God to fight our battles and our resting in His authority.

Gabriel told Daniel that he needed help from the Archangel Michael to overcome the prince powers of darkness in the Heavens. Daniel's prayer experience is directly reflected in a vision of the last days that we see in Revelation Ch.12 where a similar battle occurs between Michael and Satan who is called the dragon in Revelation. The dragon realizes ‘he has but a short time’ (Revelation 12:12), confirming Paul’s end time prophecy when he said that God would crush Satan under our feet in a short space of time (tachos). 
Paul also said in Romans 9 that The Lord will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness and make a short work upon the earth (syntemno – to execute or finish it in a short space of time). 
There is an interesting short space of time mentioned twice in Revelation 12 as "a time, times, and half a time" and "one thousand two hundred and sixty days," and as forty-two months in Chapters 11 and 13. It refers to a period of three and a half years. At the beginning of this space of time Satan, depicted as the dragon, pursues the Woman (The Church - Revelation 12:13), and in the next verse the Woman is given "wings of a great eagle" to escape into a solitary place (eremos), receiving protection and refuge by God for this period of time. 
This is an amazing reiteration of how Pharaoh pursued Israel at the Red Sea when God says to Israel ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself (Exodus 19:4). Pharoah is a type of Satan in Genesis and a type of the dragon in Revelation 12 - where it says that the dragon even sends a flood to drown the woman but the earth helps the Woman, just as the earth helped Israel in dividing the Red Sea for them to escape. Only Scripture can interpret and validate Scripture throughout the Bible.

Whatever that final battle between the Woman and Satan that began in Genesis and ends in Revelation will look like, and however the protection of God for the Woman the Church in that short space of time plays out, remains in the realm of speculation as far as I’m concerned. But it denotes a type of supernatural protection and provision. We just read that the Woman is given two wings of a great eagle, which speaks about being in some way spiritually lifted above the peril of those days, which could mean in a spiritual sense of simply being uplifted in faith, or it could mean miraculously shielded from peril in the earth. 

I think Psalm 91 is the archetype of this supernatural protection that God has always given his people in times of battle against his enemies, as David says. ‘He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust.” You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, Nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday. A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; But it shall not come near you. Only with your eyes shall you look and see the judgement of the wicked because you have made the LORD, who is my refuge, even the Most High your dwelling place, No evil shall befall you. (Psalm 91:1-10)
The battle in the Heavens between Michael and the dragon in Revelation Ch. 12 takes place only at the very end when the dragon is cast down to the earth. However, I believe that we are living in times when Satan is currently losing altitude and making himself felt and even perhaps being perceived in more bold and strange supernatural manifestations in the earth. The Bible says that ‘Satan can appear as an angel of light’ (2Corinthian 11) and it also says that in the last days ‘The coming of the lawless one (the dragon) is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, 10 and with all unrighteous deception. (2Thessalonians 3:8-10)
So let us remember that no matter how darkness and deception want to show off and confuse and destabilise peoples’ souls, we are seated in the highest place with Christ far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. (Ephesians 1:21)

What we do know is that the enmity between the Woman and the Prince of Darkness was prophesied in Genesis and reinforced in Romans and other epistles and finally in Revelation. And we know that the message is about the supernatural victories of the Kingdom of God over the kingdom of darkness, and we know that the Woman plays a great part in that victory in the end times. In the meantime, we can continue to live above and not under the powers of darkness without fear in our daily lives. This is how we are to see ourselves today as the Church. Paul teaches us concerning Jesus that God ‘has put all things under His feet and given Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. (Ephesians 1:22).
Thank you Lord that though we may live in the most enormous times of uncertainty that the world has know we can at the same time experience the greatest times of certainty that we have known because you dwell in the highest place with all things under your feet, and you are by our side because you have placed us by your side in that heavenly place. Amen

Paul O’Sullivan 22 Sept 2024 – Northern Beaches Christian Centre NSW Australia.

 

 

GOSPEL PARABLES 8 LEAVEN IN THREE LOAVES

PARABLES 8 Leaven in three loaves

This is the shortest parable of Jesus in the Bible and it occurs in Matthew Ch.13 and in Luke Ch.13. Jesus taught this after he had taught the parables of the mustard seed and the growing seed. Reading now from Matthew.

Matthew 13:33 Another parable He spoke to them: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was fully (holos) leavened.’

