“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
(Acts 1:8)
Loving people with “1 Corinthians 13” LOVE is as much a miracle
as raising someone from the dead.
We must have God’s Power and Presence
operating in and through us to do either one.
And that only happens when we surrender ourselves
completely to Him.
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another;
as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”
(John 13:34)
Much of our time in this current age is spent remembering previous things rather than REALIZING Present things. Or, all too often, if we are engaged in the moment, it is in bondage to the unfolding, temporal, finite path of least resistance, as we move from one distraction to another, avoiding pain and embracing little pleasures.
But the more we let Holy Spirit have His way in the moment, the clearer we see Jesus — and the clearer we see Jesus, the more we fully, gloriously ARE (because the distorted regrets of the past and the phantom fears of the future have no room to exist in that REALity).
And I believe the age to come will be MARVELOUSLY like this. We won’t have to remember Jesus, or remind ourselves of His attributes — instead, we will truly, continuously REALIZE Him — seeing Him in His unfiltered Glory (We Realize with Real Eyes), as we are enabled by and saturated with the brilliant, penetrating, uncreated Light of LOVE.
“But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as he IS.” (1 John 3:2-3)
“Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the River flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this Water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the River flows everything will live.” (Ezekiel 47:9)
This RIVER changes the Dead Sea to Living Water. It changes the Zombie Apocalypse to Glory Revival!
Heavenly Abba – please show us what we have done to stop up this River – and what we can do to experience more FLOW!
HAPPY PENTECOST SUNDAY!!!
And this narrative affects Christians as well. Because this message is so pervasive, it serves to erode the “evangelical compassion” of the Church and to make them passive, timid, non-communicators of the true and complete Gospel.
And really, only Heaven-sent, fire-filled revival can turn the Church from being tepid and passive into the true, white-hot Light the world actually needs. And that is why we must repent – repent of our passivity and lack of concern for the lost – and step out of our comfort zones and be true Salt and Light.
But most of all we must pray – pray and cry out for revival.
“Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much…”
(Luke 16:10)
“I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?”
(John 3:12)
It seemed the Lord was showing me tonight that these verses can refer to how we manage and steward and understand time. He gives us time in this temporal world and watches to see who we will use it. And if we do well (according to His idea of “well” – heh heh), then He is ready to entrust us with heavenly, eternal things!
Sometimes, when we experience God’s tangible Presence, Eternity invades our temporal reality and time seems to disappear, as it is overwhelmed and displaced by His eternal, infinite Gloriousness. And as we experience Him like this, everything in our lives begins to be transformed. But if we want to experience this infusion, we need to approach and esteem temporal time rightly — by spending a lot of it on Him, being willing to lavish Him with one of the few types of currency that really impresses Him — our time.
What I mean by that is that our natural minds cannot totally understand God and that left to our own devices and natural abilities and insights, our spirituality always becomes merely the traditions and ideas of men, which, ultimately, will always war against the truth and reality of God. I am not saying that we should ignore our brains or that we should not be thinking people. But the human mind was never meant to be the center of our reality. God is. And even though He gave us our brains (wonderful and amazing and useful as they are), they will never be enough to walk in the fullness of our callings as spiritual beings.
“I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.” (Ephesians 1:17-18)
“to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge;” (Ephesians 3:19)
“lean not on your own understanding;” (Proverbs 3:5)
“No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written: ‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him’ — but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 2:7-10)
A perfect example of this is in Matthew 16, where Peter receives a revelation of who Jesus really is, and Jesus says, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.” But just a few moments later, Peter stops relying on revelation and starts using his mind to figure things out, and he is rebuked by Jesus as one who opposes God: “Get behind me, Satan! [ie – opposer] You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”
So…spend time with God, getting to know Him. This is ABSOLUTELY important to your eternal destiny. You need Him to tell you stuff — important stuff that you can know no other way than that He reveals it to you:
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)
“Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” (Jeremiah 33:3-4)
Spend more time in His Word, yes. But also spend time listening for His voice. And as you begin to hear, respond to Him. Because then the real adventure begins — the adventure of the Spirit-led life.
“Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” (Romans 8:14-15)
loon watchman 