Time to Go and Time to Stay

This is from the Daily Meditation blog:

Hagar ran away from the house of Abraham, and God went all the way to send an angel to ask her to return. The casual observer may think: how can God be that wicked. This was a place where life was made a living hell for her.

However, there was a time she left the house, this time around it was now organised, this time around, she did not initiate the move. But now God sent a message again to her that it was okay, giving her precious promises.

How come God did not want her to leave the first time but the second time, God wanted her to leave? She wanted to leave when God did not want her to leave, and when God wanted her to leave, she seemed not to want to.

It brings us face to face with the “times and seasons” character of God, where different things happens in different seasons because they are different seasons, based on the superior wisdom of God.

What happened to Hagar, is similar to what happened to Moses. He made a move to start to deliver Israel but it led to his running away from them, the second time when he does not want to go, God pushed him to go, showing that the time is in God’s hands, not ours.

Jesus was told by his brothers to go and show himself to the people in Jerusalem, when a feast was going on there, so that he came become popular and more acceptable. But he said his time has not come.

A life of spiritual significance is focused on divine timing more than others. Others can follow humanistic reasoning, follow the way things are normally done, the way of human approval, humanistic rubbish, thinking carnally, judging after the flesh.

Man, Jesus said, does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. What proceeded yesterday, is not what will proceed today, so I need to follow the shepherd so that I do not lean on my own understanding, so that I will find sustenance today.

To get water from the rock for the Israelites, at different times, God told Moses to do two different things. When, the second time, he became moved by what the people are saying more than what God said, God felt slighted, and punished him for it. He hit the rock the first time, and did the same the second time, turning a walk with God to a formula, ritual, routine, though it is a relationship.

God asked Elijah to show himself to Ahab, and he will bring rain on the earth. That was the timing. Elijah could not afford to move by human feeling in that regard. He cannot follow wishful thinking. It was not self-initiated.

To the people, it may seem that Elijah acted on a whim, to seize rain and to bring rain again. He was authorized by God to make those proclamations. God decided to trust Elijah with such power. When rain fell, it was also based on God’s instruction. And in the time of the water coming down, it was based on God’s instruction.

While the prophets of Baal were hoping that Baal was going to answer them by fire, Elijah had no such uncertainty, he acted on express instruction from God, the God of times and seasons. God determines the place of our abode and times of our habitation.

You may be asking: what should I do now, how do I move, where should I go, knowing that the best thing is to know what God is saying.

Isaiah said: my ears he has opened. So my hearing God is not my responsibility, but God’s responsibility. It is written, He makes hearing ears.

So the challenge is not the challenge of hearing, it is the challenge of obedience. God speaks, we read in the book of Job, but we refuse to listen, to pay attention, to yield.

Eve did not have the problem of hearing from God, but she choose differently from what God wanted. She embraced error. What about Saul? He had a clear instruction, but chose not to obey.

But apostle Paul, after he had a revelation of Christ and his purpose in him, said: I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.

If obedience to God is important and it is, and since God has to be justified when he speaks, he needs to clear his own side of the arrangement, which is to make his will known. He puts conscience in us for that reason, the indicator of right or wrong.

He made it so that if you want to know his will, you will know it. He said: ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you will find. You can find out the times and seasons he has for you, the people he wants you to be with, the places he wants you to go, if you want to know, if you will follow his logic and not humanistic rubbish, which is about conforming to the world.

We should stand in his presence like Elijah and declare the will of God, because we know it, because we love it. If our minds are clouded with humanistic rubbish, in which naturalistic thinking which the bible calls carnal mindedness is king, we will not be able to see beyond our noses, to see the path that God has set before us.

So it’s not about what others say, what seems convenient, what is acceptable, but the will of God.

Abraham is a case in point. He was told that he should sacrifice his son, that was what to do, he made preparation for it, organised a party, started out early in the morning, but at the end of it, he did not carry it out. Why? Because the first instruction was about testing Abraham's obedience, not really about anything else. Eventually, Abraham sacrificed a ram. It would have been disastrous if Abraham refuses to hear the second instruction, but God did it so much that he did have a choice but to hear.

Moses saw the burning bush, through which God caught his attention. God knows how to get your attention, but we see Moses afterwards struggling to obey God, even suggesting that God send somebody else. That actually happens partially when it was Joshua who eventually led the Israelites to the promised land.

The attitudes differ between the two: to do or not to do, to hide or show yourself, to move or to stay.

Moses was so used to the “not going” attitude for forty years that when the time came to go, he found it hard to move.

Glory and Power: Two Sides of the Presence of God

This is from the blog Daily Meditation:

Jeremiah 20:11: But the LORD is with me as a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble; they will not overcome me. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten. (ESV)

The presence of God makes all the difference. Moses told God: if your presence does not go with us, take us not from here (Exodus 33:15).

There are two sides of the presence of God: his glory and power. When David talked about encountering God in the temple, he said it is to see his glory and his power (Psalm 63:1-2). And when Jesus taught the lines of prayer, he ended by saying: thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever Amen (Matthew 6:13).

Glory

When God manifested in the temple in the Old Testament, it was in his glory which make it impossible for the priest to perform their normal duty (1Kings 8:11) as the dedication of the temple built by Solomon, when it was being separated to God’s name, which is the definition of holiness.

The manifestation of the glory is based on divine initiative, so all other initiatives, including human and demonic, must move aside, bow down, and bend over. The glory changes the atmosphere.

