Spiritcode

GOLGOTHA

GOLGOTHA Jesus had been sentenced to death by Pontius Pilate and then tortured and flogged by the cruel guards of King Herod, and finally commanded by Pilate to carry his cross to Calvary, or Golgotha, which means ‘the place of the Skull’. Pilate told a Centurion to arrange for an escort of guards around Jesus to escort him to the windswept hill. The heavy beam of the cross was placed 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 ordered that an inscription be written that read, “The King of the Jews”. Golgotha was near the busy city of Jerusalem and the signboard was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, so that many people could read it. An angry voice called out above the crowd “Who wrote that inscription? – it’s wrong”, and one of the temple priests protested that it should have said that ‘He said he was king of the Jews’. However, Pilate had made it very clear to everyone that he had written that inscription and it would stay as it was. A few paces further on Jesus staggered again but this time fell headlong to the ground. The Centurion could see blood flowing freely from Jesus now and he knew that he had to keep him on his feet. A burly lumbering man who by the look of his clothing was visiting from some other region, was close by Jesus as he stumbled forward. The Centurion called out to the man and told him to help Jesus carry the cross. The man from Cyrene did what he was told and took the beam and strode on into a journey that was to be immortalized in endless time. When the trek to Calvary was completed, it would take six full hours on Calvary for Jesus to die.

Mary the mother of Jesus stood on the flat terrain at the top of Golgotha along with her sister, the wife of Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene, and they were joined there by the disciple John, the other disciples having preferred to hang back from the crowd. Two criminals were already hanging on crosses either side of the hole where Jesus’ pole was to be fixed, but these two men were tied to their crosses, not nailed. Jesus was finally hoisted up and then the pole was crudely dumped into the hole prepared for it. 

When Jesus saw his mother standing there beside John, his close friend, he said to her, ‘Mother behold your son.’ And to John he said, ‘Son behold your mother’ And from that time on John took her into his home. Present amongst the growing crowd were some temple priests and other leaders of the Jews who jeered. “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?”

It was the custom for a soldier to push a sponge of sour wine and myrrh into the mouths of those being crucified, but when the soldier did that Jesus turned his face aside and refused the swab, and the man joined the other soldiers who were throwing dice to see who was going to keep Jesus’ robe. This fulfilled the Scripture that says, ‘They divided my clothes among them and cast lots for my robe.’(Psalm 22:18) 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, and he shouted out.  ‘So you’re the Messiah, are you? Prove it by saving yourself—and us, too, while you’re at it!’ But the man on the other side shouted at him angrily. “Don’t you even fear God when you are dying? We deserve to die for our evil deeds, but this man hasn’t done one wrong thing.” He then turned to Jesus and said. ‘Lord, will you remember me when you are in your mighty kingdom?’ Jesus turned his head and looked at him with love, saying “Today you are coming home with me to Paradise.” 

High noon surrendered to a deep darkness which remained for three full hours. Darkness took over that day, and in those last hours it put a stop to many things. Shouts of bravado that just moments ago would have roused bold echoes now hung hollow in the still air, and those mockers that had stood close to the action at the foot of the cross now slid back into the crowd. There were Angels suspended within this pall of sadness that shrouded the desolation below and Heaven waited in eternity as three hours of darkness passed on earth.

Then Satan shot himself like a dart into the one that hung between two criminals on a lonely plateau of the place of the Skull. The gigantic spirit of Jesus absorbed the full impact of Satan as all hell's hateful fury hit him, and as every vile thing ever done by countless millions of crippled hearts down through the ages and for the ages to come assailed his being. Thunder cracked and the earth began to shake. The magnitude of this kind of collision, the sum of all sin hitting the sum of all innocence, would shake all created things.  A swirling sea of fear sought to pull Jesus under, but he hoisted his faith above the fear with absolute trust in his Father's love, as he took every vile accusation that Satan hurled at him and locked them safely within that vault of perfect love. He owned it all, yet he was completely innocent of any wrong deed.

Another missile from Satan hit him. It was black and fathomless, nothingness. It was like annihilation. He was living out yet another prophetic fulfilment of Psalm 22 spoken by David over five hundred years before.  ‘My God My God why have you forsaken me?’(Psalm 22:1) The source of this horrific thought was not Father God. Darkness had assailed the human heart of Jesus, the Son of Man, of the lineage of David, and in an instant, Jesus knew the answer to his own question. He had not been forsaken by his Father, but in his humanity, he had experienced forsakenness for a moment, so that no living soul from this time on would ever have to feel forsaken by God again because of their human weakness.  As he hung there, he embraced the tragic weakness of humanity and touched the feelings of forsakenness for every human soul throughout all ages.

The vast bank of love and compassion that filled heaven filled his heart and went out to a beloved humanity. He looked at the mocking faces out there in the crowd and he loved them. He sent his voice into a waiting heaven and cried out. ‘Father, forgive them – they don’t know what they are doing.’ He had done it. It was finished.

The Plan of Salvation could now be put into effect. Jesus had something more to say but his throat felt parched, and he wanted to speak with strength. ‘I'm thirsty,’ he gasped, fulfilling yet another Scripture (Psalm 69:21). ‘and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.’ The Centurion ordered a soldier to give Jesus the vinegar/wine sponge, and then Jesus spoke out in a loud voice ‘Father into your hands I now offer my Spirit.’ Then in one last gasp he said for all to hear. ‘It is finished!’ Then he died. And he and we were placed securely in The Father's loving hands.

The Jewish leaders didn’t want the victims hanging there the next day, which was the Sabbath (and a very special Sabbath at that, for it was the Passover) - so the soldiers came and broke the legs of the two men crucified with Jesus to quicken their deaths in order to take their bodies down. But when they came to Jesus they didn’t break his legs because they saw that he was dead already.  However, to make sure that he was truly dead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and blood and water flowed out. The soldiers did this in fulfillment of yet two more of the prophetic Scriptures from Psalm 22 that say, “Not one of his bones shall be broken,” and, “They shall look on him whom they pierced.”

Who brought about the death of Jesus? Was it His Father, The Jews, The Romans, our sin? All of these played very significant parts, and there are Scriptures for each of their roles. But it was finally Jesus who said these words.  John 10:17…I lay down my life for my sheep - I lay down My life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This command I have received from My Father.” At the moment of his death the cosmos convulsed.

An earthquake tore a searing gash into the mountainside and people were toppled off their feet. Rocks split apart and the graves and tombs on a nearby hill cracked open. People ran in fear from the place, but they did not know where to go.  At that moment there were priests in the temple about to sacrifice the Passover lamb, and when their knife pierced that sacrificial animal the true Lamb of God offered himself on Calvary as the final sacrifice for all sin. The priests were thrown off their feet by the earthquake and the temple shook as huge stones fell from the parapets. The great veil in the temple proper, which separated the place of God’s presence in the holy place from the rest of the temple was lightning torn from top to bottom. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, ‘Truly this was the Son of God!’

