Spiritcode

Ascension

ASCENSION

After Jesus descended into Hades and paradise with the keys of hell and death the Bible says he set the captives free and led them into the Heavens (Ephesians 4:8). On his upward journey he visited the earth and took upon himself his entombed body and met Mary Magdalene in the garden near the tomb and told her he had to present himself to his Father in Heaven. The angels at the tomb had told Mary and the other women to tell the disciples that Jesus would meet them later in the day at Galilee. When he had finished making the presentation of his blood to his Father for the purification of the sins of the whole earth, he returned to the earth that same day same day in a resurrected body that could never ever die again. This resurrected body was without the constraints of a limited physical body, but it could be seen and recognized as a natural body. In this spiritual yet natural body Jesus could appear anywhere and at any time. He could feel and be touched, he could breathe and eat, and walk and talk, all of which he did when he resumed his earthly visit.

Upon his arrival back on earth he set off walking from Jerusalem in the direction of Galilee, where he had said he would meet with his disciples, and it was then that he saw two disciples walking together up ahead of him in serious discussion and he recognized them. The Bible says. He appeared to two disciples in another form (heteros morphe – an altered form or nature) as they walked and went into the country (Mark 16:9).

These were men who had been among the many disciples who would come to listen to him and ask questions. He began to make up ground on them because he wanted to talk to them, and as he gradually closed in on them, he mused upon his first impressions of his return to this familiar territory. He was struck again by the bewilderment and confusion in this world of uncertainty that people cling to so fervently as he heard snippets of conversation in Jerusalem concerning the last three days. He heard that the temple priests had fabricated a story that his body had been stolen by the disciples and that they had overcome the temple guards and raided the tomb. He also heard that his disciples were still doubting that he had risen from the dead, even though some of them had come to the tomb and seen it empty, and some women had spoken to the angels.

He finally caught up with the men and greeted them and joined them as they walked, but Holy Spirit had supernaturally veiled their eyes from recognizing him. He quietly listened as they spoke and detected the same mood of bewilderment, if not depression, that seemed to be hanging over everybody. He politely commented that they seemed to be bothered about something that was going on locally, and he asked what that might be. The one called Cleopas gave Jesus a puzzled look and said to Jesus that he must be the only visitor in Jerusalem that hadn’t heard about what had happened. So when Jesus asked Cleopas to spell out what he meant the other man began to patiently explain about the man called Jesus, a great man whom they had both followed and believed in. He enthusiastically recounted some of the miracles he had worked, and that he was a prophet, the greatest of them all. Cleopas broke in and added that Jesus stood up for justice, and taught them about God. They thought he was going to turn the world upside down and make everything new for them. Jesus pushed them further for more details and they said they had expected that there would be freedom and prosperity for the Jews for a start. 

There was a pause, then one of them gave a sigh and told Jesus how the temple priests had convicted Jesus as a criminal and how he was crucified by Pontius Pilate, and that today was the third day since these things happened. When Jesus asked them to explain the significance of the third day the two men looked at one another awkwardly and one of them shrugged and said that the man Jesus had said he would rise from the dead after three days. Cleopas took up the story again and explained that some of the women even went to the tomb and found it empty and reported they saw two angels who said he was alive, and that some of his very own disciples also went to the tomb and found it empty. He too shrugged as he finished talking.

Jesus nodded and remained silent for a few paces as he walked alongside the two men. He then very pointedly asked them why on earth they didn’t just believe what they had been told by Jesus himself. The other man a little impatiently, replied that they hadn't seen anything, so what were they expected to believe? It was then that Jesus declared to them that the time was coming when they would believe even though they didn’t see. He then began to speak about all the Scriptures concerning himself. He spoke in detail of the Plan of Father to send The Son into the world. He taught them from the words of Scripture about prophesies which outlined the details of his birth, and his life and death, and his resurrection. Something happened in their hearts as they listened to him, and the time flew by, and the next thing they knew they were close to Emmaus, which was their destination.

They didn't want Jesus to stop talking so they appealed to him to stay with them, even though he told them he was going further. They asked him to at least stay and have a meal, so Jesus accepted their offer. During the meal Jesus took some bread, and gave thanks for it, and as he broke the bread their eyes were opened and immediately they recognized who he was. This was the ordinary, extraordinary moment, sitting at a table, life happening, very natural yet very spiritual, eye to eye heart to heart. Jesus heard Father speaking to him from heaven, telling him that this was the way it was going to be. Holy Spirit would be the one who would open their eyes to see him and know him as he really was, and that was the way The Plan would be implemented from heaven to earth. Jesus then heard Holy Spirit whisper to him; “People will speak the truth about you, and I will reveal you to them.” The next moment Jesus vanished from their sight

After Jesus vanished from their sight the two men decided to go back into Jerusalem and find the disciples who were in hiding, afraid of what was going to happen to them because of the rumors that were going about that they had stolen Jesus’ body. They found them and were whisked inside, and the doors were locked behind them. They told them of their journey with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, and their miraculous meal with him where he had suddenly vanished. The disciples were ecstatic that Jesus was back from the dead, and while they were still talking Jesus appeared in their midst while the doors remained locked. The disciples panicked, and thought they were seeing a ghost, but Jesus explained to them that he was not a ghost because a ghost didn’t have bones and flesh, and he asked them to touch his hands and his feet and to see for themselves. Jesus stretched forth his hands and his peace hit their hearts. He breathed his Spirit upon them and they received the impartation of his peace. They immediately felt at one with Jesus and with each other. But this was just a mere foretaste of what was to come, as it would only be after his final ascension and being seated at the right hand of Father that Holy Spirit would be sent to dwell within them. On the day of Pentecost Holy Spirit would be sent from Father and from himself upon all humanity. 

He could still see their bewilderment, and he knew he had to convince them in some ordinary way that he was real and alive again. So he asked them if he could have something to eat. James scurried to the fire and brought back some steamed fish, and some honeycomb, and held the mixed platter out at arm's length as Jesus accepted it and ate it with gusto. He looked around the room and noticed that Thomas was not amongst them. He asked them why they didn't go to Galilee where he said he would be going to meet them. They shuffled about without giving an answer, and Jesus told them he would see them in a few days at Galilee, and he vanished once more.

The disciples gathered at Galilee where Jesus had said he would meet them. Peter had been waiting with the others and had then become restless and asked James and John to come fishing with him to get some food for Jesus to eat. While the three were out fishing Jesus suddenly appeared to the others as they sat patiently, waiting for his arrival. When Thomas saw Jesus appear he walked hesitatingly towards him and stopped in front of him. Jesus knew that Thomas had not believed that he had risen, even after the other disciples had said that they had seen him. Jesus held out his hands towards Thomas and told him to touch his hands where the nails had pierced, and to touch his side where the Centurion’s lance had entered his side. Thomas broke down and wept and told Jesus that he believed. Jesus gently acknowledged his faith, that in seeing and touching he now believed. He went on to tell Thomas that there would be many who will believe without even seeing him and that they would be greatly blessed for that kind of faith. Jesus comforted him and he left them before Peter and James and John had returned. Jesus was to meet with many others during that forty days visit.

Jesus appeared to the disciples again one morning after seven of them had been out fishing all night and had caught nothing. He stood on the shore and watched them fishing but they didn't realize that it was him. He shouted out to the fishermen from the shore, asking them if they had yet caught anything. A disgruntled ‘No’ came from Peter to this expert on the seashore, who responded to Peter by telling him to cast his net on the other side of the boat. Peter was about to explode when he heard John cry out that the expert on the seashore was indeed Jesus, The Lord. Peter then yelled to the others to do what Jesus had said. So they threw the nets to the other side and began to pull so many fish into the boat that they could hardly keep the boat afloat. But by this time Peter had plunged into the sea, swimming for all his might to get to his friend on the seashore, leaving the crew on the boat to work together on the haul. When Peter lurched his way up onto the shore he headed straight for Jesus and collapsed in front of him. He saw that Jesus had already prepared a fire with burning coals and had fish and toasted bread ready for them to eat. He didn't ask Jesus how he got the fish. Jesus reached down and helped Peter into a sitting position and told him to go and get some more fish from the catch so they could make breakfast for the others. 

After they had all enjoyed breakfast together Jesus called Peter aside. He knew there were things that had to be said between them. Peter’s soul was in a turmoil of regrets, shame and guilt. Time and again he had asked himself why he didn’t stand up for Jesus instead of disowning him three times when he was asked if he knew him, and could that have made a difference? He had remembered when the rooster crowed that Jesus had predicted that he would do just that. What was Jesus going to say to him now – would Jesus disown him, even rebuke him three times? But Jesus asked Peter three times, in three different ways whether or not Peter loved him. The love of Jesus owned Peter, and Peter passionately gave himself up to the ownership of God’s love. 
As a true representation of a flawed humanity owned by God’s love, Peter was mercifully forgiven and accepted. It was also this moment that owned him, not the past, or the uncertainty of the future. This would also continue to be his greatest gift to God, the giving of each moment to Jesus. After having his spirit and soul fed with these words of love from Jesus, Peter was commissioned three times by Jesus to feed God’s lambs and feed his sheep. As Peter would go on in life, he would face his many imperfections, and he would learn to return to each present moment, as in that special moment, where he could surrender to the ownership of love, shed his fears, and grow in faith as a partaker of the nature of God.

The Scriptures tell us that Jesus met with hundreds of people over those forty days (1Corinthians 15:7) and he worked many supernatural signs to prove he was indeed risen from the dead. He shared with them that the heart of the Father had always been to have a family of sons and daughters and to share his love with them - the same way that Father had shared his love with Jesus himself. Satan had tried to block this Plan from the beginning of time by blinding the mind of humanity with darkness, causing a chasm of separation from the living God to exist in their minds and to devise independence in their souls. But Jesus had overpowered darkness and Holy Spirit would come to them and bring them the power of the life that he now lived. He told them he would join their lives to his risen life for them to become one in Spirit with him. Holy Spirit would place Father’s love, and his own words in the hearts of men and women as a deep consciousness of indwelling abiding life. He told them they would together be as his Body in the World, and each gifted with grace and faith from Heaven. People and things that happened around them would change, as they themselves became more and more changed into being more like him.

He finally gathered the eleven disciples together and gave them teaching concerning the Kingdom of God because there remained still a glimmer of hope in many of them that very soon he would establish Israel as a political and sovereign nation in the earth. He explained that the timing of Israel’s future Kingdom status in the earth was in the command of the Father, and that those times were not for them to know. 
He made it clear that this present earthly mission did not include a national political agenda, but it was to create an inner spiritual Kingdom which he would rule over from Heaven. He said that when the Holy Spirit had come upon them, they would receive power to testify about his death and resurrection with great force to the people in Jerusalem, and throughout Judea, and in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. 

Then Jesus led them out along the road to Bethany, and when they reached the Mount of Olives, he told them not to leave Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit came upon them in fulfillment of the Father’s promise, a matter he had previously discussed with them.
“John baptized you with water,” he reminded them, “but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit in just a few days time.

A dazzling light shone within a billowing white cloud above them. Jesus turned to them all and raised his hands in blessing. He did not need to say goodbye. As he began to rise slowly heavenwards he was enveloped in the cloud, and as they stood together looking into the cloud that had taken him they saw the shining figures of the two angels standing to one side, one of whom told them that the same cloud that they saw taking Jesus into eternity would also bring him back one day in total glory and triumph. 
The Plan will have been fulfilled.

