Spiritcode

Blessing

THIS IS A BEAUTIFUL INSIGHT INTO THE TRUE MEANING OF BLESSING

Revolution

REVOLUTION
This century has been marked by global sociological confusion, political corruption, individual loneliness and profound spiritual pain and a sickness of soul. The world is in a global crisis of a sickness of body because of a viral pandemic. There have been other global crises over the last century such as WW1 and the Spanish flu, WW2 and atomic warfare, and now this, which is baffling the entire world regarding preventing it, treating it and how long it has to go. The world has come to a standstill.

Despite our unlimited access to knowledge and technology there is a general discontent with the false or unrealized promises that have been offered to society, leaving many feeling empty and unfulfilled. There is also a general distrust of the structures of leadership and systems of government and law and order. There is a feeling in the air is that there is a revolution coming – but what kind of a revolution. A revolution is the overturning of one kind of order to establish or re-establish another kind of order. There is an intense revolutionary feel in the violent and even non violent protests in our streets, and even moreso in the US and in Europe and Asia. Protesters are being driven by emotions and attitudes of rebellion deeper than and sometimes unrelated to the actual causes they stand for. Some people just want to rebel.
This kind of disordered chaos has been experienced before many times in the earth and revolutions did happen. There have been many revolutions upon the earth –political, industrial, people power and religious – and scientific. But there was a quiet and orderly revolution that happened during the London plague of 1665 when a quarter of the population of London died. Isaac Newton was quarantined in isolation for one year (like and enforced Sabbath) and in that time discovered differential calculus and the laws of motion and gravity. There's a quote from Newton that came out of his experience - 'truth is the offspring of silence and meditation.' His science was a revolution in the world of science.

The next revolution may not be any of those. It may not start in the streets or cities, or in parliaments or halls of congress. It may not even start in the church. I believe it will start in Heaven – God wants to start his own revolution. It can hopefully then be taken up in the Church and then occur in all the other places. I want to read a Scripture about God starting his own revolution. The Scripture is about God starting his own revolution when Israel fell into moral and spiritual and social disorder, but it is also I believe about God’s revolution starting in our world, in our times, our prophetic Kairos times in the earth today.
Ezekiel 21:25. (To Israel) You say you have agreed to my Covenant, but I call you to remembrance of your iniquity so that that I may deal with you… O King Zedekiah, prince of Israel, your day of reckoning is here. remove the mitre and your jeweled crown,"the Lord God says."The old order changes. Now I will humble the exalted and exalt the humble. I will overturn, overturn, overturn the kingdom, so that even the new order that emerges will not succeed until the Man who has a right to it takes his rightful place and I will give it all to him
In that Scripture God intervened and sent a message to his people through the prophet Ezekiel that He would overturn, overturn, overturn (That means revolution). Israel had fallen into idolatry under a succession of careless wicked kings, and at a time when Babylon was ascending into power over the then known world under Nebuchadnezzar. Israel’s king was in league with Babylon and looked to Babylon for national security rather than to God. Even though Israel were doing the rituals of offering incense and sacrifices and while many individual people honoured God in these things, they had generally wandered off in their true allegiance to God under misguided leadership. Zedekiah was the King of Israel at the time of Ezkiel’s prophecy and was made king by Nebuchadnezzar. Zedekiah started to switch allegiance to Egypt for political favour and this outraged Nebuchnezzar who decided to lay siege to Jerusalem and overthrow it. He took King Zedekiah and many thousands of the children of Israel to Babylon. He did this over a period of time and many even chose to stay behind in the desolated city. When Ezekiel was told (Ezekiel 21:18) to tell Israel that the king of Babylon would overthrow Jerusalem Israel scoffed and said that they were in covenant with God, but Israel had not obeyed the terms of their Covenant with God. Ezekiel told them that God would remove the mitre and the crown. The mitre stood for the priestly ministry and the crown stood for the Kingly ministry – the priests connected them to the heart of God and the King gave them authority under God. They had distanced themselves from their Covenant with God.
A Covenant is like a contract, a terms of agreement for a binding relationship. A contract like this has three things that make it binding and effective – The promise, the payment, and the signature, or seal of agreement concerning all the special terms. The promise to Israel was Gods provision and protection and care for their lives. The payment was their sacrifices and their obedience to the Commandments. The seal, in other words the signing off concerning all the special terms God had put in place for the contract was their observance to the Sabbaths (Exodus 31:1). They thought they were doing this, but they resisted one big item regarding the Sabbaths. They did many of them, like the weekly Sabbath which they were meticulous about, and the new moons and festivals which were ritualised, but the demonstration of faith that would prove that they trusted God for his provision, which was demonstrated openly by ceasing from farming one year in every seven. They were to gratefully celebrate their relationship with God and with one another as tribes and families and friends and rest in God by trusting Him to provide for them and keep them safe and secure. Israel had not obeyed these Sabbath Rest Years for 490 years. They had not trusted God nor honoured him as their security and safety and provision. The priests had not instituted it and the Kings had not ordered it. They had trusted the idols of the nations, in this case Babylon. They breached the contract so then God would not continue to honour his part. Their judgment was that they would be taken into captivity for seventy years into Babylon until the ‘land had received her rest’ (2Chronicles 36:21)
There are some striking parallels to the state of affairs between God and his people Israel and to those between God and his people in the earth today. In many places and at many times the State has influenced and dominated the material and moral nature of the Church, just as Ezekiel describes Babylon dominating and influencing Israel. It happened in the early days of Christendom when the Roman Empire was the head of the Church. Even after the Reformation in Europe the State still had great sway over the Church, and in recent times we have seen Russia and China give token authority to puppet Church structures, and in the Western Church today we see the worldly influences of materialism and immorality corrupting the institutional Church.
We see political correctness stifling the voice of the regular Church, which is supposed to be the pillar and ground of truth. The Church is meant to be the expression of The Holy Spirit of Jesus and the Father in the earth. The Church is in Covenant relationship with God, as Israel was in Ezekiel’s time, and just as God had to overturn in the day of Ezekiel, I believe God wants to overturn overturn overturn in the Church today -His Revolution, a three time overturn which I believe means Father Son and Holy Spirt activity. God wants to recommission His Church into its powerful partnership with Him in bringing care and compassion and justice to this world. He wants to imbue us with a deeper confidence and trust and peace that He is with us in every single area of our lives in the midst of uncertain times – the times of our enforced Sabbath.

If Israel had understood the terms of agreement of their Covenant with God they would have attached their signature to the contract – they would have honoured the Sabbath years of rest, trusting God for their provision, enjoying faithful fellowship with a good God and with one another. They would have ceased from hanging on with their anxious hands to the Babylonian influence they were trusting in.

I believe God is saying to the Church today ‘I will overturn overturn overturn’. The three ‘overturns’ that I said I believe to mean the work of The Father, The Son Jesus, and The Holy Spirit. This is His revolution to bless us and reorder our lives under the terms of his Covenant with us.
In his contract with us we have three things
ONE - the Promise - ‘His life given to our lives for the forgiveness of our sins, and for the care and provision of our lives as His beloved children’ That is the first overturn – the first work of renewing and strengthening our understanding of the goodness of the Father. GOD FOR US
TWO – The Payment – ALL DONE! Jesus has become the sacrifices and has made payment and given us His life for us to share. That is the second overturn – The second work of renewing and strengthening our understanding of the shared life of Jesus. GOD WITH US.
THREE – The signature and the seal. Ephesians 1:13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and after you believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

That is the third overturn – This is the third work - of renewing and strengthening our understanding of the empowering of the indwelling Holy Spirit. GOD IN US.
So how do we appropriate this signature or seal of The Holy Spirit? The verse above tells us – It is after we believe, fully believe in the empowering presence of Holy Spirit within us.
What is the result of this revolution for the Church. Look at the picture of Israel that we just spoke about

We have a better Covenant of GOD FOR US, GOD WITH US, AND GOD WITHIN US.
God wants to revolutionise His Church by having them enter into the REST OF FAITH, and ceasing from their anxiety and drivenness and allowing God to work through us into the hearts of those in our world around us. The Sabbath rest for Israel meant giving the land rest for one year. Their land was actual territory, real estate. Our land is another territory – the territory of our hearts. Their time of prescribed rest was one year. Our time frame for Sabbath rest is not just one day or one year, it is every moment of every day. We can exercise a continual rest in our hearts of faith and trust in God, and find rest for our souls. This becomes our seal of the Covenant, the ever present indwelling of The Holy Spirit.