Three measures of meal means three portions of flour made into three loaves of breadcake. The leaven is ‘hidden’ and the Greek word for hidden that Jesus uses here is (egkrypto – encrypted) and this word is not found anywhere else in the Bible. The usual word that is used for hidden in all other Scriptures is ‘krypto’. The word Krypto means something hidden but egkrypto means not only hidden but encrypted with a code, and there is a big difference between the two words.

Encryption is a two-way process because encrypted information has to be decrypted by someone who has the appropriate code or key. You can find documents hidden in a room if you look hard enough but if they are in a fixed safe in the room you need to know the combination or the code for the safe.

The phrase ‘three loaves of bread’ occurs in three stories in the Bible and in each story that phrase hides truth concerning the Trinity of the three Persons of God as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But there is also an encoded message of the ‘End Times’ beyond what is hidden in each story of the ‘three loaves of bread’ because Jesus was speaking in that parable of the loaves being fully leavened - speaking of the work of the Kingdom of God until it is being expressed fully (holos) in the earth in the last days before Jesus returns.

This parable of the leaven in three loaves of bread is followed in the Gospels by another ‘End Times’ ‘three loaves of bread’ parable in Luke Ch. 11 about the man who comes to his friend at the midnight hour desperately requesting three loaves of bread, and we will look more fully at both those parables in our next episode of the Gospel parables.

 

But today we will deal with the first ‘three loaves of bread’ story in the Bible in Genesis 18 where three men appear to Abraham to announce to Abraham and Sarah that Sarah will have a son in her old age, in a year’s time. When Abraham sees them, he greets them as ‘My Lord’ – Adonai – which is only ever used to mean Almighty God. That alone hides the fact that Abraham must have been given a revelation of God as being three persons. He didn’t say ‘My Lords’, plural. He then asks Sarah to make three loaves of bread for the three guests. The three loaves of bread was a visible representation of the Trinity of God as was the appearance of the three men.  This was a veiled appearance of God as the Father and Son and Holy Spirit in angelic form. That is called a Theophany - and this appearance of a Triune God sets the pattern of the three loaves of bread in the Scriptures as a symbol of the Trinity and it also unveils the three distinct natures of the different Persons of the Trinity.

 

To this day when Jewish families celebrate the Passover feast, they place three small cake loaves of bread on the table in front of the guests. They then hide the middle cake of bread somewhere in the room and the children have to find it. The feast cannot be completed until the second loaf cake is found. That piece of bread is called the ‘Ransom’ and the child who finds it gets the Ransom reward.

That of course represents Jesus as the second person of the Trinity who is currently hidden from the spiritual eyes of the Jewish people. This is an encrypted message to the modern-day Orthodox Jew, and the key to decrypting this message is in receiving the gift of faith and grace through the Holy Spirit that brings a revelation of Jesus into their hearts.

 

After the three messengers deliver the message to Abraham about Sarah giving birth to Isaac they set off towards Sodom and Gomorrah, and one of them, whom Abraham calls ‘The Lord’, stays aside and declares to Abraham that he will bring severe judgement upon Sodom and Gomorrah for their wickedness, but Abraham pleads with him, finally getting him to agree to save the cities if ten righteous men are found there. Meanwhile the other two men have gone down to Sodom and Gomorrah as angels (malak – messengers). Abraham’s plea was a prayer to the Father, the Person of the Trinity who represents judgement and justice. The other two Persons represented mercy and truth, with Jesus being mercy - in saving Lot’s family, and the Holy Spirit being truth – in shining light and truth and exposing the deviant culture in that place.

So the reality of the Trinity was revealed in the three Persons of Father, Son and Holy spirit, but encrypted in that story was also the nature and activity of the three Persons of the Trinity. And what is even more deeply encoded in this story and in the other ‘three loaves’ parables is a prophetic message of what will happen in the last days before the return of Jesus.

We see that message in the story of Abraham and the three messengers at Mamre which finishes with the judgement on Sodom and Gomorrah, and the judgement on that wicked culture is spoken about in the Book of Jude 1:7 in the New Testament where Jude speaks of prophesies that liken the judgement upon the wicked culture of Sodom and Gomorrah to the ‘End Times’ dealings of God that will come upon the wickedness abounding in the world before Jesus returns.