The glory makes people fall down. Angels bear the glory of God and when Daniel saw an angel, he fell down as one dead (Daniel 10:15-17). His self-effort was paralysed. His ability to make an effort was shut down in the face of the overwhelming glory of God.

When Jesus said “I am he” when certain soldiers came to arrest him in the Garden of Gethsemane, they fell down, to show that if he does not want to be arrested he will not be arrested (John 18:6).

And the miracles are associated with the glory of God. What only God can do is a manifestation of his glory, it is what brings praise to his name. The glory of God creates changes. It changed the water into wine (John 2:1-11).

Sin is counter the glory of God, that is why when man sinned in the garden, he was stripped of the glory of God and found himself naked (Genesis 3). And the bible says: all have sinned, falling short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Therefore, glory of associated with holiness.

God asked Jacob to take his family to Bethel. Years before he had an encounter with the glory of God in that place and he named it Bethel which means the house of God, which is where his glory manifests (Genesis 35:1-7).

He slept in that place and saw heaven opened and the angels of God moving up and down a ladder that reaches from heaven to the earth (Genesis 28:10-15). All the components of the dreams smack of the glory of God.

Heaven is full of the glory, the ladder connects earth to the glory in heaven, where the glory is generated. The earth has no glory of its own to generate, as the moon does not have its light to shine forth.  The angels in that dream are conveyers of the glory. And in the real sense, Jesus is the ladder as he himself revealed to Nathanael (John 1:45-51). That means without Jesus the glory of heaven will not come fully to the earth, and full angelic presence will not be experienced.

After Jacob returned from the house of Laban and had settled down God said he should go to Bethel, but it is if, and only if, his family will rid themselves of all idols. John wrote in one of his letter that we should keep ourselves from idols (1John 5:21), which are spiritual pollutants that counteract the holiness of God.

Paul wrote about being vessels of honour which actually means vessels of his glory, that whoever purges himself from whatever makes impure will be worthy to be a vessel of honour (2Timothy 2:19-22).

When we are separated to God we are able to manifest his glory in and through our lives. On Mount Sinai when God wanted to manifest his glory visibly in the eyes of the children of Israel, he said they need to clean up (Exodus 19:9-21).

And when the glory of God manifested in the lives of a priest Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth, when they had a child in their old age, the bible recorded that they walked with God blameless (Luke 1:6). And the experience of Enoch is instructive (Genesis 5:21-24).

After walking with God for hundreds of years that bible says that he was not, he ceased to be on earth because God took him, he entered fully the glory of God by the strength of his separation to him. Those who are persecuted for the sake of Christ are said to have the spirit of glory resting on them (1Peter 4:14), because of the sacrifice they have made, they have become living sacrifice. Remember the glory is about holiness.

Power

While we can tap into the glory of God through the path of holiness, the power of God is operationalised through faith. Jesus expended energy teaching the disciples about the need for faith. When he displayed power by casting out devils in the child which some of his disciples found difficult to do, he rebuked them for their lack of faith. He told the boy’s father: everything is possible for him who believes (Mark 9:14-21).

Faith turns on the power tap, it is man’s initiative and the glory is something that God initiates. Power is something man initiatives. Jesus said we will lay hands on the sick and they shall recover (Mark 16:15-18). You needed to take the step of faith to lay that hands to see the power of God manifest in healing.

Jesus was preaching at a house in the bible says that the power of God was present to heal (Luke 5:17-26).

While on earth Jesus walked in the power of God, but the glory of God could not be established in our lives without his holiness established in us as the Holy Spirit comes into us. The glory is more subtle. The bible says God is holy and we should be holy in all manner of conversation; that is about our lifestyle, but Jesus said when we have faith in God we will say to a mountain shift and it would obey us; that is power (Mark 11:22-24).

When power was present at that house where Jesus was preaching, not everyone was able to experience it. The friends of a paralysed man who brought him there experienced the power because through faith they initiated an encounter with Jesus.

The bible says that Jesus saw their faith through their action of breaking through the roof and they experienced the power as their friends rose up and walked.

Many times Jesus will say to people your faith as made you whole. A woman pressed through the crowd to touch Jesus and the twelve years of blood issuing from her ended (Luke 8:43-48). Jesus told her that her faith made her whole.

Her life was haemorrhaging away and she took a step of faith at the risk of her own life. She was brave, the four friends of that paralysed men were brave, and their desire for change, desire to experience the power of God was greater than their fear of what people might say. Their faith overcame their fear and they experienced the power of God.

Faith is the strong desire in the direction of what God can do. It is an unshifting desire, faith is an ongoing conversation between a man and heaven that constantly takes the goods of heaven available on earth.

Conclusion

While there are many overlaps between glory and power, they are also distinct. It takes the power of God to manifests gifts, and they can even manifest without holiness, but not so the glory of God.

His has confused many people, who see the display of the supernatural in the life of those who are empty of the life of holiness. But reading the first letter of Paul to the Corinthian church, will clear things up. They lacked behind in no gift (1Corinthians 1:6-7), but fornication was rampant (1Corinthians 5:1). The miracles can blind the eyes from the need for introspection and caution and internal transformation. So we can have the power without the glory. We can also have the glory without the power; that is if we do not believe for miracles. Jesus was the personification of the glory of the glory of God, the fullness of the Godhead bodily. However, when he was in his home town he did not do many miracles because of unbelief, though he taught the people (Mark 6:1-6). We need a balance, because the kingdom of God is about his power and glory, not just power or just glory.

