Spiritcode

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 

Three cups

THREE CUPS
There are three cups that God holds out for us to drink from. They are; The cup of Iniquity - The cup of the New Covenant – The cup of suffering. These are all cups of new beginnings.
Each one of those three cups has a different setting but they all symbolise the continuing wrestle of The Holy Spirit within our hearts, a wrestle that challenges a state of mind and heart in us that resists the Holy Spirit. The heart of mankind wants to go its own way with its own desires and has from the very beginning. Nd the Holy Spirits work is to change that heart and mindset in order to make way for a new beginning, a new heart and a new mind of freedom because of a new spirit within us. That is the story of salvation.

These Three Cups are cups of new beginnings.

The cup of the New Covenant
This is mentioned in 1Corinthians where Jesus takes the cup at the last supper and says, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood.
This is also called The cup of blessing that we (1Corinthians 10:16) all give thanks for, sharing in the lifeblood of Christ. Jesus called this cup the New Covenant in his blood, the verse often read at Communion. This is the new supernatural bond of faith that is formed when people share life together with Jesus and with one another. God is saying that his life belongs to us and that our lives belong to him and to one another. All spiritual blessings flow from this New Covenant with God through Jesus. This new covenenant is mentioned in
Hebrews 8 When God speaks of a new covenant, it means he has made the first one obsolete. It is now out of date and will disappear.

When the disciple Stephen was stoned to death in martyrdom I believe he saw something of the old covenant passing away, and a new cup being offered to humanity. He saw the resistance to the struggle of the Holy Spirit with the hearts and minds of the leaders of the nation of Israel.
Stephen admonished the leaders of the nation of Israel and entered into a detailed account of their history from the commencement of their nation; and to show how kindly God had dealt with them, and how ungraciously they and their fathers had treated God back, and that they had always resisted the Holy Spirit. There were many who had not resisted the Holy Spirit who spoke through the prophets, and there were many who lived and died in faith and loyalty to the Old Covenant. But at this time he was led to the conclusion that God could no longer bear with them, because their cup of iniquity had long been overflowing. That cup was the cup of judgment which was about to be poured out upon Israel after Stephen was martyred. Romans 11:25 The judgement of partial blindness to the Gospel until the fulness of the gathering in of humanity has been accomplished. But Israel will receive Jesus their Messiah at the appointed time of his mercy and grace upon them.
Acts 7:51. You always resist the Holy Spirit; just as your fathers did 6. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven saw Jesus standing at God’s right hand. And he told them, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at God’s right hand!” Then they put their hands over their ears and began shouting. They rushed at him and dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. His accusers took off their coats and laid them at the feet of a young man named Saul. As they stoned him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
The bible tells us that Jesus is always seated at the right hand of the Father – he doesn’t stand, except, it seems, to bring judgement. This marked the time of judgement of Israel.

THE CUP OF SUFFERING – This was the cup that Jesus drank in the Garden of Gesthamane.
There is a story in the book of Matthew 20 where the mother of James and John asks Jesus … Can my two sons sit, one on Your right hand and the other on the left, in Your kingdom.” But Jesus answered and said, “You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink ?”vs.26 You've observed how godless rulers throw their weight around, how quickly a little power goes to their heads. It's not going to be that way with you. Whoever wants to be great must become a servant.

Jesus was asking them to have a different mindset to the people in this world ‘s system who arrogantly ruled over others and let power go to their heads.
God’s power doesn’t go to his head it goes to his heart. He cares for us in the personal burdens we carry. In Isaiah 53 the bible tells us that he took our sorrows that weighed him down. It was through his suffering that we could have peace.
He asks us to drink that cup in caring for one another and bearing each other’s burdens. That’s the cup of suffering. It is also going through the tough times without complaining, but giving thanks to God for his goodness. Everyone is going through some kind of suffering at the moment and many are without help and without hope, and many many are complaining bitterly, and that is understandable when a person has no other hope except what this world has to offer. But we have a hope, and can give hope and give help. and that too is taking the cup of suffering.