When that veil was torn it signified that Christ as both man and God had done away with the separation of mankind from God symbolised by the veil in the temple worship, but this opening of the veil had also done away with the separation of mankind from God in all the earth. He had gone ahead for all of us to so that we could live in his abiding presence. We can now have faith to come confidently into this holy place in our own hearts because of his mercy upon our imperfect humanity and we can receive the power of his life within us to do what is right and pleasing to God.  The veil that was torn when Jesus died on the cross was the awesome declaration of the certain hope that we can live in his presence at all times, behind that veil of separation.

Jesus was without sin because he trusted his Father with all his heart to fulfill his own heart’s desires. His human desires which are common to us all were subdued by his higher heartfelt Godly desire and so they did not conceive and give birth to sin, and therefore did not bring forth death (James 1:15). The moment Jesus died the law of sin and death was being overturned to make way for a new spiritual law to come into effect - the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and that spiritual law did not exist in the Garden of Eden. It would occur only after the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and the sending of the Holy Spirit to give us the risen life of Jesus within, and to give us a new heart of compassion like his own. Our hearts can now be fulfilled with a new desire that freely chooses to fulfill the desires of God’s heart.

Passover Feast

PASSOVER FEAST 
Ever since Jesus had become the main attraction at the feast of tabernacles and proclaimed himself as the fountain of living water many of the Jews believed that he was the One - the Christ - the Rock from which flowed the water of life for Israel. From that time on and right up to the feast of Passover the healings and miracles and wisdom words of Jesus became more and more awe-inspiring - and just weeks before Passover Jesus worked the miracle of miracles - raising a man called Lazarus from the dead. So, the chief rulers of the Jews had a problem on their hands - what were they going to do with Jesus? they thought he might even decide to rule over Jerusalem and keep on bringing the Scriptures to life, working miracles like feeding hungry multitudes and raising people from the dead. They knew the people wanted this and these rulers were getting desperate. 
John 11:47 The chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “It is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.” He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Nation of Israel including all that had been dispersed abroad.

Some days before Passover began Jesus came down from the mount of olives with his disciples to Bethany to attend a banquet to celebrate that miracle resurrection of Lazarus - and Jerusalem was a hive of activity. We read now from John 12:1 

John 12:1 Six days before the Passover ceremonies began, Jesus arrived in Bethany where Lazarus was—the man he had brought back to life, and a banquet was prepared to honour Jesus. Martha served, and Lazarus sat at the table with him. Then Mary took a jar of costly perfume made from spikenard, and anointed Jesus’ feet with it and wiped them with her hair… 9. Many of the Jews heard that Jesus was in Bethany (a half hour walk from Jerusalem) and they flocked to see him and also to see Lazarus—the man who had come back to life again. Then the chief priests decided to kill Lazarus too, for it was because of him that many of the Jewish leaders had deserted and believed in Jesus as their Messiah.

After that banquet Jesus arranged for his disciples to have a donkey ready for him to ride into Jerusalem on the day that we call Palm Sunday, the beginning of Passover week, and crowds of Jews from all over the empire we're gathering for the feast. They stood on the roadside in their thousands as he rode into Jerusalem, and they welcomed him as their prophet, the miracle worker, and they proclaimed him as the king of the Jews shouting ‘hosanna’ and casting palm leaves on the ground before him. 

Later that day Jesus went to the temple and into the court of the gentiles, a large outer area where there were tables set up for the money changers to sell birds and and animals for the people to offer sacrifices on the altar. These money changers were charging extortionate prices for their sacrificial birds and animals especially to those who were coming from other areas of the Middle East and Asia, and Jesus became indignant at this. He threw over the tables of the money changers and rebuked them for turning his Father's house - The House of prayer - into a den of thieves.
At this show of power many in the crowd that stood about watching and listening to him expected a further show of power from Jesus - surely this was the time for him to start his Kingdom. But they would be disappointed, because Jesus was not going to start an earthly Kingdom - Jesus was on a path to the establishing of his heavenly Kingdom with a far greater demonstration of such great power that the whole cosmos would be shaken by it. 
After that encounter Jesus took the twelve aside, and he said he wanted to share the Passover meal with them that evening - that was the Thursday of Passover week. he told two of them to make preparations in an upper room for the event and for the others to go off and spend some time in prayer while he would go off and pray by himself. He arranged for them to meet him back here at the fountain in the square.

The Passover meal was not just a meal but a series of meals interspersed with pauses for reflection and readings from the scriptures in remembrance of the event of Moses bringing the nation of Israel out of their slavery from Egypt after one of the meals where they ate roasted lamb and bitter herbs Jesus stood up and went over to one of the huge bathing bowls and he took off his outer robe and wrapped a large towel around himself and he called the disciples to come over to him. He told them he wanted to wash their feet and so they walked hesitatingly towards him. He began to wash their feet and when he came to Peter to wash his feet Peter protested and said ‘no master you will not wash my feet’ but Jesus reproved Peter. 
Jesus had just told them that those that would have authority in his Kingdom would have to become servants not lord their authority over people like the Gentiles did, and now he was saying to Peter ‘if you think I have authority with you then you let me be your servant and you will let me serve you by washing your feet, otherwise you're saying you don't recognise my authority and you don't want to be part of what I'm doing.’ 
Peter stood humbly in front of Jesus and said ‘please Lord wash my feet but not just my feet but my hands in my head as well’ Jesus had to explain to Peter that it was just his feet in the bowl and nothing else. He told Peter that he was clean inside and out except for his feet just as were all the others except for one of them. He the sat them down and asked for the bread and wine to be served, and he said, ‘One of you will betray me’.

They were all overwhelmed and distressed by what he said so they began to ask him one by one ‘is it me master?’ But John knew the depth of love that he himself had for Jesus and he didn't even question his own heart, so he simply asked Jesus ‘who is it Lord?’ and Jesus said ‘the one who dips his bread with me into the soup’ and at that very moment Judas had his bread in the soup along with the bread in the hand of Jesus. 
Jesus let the moment of emotion and confusion pass and then Judas, feeling safe, said ‘Is it me Lord?’ Jesus replied to Judas ‘you said it’ and then he handed his bread to Judas and said to him ‘go and do what you have to do.’ Judas got up and grabbed the money bag and strode out and the other disciples supposed that he had received instructions from the master concerning feeding the poor.