The Real Mount Sinai in Arabia

Charles Finney - Presence of God Convicts People of Sin while He Sits in a Train Car (55:20 - 56:25)

Watchman

This is from the blog Daily Meditation:

Isaiah 21:11: The oracle concerning Dumah. One is calling to me from Seir, “Watchman, what time of the night? Watchman, what time of the night?”

The watchman has certain role to play. In the focus verse, certain questions were being asked that the watchman should know about. That means that the watchman is a man of unusual insight, understanding and vision. A watchman is known by the ability to see beyond the natural, beyond the obvious.

God told Ezekiel that he is making him a watchman, which means he will have insight into the future and he will be sent to people to warn them against going on routes that will lead to destruction (Ezekiel 3:17), when it comes to their behaviours.

The bible says there is a way that seems right to Man, but the end is destruction (Proverbs 16:25). The higher insight is the divine one. It keeps us safe and the watchman gets to be the voice of God.
The watchman role is attached to the prophetic gift. It is being able to peer beyond the veil of time and natural sight.

Jesus manifested as a watchman on the earth, he is the greatest of all watchmen because he is God. All true watchmen derive their function from him.

John wrote: no one has seen God at any time, but the only begotten of the father who is in the bosom of the father he has declared him (John 1:18). He has the ultimate insight into who the Father is.

He is the word of God. Someone in the bible prayed: open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law, your word (Psalm 119:18). With that, we can see from God’s point of view about the situations in which we find ourselves. When we see the word as we should, we also see ourselves as we should because the word is mirror (James 1:23-25). If we do not see ourselves correctly and want to be watchmen for others, it will be like seeing the speck in the eyes of others when you have a plank in your own eyes (Matthew 7:3-5). The watchman applies the word, first to himself, then to others (1Timothy 4:16).

A watchman does not only know what will happen, but also what God wants to get done and so is able to get the people ready to fall in line with the plan of God.

Moses came to rescue the children of Israel from the house of bondage by the word of God to him (Exodus 3). God told him I have now come down having heard the cries of the people the children of Israel. Later on, the bible says that by a prophet, God led the people of Israel from Egypt and through a prophet he preserved them (Hosea 12:13). Moses was watchman for the nation of Israel at that time. He connected the whole nation to the desire and demand of God for them because he was enabled to know them.

They followed God’s timing, walked on God’s path; and were guaranteed the very presence of God, they were granted safe journey. When they rejected the word of God through Moses, they suffered for it.

Jesus said he must work the work of him who sent him while it is day because the night comes when no man can work (John 9:1-5). The day is when the sight is active. That shows that we need divine insight, the light of God, to do his work.

This is because it is not the work of God if it is not directed by him. That is why Jesus said that certain people will call to him on the last day that they have done many things in his name, but he will tell them: depart from me you workers of iniquity, I know you not (Matthew 7:21-23).

Whatever they did was a manifestation of self-will, and not God’s will. The watchman is careful about the will of God since he moves, and leads others to move, according to what God is showing.

The watchman needs his eyes, and David prayed that God should open his eyes. Elisha was a watchman at a time in Israel, and gave so much insight about the plans of the enemy that he became more important to that enemy than the king, and was number one on their most wanted list (2Kings 6:8-18).

He frustrated their plans time and again. By the sheer force of his role as the watchman, he kept the nation safe. He was Israel’s edge against a more formidable army, and no weapon fashioned against Israel prospered. He was watchman indeed. He saw traps before they are even set and helps the people of Israel to escape. He was the eyes and ears of Israel in the camp of the enemy. Before he died, one king called him my father my father the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof. He was a one-man army. That was how important spiritual sight, the watchman is (2Kings 13:14).

Some sons of Issachar were once described in the bible as those who understood the times knowing what Israel should do to get the right results (1Chronicles 12:32). They helped others with their insight, helping them navigate through difficult situations.

And Daniel wrote that those who are wise will instruct many (Daniel 11:33). The teaching process is about impartation of insight, i.e. the right sight, the right understanding, to others.

Jesus came from heaven to impart the right understanding of God to us. He came to call us to repent and embrace the kingdom of God; to repent because of the coming of the kingdom of God; repent, because of the need for us to align to the ways and knowledge of God (Mark 1:15).

We do not stumble into ways of God by wishful thinking, we need to be taught. The bible says:  we will hear a voice behind us saying: this is the way walk in it (Isaiah 30:21). Without this kind of guidance, we are susceptible to deception, to come to the wrong conclusion, to embrace lies which look like truth.

Jesus does not just tell us the truth, he is the truth. That distinction is important because if Jesus merely told the truth, people who say things similar to what Jesus said might pass for truth speakers and deceive people. But since Jesus is the truth that means he is the only custodian of the truth. If the truth you are espousing is not his truth then it is no truth, you are not seeing well.

You can depend on him no matter what. If it is not him, then it is nothing. If it is not coming from him, then it is deception. The bible says: to the law and to the testimony if they do not speak according to this word it means there is no light in them (Isaiah 8:20).

When God called Jeremiah to the prophetic office he asked him: what do you see? To which he answered: I see the branch of an almond tree (Jeremiah 1:11-12). And God said to him: you see rightly. So, because you see something does not means it is right thing, because you have come to certain conclusions does not make them right conclusions. There are delusions and illusions.

John said that we should test all spirits and confirm if they are from God (1John 4:1). Because demonic spirits comes with deceptive agenda, create false revelations for the gullible to swallow, create false impression for the spiritually weak to embrace. This is the call to be strengthened in the area of spiritual sight, become true watchmen.