The story of God and humanity has always featured a struggle right at the heart and centre of its passionate journey of love and response – Divine love and human response. The conflict rages on to this day. It is in the middle of everything that is happening between God and us and between us and one another. God always embraces his creation and that creation, which means us specifically in the context of what I’m talking about today is of a lower order than himself who is Uncreated being. It is even said of us as humanity that we are made a little lower than the angels. This gap of separation between God and humanity provokes us to resist his overture of love and to assert our own self determined course, our own rite of passage to our idea of self fulfilment. The Holy Spirit was there in the first instant of creation bringing light into darkness and order into chaos, bringing form and beauty into nothingness. It is an ongoing story.
The Holy Spirit is right in the middle of this dispute right now, contending with the human heart to allow God’s love to subdue it and reorder it and make it to be at one with his love and virtue and truth.

THE CUP OF INIQUITY
The cup of Iniquity
Psalm 75:2 For the Lord holds a cup in his hand that is full of wine mixed with spices.
He pours out the wine in judgment, and all the wicked must drink it, draining it to the dregs.
That word judgement means that everything we do has consequences. The word in the bible for this word is KRISIS. A Crisis, as we know, is always a time of decision making. It means a time of opportunity to make a right decision along with good outcomes but it also holds within it the danger of a wrong decision, and the harmful consequences. This means all of us, nations and indviduals.
I believe this world is being offered this cup in the current situation of our global catastrophe. Recently I spoke of the message of God to Noah about how he had to prepare an ark before the global game-changing event of the flood occurred that marked the end of things being done man’s way and beginning to be done God’s way. That was the time of the preparation of the Ark which was 120 years when The Holy Spirit wrestled with the heart of mankind to change his ungodly ways to God’s ways; the cup was filling up. There are a lot of things in our world currently that are not happening God’s way. But God always gives us time to change before he acts in judgement.

There are many examples of the pouring out of this cup in Scripture and it always involves the Divine Delay of Judgement – The longsuffering of God.
In Genesis15 there is God’s message to Abraham that his descendants would inherit the promised land of Canaan. But he makes an interesting comment about a time frame that had to be fulfilled before this could come to pass.
He said that there would be a delay of 400 years because the cup of iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full.
God gives people time to mend their ways and to repent. Here he gives the land of Canaan 400 years. This is called the longsuffering of God. So why the Amorites (Amos uses ‘Amorites’ to mean the whole land of Canaan). The answer is because they were people just like us, but who chose to live in wickedness, for example, they worshiped many gods and goddesses practising immoral rituals and they made idols to these gods. They even offered their children as human sacrifices to the god of Molech. But God was still longsuffering and yet they did not change their ways. Then Israel came out of Egypt under Moses and finally, a little after 400 years Abraham’s descendants became God’s instrument of judgement upon the Canaanites and possessed the Promised Land.

Then there is one other example – when Jonah the prophet of Israel was told to preach to Nineveh and madly protesting – They were cruel and murderously evil - so why Nineveh? Why not just judge them? Well…Judge them for what? They had to be told about God by Jonah in order to repent. And they did- so was it then godly Nineveh forever? No they fell away after a while. So what’s the point? The point is that is the story of God and humanity. It is the story of what is happening in the earth globally at this very moment. Many nations have heard about God. Some nations may come out of the experience of this cup from God as more godly and some less – some people more godly and some less. And there will be a divide between the two. God will be present in his people with more power, and darkness will assert itself with more intensity.

This is a time for light to shine. When God allows a catastrophic occasion to occur, like the one we are in the grip of right now, he causes things to be brought into the light that were hidden, and exposes the greed and corruption of power and control that usurps God’s place of power and command over the lives of mankind. This is what is happening in the earth today with the current shaking of the global Corona virus pandemic which is bringing a halt to all the perceived control and entitlement of the agendas of the proud and oppressive. His heart in these times of judgement, or crisis in which we live, is always to redeem the hearts of people.
Let’s read the full Psalm.

