Spiritcode

More than All We Ask or Think

MORE THAN ALL WE ASK OR THINK

Ephesians 3:18 … that being grounded in love, all you who believe may be able to comprehend what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us.

That Scripture holds the most boundless and unlimited promise of the unveiling of the Reality of the power of God’s love. 
It actually states that we can be filled with all the fullness of God! We are living in times when God is revealing (apocalypto) everything that needs to be exposed and to be seen for what it is, the good and the bad. One word describes what God is revealing – Reality.
When something gets exposed for what it really is we don’t have to guess anymore. That includes everything we see in the world around us, in politics, in culture, in religion, and most of all, in ourselves. What God wants to reveal to us about us is the Reality of who we really are as created in his image and as being transformed into his likeness. 

Becoming our true self is a gradual process, but that Reality can be certain and abiding if we make a deliberate and conscious movement of our hearts and minds towards the boundless spirit of God’s love towards us. We unseat our struggling false self (which doesn’t want to die!) and which is based upon a fearful defective idea of who we are. 
We have as it were two lions within us fighting to have us. One is the lion that the Bible talks about as devil, as the lion that goes about seeking to devour – the other is Jesus, the Lion of Judah – and it depends upon which one that we feed as to which one dies off or survives. We can progressively free ourselves from what darkness has told us regarding what we are and who we are, and we can enlarge the boundaries of our faith to believe God’s idea of who we are, and we become the partakers of an abundant life in God and of God. 
The limits of this enlargement are yet to be realized in this earthly life – always within reach but never fully grasped by anyone (except Jesus). But Paul still urges us to pursue this fullness of God’s love within us, giving us his own pursuit for this as an example to us. He says ‘not that I have already attained this or am already perfect, but I press on to this goal to make it my own: forgetting what lies behind I reach forward for the prize of this uppermost invitation of God in Christ Jesus’ (Philippians3 :12).
It matters not how old we are but how sincere and willing we are, and transformation is inevitable. Nothing but our own apathy and limited desire limits this realization. Resisting this work of the Holy Spirit causes us all great and needless inner suffering.

What is the breadth and length and height and depth of God’s love?
If we can picture these measures as vertical and horizontal dimensions in space, we would see the Reality of our life in the present moment - that God’s love is actively moving upon every aspect of our lives.

Breadth is the Reality of what happens in the horizontal dimension of your world.
The Length is the Reality of the timeline of your life, which is also a horizontal dimension with your past behind you and your future in front of you.
The height and depth are the Reality of God’s love acting upon you in a vertical dimension – from Heaven above and down to you into the depth of your heart of faith.

BREADTH
Imagine yourself positioned in the very centre of these vertical and horizontal lines and
as you rotated slowly around in a 360 degree turn you would be seeing the breadth of what is going on around you in your world. That represents all of the living creatures and non-living objects of God’s natural creation – the trees and rocks and oceans and the sparrow that falls from the sky, all born out of his love – the beauty and the wonder of it all, that we appreciate and care for. 
And it represents all the people, the humanity that he loves, all created in his image. 
But we also acknowledge the many activities of those many people that can be grievously unlovely in their pursuit of pleasure and power. And all of that unlovely is a reflection of Mankind’s general lack of understanding of God’s love. Our reaction to the unlovely and our contribution to the unlovely is also a measure of our understanding of God’s love. We can be so aware of the unlovely of all of this to the point that we are not aware of the movement of God’s love in the midst of it all (for God so loved the world…). 

Our comprehension of the breadth of God’s love is a condition of awareness, a direct perception, not an opinion or an idea. His love is the Reality, and all that unlove is a reality that is now being exposed more than ever. 
Where are we? Do we pour God’s love into our world or add to the unlove? 

It is only to the degree of our comprehension of the love of God toward us that we can comprehend his love for the world and his desire for our partnership with him in that redemptive love. We are not to confuse our partnership with God’s love for the natural world with an ideological commitment to saving the planet from extinction, nor are we to struggle with a self-conscious human compassion that fails to right all the wrongs of this world. Instead, we enlarge the sphere of God’s love into the breadth our inner life and we enlarge the sphere of our influence of his love into the entire breadth of our personal world. The ultimate Reality is that God’s world is a love born and love driven world, and unlove can be overcome by God’s love.

LENGTH
As you remain in the centre of those dimensions there is a horizontal line that comes from behind you and through you and goes out in front of you. That is the timeline of your life, with your past behind you and your future in front of you – and the present moment with you. This timeline is a dimension that can be filled to abundance with the love of God. Unlove towards us in our past has scarred our souls and wounded our spirits. And our unloving reactions to others and to ourselves because of this mistreatment can block our pathways forward in believing in God’s love toward us. 
The reason that we were scarred, or wounded is because we felt alone in that experience, and vulnerable and unprotected. If someone loving and strong had been there with us and holding us close, we would have been strengthened by that support and even endured the mistreatment with some distress but without as much harm. The fact is that someone loving and strong was with us, but we didn’t know it. Jesus was there all the time. 

The beautiful reality is that right now the Holy Spirit can reveal this Reality to us. He was there all the time and is here now and he felt every sensation of our personal hurt and pain as he did with Jesus and he can take us from that past moment into the present moment of faith and reveal Jesus who heals that pain and brokenness. Our brokenness is a reality of life that we can admit to without feeling shame because we are never cut off from God’s love – it has always been there but we didn’t know it. Brokenness does not mean a lack of wholeness, but it means that in the disappointments of life we can now learn to trust God to give us hope for the future rather than be stuck in the hopelessness of not knowing and of doing things our way. That becomes our present Reality of his strength in our weakness, and his peace in our struggles, as we become more and more filled with ‘the fullness of God’. Our times and seasons are in his hands - He holds the future

HEIGHT  
This is the vertical dimension of the Reality of God’s love coming upon us from the Heavens, and our faith that reaches up to meet it. 
Psalm 36:5 Your love oh Lord reaches to the heavens Your faithfulness stretches to the sky Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains. Your justice flows Like the ocean's tide.
The Bible tells us to set our minds on things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, and not to let our hearts and minds get bogged down with things that are on earth. (Colossians 3:1).
As we open ourselves to this Reality of his love flowing towards us, his tide flowing in and our faith rising up become one movement of love, and the grace of God can keep this at the flood.The strong tide of the transcendent life and love of God will inevitably rise within us and lift us into a consciousness which opens and expands us to receive its fullness. 

DEPTH
This is the vertical dimension of God’s love plumbing the depths of our heart - and as much as we are able, we surrender to that love, willing for that love to lay hold of us. 
This is different to trying to work up in our own strength an action of love towards God, which is such an elusive and confusing activity.
The surrendered self does not act, but it first receives and then it can act from there. 
Our only struggle is to enter into that rest of surrender which creates space for the ocean of God’s Being to fill it. This such a difficult path – but God initiates it. 

God’s loving and purposeful thoughts towards us are unmeasurable compared to our fleeting loving and purposeful thoughts towards him. How precious toward me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! (Psalm 139:17). 
This is not opinion or mere human perception – this is the Reality of the operation of the love of God. As we live in this atmosphere of Reality, we will, in fact, in our everyday selves become more real. So let us return to the original Scripture and quote the first section only ‘to comprehend what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. This is all about the unimaginable concept of an ordinary person being filled with all the fulness of God!

It is made possible by the fact that Jesus has made his own life available for us to live in, while he himself lives within us through the power of the Holy Spirit.
This love becomes the ground of our being and the motivation for our doing. But our doing does not compare (again) with the wonder of his doing, which is described now in the second section of that original Scripture. ‘Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us. 
If we can see this picture of every dimension of our life within God’s love - everything that is going on in the world around us right now, everything that can be healed from our past, and everything that awaits us in the future – all poured out from above and swelling our waiting hearts of faith – then we will comprehend with humble simplicity all that we need to know about our life - More than all we ask or think.

 

I Have Come to Bring A Sword

I HAVE COME TO BRING A SWORD

Matthew 10:34 Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Jesus was quoting a Scripture from the Book of Micah the prophet, who felt the burden of serving God above all else when many of God’s people were serving all else above God.
For the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother,
the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man's enemies are the men of his own house. But as for me, I look to the LORD; I wait for the God of my salvation. my God hears me (Micah7:6)

‘I come to bring a sword’ would ordinarily be received in the sense of saying that the whole purpose for Jesus coming to us is for him to bring division.
This is not what this Scripture is saying. ‘I come to bring a sword’ is describing division as the primary effect of what happens when the word of Jesus comes to proclaim the inner kingdom of God. It divides the self-centred focus of our life from his Kingdom centred focus of our life.

If a business management consultant visits a corporate workplace with the purpose of bringing efficiency and productivity, he will discuss the order and disorder of what is happening in the company. He will then set about how to prioritise goals and roles, and some staff may be moved around or displaced and replaced. His comments will have the immediate effect of ‘shaking things up’ and revealing the disorder and chaos. He is not bringing the chaos and disorder, but he is bringing the sword of division that divides between order and disorder. People don’t generally like that. 
Here is an example of what Jesus was experiencing in his own life, as the SWORD OF THE WORD OF LIFE that people could believe or reject, to either live for or live without.

Matthew 12:46 As Jesus was speaking in a crowded house, his mother and brothers were outside, wanting to talk with him. When someone told him they were there, he remarked, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” He pointed to his disciples. “Look!” he said, “these are my mother and brothers.” Then he added, “Anyone who obeys my Father in heaven is my brother, sister, and mother!”