Ezekiel told Israel that God would remove the mitre and the crown. The mitre stood for the priestly ministry and the crown stood for the kingly ministry – the priests connected them to the heart of God and the King gave them authority under God. They had distanced themselves from their Covenant with God.

God wants to revive our priestly ministry. This means to awaken our faithful hearts of prayer and caring compassion in connecting those people and those circumstances in our world around us to the good and gracious heart of The Father.

God also wants to revive our Kingly ministry. This means to awaken us to a deeper awareness of His authority working in us to overcome the powers of darkness and disorder and chaos in the world around us.
This is how God starts a revolution. To some it might seem like revival, to others it might seem like judgement. It may be called a ‘move of God’. It doesn’t matter what we call it – it is a revolution from heaven, and it puts things right.
That word from God was directed at God’s people, Israel, who were chosen to reveal God to the world. Today it is the church that has been chosen to reveal God to our world.

Philippians 2:15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life.

A kairos prophetic time

A KAIROS PROPHETIC TIME
Acts 17:26 ‘And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times (kairos) and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might search for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; For in him we live and move and have our being, for we are his offspring…For he has set a day for judging the world with justice by the man he has appointed, and he proved to everyone who this is by raising him from the dead.”

There are two words used for time in the Scriptures. One is chronos and the other is kairos. Chronos refers to the measured space of time that exists as a background clock time for everything that ever happens to us.
Kairos means the times of ultimate destiny for mankind and the world (eschatological time). Kairos is a prophetic passage of time that may last for a short or a long period of clock time.
Relative to the big plan of our lives they are really made up of a sequence of ‘kairos passages of time’ of God ordained events that have meaning and purpose for us as in the above verse (and has determined their pre-appointed times (kairos) and the boundaries of their dwellings).
We are currently living in a Kairos prophetic time in the global experience of the corona virus pandemic. Even though that has brought calamity and confusion to the entire planet, we are also in a prophetic Kairos time that is bringing the redeeming power of God to all nations.
The Bible speaks to us today of our Kairos prophetic moment in history.
Ephesians 5:16 ‘redeeming the time (kairos), because the days are evil.’

We are living in an ‘experience of ‘redeeming the time (Kairos) because the days are evil’. When the Scripture says ‘because the days are evil - ponerous’ it means that ‘The disorder of the time or the kairos in which we live is calamitous and morally culpable (humanity’ is greatly at fault for so much of what is going on – Corona – yes even the viral infection ). We can discern the nature of the evil of kairos time by the confusion and perplexity that we are experiencing because of the chaos and disorder of certain events of nature and human conflict. We are seeing this disorder and human conflict coming to pass

Redeeming the time means we can get back the will and purpose of God that has been lost or wasted so we can convert the challenge of this NOW passage of kairos time back into a powerful experience of the will and purpose of God. AS the Scripture I first read said regarding God’s pre-appointed times vs.27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might search for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; For in him we live and move and have our being ….We find him in a new way and we find one another in a new way –
There is one particular disorder of human conflict we are facing in this Kairos time…the racial tension that is being inflamed by the hurts that have been carried out in many nations by one race upon another. Man’s attempts to remedy this hurt by restructuring human systems and institutions are passionately sincere and emotionally confusing and not really effective.
The first thing to be understood also comes from that opening Scripture that said we are all of one blood. That has to be seen as a Kairos reality of God’s will and purpose for all of us as his offspring in the earth
Clock time history has struggle with this racial conflict since the Tower of Babel when the nations were dispersed and separated and their languages were confused. It took the Kairos moment of Pentecost to bring all nations together when the spiritual Body of Christ stood up on the earth and people of different nationalities heard of the mighty works of God being proclaimed ALL IN THEIR OWN TONGUES by the apostles in their new heavenly language of the Spirit. Kairos time had now become Holy Spirit in us time, and this Kairos truth can only be fully realized by the New Covenant reality spoken of by Paul in Galatians 3 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise… We can be not only of one blood but of one Spirit.

There are other Kairos prophetic passages of time Scriptures that show us what we can expect in this current Kairos time.

As we realize the prophetic warnings of shakings are occurring upon the earth we will also realize that The Holy Spirit is bringing about the hearts of people turning to The Lord. The Bible says that these things will bring about the times (Kairos) of refreshing from the presence of the Lord (Acts 3:19 Now receive a change of heart and mind and have your past sins wiped out and turn to God. Then times (Kairos) of refreshing will come from the presence of the Lord).

When the whole world is in a place of calamity and fear and conflict and confusion (IE the days are Evil) there will be one of two outcomes for people because many will stand at the crossroads. Their anxiety and confusion and fear will get worse or they will rise up and trust in God. No one can stay the same in those times. This is part of redeeming the Kairos. I have observed some people letting anger and confusion leave them in distress and I have observed others allowing faith and hope to move them into rest.

An Old Testament story that shows this is found in First Book of Kings ch.18. After Israel had suffered three and a half years of punishing drought through years of turning away from God to worship idols Elijah confronted them and called upon God to bring rain. Israel watched while the priests of Baal went through desperate wailing and slashing of themselves with knives to get their idols to answer their prayer for rain. Elijah said to Israel don’t halt between two opinions, If The Lord be God follow him and if Baal (the world ) then follow him. God heard Elijah’s prayer and sent the rain and a Nation turned to God.

Overcoming and growing through the suffering of mind and soul in trials of faith is a Kairos experience. The Bible says that through the times (Kairos) of sufferings in times of crisis he gives a special grace that restores and settles our soul and matures us into full growth.
When we set ourselves to diligently wait upon the Lord we can expect to experience God’s presence with us. We are not locked into the disordered tyranny of clock time, we are living in an eternal space of Kairos time where God activity happens more dramatically than the drama of disordered human emotion. The more darkness we see the more light we experience. We get from stress and rush to stillness and trust. That’s the bridge of faith.
1Peter 5:10 But the God of all grace, after you have suffered for a little while (kairos) will restore and establish and mature you to full growth, ready for anything…’

Assurance that we can outlast the attacks of the enemy
Luke 4:13 ‘And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time. (kairos)’
Jesus endured through spiritual warfare knowing that he (as would we) outlast the devil because he has limited ‘chronos’ within God’s ‘kairos’ and cannot out-endure us if we hang in with Jesus and trust him to see us through. Satan can only operate for a limited kairos because he does not have eternal life – we do

A powerful kind of prayer life can redeem or re-order the disorder we see about us. It is form of Kairos prayer – praying inn the Spirit with the kind of faith and hope that assures you that you are partners with Jesus and The Holy Spirit in their intercession for the will of God to be done within and beyond your world – what is happening in your life and circumstance and those you pray for.
Ephesians 6:18 Praying in the Spirit at all times (Kairos) and on every occasion, staying alert and persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.
There are certain faith filled prayers that are not about long clock time sittings and gatherings which are effective for the prayer of being in one accord. A few seconds or minutes, or more, of a Kairos time of prayer is even more spiritually explosive. We can be exercised in this at any time anywhere, doing anything. Thank you Lord for this grace upon our lives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The high call of God

THE HIGH CALL OF GOD

Philippians 3:13 … I press toward the goal for the prize of the high call of God in Christ Jesus.