Psalm 75:2 God says, “At the time I have planned, I will bring justice against the wicked.
When the earth trembles and its people live in turmoil, I am the one who keeps its foundations firm.
“I warned the proud, ‘Stop your boasting!’ I told the wicked, ‘Don’t raise your fists! Don’t raise your fists in defiance at the heavens or speak with such arrogance.’” For no one on earth—from east or west, should raise a defiant fist. It is God alone who judges; he decides who will rise and who will fall
For the Lord holds a cup in his hand
that is full of wine mixed with spices.
He pours out the wine in judgment,
and all the wicked must drink it,
draining it to the dregs.
But as for me, says David, I will always proclaim what God has done; I will sing praises to the God of Jacob.
For God says, “I will break the strength of the wicked, but I will increase the power of the godly.”
(Some nations will come out of this calamity in a more godly way than others)

The time for light to shine
Isaiah 60: 1 Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you.
And nations shall come to your light.

- Peter Blanchard , from Northwestern University in the USA, a co-author on the study of a supernova explosion tells us of a huge explosion of a supernova, recorded in The Australian 14/4/2020

“This is the most light we have ever seen emitted by a supernova.”
Blanchard then writes.
In a typical supernova, the radiation is less than 1 per cent of the total energy, but in SN2016, we found the radiation was five times the explosion energy of a normal-sized supernova. This is the most light we have ever seen emitted by a supernova.”
To become this bright, the explosion must have been much more energetic than usual. By examining the light spectrum, the researchers were able to demonstrate that the explosion was powered by a collision between the supernova and a massive shell of gas, shed by the star in the years before it exploded.
“While many supernovae are discovered every night, most are in massive galaxies,” said Peter Blanchard. “This one immediately stood out for further observations because it seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. We weren’t able to see the galaxy where this star was born.

There is light in the universe, in the midst of darkness right now.
So we can accept the cup of the new covenant and be joined even more closely to Jesus and to one another. We can accept the cup of suffering and bear one another’s burdens and know that God is bearing ours. And we can be a light and a hope for those who are suffering without hope and without help. Pray for God to continue to fill you with the Holy Spirit and that he will pour out his Spirit on those who are crying out to him at this time.

 

 

Resurrection - From the grave to the sky

RESURRECTION
In the in the last podcast I did called ‘From the cross to the grave’, Jesus had come to visit those prisoners of time in Paradise. So this account of the Resurrection could be called ‘From the grave to the sky’.
The bible says that Jesus then preached to all those prisoners of time the message of the plan of Father (The Gospel) in sending him to cancel sin and to bring new life, and to lead captivity captive by setting prisoners free from the captivity of time - waiting as captives for heaven to come to them. Many listened and many heard. The Scriptures speak of this moment about Jesus.
1Peter 3:18 He died once for the sins of all us guilty sinners although he himself was innocent of any sin at any time, that he might bring us safely home to God. But though his body died, his spirit lived on, and it was in the spirit that he visited the spirits in prison and preached to them-- spirits of those who, long before in the days of Noah, had refused to listen to God, though he waited patiently for them while Noah was building the ark. Jesus sat with Noah, and Adam and Eve, and Moses, and Abraham and many many others in Paradise, talking and resting with them. He was to wait there until the end of the third day.

It was toward the end of that third day when suddenly everyone’s conversation began to fall off and diminish into silence. All faces looked up and around as if to detect and determine what that sound was and where it came from. It was beautiful music that danced with itself on waves of exuberant joy. It surged and tumbled about them and was then overlaid with a swell of magnificent singing which became stronger and louder as hosts of flying angels swept into their presence. Jesus stood to greet the two chief angels, and it was then that he was given a set of two keys. These were the keys of hell and death (Rev.1:18). With one of the keys darkness would one day be locked away and set aside for another encounter, reserved for an appointed day at the end of time. With the other key he would now unlock the prisoners of the past from their patient pause and take many into an eternal heaven.