That was certainly a shakeup and a wakeup for all those people, and for all of us reading these difficult Scriptures. Jesus was not speaking personally against his mother and his brothers. Jesus knew full well of his own mother Mary’s obedience to his Heavenly Father and her devotion to himself and his Father’s mission. Mary had lived with that sword piercing her heart from before Jesus was born, and in due course his own brothers would become his disciples. Jesus had brought to all of humanity the greatest gift of life that had ever existed and would ever exist. Israel up to this point had received the best that was on offer as declared by promise to Abraham two thousand years before that time and then to Moses through the law and blood sacrifices. Jesus had but a short time to make it clear what was on offer for mankind and he spoke and acted clearly and compellingly at all times. He was saying ‘you can have not only a better life, but you can have the best life – believe it and receive it!’ It means a surrender of our life to his and a surrender of our will to his. That is the cross in our lives - where our will crosses God’s will. The vertical dimension of the cross is God’s will from Heaven – the horizontal dimension is our will on the earth. Where that crosses is where the sword is applied to our lives.

Jesus also experienced the work of the sword bringing division and reorder in his own hometown.
Matthew 13:54 Coming to His hometown, He taught the people in their synagogue, and they were astonished. “Where did this man get such wisdom and miraculous powers?” they asked. Isn’t this the carpenter’s son, and aren’t his brother’s names James and Joseph and Simon and Judas (not Iscariot)? And aren’t all his sisters with us as well? Where then did this man get all these things?” And they were offended at him.

Jesus also had to put up with the unbelief of his brothers in his own family who didn’t yet believe that he was the Messiah. Perhaps they were too used to seeing him as the older brother reminding them of things like showing more respect to their mother or being more diligent with their work in their father Joseph’s carpentry shop. Like most of humanity then and now, they wanted more outward proof of his supernatural power so that he could impress the crowds more, and also convince them as we see in the following Scripture – but for Jesus the power he came to exercise was for the inner lives of people to be transformed. 
John 7:2 But soon it was time for the Feast of Tabernacles, one of the annual Jewish holidays, and Jesus’ brothers urged him to go to Judea for the celebration. “Go where more people can see your miracles!” they jeered. “You can’t be famous when you hide like this! If you’re so great, prove it to the world!” For even his brothers didn’t believe in him!

The sword was operating in Judea, and in his own hometown, and even in his own home. 
For Jesus the miracles were an advertising billboard, and they did get the attention of people to see that something powerful was going on. But that was not his aim in coming to earth. A sign is a signpost that points to something far greater and for Jesus the greater thing was not the outward display but the inward life of his Kingdom at work within us. The power that he came to release in the earth was to be exercised in the hearts of men and women, not just for an outward show of power but an inward power and authority to display the nature of God in the earth, for people to become one with him in the spirit. 

Mary the mother of Jesus fully understood this conflict between the inner and outer life concerning her son Jesus. After Simeon the prophet spoke to Mary and Joseph at the time of his dedication in the temple, he prophesied over her, saying.
‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many may be revealed – and a sword will pierce your heart also’ (Luke 2:34)
Mary lived with that SWORD OF GOD’S WORD in her life. She had said ‘Be it done unto me according to thy Word’ to the angel Gabrielle when he announced that she would be the mother of Jesus. Mary had to contend with the continual sorrow of knowing that her son was destined to be opposed by his own people and suffer the fate of all of Israel’s prophets, just as did her nephew, John the Baptist who was beheaded by Herod. And she lived with the fact that even her other sons that she loved opposed and disparaged him. 

God comes to first expose the chaos and disorder of this world and its lack of love and lack of faith in action. And the sword must come and work in us first, allowing the work of the Holy Spirit to bring us close to himself in mercy and grace to reorder our souls first. The Holy Spirit calls us into the surrender of the rest of faith so that we can obtain mercy and find grace and come from an inner place of love and peace in our relationships.

Hebrews 4:11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

I love to see the supernatural work of God, the miracle work of God. And I have seen it, and I do see it. This work is happening continually if you know where to look. This work happens in the ordinary day to day occurrences where people take up their cross and follow Jesus and lay down their lives for one another and are being transformed into His likeness. (illustration of the horizontal and vertical aspects of the cross) If you’re looking for signs and wonders as a priority you will run after the signposts to find them, and the signposts are impressive, but they don’t deliver the way the marketing says they will. If you are looking for changed hearts of love and faith starting with your own life the signs will follow you and you will recognise them as being God’s confirmation of the SWORD OF GOD’S WORD at work in your life, dividing between soul and spirit and bringing about his will in your life through occurrences and events that you could not possibly have planned.

Further on from the quotation of Jesus from Micah 7:6 we read Micah 7:14 where finally Micah prays to the Lord - ‘Shepherd your people with your staf,f the flock of your inheritance, who dwell alone in the midst of a forest… 
And the Lord answers Micah back…
I will show them marvellous things. The nations shall see and be ashamed of all their might. They shall lay their hands on their mouths; their ears shall be deaf. They shall come out of their strongholds. They shall turn in awe to the LORD, and they shall respect you as God’s people. (Micah 7:14)
We see the same thing in the Book of Acts - The Christians actually received favour from the people after the Holy Spirit came upon them. The sword does not only bring some opposition, but it also releases grace in us and through us and draws people toward God.
Acts 2:47, ESV: And they continued in praising God and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
In one way or another, if we understand the principle of THE SWORD OF GOD’S WORD, we will live with that sword piercing our hearts for our good. If we know we bear that sword it will deepen our life of prayer and we will accept our God given role under God and will find grace, whether we are opposed by people or accepted by them - whether some be offended or whether we find favour. But we say to God 
‘‘Be it done unto me according to thy Word’
A person who is at peace, at oneness with Jesus, can administer that peace to others.

 

Hope in Hard Times

HOPE IN HARD TIMES

There is only one thing that we have as human beings that God does not have – Limitations! 
Suffering is the human experience of our reaction to our limitations – When we can’t have what we want, when we can’t do what we want, when we can’t be what we want to be. Jesus came to live in the midst of our human limitations to resolve all of those problems. He did not come to remove them, but he gives us his unlimited risen self for us to rise above our suffering in the midst of them. 

1 Peter 4:12-14. My dear friends, don’t be shocked at circumstances coming your way that test you to the limit. Don’t think of this as being out of the ordinary as far as you’re concerned. You can be glad that you are going through the same sufferings that Jesus went through, so that when his power and glory shines through, you will be elated just to be there. You can also be elated if you get insulted for being a Christian because the power and nature of Jesus will be on display in your life. Their words might be putting Jesus down, but your life is raising him up.

Peter is telling us to not think of the unexpected as being something unexpected. If our expectation of what should happen to us always came to pass it would mean that we were in command of every one of the thousands of random events and the way that they collide with one another.
If we can believe that God is in command of all things, then we can have a proper expectation of him and not of ourselves. We do not become the saviour of our situation, but he does. We see his power and love having sway in our lives by our faith, instead of the erratic and unpredictable circumstances having sway over us, even though they are on display.  

Heb 2:8 ‘He put all things in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we do not yet see all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death now crowned with glory and honour.
Jesus is now upholding all things that are happening in your life by the word of his power – If we are ignorant of that then it has no personal meaning. If known and believed in this is cause for an elevated disposition of hope (elation). Your heart and soul become bonded to the hope of Jesus in action rather than the grief and disorder of the world, releasing us to live in and with - the purposes of God.

2 Corinthians 4:16 So we don’t lose heart. Even when our outward life changes for the worse, our inner life continually grows stronger. Our experience of affliction and suffering releases a flow of God’s glory in the midst of everything that happens around us, as we discover the inner life realities of the unseen world. We are not fixed upon the changeable nature of the outward life. 

With this understanding we can unconditionally embrace this present moment no matter what the physical or psychological content is. This is how a new pathway of truth is formed in the spirit of the mind, and once we hold on to that pathway of truth, we then choose how to deal with the outer situation. 
As we learn to live consciously with him, we can ‘lose’ our ‘it’s all about me-self’ and find our ‘true self’ of faith in God. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.  (Matthew 16:25)
limitations can now be met and endured with faith and hope and acceptance. 
We can go with the flow of what is happening, by faith - giving thanks to God in all things (1Thessalonians 5:13) and living in the hope and expectation of what God is doing in the midst of it all. There can also be times when we need to resist something wrong and call it out.
God will give us the grace to know the appropriate acceptance or resistance to a situation and the right timing on how and when to do what we need to do. 
A ‘no’ to what somebody wants from you is just as obedient to God as a ‘yes’ if you know the heart of the matter. Jesus said no to the Pharisees when they wanted to penalize him for healing on the Sabbath, but he said yes to Pontius Pilate when he ordered his execution.

JOB -He deserves a mention here, if we’re talking about hard times.
God allowed Job to see that he was in the midst of all the sufferings that Job was going through and that he as God was in control of everything that was happening. God was in control of what Satan could and could not do. God was in control of all creation, and he discusses this with Job. He challenges Job to consider where he himself stood, as a good man, in regard to being fully in charge of his own destiny. ‘What do you know, Job?’