The Fire of God's Glory

This is from the blog Daily Meditation:

Leviticus 9:24: And fire came out from before the LORD and consumed the burnt offering and the pieces of fat on the altar, and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces.

The earth has seen many manifestations of God. The first time it was recorded that God came to the earth, Adam and Eve ran away from the presence of the creator, because of their sin (Genesis 3).

At the end of time a similar thing will happen on the day of judgement when the bible says that the heaven and earth will flee from the presence of the great one who seats upon the throne (Revelation 6:12-17, 20:11).

When Jesus manifest for judgement in the sky the people of the earth will tell the mountain: fall on us, protect us from the wrath of the holy one. Sin in any shape cannot stand before the glory of God as the experience of Isaiah showed (Isaiah 6:1-8).

In the focus verse, the glory of God has manifested as fire to consume the sacrifice. But there was a fire from the presence of God, which consumed the two sons of Aaron (Leviticus 10:1-2), because they burned unapproved fire in the presence of God.

The bible says that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10:31, 12:29), and our God is a consuming fire. Ananias and Saphira fell into the fearful hand of God (Acts 5:1-10). When they presume to lie to Apostle Peter, they fell down and died. An angel struck down King Herod who presumed to accept the title of god (Acts 12:21-24). He fell down and maggots eat him up on the spot.

Those are the manifestation of God in wrath. But there are manifestations of God in prosperity and provision in the bible also.

In the forty years of the journey of the children of Israel in the wilderness, the millions of them ate food prepared in the bakery of heaven, released to them as manna every morning (Exodus 16:35).

Elijah also had a similar experience. While running away from Jezebel (1Kings 19), famished and tired he slept under a tree. And twice an angel brought food and drink to him, woke him up for him to eat and drink.

While the food of angels was delivered from heaven to the Israelites in the wilderness daily, and it sustained them for forty years, the meals taken by Elijah sustained him for forty days of constant walking into an encounter with God, in supernatural experience of fire, earthquake, wind and the still small voice.

Though there was fire, but it was written that God was not in that fire.  Though God manifests himself in supernatural fashion, he is not tied to any manifestation, but his word. The devil also have lying wonders (2Thessalonians 2:9) (wonders for the purpose of deception), so because something is amazing does not mean it is divine.

The ultimate revelation of the glory of God to us was in Jesus, who is God the word, the truth (John 14:6). John wrote: in him was life and the life was the light of men; we beheld his glory as of the only begotten of the father full of grace and truth (John 1:1-5, 14-17). He was the ultimate manifestation of God. God has decided to elevate his word above his name. He has chosen to confine himself with his word.

However, because the devil has some wonders of his own does not mean that God is not even much more superabundant in wonders. Jesus is even called wonderful (Isaiah 9:6).

When the Holy Spirit which Jesus manifested in the second chapter of the book of Actswas seen (Acts 2:1-4), it was as fire, when cloven tongues as of fire appeared and sat on all the disciples. When the presence of God manifested on Mount Sinai it was with lightning and smoke, and earthquake (Exodus 19:18).

He told Moses who asked God show me your glory, no one sees my face and live (Exodus 33:18-23). There is a fieriness to God that is beyond comprehension.

The fire of the presence of God can serve two purpose, to empower or to judge. What happened to Sodom and Gomorrah is an example of the fire of God judgment coming upon a place (Genesis 18:17-21; 19). They were noted for their sexual immorality, consumed with illicit passion they were therefore consumed by the fire of God’s judgement.

Isaiah experienced some positive things about the fire of the presence of God (Isaiah 6:1-8). When he met God in a vision. He wrote that in the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up and his train filled the temple.

He was confronted with the absolute holiness of God, he felt deserving of speedy judgment right there considering how unclean he felt. He said: woe is me, because I am a man of unclean lips in the midst of people who have unclean lips. Because he recognised his need, confessed his helplessness, he received grace. An angel came to him with a coal from the altar before God and touched his mouth with it to purge him of his iniquity.

Jesus was described by John the Baptist a one who baptised with the Holy Spirit and fire (Luke 3:16). And in the Book of Acts, the Holy Spirit manifested as cloven tongues as of fire. It was heaven fire coming to abide on all who expressed commitment to Jesus Christ at that time by obeying his word to stay in Jerusalem to be endued with power from on high (Acts 1:8, 2:1-4).

When Paul met a group of disciples, and they said they only knew the baptism of John, he found it necessary to instruct them about believing in Jesus before introducing the Holy Spirit to them (Acts 19:1-7). The Holy Spirit, the holy fire, manifested in their lives in the name of Jesus. He said that those who believe in him will speak in tongues, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit (Mark 16:15-18).

The Holy Spirit is the manifestation of the presence of God, which makes the reality of heaven available upon earth. He is the manifestation of the glory of God, just as Jesus was while on earth, where he introduced the Holy Spirit as another comforter, another helper, another one like himself (John 14:16-18).

The divine helper moves people to places in God where they cannot go on their own, in purity (away from sin), in knowledge (away from darkness), in power (away from being oppressed). All because it is not enough to just know the right things, you need to be the right person, through the changing power of the Holy Spirit.

The Pharisees knew the scriptures but they lost out of the person of Jesus. Because it is not just about what you know but who you know. And Jesus said that the scriptures point to him (John 5:39).

He defined eternal life as knowing the true God and Jesus whom he has sent (John 17:3). And knowing Jesus is firmly linked to knowing the Holy Spirit because you cannot respect Jesus and disregard his Spirit, the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9).