When Jesus turned the key of freedom in the prison gate a tremor hit the universe. Power from Father and Holy Spirit in heaven was released into and through Jesus to overcome death and that changed the nature of every atom of matter in existence and brought all things that existed into a new kind of union with Jesus. Prior to this moment, all of creation was separate to the creator. That separation was there from the start and caused mankind to go his own way and miss the mark of going the way of God – and that is sin. This is known as the law of sin and death in humanity. but now Jesus, who had now overcome this law of sin and death has made a new way open for humanity to walk in God’s ways in the new law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Now that our creator Jesus has joined himself to his creation in humanity we can rise above this separation called the law of sin and death. The Bible says that the whole creation is groaning for this glory to be fully manifested and that we groan within ourselves also for its complete fulfillment which will be at the end time resurrection. Romans 8:23

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

Michael and Gabriel waited inside the tomb while Jesus walked bodily from the temporary resting place, out into the garden. He walked about, recalling vividly the events that had so recently taken place nearby. He remembered his time of kneeling in an agony of prayer, when he accepted his cup of unbearable suffering. A very strange thing was also happening in other parts of Jerusalem. Hundreds of souls who had just accompanied Jesus from below and who had recently died were making the briefest of appearances to their loved ones (Matthew 27:52). At that same time some women had prepared oils and spices to anoint Jesus’ body. On their way to the tomb they were discussing the problem of how to move the huge stone that covered the entrance. When they arrived they were astonished to see that it had been moved and the guards were nowhere to be seen. They peered inside the tomb and were met by the majestic appearance of Michael and Gabriel, sitting in the place where Jesus had been laying.

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

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

When she recognized him she ran towards him but he held up his hand and said, “Please do not hold me because I cannot be touched until I have presented the complete offering of my body and blood to my Father (Leviticus 23:9-16). I will be back with you very soon, so go and tell the others.”

Jesus then regrouped with all those he had set free and the magnificent procession began to move in splendor with its escort of glorious angels, from the grave to the sky. As their ascension took them closer and closer to the throne room a mighty voice could be heard proclaiming, “Open up gates, and let the King of Glory come in.” (Psalm 24:7-10)

At this command the heavenly music began. The sound of thousands of pipes, the voices of hundreds of harmonies, the deepest of vibrating bass and the ascending range of every stringed instrument created a majestic symphony. The cascading melody and the volumes of resonance pulsed with rhythm, flooding and receding in this moment of triumph. Jesus had come home.

Hebrews 1:3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he sustains everything in the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high…

Ephesians 1:19-21. how vibrant and powerful is that divine energy that comes from God to us when we simply believe that he is the creator and generator of this supernatural power 20. Which exploded into reality when he raised Jesus from the dead and took him into heaven to sit next to him at his right hand. 21. This heavenly place and position took Jesus as God and man above any other force or realm of authority that can be named, whether on earth or in the heavens…and he has become the center of all consequence and meaning in the universe.

Father led Jesus to a throne in the throne room, and sat him at his right hand, where the most glorious of all crowns was placed upon his head, which still bore the marks of the cruel wreath of thorns from his flogging. All the angels and all those who had come with him on the upward journey beheld their king in his place of honor. Those of the faithful company who had waited throughout time also took their places of honor in their new home and joined in the magnificent celebration. Jesus’ time in heaven for these celebrations was momentary, as he had left the tomb just before dawn and had to return to earth that same day. He would now spend forty days on earth to seal The Plan of his Father and see it implemented for the rest of time. At the end of those forty days he would return to heaven, and would begin his new mission upon the planet.

Holy Spirit had accompanied Jesus every moment of his life on earth. He had joined himself to the human spirit of Jesus and had felt every feeling that Jesus had felt. He had known every one of his thoughts, and he had communicated every thought from Father God to him. Those thoughts became words in Jesus mouth, and Spirit caused those words to have life and power to all who heard Jesus speak. In this way Holy Spirit had also experienced life within humanity on the earth. In forty days time, after Jesus’ returned back to heaven Holy Spirit would become the bond between heaven and earth for all time. He would fall like rain from heaven upon the souls of mankind, seeking to awaken the spirit of humanity to the cosmic truth of what Jesus had done in joining mankind to God. This would now become the mission of God.

Within the contradiction of the experience that we call human life, there would exist at one and the same time the cry for, and the resistance to, the oneness of spirit with God for which mankind was created. And within the human pain of this struggle would be found the cry of Holy Spirit wrestling to join the minds and hearts of people to God. This struggle and wrestle would exist throughout time as the Spiritual energy of God’s love that would never cease its activity in the hearts of humanity. It would be the sign of the divine heart exercising its love in the subduing of human nature that it might resonate with the nature of God. Whenever this truth would be embraced by a human heart, that heart would at last find itself at home, around the Family table, where it was destined eternally to be.