Job 38:4 Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much. Who determined its dimensions and stretched out the surveying line? What supports its foundations, and who laid its cornerstone as the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? – 12. Have you commanded the morning since your days began, And caused the dawn to know its place? 16 Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Or have you seen the doors of the shadow of death? Have you comprehended the breadth of the earth? Tell Me, if you know all this.
God finishes by asking Job "Shall the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him?
He who rebukes God, let him answer it." (Job 40:1)

God continues with his revelation to Job of many other wondrous examples of his creation of the Universe and everything in it. This gives Job a new perspective on things, and Job finally answers God.
Job 42:1 Then Job answered the LORD and said: "I know that You can do everything,
And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You. You asked, who is this who ignorantly offers advice?' Therefore, I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. So, listen, please, and let me speak; You said, you would question me, and I would answer You.'
‘And I say. I had heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now mine eye seeth You.

Job was now seeing an unlimited God through the eyes of pure faith. He came to his senses and received hope from God – and he wasn’t even given the inner life of God through Jesus that we are given - to guide us and lead us and become our wisdom. 
Job wasn’t even under the Old Covenant - He wasn’t even a Jew. This shows how God can intervene in the life of any person at any time and in any age, covenant or no covenant. Our faith tells us that all things are under the feet of Jesus, and even though we still see chaos and disorder around us we see Jesus – within us. 
We see with eyes of faith. 
As Job said. ‘I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You.’

God asks us, like he did to Job, to take stock of where we are with our faith - What do we actually believe in and put our hope in. Our minds are continually constructing a pathway of belief that shapes our inner lives with our feelings and emotions and decision making. We are either letting the outward circumstances form these pathways or we allow the inner work of the Holy Spirit lead us into the truth of Christ in us - working in us and for us and through us.
Paul said Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you? (2Corinhians 13:5)

I’m now continuing with that Scripture we began with that Peter wrote, which ended with ‘You can also be elated if you get insulted for being a Christian because the power and nature of Jesus will be on display in your life. Their words might be putting Jesus down, but your life is raising him up.
Peter then goes on to say towards the end of the passage.
19. So if you go through difficult times that you know God has allowed to come upon you, walk on with God and trust him as your creator to faithfully look after the well-being of your soul.

There’s a secret here in this Scripture, a mystery, a hidden treasure as usual, which declares the reality of a life lived with God. It’s the story of the Gospel again - one of its ten thousand reasons - a process of faith as always – putting off the old self and putting on the new self.
We lose ourselves in order to find ourselves. We admit we are wrong like Job, so we can be declared right in Jesus. We are strongest when we’re weakest. We can have hope when enduring suffering instead of learning to just get over it or complain about it. 
Mostly we are taken into God’s purpose with no awareness of it at all. We have no idea what God’s immediate goal may be in certain situations, and as we continue to trust him, his purpose may become even more vague. God’s purpose may appear to have missed the mark that we would have set, because we often see different targets to what he sees. We see things to be done, and we ask for his help to let us do our thing, while he sees a son or a daughter becoming more and more one with him and being in his purpose. If we have a set and determined purpose of our own, it can destroy the simplicity and the calm, relaxed pace which should be characteristic of the child of God that is growing into maturity.
So, if we are in oneness with God and recognize that he is taking us into his purposes, then we will no longer become anxious to find out what his purposes are because we trust him to be doing the best there is for us – doing exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think.
(Ephesians 3:20) - We let him surprise us.
As we grow in faith and hope it becomes simpler to us, because we are less inclined to say, “I wonder why God allowed this or that?” And we begin to see that the compelling loving purpose of God lies behind everything in life, and that God is divinely shaping us into oneness with his ways. We can now trust in hope for the knowledge and the wisdom of God, not in our own abilities. When we pursue closeness to God by spending time in his presence, we will see God’s commitment to doing for us what is for our good – it will be revealed to us - in his time, and in his way. 

 

 

 

Power and Love and an Ordered Mind

POWER LOVE AND AN ORDERED MIND

2Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of an ordered mind.

When Paul writes this letter to Timothy, he had been abandoned by many of his associates and is suffering in prison like a criminal for preaching the Gospel- and Timothy is suffering in the church in Ephesus because of the opposition and criticism toward his own ministry. Paul had commissioned Timothy to care for the church in Ephesus, which he himself had founded and established, and he knew well the strengths and weaknesses of that church and he knew the pressures of the opposition that Timothy was under. 
He encourages Timothy and identifies with him, saying ‘God has not given ‘US’ a spirit of fear’. And in saying ‘US’ he is talking not only about himself but to all of us who also embrace the truth of the Gospel of ‘Christ in us and us in him’ – the Gospel that Paul preached everywhere he went. (Colossians 1:2, Ephesians 3:6-17). 

That message of the simplicity of Christ was being opposed then, and is still being opposed today. That Gospel of Christ was the foundation of our society’s tradition and formed its moral and ethical and relational integrity. Over recent generations our western society gradually became indifferent to the Gospel message and in recent times it has become quite hostile. Paul’s counsel to Timothy was not to fear, but to be strong and to trust in the faithfulness of God towards him and in the power of God within him. God is saying the same to us today.
In the next verse (verse 8) Paul tells Timothy not to be ashamed of that Gospel, nor of his association with Paul because he was suffering in prison for the Gospel – the power of salvation for all who believe. In this same passage of Scripture he writes.
‘which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me.’ (2Timothy 1:12)

We are living in times when things have come to a deadlock in many spheres of our global society - in politics, in finances, in education, in relational integrity, in emotional well-being and in the spiritual influence of the Church. There is a power struggle in the heavens and God is moving forward and overcoming darkness, and many of God’s people are moving forward with him in their own lives, but we have yet to see this being manifested in the earth. As God said to Moses and to Israel at the crossing of the Red Sea ‘Stand still and see the salvation of your God’. Israel’s faith then actively moved them forward – by faith they crossed on dry land (Hebrews 11:29) - It is the same with us in these days when we embrace the moving of the Spirit of God within us – we move forward from a place of stillness.

The church in Ephesus had been beset with power struggles because of false teachers that had infiltrated the church and confused the people, and Paul had written to the church in Ephesus warning them of this (Ephesians 4:13). And in this letter to Timothy he warns him of the same thing and tells him to speak against it. He says to him, ‘Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine but will want to hear according to their own desires, and because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables (fictional faith fantasies - 2Timothy 4:2).  

Paul had looked after the church in Ephesus for three years (Acts 20) during which time there were many signs and wonders done by him. There were also many false signs and wonders done by sorcerers and other false teachers but Paul’s teaching prevailed.  
Acts 19:16 ‘many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value of them, and it totalled fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed. 

Finally, when he was about to leave the church, he called for the elders of the church. And when they had come to him, he encouraged them and he warned them, saying ‘For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore, watch and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears. So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace’ (Acts 20:29)
In the light of all this, Paul writes to Timothy in Ephesus.

THE SPIRIT OF POWER
Paul tells him that God has not given him a spirit of fear but had given him a Spirit of power and of love and of an ordered mind. The power of the world that was coming from some people in Ephesus was human power ‘over’ people, but the power of God through Timothy was Holy Spirit power ‘for’ people. Jesus said to his disciples ‘you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you’. Receiving the Holy Spirit is an attitude of faith in the working of God toward us an in us and through us.
Paul taught Timothy and he teaches us that we won’t know power unless we are extending God’s love - The Kingdom power that always extends itself out from God within us (2Corinthians 5:14 - For the love of Christ controls us). 
That power is the ability to change something from a lower state of physical or emotional energy to a higher state of Heavenly spiritual energy, where sin is transformed into holiness, anxiety into peace, sorrow to into joy, and fear into love.

THE SPIRIT OF LOVE
It is by experiencing the love of God to us that we can feel empowered. It changes us dramatically, surrendered to his will, as we receive God’s love with trust and thanks to him in whatever situation we find ourselves. We then observe how God dramatically changes the world around us as we come from a place of being united with God’s mind and heart of love and mercy, rather than acting from a place of judgement and vengeance. The Scripture describes this place of faith like this - children of God without fault in a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine as lights in the world as you hold forth the Word of life. (Philippian 2:15). 
Here are some extracts from Lamentations 3:17-58 where Jeremiah the suffering prophet laments about giving Gods word to Israel and almost giving up as he thought it was going nowhere - but then he remembered Gods loyal love.

I've forgotten what the good life is like. I said to myself, "This is it. I'm finished. God is a lost cause." I'll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness, the taste of ashes, the poison I've swallowed. I remember it all—oh, how well I remember—the feeling of hitting the bottom. 

But there's one other thing I remember, and remembering, I keep a grip on hope: God's loyal love couldn't have run out, his merciful love couldn't have dried up. They're created new every morning. How great is your faithfulness! I'm sticking with God (I say it over and over). He's all I've got left.

God proves to be good to the one who passionately waits, to the one who diligently seeks. It's a good thing to quietly hope, quietly hope for help from God. It's a good thing to stick it out through the hard times. When life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence. Bow in prayer. Don't ask questions: Wait for hope to appear. Don't run from trouble. Take it full-face. The "worst" is never the worst.

Why? Because the Master won't ever walk out and fail to return. If he works severely, he also works tenderly. His stockpiles of loyal love are immense. He takes no pleasure in making life hard, in throwing roadblocks in the way: Lord, you came close when I called out. You said, 'It's going to be all right.' you brought me back alive! God, you saw the wrongs heaped on me.’ You took my side, Master.