 

 

 

Resurrection

When Jesus gave up his Spirit to his Father he then descended in his Spirit on a mission of great purpose. Below him was a place called Paradise, and next to Paradise was a place called Hades. Jesus had spoken about these places when he told the story of the rich man and Lazarus, the beggar. The rich man who lived sumptuously in arrogant self-indulgence all of his life ended up in Hades and Lazarus who lived the life of a humble beggar at the gate of the rich man’s house ended up in Paradise, with Abraham. (Luke 16:19) 

Jesus had now descended to these places. Paradise was where there were millions of souls who had been waiting for him from the beginning of time. These had lived their lives on earth in hope, many of them guided by the Commandments through Moses, but many simply by a good conscience. They were locked away from eternity till Jesus would now come to get them. Jesus would also visit Hades the prison of lost hope.

The bible says that Jesus then preached to all those prisoners of time the message of the Gospel, the plan of Father to send Jesus into the world to set people free from the captivity of sin and to bring his New Creation life to humanity. Jesus would have sat with Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, and many others in Paradise as well as his newfound friend that hung next to him on the cross and to whom he said ‘Today you will be with me in Paradise’! He spoke to them and with them and he rested with them. He was to wait there until the end of the third day.
This mission of setting those people in paradise free was one of setting them free from the captivity of time, as they had waited as captives till heaven came to get them. Many listened and heard this message of freedom at this time. Jesus also declared his work of salvation to those in Hades who had resisted God and refused to listen to him, including those who were destroyed in the flood of Noah. 
The Scriptures speak of this moment about Jesus.
1Peter 3:18 He died once for the sins of all sinners although he himself was innocent of any sin at any time, that he might bring us safely home to God. But though his body died, his spirit lived on, and it was in the spirit that he visited the spirits in prison and preached to them-- spirits of those who, long before in the days of Noah, had refused to listen to God, though he waited patiently for them while Noah was building the ark. Jesus would wait there until the end of the third day.

John writes in the book of Revelation about the declaration of Jesus having received the keys of ‘Hell and death’ after his resurrection
Revelation1:17,18 Fear not; I am the first and the last: -- I am he that lives, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and I have the keys of hell and of death.
With one of the keys darkness would one day be locked away and set aside for another encounter with God, reserved for an appointed day at the end of time. With the other key he would now unlock the prisoners of the past from their patient pause and take them into an eternal heaven.

When Jesus turned the key of freedom in the prison gate a tremor hit the universe. Power from Father and Holy Spirit in heaven was released into and through Jesus to overcome death and the grave that changed the nature of every atom of matter in existence. 
God had joined himself to his own creation in the person of Jesus Christ. 
Our creator Jesus who made everything in heaven and earth, both in the spirit world and in the material world brought together all things into oneness with himself, to be upheld by the Word of the ‘power of his resurrection’. 
Colossians 1:16 He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to bring all things into a state of harmony with himself, whether on earth or in heaven, bringing them into unity with himself by the blood of his cross. 

Prior to this moment all created being was separate to the ‘uncreated Being’ of God.  
Jesus, who was both created being and uncreated being, had by his death and resurrection now set the stage for humanity to become a ‘New Creation Being’, one in Spirit with The Lord. 

On the third day the time came for them to leave, and Jesus led them on a triumphant upward journey, to their new home, his home. The entire company was escorted by Michael and Gabriel and the hosts of angels around them, as they ascended ever upwards until they reached the earth, from where they, and Jesus most recently, had come – from the grave to the sky. There they all stopped for a brief period of time, because there were things for Jesus to do there. The first thing that he had to do was to go to his tomb where his earthly body lay in its shroud. Michael and Gabriel flew before Jesus to the tomb and found the guards there that the temple priests had appointed to stand watch at the tomb. As the angels alighted the ground shook and the massive stone rolled away as a huge burst of lightning hit the place sending the guards reeling headlong to the ground. They leapt up in fright and bolted. Jesus entered his tomb and united himself again to the wounded shell of his body, leaving the headpiece and shroud lying separated from one another in the tomb (John 20:7). 

Michael and Gabriel waited inside the tomb while Jesus walked bodily from the temporary resting place, out into the garden. He walked about, recalling vividly the events that had so recently taken place nearby. He remembered his time of kneeling in an agony of prayer when he accepted his cup of unbearable suffering. 

At that same time some women had prepared oils and spices to anoint the body of Jesus. On their way to the tomb, they were discussing the problem of how to move the huge stone that covered the entrance. When they arrived, they were astonished to see that it had been moved and the guards were nowhere to be seen. They peered inside the tomb and were met by the majestic appearance of Michael and Gabriel, sitting in the place where Jesus had been laying.

” Are you looking for Jesus? Gabriel said. He has come back to life as he said he would. Go and tell the disciples that he will be coming to see them, and that they are to wait for him in Galilee.”

The women ran to tell the disciples but one of them dropped behind and walked slowly through the garden, still confused and weeping. She almost collided with Jesus who was also walking in the garden, and she apologized, not recognizing him, thinking he was the gardener. This was Mary Magdalene. And he called her by her name and said, “It’s alright Mary, it's me, it really is.”

She ran towards him, but he held up his hand and said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”—and that he had said these things to her.’(John 20.27)

Jesus made it clear that his immediate mission was to complete the work of purification for sin through blood sacrifice that had occurred for the last one and a half thousand years. Every year on the Day of Atonement the High Priest had sprinkled the blood of animal sacrifice over the mercy seat seven times, in the most holy place, for all of Israel to be ceremoniously cleansed from their sins. The phrase ‘seven times’ in the Bible is always prophetic of the completion and finality of God’s work of salvation in the earth. 
Jesus had just sprinkled his blood at Golgotha for the forgiveness of the sins of the whole earth for all time. An end had been made of blood sacrifice, and now Jesus had to fulfill the offering of his blood to his Father in Heaven, as the Scripture declares.
He came as High Priest of this better system that we now have. He went into that greater, perfect tabernacle in heaven, not made by men nor part of this world, and once for all took blood into that inner room, the Holy of Holies, and sprinkled it on the mercy seat; but it was not the blood of goats and calves. No, he took his own blood, and with it he, by himself, made sure of our eternal salvation (Hebrews 9:11).

Jesus would ascend to Heaven and then return and meet with Mary Magdalene and many disciples later that same day.
A very strange thing was also happening in other parts of Jerusalem. Hundreds of souls who had just accompanied Jesus from below and who had recently died were making the briefest of appearances to their loved ones, as the Scripture attests. 
And when the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. Many bodies of the saints who had died were raised up and came out of the tombs after his resurrection, and they went into the holy city and appeared to many. (Matthew 27:52.)

In the meantime, Jesus had to regroup with all those he had set free from Paradise. The magnificent procession began to ascend in splendour with its escort of glorious angels, from the grave to the sky. As their ascension took them closer and closer to the throne room a mighty voice could be heard proclaiming his majestic entrance;
Psalm 24:7-10 Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in. 
Who is this King of glory? 
The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle!

At this command the heavenly music began. The sound of thousands of pipes, the voices of hundreds of harmonies, the deepest of vibrating bass and the ascending range of every stringed instrument created a majestic symphony. Jesus had come home, and the Bible trumpets his victorious homecoming. ‘He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he sustains everything in the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. (Hebrews 1:3)
This was the moment, purification for the sin of all mankind had been made and now everything in the Universe was integrated into his Being of power.

Ephesians 1:19-21. how vibrant and powerful is that divine energy that comes from God to us when we simply believe that he is the creator and generator of this supernatural power Which exploded into reality when he raised Jesus from the dead and took him into heaven to sit next to him at his right hand. 21. This heavenly place and position took Jesus as God and man above any other force or realm of authority that can be named, whether on earth or in the heavens…and he has become the centre of all consequence and meaning in the universe.

All the angels and all those who had come with Jesus on the upward journey beheld their king in his place of honour and joined in the magnificent celebration. His time in heaven for these celebrations was momentary, as he had left the tomb just before dawn and had to return to earth that same day, still bearing the marks of the cruel wreath of thorns from his flogging, and the wounds to his hands and feet and side from the cross. He would now spend forty days on earth as a witness to his resurrection, to seal The Plan of his Father and see it implemented for the rest of time. At the end of those forty days he would return to Heaven, to begin his new mission upon the planet through the Holy Spirit. 

Holy Spirit had accompanied Jesus every moment of his life on earth. He had joined himself to the human spirit of Jesus and had felt every feeling that Jesus had felt. He had known every one of his thoughts, and he had communicated every thought from Father God to him. Those thoughts became words in the mouth of Jesus, and Spirit caused those words to have life and power to all who heard Jesus speak. In this way Holy Spirit had also experienced life within humanity on the earth. After those forty days on the earth Jesus returned to Heaven and ten days after that, Jesus and Father sent Holy Spirit to the earth on the day of Pentecost. Holy Spirit would become the bond between Heaven and earth for all time. He would fall like rain from Heaven upon the souls of mankind, seeking to awaken the spirit of humanity to the cosmic truth of what Jesus had done in joining mankind to God. 
This New Creation Being could walk in God’s ways in the new law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Through grace and faith humanity could win its struggle against the mindset of lostness and separation called the law of sin and death, and within the human pain of this struggle would be found the cry of Holy Spirit wrestling to join the minds and hearts of people to God. This struggle and wrestle would exist throughout time as the Spiritual energy of God’s love that would never cease its activity in the hearts of humanity. It would be the sign of the divine heart exercising its love in the subduing of human nature, that it might resonate with the nature of God. Whenever this truth would be embraced by a human heart, that heart would at last find itself at home, around the Family table, where it was destined eternally to be. To be continued.

 

 

Calvary

CALVARY

Jesus had been sentenced to death by Pontius Pilate and then tortured and flogged by the cruel guards of King Herod, and finally commanded by Pilate to carry his cross to Calvary, or Golgotha, which means ‘the place of the Skull’. Pilate told the Centurion to arrange for an escort of guards around Jesus to escort him to the windswept hill. One of the Centurion's men put the heavy beam on Jesus' bleeding shoulder as they left the yard and went into the crowded street. The already large crowd continued to grow, some of them followers and friends, others bitter enemies, and yet others who were just confused and angry. Jesus staggered and buckled under the weight of the beam but he continued to drag it behind him. It was the custom to write a description of the crime committed on a clay plate and fix it to the top of the cross. Pontius Pilate had written an inscription that read, “THE KING OF THE JEWS”
An angry voice called out above the crowd “Who wrote that inscription? – it’s wrong”, and one of the temple priests had protested that It should have said that ‘He said he was king of the Jews’
However Pilate had made it very clear to them earlier that he had written that inscription and it had to stay as it was.

A few paces further on Jesus staggered again but this time fell headlong to the ground. He could see blood flowing freely from Jesus now and he knew that he had to keep him on his feet. He must not let Jesus die here on the street. A burly lumbering man who, by the look of his clothing was visiting from some other region, was close by Jesus as he stumbled forward. The Centurion called out to the man.
“You, help him. He is too weak to carry that on his own.”
The man from Cyrene did what he was told and took the beam and strode on into a journey that was to be immortalized in endless time, as a reminder to all of us to not just be onlookers but to take up our share of the burden of the cross. When the trek to Calvary was completed, it would take six full hours on Calvary for Jesus to die.