That same day Jesus returned to earth in a glorified body that could never ever die again. Mark 16:9 After that, He appeared in another form (heteros morphe – an altered form or nature) to two of them as they walked and went into the country.
It was without the constraints of a limited physical body, but it could be seen and recognized as a natural body. In this spiritual yet natural body Jesus could appear anywhere and at any time. He could feel and be touched, could breathe and eat, and walk and talk, all of which he did when he resumed his earthly visit. He came back and saw again the bewilderment and confusion in this world of uncertainty that people cling to so fervently, and he wanted to see all this change. He arrived in Jerusalem and heard that the temple priests had fabricated a story that his body had been stolen by the disciples and that they had overcome the temple guards and raided the tomb. He also heard that his disciples were still doubting that he had risen from the dead, even though some of them had come to the tomb and seen it empty, and some women had spoken to the angels.

He set off walking from Jerusalem in the direction of Galilee, where he had said he would meet with his disciples. It was then that he saw the two men walking together in serious discussion and he recognized them (these were the men mentioned in that Scripture about Jesus appearing in another form). They were men who had often come to listen to him and ask questions along with the other disciples. He greeted them and joined them as they walked, but Holy Spirit had supernaturally veiled their eyes from recognizing him. He listened as they spoke and detected the same mood of bewilderment, if not depression, that seemed to be hanging over everybody. He politely commented that they seemed to be bothered about something that was going on locally, and he asked what that might be.

The one called Cleopas gave Jesus a puzzled look and said to Jesus that he must be the only visitor in Jerusalem that hadn’t heard about what had happened. So when Jesus asked Cleopas to spell out what he meant the two men smiled at each other and the other man began to patiently explain about the man called Jesus, a great man whom they had both followed and believed in. They enthusiastically recounted some of the miracles he had worked, and that he was a prophet, the greatest of them all. Cleopas broke in and added that Jesus stood up for justice, and taught them about God. They thought he was going to turn the world upside down and make everything new for them. Jesus pushed them further for more details and they said they had expected that there would be freedom and prosperity for the Jews for a start.

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

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

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

After Jesus vanished from their sight the two men decided to go back into Jerusalem and find the disciples who were in hiding, afraid of what was going to happen to them because of the rumors that were going about that they had stolen Jesus’ body. They found them and were whisked inside and the doors were locked behind them. They told them of their journey with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, and their miraculous meal with him where he had suddenly vanished. The disciples were ecstatic that Jesus was back from the dead, and while they were still talking Jesus appeared in their midst while the doors remained locked. The disciples panicked, and thought they were seeing a ghost, but Jesus explained to them that he was not a ghost because a ghost didn’t have bones and flesh, and he asked them to touch his hands and his feet and to see for themselves.

Jesus stretched forth his hands and his peace hit their hearts. He breathed his Spirit upon them and they received the impartation of his peace. That peace is also the air we can breathe and other people can catch that from those who live and breathe this life within them. They immediately felt at one with Jesus and with each other. But this was just a mere foretaste of what was to come, as it would only be after his final ascension and being seated at the right hand of Father that Holy Spirit would be sent to dwell within them. On the day of Pentecost Holy Spirit would be sent from Father and from himself upon all humanity.

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

The disciples gathered at Galilee where they used to gather in the large boat shed that belonged to James and John's fisherman father, where they tended to the boats and net repairs. It was situated snugly in a grove overlooking the beach. Peter had been waiting with the others and had then become restless and asked James and John to come fishing with him to get some food for Jesus to eat. While the three were out fishing Jesus suddenly appeared to the others as they sat patiently, waiting for his arrival. When Thomas saw Jesus appear he walked hesitatingly towards him and stopped in front of him. Jesus knew that Thomas had not believed that he had risen, even after the other disciples had said that they had seen him. Jesus held out his hands towards Thomas and told him to touch his hands where the nails had pierced, and to touch his side where the Centurion’s lance had entered his side. Thomas broke down and wept, and told Jesus that he believed. Jesus gently acknowledged his faith, that in seeing and touching he now believed. He went on to tell Thomas that there would be many who will believe without even seeing him and that they would be greatly blessed for that kind of faith. Jesus comforted him and he disappeared again.