The High Call of God is actually translated as the Upward Call of God. The word for high is ano which means upward or above, or Heavenly. The word in the original Greek for ‘Call’ is klesis which means an invitation. That means that a Heavenly invitation is coming from above, from God, and our response to that invitation, our RSVP, is directed upward, back to God.

This Heavenly Invitation is not a status or rank that makes some people get a ‘High’ calling and some people get a ‘low’ calling. God does not send out low invitations, he only issues a heavenly invitation, to get to know him, personally and intimately, through Jesus.
Paul’s writes about his response to a personal invitation from God towards himself, to know him personally and intimately. (1Corinthians 1:31 – the glory trophy of knowing God – Jer 9.4)
Philippians 3:8-10 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowing Christ Jesus my Lord … that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection.

So a heavenly call is not some future invitation for one day after we die that we accept our invitation to finally go to heaven. The heavenly invitation is for us to live a heavenly life on earth right now. `
This is for everybody. This is our response to life itself. The only ‘low’ invitation comes from the devil who wants us to stay pinned down in a response to a lower invitation of struggling in the shadows of our own strength. Why take the low road when you can take the high road and see life from a higher and deeper perspective of faith.

But who gets this heavenly invitation? The answer is clear in the Scriptures.
2Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some suppose, but is longsuffering toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should receive repentance.
Longsuffering is the process of withholding judgment by patiently giving someone the time and the many opportunities to get a change of mind (repentance) and receive and respond to the message (and the invitation)
That word perish is apollymi in Greek which is translated 22 times in the New Testament as ‘TO LOSE’. The Holy Spirit grieves the loss and waste of such an invitation.

Paul encourages us in this when he writes the letter to the Romans and says;
Romans 2:4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
God doesn’t want a planet full of ‘losers’.

An Old Testament illustration of the ministry of the ‘high call’ is found in Ezekiel. This is the story of the role of priests in the Old Testament, and only Levites could be invited into the Old Testament priesthood.
A priest was a go-between between God and man. This is still the case, except that now, through Jesus all of us are invited into the priesthood of all believers (1Peter 2:5).

Some of the Levites in the story in Ezekiel took the low road and were careless in their response to this privilege, going after idols and setting a bad example to the people, and finally God had to let them be the losers because of their choice. So God let them go their own way and stuck with the Zadok clan of priests who chose the high road.

Ezekiel 44.15 "But the Levitical priests who descend from Zadok, who faithfully took care of my Sanctuary when everyone else went off and left me, are going to come into my presence and serve me. They are going to carry out the priestly work of offering the devoted (heleb - the best part for dedication) sacrifices of worship - the Decree of God, the Master. They're the only ones permitted to enter my Sanctuary. They're the only ones to approach my table and serve me, accompanying me in my work.
" When they enter the gate complex of the inside courtyard, they are to dress in linen. No woolens are to be worn ... They're to wear a linen headpiece and linen underclothes… nothing that makes them sweat. When they go out into the outside courtyard where the people gather, they must first change out of the clothes they have been serving in, leaving them in the sacred rooms where they change into their everyday clothes…
23. "Their job is to teach my people the difference between what is holy and what is unholy, to show them how to discern between the godly and the ungodly way to do things.
" When there's a difference of opinion, these priests will arbitrate. They'll decide on the basis of my judgments, laws, and statutes.

You might wonder about the choice of a linen headpiece instead of wool. The natural reason given here is that wool causes sweat. There’s also a spiritual reason why God went to so much trouble in the detail of things like this. There are many things in the Old Testament that hide a message for us in the New Testament. The Bible says that fine linen represents the righteousness of people who believe God and want to live close to him (Revelation 19). Righteousness means having our heart in alignment with God. This linen headpiece speaks to us of having our mind upon God, and having a mind of peace and order, and not causing sweat or anxious striving.
When they go out to meet the people they change their religious clothes and wear everyday clothes– so they identify with the people.
They have been in the presence of God and so they are able to carry this presence and impart it in the way they speak and act amongst the people. That is the work of a priest, to bring God into peoples hearts. We are told we are a spiritual priesthood and we can do the same as these priests in a New Covenant way, and bring God into peoples hearts with simplicity and grace instead of religious performance.
These priests were given God’s wisdom in their counsel of people who asked for help and advice and prayer.
The final verse says ‘these priests will arbitrate. They will decide on the basis of my judgments, laws, and statutes’. For us that means being able to hear what The Holy Spirit is saying to different people in different situations. That is how the Holy Spirit arbitrates (not legislates) and applies God’s word personally and individually because he knows peoples’ hearts. Paul said that his ministry was not of the letter but of the Spirit because the letter kills but the Spirit gives life. The Holy Spirit does not apply the letter of God’s word and put peoples’ under the law, but he brings the ministry of the Spirit and revelation of God’s word into the here and now of peoples’ lives.
This was a type of the priestly ministry of Jesus as he spent time with his Father so that he would have his Father’s heart and mind on what to say to the people.
This is now our priestly ministry, This is the heavenly calling available to all of us if we care to respond to God’s invitation. We are here to issue this invitation to anyone with ears to hear it. Th world generally has not had ears to hear this because it has been hearing other invitations to a more self gratifying and enticing message for itself. It is only when God gets the worlds’ attention that it might have ears to hear.
So how much more do those who bear the message need to have ears to hear God at this time in an anxious, confused and despairing world.

The Zadok priests put God first and spent precious time with God each day before they got involved with the affairs of the people. As the Scripture from Ezekiel said They are going to carry out the priestly work of offering the devoted (heleb – oil, wine, grain, fat) sacrifices of worship - the Decree of God, the Master. They're the only ones permitted to enter my Sanctuary. They're the only ones to approach my table and serve me, accompanying me in my work.

Devotion is relational not transactional. People can pray fervently to get God to meet their personal needs and that is fine, but devotional is a kind of prayer that gives the best part to God – to God’s personal invitation of partnership with himself (accompanying me in my work). How long would these Zadok priests spend in God’s presence? All that we know is that it was a set time, but the effect stayed with them. However long we set to be with God will result in the effect of that staying with us (not a direct correlation), and what do we think and reflect upon in that time?
a) His love and mercy and devotion to us (this is where the highest comes to the lowest (Isaiah 57:15).
b) His supernatural work of goodwill towards us and on our behalf towards others. (prayer always happening Rom8:25)

We know that God gave those priests a life to live, a fruitful life, a busy life, but they wanted to give the first part, the best part to God, so that they could really live, as they would get his heart for the lives of the people in their world where he had placed them.
If there is a best, why not give yourself to that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Power love and an ordered mind

POWER LOVE AND AN ORDERED MIND
2 Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear (deilia - timidity), but the spirit of power and of love and of an ordered mind.
That word deilia that means timidity occurs only once in the whole bible – it is not phobeo the word used for fear in very other Scripture in the New Testament.