THE SPIRIT OF AN ORDERED MIND
Paul teaches us that the mind is the battleground of darkness where Satan causes people’s thinking to get entangled with anxious emotional reactions and wrong perceptions. Then they get stuck and are unable to move forward because a disordered mind with reactive perceptions of situations obstructs heaven’s power. But Paul had taught Timothy the truth of the Holy Spirit being at work in our lives to change us by reordering the spirit of our minds. 

2Corinthians 10:4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of human power but have divine power to destroy strongholds, casting down imaginations (wrong perceptions).

By acknowledging habits of emotional reactivity and surrendering the reactive perceptions of our imagination to God we destroy strongholds in the mind of wrong pathways of thought, and we rise up into the new life of an ordered mind - into a new pathway of freedom. We build that highway of the mind of Christ in our own minds and release the power of love from our hearts of faith – and that saves and heals the souls in the lives of the people in our world. Amen.  

 

 

 

 

 

Rise and Fall

RISE AND FALL
Luke 2:34 This one is assigned for the fall and rise of many – Simeon the prophet…
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph had to bring Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem to be dedicated.  This time for dedication and purification was forty days after the birth of a child according to Jewish Law. 
A man named Simeon was also in the Temple at the time and The Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he would not die until he had seen Jesus, God's anointed King. Holy Spirit had prompted him to go to the Temple that day to answer Simeon’s lifelong prayer of faithfully waiting and expecting the Messiah to come soon. And so when Mary and Joseph arrived to present the baby Jesus to the Lord in obedience to the law, Simeon realised that his prayer had been answered, and he greeted them. He took the child in his arms and began praising God.
‘Lord’ he said, I have seen him as you promised me I would. I have seen the Saviour you have given to the world. He is the Light that will shine upon the nations, and he will be the glory of your people Israel! now I can die in peace. (Luke 2:29)
Joseph and Mary just stood there, marvelling at what was being said about Jesus.

Meanwhile, a group of highly esteemed Wise Men called Magi set out from Babylon in the East. Babylon was the first civilization in the East to study and interpret the movement of the stars and planets as far back as 700 BC. Planets in those times were also referred to as stars and sometimes as wandering stars. There were many such Magi, astrologers and astronomers who served the kings of Babylon. These men also knew the writings of the Jewish scrolls and would have had knowledge of the prophesies concerning the Messiah and the predicted whereabouts of his birth. This was because of the influence of the Jewish religion during the seventy years internment of Israel in Babylon, where there was a cross assimilation of both cultures, and the impact of such an inspirational prophetic hero as Daniel. 
These Wise Men would have also studied any unusual or momentous activity of a night star in the heavens, as this was often interpreted by astrologers to be the sign of the birth of a great ruler. By observing the charts of the heavens and calculating the timing of a convergence of two great planets shining as a bright star they would have tracked that ‘great light’ that shone at the birth of Jesus. 

They followed this great light to the region of the special birth and arrived at Jerusalem and asked people about the birth of the new king of Israel and his whereabouts, but their presence in the city and the questions they were asking the local people came to the ears of the local ruler, Herod. Herod was a local tribal king who acted as an intermediary to Caesar, and he worked with the proconsuls and the military leadership in the region around Jerusalem. He had become agitated and threatened by the news of this supposed special child whose birth had been predicted, and he had heard that Israel had a record in their Scriptures of such an event heralding the birth of a Messiah or a new king to rule over them. It was rumoured that this special child would begin a new kingdom in the earth. He did not quite know what this meant, but he didn’t want that sort of competition because he had his own dynasty to create.

He urgently called for the Jewish priests and leaders and pressed them concerning the predicted time and place of this special birth. Certain scribes and teachers knew from the words of the prophet Micah in the Scriptures about the region of the child’s birth in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), and that a great star would appear at that time. Armed with this knowledge Herod secretly summonsed the Wise Men to his palace and told them the whereabouts of the region where they might find news of the child. He asked them to come back and inform him of the child’s exact location, telling them that he too wanted to worship this new king, but all he wanted to know was where to send his garrison of soldiers so that the child could be killed.

After their meeting with Herod the Wise Men followed the star which remained bright in the sky and they were guided to the house where Joseph and Mary and the child Jesus were still staying. When the men were invited to see the child, they went down on their knees and worshipped him and presented him with special and peculiar gifts which have a spiritual message for us today about the life that Jesus lived for us and gave for us in his time on the earth.
There was the gift of gold, which speaks to us of the nature of God on display in the life of Jesus that would also be at work in those who believe in his life living within them.
There was frankincense which speaks to us of sweet prayer ascending from our hearts. 
There was myrrh which speaks to us of the suffering of Jesus, and how we share in that suffering in our lives, knowing that without that there is no spiritual growth.

That same night Gabriel gave a message to the Wise Men in a dream warning them not to report back to Herod, so the men departed and returned to their homeland another way. After their departure the Angel also appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt, and to stay there until he brought further word. He warned him that Herod was seeking the young child to destroy him, so Joseph took Mary and the young child and departed for Egypt that night. 

Herod died soon after this, and Gabriel spoke to Joseph in another dream that it was now safe to leave Egypt, fulfilling another prophecy which was spoken through the prophet Hosea; ‘Out of Egypt I called My Son’ (Hosea 11:1). 
Joseph then learned that the son of Herod, who now ruled in his father’s place, was as treacherous and murderous as his father, and he was afraid to go back to the area, but Gabriel appeared to Joseph again in a dream and told him to go to a quiet lakeside village in Galilee where they would be safe, so they came and settled in a city called Nazareth. And yet another prophesy was fulfilled, ‘He shall be called a Nazarene’ (Matthew 2:23). They settled there as a family for many years, where Jesus grew from a child into an adult. 
The Bible tells us of the growth of the life of Jesus into wisdom and maturity and grace.
Luke 2:51 Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them, but His mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men.
These three qualities and characteristics of the life of Jesus marked the way of life that shaped his pathway forward in life. They are imparted to us as virtues to be honoured and believed in and taken up, by our faith in his life, that dwells within us.
Wisdom is not just knowledge, but it is the way that harmonises knowledge and good intention to serve the highest good for the most people. 
Stature is the nobility of character that is formed by consistent acts of wisdom.
Favour is the acceptance and approval that comes forth to meet the one of wisdom and stature and give them passage or right of way. It is the gift of grace.

There was a further prophecy that Simeon spoke over Jesus at the time of his circumcision in the temple, that we spoke about at the beginning.
‘This one is assigned for the fall and rise of many in Israel and as a sign that will be opposed and denied by multitudes in all the earth, so that the thoughts of their hearts might be revealed. 
This prophecy declares Jesus as being the one whose life is a sign and a symbol of the way of life and truth for each one of us to follow. This way of life will reveal the thoughts and intentions of each of our hearts as being those that either receive and follow that way of life or they that oppose and reject it. 
For the one whose heart receives and follows in the ways of wisdom and stature and favour (grace) – their life will rise into unity with God. 
For the one whose heart opposes and denies those ways - their life falls into alienation from the life of God. (Ephesians 4:17)
Our past is usually a mixture of rises and falls - but God wants us to be people that rise up into his likeness instead of falling into a downward spiral of wrong behaviour or bad habits – the non-virtue that damages our soul. There is a way of faith that can get us from the downward spiral of non-virtue into the upward rise of virtue.

As far as our brain is concerned there is actually a neurological process that allows the formation of a bad habit – a non-virtue, to grow a life of its own. Repeating the wrong behaviour habitually forms a neural pathway that forms a tiny cellular arrangement of cells that seats itself at a junction deep down in the brain. Over time that place becomes a ‘go to’ place where that experience and sensation automatically fires up dopamine motivation and reward processes which starts a harmful behaviour spiral down to hitting rock bottom, with the consequences of causing harm to ourselves and/or others. 
Ephesians 4:22 put off your old self, which belongs to your former bad behaviour (anastrophe- drawing you down) and is corrupt through deceitful desires (delusional longings), and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true virtue and holiness.
But when we make the promises to ourselves to cease that harmful behaviour and its consequences, we find that the pathways are formed, and the habit space has become a spiritual stronghold waiting at the junction. It waits to hijack anything that wants to take our new anti-bad habit idea to the frontal lobes of our brain where our brain is created to make wise decisions. But that bad habit space is there to stay, and that is where we need faith. The Holy Spirit helps us to be aware of that behaviour and to bring it to the Lord for his grace to overcome it. The work of our faith is to create a more fulfilling virtue space, created in the likeness of Jesus, and it is at this point where we draw from the life of Jesus within us by our faith. We put off the old and get renewed in the spirit of our mind and put on the new which is created in true holiness in the image of God.  We can get used to running down the bunny trails of bad habits but God says 'no’ I'm going to let you have a highway of holiness and I'm going to be with you as you create that - and as you come to me new pathways will be formed.

Through what Jesus accomplished in his short journey in the earth, the bond of oneness (peace) which he experienced with his Heavenly Father – He was building a highway which would become available to all of us, to grow and mature together as sons and daughters in his family, in wisdom and stature and favour (grace) with God and man. 
Through the birth of this child divine life had been embedded into human life – His life sacrificed - then risen to life again - then sent into humanity through the Holy Spirit. This had never happened before, this new form of life - God and man together - a new creation. And because of this new creation a new flow of life between man and God can occur, whereby God transforms us and gives us grace for our hearts to be subdued into desiring his will above our own. 
The Scriptures speak forcefully of this transforming power.
Philippians 1:6 Be confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;
Philippians 2:13 For it is God who works in you both to will and to do His good will.
Philippians 3:21 He will transform our lesser body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.
By coming before The lord in quietness and confidence with a faith filled heart and being present with him, his grace acts upon us by the Holy Spirit to transform us into his likeness - body, soul and spirit. In the body by those new pathways being formed in the neurophysiology in our brain, in the soul because our surrendered will is subdued by his will, and in the spirit because we are one spirit with him – We rise above the values of this world into those of his Kingdom above. Amen.