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

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

Jesus met with hundreds of people over those forty days, but on the final day he gathered with just over a hundred of his disciples and followers, including his mother. Jesus then took the eleven disciples aside to give them some final instructions. He told them to go into Jerusalem and to wait for Holy Spirit’s empowerment. They were to wait in the same room in which he celebrated the Passover feast with them, the night he was taken captive. He then told them about the fulfillment of The Plan.

Jesus explained to them that Father had always wanted to have a family of sons and daughters to share his love with them - the same way that Father had shared his love with Jesus himself. Lucifer had tried to block this Plan from the beginning of time by blinding the mind of humanity with darkness, causing a chasm of separation from the living God to exist in their minds and to devise independence in their souls. But Jesus had overpowered darkness and Holy Spirit would come to them and bring them the power of the life that he now lived. He told them he would join their lives to his risen life and they would become one in Spirit with him. Holy Spirit would take Father’s love, and his own words, and place them in the hearts of men and women, as a deep consciousness of indwelling abiding life. He told them they would together be as his body in the World, and each in their own way, gifted with grace and faith from Heaven. People and things that happened around them would change, as they themselves became more and more changed into being more like him.

A dazzling light shone within a billowing white cloud above them. Jesus turned to them all and raised his hands in blessing. He did not need to say goodbye. As he began to rise slowly heavenwards he was enveloped in the cloud, and as they stood together looking into the cloud that had taken him they saw the shining figures of Michael and Gabriel standing to one side (Acts 1:10). Gabriel told them that the same cloud that they saw taking Jesus into eternity would also bring him back one day - in total glory and triumph, and The Plan will have been fulfilled.

 

 

From the cross to the grave

FROM THE CROSS TO THE GRAVE

Pontius Pilate asked the Centurion to command an escort of guards around Jesus to take him to Calvary, or Golgotha, which means The place of the Skull. One of the Centurion's men put the beam on Jesus' bleeding shoulder as they left the yard and went into the crowded street. The already large crowd continued to grow, some of them followers and friends, others bitter enemies, and yet others who were just confused and angry. Jesus staggered and buckled under the weight of the beam but he continued to drag it behind him. It was the custom to write a description of the crime committed on a clay plate and fix it to the top of the cross. Pontius Pilate had written an inscription that read, “THE KING OF THE JEWS”
An angry voice called out above the crowd “Who wrote that stupid inscription?”
One of the temple priests shouted back “It should say ‘He said he was king of the Jews’”
Pilate stepped forward “I wrote that inscription and it stays as it is,”.

A few paces further on Jesus staggered again but this time fell headlong to the ground. Some women rushed forward to help him and Centurion recognized Mary, as she tried to reach out and help her son. Centurion was seized with compassion as he touched her sorrow. He could see blood flowing freely from Jesus now and he knew that he had to keep him on his feet. He must not let Jesus die here on the street. A burly lumbering man who, by the look of his clothing was visiting from some other region, kept close by Jesus as he stumbled forward, and the man balked now and again, as if to reach out and grasp hold of the beam, only to pull back. Centurion called out to the man.
“You, help him. He is too weak to carry that on his own.”
The man from Cyrene leapt forward and took the beam. The peace that surged through his heart overcame the strain of the heavy burden, as he strode on into endless time. The trek to Calvary, with its frequent stops took just under an hour from the time Centurion picked Jesus up in the yard. The process of crucifixion had begun, but it would take many more hours on Calvary for Jesus to die.

John saw Mary walking falteringly up an incline with her companions and he went over and helped her. She saw him coming, and turning, she held out her hand for him to help her up the slope. Mary asked John to stay close by her, and he assured her that he would.
John didn’t know where the others were - he just knew that they were hanging back from the crowd a little, and like them he did not comprehend the fulness of what Jesus actually wanted to achieve - Their beloved leader whom they didn’t fully know how to follow.