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

The feast had come to an end, and he stood and then they all stood and moved close together, drinking in the beauty and wonder the moment that they had shared with him and knowing that they would be coming together to share this moment together without him and yet with him time and time again. He asked them to come with him to a garden near the olive Grove, where he said he wanted them to pray with him and he spoke to them again. 
“In a few hours the temple leaders will arrest me, and I will be put on trial. After my arrest you will all become terrified and desert me, but it will fulfill the Scripture which says that when the shepherd is struck the sheep will run in all directions.” 
Peter protested, “Even if everyone else deserts you I will never run”. (Matthew 26:34)
Those empty words of Peter’s resulted in his denying the Lord three times. James and the others joined in with their empty protests and indeed they ran in all directions. 
Jesus then spoke his words of total and loving commitment to them and to all of us. 
John 13:34 ‘I am giving a new commandment to you now—love each other just as much as I love you. Your strong love for each other will prove to the world that you are my disciples.
When we can believe in the totally committed love of Jesus for us and we can accept our imperfect selves as being loved with so much compassion, we can then allow that love and compassion to flow out from us into the imperfect lives of the people in our personal world.

 

Rock of Ages

ROCK OF AGES

There were three main ceremonial feast days that Israel celebrated every year. The first was the feast of Passover, commemorating Israel’s miraculous escape from Egypt. Each family had to sacrifice a firstborn lamb of their flocks and sprinkle the blood of the Lamb on the door posts of their houses, and the angel of death passed over the houses of the Israelites, while the firstborn of the males of the families of the Egyptians was slain. The second feast was that of Pentecost, fifty days after Passover, and this Feast celebrated the barley harvest.
The feast of Tabernacles was the third and final feast of the year, and it was the feast that celebrated the presence of God with his people, and it took the form of a festival of joy and unity and thanksgiving. There was a closing ceremony on the seventh day of the feast and the main feature was when the priest invited people to draw of the water from a golden bowl. 
That ceremony commemorated the miracle of the living water that God provided for them when Moses struck the Rock at Mount Horeb in the wilderness.

Exodus 17:1… There was no water for the people to drink... and they complained against Moses. And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Take in your hand your rod with which you struck the river. I will stand before you there on the rock between you and Mount Sinai; and you will strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may have water.” So he called the name of the place Massah (testing) and Meribah (discontent), because they tempted the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord’s presence among us or not?”  

That was the real test and the real complaint! They had thought that the presence of God was not amongst them because they were without water. Our human heart is tempted to believe that suffering loss or being deprived means that God has abandoned us. God was teaching Israel to learn to trust that his presence was always with them, so he provided for them by miraculously providing water from the rock. Paul writes about this in Corinthians.
1Corinthians 10:3 They all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. 
11. all these things happened to them as examples for us, written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. 
‘That Rock was Christ’. (The Rock of Ages - then and now and the ages to come)

God gave them supernatural living water from the rock for their physical thirst. 
Jesus as our rock gives us the living water of his presence for our spiritual thirst. 

Jesus made a spectacular appearance at the Feast of Tabernacles in that final year of his ministry. The Feast of Passover was the next feast after Tabernacles, about four months away, and his ministry had recently been more out in the open and the opposition and antagonism towards him was growing.
Jesus was staying in Galilee with his family at the time when they were all preparing to go to the feast of Tabernacles. His brothers were becoming confused and impatient with him because of his apparent lack of initiative in ramping up on miracles and healings in the surrounding area. They goaded him by demanding that he do something spectacular at the feast, telling him that it would be his chance to show the people who he really was, but Jesus told his brothers to go on ahead without him seeming to imply that he wasn’t  even going to the feast. However, Jesus had planned to go to the feast for a very special reason, but he wanted to go there in secret and to avoid the crowds till he was ready, so he took the back roads to the temple at Jerusalem.  

On his way to the temple, he would have passed many hundreds of tents camped upon the hillsides because thousands of people gathered on these hills for the week of the feast. He arrived in Jerusalem on the fourth day of the feast and went to the temple and began teaching and discussing Scripture and answering questions from the people, who were amazed and astonished at his teaching. Whenever Jesus stood to speak the crowds would gather to listen. They asked one another how he could have unfolded the Scriptures to them the way he did when he had not been formally taught.

At this Festival People danced and sang as the water drawing ceremonies and rituals were acted out each morning. Women would get water from the surrounding springs and wells in their pitchers and take them up to the temple singing with the men and the children from Isaiah 12:13 ‘Therefore with joy you shall draw water out of the well of salvation’.

On the seventh day of the feast, the Great Day of the feast, as the huge golden water bowl was carried by the people up the temple steps, the enormous crowd stood around watching and cheering, amidst the trumpet blasts sounding out. This was the consecration ceremony of the sacred water, the high point of the feast.

At the top of the temple steps was a special altar with a priest selected by the Sadducees, waiting for the big moment to arrive. When the bowl was presented to him he would raise his hand to indicate that the call was about to be made for people to ‘Come, drink of the water’. 

This would have been the moment, when the priest raised his hand, that Jesus would have stood at the temple steps in front of the crowd, who had eager ears for what he would say. 
John 7:37 On that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink, he who believes in Me. As the Scripture has said, Out of His heart will flow rivers of living water. He was speaking of the Holy Spirit’ Jesus saying this at that particular time in front of all the Jewish pilgrims from all over the Middle East and Asia Minor and Greece would have hit their ears like a thunderclap. 

Division and argument broke out amongst the crowd. Many in the crowd said, ‘This is The Prophet’ while others said, ‘This is The Christ’, while others said ‘Would The Christ ever come out of Galilee?’ 
The Pharisees and Sadducees were furious – calling on the temple police to stop him and arrest him but they couldn’t take hold of him. The officers came back and said ‘we couldn’t arrest him and besides, no man has ever spoken like this before.’
Nicodemus, who had earlier on in Jesus’ ministry come to him in secret to question him about the Kingdom of God, now publicly defended Jesus saying that the Law couldn’t judge unless people have heard what the man has to say. Jesus alone knew that it was planned for him by the Father to proclaim himself as the Rock that gave forth the living water of his presence at this feast. 
Jesus had turned their historic feast into a proclamation of their (and our) salvation, our present faith, and our future hope, an astounding fulfillment of prophecy. Here is Jesus at the end of his ministry saying he was the source of that Living Water, just as he was the bread, the true manna from Heaven that fed them in the wilderness, just as he was The Rock from where the water flowed. Jesus alone knew also that the time was almost upon him to become the sacrificial Lamb of God for humanity at the approaching feast of Passover. And he was the presence that was always with them.