Paul writes an emotional letter to his dear friend and ‘son in The Lord’ Timothy. He says to him ‘I remember you in my prayers night and day, greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your tears. Timothy had been going through quite a bit of suffering in the Church at Ephesus and was feeling rejected and intimidated and a little bullied perhaps because of the rejection of the Gospel message that he had embraced through Paul and delivered to the Ephesian church. Paul commiserates with him and tells him of his own suffering as he was suffering in jail for the same reason – the rejection of his message of the Gospel of grace.
So he encourages Timothy that they can share together in the experience of this kind of suffering. They can turn the threats and mistreatment from others into a triumph of God’s Spirit of power and love working within. He affirms Timothy that he has a disciplined and ordered mind and that he can lay hold of the faith of how God was working through him with His power and His love and with Timothy’s ordered mind to reorder the confusion and disorder that was going on about him. Timothy was burdened but he was not giving up. Just because people need encouragement from someone does not mean that they are failing. It can mean that they are being encouraged to continue despite the pressure – to dig deep and tap into that spirit of power and love, with an ordered mind.

What is that power? - It is the power of God’s perfect love that casts out all fear.
Ephesians 3:16 That he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all those who believe what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses (hyperbole) 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 that power at work within us.

Paul compares this power to a seed being rooted and grounded in love, so that roots go down deeply and the shoots spring up sturdily. Jesus compared his Kingdom to a tiny seed that grows into a large tree. (Matthew 13:3)

What was the heart of God in creating the universe and then creating humanity to live within it?
Was it the power of Love?
He certainly demonstrated his creative might and design and wisdom and knowledge and variety of life forms and colour and beauty. But he was not merely an engineering mathematical creative genius - what he most demonstrated was his overflowing love – It only came from one place – God – and he wanted to share that great thing with us…the highest form of energy in the universe to bring forth nations of people in his own image that he could share his love and his life with as a family and have them respond gladly to his love and to desire to share it with one another. So - God is love, but in Him are also hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). He is also the sum of all truth and justice. These are all weighty messages that God wants to be proclaimed. There are many who give themselves to bringing messages of truth, and of justice and of knowledge and of wisdom and the world abounds with such messengers and this can be a great blessing for humanity. Life can function well with these messages and the wheels of life go round but it is only when they are grounded in God’s love that they can have the power to bring Kingdom transformation . An ordered mind puts these messages under the order of the message of God’s love. And whoever asks God to make them a messenger of his love will need more than just a message, or knowledge of the message, they must live the message, even in the midst of intimidation and injustice. Having a message of love is easier than being the message of love. I can give the message etc…That is why it is such a difficult message for man to believe in and respond to. It starts by asking God to convince you of his love for you despite the circumstances of your life. That becomes the reordering of your mind. We can say that we didn’t deserve the circumstances we’re in and think that God can’t love me otherwise he wouldn’t have let that happen. That is a disordered mind. The world and the people in it will not always give you what you deserve, but God will always give you his love which you can’t ever say you deserve because of an impressive performance. Having an ordered mind means to get in order of priority what it is that we are really seeking in life. To have the assurance that you are loved by God - no matter what - ranks the highest in value as far as having a life worth living for.

It is by experiencing the love of God that we can be empowered by that love. That power begins to radically change us first, and then the power of that love can radically change the world around us. This is where the Holy Spirit rushes in and fills our heart and empowers our faith. There must be a settled yes to God’s love for us so that we can love the humanity that he loved so much that he sent his Son Jesus to die for. Then the power is unstoppable. Paul accepted that message (2Corinthians 5:14 The love of God imprisons me (existemi) orders my life) and he pleaded with Timothy to stand with him as a fellow messenger of that message and to release the Kingdom power of it. He said to Timothy ‘But you, Timothy, certainly know what I teach, and how I live, and what my purpose in life is. You know my faith, my patience, my love, and my endurance…

What is the definition of power?
Power is the capacity to move something from a lower level of energy to a higher level of energy like moving a huge rock to get it rolling down a hill. In the very beginning the H.S moved upon the depths of darkness then that first creative Word of power, the Logos, who was with God and who was God changed darkness into light (the first material energy to exist) and created man from the dust of the earth and that power was the love of God. Our life working together with the life of Jesus within us changes the nature of our being. This is the faith that works through love. The faith that works through love causes things around us to move from a natural energy to a spiritual energy. fear becomes love - anxiety becomes peace, sickness becomes healing - sorrow becomes joy, tears turn to laughter.

This is the work of the KINGDOM and the power is unstoppable.

WHAT TO DO – HOW TO LOVE IN A WORLD THAT ISN’T FAIR.
Paul told Timothy not be intimidated and to call out the bullies. He did not say stop loving them. Would these people change? – not necessarily, but Timothy would change, and the power of the kingdom would be released, and order would come into the disorder, and truth would fasten itself into the hearts of those ready to listen and be transformed.
God does not want us to be intimidated – by anybody. So we have to call it out like Paul told Timothy to do because intimidation comes from a disordered mind and creates relational chaos. We ask God to give us the courage to do this, and we do it calmly and from an ordered mind. While God’s love still remains in the equation the power of the Kingdom of God is at work in anew orbit of faith activity for you. Paul told Timothy he would suffer and in his feeling of weakness the strength and power of God would uphold him and become his strength. The same goes for us. This is the power that brings justice and order in its time.

But Paul went to jail – That is a great example of productivity in trials (Ian Heard’s sermon). God tells Paul to write a letter to Timothy…

God’s love is more than just a warm fuzzy feeling, a sentimental journey. That sentiment abounds in the world and it is a real blessing but the power of the creative life changing love of the Kingdom of God has its roots in God’s desire to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people in the highest possible way. Jesus came to model this power of love in laying down his life for us.
You only know God’s Kingdom power when you are receiving God’s perfect love, being grounded in it and extending it out in goodwill to others.

I ask God continually to make his love real to me in my spirit. I assure myself of His Word that we just read concerning the length and breadth and depth and height of his love as being the truth of who he is and I seek to not waver in this. I ask him what it is that is blocking me from receiving that love. It is usually that I feel unworthy to receive it. It doesn’t have to be that I feel I have done wrong – it can be that I feel I have not done enough right. What this is doing is limiting the greatness of God’s love through a lack of faith and trust. It is a form of condemnation. The author of condemnation is the Accuser, which is translated as Satan in the Bible. John speaks to us about that kind of condemnation in 1John and says – If your heart condemns you God is greater than your heart. So we must not limit that greatness of God’s heart of love. An ordered mind is the result of seeing things as they really are in the Kingdom order of God.
So I’m talking about needing God’s love more than anything – but what about fearing God.
So we read earlier that Paul said that God has not given us the spirit of fear – but that word is not phobia fear fear – it is intimidation… Is there a fear that God does give us? Yes. Jeremiah 32. It is part of his new covenant… I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put my fear in their hearts, that they may not depart from me.
This is the most wonderful fear we can have in our lives…To not want to depart from him or ever be separated… Yes we need to have the genuine and honest sense of respect and awe for the greatness and wonder of God over our lives- but this fear of not departing from God is the desire to be always in loving relationship with him.

When something is rooted and grounded in the right soil it will break through concrete, even if it is just blades of grass. The Kingdom power in a seed of love searches downward for grounding and upward for light and finds it - and the life of that seed is finally put on display with the form and colour and strength that God has designed for us to have – in our lives. Be God’s messenger of love.