Lightning Destroyed Georgia Guidestones - Act of God

The 3 Dimensions of Time

This is from the blog Daily Meditation:

Genesis 21:2: And she conceived, and Sarah bore to Abraham a son in his old age at the appointed time that God had told him.

Time is measured in three dimensions. There is the chronological time, the process time and the appointed time.

The chronological time is measured by the clock, and determined by the movement of the earth around its orbit. It is the grid on which the other time dimensions are built.

Process time is developmental (progression) time. In describing the life of Jesus, the bible says that he grew in wisdom and favour with God and man. That shows that over a period of time he experienced progression (Luke 2:40, 52).

The appointed time is a jump in which a point in time is overloaded with significance of change. It is a leap in time. Jesus was born in an appointed time, he died in an appointed time, and the coming of the Holy Spirit on the earth was also on an appointed time. All of them were times over-loaded with significance, pregnant with meaning. For the appointed time, something extra, external is injected for extraordinary result.

While chronological time is linear, developmental time is progressive, while the appointed time, is a quantum leap.

The coming of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus after the baptism of John in the wilderness was an appointed time. With the ways things were going, with the progression of the life of Jesus before that time, there was nothing to suggest that at a point in time, he will be empowered by the Holy Spirit for extraordinary impact for a few years before dying a gruesome death.

This was a carpenter who from a young age had learned the trade. Plotting the graph of his life, you would have said he will get married and died a good old age with a good reputation among the people. But when the Holy Spirit came upon him, what happened was nothing less than a quantum leap.

When you become born again you become a new creature old things have passed away and all things have become new (2Corinthians 5:17). That is change in who you are, a quantum leap from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of life (Colossians 1:13). It is a change in who we are, from being earthly to being heavenly.

For Mary to get pregnant with Jesus was not a progression in time, it was a quantum leap (Luke 1:35). There was no way she could have planned for it or progressed into it. Such possibility was beyond what her mind could ever consider or conceive or even wish for. It was an appointed time heralded by Angel Gabriel.

The direction of Paul’s life up to the point on which he severely persecuted the church was progressive. He was increasingly led along by wrong zeal, having been taught well, on the religious preferences of his pharisaic order which was decidedly antichristian (Acts 8:1-4).

But at the appointed time, he had a supernatural encounter with Jesus and he started following him. He would later write: when (appointed time) it pleased God who separated me from my mother’s womb to reveal his son in me (Galatians 1:15-17), I did not confer with flesh and blood. The experience of his salvation was a quantum leap. No amount of learning could have achieved it, it was as a result of spiritual infusion.

When you become born again, it is not just an ideology that you buy into, it is a life. You come into a new life, a new life comes into you. Paul said that neither circumcision (having to do with a chronological time in the culture of Israel) nor un-circumcision count for anything but a new creature (Galatians 6:15).

Other ways of putting it are thus: neither literacy nor illiteracy count for anything but a new creature; neither bank account, nationality, or family background, count for anything. There is no progressive road that leads from hell to heaven, you make a leap in the portal called Jesus.

There was a big gulf between Abraham’s bosom where Lazarus was in a story related by Jesus and the torment of hades where the rich man was. You cannot take a walk from where the rich man was to where Abraham was (Luke 16:19-31).

Moses said that we need to number our days so that we might get our heart set for wisdom (Psalm 90:12). The sense he wanted to impress on us is that when it comes to making effort, we cannot afford to waste time, we need to make efforts towards making positive progress. We can therefore to an extent control developmental time. Jesus said I must work the work of him who sent me while it is day (progressive time), the night (appointed time) comes when no man can work (John 9:1-4).

We cannot afford to loaf around in life. In the book of Ecclesiastes the youth were charged to fear God and live for him being the whole duty of man (Ecclesiastes 12:1, 13). That is about using the best of the time for the best purpose, which is the pursuit of a progressive experience of God and expression of obedience to him.

When Sarah gave birth to Isaac. It was a monumental event. It was the faithfulness of God made manifest to both her and her husband. It was a day to remember, an appointed time. Isaac means laughter and it happened suddenly, almost unexpected, but for years Abraham after his name was changed was firm in faith, but though his stood in faith (Chronological time), the appointed time was in the hand of God (Genesis 18:18). God said a year before to Abraham, according to the time of life (chronological), I will return and Sarah will have a child (appointed time). And that was divine intervention, because according to progressive time, Sarah was past the child bearing age.

And in the life of the nation of Israel we have divine interventions in droves. It was an appointed time for God to send Moses to deliver them from the house of bondage (Exodus 3:1-12). There was no way Moses was going to grow into it.

Before the birth of Isaac, God had revealed to Abraham that his offspring, will be in a foreign land for hundreds of years and they will later be freed (Genesis 15). That was exactly what happened. God had committed himself for that to happen and sent Moses with his power, signs and wonders to get it done.

There was no amount of planning and progression that would have achieved it. They needed divine intervention and they got it because of God’s prior commitment to them. Similarly, it is because of God’s commitment that we will have our appointed time.

There is a prior commitment of God to you for a resurrected body in the order of Jesus (1John 3:1-3) and you will get it. God has promised a new earth and heaven, it will happened at the appointed time. When the disciples asked Jesus before his ascension: will you at this time return the kingdom to Israel? He told them that that is an appointed time in the hand of the father (Acts 1:6-7).

The flood that came on the earth in the time of Noah came at an appointed time, which came about as a result of the people’s bad use of chronological time as they went in the wrong direction of development in deterioration (Genesis 6). So the developmental time can be used for either positive or negative end.