Mary the mother of Jesus along with some of her companions reached the flat terrain at the top of Calvary and moved close to the area where Jesus was being nailed to the cross. they could hear the dull clink of hammers beating against metal, bone, and timber, mingled with the muffled sound of pain. Mary was also joined there by the disciple John; the other disciples having preferred to hang back from the crowd. Two criminals were already hanging on crosses either side of the hole where Jesus’ pole was to be fixed, but these two men were tied to their crosses, not nailed. Jesus was finally hoisted up and then the pole was crudely dumped into the hole prepared for it. Some time was spent securing its placement so that it stood erect and stable in the rocky ground. A range of utterances rushed from the mouths of people standing watching when the cross fell into place and when the nails tugged on the body they were pinned into. Some of the sounds were stifled cries of shock and dismay while others were more like startled yells of alarm. But overriding these noises was the swelling chant of taunts and slogans coming from the crowd.
Then the priests and the leaders of the Jews joined in the chant. “You were pretty good at saving others, but you can’t even save yourself.  If you are the Promised One, our Messiah, then come on down from that cross and prove it to us. Weren’t you going to pull down our temple and rebuild it again in three days? Well, why not get yourself down from that cross?”

John winced when he heard Jesus splutter as a soldier tried to push a sponge of sour wine and myrrh into Jesus' mouth. Jesus turned his face aside and refused the swab. Centurion ordered the soldier away and the man joined the other soldiers who were throwing dice to see who was going to keep Jesus’ robe. Dust was spitting itself into peoples' faces on this strangest of days and gusts of wind blew as storm clouds raced faster than usual across the sky, causing a flickering of sunshine and deep shadow. As Jesus hung there the criminals beside him were weakening, groaning in their pain, when one of them turned to Jesus. He had earlier on joined the choir of obscenity, picking up the ugly chant with gusto. He now wanted to have his last few words of bravado heard in this dark prison of life and death he had made for himself.
“they’re telling you to get yourself down, but how about us? That would be a real miracle, even I would believe you.” He was delighted with the impression this made on the crowd, as they clapped and cheered him, but the man on the other side shouted at him angrily.”
“Are you mad? Don't you even fear God? Don't you know who this is? We deserve to be here, but he doesn’t. He has never done a wrong thing.” He then turned to Jesus and said
“Lord, will you remember me when you are in your mighty kingdom?” Jesus turned his head and looked at him with love, saying “Today you are coming home with me to Paradise.” 

John put his arm around Mary's shoulders as she looked on, with tears rolling down her cheeks and her countenance numbed from all expression. John tried to shield Mary from watching but she wanted to see her son. She remembered tending his little body when he was a baby, that life that was part of her life. It was then that Jesus looked down at his mother standing next to John. He spoke to her through parched lips.
“Mother let him be your son.” His head then turned towards John.  Mary looked at John and clung on to his arm.
“Son let her be your mother.”
John stood with her and watched her son's life draining from him. As they stood shielding their faces from the biting dust that came in bursts, and their eyes from the intermittent dazzle of the sun, they were astonished to see the sun dimmed and the dazzle become a weak gleam. High noon surrendered to a deep darkness which remained for three full hours. Darkness took over that day, in those last hours and put a stop to some things. Shouts of bravado that just moments ago would have roused bold echoes now hung hollow in the still air, and those mockers that had stood close to the action at the foot of the cross now slid back into the crowd.

There were Angels suspended within this pall of sadness that shrouded the desolation below as Heaven waited in eternity and three hours of darkness passed on earth.

Then Satan shot himself like a dart into the one that hung between two criminals on a lonely plateau of the place of the Skull. The gigantic spirit of Jesus absorbed the full impact of Satan as all hell's hateful fury hit him, and as every vile thing ever done by countless millions of crippled hearts down through the ages and for the ages to come assailed his being. Thunder cracked and the earth began to shake. The magnitude of this kind of collision, the sum of all sin hitting the sum of all innocence, shakes all created things. 
A swirling sea of fear clawed at Jesus and sought to pull him under, but he hoisted his faith above the fear with absolute trust in his Father's love. His great spirit swallowed every vile accusation that Satan hurled at him, and he took them all into himself and locked them safely within his vault of perfect love. He owned it all. He had become the reservoir of all evil in one moment of time, yet he was completely innocent of any one wrong deed. He rallied his strength once more, but another missile of horror careened into him more powerfully and more deadly than anything before, sweeping over him and submerging him into an impotence and a canceling of all hope. It was black and fathomless, nothingness. It was like annihilation. This was the cup that he told Father he would accept, but he did not know it would be like this. He was living out the prophetic fulfilment of the first verse of Psalm 22 spoken by David. 
‘My God My God why have you forsaken me?’
The source of this horrific thought was not Father God. Darkness had assailed the human heart of Jesus, the Son of Man, of the lineage of David, and in an instant, he knew the answer to his question. He had not been forsaken by his Father, but in his humanity, he had experienced forsakenness for a moment, so that no living soul from this time on would ever have to feel forsaken by God again because of their human weakness. 
From this first verse and through many of the next nineteen verses David prophesied the agony of Jesus as Son of Man upon the cross, with such utterances as.
Psalm 22:16 A company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet - they stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots…

And then, within the agony of the Son of Man the resurgent faith of the Son of God declared itself triumphally in the following verses.
19. But you, O LORD, do not be far off! O you my help, come quickly to my aid!... Save me from the mouth of the lion! You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen! and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard him, when he cried to him. 
As he hung there, he embraced the tragic weakness of humanity and touched the feelings of forsakenness for every human soul throughout all ages. The vast bank of love that filled heaven filled his heart and went out to a beloved humanity. He looked at the mocking faces standing round the cross and he loved them. He sent his voice into a waiting heaven and cried out.
“Father, forgive them – they don’t know what they are doing.”
He had done it. It was finished. The Plan OF SALVATION could now be put into effect.

Jesus had something more to say but his throat felt parched, and he wanted to speak with strength.
“I'm thirsty,” he croaked out.
The Centurion, who was ever there on duty, called the soldier over who had shoved the sponge in Jesus' face earlier.
“Give him the wine sponge” he ordered.
The soldier jumped to the command and put the sponge up on a pole to Jesus, who could now say loudly and clearly what had to be said in his last moments.
“Father into your hands I now offer my Spirit.”
Then in one last gasp he shouted loudly for all about him to hear. “It is finished!”
Then he died. And he and we were placed securely in The Father's loving hands.

Who brought about the death of Jesus? Was it Jesus, His Father, The Jews, The Romans, our sin? All of these played very significant parts, and there are Scriptures for each of their roles. But it was finally Jesus who said these words. 

John 10:17…I lay down my life for my sheep - I lay down My life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This command I have received from My Father.”
At the moment of his death the cosmos convulsed. An earthquake tore a searing gash into the mountainside and people were toppled off their feet. Rocks split apart and the graves and tombs on a nearby hill cracked open. People ran in fear from the place, but they did not know where to go. At that moment there were priests in the temple about to sacrifice the Passover lamb, and when their knife pierced the sacrificial animal the true Lamb of God offered himself on Calvary as the final sacrifice for all sin. The priests were thrown off their feet by the earthquake. The temple shook as huge stones fell from the parapets and the great veil in the temple proper, which separated the place of God’s presence in the holy place from the rest of the temple was lightning torn from top to bottom. 

When that veil was torn it signified that Christ as both man and God had not only done away with the separation of mankind from God in the temple, but he had done away with the separation of mankind from God in all the earth. He had gone ahead for all of us to live in his abiding presence. We can now have faith to come confidently into this holy place in our own hearts because of his mercy upon our imperfect humanity and we can receive the power of his life within us to do what is right and pleasing to God. 
The veil that was torn when Jesus died on the cross on that awesome day was a declaration of the certain hope of our salvation and loving forgiveness and has become the anchor for our souls.

The carrion crows were in for a disappointment that day. They were not to know that the next day was the Sabbath, and that it was against temple law for dead bodies to be left hanging on a holy day, so all the criminals had to be dead before sundown and taken off their crosses. The two criminals who were tied to their crosses were still a long way from death so Centurion had his men break their legs so that they would die quickly. The Centurion then had the task of ascertaining if Jesus was indeed dead. He called over one of his guards. “Give me a lance,” he commanded.
He took the shaft and instructed the guard on how to plunge it into Jesus body, under his heart, where the pericardial sac would have amassed body fluids if he had expired. Water gushed out and the Centurion knew the day's work was done. Having witnessed the earthquake and all the things that were done he knew that this man was indeed the Son of God.

The Prince of Darkness now realized that this man’s body, which had just been destroyed on Calvary and which had contained no fault or sin could not suffer the consequence of sin, which is death, and therefore could no longer be kept captive in the grave of this lower world, as Jesus says through David in the Psalm
You will not let my soul rest in the grave, you will not let your Holy One see corruption (Psalm 16:10).

Scripture is clear about the consequence of death from sin, right from sin’s beginning when Adam believed the lie that Satan told Eve about them becoming as wise and as powerful as God if they ignored what God said about not eating from the tree of knowledge. 
That lie made them feel that God was withholding from them the wisdom and power that they could have without him. They thought that they would be more fulfilled by ignoring what God said rather than by trusting in a heart relationship with him.

That sin resulted in the heart of humanity being separated from the life of God and led to their physical and moral corruption and final physical death. (Romans 5:12).  All of humanity followed Adam’s pathway of the ‘law of sin and death’ as it is written; ‘All have sinned and come short of the glory of God’. And the Bible describes the process. ‘Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death’ (James 1:14). 
In the forty-day of fasting and temptation of Jesus in the wilderness Satan had been given free rein to tempt Jesus to the fullest extent, and Scripture declares Jesus as innocent from both sin and its deathly consequence. ‘We know that Jesus had the same temptations we do, though he never once gave way to them and sinned.’ (Hebrews 4:15) 

Jesus was without sin because he trusted his Father with all his heart to fulfill his heart’s desires. His human desires which are common to us all were subdued by his higher heartfelt Godly desire and so they did not conceive and give birth to sin, and therefore did not bring forth death.
The moment Jesus died the cosmic law of sin and death was being overturned to make way for a new cosmic law to come into effect - the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and that new cosmic law did not exist in Eden. It would occur only after Jesus rose from the dead and sent the Holy Spirit to give us the risen life of Jesus within, and a new heart like his own. Our hearts can now be fulfilled with a new desire that freely chooses to fulfill the desires of God’s heart.