 

King of Peace

KING OF PEACE

In the days after the birth of John the Baptist, Caesar Augustus, who was the adopted son of Julius Caesar, decided to do a census and register every person in the known world. Caesar Augustus was the emperor who established the Pax Romanus, the Peace of Rome, a two-hundred-year era of worldly political peace under the rulership of Rome, which allowed the gospel to spread into the whole world, as the empire of Rome comprised over twenty percent of the population of the known world at that time. Everyone had to go to their place of birth to be registered, so Joseph had to take Mary back to Bethlehem because he was of the house and lineage of David. The Scriptures had prophesied that the true King of Peace would be born in Bethlehem at that very time, in a small village nearly five thousand miles distance from the palace of Caesar Augustus in Rome.

Micah 5:2. But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me One who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. Therefore, he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labour has given birth to a Son; then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel.
And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth. And he shall be our peace. 
Joseph and Mary were sent to the right place at the right time for the birth of Jesus, fulfilling the seven-hundred-year-old prophesy of his birthplace, and becoming the King of Peace.

Joseph walked beside the donkey that carried his wife. He was getting weary, and the journey was tiresome for Mary, and he knew he had to get his wife to the place of his family’s household and out of the cold, and the time was getting close for her to give birth. They finally arrived at the family home where they were warmly welcomed and invited inside. The dwelling complex was the usual cluster of rooms surrounding a central courtyard and it became clear to Joseph that the house was overcrowded, and that all the guestrooms were occupied. The word for guestroom in the Bible is kataluma, and this is the word for ‘Inn’, as in Luke 22:11 which states in the narrative that ‘There was no room at the Inn’. So we are not talking about two travellers trying to book into a local tavern that had already filled its quota in such a busy season. They did not have to go and look for a stable in some paddock up the road. What the story is saying is that Joseph and his wife would have to stay in the stable of the family home, downstairs, in that warm place near where the animals slept and fed. 
He saw the signs of the oncoming birth in the drawn face and the discomfort in Mary’s eyes and he settled her as quickly and gently as he could.  A mother sweated through her mother pain and a baby cried its baby cry of shock as it entered the world. The smile upon Father’s face in heaven became a laugh of joy, which was echoed by Joseph in the earth, who would now adopt the role of the child’s earthly father. Loving mother hands washed the newborn child in a water trough. 
On earth it was the natural and familiar scene of new birth. In the universe it was the most supernatural of any birth in history. It was also ordained that this birth would become the most celebrated event for all time, celebrated annually by millions upon billions down through the ages, many of whom had no idea why or what they were really celebrating.

Nearby, where shepherds were looking after their sheep upon the hills a huge shining star having reached its zenith was lighting up the entire night sky. The shepherds looked up in wonder at this light and suddenly the lights of shining angels dazzled them and they became terrified and ran and huddled together. The Angel Gabriel appeared above them, sent to tell them of the birth of Jesus. He told them not to be afraid, and that he had great and marvellous news for them, for all the world to hear. He told them that they would find a child, the newborn king of the universe, God the Saviour, wrapped in simple clothing in a nearby stable. Suddenly Gabriel was joined by a multitude of angels as the brilliant night sky resounded with their voices singing, and they listened enraptured at the magnificent words. “The glory of God is being seen in the heavens, and his love and goodness is creating a new era of peace for all mankind.” Their singing of this new creation was the magnificent sequel to their song of the first creation – ‘When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy’ (Job 38:4,7,8).
When the singing had stopped, and the angels had left they were guided to the place where this extraordinary and singular event was taking place in the earth. These simple shepherds became the emissaries to the world of the birth of this king of kings, this child, and all who heard them were astounded and amazed.

A great light shone that night. The light shone upon a newborn child who would bring light into this world, to every person born into this world (John 1:9). And this light would be contested by darkness as always, but the conflict now rose to a new height. Time waited for the outcome, the verdict, the final encounter between light and darkness on a cross one dark and stormy day. Time would wait until Father was ready, then this light would be able to overcome darkness in every single life.

God with us means more than just alongside us. It means he is within and through our being, and more than that, we are within and through his being. This is how we get to ‘know God’. Holy Spirit speaks into our spirit the mind and words of Jesus, and we ‘see and know’ Jesus in this way. Faith lets us speak to him as a person, person to person. 
1John 2:27 But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within you, so you don’t need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know, and what he teaches is true.
This does not mean we disregard Scriptural teaching. This Scripture simply makes alive and real the personal and individual whisper of God into our spirit as the wisdom and understanding of the mind and heart of God, that we need in any given situation and at any given time. That becomes the light to our path allowing us to express our unique and truest self in the best possible way. That is our faith.
Christmas waits to be truly celebrated. Without Christmas there is no way we could ever have known God and become one with him.

 

Messenger and Message

MESSENGER AND MESSAGE

Even before the fall of Adam and Eve Father God had always planned that a new species was to be born into the earth one day. He had planned for his Son to begin this new species, a Spirit species – God and man. God would set up a Divine force-field where immortality joined mortality for all of humanity for all time. Now was the time for Jesus to go to earth as The Father’s Son, to become the pain of what human life had become, and to walk the path of its lost hope, and its sorrow, and to lift human life into a place of oneness with ‘The Three in One’. Jesus as the Son of the Father knew before the beginning of time that this was to be. He knew that it was the only way for the love of God to be known by humanity. Jesus knew that he would become the expression of that love in the most perfect way.

Age upon age had passed in what we call time, and finally the appointed time came to heal the earth. It was broken and bleeding, twisted and torn, and it could not help itself. Lucifer had planted suspicion and hostility into mankind’s mind about God, and humanity had become comfortable with keeping God at a distance, with people believing that perhaps God was watching them, and waiting to judge them. This is the sad state that religion can come to, people trying to appease and manipulate what they see as a distant God who is out to punish them. God was about to give humanity the perfect answer, not a religion, but Himself. Jesus, as God and as man was to make his transition from eternity into time, from heaven to earth, from pure Spirit existence to human flesh existence.

Holy Spirit was to become a partner with Jesus in the completion of this glorious plan. It was not just Jesus God who would inhabit the earth, but Holy Spirit would also become a person of this planet by sharing every moment of life with Jesus, and in that way, he too would experience human life. After Jesus had finished his mission on earth Holy Spirit would become the expression of God’s love to all of humanity. For the rest of time, he was to wrestle within the pain and confusion of human life to reveal God’s love to people and to bring them into oneness with The Three in One.
Father would send a divine seed of life from heaven, and he had chosen a young woman called Mary to receive that seed, which was to contain the full genetic potency of their love and goodness and truth. He sent an angel to announce this amazing news to Mary.
Gabriel entered the place where Mary lived, and startled and afraid she stared at the heavenly being. Gabriel told Mary that she had been chosen amongst all women on the earth to give birth to a child who was to be 'God the Son' and that she was to call him Jesus. She answered back that it was impossible and that she never been with a man. Gabriel told her that the birth of this Child would not have anything to do with Joseph, her betrothed, and that The Holy Spirit would shine his life over her and divine life from heaven would come alive in her womb, even though she was a virgin. He told her that this was the will of Father God, and of Jesus and of the Holy Spirit, for her to be the mother of this special child who would be the liberator of all mankind. Mary humbly surrendered her entire being to the magnificent will of God. Mary’s response to God through the Angel was ‘let it be done unto to me according to your word’ (Luke 1:38).

When Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they were married, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph was a caring and just man and did not want to put her to shame, so he decided to divorce her quietly. But as he was considering how to go about these things the angel Gabriel appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins”(Matthew 1:21) All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet Isaiah: A virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son, and his name will mean ‘God with us’.
When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he married Mary but knew her not until she had given birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus.

Soon after the angel’s visit Mary then made a two-hundred-kilometre journey to be with her cousin Elizabeth in Hebron. Elizabeth was an elderly woman and she and her husband, Zacharias, had never been able to have children, but now Elizabeth is pregnant as God had worked a miracle so they could conceive. Their child would grow up to be John the Baptist, the person whose role in life was to prepare the world for Jesus, and tradition holds that Jesus was born about six months after John.
The Christmas story of the miracle birth of Jesus includes the story of the miracle birth of his cousin, John the Baptist, whose father, Zacharias was a priest of the High Priestly line of Aaron, so John was of the same priestly line being the firstborn son of a priest (and a prophet). 
The angel Gabriel had earlier been sent by God to Zacharias while he was ministering to the Lord before the people in the temple, and burning incense upon the altar. Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him, but the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” (Luke 1:13)
And Zecharias said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” The angel said “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.”

When Mary finally arrived at the home of Elizabeth, she was warmly greeted by her, and Elizabeth’s child leaped within her, and she was filled with the Holy Spirit. Elizabeth gave a glad cry and exclaimed to Mary, “Blessed are You by God above all other women and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” (Luke 1:42-45). Mary then praised the Lord in prayer. 
My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has looked on the lowly worth of his servant, and behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of lowly worth (Luke 1:46). Mary remained with Elizaberth about three months and returned to her home.