Summary

The three times are interwoven. They are all about change. The chronological time is about age according to the calendar, the process time is about age according to the effort you have made, while appointed times is change produced by interjections on our path in life. Both progressive and appointed time can be for good or for evil, but for Christians we have grace for the two to always be positive. As it is written: all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28). And God is at work in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure (Philippians 2:12-13).

Watch and wait

This is from the blog Daily Meditation:

Micah 7:7: But as for me, I will watch expectantly for the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me.

Here the prophet expressed hope in God. He set out to look onto the Lord, to focus expectantly on him, because he was assured: “God will hear me.”

In the book of Acts (Acts 3) we see a lame man by the gate called beautiful in the temple looking intently at Peter and John as they came to the temple, but Peter said silver or gold I do not have but what I have I give to you, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. Though he did not seek for healing he got it, because both healing and almsgiving worked by the principle of expectation.

What the woman with the issue of blood had going for her was expectation (Matthew 9:20-22). She expected that when she touches the helm of the garment of Jesus, all the problems she had been facing for many years will be over. She could not be shaken from that belief. And she got her miracle by her faith. Her expectation held her on the path of faith, as faith is linked with expectation.

What Cornelius had going for him was expectation (Acts 10). While he was praying in his house and fasting, God sent an angel to him that he should sent for Peter who will tell him the next step to take. And from that day he did not eat till that happened.

Fasting is a statement of expectation. When Jesus was giving the disciples a perspective on fasting, he showed that not only is fasting attached to rewards from God (Matthew 6:16-18), but it is something the disciples was going to practice when Jesus leaves, when he is no longer in the flesh, as an expression of hunger (expectation of, desire) for his presence (Mark 2:20).

So Cornelius was fasting, his expectation had hit the roof and as Peter was sharing thoughts about Jesus, the Holy Spirit was magnetized by an amazing force of expectation and he came hard on the people in his house.

They all (Cornelius, his household and friends) busted out in tongues as they we filled with the Holy Spirit even while Peter was still speaking. That was the gentiles coming into the fold of the church. The manifestation of God is linked to desire, hunger in the people.

Elijah told God: I have been zealous for your name (1Kings 19:14). His hunger for God drew fire from heaven. He could spend time in prayer to see God glorified in Israel, in the midst of the idolatry and corruption that had ravaged the land. He was not going to join the idolaters but was going to stand with God, doing everything for the glory of his name.

He told the king Ahab, “As the Lord lives before whom I stand it shall not rain because I said so (1Kings 17:1)” to set up a confrontation a few years later with the prophets of Baal. He actively expected change in Israel and become the medium through which that change came. What he longed for became his mission.

He was hungry for God’s name to be glorified. He could not do anything, change anyone, on his own, but he could reach out to God who will cause things to happen and God sent fire from heaven, causing the multitude to proclaim: the Lord, He is God (1Kings 18).

In Acts chapter two fire came from the above, the fire of the Holy Spirit came on 120 people who were in the upper room in Jerusalem. They were with one accord in expectation of the promise of the father as Jesus had told them.

Jesus told them: you shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you (Acts 1:8). But for that to happen they had to watch and wait in the Jerusalem for it, for the glory of God to come down on them as it came down in the temple which Solomon built, in the same Jerusalem, hundreds of years before.

Waiting is a spiritual posture. Habakkuk said: I will stand upon my watch to see what God will say to me (Habakkuk 2:1-4). He did not want to come to his own conclusion he wanted to see from God’s perspective so he took a pause from his normal activities. The bible says those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength (Isaiah 40:28-31). When we wait upon him for the next instruction, we are strengthened to do his will and die to ours. Habakkuk moved from his own thoughts to God’s, from his own ways to God’s.

Jesus said: watch and pray so that you do not fall into temptation (Matthew 26:41). That is an appeal to seeking God so that we do not fall into the wrong conclusion and action.

The time used to seek God is well utilized. When we pray, in the eyes of the world nothing is happening, but in the eyes of God in the realm of the spirit much was happening.

Paul said: when we speak in tongues we speak to God in the Spirit (1Corinthians 12:2,4). In the physical it may not be much but in the spirit things are getting shifted. Demands are going up to heaven and answers are coming down to the earth.

Waiting can be trying, it is staying in one place and not resorting to self-help because you know that God will come through for you.

Saul was asked to wait for seven days for Samuel to make a sacrifice (1Samuel 13:4-14), but he was overly concerned about losing the battle against the enemy that he did the wrong thing in panic. Waiting is a sign of trust, Saul did not trust God and he could not wait, he decided to take action against divine instruction and lost out on the best of God.

But David said: I will lift up my eyes to the hills from where comes my help my help comes from the Lord maker of heaven and earth (Psalm 121). And that is why he will waited on God for his instruction, and was unshaken in his trust and belief in him.

He asked from God before taking steps to battle his enemy (2Samuel 5:17-25). He did not presume to know what to do. He asked. Jesus said ask and you shall be given (Matthew 7:7). To ask means you rely on him to do it. Solomon wrote: trust in the lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your path (Proverbs 3:4-7).

Daniel stopped the mouth of lions

This is from the blog Daily Meditation:

Daniel 6:20: And when he came to the den, he cried with a lamentable voice unto Daniel: and the king spake and said to Daniel, O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?

The people who surround Daniel were envious of him because he was about to be elevated above them. They formed themselves into an investigative panel so that they can look for fault with him. They made a thorough search of issues concerning him but saw that he was blameless (Daniel 6).