As Jesus hung on the cross and offered his spirit to his Father his spirit left his dead body hanging on the cross, and he saw a bolt of lightning and Satan being caught in it and hurled downwards. Jesus had foretold this to his disciples on two occasions, saying. I saw Satan as lightning falling from Heaven… (Luke 10:18). And also,
Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself." This He said, signifying by what death He would die. (John 12:31)

Jesus also knew that before he ascended, he must first descend into the place of departed souls and he began to travel downwards himself, and knew he was on a mission of great purpose. Below him was a place called Paradise, and next to Paradise was a place called Hades. 
Thank you Jesus for overturning the law of sin and death, and for giving to us the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. May we enter through that torn veil and live that life with your heart towards the Father. Amen.    To be continued…

The Passover Supper

THE PASSOVER SUPPER

Passover was the busiest time of the year in Jerusalem when crowds of Jews from all over the Empire were gathering for the feast. Jesus had arrived triumphally seated on a donkey into Jerusalem earlier in the week and the crowds had welcomed him as their prophet, miracle worker and King to be, shouting Hosannah and casting palm leaves on the ground before him. People were amazed and awestruck at his commanding presence when he tipped over the tables of the greedy money changers in the temple, and all of this brought Jesus under fiercer and more intense scrutiny from the temple leaders than ever before. Questions were hurled at him to entice him into confrontation regarding moral and legal issues of their temple religion. But Jesus was not about to be baited like an animal of prey. He fielded their questions with a calm authority, and it was the tormentors who became enraged by the superior wisdom and integrity of their victim to be. Crowds of Jews looked on in expectation. Many wanted a show of power and strength to come from Jesus after these thrusts and parries, for surely this was the time for him to start his kingdom, but they were to be disappointed. Jesus was on a path that would lead to a far greater demonstration of such power that the whole cosmos would be shaken by it, and he knew that even though the time was short, it was still not yet.

After three days of this exhausting exchange with the leaders and the constant attention from the crowds Jesus took the twelve aside and told them that he wanted to go and spend some time in prayer with his Father. He told them he wanted to share the Passover feast with them that evening. Jesus told them he had organized somewhere for them to have the meal. “Where will it be Master?” asked Peter.
“In about three hours I want you and John to go to the city square where you will find a water carrier with a pitcher of water on his shoulder. He will be looking out for you. You are to follow him to the place he leads you to and go in and ask the owner to take you to the guest room, a large room upstairs. He will be waiting for you and will show you where everything is and you can then prepare the feast for us. We will be along soon after.” With that Jesus told the others to go off and spend some time in prayer and preparation for the event, while he would pray by himself, and meet them back at the place where they now were.

The two disciples found the man carrying the pitcher of water in the square just as Jesus had said, and they followed him as he entered a two-storey building. There they met the owner of the house who led them to the room that had been prepared for them. This man had been instructed by God in a dream to set aside the room and he had obeyed without question. After his time of prayer Jesus met with the others and they went to the room. It was evening time and there was a large table set out with the Passover meal, and there they sat at the table with Jesus in the middle of them.

Passover was the festival time that celebrated the event of Moses bringing the Nation of Israel out of their slavery from Egypt. The Passover meal was not just a meal but a series of meals, interspersed with pauses for reflection and readings from the Scriptures in remembrance of the miraculous way God had freed them from their oppressors. After one of the meals, at which they ate roasted lamb and bitter herbs, Jesus stood up and went over to one of the sizeable bathing bowls and taking off his outer robe he wrapped a large towel around himself and beckoned the disciples to come over to him.
“What are you doing?” asked Peter.
“I am going to wash your feet,” replied Jesus.
it was customary as a Jewish ritual of cleansing for guests to have their feet washed by a servant of the house from the dirt and grime of walking in the dusty streets when they gathered together for a meal.
But Peter resisted this servant act from his master Jesus.

“Not mine,” exclaimed Peter. The other disciples were also curious and uneasy.
“Yes yours,” replied Jesus, “and all of the others too.” When he saw Peter balking and raising objections he stopped and stood up to face them all. “Do you remember when you all became so angry with one another when James’ and John's mother wanted me to give the highest places to her two sons next to me in my kingdom?”
“Yes,” they said, remembering it well.
“Well at that time I told you that if you want to show you have true authority you will serve one another. If you think I have authority with you then you will let me serve you by washing your feet. Otherwise, you are saying you don’t recognize my authority.”
He began to wash the disciples’ feet, and when he came to Peter, Peter protested.
“No Master you will not wash my feet.”
“So, you don’t want to be part of what I am doing?” 
Peter knelt in front of Jesus and said.
“Of course, I do. I’m sorry. Please Lord, wash my hands and my head as well.”
“Just your feet Peter, here, in the bowl.” Jesus then continued to wash the feet of all the men, as they came forward one by one, some with tear-streaked faces.

Heaven watched on silently as thousands of thousands of angels strained to see all that was being done and said in this most holy moment. They watched as their God cleansed a grimy unclean world from off those he loved, as he would for all who would let him do so, down through the ages. When he had finished washing them, he stood up again and said.
“Now you are clean, but not all of you.” One of them wanted to know what he meant, so he asked them to come back to the table with him, where they would continue their meal.

After they had sat down, he asked for the bread and wine to be served, and then he said plainly,
“One of you will betray me.”
They were all shocked, and began to discuss this amongst themselves, but then their distress overwhelmed them, so they began to ask him one by one, “Is it me Master?” they pleaded anxiously, without getting a reply. John knew the depth of love that he himself had for Jesus and did not even question his own heart as to whether he might be the one, so he simply asked,
“Who is it Lord?” Jesus saw their trouble and concern, so he said, “The one who dips his bread with me into the soup.” At that very moment Judas had his bread in the soup along with the bread in the hand of Jesus. The moment passed in the confusion, and nothing appeared to register in the minds of the other disciples, so Jesus let the moment pass, then Judas, feeling safe, said,
“Is it me Lord?”
“You said it.” Jesus handed him the piece of dipped bread from his own hand and said to him. “Go and do what you have to do.”
Judas got up and grabbed the money bag and strode out, excited by a dark and distorted sense of power in his newfound political mission. Judas always was a political activist looking for regime change, and he had seen Jesus as the man who would satisfy his rebellious and resentful attitude to Roman authority. And now he was bitterly disappointed in the kind of servant leadership that Jesus was demonstrating. It was too weak for his liking, and he felt betrayed. Satan had captured his will and his resentful revenge was targeted at Jesus, and the best way to get even was to betray his friend Jesus in return. That cost Judas everything. The other disciples supposed that he had received instructions from their master concerning some arrangements that had been organized between them, perhaps to distribute the money to the poor.

Jesus turned to the other disciples and took a large piece of bread from the bowl. They watched him as he broke it into twelve pieces, keeping one, and handing the rest around to the remaining eleven.
“This is my body. This has been broken into pieces but when we eat it, it becomes one piece again, because we are one. Whenever you and those who come after you do this in the future, you will join yourselves to one another and to me, and I will be there with you. Unless you have my life in you, you will not know what life really is.”
He took a cup of the ceremonial wine and drank from it, then passed it around for them all to drink. After they had finished it he said to them,” This is my blood. Just as my body will be torn to pieces for you, so too will my blood be spilled for you. This is a sign of my life and of the new promise from God to give you and all of humanity our life to share, not just a life of rules and regulations, but our very divine life. Whenever people do this in the future, I want them to remember that I died for them and that I will come back again at the end of time, in the full power and glory of my kingdom.”

Once again, they recalled what he had said to them about his coming back at the end of time. He had warned them of the things that would happen in the earth just before that mighty and awesome day when he would be seen by all the world coming in the clouds of heaven. They recalled his predictions of the earthquakes and natural disasters that would strike the earth, the rising tide of self-interest and wars and terror, the epidemic of fear and hopelessness. They shuddered within themselves, and they were comforted by his presence.

The feast had come to an end, and he stood and asked them to come with him into a garden near the olive grove, where he wanted them to pray with him.
“In a few hours the temple leaders will arrest me, and I will be put on trial. After my arrest you will all become terrified and desert me, but it will fulfill the Scripture which says that when the shepherd is struck the sheep will run in all directions.”
Peter protested, “Even if everyone else deserts you I will never run,” and James and the others joined in the protest. Peter drew out his dagger, quickly followed by James.
“These are two daggers,” said Peter, seeing James's drawn dagger, “and I will die with you before I let anyone take you away.”
Jesus looked at Peter.
“Lucifer is out to get you Peter, and before the night is over you will separate yourself from me in fear, but I will be praying for you that your faith will remain strong. You will hear a rooster crowing in the morning, and when you hear it, it will be a stark reminder of what I just told you, and for now, you can both put your daggers away.”
But Peter protested all the more, and Jesus let him talk on.

Jesus took the men to the garden area and asked Peter and John and James   to accompany him further, motioning for the others to stay back. A little farther on he asked the three to wait and pray while he went on his own to pray to his Father. Finding a place, he fell on his face and began to quake inside with a peculiar dread. He would face torture and death in an unbearable and agonizing way. He would be totally alone, suffering the shame and reproach of a criminal. These thoughts tormented his mind and dried up his soul. 
Darkness tried to ride in on this torment. He began to sweat profusely, and he groaned, till he started to taste blood in his mouth. The blood ran down his chin, and then he saw droplets of blood on the backs of his hands. This was the cup of pain and sorrow that he was being asked to take. It was too much, and he begged for Father to take it away. He asked if there was some other way that he might accomplish what he had been sent to do, but he told Father that nonetheless he would do whatever he wanted him to. He staggered to his feet and groped his way to where he had left the three disciples. They were asleep.

Jesus groaned inwardly again and waking them up he pleaded with them.
“Couldn't you have stayed awake and prayed? You know I am about to die, and I feel my life draining from me already, and I am almost overwhelmed by it. You need to pray too so that you will not be completely overwhelmed.”
They spluttered out their apologies. He forlornly made his way back to his place and cried out to Father again, to never forsake him, but still the agony fastened itself to his soul. He asked Father again if there was any other way, and again he yielded his will to his Father.

After more suffering that became more than he could bear, he returned to the three, but they had fallen asleep again. He pleaded with them again not to go to sleep. They didn’t know what to say. Sleep had become their escape from the heaviness of their grief and sorrow. Father watched from heaven and shared his son's agony, knowing that this was the darkest hour that his son had ever known. This was breaking his heart and all of heaven was watching with him and sharing his grief, so he summoned an angel to go and strengthen and comfort his Son. Jesus drew in heavenly strength and stood to face his betrayal, denial, trial and flogging, his sentencing and his carrying a cross to die upon at Calvary - for us.

 

 

The Jonah Syndrome

THE JONAH SYNDROME

God wanted to save the great city of Nineveh in Assyria (about 755 years BC), so he sent Jonah, a prophet of Israel with a warning about the harm and destruction they were causing one another that would end up destroying them as a people unless they went through a spiritual conversion of their minds and hearts.
Jonah 1:1 GOD's Word came to Jonah, son of Amittai: "Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They're in a bad way and going from bad to worse and I can't ignore it any longer." 

However, Jonah had made his own judgement about what God really needed to do with this bunch of people. Jonah was a fierce nationalist, and he could not agree with God’s appraisal of the fate of this despicable Assyrian city, and he tried to escape his responsibility by running away from it. The name Jonah in Hebrew means dove, which speaks of the Holy Spirit’s anointed message through this prophet of God. And that message was being contested by the messenger himself! Jonah's attempt to run away probably has some logic to it because he would/could have assumed that God only spoke to Israel – not so!

God showed Jonah in this experience the magnitude of his goodness and mercy to all people, not only Israel, and that as the Lord over the whole earth he could hold people accountable to his basic covenant standards of blessings and cursing whenever he wanted to. For those ignorant of his covenant, he had respect to a person’s heart of a good conscience towards God (IE, Job and his friends). And he did send prophets to other nations, to Egypt (Moses to Pharoah), and Babylon (Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar), and Jesus reaching out to gentiles (the centurion, the woman touching the hem of his garment etc). Jonah didn’t think that way.