 

 

 

 

 

The Wrestle

THE WRESTLE
The story of Jacob starts in Genesis chapter 25 (8 chapters) with Jacob grabbing his twin brother Esau’s heel at birth. He couldn’t wait, he wanted to be out there first, right from the beginning (The heel grabbing didn’t work by the way because Esau came out first), but that became the story of his life – Heel grabbing is all about impatience! Outa my way…
Jacob and Esau were the sons of Isaac, who was the son of Abraham, the father of the Hebrew Nation. Abraham was told by God that his descendants would inherit the Land of Canaan, the Promised land. So as the firstborn son of Isaac, Esau was in line for he and his descendants to inherit all the Promises given to Abraham. The inheritance was to be imparted at the end of Isaac’s life and now it was time to pass it on. The Bible says that Esau was a hairy man, a hunter, and he smelled of the hunting fields.
But Jacob cheated his Father and older brother by dressing up to smell like his older brother, and when Esau was out hunting Jacob asked his blind old father for the firstborn blessing. When Isaac reached out to lay his hands on him and impart the blessing he thought it was Esau. So Jacob received the blessing of the firstborn, with the help of his mother, and Esau missed out. She knew that Jacob had a heart after God and that Esau wasn’t interested in the spiritual blessing anyway and she decided to give God a hand..

She then tells Jacob to run away to where her brother Laban and his daughters lived. He runs away in fear of his life, knowing how angry Esau would be. On his way he camped overnight in a place called Bethel and had an encounter with God – He received a vision where God said; ‘I am The Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring with you, and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you’.
That was the first direct blessing from God to Jacob. The blessing of the PROMISE. The blessing was now Jacob’s.

Many years later after he had skillfully succeeded in prospering himself at his father-in-law Laban’s expense he decides to return to his land with his wives and children and a wealth of goods. He had been told that Esau was on his way to meet him, and of course he was afraid. So he sent his wives and children and servants ahead of him with gifts for Esau to hopefully placate his brother’s anger. He waits back and stops at a brook and it was there that Jacob has another encounter with God and that changes his life. He wrestles with God, who appears in the form of an angel and they wrestle throughout the night. He tells God that he will not let go of him until God blesses him. God touched his thigh in the wrestle and Jacob’s hip is put out of joint, and God tells Jacob he has prevailed (Lasted the distance, endured)... That was the second direct blessing from God to Jacob – The blessing of the WRESTLE.

During the struggle God asked Jacob his name and when Jacob tells him, God says ‘your name shall no longer be called Jacob, (which means conniving cheat )(the swindling heel grabber), but Israel, for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.’ So that night the old Jacob meets the new Jacob as Israel - a change of name to indicate the change of nature. Israel means You have power with God. He no longer had to live as an impatient heel grabber – God was at work.
Jacob also asked God what his name was. God didn’t tell him his name but he asked him why he wanted to know, and Jacob says ‘because I have seen God face to face and have been preserved.’ Face=presence. He had been in the presence of God.
Power with God – Preserved – Presence of God
The real prevailing – lasting the distance, was that Jacob wanted God and needed God more than anything else, and that he was willing to face being changed and go through the wrestle with God, clinging to him and lasting the distance to receive that blessing that only God could give – being changed into the person God wanted him to be, being preserved, having power with God, living in his presence.

From that time on after the second encounter, the wrestle, Jacob walks with a limp.
God was saying to Jacob; You now have power with me, ruling with me in my strength, with your new name Israel, but only when you don't insist on ruling in your own strength as Jacob. I will be reminding you of your heel grabber weakness that you were born with every time you put weight on that leg of yours and have to limp.
Jacob’s limp was the reminder that his inherent weakness was ‘heel grabbing’ and that he had always been tempted to impatiently use that as his strength.

These two messages concerning two separate blessings from God to Jacob are lessons for us of two separate experiences of encounters with God and blessings from God that we have through Jesus.

For Jacob the first encounter was the promise of the blessings of Abraham.
Our first encounter is a revelation of the promise of the blessings we have in Jesus.
The second encounter of blessing with Jacob was his wrestle with the angel proving to himself and to God that he had a heart to pursue God to wait on God and to wait for God. That took a few years to arrive.
Our second encounter of blessing that we experience is the blessing of our WRESTLE with God, with a heart to pursue God and to wait on God and to wait for God. We don’t have to wait years for that – It can happen any time we’re ready.

Jacob had to be reminded that he was a heel grabber – that is what the limp signaled to him – that he had the potential to go back to his old manipulative impatient ways as Jacob to impatiently make God’s promises come to pass, even though he already had all the promises of the blessings of Abraham!

We have to go through the same kind of wrestle with God that Jacob went through to become the person we were meant to be. The weakness becomes the strength as we go the distance and are transformed – because of a limp!

Having a limp does not mean that we ARE the limp. It is just the opposite. Having something isn’t BEING something. The Jacob in us does not get eliminated but just gets put in its place. It no longer has dominion over us after its power over us was put to death on the cross, and the power of another life has taken its place – God with us in Jesus.
Jacob was born with a heel grabbing instinct. It was a drive to get ahead in life and his brothers heel was the closest thing to getting in his way. Jacob was given the gift of an energy to achieve, a drive that came from God. That gift also had a danger with it as well as opportunity - His life would be driven by winning and he would have defence mechanisms about losing. He would be skilled and pushy and probably put a lot of people offside. And God would be on that case to humble that attitude for the rest of his life. That drive had to be submitted to God in the Wrestle…
We all have these gifts of God’s creation in us - all different. God has given all of us a drive to get something good done that God wants done – and we are born with it. I am calling this a ‘heel grabber’ syndrome that we were born with, but we do not all want to grab heels - we are all different but we all have our own way of trying to impatiently get that good thing done that only God can get done in us.
EG, Another kind of person different to Jacob might have been created with the heart and the energy to be an encourager and a motivator, and they would not have grabbed the heel but maybe instead give Esau’s heel a shove forward - but then they would want the emotional payoff of being appreciated and approved of. They’d have to learn to manage that for the rest of their lives and they would have their Transformation sign post limp to remind them. 
Another might have a drive for justice and be given the gift of compassion and feel bad for poor Esau and Pat his little heel and shed a tear. That little justice warrior would have a sensitivity about victims all their life and perhaps even perceive themselves that way, and God would have to sort that all out in the Wrestle and give them a limp..
And on and on it goes- So we are quite a zoo when it comes to this.

We will look at a couple of others in the Bible whose impatient reaction to things that God allowed into their lives caused God to give them some kind of a limp to be made aware of their impatience and to learn to wait for God in how they managed their gift – and be Transformed..
So - Jacob impatiently grabbed a heel and Moses impatiently struck a rock. (God had told him to simply speak to the rock but he got impatient). Paul became impatiently irritated by his thorn in the flesh and asked God three times to make it go away but God told Paul he had to live with it because his grace was sufficient for him.

Paul’s thorn in the flesh was his limp, but he allowed that to be a signpost to Transformation - to show him that God’s grace was causing him to become the person who he really was in Christ. 1Corinthians 15:10: ‘I am what I am by the grace of God’
Paul tells us about his wrestle with God and we learn about his ‘walks with a limp’ experience;

2Corinthians 12:7: (Message) Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn't get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap, a thorn in the flesh, to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan's messenger did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn't think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me, ‘My grace is sufficient; it's all you need because My strength comes into its own in your weakness.’ Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer (The hall of funny mirrors), these limitations that cut me down to size-- abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.
Paul is telling us we are here to experience the awareness of our limitations but to use that to grow into spiritual growth in the limitless grace of God, and the limp simply loses its power to handicap us in living the life of Jesus within.
With faith we accept the transformation process and the weakness becomes the strength.

The nature of the wrestle – the struggle against impatience.

Cling to God. We see God face to face in the sense that we know we are in his presence.
We wait for his power to achieve what we cannot achieve – This needs faith and patience. With Faith and patience we inherit the promise. Faith receives it and patience perceives it we see it as out reality.
So we last the distance ie, prevail with God – we have power with God..
We wait on God so that we can wait for God.
We can either wrestle with the world much of the time or wrestle against darkness much of the time. But if we wrestle first with God the wrestle with life in the world and with the attacks of darkness to defeat us are undertaken by God - showing himself strong on our behalf.
We are living in a time in history when there have never been so many people who have sense of loss of the power of being able to control or change their circumstances and God is inviting anybody who is willing to come to him and have that wrestle.
God showed Jacob – God showed Moses – God showed Paul – God will show you.