The problem for Israel in the wilderness was the constant complaint of ‘Is the Lord’s presence among us or not?’ 
but God kept showing up for them time after time. It can be the same with us. That is why Jesus was so emphatic that he is always with us, like the Rock that was always with them, following them in the wilderness.
Our soul can feel dried up at times when we sense a lack of motivation or even meaning in the things that happen to us. It is at these times that we set aside time in his presence, keeping our mind upon drawing the energy and inspiration from him as our strength, our rock of Ages to give meaning to everything that we do.
Isaiah 26:3 You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock. 
(olam sûr – which means ‘The Rock of Ages’). 

 

The Walls of Jericho

THE WALLS OF JERICHO 
Today we are looking at the story of Joshua leading Israel in the defeat of the city of Jericho, where the walls of the city fell down as the priests and soldiers marched around the city for seven days with the priests carrying the ark of the presence of God. 
From the moment that God commissioned Moses to take Israel out of their captivity to Pharaoh in Egypt and to lead them though the wilderness and into the Promised Land, it was the power of the presence of God with them that prevailed for them.
When God first told Moses to do this work, he said to Moses "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. Then Moses said to Him, "If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here. For how then will it be known that Your people and I have found grace in Your sight, except You go with us? (Exodus 33:14).

God’s presence was with Israel in every situation of their forty-year wilderness journey in an outward demonstration of God’s supernatural power. God’s presence was seen in the cloud that followed them during the day, and the pillar of fire over them at night. There was the manna that fell from heaven to feed them. The presence of God resided in the ark of the covenant that was carried by the priests though the wilderness and placed in the tabernacle every time they set up camp (forty two times). There was the tent of meeting that Moses erected for himself - to go outside from the camp and meet with God in his presence where God would speak with him. 
Moses died at the end of that forty years journey and Joshua had to lead Israel into the Promised Land across the flooded river Jordan. God miraculously held back the waters of the river Jordan when the priests stepped into the flooded river bearing the ark of God’s presence just before arriving at Jericho. The people of Jericho would have been terrified by the sight of over two million Israelites with thousands of head of cattle creating an enormous cloud of dust that would have been visible from afar as they slowly advanced. The Bible tells us that all these instances of the outward power of God’s presence on that wilderness journey in those days were examples for us to learn from for living in his presence today.
1Corinthians 10:11 Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were lessons for us, written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the age has come.
Jericho was the first obstacle in their way to going in and fully possessing the Land and it had to be conquered. They were told that Jericho had to be devoted to God as holy ground, and the Lord spoke to Joshua about this outside the city walls.
Joshua 5:13 Then Joshua fell with his face to the ground and worshipped. Then he said, ‘What does my Lord wish to say to His servant?’ The LORD said to Joshua, ‘Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.’ 

Then God gave Joshua his marching orders for Jericho.
Joshua 6:2 the Lord said to Joshua, "Jericho and its king and all its mighty warriors are already defeated, for I have given them to you! Your entire army is to walk around the city once a day for six days, followed by seven priests walking ahead of the Ark, each carrying a trumpet made from a ram's horn. On the seventh day you are to walk around the city seven times, with the priests blowing their trumpets. Then, when they give one long, loud blast, all the people are to give a mighty shout, and the walls of the city will fall down; then move in upon the city from every direction."
Jericho was the fertile oasis of all oases and had outer walls 2 metres thick and 5 metres high plus one tower, and inside the outer walls were higher fortification walls that surrounded the busy city.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
Those walls have spiritual meaning for us today. They represent the walls of self-protection that we spend years building around our hearts by either not realizing the Holy Spirit’s work in our hearts or by resisting his work in our hearts. His work never ceases to create in us a new heart that knows the love of God, a heart that believes in the work of Jesus, and a heart that chooses to do the will of the Father.
Just as Jericho behind those walls had to become holy ground so also do our hearts. God also made a decree that the walls of Jericho were never to be rebuilt – and they never were! (Joshua 6:26). This work of God in re-grounding our hearts is a day after day process of keeping our hearts centred in the presence of God, just as the battle of Jericho was a day after day strategic discipline of carrying the power of the presence of God around the walls of the city. Day after day nothing appeared to happen until on that seventh day when God was ready to go into action and miraculously collapse the walls.
His work is to collapse the walls – our work is to be present to his presence – result is an ever-expanding growth in faith. Presence awareness is NOT an idle stillness.

The number seven features significantly in this story and is symbolic of the completion and fulness of God’s purposes in the earth, and that includes God’s desire to do a complete work of healing and transformation in our hearts. Our strategic discipline is also about practising the presence of God without trying to make God do anything, but by having faith and patience for a complete work of God in bringing down the walls of self-protection around our hearts that we have built over the years. We have added more and more bricks to our Jericho wall of self-protection each time our heart has suffered rejection or been misunderstood or felt mistreated in any way. We also put up a wall when we allow negative imaginations to inflame our defence mechanisms, and the Bible tells us to ‘cast down imaginations and every barrier (hypsoma – wall) that exalts itself against the knowledge of God’ (2Corinthians 10:5). 
Our heart is God’s holy ground because he created our heart to be protected and fulfilled by his love. It is the fertile oasis of all spiritual oases; it is his dwelling place.

As we set aside time to let his presence surround and penetrate our hearts, we create space for him to occupy that holy ground of our hearts and for its brokenness to be healed. It may seem like nothing is happening during those times of being present, but his Spirit occupies more territory each passing moment. And when we invite the feelings of hurt and brokenness into that place that he now shares with us, that becomes the brick-by-brick removal of our Jericho wall of self-defence. A new wall gets built around our hearts – the wall of faith and hope in his healing love. 

When we consider the outcome for Israel in their conquest of Jericho, we see that this was the first major obstacle to be overcome for them to go in and finally possess their inheritance, the Promised Land. But that was not the final obstacle of Israel’s taking of the Promised Land. In fact, it was just the beginning. There were seven major tribal nations to do battle with before they could establish Jerusalem, speaking of the fullness of darkness and corruption and sin and idolatry that was out there trying to overcome them, and in many ways it did. But to those who remained faithful, the conquest of Jericho had grounded them in confidence that the word of God and his presence was always with them to guard their hearts and bring them back into his will. 

The same applies to us today, because our inheritance, which is the fulness of the life of Christ within us will continue to present its challenges as we commit to live in light and truth. That pursuit brings us into a contending with the powers of darkness, or contention with people who do not welcome the light or who could wish us harm. But with a conquered ‘walls of Jericho’ experience we can have faith to find grace and live out from a ‘holy grounding’ of God’s work within us and through us and around us.