When Jonah ran away, he boarded a boat to sail off as far away as he could in the opposite direction to Nineveh, but a huge storm hit the ship and the crew members cried out to their gods to find out who had offended some god for this catastrophe to happen. Then they turned on Jonah because they suspected he was running away from something, hiding down in the hold of the boat. Jonah knew he was the culprit, and he knew he was trapped.
Jonah 1:8 “What have you done,” they asked, “to bring this awful storm upon us? Who are you? What is your work? What country are you from? What is your nationality?”
And he said, “I am a Jew, from Israel,I worship Jehovah, the God of heaven, who made the earth and sea.” Then he told them he was running away from his mission from the Lord.
The men were terribly frightened when they heard this. “Oh, why did you do it?” they shouted. “What should we do to you to stop the storm?” For it was getting worse and worse.
“Throw me out into the sea,” he said, “and it will become calm again. For I know this terrible storm has come because of me.”

That solved the problem for the crew, but it did much more than that. The crew of the ship all turned to God, and the anointing of the ‘dove’ worked through the resistant Jonah, nonetheless.
Jonah 1:15 Then they picked up Jonah and threw him overboard into the raging sea—and the storm stopped! The men stood there in awe before Jehovah, and they sacrificed to him and vowed to serve him.

Jonah then learned the hard way that God was more persistent and determined than he was about the fate of Nineveh. God then arranged for a second chance and another ocean voyage for Jonah, but this time underwater. He ended up in the belly of a whale after he was thrown overboard from the ship, and he cries out to the Lord in prayer.
Jonah 2:7 When my life was fainting away, I remembered the LORD, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. But I with the voice of thanksgiving I will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the LORD!”
And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

God plants Jonah back at the coast from the same place where he boarded the boat to escape from his God appointed mission. He then goes to Nineveh and preaches for forty days, and everyone repents and turns to the Lord.
Jonah 3:1 Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out within it the message that I tell you.” So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days' journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them… And when God saw that they had put a stop to their evil ways, he abandoned his plan to destroy them and didn’t carry it through.

This was the last thing that Jonah had wanted to happen. Jonah wanted God to judge them and destroy them. God wanted to save them. It was God’s appointed time of spiritual challenge and godly change for Nineveh and after forty days it was accomplished.
The number forty narrative in the Bible speaks to us of appointed times of challenge and change where God manifests the divine power of his plan at work for us and with us. These number forty appointed times narratives occurred in the forty years with Moses as he led Israel through the wilderness, and with Jesus for forty days in his time of trial and temptation in his wilderness experience of overcoming the devil. 
This was an appointed time for Nineveh, and things were not going well at all for the Ninevites at the time Jonah served as a prophet. There are records of famines and domestic uprisings occurring during that time and there were wars with other nations and a run of diplomatic disasters. It has been recorded that in 755 BC there was both an earthquake and an eclipse, which were both threatening omens to the Assyrians, so a strong warning was what God wanted to give them and that was obviously what they heeded. 
Jonah gets angry with God for this.
Jonah 4: This change of plans made Jonah very angry. He complained to the Lord about it: “This is exactly what I thought you’d do, Lord, when I was there in my own country, and you first told me to come here. That’s why I ran away to Tarshish. For I knew you were a gracious God, merciful, slow to get angry, and full of kindness; I knew how easily you could cancel your plans for destroying these people.

The Jonah syndrome
What had Jonah learned in all of this and what did he not learn?
Jonah learned that God’s love was not only just for Israel but for the whole world. What he failed to learn was how to accept that and to see people the way God sees them. Jonah's reluctant mission had succeeded against all his own hopes. God loved the Assyrians, to Jonah's horror, and he became resentful and went into depression. There is no mention of Jonah ever having a change of heart in this matter. Perhaps he just ended up a cranky old man.

Jonah 4:3 So, GOD, if you won't kill them, kill me! I'm better off dead!"
GOD said, "What do you have to be angry about?"
But Jonah just left. He went out of the city to the east and sat down in a sulk. He put together a makeshift shelter of leafy branches and sat there in the shade to see what would happen to the city.
GOD arranged for a broad-leafed tree to spring up. It grew over Jonah to cool him off and get him out of his angry sulk. Jonah was pleased and enjoyed the shade. Life was looking up.
But then God sent a worm. By dawn of the next day, the worm had bored into the shade tree and it withered away. The sun came up and God sent a hot, blistering wind from the east. The sun beat down on Jonah's head and he started to faint. He prayed to die: "I'm better off dead!"
Then God said to Jonah, "What right do you have to get angry about this shade tree?"
Jonah said, "Plenty of right. It's made me angry enough to die!"
GOD said, "What's this? How is it that you can change your feelings from joy to anger overnight about a mere shade tree that you did nothing to get? You neither planted nor watered it. It grew up one night and died the next night. So, why can't I likewise change what I feel about Nineveh from anger to joy, this big city of more than a hundred and twenty thousand childlike people who don't yet know right from wrong?"

There is a number one hundred and twenty narrative in the Bible, and it applies to the work of God upon the hearts of the people of Nineveh. It speaks of life being reordered from a natural order to a new spiritual order, from ‘flesh to spirit’. God spoke about this ‘one hundred and twenty’ narrative to Noah. 
Genesis 6:2 My Spirit shall not plead the cause of man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be one hundred and twenty years
 
The number one hundred and twenty also speaks of the new order of spiritual life for mankind at Pentecost. ‘Peter stood up among the disciples and the company of persons was in all about one hundred and twenty (Acts 1:15) 

What are we to learn about the ‘Jonah syndrome’ in the troubled days in which we live? We learn that we are left with a choice to either copy Jonah's mean and awkward hatred of his worldly enemies, or to see a world greatly in need of God’s warning and God’s mercy. Jonah was a very privileged man in covenant relationship with God. He was called of God, chosen by God and given a message from God to change a nation and to change history. He finally obeyed God with a lot of arm-twisting and delivered the message and the mission was successful – BUT – he had a lousy elitist attitude. He turned gracious privilege into nasty entitlement. He was going to decide who was going to receive God’s mercy – they would be people who had a worldview most like his, and who shared his iron-clad definition of a censorious God. There are also some people today who would rather shrink God’s atoning grace than magnify it.

Our troubled world is receiving strong warnings from God in the midst of the harm and destruction it is bringing upon itself at this time. The God option is for this world to go through a spiritual conversion of minds and hearts right across the globe. The world today is experiencing both the ‘forty’ narrative of a time of spiritual challenge and godly change and the ‘one hundred and twenty’ narrative of being reordered from a natural order to a new spiritual order in Jesus. 
When by the grace of God, I awoke to the fact that I was not an outsider to the Kingdom of God but an insider in the Kingdom of God through Jesus it had nothing to do with my goodness or badness or anybody else’s opinion of me – it was between God and me through the Holy Spirit. God doesn’t change us from bad to good but from natural to spiritual through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and when we realize that we understand what Paul said about himself and all the rest of us in our basic humanity. ‘For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my human nature. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out (Romans 7:18).
That is why Paul also wrote ‘For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside.’                                                                                                                                                       

This is a time to see the world as a world that God loves, as he did Nineveh, and to see it reinstated into his Covenant blessings through Jesus Christ. This is not just a prayer FOR people, but it is also a merciful attitude TO people, which does not mean that we are not to discern between good and evil and to stand against evil. We stand with all our might against the tyrants and dictators of today who murder thousands of innocent people, but we are not to be spiritual elitists with a Jonah syndrome of being ‘King’s Kids’ trying to impress the people of this world with some kind of superior brand of spirituality – God help us! We are simply a blessed people that have been given the grace and mercy of God. Paul puts this balancing act into context when he describes how God’s love works through us in this kind of situation - ‘Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.’ (1Corinthians 13:6).
So our prayer is that we let the anointing of the dove to cause us to not only have a message of love and hope but to be that message to the people in our world.

Luke 23:34 And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

 

 

A New Order

A NEW ORDER notes
When God created the Universe he began with an order of material being or existence, and then created human life with a much higher order of life with moral responsibility for relationships and loving responses. We are going to look a the ongoing work of God in the reordering of that relational order of our lives to bring us closer and closer to him.
We start with God as Uncreated Being creating the material universe in the presence of his already created angelic spirit beings. The material universe was an order of created being which reflected his creative genius of design in observable Laws, such as the laws of mathematics and physics and chemistry, and the observable beauty of light and colour and the harmony of movement and sound and the forms of life and energy and growth. All of these laws and forms of the new order of created being were created out of emptiness and darkness and chaos and disorder. 
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters and God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

A new order – a new Law of life
When God created humanity, the being that was to reflect the image of his own nature and being, he recreated within that being his own order of life of love and trust. The first of these beings, Adam, broke the law of love and trust when he was deceived into a mistrust of God by another created spirit being, Lucifer, who had desecrated that law of love and trust through the darkness of his pride and deception. 

A new order – a new Law of life (and death)
Adam had allowed darkness into the being of humanity and a new order of human life came into being – the law of sin and death. Adam was no longer innocent, and his disobedience estranged him from the life of God - separation and death entered humanity from that time on. Nevertheless, God gave humanity a conscience concerning good and evil which was not perfect because it was self-centred, but people could still choose to honour God. Many offered sacrifices to God out of a good heart like Abel, while many others became corrupt and lived selfishly for themselves like Cain. 

A new order – a good conscience toward God.
Then came the time of Noah, and darkness had established a firm foothold in the human heart. God saw that the heart of mankind had become corrupt and the whole earth was filled with violence and estrangement from God. God observed all this corruption in the world and he said to Noah, who had a good conscience towards God “I have decided to destroy all living creatures, for they have filled the earth with violence. Yes, I will wipe them all out along with the earth! God told Noah he would send a flood to cover the whole earth (Genesis 6:11) and he told Noah to build an ark, and God saved Noah and his family from the flood. After the rains and the flood had subsided Noah was told to send out a dove, representing God’s Spirit to fly freely out over the earth as a sign of the new order of humanity being given a fresh start. From the time of Noah a new order of mankind that descended from Noah began to live in the order of a good conscience toward God which guided them within the integrity of their own hearts. 

A new order – a new Law of life (the Law of Moses)
Then God told a man called Abraham that he would become the father of the Hebrew nation. And through Abraham there came forth the twelve tribes of Israel and they lived in the new order of God’s wisdom through the Law of Moses which was a new and higher order than the human conscience alone. They became the light of God and his Word in the midst of the darkness in the nations round about them. 

Once again, the order of darkness began to demand its place to rule in the midst of this new nation and they became like the nations around them. The order of darkness took the form of their wanting to be ruled by an earthly king rather than by God, because all the other ungodly nations were ruled by kings. The prophet Samuel spoke to God with a heavy heart about what the people had demanded, and God said to him ‘I am the one they are rejecting, not you—they don’t want me to be their king any longer. Ever since I brought them from Egypt they have continually forsaken me and followed other gods. (1Samuel 8:5). So Samuel told the people what the Lord had said. ‘You will shed bitter tears because of this king you are demanding, but the Lord will not help you.” 
‘Even so, we still want a king,’ they said, ‘for we want to be like the nations around us.’
The attack of darkness upon the hearts of God’s people has now become set in the desire to want to be like the nations around them.
After the death of King Solomon two distinct kingdoms were established. The kingdom of the ten northern tribes settled in Samaria and the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin settled in Jerusalem in the south. The northern kingdom afterwards made ungodly alliances with the other nations and fell into idolatry and were finally dispersed and mysteriously disappeared even though there were anointed prophets in both these kingdoms who faithfully set God’s Word and purpose before them and called them to repentance. 