 

Hidden Treasure

HIDDEN TREASURE

This is the story about us being vessels that contain a treasure within. And no matter how fragile that vessel is, or how formidable are the pressures upon that vessel, the inner treasure is of greater power than the outward pressure. There is a Scripture that talks about that Treasure, which is the life of Jesus within us, being made evident in our lives, no matter what is going on in our circumstances.
2 Corinthians 4:7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard- pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed — always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us, but life in you.

Many people are asking the question in this time of Covid-19 distress and affliction; How we are going to come out the other end? Well How are we? Our future material circumstances remain uncertain, and restrictions upon our freedom of movement and interaction are being gradually eased, our health and hygiene guidelines stay constant, but a massive question is how are we going to come out the other end emotionally, and that depends massively on how we are going to come out the other end spiritually.

Paul speaks in that Scripture about having experiences of being hard pressed or under pressure, feeling perplexed or trapped, feeling threatened and being hard hit. Some or all of that is what many people can readily say they have experiencing now to some degree.
The negative outcomes Paul could have ended up with after all this were his being crushed, being in despair, feeling forsaken, or even being destroyed. These are natural human responses to those kinds of pressures that have seemed to hit everybody on the planet all at once at the moment in one way or another. They are all a matter of degree, and people can get stuck in a cycle of negative emotional reaction, which is now happening.

When Paul (Saul) was a zealous Jew persecuting Christians he used to let these negative reactions define him and make him angry and fire him up into aggressive or defensive action. The Bible tells us how he went into peoples’ houses and dragged them into prison and even had them killed… Those reactions would make him look for someone or something to blame so he could fight back at that and feel self-empowered in some way. That is because those emotional reactions have an energy – a negative energy, that comes from a negative spiritual energy.

But the converted Paul found a distinctive inner spiritual energy in all of the pressure he describes and experienced the ‘excellence of the power of God ’within him. The word for ‘excellence’ in the Greek in this verse is ‘hyperbole’ which is the word we use colloquially to mean exaggerated or overstated. The Greek word means ‘to be thrown out beyond the normal range’. In other words Paul experienced a power that was out in another orbit. It operated above the normal energy of willpower or mere emotional determination. He found the power of the indwelling life of God through Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

This spiritual energy that Paul found within became the treasure of Paul’s heart. In the bible this is called the Kingdom of Heaven.
Matthew 13:44 … The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

Paul knew the treasure was there – he learned how to access it.
He had learned to sell off some things in order to acquire the better thing. God had changed him. He said he had suffered the loss of all things to gain Jesus, to be found in him, to be found in his field and to find his treasure in that field.
How do we do this?

It is the difference between living in the mindset of the Kingdom or living in the mindset of the world – living in the natural or living in the spiritual.
I sell off all that extra emotional baggage and negative mindset, and buy the field where the treasure is. We don’t buy the treasure, we buy the field and the field yields the treasure. That field becomes our new heart, the new territory that we possess on the inside. It is the Kingdom of God within us. It contains within it all the goodness of God that we can receive through faith. Paul tells us that we can be filled with all the fullness of God – that is extraordinary but true. That is firstly all spiritual blessings that we have through Jesus, the love and the peace and the joy and it is also the beautiful promise of Jesus to us about not being anxious about material needs like the world is, but rather seeking first the kingdom of God within us and all those things will be added to us because our Father knows we have need of these things. All of that is that is the treasure.
The economic forecasters are telling us how doubtful they are about economic recovery – and that is quite a rational statement – but God provides for those who truly trust him, who buy the right field, and sell off the anxiety and stress and possess their souls through faith and patience

God gives us a new heart and new desires and we trade off the old heart and sell off the old territory and its negative emotional baggage that seeks to attach itself to us.
Our spiritual journey is one of being aware of having a new heart. Every decision of faith in that new territory of the new heart grows the area of this new territory. The old territory or old heart gives way to the expanding territory of the new heart. Throughout the Old Testament God had been promising that he would give us a new heart that responds to his love and take away the old hard heart that goes its own way and continually misses the mark (Sin). That is the new Covenant since Jesus.
But until we actually start trading this baggage off we can’t afford to buy the field as our old inner field still takes up all the space. Either Jesus is evident in us or the baggage of anxiety is. If we know the difference we can choose.
The new territory contains the treasure of Faith and Hope and Love.
The old territory we sell of contains anxiety and despair and resentment.

I have heard many TV interviews with excellent commentary from many experts on the different aspects of the Covid-19 crisis. Some were walking encyclopedias of the economic options and others were talking medical dictionaries of the health crisis. When any of them were asked about how we were going to come out of this in their particular category; they would say ‘We dont know how this will work out – it’s unknown.
There is another group of experts whose specialty is understanding and comparing the merits and deficiencies of the different models of the countries and states and regions with different combinations of greater restrictions on either the economic or the health factors. When asked which model is the best combination, the answer is ‘We cannot say as yet – it’s unknown’.

But each one of us can know how we are going to come out of this spiritually and emotionally.
I personally think that this awareness is part of the Holy Spirit awakening in the earth in our day.
Can you imagine the futility of us trying to make things change in our world and not first letting things change in ourselves first? That has never worked.

In the final verse of that Scripture about all the pressures and the treasure in earthen vessels Paul was able to say;
‘so death works in us but life in you’
He meant that ‘death working in him’ was the letting go of the emotional baggage and negative mindset. And he meant that for him, ‘life working in you’ was the faith and hope and love within him that also imparted that spiritual energy into the hearts and minds of those around him. That is what Paul called true spiritual ministry.

God is there FOR YOU in the midst of the current crisis to give you faith and hope and love.
God is there WITH YOU in this crisis to impart faith and hope and love.

If all that we have as a mindset is the pain of the adversity of today, that starts to define us according to what we don’t have and what we are not, instead of the inner treasure that defines us by what we do have and the new person that we truly are in God. Whatever that mindset is becomes the spiritual energy that radiates out from us as who we are. We have to sell off that ‘don’t have and are not’ for what we actually ‘do have’ NOW – who we really are, now, and allow the ‘excellence of the power of God’, that real inner state of who we are be found in us, in that field, that new spiritual territory of our heart. It is a spiritual energy exchange. We can experience the peace and rest of that beautiful field ‘He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.

The treasure within is our spirit joined to the Lord’s Spirit. It is realized as a conscious presence with Jesus, so that his life can be expressed through our life. It does not have to be a feeling - it is accepted as a fact, a spiritual reality of faith. The feelings follow faith, the witness of the Spirit of joy, a buoyancy that lifts us into another orbit around our centre, who is God. We now become God centred and not self centred. David was able to testify of this ever present presence in the Psalms.

Psalm 139 - God, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand. I'm an open book to you; even from a distance, you know what I'm thinking.You know when I leave and when I get back; I'm never out of your sight. You know everything I'm going to say before I start the first sentence. I look behind me and you're there, then up ahead and you're there, too— your reassuring presence, coming and going. This is too much, too wonderful
I can't take it all in! Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit? to be out of your sight?
If I climb to the sky, you're there! If I go underground, you're there! If I flew on morning's wings
to the far western horizon, You'd find me in a minute— you're already there waiting!
Then I said to myself, "Oh, he even sees me in the dark! At night I'm immersed in the light!"
It's a fact: darkness isn't dark to you; night and day, they're all the same to you.