The Holy Spirit who shone light and truth into the wickedness of that culture is shining light into our culture today. The Bible foretold that these days would come and that when they did there would arise a polarity between darkness and light in the earth. And that brings us great hope. Isaiah prophesied these things to Israel and was speaking beyond Israel to us as well as followers of Jesus all over the world. Isaiah 60:1 Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you (who follow Jesus). For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the people; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you, and people shall come to your light…

When we see the work of the Father as being the justice and judgement of God, we have to ask ourselves how we relate to that regarding our faith in a loving God. In fact my personal experience is that the judgement of the Father is critical to the final reality of my faith. We can easily relate to Jesus as being the author and finisher of our faith and as being the one who enables us with his grace, and we gladly accept that the Holy Spirit takes what Jesus says to us and reveals that to us and leads us into all truth. However, the judgement of the Father isn’t just about bringing us to account for the consequences of our wrongdoing – his judgement means his capacity to bring his absolute love and wisdom into what he regards as being best for our lives.

The question I ask myself is. ‘Can I trust the judgement of God to decide what is right for my life?’ and ‘Whose judgement should I trust to guide my life and bring the best future for my life to me each day? Should I despise and disdain and complain about disagreeable circumstances that come upon me? Should I question the integrity of God for letting me go through loss and affliction?

The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit all agree as one about what is right and good for my life. But it is the Father who supernaturally works the things that are good into my life experience. The Father takes all the imperfect things that I do, that have negative or nuisance consequences, and the testing things that others might do to me, and the unavoidable challenging tasks and difficulties, and he supernaturally works them all together for my good. But it is difficult to experience that goodness if I do not know or believe that that is what he is doing. ‘And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God ‘(Romans 8:28)

My faith is not about summonsing a more intense effort to believe that God will give me my judgement of what is good and right for me. Only the judgement of the Father is critical to the reality of my faith, and thanking the Father in all things is the greatest expression of my faith. Moments of thanksgiving to our Father are moments to be cherished no matter what. If God is hidden from us it is only because he wants to be discovered by us. Thank you Lord for drawing us aside to be with you even in the midst of all the other things that are going on round about us and thank you for reminding us that you are unceasingly working your good will into our lives as you have done from the very beginning.

 

GOSPEL PARABLES 7 THE GROWING SEED

GOSPEL PARABLES 7 THE GROWING SEED 

The parable of the growing seed is only found in the Gospel of Mark, and it comes after the Parable of the Sower who sows seed on four different types of soil – the wayside and the rocky ground and the thorny ground and the good soil. It follows the same Kingdom theme that sets the overall framework of the seed as being the word of God and the soil being our hearts of faith. Today we are reading from the Gospel of Mark.
Mark 4:26 And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

We see in this story that the farmer or husbandman does his work and sows the seed and then sleeps and rises day and night while the unseen seed silently grows and then emerges into sight. This is how God began his work of creation in the world of the unseen. The Bible says that Jesus, the creative logos Word, spoke creation into being (John 1, Genesis 1). And that same logos Word is what speaks our spiritual growth into being. The Bible says this about us - having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word (logos) of God which lives and abides forever (1Peter 1:23) 
This parable is about the stages of growth of our spiritual life through the life of Jesus within us. It shows the gradual process of our spiritual development and our need of patience and trust in God's timing on our journey of faith as he nurtures us into our fruitful eternal destiny. 
In the parable of the growing seed the blade represents the initial stage of growth after the seed germinates or sprouts and begins to emerge as the tender green shoot. This speaks of the early signs of spiritual growth or the beginning of faith, where new hope for a new life of faith lies ahead.
Then comes the ear (Stachys- standing out) – that is the next stage of growth, where the plant begins to differentiate and stand out from the main stem, showing its individual potential in forming within it, the head of grain. This stage is about us learning about our faith and about who we are in Jesus. The ear of the plant is still vulnerable at this stage and needs protection within a covering just as our spiritual growth receives the grace and mercy of God and also flourishes within the protective framework of the teaching of God’s word and fellowship with other believers. 

The ear continues to develop and fill out as healthy grain with the potential for full maturity, and with faith and patience it will become more robust before it reaches the final stage of ripening and being ready for harvest. For us this means that our spiritual growth is more about inner transformation than outward appearance, as we accept the sure and steady patient progress of spiritual development and do not become discouraged and lose hope.