Jeremiah was the prophet to the southern kingdom of Judah and Benjamin, and he became grieved about their corruption and idolatry under their mostly, ungodly kings. God told Jeremiah that because of their disobedience they would go into captivity in Babylon, but at the same time he tells Jeremiah to buy a plot of land from his cousin in Ananoth near Jerusalem.
Jeremiah is perplexed by this directive from God that seems like a contradiction of purpose, but then he realizes that he is not just doing a favour for his cousin, but that this purchase signifies that the land transaction is a symbol of the promised return of Israel one day back to their land. Jeremiah understands God's plan and promise, and he designates his trusted scribe Baruch to settle the sale and keep the deeds in safety. 

A recurring theme of God’s reordering
Jeremiah 45:1 The word that Jeremiah the prophet spoke: “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, to you, O Baruch (blessed one): … Behold, what I have built I am breaking down, and what I have planted I am plucking up—that is, the whole land. And seek not great things for yourself, for I am bringing affliction upon all flesh, says the LORD. But I will give you life as a gift in all places that you may go.”

Baruch (whose name means ‘blessed one’) was protected and blessed with life. The southern kingdom was taken into Babylon and after seventy years they returned to Jerusalem and inherited all the land, but some years later darkness again prevailed and there was another falling away. God’s people received no more prophetic comfort or guidance for over four hundred years from the time of their final prophet Malachi until the time of John the Baptist who prepared the way for the Messiah Jesus.
Before that southern kingdom went into captivity God also promised a new order of life called The New Covenant (The Law of God’s wisdom written upon the heart - Jeremiah 31:31) that would be ordained upon God’s people at a future time.

A new order – a new Law of life (The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus)
God created that new order of life promised to Jeremiah in the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus Christ. God and humanity joining together in one Spirit, the greatest order of life for humanity to experience in the earth. This Gift of the Father, The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus through his Son Jesus, who put to death the old order of life, The Law of sin and death when Jesus died on the cross, then rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, bringing us into that new order of the Spirit of Life through the presence of the Holy Spirit within us. Jesus sowed his life into death and reaped new life in resurrection so that we could inherit this new order of life in the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus. 

Our global society has become so disordered in recent times that we seem to be seeing the replay of the theme that we saw in God’s word through Jeremiah to Baruch ‘Behold, what I have built I am breaking down, and what I have planted I am plucking up—that is, the whole land. And seek not great things for yourself, for I am bringing affliction upon all flesh, says the LORD. But I will give you life as a gift in all places that you may go.

In the days in which we live there is the breaking down of things that God has built, and there is the pulling up of things he has planted. We are seeing the breaking down of once reliable democratic systems of government based on Godly morals, and the pulling up of deeply rooted traditions in a new cultural order that replaces the Godly foundations with shallow ideologies of special interest groups that are pitched one against the other. This causes disdain and resentment from zealots to be aimed against people who don’t always agree with the new order virtues or ideologies. Their demand often is. ’We want to do as we please and we would like a law framed for us to have the freedom to do it, and the power to punish anyone who wants to stop us or attempts to criticise us. We are also seeing violence and human suffering in the violent aggression of Russia against Ukraine and against the values of the freedom of western democracy. 
We also see personal affliction everywhere and the disruption of health and safety and the pressure on financial systems caused by the global pandemic and natural disasters like fires and floods. This is the time to pray for God’s reordering of his Kingdom values to challenge today’s disordered culture and bring his order of life once more into this world.

God also wants to restore the order of his new Law of life in his Church and is saying to the Church to ‘seek not great things for yourself ‘. He has had to tear down and pluck up what may have become worldly and superficial practices in the Church in recent times concerning celebrity leadership styles and the love of money. God says to us as he did to Baruch (the blessed one) I will give you life as a gift in all places that you may go. We receive his life that we may give it to his world, wherever we may go.

Paul writes about this experience of being given a new order of life and he shares it with all who desire to live with a true heart of a good conscience towards God. An order of life is a Law of life because it means to regulate how that life is lived to its highest order, so as I read the following Scripture from Romans Chapter 7 I am going to be using the word ‘order of life’ in the context of a ’ law of life’.
Romans 7:21 I delight in the law of God (order of God’s wisdom), in my inner being, but I see in my members (outer being) another law (order of life) waging war against the law (order of life) of my mind (in the knowledge of God) and making me captive to the law (order of life) of sin (independent self-interest) that dwells in my members (outer being). Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death (sense of miserable estrangement from God)? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself (my inner being joined with God’s Being) serve the law of God (order of God’s wisdom) with my mind (in the knowledge of God), but with my flesh (outer being) I serve the law (order if life) of sin (independent self-interest)…but there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus for the Law of the Spirit of life has set me free from the Law of sin and death…

Contending for the new order of life
The Law of sin and death still resides in our mortal being and it contends with the Spirit of Life in Christ in our spiritual being at every turn in our lives as darkness seeks to extinguish that light and that life, but it can be overcome by our faith because the Holy Spirit is always awakening us to the ongoing mission of God for mankind in the earth, which is for us to be transformed into the image and likeness of God in Jesus Christ. Our faith in God’s divine action upon the human heart and mind by the Holy Spirit empowers us with his grace to reorder the reasoning of our minds and to love mercy and to release his wisdom and justice into our personal world.  The Holy Spirit will empower us to make commitments and to control our actions and enable us to fulfill God's will for our lives.

 

Times of Refreshing in God’s Presence

TIMES OF REFRESHING OF GOD’S PRESENCE
Acts 3:19 Now change your mind and heart towards God and turn to him so he can cleanse away your sins and send you the appointed times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord.

The appointed times (Kairos) of refreshing (anapsyxis; a recovery of breath, revival) from the presence of the Lord speak to us firstly about the sovereign outpourings of the Holy Spirit as seen throughout the history of the Church, and they also speak to us about our practice of personally abiding in the presence of the Holy Spirit through our faith. 

The sovereign outpourings of the Holy Spirit for the Church began with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, and they have continued in the many revivals in different times and in different places throughout history including those moves of God that have occurred in living memory over the last couple of generations. 
The personal times of refreshing for us is the practice of abiding by our faith in the presence of the Holy Spirit through a desire to draw close to God with a conscious focus of our mind and heart upon his nearness to us. This is beautifully typified in David’s remarkable Old Testament heart to heart experience in the Psalms where he yearns for the presence of God in his life. And even though David did not have the New Testament gift of the Holy Spirit as we do, his experience was prophetic of our abiding with Jesus and the Father through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Adam began life dwelling constantly in the presence of the Lord until he was tempted by darkness to put God out of his mind and act as if God was not there, or that God could not see him. He acted in an independent self-determination in his own self interest to foolishly take for himself what only God could give him, a mature knowledge of good and evil (Hebrews 5:14). He ate the fruit of the tree of good and evil and in disobeying God this way he took to himself a darkened and distorted interpretation of what was good and what was evil, because it was focussed upon a self-centeredness of life rather than a God centeredness. He lost his peace and his sense of oneness with God and then the hidden human flaw of hostility toward God (Romans 8:7) was exposed before God which shocked Adam to his core so that he ran and hid in his naked shame from God. Adam played hide and seek with God - God looked for him and called out to him asking him where he was. 
Genesis 3:9 Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, "Where are you?"
So he said, "I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself."
God has been calling out ‘where are you?’ to mankind from that time on and humanity still hides from the presence of a loving God, putting him out of their minds. He calls us to rethink and turn back again and embrace his presence. 

God’s heart for all mankind always was and still is that we should live in his presence. His presence always was and still is the reality of life for all of humanity, but man has learned to hide from that presence and to put God out of his mind. So while God is always present for us we can choose to not be present for him. That mindset of separation and isolation is the most tragic kind of suffering there is. Whatever kind of suffering we experience, and there are many, can be endured if we know we are in the presence of the Lord. Paul tells us to reckon yourselves alive to God (Romans 6:11). We are alive to God and his presence. To reckon a thing means to render an account of something as true and accurate and to live your life accordingly.

The suffering which seems more real and immediate is the kind that collides with our outer senses because of the vulnerability of our limited humanity when it is under stress. This kind of suffering can take up all our attention and cause anxiety and mental and emotional fatigue. The whole world has experienced that kind of suffering over the last two years of pandemic and now in the current threat of war because of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, and also in the aftermath of deadly floods along our East Coast.

Why now? 
‘So that the appointed due seasons of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord 
At the time of its greatest need for comfort and care the world is being shaken and shocked in every way. Now is a time for receiving the very thing that we were created for from the beginning – the presence of God with us in our inner being. 
God is with us in our times of collision with the sharp edges of a hard world. 
He lives for that closeness. It was because of his love for that closeness with us that he sent us Jesus, our  Emmanuel, ‘God with us’ to be your strength in that difficult thing you are facing now. You will be given the grace of the presence of God in that place of struggle. He will cover your weaknesses and vulnerability with his mercy and love. 

Psalm 139:3 You know everything about me Lord. You know what I am going to say even before I say it. You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head. Such knowledge is too great for me to understand! It’s all too wonderful for me.
I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence!
How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!
If I could count them, they would be more in number than the sand;
When I awake, I am still with You.

There was an appointed time (Kairos) when God heard the cry of his people who were under the yoke of slavery in Egypt and he delivered them out of bondage and said to Moses ‘my presence will go with you and I will give you rest’.
There was also an appointed time for God to send the Holy Spirit upon all flesh (all of humanity) to join us to the life of Jesus.
There have also been appointed times of the shaking of all things as in the Reformation and other moves of God so that God could expose what things needed to be reordered according to the way of his Kingdom (That includes the reordering of our own minds and will according to his will – what remains and what has to go).

My prayer is that at this time of God hearing the cry of his people and at this time of shaking that there would be a reordering of things according to the way of his Kingdom and that he will once more pour out his Holy Spirit on all flesh, and that he will say to us ‘My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest’. My prayer is also that in the meantime we would draw near to God with the faith that we are indeed abiding in him and in his presence because his Holy Spirit is present with us awakening us to become present with him. Here is a prayer to be said many times a day.
I welcome your loving presence Lord, and your powerful work on my behalf in the world of the unseen

Exodus 33:12 My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest, for you have found grace in my sight and I know you by name

Psalm 16:8 I have set the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

Psalm 16:11 You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy;

Psalm 17: 6 I call upon you, for you will answer me, O God; incline your ear to me; hear my words and wondrously show your steadfast love,

Psalm 17: 8 Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings,

Psalm 17: 15 As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness.

Psalm 19:14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord.

Isaiah 26:3 You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he 
trusts in You.

Isaiah 54.10 My covenant of peace shall not be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you.

Isaiah 55.6 Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near.

John 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them… and no one will take them out of my hand.

Isaiah 49.16 I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.

Colossians 3:2 Your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Genesis 15:1 Do not be afraid; I am your shield and your very great reward. 

Jeremiah 31:3 I have loved you with an everlasting love. 

Matthew 28:20 I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. 