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

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

John put his arm around Mary's shoulders as she looked on, with tears rolling down her cheeks and her countenance numbed from all expression. John tried to shield Mary from watching but she pulled away from him. She remembered tending his little body when he was a baby, that life that was part of her life. It was then that Jesus looked down at his mother standing next to John. He spoke to her through parched lips.
“Mother let him be your son.” His head then turned towards John. Mary looked at John and clung on to his arm.
“Son let her be your mother.”
John stood with her and watched her son's life draining from him. As they stood shielding their faces from the biting dust that came in bursts, and their eyes from the intermittent dazzle of the sun, they were astonished to see the sun dimmed and the dazzle become a weak gleam. High noon surrendered to a deep darkness which remained for three full hours. Darkness has an authority that can intrude into any company and announce that it is now taking over whatever else is happening. It will put a stop to things. If there is noise and commotion, sudden darkness will announce silence. People who thought they were in a crowd suddenly feel alone, and they look into the gloom for one another and move closer together. Darkness took over that day, in those hours. Shouts of bravado that just moments ago would have roused audacious echoes now hung hollow in the still air. Those mockers that had stood close to the action at the foot of the cross now slid back into the crowd, and nervous fear could be seen in many eyes.

Lucifer was watching from the headquarters of darkness above, waiting impatiently to hurl darkness at the one who was the sum of all goodness and light upon the earth. That darkness would have to wait its turn in the gloom for three more hours. Even the carrion crows and the ravens hung in the air queuing up to eat, because it was the tradition to leave the bodies hanging on the crosses to rot. Lucifer was exhilarated with the absolute certainty of this impending triumph, and he desperately wanted to close this chapter, shut the book and throw it into the vast domain of refuse he had accumulated over his destructive existence. This was to be the treasure of his trash. His plan was to attack the mind of Jesus, that place in all of humanity which he had chosen as his battleground. He would attempt to wrench all hope from his heart and plunge him into despair, where he assumed that Jesus would have no way back into his hope or his faith, let alone his love.

There were Angels suspended within this pall of sadness that shrouded the desolation below. It was something like the tranquility of that first day of creation, when darkness covered the earth and The Three spoke light and life into existence. There was the same unmoving basin of profound energy poised to create all light, beauty and movement, into the darkness below.
So heaven waited in eternity and three hours of darkness passed on earth.

Lucifer shot himself like a dart into the one that hung between two criminals on a lonely plateau of the place of the Skull. The gigantic spirit of Jesus absorbed the full impact of Satan as all hell's hateful fury hit him, and as every vile thing ever done by countless millions of crippled hearts down through the ages and for the ages to come assailed his being. Thunder cracked and the earth began to shake. The magnitude of this kind of collision, the sum of all sin hitting the sum of all innocence, shakes all created things. Jesus felt that all hope of overcoming that bank of injustice was futile, but he hoped against all hope and steeled himself to go on. He then sensed what seemed like a swirling sea billowing somewhere beneath the faculties of his mind and will. The feeling clawed at him. It was the swirling sea of fear, and it came from the armory of Satan. The fear sought to pull him under but Jesus hoisted the banner of his faith above it and kept it flying there with absolute trust in his Father's love, while phantom images of horror assaulted his mind and imagination. His great spirit swallowed every vile accusation that Satan hurled at him, and he took them all into himself and locked them safely within the vault of his love. He owned it all. He had become the reservoir of all evil in one moment of time, and he was completely innocent of any one wrong deed.

He rallied his strength once more, but a missile of horror careened into him more powerfully and more deadly than anything before, sweeping over him and submerging him into an impotence and a canceling of all hope. But this was not from Lucifer, it was from his home in heaven. It was black and fathomless, nothingness. It was like annihilation, `This was the cup that he told Father he would accept. But he did not know it would be like this. He called out to Father.
“Father, Father, why have you forsaken me?”
He knew the answer to his question. He had become forsaken for a moment so that no living soul from this time on would ever have to feel forsaken by God again because of their human weakness. As he hung there he embraced the tragic weakness of humanity and touched the feelings of every human soul throughout all ages. The vast bank of love that filled heaven filled his heart and went out to a beloved humanity. He looked at the mocking faces standing round the cross and he loved them. He sent his voice into a waiting heaven and cried out.
“Father forgive them – they don’t know what they are doing.”
He had done it. It was finished. The Plan OF SALVATION could now be put into effect.