 

God’s Intercession

GODS INTERCESSION 
The three persons of the Trinity have always been totally fulfilled in love and purpose as the Three in One God, and through Jesus we have been invited into this loving communion of agreement and purpose.
1John 5:7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. (KJV)
Their love for one another as the three persons of the Trinity was a mutual giving and serving and sharing with one another throughout eternity. We can now become part of that mutual giving and serving and sharing in our here and now life on earth.
There is a word that is used in the Bible that means being in personal conference where things are agreed upon and acted upon. That word is intercession (entygchan??).
We see that word highlighted in the Scriptures concerning our prayer in finding God’s will in our lives through the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 

Romans 8:25 The Spirit helps in our weakness for we do not know what we should pray for as we should, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession (hyperentygchano) for us with groanings without words. Now He who searches the hearts (Jesus) knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He (Jesus) makes intercession (entygchano) for the saints (us) according to the will of God (The Father). (Note the different Greek words for intercession)

The reason we do not know what to pray for as we should is that we do not know the full intention that God has for us in our circumstances, and his intention is always the best intention, whether our prayer is for our own need or for someone else. We will have our intention, but we will always feel inadequate about how to achieve it - and that is why we come to God in prayer in the first place, otherwise we would sort everything out for ourselves. 
We accept that God knows best, and we respect the fact that only he can answer our prayer perfectly, so how do we articulate it perfectly? 
Well, what if there was one person of the Trinity that had a way to take that burden of uncertainty and helplessness? That is the work of the Holy Spirit interceding for us,
longing to take on that emotional distress and the groaning of our soul and articulate it in the Spirit to another Person of the Godhead – Jesus. 
‘The Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings without words.’
When the Holy Spirit shares with Jesus the burden that he has for us, Jesus becomes creatively involved in our prayer.
The Bible says that Jesus, who searches the hearts of humanity and who knows what the mind of the Spirit is, carries that prayer to the Father for his will to be done for his children.  
So here we see that Jesus knows the heart of humanity and the heart of the Father and the mind of the Spirit – so he stands in the middle. The Bible says that He (Jesus) makes intercession for the saints (us) according to the will of God (The Father).
This is what I call ‘Presence Prayer’ – us together in a ‘prayer huddle’ with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

We now see that there are two intercessors in this prayer. The Holy Spirit is the first one who intervenes and initiates the intercession for us in our emotional neediness, doing the emotional heavy lifting for us. 
And then there is Jesus who stands in the middle and takes the Holy Spirit’s prayer and mediates for us, his brothers and sisters, the Father’s sons and daughters. He carries the prayer for the lowly heart of humanity to the loving heart of the Father. As we have already seen, the word for the intercession of Jesus is slightly different to the word for the interceding of the Holy Spirit. The interceding of Jesus is the word entygchano, which means carrying the prayer and mediating with the Father on our behalf.
The interceding of the Holy Spirit is the word hyperentygchano. where there is an added emphasis in the word ‘hyper’ indicating that Holy Spirit intervenes with a fervour in carrying the burden of our emotional distress - and articulating that to Jesus on our behalf. 
The Holy Spirit does one thing and Jesus does another thing. 
The Father then does his loving goodwill for his child and reorders our circumstances.
We see that in the next verse that says ‘and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are invited to be partakers of his purposes. (Romans 8:28)’

As we see just a few verses down, the Bible makes further mention of the intercessory mediating ministry of Jesus.
‘Christ Jesus is the one who died - more than that, who was raised - who is indeed interceding for us at the right hand of God’ vs.34.
The mediation mentioned there is outside of specific focussed prayer. It happens in our daily walk of life with Jesus. It is for any time that we can become conscious of his healing care for our souls. That is also presence prayer but in another context. It is what Jesus meant when he said, ‘you should always pray and not lose heart’ (Luke 18:1, Jude – praying always in the spirit)

We are always connected to the flowing together with the Father and Jesus and Holy Spirit. We are always the fourth one being personally included in their communion of Kingdom purposes in the earth for us. They want us to know what to do and how to do it.
Holy Spirit is always the comforter and the one who fills our hearts with the love of the Father and of Jesus. He has always been the love shedder and the love spreader. He leads us into the truth about Jesus and he teaches us from that truth.
Jesus is always the healer and saviour and mediator. He conquers the enemy for us and shares his place with the Father with us.
Father is always the one who so loved the world that he sent his only Son - and The Father plans your life ahead for you. Remember, Father’s love for you is as great as it is for Jesus (John 17). See yourself as part of their communion of love. You are not an outsider; you are an insider. We begin to live like we are there for God and God is there for us. 
It is good to sit and be still – Be still and know that I am God (Psalm 46)
In that place of presence, you can be conscious of Holy Spirit bringing the love of the Father and of Jesus to you, and simply receive that and be rested and given peace.
You can be conscious of receiving Father’s provision for your material needs just as he clothes the lilies of the field. 
You can receive the wisdom of the mind of Christ and receive creative faith through a living word from him. Every moment in his presence is as powerful as the moment that he spoke creation into being. This is the way to be in a place of readiness in the spirit and to respond to the many things that are coming upon us so rapidly in these days, and this is the best way I know how for us to remain centred in the will of God.

The King David Legacy

THE KING DAVID LEGACY 

King David was the Old Testament person that could most be compared with Jesus in his heart attitude towards God and in his awareness of his own soul. The Bible says he had a heart after God’s own heart (1Samuel 13:14, Acts 13:22). Jesus was called in the Bible ‘The son of David’ (Matthew 12, Matthew 15, Matthew 21, and many other times).

Of all the people in the Old Testament David had about the deepest understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit. It was almost as if he was having a peek into the new Covenant experience of being joined to the Lord in his Spirit. He said things like ‘create in me a clean heart O’ God and renew a right spirit within me’. He did indeed have more Holy Spirit anointings than anyone else, the anointing of a king and the anointing of a prophet. David also did something quite outside tradition when it comes to the Holy Spirit priestly anointing. Only the high priest could wear the priestly garment called the ephod which priests wore when praying to God on behalf of all of Israel, but David once requested the ephod from the priest Abiathar, and he wore the ephod to enquire of the Lord at a critical time when Saul was waging war against him. God heard David’s priestly prayer and Saul was defeated (1Samuel 23). Jesus was the only other King, Priest and Prophet (and this is also our legacy).

David understood that a true fear of God was not the thought of God watching us in a threatening way that made us want to hide and feel nothing but guilt for our sinfulness. In fact, he knew that the true fear of God was a fear of being separated from him. He trusted in the loving forgiveness and mercy of God and he knew that the only place of safety and freedom for his soul was being in God’s presence, as close to him as he could possibly be.
Psalm 51.11 cast me not away from your presence O Lord and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit.
He had the true picture of God in his sights and he declared that to God in such a graphic manner. He said to God ‘ You know when I sit or stand. you know my every thought. You chart the path ahead of me and tell me where to stop and rest. Every moment you know where I am. You know what I am going to say before I even say it. I can never be lost to your Spirit! I can never get away from you my God! If I ride the morning winds to the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide me, your strength will support me. If I try to hide in the darkness, the night becomes light around me. For even darkness cannot hide from you. (Psalm 139.1-10) 

While David is the person that the Old and the New Testament Scriptures most likened to Jesus in mind and heart, we could also see that he is the one that we in our humanity can most relate to in the workings of our own minds and hearts. 
We could even put ourselves in the picture with David in Psalm thirty-two, as in a very humble and honest way he lets us in on his personal struggles and the stresses he had experienced in his soul and even in his body - and how wonderfully God comforted and strengthened him with love and forgiveness. David shares with us in that Psalm about his soul, how he felt like he had let God down and let himself down. He also shares the experience of God’s deep healing of his soul when he comes into the place of prayer in the refuge of God’s presence. 