When Elizabeth’s baby boy was born the word spread quickly to her neighbours and relatives, and everyone rejoiced, and when the baby was eight days old they all came for the circumcision ceremony. They all assumed the baby’s name would be Zacharias, after his father, but Elizabeth said that he must be named John, and everyone was surprised because no one in the family was called by that name. So, they asked Zacharias, talking to him by gestures because he had been struck dumb by the angel Gabriel. 

Unbelief had taken away the voice of God from the temple priest, Zacharias until John came into the world. That time of silence is a prophetic summary of the voiceless time that God’s people were experiencing in that day. They were in a time and place of silence and darkness, having been without a prophetic voice for four hundred years, and the world shared that silence. That silence would soon be over.
In these days in which we live, God’s people, and the world, are in a similar situation of uncertainty and disruption. We are living in a time when there is great darkness and disorder in the world. There are many opinions and many noisy words of judgement and contention being spoken in the secular world while a stark scarceness of wisdom and leadership exists at many levels. Many in the Church also prayerfully wait for the silence to be over, to hear a clear voice from God to the Church, so that there can be a clear Word from the Church to the world. 
Within that faithful waiting in many hearts there is also a stirring that the Holy Spirit is doing a work of preparing a people of faith who will awaken others to turn their hearts to the Lord their God. Just as the angel said to Zacharias ‘And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.’ (Luke 1:17) 

Zacharias motioned for a piece of paper and to everyone’s surprise wrote that the boy’s name was to be John, and instantly he could speak again, and he began praising God. The silence was over.
Then Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit and gave this prophecy to his son John:
“And you, my little son, shall be called the prophet of the glorious God, for you will prepare the way for the Messiah. You will tell his people how to find salvation through forgiveness of their sins. All this will be because of the tender mercy of our God`, and heaven’s dawn is about to break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and death’s shadow, and to guide us to the path of peace.”
When the silence ceased it did not mean that loud voices would be heard, but a clear voice and so will it be for us in these days ahead. The dove of the Holy Spirit will not clamour but will bring a clarity concerning the love of God for us all. The clear voice will not only come from dedicated church leaders but in some ways even more so, it will come from the soft and faithful hearts of God’s people who love God and one another. They will speak words of love and care and they will release acts of kindness into their world around them. This will allow that light to dawn upon a dark world that can be guided into a path of peace.

 

Food that you don’t know about

FOOD THAT YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT

Jesus had been sitting beside a well talking to a very preoccupied, unhappy and unfulfilled Samaritan woman about giving her the living water of the Holy Spirit, and the words he spoke to her changed her life forever. His disciples had become hungry and had gone into the township to get something for them all to eat. They returned with some food for Jesus and offered it to him.
John 4:31. Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 
Jesus didn’t say ‘My duty is to do the will of him who sent me’. He said that doing the will of the Father was the energy that sustained and strengthened him. 
Jesus carried enormous burdens of responsibility to do his Father’s loving will for other people. He also had to absorb the discouraging activity of other peoples’ negative attitudes and resistance towards him and his teaching, and he needed more than just willpower to give him the energy to fulfill these demands.

How strange that the doing of his Father’s will was what both took his energy and what gave him energy. It had to belong to a different energy system that we usually operate from. He said, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” Jesus knew full well about that food, and he lived within the energy that it gave him. It was spiritual food. It was supernatural food. It came from the heart of the Father. It was the Father’s love for him.

The way it worked was that Jesus felt energized and supported by the same energy that created the Universe. That energy never runs out. It is a loop system that feeds itself because it is eternal, not natural, even though, to Jesus it would have seemed natural, because of the perfect love that existed between himself and the Father and the Holy Spirit. This was the ‘Christ energy food’ that humanity had never known before Jesus arrived on the earth. This was the energy food of God’s love that allowed Jesus to bear the burdens of a suffering humanity.

Paul knew this source of ‘Christ energy’ to serve others and he writes to us about it.
Galatians 6:2 Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Paul tells us that this is what compelled and motivated his own faithful service in the Lord to the people he was sent to serve, and that includes ourselves who read and receive his inspired Word of Scripture to us.
2Corinthians 5:14 For the love of Christ compels us, because we now see things this way: that if One died for all, then all have died; and He died for all, that those who now live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.
We need the provision of this spiritual food that nourishes our hearts and souls, as we share in the supernatural work of the doing of God’s good will to others. The powerful energy of God’s love through us to others feeds and strengthens our souls and even our bodies as well. This powerful energy of God’s love lifts the burdens of suffering and shame and guilt from other people in our world of relationship and involvement however large or small that world is. 
This is not like normal food or fast food – It is everlasting food. 

Jesus had been talking to the Jews who were crowding around him and his disciples, listening to him teach. He said to them
John 6:27 ‘Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you’ 
Some in the crowd argued that Moses gave their forefathers manna, the bread from Heaven they ate in the wilderness. Jesus then said to them Moses did not give the bread from Heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." Jesus crowned this by saying If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is my body (my flesh - sarx), which I shall give for the life of the world (vs.51).
His message was that the manna from Heaven that their forefathers ate didn’t last, but if they partook of him spiritually as their bread of life, they would experience everlasting life. Then later in this conversation Jesus finished by saying ‘The Spirit alone gives eternal life. Human effort (the flesh) accomplishes nothing. And the words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life’ (vs.63).

We can receive that ‘Christ energy food’ of God’s love that energises us to bear not only the burdens that we have to carry for ourselves, but also the burdens that we carry for others, in the same way that Jesus received and lived in the everlasting love of the Father.
Jesus plainly tells us that The Spirit alone gives everlasting life. Human effort accomplishes nothing, so, doing the will of the Father in completing his work of loving service to others is not an effort of the human will alone.

But when we desire to do the will of the Father, we have to engage our will somewhere and to choose to faithfully do his will as best we can. We become faithful in putting natural things in order then he gives us authority in bringing spiritual things into order – his Kingdom order. We go from faith to faith in a faith that is working by love. It is God’s will we are seeking, and it is God’s love that we are seeking to reveal, no matter how incompletely we yet see this being accomplished.
The secret of Jesus was that he lived fully in the love of the Father. Jesus completed the Father’s love to him first, by his loving gratitude for that love, then he revealed the Father’s love to those he faithfully served that were around him in his world of relationship and involvement
‘Love the lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength - and then your neighbour as yourself’.

The Holy Spirit wants to help us to live in that same love that the Father had for Jesus and also has for us. Through the grace of Jesus, we can first purposefully respond to the Father’s love for us in an act of worshipful thanksgiving. We come into his presence and receive his love, and in quietness and confidence we find our strength in that bread of his loving presence. We come to partake of a food that we did not know, the bread of life. Jesus is the gift of love to us from the Father.

We can arrange that communion with the Father purposely but doing the good will of God for others is something we may not always be able to arrange (other than in prayer – and that becomes the most powerful way of praying – by releasing the Father’s love and goodwill to all those in our world of relationship and involvement.).
The opportunity of bearing the burdens of others often tends to land on your doorstep unexpected. How many interruptions did you encounter last week that may have actually been opportunities to eat the bread of life and be nourished and strengthened, but we so often don’t see it at the time. Jesus can often seem like an interruption to our day, but He comes disguised as our everyday up and down life, waiting for us to respond to His heart of goodwill for other people. 

Jesus was ready to give words of life to that unhappy and unfulfilled woman by the well and see her life transformed. He was always ready because he had a food that his disciples did not know about. That food is ready for us to live on. It is the energy ready for us to live in. It is the constant unchanging energy of his love towards us that created all things, and that reorders all things according to his will, which he invites us to complete for him and with him wherever we are and wherever we go. His love is there as the reason that you are there.

 

 

Bad News and Good News

BAD NEWS AND GOOD NEWS 
The world is mostly preoccupied with bad news more than good news in its media expression and general conversation. That is why we have been given a Gospel of good news and it would be unwise to allow the preaching emphasis of that Gospel to be more on the bad news than on the good news. Paul writes to the Corinthian church about this in his letter concerning the ministry of death and the ministry of life.

2Corinthians 3:6 God has equipped us to be ministers of the New Covenant; not of the letter, but of the Spirit: for the letter brings death, but the Spirit gives life. The ministry of the law written on stone that brought condemnation and death and separation from God, came with a short-lived glory (reflecting the nature of God’s righteousness and wisdom).
The face of Moses shone, and Israel veiled their eyes and turned away… 
Will not the ministry of the Spirit have a much greater glory? So we can put our hope in this and speak clearly and confidently. For if the temporary order of things (the Law), had its glory much more will the eternal order have its glory (the Holy Spirit putting God on display in our lives). 
for even today when Israel reads the Old Covenant Law the same veil of turning away remains; But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there the heart is free. So we, with an unveiled face reflecting the glory of the Lord as a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory through the Spirit of the Lord.

The teaching of the law and Commandments had a measure of glory because it put the nature of God on display (in his righteousness and wisdom). It still does this, and if people do their best in their own strength to obey the Commandments, they will live a more ordered and godly life, but it will not be the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. When I did the podcast series on the Ten Commandments, I explained at the beginning of each session that the way I was presenting the teaching was to emphasise the transforming work of the Holy Spirit in the New Covenant application of each Commandment, and that this transformation of our lives was not just from bad to good but from natural to spiritual.