Ephesians 3:20 He is able to do far more abundantly than all that I ask or think, according to his power at work within me,

 

 

Never too Old

NEVER TOO OLD - The wisdom of God for a balanced life 

Proverbs 30:7-9 Two things I ask of you; do not deny them to me before I die:
Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the LORD?” or lest I be poor and steal and profane (tapas – manipulate) the name of my God.
This powerful prayer is one that we are never too old or too young to pray. In this prayer we are praying for the wisdom for some of the wisest choices we can make for the rest of our lives. And while ever we are alive we can still say the phrase ‘before I die’. This prayer contains a twofold request on behalf of all of us to God. The first request has to do with being given a heart of truth in two special areas in our lives and the second request is being given the integrity to be content in all circumstances whether in times of scarcity or abundance.
When we pray about truth, we are asking for two different aspects of untruth to be removed from us, and these are falsehood and lying which have both been in humanity from the very beginning. 

Falsehood (shav) was the flaw that Satan exploited in the as yet untested mind and heart of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. 
That word for falsehood shav in Hebrew is a strong negative word describing the deception that leaves one with a feeling of desolation and uselessness (Strong’s Concordance as. ???? shav; to make desolate). And because the heart is our active responder to life it will respond to whatever information the mind feeds it. The lie spoken by Satan and planted in the minds of Adam and Eve was the falsehood of being separated from the truth of God’s love and goodness towards them, and in their deception their human hearts could not trust that God wanted the best for them, and their souls were plunged into desolation. Darkness continues to feed our human heart through an independent mindset of separation that erodes our trust in a loving God and so we decide what we want as the best for our lives. 
That lie not only robs us of the truth of his loving heart of goodness and blessing towards us but make us live at a distance from God and even to hide from him like Adam and Eve did because of shame and guilt. And so we can end up living a false life with a false image of who we are rather than as the real person in the true image of who God created us to be in Jesus.  
So we pray for that falsehood to be removed and for us to be renewed in the spirit of our minds, for a mindset of faith and trust in him. So he rescues us from the prison of our own falsehood - shava. Ask God to show you who he is to you, and for you, and who you truly are in his sight and he will reveal this to you.

The other aspect of untruth to be removed from us is lying (dabar) and that Hebrew word means do harm to another person by falsely judging or accusing or blaming them.
Adam blamed Eve for making him eat of the forbidden fruit -  The woman you gave to me, she made me eat it! Not only did he blame her, he blamed God, and did great harm not only to his relationship with God, but also to his relationship with Eve. That lying continues to feed the human heart to this day as an aspect of untruth that we can pray to have removed from us.

The Bible says that ‘life and death are in the power of the tongue’ (Proverbs 18:21) and this misuse of the power of the tongue in the destroying of another person’s name and reputation and honour maligns their essential being or nature. When we pray for God to remove this kind of lying from us we become peacemakers and bless not only our relationships with individuals but we can become part of the blessing and healing of entire communities.

The second request in our prayer is about having the integrity to be content with neither too much wealth nor too much scarcity. The prayer starts by saying ‘give me neither riches nor poverty; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the LORD?” ‘or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.’
This first part of this request has to do with riches. The request is one of asking for the wisdom to approach life with God as one of always being in need while always being aware of not having greed. The Bible says You cannot serve two masters: God and money. For you will despise one and love the other or love the one and despise the other’. 
The Scripture also warns us not to determine to be rich to the point where we say we have no need of God and that our own hand can supply for us what we want from life. 
Deuteronomy 8:12 Beware that in your plenty you do not forget the Lord. He fed you with manna in the wilderness so that you would become humble and so that your trust in him would grow, and he could do you good. He did it so that you would never feel that it was your own power and might that made you wealthy. Always remember that it is the Lord your God who gives you power to get wealth.

I believe that the best place to be coming from when we approach the Lord is from a place of need – ‘feed me with the food that is needful for me’ . When we come to God humbly in this way our need is the voice of our hope, but we also come to God with thanksgiving, for this is our voice of faith. The food that is needful for us speaks of any kind of means or supply. It can mean anything - finances, wisdom, or the abilities that he has put in our hands and in our hearts to do what he would have us do.  Knowing we are in need of him also keeps us close to him, not just because of the need, but because the closeness develops into a relationship where we get to know and trust him and to be patient and wait for him to give us the food or particular resource that he knows that we need. Any empowering from God to a person to get wealth is an act of his grace. This is a gift of an ability that is bestowed and not earned, and along with any empowering of any gift or ability comes the accountability towards God for that ability. It is his bestowal, not our entitlement and that bestowal requires our stewardship. 

Paul spoke about his empowerment in Christ to having both abundance and scarcity when he shared about learning to be content with whatever he had. 
Philippians 4:11 I have learned how to get along happily whether I have much or little. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of contentment in every situation, in abundance or scarcity, whether it be a full stomach or hunger; for I can do all things that God asks me to through Christ who gives me the strength and power to do it.
While Paul had a godly approach to abundance and wealth, Paul also speaks about the ungodly approach to abundance and wealth and of a wrong desire to get rich as leading to many temptations.
1Timothy 6:10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
In our original prayer in the book of Proverbs we also saw the mention of an ungodly approach to abundance and wealth where it said. ‘feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the LORD? 

This means that if the love of money drives us to get our own wealth, we become detached from God’s idea of what is needful for us and we deny him, saying ‘Who is the Lord?’ This not only means having our soul pierced with many sorrows, it also means not having faith to draw close to him which means that we don't get to learn to trust him or be patient and be taught of him, and in turn we don't get to know him or to see what he does, and we don’t get to give him thanks in all things. 

Just as there is an ungodly approach to wealth there is also an ungodly approach to poverty and scarcity which is highlighted in the second part of our prayer that says. ‘or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.’ This is seen in people who become envious and resentful of the wealth of others and steal and cheat without conscience.  This can also become an angry and emotional demand for justice as seen in some of today’s activist and destructive protest culture. 

Paul told us he was empowered to live through Christ in godly scarcity as well as in abundance (Philippians 4:11). He gave God thanks in times of abundance and scarcity. He knew that the supernatural work of God in demonstrating the power of the Holy Spirit did not depend on money but nonetheless he gave thanks to God for his financial provision, and he honoured those who blessed him and supported him in this way. 

Philippians 4:10 How grateful I am and how I praise the Lord that you are helping me again. I know you have always been anxious to send what you could, but for a while you didn’t have the chance. Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to get along happily whether I have much or little… But even so, you have done right in helping me in my present difficulty. Paul finishes by saying. ‘And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.’

Just as there is a godly grace of empowerment for us to get wealth, there is also a godly grace for us to experience scarcity, so that either way we might bestow and multiply grace and blessing to others. I want to underline once again that this attitude of faith towards God concerns more than just material possessions or money. It has to do with time and effort and the care and compassion that is given from each one of us to one another. This emphasises the point about the best place to be coming from as we approach the Lord - We come from that place of need – ‘feed me with the food that is needful for me’. We come from that place of need before God, and we can then go to a place of need in another person’s life with what he puts in our hands and in our hearts to do. In this way thanksgiving is multiplied and more grace is given to us all - Amen.

 

 

The Burning Bush

THE BURNING BUSH
One day God intervened supernaturally in the life of Moses, speaking to him from a burning bush that stayed alight until Moses received and understood God’s message to him.

Exodus 3:1 One day as Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, out at the edge of the desert near Horeb, the mountain of God, suddenly the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
Then the LORD said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians…
10. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” He said, “But I will be with you,
Moses then protests his unworthiness for the task, so we read on.
But Moses said, “They won’t believe me! They won’t do what I tell them to. They’ll say, ‘Jehovah never appeared to you!’” The Lord asked him. “What do you have there in your hand Moses?” And he replied, “A shepherd’s rod… (Exodus 4:1)

Moses was leading a very ordinary life looking after his father in law’s sheep, with a shepherd’s rod in his hand and God came into that ordinary life and said to Moses ‘What have you got in your hand?’ What he had in his hand was an ordinary part of his life as a shepherd, but it was to become something that God wanted to supernaturally empower. God had put that rod in his hand and created him to use it with skill and wisdom to be a good shepherd of his flocks. That rod was now to become the rod that parted the red sea. It also became the rod that caused water to flow supernaturally out of a rock so that God’s people could live and not die and drink from the rock and be refreshed. 
There were three forty-year stages in Moses’ one-hundred-and-twenty-year life. They were the three stages of nurture, development, and empowerment.

Stage 1 (nurture) – Moses grew up as a young man in the royal family of the Pharaoh after being rescued from the river as a baby by Pharaoh’s daughter. Pharaoh allowed Moses’ mother to nurture his young life, so he grew up taught in the ways of God and also instructed in the ways of Egypt. He became an important figure in the court of Pharaoh but when at age forty, having experienced freedom and independence he saw that two of his fellow Hebrews were being beaten up by an Egyptian guard. He got into reaction about such an unjust system and he attacked and killed the guard and had to bury him in the sand. He had rashly taken justice into his own hands and made a serious error of judgment. His unwise reaction to the injustice being done to his own people did not make any changes to the injustice around him and ended up with the Hebrews telling him to stay out of their business as he only made things worse for them. So, Moses had to get away from Egypt or he would have been severely punished and perhaps even lost his own life. 

Stage 2 (development) – He then spent forty years in the desert as a shepherd. He was humbled by real life and learned to act responsibly and within the limitations of his own humanity. He hadn’t changed anything concerning justice for his people as yet, but God was changing something in him, through experiences that developed his character requiring him to learn self-control, wisdom and patience.

Stage 3 (empowerment) – The burning bush - He was ready for God to take the natural skills and virtues and mature attitudes he now had about his life and to take him on a supernatural journey where Moses allowed God to work his loving and just and merciful purpose through him. He now began to respond to and be involved in the changes that God desired to fulfill in him and in the world of the lives of those around him - two million Jews being delivered out of Egypt, out of the hand of Pharoah.

Each one of these three forty-year experiences in the life of Moses illustrates a different manifestation of the progressive work of the purpose of God for Moses’ life.
The number forty narrative in the Bible speaks to us of appointed times of challenge and change where God manifests the divine power of his life working for us and with us. These appointed times don’t have to be periods of forty years or forty anything as they were with Moses. 

Jesus also had three ‘number forty’ stages in his life. He had a forty-day experience in the trial of his faith in the wilderness when he fasted and overcame the temptations of the devil. That was his second ‘forty’ experience. He also had a time of forty days on earth manifesting his risen life after his resurrection. That was his third and final number forty experience. His first ‘number forty’ experience was the time of forty weeks in the womb of Mary which was the manifestation of his incarnation.

In outlining the three stages of nurture and development and empowerment, we see examples in the lives of Moses and Jesus, and we can see examples in our own lives as well. The stages can be summarized broadly as.

Stage one - Privilege and protection of the time of nurture.
Moses in the court of Pharoah for forty years. He was being reared in the two distinct cultures of the ways of Egypt and the ways of God, which ended with a crisis of violent conflict and a shameful parting of the ways.

Jesus in the womb of Mary for forty weeks. This was the joining of two different states of being, the human and the divine. It began with the glory of a new creation, and it is to last forever for mankind.

For ourselves this is our upbringing in the particular culture and circumstances of our parents, where in most cases we are sacrificially provided for in body and soul. However, this is not always the way it is and in some cases brings confusion and pain but by God’s grace this can be healed through our understanding of God the Father’s love for us. 