What gets in the way of this treasure being taken hold of and realized in our lives is all the reactions going on in our minds and emotions, and their relentless and demanding claim on the inner territory of our heart, of our concept of who we are. Again I say - making us feel self-conscious instead of God conscious.

Matthew 13:44 … The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

Thank you Lord for helping us to acquire that field, thank you for drawing us into your orbit of the excellence of the power that lifts us up and overcomes the heavy weights of the negative emotions that would seek to oppress us. We come to you as your vessels today, and you fill us with your treasure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Communion

COMMUNION
JESUS AND PASSOVER FEAST
The first Communion service ever was when Jesus shared the Last Supper with his disciples. Like many other Jewish groups and families in Jerusalem they were sharing the Passover meal that night, as that was the custom on that special day before the Feast of Passover for every family to eat of the Passover lamb. Israel shared this meal each year to celebrate the miraculous deliverance of Israel out from Egypt where they had been in slavery under cruel oppression for 400 years.
On that Passover day that they fled out of Egypt each home was instructed to take a lamb for each household and to kill the lamb and apply the blood of that firstborn lamb on the doorposts and lintels of the house so that the angel of death would ‘pass over’ them, and the firstborn son of each family was spared from death, and the firstborn son of every Egyptian family died.

To this day Orthodox Jews as individual households all over the world celebrate this Passover feast. They come together for a traditional meal called the Seder, which means “order”, because everything is done in a particular order.
The whole theme of the special meal on the Seder night is to remember the exodus of Egypt as if they were there and that is what happened to them, so it is experiential for them and educational for the children and visitors…
The Seder plate includes a variety of foods, and they are symbolic.
The lamb bone represents the blood of the lamb that was applied to the doors of the Jewish people as God passed over them; the maror (bitter herbs) represents the bitterness the Jews had to endure as slaves; there was a sweet, brown concoction/paste that represents the mortar used to build the Egyptian pyramids; and the dipping of parsley into salt water represents the tears of the enslaved Jewish people. And there is the Matzah, the unleavened bread that is eaten at Passover. They have to eat this because according to the Book of Exodus, the Israelites left Egypt in such a hurry that their bread didn’t have time to rise.
It is traditionally viewed as the bread of the poor, and is therefore consumed to remind Jewish people of the hardships their ancestors endured. During their Passover ceremony, many Jewish children play a game in which there are three pieces of matzah, like mini cakes on a plate, and one piece of matzah, the middle piece, is hidden. The child who finds that middle piece off matzah at the end of the meal wins what is called the ‘ransom’. I remember asking my host what this signified and he wasn’t sure. I explained to him what I thought and he respectfully listened.’.

Jesus brought himself to the first ever communion table as that firstborn lamb at the Passover meal on that Passover night. He was the lamb slain from the foundation of the world, but the disciples did not fully understand the awesome significance of that truth on that night. Jesus had been bringing himself as that lamb down through the ages in the prophetic symbolism of the feasts and sacrifices as mentioned so many times in the Old Testament, from Genesis 22 when Abraham said that God would provide a lamb for the sacrifice when he was told by God to offer Isaac upon the altar. Then there was Exodus regarding Passover and in various lamb sacrifices in Leviticus and Numbers, and also in prophetic words of the prophet Isaiah in ch.53:7 – led as a lamb to the slaughter.

Jesus brought himself to the world throughout those years that he walked the earth as the Son of Man and the Son of God, and he knew that night of the Last Supper that he was about to bring himself to the very altar of the cross where he would be that lamb slain for the sins of all the world. Jesus knew exactly what he was doing and what he was saying. He was going to bring humanity out from slavery to the world and that message was contained in the message of bringing Israel out of Egypt..

Jesus had said earlier during his ministry ‘unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you will not have life in you I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’ The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat’. When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
It is a hard saying. And I have thought the same to myself. But Jesus took them to task for taking offense at what he had said and told them that they were getting stuck in looking at the outward form of what he said and were missing the deeper inner meaning of how we would take his life into us as our life us and our lives would be in him in the new Kingdom order that he was bringing in through his death and resurrection. He told them that he words he had spoken were spirit and life, and not to think of the natural or flesh perspective of what he said.

Even on that night of the last supper when Jesus took the bread and the wine and said the most amazing words to his disciples, those words remained a puzzle to them all except for John, who stood with Mary the mother of Jesus at the foot of the cross when he was crucified at Calvary. John seems to have grasped some understanding of New Kingdom order when he relates to us in his Gospel that The Father and Jesus would come to make their home within us after the Holy Spirit had been sent.

Paul was not one of the apostles then of course but he received a revelation from Jesus about these words of Spirit and life and he passed these on to the Corinthians in the only epistle that describes the Communion table.
1Corinthians 11:23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same
night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “ This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.

Jesus had come as the Passover Lamb to them from of old, and also as the lamb being consumed at the table that night, and also as their servant leader as he washed their feet, and the servant of mankind throughout his life, and then as the bread and the cup also at the Last supper. So while Jesus was always coming TO humanity throughout the ages as the Lamb slain, he had now arrived at his appointed time and destination to fulfil his destiny on the earth.
At that time Jesus was still coming to us in earthly natural form and everything he said and did regarding the Lamb and the Passover meal and the bread and the cup was part of the story of how God in Jesus was sent to us. he celebrated that symbolically at the Last Supper and had Communion with his disciples and then went to the cross and died and said ‘It is finished’.
What it meant for him to break the bread and drink the cup on that night, and what he wanted it to mean for us was not just that he had come to humanity at that time to fulfill past history but that he was also coming to us on earth as the bread of life and the cup of the New Covenant in his blood to fulfil the future of mankind as ‘God with Us’.So while Jesus did come physically to us as literal body and blood at that time, through his life on earth, the spiritual reality has been realised – We share life with the risen Jesus – the words that he spoke to the disciples about his body and his blood have now become Spirit and life.

Now we go through the bread and the wine by faith, into the person and presence of the risen Jesus and there we have communion with him and with one another. He has sent his Spirit and he has left for us the Communion table to celebrate in remembrance of him.
Since his resurrection the communion meal is a time of spiritual revelation of Jesus to us as we open our hearts and sit in his presence. We open our hearts and he opens our eyes.

After dying on cross and saying It is finished Jesus came to 2 disciples on the road to Emmaus and when he sat and broke the bread and had communion with them at the inn their eyes were opened and they knew him.

When we see Jesus at Communion we receive ALL spiritual blessings from God through what Jesus has done for us. Jesus has become our salvation and redemption, our peace and our wisdom, our healing and provision. Communion is a time when our eyes can be opened with a special focus of faith and an anticipation to see Jesus as Paul did when he said ‘It is no longer I that live, but it is Christ that lives in me’.
The Bible also says there will be an ongoing opening of our eyes to the revelation of him to us when he shares the final promise of communion ‘in the Kingdom’ with his disciples (Matt 26 - I will not drink this wine again until the day I drink it new with you in my Father's Kingdom). Our Kingdom life here in this here and now life on earth turns our day to day natural old creation life into a spiritual new creation life where things continually become new, with a new hope and new faith and a new reality – the experience of ‘God with us’

 

 

Stand still and see

STAND STILL AND SEE THE SALVATION OF YOUR GOD.

These words were spoken by Moses at the Red Sea as Israel marched forward to a new beginning. It was a new beginning of seeing God supernaturally at work in their lives. Every life can have this new beginning of seeing God at work in their lives. It is the life of faith.