The teaching of the Law was for the purpose of showing people what sin was - sin towards God and sin towards one another (Galatians 3:19) and all the sins outlined in the Ten Commandments were sins against relationships. The first four were about not trusting God and not loving him and the last six were about not loving one another.
The Bible says that loving God and one another is the fulfilment of the Commandments (Romans 13:10).

I grew up as a Catholic and was taught the Ten Commandments and all about sin and punishment and about obedience to the church commandments also, with obligations of attending church, receiving communion, going to confession, and doing penance for sins, and fasting and giving, and other sacramental rites. This helped to form my conscience and to cultivate a tender heart towards God, but I always felt guilt and shame and wondered how I would become a better person. I felt loved and secure and did my best about some of the legalistic bad news – until at about nineteen years of age I took a break from it all and went my own way. Some years after that I married a committed Protestant girl and began to search anew for God, and we had many discussions over Christian doctrine. Some time later she bought me a Bible and by the grace of God while reading that Bible in the middle of the night I found Jesus and then I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Everything began to change and so did I. And I had a clear understanding of the difference between the works of faith and the dead works of doing religion in our own strength. I also realised that the works of faith and of dead works was everywhere, in every church of every denomination, and that the Bible had a lot to say about it. I still respect the Catholic Church and every other church that teaches the forgiveness of sins through Jesus and the love of the Father and the grace of the Holy Spirit. I pray that we will all receive even greater revelation of all these truths.

I find that the hardest thing to grapple with is the teaching of a God that is ‘more angry than loving’. There is a teaching that proclaims that Jesus died for our sins to appease an angry God who was angry with all of us because of our sins and that his anger had to be taken out on Jesus who faithfully took that anger and punishment for us and so changed the Father’s heart towards us. This is called the doctrine of penal substitution (penalty substitution).

No, I believe that the Father so loved the world that he sent his Son to die for us, not to change the Heart of the Father but to change the heart of humanity, by giving them a new heart and a new spirit through the New Covenant and the Holy Spirit. 
In fact, if Jesus died on the cross to change the heart of an angry God, then it didn’t work, because God is still angry. He is still angry about the destruction that sin does to the human soul of his beloved humanity that he made in his image, and he is still angry at Satan for his dark heart of malice that holds sway over the human heart.  

That anger is called the wrath of God (orge – intense feeling of indignation) which didn’t disappear when Jesus died for our sins on the cross. It is the loving unyielding defence he expresses for his human family in correcting the harmful acts of unlove (sin) that we commit towards one another. This act of his intense love is nested in justice and truth as well as in mercy and forgiveness. (Romans 1:18)  
Today God is allowing many areas of injustice and the suppression of truth to be uncovered (apocolypto) and to come under his hand of his discipline in a world of abounding suspicion and blame and resentment. God counters all of that negative activity with a Gospel of hope and an abundance of grace where God is always within reach and peace can flourish in our inner lives. 

God hates the bad news of what sin does to people so he has good news about what forgiveness and reconciliation does for people. That is why there has to be a Gospel of good news for those who do harm and for the poor people who get harmed. The good news is that there is forgiveness, and the further good news is that there is the gift of the life of Jesus within. He gives us a new spirit - he gives us his Spirit and he gives us a new heart.

People need to be told they are forgiven, and that they need no longer be separated from God because of the feelings of guilt and shame about their sinful behaviour, which makes them hide from God and cover up in front of each other. They can receive a new mindset – metanoia – which means repentance. The new mindset acknowledges that God is not at odds with them, and they no longer need to be at odds with him. They are reconciled and can acknowledge with relief their sinful nature and be forgiven and transformed. They cannot have everything that they want, but they can receive every good thing that God wants for them. They are now able to have God’s peace. They are now able to trust God. They can now know what it means to be saved. And they also need to know that God holds us to account to not neglect such a great salvation (the healing of the soul).

Jonathan Edwards was a profoundly spiritual man of puritan and reformed theology who preached powerfully and sincerely about the death and resurrection of Jesus as our saviour from sin. In 1733 -1735 there was revival in his church in Northampton Massachusetts USA where there were 30 people being saved each week and it is reported that in six months, nearly 300 of 1100 youths in Northampton were admitted to the church. It was credited as being the beginning of a spiritual awakening that led to becoming the Great Awakening under George Whitefield in 1740. His influence of puritanism and Calvinism shaped the character of American Protestantism for many years, and it still has sway in its expression in modern evangelicalism. 

The following is an excerpt of Jonathan Edward’s preaching from ‘Sinners in the hands of an Angry God’.

‘The bow of Gods wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart and strains the bow and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all that keeps the arrow for one moment from being made drunk with your blood.’
And why should God be obliged to express such wonderful love to you, who never exercised the least degree of love to him in all your life? You never have loved God, who is infinitely glorious and lovely; and why then is God under obligation to love you, who are all over deformed and loathsome as a filthy worm, or rather a hateful viper? You have no benevolence in your heart towards God; you never rejoiced in God's happiness; And why then should God be looked upon as obliged to take so much care for your happiness, as to do such great things for it, as he doth for those that are saved? You care not what becomes of God's glory; you are not distressed how much soever his honour seems to suffer in the world: and why should God care anymore for your welfare? Has it not been so, that if you could but promote your private interest, and gratify your own lusts, you cared not how much the glory of God suffered? And why may not God advance his own glory in the ruin of your welfare, not caring how much your interest suffers by it? And why then is it harsh that God doth not do such great things for you as the changing of your nature, raising you from spiritual death to life or conquering the powers of darkness for you…

The odd thing is that even if the Gospel is preached badly and tells more bad news than good news the Holy Spirit will honour the hearts of his children who call upon his name even out of guilt and shame and not out of the gratitude and joy of forgiveness, as long as the death and resurrection of Jesus as our saviour from sin is sincerely proclaimed. The work of the Gospel in the hearts of people is ultimately the work of the Holy Spirit of grace. 

This narrative has affected the mind and heart of the Western Church as well as people in Western Society who have stopped going to church and don’t want to hear about God. What and who we are told we are by God, (or someone speaking in his name) is what we take upon ourselves and has a profound effect on our souls, and if we can’t face that narrative, we escape from its punishing thought somehow. Today’s Western World might refer to God with the idea of ‘God at a distance’ but it is a world proud of its individualism and independence and is convinced that we can work life out by ourselves without God. The sad consequence is a crowded humanity swimming in a high tide of isolation and loneliness and with a suffering soul. Christians often incorrectly manage their own guilt and shame by declaring judgment upon the world for all its wickedness. 

In contrast is the spiritual understanding of Athanasius who wrote circa 350 AD. Athanasius was an Egyptian Coptic Christian Theologian and a Church Father and was the chief defender of Trinitarianism against Arianism (Jesus was not God and there was no Trinity). 

‘It was unworthy of the goodness of God that creatures made by him should be brought to nothing by the deceit wrought upon man by the devil, and it was supremely unfitting that the work of God in mankind should disappear either through their own negligence or through the deceit of evil spirits. As then the creatures whom He had created reasonable like the Word were in fact perishing and such noble works were on their way to ruin, what then was God, being good, to do? Was he to let corruption and death have their way with them – and in that case what would be the use of having made them in the beginning? Surely it would have been better never to have been created at all than have been created to be neglected and perish. And besides that, such indifference to the ruin of his own work before his own eyes would argue not goodness in God, but limitation, and that far more than if he had never created man at all. It was impossible therefore that God should leave man to be carried off by corruption because it would be unfitting and unworthy of himself…’ He writes further,
Thus, taking a body like our own because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, he surrendered his body to death instead of all, and offered it to the Father. This he did out of sheer love for us so that in his death all might die, and the law of death thereby be abolished because having fulfilled in his body that for which he was appointed, death was thereafter voided of its power for men. This he did that he might turn men again to incorruption who had turned back to corruption, and make them alive through death by the appropriation of his body and by the grace of his resurrection thus he would make death to disappear from them as utterly as straw from fire.

That is why God’s wrath passionately says ‘No’ to the plunging of mankind forever into a mindset of separation from God and stuck with a heart and conscience of guilt and shame. Only his Son Jesus could sinlessly plunge himself into all that sinful humanity and bend back the separated mindset of Adam with its independence and guilt and shame. And by dying sinless for us as sinful humanity and rising again for us as glorified humanity he could join our lives to his in oneness of Spirit where we can live a life of knowing we are loved by him and able to love him back and be transformed. That is not penal substitution (punishment substitution) based on the so-called justice of an angry God but is the way for us to find new life in oneness with God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

 

 

 

 

WAKEUP CALL

WAKEUP CALL

There are two parables describing marriage feasts in the gospel of Matthew and they are about the Kingdom of Heaven and of God’s relationship to his Church, and they both give us a picture of the end time return of Jesus to be joined to his bride.
In Matthew there is the parable of the King arranging a wedding for his son.
“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come (Matthew 22:2) Here the attention is upon the guests who were invited and their various reasons for not attending, which dishonoured the King, but there is nothing mentioned here about the bride or the bridesmaids. In this story the King finally sends his servants out into the highways and byways to compel people to come to the feast because he wants the celebration to be well attended. 

The parable of the wise and the foolish bridesmaids is in Matthew chapter 25 and is more focussed upon the bride and the bridegroom and the bridesmaids. The bridegroom is Jesus, and the bride is the church, and the attention is upon the readiness of those who have roles to perform in their attendance at the marriage feast, such as the bridesmaids. 