1 Count yourself blessed about how happy you must be when you get a fresh start, your slate's wiped clean.
2 Count yourself blessed about how GOD holds nothing against you and you're holding nothing back from him.
3 When I kept it all inside, my bones dried out like powder and my words became groaning all day long. 
4 The pressure never let up; draining the sap of life out of me.
5 Then I let it all out to God; I said, "I'll make a clean breast of my failures to GOD."  Suddenly the pressure was gone - my guilt dissolved, my sin disappeared. 
6 These things add up. Every one of us needs to pray; when all hell breaks loose and the dam bursts we'll be on high ground, untouched.
7 GOD is my island refuge, keeping danger far from the shore, throwing garlands of hosannas around my neck.
8 He gave me some good advice saying; I'm looking you in the eye and giving it to you straight:
9 Don't be resistant like a horse or mule that needs a bit and bridle to stay on track."
10 God-defiers are always in trouble; GOD-affirmers find themselves loved every time they turn around. 
11 Sing together, everyone! All you faithful and open-hearted people and be joyful.

He discloses to us in this Psalm that he had been brooding about himself instead of getting his eyes upon the Lord, but he recalls the truth of what he knows he believes in and decides to hold nothing back from God and he immediately realises that God would hold nothing back from him. 
Psalm 46:6 Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!
He admits that his wrong thinking had tortured his poor soul, but now his right thinking about God’s love and forgiveness allows change. God looks right into his eyes and into his heart and offers forgiveness and mercy and tells him to draw close and to stay close, while David’s guilt and sin disappears. David tells us quietly and firmly to stay close to God and not to be resistant to the powerful presence of God. 
God has been with us throughout every moment of our lives, wherever we went and whatever we did, just as David discovered. And Holy Spirit is here with us now - having felt every personal hurt and pain that we have felt – He has felt that with us as he did with Jesus. 
And Holy Spirit take us from those past moments into the present moment of faith and brings God’s love and healing to that pain and brokenness. 
Holy Spirit overrides time and if we learn to be still and know his nearness like David did we discover that the present moment is the most powerful moment in our lives. That is when and where God acts upon our soul; instead of the past circumstances acting upon it. Every moment is a present supernatural transforming moment of God’s new hope for us, it’s always a new beginning. God is present, his power and love are present, but we must be present to that reality. That is why we practice presence, because that is where and when God is present.
When King David gave his heart and mind to God this way he was able to do the things God wanted him to do, and when we give ourselves to God this way, we find grace to do the things that God wants us to do. 

 

Body Soul and Spirit Awareness

BODY SOUL AND SPIRIT AWARENESS 

God uses the number three to depict his wonderful creative design in many things in the Bible – The number three speaks of perfect order and design and perfect unity and function. We see this in the Three in One Trinity of Father Son and Holy Spirit, symbolised in the Bible in the order of our cosmos of Sun, Moon and stars. We see it in Noah’s Ark of salvation in the upper, middle, and lower decks. We see it in the eternal expression of his nature in Faith Hope and Love. And today we will be looking at his perfect design of humanity in Body, Soul, and Spirit. 

1Thessalonians 5:23 Now may the God of peace himself (peace - Eirene – oneness and harmonising) sanctify you (set you apart – re-purposed, re-designate) completely (to reach the end goal) and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord. He who calls (invites) you is faithful; he will surely do it. 
That is a great prayer and a great promise about what God wants to do in us.

HUMAN CREATION
Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground (Body) and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (Spirit life); and man became a living soul.
In the first instance of human creation the body came first from the dust of the ground then the spirit of life and then the soul or inner life which had to become formed throughout a person’s life. In the generations that follow Adam and Eve the body gets passed on in seed and egg form along with a latent soul. The soul is the thinking, feeling, determining inner life with potential formation. The spirit life is created in the image of God and bequeathed to each individual life (designated to be joined to God’s Spirit).
And God said ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’ (Genesis 1:26) 

THE BODY – HOW AWARE?
People of all cultures have always understood that there was an outer life of bodily activities and an inner life of thinking and feelings and choosing, and that these were distinct and yet somehow, they merged together and affected each other - inner thoughts and feelings affect bodily sensations and bodily sensations affect inner feelings and decisions. Only the Scriptures speak with authority about this truth concerning the harmony of our whole being as God’s creation. 
With Jesus a human body was passed on through his mother, but the seed of spiritual life came directly from Heaven and a perfect human soul was formed by his loving obedience to his Father – a perfect pattern for our New Creation life.

Hebrews 10:5 when Christ came into the world, he said … a body have you prepared for me, for I have come to do your will, O God
Jesus didn’t come just to know the will of God in his inner life but to do the will of God in his body.  
Mark 1:41 Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him ‘I am willing; be cleansed.’ (compassion = splagchnon- spleen)
His inner heart life felt the compassion and his bodily senses felt this too (spleen) then his hands reached out and touched and healed.
Christianity also pays vital attention to the significance of the body in relationship to being - and doing - serving God and one another in the will of God. 
Paul says the way to serve God and worship him is let our bodies express his good and acceptable and perfect will of God (Romans 12:2)
Paul said, ‘It is no longer I that live but it is Christ that lives in me and the life I now live in the body I live in the Son of God by faith.’ (Galatians 2:20)

THE SOUL (Greek - psyche). VERY AWARE!
The soul is the will, the emotions, and the mind. The soul is created in potential form in each individual to form the character of the soul. Our soul suffers throughout life in the challenging journey of character formation 
The will and the thoughts and emotions also link the soul to the body through bodily sensations when we choose to bring awareness to them. Just consider in your own experience how much your emotionally charged thoughts and stresses impact the state of your body and think about how the stresses upon your body affect the state of your soul in your thoughts and emotions and your will. 
Jesus spoke about the weariness of the suffering soul and the burdens that weigh it down. ‘Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Be yoked and let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. (Matthew 11:28)
This suffering is created by humanity’s mindset of separation from God – the original missing of the mark (the original sin) When Adam and Eve chose to not trust God but to do their own will instead of being yoked with God in doing his will together with him.
When we respond to his invitation of ‘come to me’ we embark on a lifetime journey for the soul, a journey of the transformation and healing (saving) of the soul through the Holy Spirit. (1Peter 1:9)
This new way of living was not available in the Old Testament. The only way that God could bring any change of the soul to Israel was through the work of the Law and the Ten Commandments (Psalm 19 - The Law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul). 