Exodus 14:13 And Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of your God, which He will accomplish for you today.
This the story of Israel crossing the red sea after escaping out of Egypt, and with the Egyptian army chariots in pursuit. The people of Israel had been slaves in Egypt for 400 years, two million of them, with no concept of God. They had been without prophets, except for their new leader Moses, and there was yet no priesthood or Commandments or tabernacle. They were glad to be out of there but then they were horribly disappointed and disillusioned by the fact that there was an impassable Red Sea in front of them and they believed that they had been brought out of slavery only to be killed by their pursuers..
This was a first for Israel – They had not had to have faith before, and now their faith was a matter of standing still and watching what God would do to save them. This was confusing for them because this is a difficult lesson for anyone to learn. We think we must do something in order to make something happen. But it is always about what God is doing – and then there is always something for us to do in response.

Its just a matter of when and how we do what is required of us. The first thing Israel had to do was to stand still and see – then Moses held out the rod over the waters and the waters opened up – they saw the work of God - then Israel had to get moving and cross over. The sea divided with a high wall of water on both sides and a passageway between the walls of water for them to walk through. Moses had to be obedient to what God told him to do, then Israel had to be obedient to what Moses told them to do, and two million people had a head-start and crossed on dry land. When the Egyptians got to the passageway between the walls of water God miraculously removed the wheels off the Egyptian chariots and they became stuck in the sand. Then when Israel were safely across Moses held the rod above the waters again and the sea closed in on the Egyptians. It is a detailed story in the book of Exodus but Paul writes simply in the book of Hebrews;
Hebrews 11:29 By faith Israel crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned.

Another ‘Stand still and see’ from God’s word to King Jehoshaphat came through Jahaziel the prophet.

We now look at God’s Word to Jehoshaphat;
2Chronicles 20:17. You will not need to fight in this battle for the battle is not yours, but God's. Position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. Do not be afraid nor be dismayed; for the Lord your God is with you.”
In that battle of Jehoshaphat, the enemy armies of Ammon and Moab and Mt.Seir were about to attack Israel. Israel were told not to attack these three nations when they first came out of Egypt, but now these three nations were about to dispossess Israel from their inheritance. They were mighty armies and the people were in fear and terror. Jehoshaphat cried out to God ‘O our God, will you not execute judgment on them? For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”
The Bible goes on to say ‘And when they began to sing and praise, the Lord set an ambush against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah, so that they were destroyed. For the men of Ammon and Moab rose against the inhabitants of Mount Seir, and destroyed them first, and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, they all helped to destroy one another.’
So they all began to ambush one another and by the time Israel appeared on the scene ready for battle there were dead bodies everywhere and the fight was all over, and it took Israel three days to gather up all the spoil from the treasuries of the opposing armies.

These two accounts of God’s salvation apply to the nation of Israel, God’s Old Covenant people. But these are examples that apply to us today as God’s people, us as his family in the world, and us as his army. We can learn from these examples that we can be here for God, and for each other, and for our own spiritual edification and growth. We are here to honour God by responding to his love for us through our faith in him, trusting in his goodness to us. We are here together carrying one another’s burdens, praying and blessing one another and receiving blessing and prayer from one another. We are here together for this world, sharing in our prayers together for this world and for those in authority in this world that they will be equipped and blessed by God to serve in a Godly way in our nation. And we can also take these truths of God’s Word and apply them to our personal walk with God, for our own encouragement and spiritual growth and comfort as we make him Lord of our lives.

Those stories were about seeing the salvation of God in the Old Covenant way because they saw God win the battle for them in the physical realm. Today we see the salvation of God through the eyes of faith of the new Covenant. Jesus has become our salvation. When Jesus died for us and rose again from the dead he overcame all the powers of darkness on our behalf, and then sent the Holy Spirit to join the life of Jesus to us so that we could experience this salvation and this life of victory over darkness.
They did physical warfare – we do spiritual warfare. We can receive peace from God, knowing that he alone can work upon and change the nature of things and the hearts people, and that he is the creator God who alone can brings order out of chaos, and who speaks light into darkness. Our battle is against darkness and disorder. They had their armour on and their weapons ready in the physical realm, and so do we in the spiritual realm. This requires faith - real faith.

Paul explains spiritual warfare to us in 2Corinthians 10, saying that ‘the weapons of our warfare are not carnal’. That word carnal means of a natural human order, as opposed to a supernatural spiritual order. He tells us that these spiritual weapons were mighty in God, able to destroy the potential strongholds that darkness would hope to occupy in our minds and in our hearts. Darkness seeks to occupy territory that we have given to God to occupy, as we partake of the life of his Spirit within us, and welcome the residence of Jesus and the Father in our hearts (John 14:23). And Paul knew how put his armour on, which means being protected in his mind and heart by that armour. He says in Ephesians 6:10 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the times of evil, and having done all, to stand.
In the same passage of Scripture Paul talks about our spiritual armour and that we wrestle not against people but against dark spirits that influence principalities, which are social demographic regions where the culture of states and cities is expressed. He tells us that we also wrestle against powers that buffet our personal souls. He tells us that we wrestle against the rulers of the darkness of this age, that means the darkness that is influencing the collective mindsets and ideologies and attitudes of the global atmosphere that exists in this time of worldwide crisis. By the way, that word wrestle in the original language in Scripture is telling us that we ‘overthrow’, not just struggle, so it is an assertive statement, not a timid one. And we are also told that ‘greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world.’

Paul mentions some strategic spiritual defensive pieces of armour such as a helmet protecting the mind and thoughts, and he talks about a spiritual breastplate over the heart that protects us from fear. The head and the heart are the two most vulnerable parts of the body in warfare. In spiritual terms the mind is the stronghold to where darkness directs his primary attack. We are directed in the Scripture that I referred to above to overthrow the imaginations of our minds that would block us off from getting our minds on God and his power and his love. These imaginations are the negative emotionally driven regrets or disappointments of the past, or the anxious menace of an uncertain future that we can so easily attach our thoughts to. We are directed to bring our thoughts captive to the present moment that contains the ever present presence of God with us through the indwelling Holy Spirit who reveals the reality of the power of Jesus to reorder our lives.
This is being renewed in the spirit of our minds. We magnify the reality of God’s supernatural activity above the unreality of our anxious imaginations about everything that might go wrong.

The other vulnerable area of our body that comes under attack is our heart. That is where either fear or faith can dwell. The Bible says that ‘with the heart man believes’. Darkness fires darts of doubt and fear into this stronghold of our relationship with God, and we are given a shield of faith to protect ourselves from this kind of attack.
Paul also mentions spiritual weapons, like the sword, which speaks of the word of God, and the bible also says that faith comes by hearing the living Word of Jesus not just in our mind, but in our heart. In the same

The people under Jehoshaphat were told to ‘Position yourselves, stand still, and see, and to fear not....’
We Position ourselves – Our position is as partners together with God. We are partakers of his nature - Joint Heirs together with Jesus. We do not earn this position – it is a gift of God’s grace. But we dare not neglect it.

We stand still – We come into a place of readiness and alertness in our spirit, not passively but actively -mindful of the now moment of God’s ever present presence with us.
We See - That is seeing by faith as opposed to seeing things happen the way Israel did at the red sea and the ambushing of the enemies in Jehoshaphat’s battle. We become conscious of the fact that God is at work in the world of the unseen – the outward ‘seen’ will come if you have been ‘seeing’.

The seeing by faith is the believing. That is faith and trust and the expectation of God to act and produce his result for us to wonder at and give thanks for. That expectation is our hope - a buoyancy that lifts us into a present moment assurance of the greatness and goodness of God.

We then ‘fear not and neither be dismayed’
That means we magnify God’s greatness above our own weakness – ‘For The Lord your God is with you’.
And with that – all I have left to say is ‘The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.’

 

S M prayer

Prayer and share of S M