Today we will look mainly at the parable of wise and foolish bridesmaids, which starts off by saying. ‘Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten bridesmaids who took their lamps in order to go out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish (m??ros –neglectful, unmindful [moron]), and five were wise (phronemos – thoughtful, mindful). (Matthew 25:1)

The background to these parables is the Jewish marriage customs in Bible times, and they give us an insight into the order of certain arrangements such as who sends out the invitations and to whom are invitations sent and the question of who determines what the wedding date shall be. There are various obligations and expectations and if these are not observed properly then a person’s honour could be at stake
The usual arrangement was that both families would arrange for a young couple to become betrothed for about a year and then work together on the future plans and financial arrangements for all parties involved. When the marriage occurred around a year later the bridegroom and the bride would not organise their own future household arrangements as the bride would join the bridegroom’s family household after the marriage. After the initial betrothal the bridegroom would live in his father’s house, and he would prepare a bridal chamber like an add-on apartment for he and his bride to live in for some time into the future. 

There was some flexibility regarding the time for the bridegroom to prepare this new place for he and his bride so there was no definite wedding date and when the place was complete, the groom would come to get his bride and bring her home for the wedding and the wedding feast. The bride would not know the day or hour of her husband-to-be’s return, and the groom’s arrival was usually suddenly announced with a trumpet call and a shout, so the bride at least had some forewarning. The bride would take part in a ritual cleansing and then came the smaller family ceremony which was attended by a select few. Then after the family ceremony the couple would attend a more lavish wedding feast celebrated in their honour which included a much larger crowd. The servants of the bridegroom’s father were sent out to invite the guests to the larger wedding feast celebration.
This is why the parables concerning wedding feasts always involve some confusion over the guests often being caught having to put off other arrangements in order to honour the host of the wedding feast, and this was a test for the guests and their order of priorities and loyalties as they often had other matters of importance or self-interest to attend to. The uncertainty of the timing of the event all depended upon how long it took the bridegroom to prepare a place for his bride (no one knew the day or the hour) and the smoothness of the process of the wedding and the feast depended upon how ready everybody was when the bridegroom announced that he was ready. Some were extremely mindful of all these proceedings while others were unmindful or indifferent.
The main point of these stories is; who was mindful and who was unmindful during the delay.

Matthew 25:1 Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten bridesmaids who took their lamps in order to go out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish (m??ros – heedless, neglectful, unmindful), and five were wise (phronemos – thoughtful, mindful). For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those bridesmaids rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’ And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready (hetoimos – prepared oil in lamps) went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ 
Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

We have said that these parables are about Jesus and the Church, so we must ask the question ‘Is everybody at the wedding feast part of ‘The Church’?
The answer is yes, this is clearly the case and that there are very many people who make up the Church that are at different levels of commitment to God. God knows where his Church is somewhere in amongst all those that ‘do Church’ because ‘doing church is not necessarily ‘being Church’. 
This prompts another question ‘If the Bible says that the bride of Christ is the Church, then what is the difference between the bride and the bridesmaids and the other guests, as aren’t they also the Church?
Again, the answer is yes, but there are people also at different levels of intimate relationship with Jesus, and the ‘bride company’ of the Church exists invisibly here and there as ones who would be in the most intimate of relationship with him. The Father is very accepting and merciful to all who believe in his Son and are on their journey of faith and all we can say is that by the grace of God people make their own choices in these relationship priorities. Only God knows the heart of each one and we cannot assume or presume in these matters about where everything is at right now and where they will be one day. 

However, we can observe that the Bible describes different categories of people involved in these wedding feast stories.
The two most important ones are the bride and the bridegroom, and they only have eyes and minds and feelings for one another, anticipating a life of being together as one forever.
This speaks of Jesus coming back for his bride which is part of the Church.

Then we have the bridegroom’s father who is concerned for the honour and fulfillment of his son’s life and future. This speaks of Father God

The bride’s parents are concerned that the bride will be prepared and ready and bring beauty and glory to this very special occasion. This speaks to us of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in preparing us to be his bride.

The interesting thing about the bridesmaids is that is that ‘they all became drowsy and slept because of the bridegroom’s delay’ – That is why I’m calling this word ‘Wakeup Call’. Some were more diligent than others in being ready by having oil in their lamps, which speaks to us of being filled with the Holy Spirit and awake and alive to his activity within. The unmindful bridesmaids had indeed experienced the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives but had been distracted and had neglected the work of the Holy Spirit alive in them and run out of oil. 
In those times the bridesmaids were chosen knew that they too would without doubt be brides one day. That would be their sure hope and expectation. We could speculate that this progression from bridesmaid to bride is there for every one of us and even if it does not occur within our lifespan, we might consider that in the age to come the Holy Spirit will cause our love to be completed in the Father’s love for us so that we too will be as the bride in perfect oneness with his Son Jesus who will appear to us as the bridegroom 
1John 3:2 we are God's children now, and what we shall be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears (phanero??- to know what has been hidden or unknown, to manifest, whether by words, or deeds, or in any other way) we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself as he is pure.

As for the many other guests mentioned in the first parable the Bible reveals that this was a test for their order of priorities and loyalties in honouring the son’s father. And when we consider how the father’s heart was so determined to fill his house at all costs that he sent the servants to get people from the highways and byways, such as beggars maybe sleeping under bridges. 

This prompts another question for further speculation.
Could there be people that we know of who have not responded to the gospel for a multitude of reasons and whose hearts maybe have pondered the Mystery of God with doubt or improbability or even the denial of a wounded and painful heart, and whom the Father sees as his children who need more time in an age to come, for their heart response to his love to be completed just as do the bridesmaids? 
Only God knows. 
But to join the dots a little more boldly I will add this; The final thing God did when he created the world, on the sixth and final day of his creation was to fashion a bride Eve for his Son Adam. On the seventh day he rested in order to enjoy the fulness of fellowship with his sons and daughters to be.
And now for another question. If God’s final work in the final days of this present kingdom age will be to fashion a bride for his Son, what will be the nature of the next Kingdom age that the Scriptures speak about at length concerning a one-thousand-year reign of Christ upon the earth during which time Satan is bound? (Revelation 20:1-6, Timothy 2:11, Romans 16:20, Isaiah 2:2-4, Isaiah 11:6-9, Micah 4:1-3 and many more).

Could this be a time of opportunity for the completion of the love response in the hearts of multitudes of people that perfects their oneness with the bridegroom Jesus?
Today I will just have to leave these questions open for your consideration and address them further in the New Year, the Lord willing. Have your questions and comments ready.

In both parables a peculiar thing happens in that some of those invited to the marriage feast have the door closed on them at the last moment. The five unmindful bridesmaids were left outside, and in the other parable a man was put out into outer darkness for not having a wedding garment. There is no explanation given about this outer place in the parable but my speculation concerning this in the reading of other Scriptures in Revelation chapters 11, 12, and 19, is that this outer place could well be a time of trial and tribulation that some in the Church may experience while those at the feast are given safety and refuge in the presence of the Lord during that time. 

In every generation that lives upon the earth there is this wake-up call to what we are here for and what we were born for and what the Father’s heart is for his Son and for his Son’s bride and for all who honour and appreciate Gods love for us. It has been a long delay!
I also believe that when Jesus does return for his bride and the wedding feast is celebrated that there will be people from down through the ages attending that reunion wedding feast that have been awake and alive to the Father’s heart for this occasion for his Son.

Paul dwelt thoroughly on the relational aspect of Christ and his Bride when he spoke of presenting his bride as having her soul cleansed by his Word and having a heart of inner beauty that is without spot or blemish.
Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish

Paul was always urging the church to awaken and to reawaken into a conscious awareness of the nearness of God with us at all times, and not to allow the difficulties and distractions of the world to weary us into a spiritual slumber.
Romans 13:11 You know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep

Paul saw that the uncertainties of the future and the fatigue of past struggles had allowed a lethargy of spirit to take over peoples’ souls that he had in his care, and he went to great lengths to remind them to live in the present moment and not in the vagaries of time that had been wasted or lost or anxious that time was running out.

He pressed upon them to take hold of the available grace that abounded towards them if only they would trust and believe. Paul saw himself as co-labouring and cooperating with God on their behalf and stirs them to be of a similar disposition of working together with God and for God. He writes, ‘I heard you at the right time and came to give you salvation but be aware that the time is right now for your grace to fully co-operate in this day of salvation’ (2Corinthians 6:1) 
Act now, Paul urges, for this is the acceptable (and only) time to do so. It is not only having had salvation come to you once and that is all there is to it, but it is time for your salvation to live in you and come out of you from a conscious kingdom life within you. 
He was saying, God hasn’t stopped labouring but have you stopped co-labouring.

How do we cooperate and co-labour?
We occupy the now (and only) moment of grace in his presence which is to us a place of safety and refuge. To do this we need to stop, be still, and engage our mind to focus upon his life actively streaming its goodness towards us.
We then trust and fully believe that God is working his Kingdom of heaven life into our earthly lives and circumstances to bring them into the order of his Heavenly life.
We trust and believe that God is redeeming and restoring our past experiences of loss and disorder in our lives into a thankful now present place of peace and order.
And that gives us new hope as we look forward to an ongoing Kingdom ordered life for the future.