Then comes the stage where the fruit of the Spirit which is our spiritual growth becomes more visible and develops into the full grain in the ear. This fruitfulness can now be seen in us as the love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. When the disciples asked Jesus to show them the Father he said ‘if you’ve seen me you’ve seen the Father’. And God is saying to us in this parable that he has placed his life-seed in us so that as that seed grows we may be able to say ‘if you’ve seen me you have seen Jesus’ (John 14:9) Jesus expresses his life in our soul as the expression of our unique God-designed spirit.

The parable said ‘The earth produces by itself’ The earth is the soil of our hearts of faith in which that seed is embedded. The seed of the life of the Spirit of Christ in us contains all the DNA of the essential nature of God as the spiritual fruit of our lives. Jesus is the life in which our life exists, but our soul gives it a unique expression through the work of the Holy Spirit in growing the fruit of the spirit in our lives. 
The fruit of the spirit of love grows in and through us as we receive the love of God into our hearts and minds. That is the starting point, and every other expression of fruit is tinged and coloured and flavoured by God’s love that mercifully accepts us and makes us feel we belong and can feel safe and satisfied with life. That love can then touch others.
The fruit of the spirit of joy expresses the cheerfulness and elation of being a victor and not a victim of life’s struggles. The Bible says ‘we are more than conquerors through him who loved us (Romans 8). (Jesus our team coach in tough Grand Final, injuries galore but glorious win)

The fruit of the spirit of peace is ours when we know that once we have placed everything in his hands our oneness together with him stands guard over our hearts and minds and banishes our anxiety concerning our future.

Longsuffering is our faith in his mercy upon our shortcomings that takes away the fear of judgement and replaces it with grace filled opportunities to be transformed into our true and destined selves - in his likeness. We can learn to withhold judgement upon others also and see God bring about change in their lives. 

Kindness comes from the word kindred and expresses the kind of compassion and protective care that we would have for the most defenceless person in our family.

Goodness is not just a display of virtue but is simply the effect of making a person feel better off after having known us than they did before. Jesus said ‘only God is good’. His goodness works itself into us and flows out as us being a blessing to those who know us. 

Faithfulness describes God’s devotion to ‘being there’ for us without wavering, even when we waver in our being there for him. Our faithfulness to God and to other people grows within his loyal faithfulness to us.

God’s gentleness to us creates a safe and accepting space for our feelings of vulnerability and is part of the healing of the soul we can offer to someone who has been mistreated in their lives. 

Self-control is giving place to God’s control over our lives, spirit, soul and body. It is the highest form of spiritual authority that we can possess in this life. When we give this place to God nothing of darkness can overcome us and no weapon that is formed against us will prosper.

This fruitfulness is a final stage of maturity, where the fruitful grain (kartos - fruit) is ripe and ready for harvest – But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
Paul writes about this time of assessing the fruitfulness of our lives at the time of the second coming of the Lord. When the Lord comes, he will bring to light the things now hidden and reveal the motives of the heart. Then each one will receive praise from God. 
We will each be affirmed and commended for the growth of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.
James also writes about the second coming of the Lord in his story of the farmer who sows the seed and patiently waits for the outpouring of the rain before the harvest. 

James 5:7 Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the latter rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.
The farmer is the Father who waits for the fruit of harvest, and we as God’s people are also told to be patient and establish our hearts of faith and to expect the outpourings of the Holy Spirit before the second coming of the Lord. ‘so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, whom heaven must retain until the times of restoration of all things’ (Acts 3:19). 

One barrier to allowing that fruitful seed to grow in us is that we can feel that we are too prone to making mistakes and failing short in our dealings with life and our attitudes. 
How could such an Almighty Holy God work through such flawed human beings as us?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
The Bible shows up that kind of thinking as being a lie. 
Isaiah 57:15 For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to bring to life the spirit of the lowly, and to bring to life the heart of the contrite ones.
The only way we can truly appreciate and give thanks to our God who is in the highest place, is to know him as the one who loves us in our lowly place and that is in fact the most perfect place. The glory of the cross and the resurrection of Jesus is that he took his human weakness to the cross to bring forth the power of his life in us. The spiritual growth journey is about us being able to carry our own human weaknesses at the same time as we carry the powerful life of Jesus within us. We can now carry our weakness without fear or shame. Amen