Stage two - Training and testing.
Moses for forty years in the desert as a shepherd being humbled and developed in character by God and under the guiding hand of his father-in-law Jethro. 

Jesus was tested for forty days in the desert where he suffered physically and emotionally and spiritually and overcame the temptations of the devil by listening only to the words of his Father. From that experience Jesus went forth in authority to finally pour out his life for us all.

For us there is the time of ‘making our own way’ in life where we go through the ups and downs and successes and failures, the pain and the joy and the griefs and the sufferings of the lessons of life that develop our character. By the grace of God, we endure, and we learn to lean upon God and to trust him in the yielding of our will to his will for our lives.

Stage three - Empowerment of God with us presence.
For Moses this was the burning bush experience. He learned to recognize what God had put in his hand and in his heart in order for him to be the deliverer of God’s love and wisdom to Israel for forty years in the wilderness.

For Jesus – He was to walk for forty days upon the earth to bear witness to his resurrection and after that to ascend to his Father from where he intercedes for us at all times and in all things. He empowers us by his grace to walk with him hand in hand with what the Father has placed in our hand for his will to be done in our lives. 

How this ‘forty’ narrative example is applied to our lives.
1Corinthians 10:1 For we must never forget, dear brothers, what happened to God’s people through Moses in the wilderness long ago. God guided them by sending a cloud that moved along ahead of them; and he brought them all safely through the waters of the Red Sea. All these things happened to them as examples—as object lessons to us.

God says to us ‘What is that in your hand? 
What he also says to us is that he has given us what is in our hand and what he has put in our hand is what he has also put in our heart. He tells us to take hold of that with a new dimension of faith that he is with us in the doing. He says. ‘My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. You have found grace in my sight and I know you by name’.

How do we know what is in our hand?
This is not some major penetrating search – we just look around us in our world of those people closest to us and see what it is that God has given us to do to bring his love and care and blessing into their lives - what is the closest situation at hand that is calling for us to give ourselves to right now?
He is also making us mindful of the abilities and skills and experience gained in our work or career, and our roles as a parent or spouse or friend, or as a helper or an adviser. He makes us mindful of the opportunities that have moved us forward and challenged us in our growth of character as a person and that have also been used to fulfill us in our world of influence. All of that has been in your hand to do with as you have willed.

But then comes the burning bush experience for us as it did with Moses. God did something so miraculous that it took his attention from that moment of his normal everyday activity and brought him into an encounter with a supernatural God. Our burning bush is the supernatural fire of the Holy Spirit burning within a mortal human life that draws us into an encounter with the living God - We draw near to God and he draws near to us (James 4:8). God wants to bring to our attention that it is time for God to begin working supernaturally to empower those ordinary things in our life where faith  can now work in us in a new dimension of his grace and love and power.

The following train of thought came to me when meditating on this truth earlier in the week.
When I look around and see what is happening in this pretty ordinary life and see that nothing really special is happening then I remember to look somewhere else where there is a place where God is at work in the world of the unseen, and that is where everything is happening in his world of the Spirit. I then begin to rest in the fact that God is working at something in my world at this moment and that I have the privilege to be part of it. I don't know what it is that he's doing but that doesn’t matter because my faith tells me that it is for good. And by my being connected like that and appreciating what is really happening in that world for me and for those in my world I know that when he does tell me or show me what is happening and what it is that he wants to do with what is in my hand at least I will recognize it and see it by keeping in tune with it in my heart of faith for what he wants to achieve.

Look at your right hand and say to yourself ‘I am walking hand and hand with you Lord into a new future of faith and hope and love and meaning. And the burning bush will stay alight - Forever.

 

 

Outside the Gates

OUTSIDE THE GATES
There is a story in the Old Testament (2Kings 7) about how the unseen world of spiritual light and spiritual darkness operates. It is the story of Elisha and the four lepers of Samaria. This story demonstrates how limited the power of darkness is when it faces up to the power and purpose of God and his goodness. The spiritual world is an unseen world – the real world of God’s activity – the world dominated by light and God’s goodness and faith, and with faith we can withstand and overthrow the spiritual darkness in that unseen realm with its fear and deception.
The story begins with Israel under siege and with the Syrian army camped in the hills nearby and God’s people starving to death inside the walls of the city of Samaria, which had become the temporary capital of the Northern tribes of Israel. 

It was reported that people were paying fifty dollars for the head of a donkey to eat, and the king of Israel was blaming Elisha for causing this situation to come about. That was because Elisha had provoked the Syrian army the previous year when he had asked God to blind their eyes so he could trick them by leading them away from where they were headed, to a city called Dothan, and into the waiting hands of the King of Israel in Samaria, where they were ambushed and defeated. 
However, by this time the Syrian army had regrouped and now they were back, and the King of Israel was angry with Elisha and threatened to have him killed by his hatchet-man - his chief officer, and Elisha was aware of that plot.

2Kings 6:31 ‘May God kill me if I don’t execute Elisha this very day the king vowed. Elisha was in his house meeting with the elders of Israel and the king sent a message to summons him, and Elisha said to the elders ‘This murderer has sent his chief officer to kill me. When he arrives, shut the door, and keep him out, for the King will soon follow him’, but while Elisha was still saying this, the chief officer arrived followed by the king.

The King must have presumed that Elisha was praying with the men for God’s help.
2Kings 6:31-33 When the king entered the house he said. “Why should I expect any help from the Lord? The Lord has caused this mess,” 
2Kings 7:3-21 Elisha replied, “The Lord says that by this time tomorrow two gallons of flour or four gallons of barley grain will be sold in the markets of Samaria for a dollar!”
The chief officer objected, “That couldn’t happen if the Lord made windows in the sky!”
But Elisha replied, “You will see it happen, but you won’t be able to buy any of it!”

So the King is in two minds and he hesitates, and the plot fails, and the story continues.
Vs.3 Now there were four lepers sitting outside the city gates. “Why sit here until we die?” they asked each other. “We will starve if we stay here and we will starve if we go back into the city; so we might as well go out and surrender to the Syrian army. If they let us live, so much the better; but if they kill us, we would have died anyway.” 
So that evening they went out to the camp of the Syrians, but there was no one there! (For the Lord had made the whole Syrian army hear the clatter of speeding chariots and a loud galloping of horses and the sounds of a great army approaching. “The king of Israel has hired the Hittites and Egyptians to attack us,” they cried out. So they panicked and fled into the night, abandoning their tents and horses, and donkeys.
When the lepers arrived at the edge of the camp they went into one tent after another, eating, drinking wine, and carrying out silver and gold and clothing and hiding it. Finally they said to each other, “This isn’t right. This is wonderful news, but we aren’t sharing it with anyone! Even if we wait until morning, some terrible calamity will certainly fall upon us; come on, let’s go back and tell the people at the palace.”
So they went back to the city and told the watchmen what had happened—they had gone out to the Syrian camp and no one was there! The horses and donkeys were tethered and the tents were all in order, but there was not a soul around. Then the watchmen shouted the news to those in the palace. The king got out of bed and told his officers, “I know what has happened. The Syrians know we are starving, so they have left their camp and have hidden in the fields, thinking that we will be lured out of the city. Then they will attack us and make slaves of us and get in.”
One of his officers replied, ‘Why don’t we send out some scouts to see?’. 
So four chariot horses were found and the king sent out two charioteers to see where the Syrians had gone. They followed a trail of clothing and equipment all the way to the Jordan River—thrown away by the Syrians in their haste. 
The scouts returned and told the king, and the people of Samaria rushed out and plundered the camp of the Syrians. So it was true that two gallons of flour and four gallons of barley were sold that day for one dollar, just as the Lord had said!
The king appointed his chief officer to control the traffic at the gate, but he was knocked down and trampled and killed as the people rushed out. This is what Elisha had predicted on the previous day when the king came to arrest him, and the prophet had told the king that flour and barley would sell for so little on the following day.

From start to finish this was an outlandish scenario – almost like a stage play of a comedy of errors, with all kinds of characters with all kinds of strange ideas going through their heads, some plotting malice and death and destruction, with suspicion and confusion and panic. The King didn’t know what he believed or what to believe and the people were desperate. 
Just as it was God’s will to allow Syria to lay siege to Israel it was also God’s will to cause the nightmare panic of the Syrian army and their withdrawal from Samaria. The control of God over history and the power of God’s word in the shaping of history are common themes in the Old Testament.
We can affirm that God is also in control over the seemingly outlandish scenario of today’s global society of confusion and panic and suspicion and malice and opposition to God’s word of truth.

When I think of the strange assortment of characters depicted in this real-life drama of the siege upon Israel by the Syrian army I ask myself which of these characters I can most identify with. I find that curiously I identify most with the four lepers. 
(I had thought that maybe Elisha would be a good choice, but I believe that he represents the Holy Spirit with the Word of God to his people). The reason I chose the four lepers is that when I read or watch the news of the daily happenings and the erosion of values in current mainstream culture, I often feel like I’m outside the gates like they were, not able to and not wanting to share the frenzied confusion of a lifestyle that has become rudderless and cut off from love and truth and faith. I don’t want to let my soul die there, and like the four lepers I don’t want to sit around and wait for the enemy to come and destroy the city and everyone in it. Like the four lepers I want another option and to bring back good news about what God has done!

The four lepers took a risk when they walked boldly into the enemy camp, and the threat to them was what the enemy might do to them, but when they went in they saw with their own eyes that God had been at work because the word of God about the blessing and the relief of the famine in Samaria had been spoken by Elisha and was already in operation. Those lepers should have been the most desperate ones of all the people but if they had not taken this initiative and walked into the enemy camp no one would had moved in the entire city and they all would have starved, even though God’s word of blessing had already been spoken!

Just as the four lepers went into the enemy’s camp, we walk into the enemy’s camp when we venture into the territory of our mind. That is where the devil wants to blind our minds and to plant confusion and deception and fear. That is his greatest weapon, and even though darkness cannot defeat us we can defeat ourselves by believing he has more power than God. But when we walk boldly and confidently into that territory with a mind that is renewed by the Word of God we align ourselves with the authority of his Word and we resist the devil and the darkness has to flee, just like the Syrian army (James 4:7).  
And just as God’s word of blessing had been spoken over Israel by Elisha (Elisha means ‘God of Blessing’), the word of spiritual blessing has been spoken over us in Jesus and we are to trust that it is working in our lives, and it will come to pass in every situation. 

Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm…
These are the inner spiritual blessings of God through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit that bring wholeness to our souls by acting upon our minds and our emotions and our will. Through being made one in spirit with Jesus our minds are able to receive the wisdom of God in all situations, and our emotions can likewise receive his peace and joy. And through the softening  ofour hearts by his love we are moved to lovingly surrender our wills to the Father’s will for our lives in all situations. 

The threat to humanity by the devil is not the risk of what he can physically do to us. The threat is being blinded by unbelief to the goodness of God which can make us become fearful that the devil has the power to stop God from having our best interest at heart. The devil does not control my destiny – God does. 
This is about growing in the knowledge of God and having faith and trust in his personal and loving intentions for us. This kind of faith is the only way we can get to know God personally. We are not waiting for our so called ‘goodness’ to operate, but his goodness.
2 Cor 10:4 ‘For the weapons of our warfare do not operate through our human nature but they are mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God…’
We are not weakly struggling against a powerful dark force but firmly aligning ourselves with the powerful force of God. Let God arise and his enemies be scattered.