They decided that they their only alternative is to create a conflict that does not exist before between Daniel’s commitment to the God of Israel and the law of the Medes and Persians.

They made the king set up a law that no one should pray to any other god except the King for period of 30 days and anyone who disobeyed will be fed to the lions. Daniel would immediately contravene that law by praying to God facing Jerusalem as he used to. And of course he was arrested and thrown into den of lions. But God saved him.

He explained later that God whom he served unflinching and who supports him unbendingly, sent his angels to save him from the lions.

And in a classic case of one with God being a majority, the king fed the people who schemed against Daniel and their families to the lions. They were paid back in their own coin. They fell into the trap they have laid.

Because Daniel was focused on obedience to God, he shut the mouth of the lions. And in your case, what is meant to devour you will only promote you when you stand in faith. That was what happened with Daniel. What was meant to crush him crushed his adversaries.

The writer of the book of Hebrews obviously referred to Daniel, when he said by faith some people shut the mouth of lions (Hebrews 11:33). That shows that underneath the whole drama of Daniel going to and coming from the lions’ den, his faith was in operation.

What is meant to bring you down will only take you up when you are in faith. Faith uses adversity as soaring board. Faith says that it is not over until you win. When Daniel was thrown into that dark pit of a den full of lions, his adversaries thought that was the end to him. They thought he would no longer be any threat to them or their ambition, that they have rid themselves of him. But God would have none of that.

And Daniel would be given a public recompense of his devotion to God and his enemies will be given a public recompense of their opposition to the man who is with God. The Lord is committed to oppose those who oppose you. You can stand secure in his protection. God said, touch not my anointed and do my prophets no harm (Psalm105:15). You are marked by the anointing and you are protected. John wrote that this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith in God (1John 5:4). And greater is he who is in us than the one who is in the world (1John 4:4).

Faith is about bridging between heaven and earth. It presents a possibility above human ability. It activates the activity of angels.

When Jesus was about to be arrested, he said he can ask his father in heaven and he will make available 12 legions of angels to his defense (Matthew 26:53-54). He declined to activate faith to save himself, because of his commitment to go through with dying on the cross to save humanity.

Angels hearken to the word of God according to the testimony of scriptures (Psalm 103:20). So when you put the word of God in your mouth, declaring it over your situation, angelic activities are activated. The words you declare shows that you believe in God and angels get excited when they are around someone who believes in God and his declaration lines up with that.

I know that because when Zechariah, a priest, John the Baptist’s father was before angel Gabriel, he irritated Gabriel by mouthing disbelief to the word of God (Luke 1:18-20). And as punishment the angel said that the priest will be dumb for a season. He said that because he was pissed off by the unbelief of that priest. That was a negative action of the angel.  Faith does the opposite; it activates the positive actions of angels on behalf of the believers.

Faith unleashes enormous power. The bible says that the prayer of faith saves the sick and that the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man avails much (James 5:13-18), dynamic in its working and makes tremendous power available. That shows there needs to be present, for tremendous power to be made available, the threesome of righteousness, faith and prayer.

Daniel was standing in faith and his connection to God was without fail, which is righteousness. He was also a man of prayer; he defied the law of the land to go and pray on the pain of death by being eaten alive by lions. Prayer, righteousness and faith were present in his life and the three give forth a formidable combustion of spiritual energy as released by angels.

Righteousness is about a lifestyle that pleases God; faith is stepping out on the word of God, with active expectation that what he says, he will do, and prayer, is focusing the word of God as a laser beam in the realm of the spirit to get the will of God done.

But since God does not hear sinners, it means that righteousness is the core of all these. A life of faith starts with obedience to God, which is another definition of righteousness. There can be no activation of the help of God when you are not right with him. He is holy, remember?

However, the gift of righteousness that we receive from Jesus takes care of any acceptance issues between us and God (2Corinthians 5:21).  In Jesus, we are covered on the righteousness front. And God accepts us as he accepts Christ. The sacrifice he made was because our sin was laid on him, so that according to the logic of divine exchange, his righteousness can be put on us. He didn’t do anything to deserve the cross in the same way that we didn’t do anything to deserve his righteousness.

That, however, is not the same as license for lawlessness (Romans 6:1-2). After accepting the blood sacrifice of Jesus and we are now born again, we need to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4), walk in the truth (3John1:4), walk in the light (1John 1:7), walk in the Spirit (Galatians 5:16). Though we start with the gift of righteousness we are supposed to go on from there with the life of righteousness (1John 3:7). Because what Christ gives us is not just a gift, it is a change. We are new creatures (2Corinthians 5:17).

In Jesus we have our righteousness, in him our faith stands firm, and we use his name in prayer. He therefore represents for us victory over the lions of this world, whatever they are, and victory over whatever seeks to consume us.

_____

"A man with God is always in the majority."

"Let a thing be noted, that the prophet of God sometimes may teach treason against kings, and yet neither he nor such as obey the word, spoken in the Lord's name by him, offend God."

     --John Knox

Had A Dream: That The Global Jewish Community Would Recognize Tanakh’s DANIEL As A Jewish Prophet

Snare

This is from the blog Daily Meditation:

Ezekiel 12:13: And I will spread my net over him, and he shall be taken in my snare. And I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans, yet he shall not see it, and he shall die there.

The theme of the snare runs through the bible. In the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve fell into the deceptive trap of the devil (Genesis 3). The serpent approached Eve with a proposition, acting as if he was only looking out for her best interest, but it was a trap, a distraction from the will of God.