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

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

John 10:15… and I lay down My life for the sheep… 17. Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This command I have received from My Father.”
John 12:23 But Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.

At the moment of his death the cosmos convulsed. An earthquake tore a searing gash into the mountainside and people were toppled off their feet. Rocks split apart and the graves and tombs on a nearby hill cracked open. People ran in fear from the place, but they did not know where to go. At that moment there were priests in the temple about to sacrifice the Passover lamb. At the very moment that the knife pierced the sacrificial animal the priests were thrown off their feet by the earthquake. The temple shook as huge stones fell from the parapets and the great veil in the temple proper, which separated the place of God’s presence from the rest of the temple was lightning torn from top to bottom. The priests fled in panic as tempest swirled through the city.

Lucifer’s dark mind was being assaulted by a force he had not felt before. It was a desperate feeling of failure and futility. What was going wrong? Jesus was dying with a magnificent hope, not a dark and dreadful despair. The offering of Jesus’ spirit to Father God had released a tangible power into the universe. Lucifer turned to the three dark archons who always accompanied him and shouted. “Let's get out of here, something’s wrong.”

He tried to flee back into the darkness but a huge bolt of lightning from the throne room gathered him up and catapulted him downwards. He was traveling face down at a furious speed, and for a split second he thought he saw a burning lake beneath him. It struck him with horror, and he believed he must have imagined it. He was turned on his back and drawn up with the same speed into the darkness above, and then turned back onto his face as he found himself again being plummeted downwards.

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

Pilate had received a report that Jesus was dead but he wanted to confirm the certainty of this from the centurion whom he knew was there at the time. This was because Pilate had been told that someone from Arimathea, a man called Joseph, was making arrangements for the burial.
The Centurion confirmed all this and that this Joseph was a very wealthy man and wanted Jesus buried in his own tomb that had just been hewn out in a prestigious place in Jerusalem, practically in the temple itself. He told Pilate that some women followers had a shroud prepared and anointing oils and spices.

Pilate asked if Jesus had to be clubbed to death, and the Centurion said no, and explained that they we had to club the others, the ones who were tied, but not Jesus who was nailed, and that it was hardly surprising after the beating he was given. He told Pilate that Jesus died without them breaking one bone of his body.
Early the next day Pontius Pilate received a visit from the leaders of the temple priests and lawgivers who were anxious that the followers of Jesus might conspire to take his body from the tomb and try to fabricate a story that he had been resurrected, because they had heard that he had said he would come back to life after three days. They insisted that guards be placed at the tomb to prevent this from happening. Pilate advised them to appoint their own temple guards at the tomb, and they agreed to this.

So now we go from the cross to the grave.

The Prince of Darkness now realized that this man’s body, which had just been destroyed on Calvary had contained no fault or sin, and therefore could no longer be kept captive in this lower world. Jesus again recalled what had been written in the Psalms. You will not let my soul rest in the grave, you will not let your Holy One see destruction. (Psalm 16:10)

As Jesus hung on the cross and offered his spirit to his Father he felt his spirit being lifted up above his body. From there he saw the scene on Calvary and all the people standing around, still looking at his dead body hanging on the cross, and he saw the Centurion call for the lance. He also saw the bolt of lightning and Lucifer being caught in it and hurled downwards. He then began to travel downwards himself, and knew he was on a mission of great purpose. Below him was a place called Paradise, and next to Paradise was a place called Hades (Luke 16:19).

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

Lucifer had thought that all he had to do was get Jesus killed as a human being and Jesus would then be forever locked away from human life and from God life. When darkness entered our world at the fall of man human beings began to live spiritually separated in their minds from the Life of God (Ephesians 4:17). So Lucifer had laid claim to the ownership of physical death and spiritual separation of every human being. From that time of separation the Prince of darkness, the Prince of the power of the air, the god of this world, held sway over the minds of men (Ephesians 2:2). But death and spiritual separation could not demand payment for something it did not own. It did not own the perfection of the sinless life of the very virtue of God resident in Jesus’ body. The moment Jesus died a cosmic law of sin and death was overturned and became the cosmic law of the Spirit of life in Christ. To be continued…