THE SPIRIT – BECOME AWARE!

Our spirit (Greek = pneuma) is our essential being. It is our unique identity like a spiritual fingerprint. It is the seed that contains the potential for our future temperament and gifting and personality. It is God’s original idea of who we are created to be, but we impose our flawed and deficient idea of who we are (our identity) upon our own soul. those ideas come from what is reflected to us from other people or from our own imaging instead of from God – and that causes much suffering for the soul.

We have been joined in our spirit to the Spirit of life of a loving Father God through Jesus who heals our souls through the love that flows to us from the Holy Spirit. Jesus sowed his Spirit life as a seed into humanity through his death and resurrection, and by the sending of the Holy Spirit from Heaven into the earth on the day of Pentecost.

THE MIRACLE OF RECONCILIATION
2Corinthians 5:18 Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, which is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not charging their sins against them, and has committed to us this word of reconciliation.

The word used for reconciliation here is katalasso, which means ‘a mutual changing of two different yet similar things into an entirely new entity’ (Strong’s Concordance) 
Katalasso is a combination of two words – Kata and allasso
Kata denotes the qualities of intensity and of exceeding. 
Allasso means ‘the mutual transformative exchange of two things to create a new thing’ 
Let us look at the spiritual equation of katalasso,
God in Christ + Humanity + catalyst of forgiveness/love/mercy = A New Creation.
God was eternally changed from pure Spirit Being into Human Spirit being in the incarnation of Jesus as a New Creation.
Humanity was eternally changed from mere human being into ‘God with us humanity’ in the death and resurrection and the sending of the Holy Spirit. This is for all of humanity and is waiting to be catalysed by our faith into the New Creation of Christ in us which becomes the expression of God’s love and goodwill in the Earth. 
Lead has been changed into gold for all eternity. 
This is our salvation – the healing of our soul, and this is what God desires for all of us.
God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1Timothy 2:4).
Paul is the only one who makes clear the meaning of the word Reconciliation and the supernatural miracle work of reconciliation upon humanity through Jesus. Unfortunately, the word Reconciliation is not given its due in the Scriptures.
The apostle Peter uses the word Longsuffering to convey the meaning of Paul’s word Reconciliation and he unfolds its meaning superbly.  
Longsuffering is the ‘withholding of judgement on sin so as to allow time for the work of grace to bring about repentance’

2Peter 3:9 [God] is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish (apollymi; ruin, waste, render useless) but that all should come to repentance. (metanoia – change of mindset)
Peter goes on to say a few verses later.
2Peter 3:14 … be diligent to be found in Him in peace, without spot and blameless; and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation - as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.
So Paul and Peter see eye to eye in these things.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BODY SOUL AND SPIRIT
It is necessary that we have correct order in the relationship between body, soul and spirit for us to be whole and to function properly in both our inner and outer life.
Paul writes that God’s order is for our spirit to lead and order our soul (Romans 8:14). An ordered soul then leads our body into ordered behaviour. It makes sense that our spirit as our essential being should do this. He goes on to say that some people allow their bodily senses to control their souls in a disordered self -gratifying way, which leads to wrong choices and bad behaviour. 
Paul said. ‘I discipline my body and keep it under control (1Corinthians 9:27)
Our soul sits between the body and the spirit and receives information from both our body and our spirit and responds and reacts to both of these sources of information. 
Our physical ear hears music, but our inner soul responds mindfully and emotionally to it and we even may wish to sing in tune with it or move in rhythm with our bodies.
Our spirit is touched by the God but it is our soul that responds and chooses to obey and our bodies can also have a spontaneous physical worshipful response of weeping or on our faces before God or jubilation or contemplative stillness before the Lord. 

THE SPIRITUAL HEART AND MIND
Unlike any human being before him Jesus had his mind and heart fully embedded in his divine Spirit. He was the ‘fulness of the Godhead bodily’. His Divine Spirit spilled into his soul so that his thinking, feeling, willing and doing were directed by his Divine Spirit.

Humanity originally had its mind and heart functioning between the soul and the human spirit (no indwelling Spirit of Christ). But since Jesus reconciled us (katallasso) we can have a new spiritual reality of being joined to the Lord in one spirit with him (1Corinthians 6:17) and our mind and heart can find their home in our New Spirit that is joined in Spirit with the Lord (if that is preached and heard and believed). This is in the New Covenant promise as seen in Ezekiel.
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. (Ezekiel 36:26).
We are also told by Paul that now we ‘have the mind of Christ’ (1Corinthians 2:16). We are being renewed in the spirit of our minds so that we can discern the will of God for our daily lives (Romans 12:2). This is our faith in the work of the Holy Spirit within us to change us into his likeness – being transformed.
When we know that our new heart and our new mind can operate in this realm of New Creation life it means that new desires will emerge in our hearts and a new spiritual understanding will come to our minds. These are different to the natural desires of the natural heart and the natural understanding in the natural mind of the human soul.
The Bible says therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's (1corinthians 6:20) That means that our Body and our Spirit belong to God but we are responsible our souls in its formation of character.

We set our New Creation hearts of faith on God to the highest level of intent that we can, to know his love and to live in it. It will never be perfect but God says ‘I know the measure of intention in your heart and my mercy will make up for the shortfall’. and we set our renewed minds of faith to fully understand how to know and to walk in his ways   and believe in his supernatural work in us. But we trust in the love and mercy of God to get us home. ‘He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it’. (1Thessalonians 5:24).
It simply means that we trust the love and power of God to complete himself in us. 
We get our spiritually renewed minds upon God and his goodness instead of upon ourselves and our neediness. 
We become God conscious and not self-conscious - and our soul becomes healed, saved, transformed, completed, and our bodies can do what they were created to do. Just do it.

 

Enoch Walked With God

ENOCH WALKED WITH GOD
Genesis 5:21 Enoch lived sixty-five years, and begot Methuselah. After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God three hundred years, and had sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.

Hebrews 11:5 By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, "and was not found, because God had taken him"; for before he was taken, he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

These two accounts, one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament present a very brief account of Enoch’s life but they embody the major themes of the story of Enoch’s existence on the earth. We read of some ordinary facts like the timeline of his life on earth and some scarce family details. And we also read of the most extraordinary circumstance of his being translated directly into Heaven to be with God without having to die a natural death. 
We also read about his exceptional walk of faith with God, a walk so close and so pleasing to God that God appears to have said ‘Let’s continue this wonderful walk together up here because you don’t need any more time down there trying to transcend the material disorder of things – you’re living so much above it all that you might as well be totally here instead.’ His testimony of faith was so remarkable that the Bible marks his experience as a model of what the process of real faith is all about when it goes on to say ‘But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him’.