People around us come with similar propositions, they seems to have your best intention in mind. They may even mean well, not knowing their advice if taken would be nothing more than a major distraction from the will of God, from the best of God.

During the time Job was down and seemingly out with many troubles (Job 2:5, 9), his wife told him to curse God and if he was struck by him in judgment of death (showing her jaundiced view of God) them he will die and he will be free from pain. His wife wanted the best for him, but her definition of the best was short-sighted at best and satanically inspired at worst.

It will like cutting your nose to spite your face. It will like cutting off the head to solve an headache problem. In the confusion of his difficulties, to a lesser man that proposition would have been appealing. But Job said that even if God strikes him he will still trust (Job 13:15). He did not bite that bait; on that snare, he passed.

David wrote about the snare of the fowler (Psalm 91:3). In the snare, the benefit is presented while the danger is hidden, like the fine print, too fine to be see, and the smooth talker trying to sell you a broken down vehicle.

Before you take an advice check in your heart, and ask yourself what God is saying? Because something is appealing does not mean it is good. Because something glitters does not mean it is gold. Because everyone is doing it does not means you should. Because it is the fad does not mean you should tag along. You are not a photocopy. you are an original.

Anything that pulls you away from the will of God is a snare, it doesn’t matter how it is presented. Paul said that Demas departed from him having loved this world (2Timothy 4:10). Demas was trapped by the love of the world (1John 2:15-17), as he was distracted from being part of Paul’s ministry team.

When Jesus told the disciples that he would soon be hung on the cross, Peter thought he was taking things too far and told him to perish the thought (Mark 8:31-33). But Jesus rebuked him, saying: get behind me Satan, you are not after the will of God but self-will.

Abraham experienced a snare from his wife Sarah, she gave him the suggestion the way out of their childlessness that he should sleep with their Egyptian maid (Genesis 16:1-9, 21:8-15). It sounded cool, culturally acceptable, and naturally sensible.

But that was the end to the peace in his household. First the pregnant Hagar acted up against Sarah, and after Ishmael (standing for the self-will of Abraham) was born, about a decade later Isaac (standing for the will of God, the word of God, the promise) was born. And Ishmael (self-will) became a threat to Isaac (God’s will), mocking him. So Abraham had to die to his own will. He had to chase Ishmael away. And it was painful for him to do that. That was the cross he had to carry, he had to die to self-will to be able to elevate the will of God to its place of preeminent. But what was meant to be a means for him to have children turned out to be a snare. On the long run, Ishmael did nothing but complicate Abraham’s life. Self-will always does that. It is a trap.

For David, Bathsheba was a snare. It was supposed to be an unannounced adulterous event, but it made him a bull’s-eye for God’s judgment (2Samuel 11). Same with Adam and Eve. What was sold to them as a good thing, eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, made them enter into the judgment of death. If that was not a trap, then nothing else is.

The temptations of Jesus by the devil were snares. He told him, bow down and worship me and I will give you the kingdoms of the world and their glory (Luke 4:1-13). Jesus did not yield. He was able to judge the situation correctly, and dodge the satanic snare. Paul said: we should not give any foothold to the devil, lest he takes advantage of us (2Corinthians 2:11).

Because what you want is being offered does not mean you should take it, it may come with strings attached.

When Pharaoh first agreed to let the children of Israel go, to worship God in the wilderness (Exodus 10:8-11, 24, 12:31), he gave some conditions. He said they should not take their children with them, or that they should leave their cattle.

But Moses refused, he had his eyes on the will of God, which is full freedom for the children of Israel, just as He spoke to Abraham (Genesis 15:13-16), that his children will be enslaved in a foreign land and by the supernatural hand of God, they will released after 400 years in the land.

The will of God is freedom, total freedom, because to the limit that we are free from anything else is the limit is the limit we can serve God. Therefore God sent Moses with a message to Pharaoh: let my people go that they may serve me.

God does not want anything holding you down, no ideology, no sentiment, no sin. The book of Hebrews teaches that we should lay aside every weight and sin which doth easily beset us and run with patience the race that is set before us (Hebrews 12:1-2).

Paul said he was careful so that after he had preached to others he will not be a cast away, having been snared (1Corinthians 9:27). He doesn’t not want anything holding him back from the fullness of God, and he wants the same thing for those he wrote to.

He doesn’t want them snared, he doesn’t want their affection taken over by anything/one else but Christ, knowing that any attachment other than to him is a trap in disguise.

Jesus and Paul warned about the trap of money. Jesus said we cannot serve God and Mammon (Matthew 6:24), we cannot serve two masters, we cannot swear allegiance to Mammon and God at the same time. Attachment to money is a distraction from God. Paul said that the love of money is the root of all evil (1Tiimothy 6:10).

That was Judas’ undoing. He was in charge of the money bag for the twelve and Jesus (John 12:1-6). He stole some of it. He sought to get money by selling Jesus out (Matthew 26:15), fully entrapped by money.

And later he killed himself, racked by guilt for betraying Jesus. Suicide is indicative of a man in a snare. Ditto depression. In a snare you do not see a way out, seeing everything from the fulcrum of your pain or even need.

Negatives habits are snares, they are shackles that we should be free from. Because Jesus was free, he can help us to be free. He said that the enemy came to him and found nothing in him (John 14:30). He was free from all satanic entanglements, of the mind, spirit and body.

So because Jesus is free we are also free, because he is truth and when we grow in his knowledge we grow in freedom. Understand that the “truth” that does not lead you to more freedom is a lie, is a snare.