It might seem that this is the sum total of what we need to know about Enoch - he finished the course back in Genesis and enjoyed the rest of his existence involved in his heavenly existence and not involved with things on earth. But then another astounding Scripture is found in the New Testament in the book of Jude that mentions Enoch as a prophet who has something powerful and significant to say about the End Times judgement and the return of The Lord Jesus. 
Jude is writing to the church about the judgement to come upon ungodly men who have infiltrated the church and defiled it with their lewdness (aselgeia – corrupt and filthy behaviour).

Jude 1:14 Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, "Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them.

So now to bring the Enoch narrative more up to date we need to look at what else is embedded in the words spoken about Enoch and the words spoken by Enoch.
There is some remarkable symbolism found in two of the numerals in the Genesis account and in the Jude account. The numerals are seven and three hundred.
In Jude it says that Enoch was the seventh from Adam – seven means completion or perfection which casts Enoch’s life as a shadow of Jesus, who walked perfectly with God.
In Genesis 5:21 it says that Enoch walked with God for three hundred years, and three hundred speaks of overcoming and being protected from the enemy of darkness and death. 

Noah’s ark was three hundred cubits in length and the ark overcame the flood and the judgement of death upon the earth at that time in history (Enoch was Noah’s great grandfather)
Gideon overcame impossible odds with three hundred fighting men to win victory over the hordes of thousands of the Midianites who were attacking God’s people. There were three hundred golden shields in Solomon’s Armory, (1Kings 10:17) and these golden shields were a symbol of divine protection. 
1 Chronicles 22:9 I will give him rest from all his enemies on every side; for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quiet to Israel in his days.
The meaning of the Hebrew word for shield (s?inâ) is strength, protection, defence against an enemy. It is the same as that used in God’s promise to Abram. “Do not be afraid, Abram: I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward” (Genesis 15:1). 
Enoch was taken out of the world and did not see death.

ENOCH THE PROPHET OF REVELATION
Is it any wonder then that Enoch who prophesied of the Second Coming of Jesus according to the book of Jude verse 14 prophesies that word again after 17 more verses in the Bible, in the Book of Revelation which is the following book of the Bible?  ‘Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen. (Revelation 1:7)’
The words of the messenger (aggelos – angel) establish this thought when we read the account of John falling at the feet of the messenger to worship him and the messenger puts John in the picture of what is happening and who he is.

Revelation 22:8 Now I, John, saw and heard these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel (aggelos - messenger) who showed me these things. Then he (the messenger) said to me, "See that you do not do that. For I am your fellow servant, and one of your brethren the prophets, and of those who keep (adhere to and honour) the words of this book. Worship God." And he said to me, "Do not seal the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand (in 
\other words say what now has to be said). He who is unjust, let him be unjust still and the filthy be filthy still, and the righteous do right still, and the holy be holy still “See, I am coming soon, and my reward is with me, to repay everyone according to the deeds he has done.

This becomes the third time that Enoch’s prophecy gets spoken concerning the return of the Lord and of judgement and reward.

AN ENOCH GENERATION
The Bible says that it is appointed for man once to die and then comes the judgement.
Hebrews 9:27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
So why didn’t Enoch have that appointment?
Simply because the Word of God can give permission for that – and that is the only way that ‘not seeing death’ can occur - By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, "and was not found, because God had taken him"(Hebrews 11:5)
The Word of God also gives that permission to an entire generation of people who will be alive until the Lord returns.
Psalm 102:18 This will be written for the generation to come, that a people yet to be created may praise the LORD. For He looked down from the height of His sanctuary; From heaven the LORD viewed the earth, To hear the groaning of the prisoner, to release those appointed to death.
That truth concerning permission for cancelling that appointment is also found twice in the New Testament.
1Thessalonians 4:16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we shall always be with the Lord. 
1Corinthians 15:51 We shall not all die, but we shall all be changed - in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

Many generations have supposed that theirs could be the one that saw the return of Jesus. Most markedly was the generation that was still alive after Jesus ascended into Heaven. There were two angels standing by when he ascended who said "Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven." (Acts 1:11). There was no reason for them not to believe that his return would be imminent, and many Christians were conjecturing this, perhaps even Paul himself as we just read what he said in Corinthians and Thessalonians. 
Paul then brought a correction in 2Thessalonians 2 when he said ‘And now, what about the coming again of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to meet him? Please don’t be upset and excited, dear brothers, by the rumor that this day of the Lord has already begun. If you hear of people having visions and special messages from God about this, or letters that are supposed to have come from me, don’t believe them. Don’t be carried away and deceived regardless of what they say. For that day will not come until two things happen: first, there will be a time of great rebellion against God, and then the man of rebellion will come—the son of hell.’
Those scriptures have been there for 2000 years but for over 1500 years the ordinary churchgoer had no access to the Bible so there was no broad speculation about the Second Coming. There has however been much in the last three or four hundred years and that remains to this day.

The point is that every generation that knows these things should live as if Jesus was perhaps returning in their generation. Enoch represents a generation that shall be loosed from their appointment with death, and the way to live that kind of life is the way Enoch modelled his life to us. 
He was a man who modelled the ‘three hundred’ class of spirit. He walked with God for three hundred years and was lifted above the corruption that his grandson Noah contended with and who built an ark of three hundred cubits providing safety for his family from judgment and destruction. His life speaks to us of the closeness of our walk with God that lifts us above the corruption of the world. 
It also models to us the three hundred golden shields of Solomon that are shields of God’s protection over our souls that give us strength and peace, and it points us to the overcoming spirit of Gideon that gives us courage and victory over the power of the enemy. 
Enoch was the seventh from Adam - The number seven speaks of completion - and God will have completed a work of grace in that generation. That generation will also have a ‘seventh from Adam’ class of spirit, 
As the Psalm said about that generation - a people yet to be created will praise the LORD.

The work of grace that will be completed in that generation will bring praise to God from a people who know how to give thanks to God in all things. In any situation our freedom comes from getting our eyes off ourselves and onto God. That is always the starting point – we go from painful self-consciousness to joyful God consciousness. Not waiting for the bad thing to happen but waiting and expecting the good thing of God’s work to manifest. This requires thinking from the believing mind that is seated in our spirit not from the thoughts that are attached to the emotions of our soul.  

More than All We Ask or Think

MORE THAN ALL WE ASK OR THINK

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

I Have Come to Bring A Sword

I HAVE COME TO BRING A SWORD

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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