Beloved Family… here’s a text that the Holy Spirit gave to us, that we would do well to take to heart and ponder deeply as we continue our boot camp training:
Philippians 4:12-13
“I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” (Emphasis added.)
In these Last Days (which, for many people, are becoming ever more volatile and filled with frustration, rage, malicious rancor, and never-ending conflict and strife) there are many who keep doing their best to try to ‘save themselves’ and to ‘actualize’ and establish themselves in good positions within the earthly ‘pecking order.’ It is a mad, ‘dog-eat-dog’ scramble, in which the participants care little about the good and best interests of others, but rather, they remain obsessed with amassing, protecting, maintaining and enhancing their own self-interest and advantage and personal gain, and comfort and safety.
A very small number within the billions that inhabit the globe appear to be succeeding. But even they can’t know true peace and rest. Why? It’s because they have no way of knowing how long they’ll be able to keep their ‘winning streak’ alive and progressing. Sooner or later, it will end, because there is always someone who is breathing down their necks, waiting and plotting and looking for an opportunity to take what they’ve amassed, for themselves. So, even while the elite people manage to remain at the top of the dog pile, they know they’re liable at any moment to begin to see their ‘winnings’ crumble, disintegrate and slip through their fingers.
And, of course, the vast majority of Earth’s population occupies positions that are much lower in the world’s pecking order. To them, making it ‘to the top’ remains an impossible dream. Most people that are spread across the continents have very little hope of ever fulfilling their dreams, desires and improving their future prospects. And the reason for this is inescapable!
Nothing in This Broken, Sin-corrupted, Death-ridden World Will =Last… Except For Almighty God!
By its nature, everything we experience in this dimension is temporary. Sooner or later, it will disintegrate and be blown away by the winds of unstoppable change! And by the time we reach the end of this frustrating process, the speed with which it takes place will accelerate to a shocking rate of speed! Therefore, chronic insecurity will always saturate this world. And this is why so many people flounder in perpetual desperation. They ask themselves: “What’s the secret? How can I find a way to win? What am I am missing? Why do I always feel so much emptiness, dread and hopeless, cynical bitterness?”
This is even true of many so-called ‘God believers!’ Not even they have true answers to those questions. They have also failed to learn that awesome ‘Secret’ that Paul, a first-century Jewish apostle of Israel’s Messiah, spoke of, even as he was enduring many episodes of danger, trial, persecution, imprisonment, and ongoing tribulation. The ‘secret’ he referred to in our opening text, is what eludes most people:
Philippians 4:12-13
“I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I HAVE LEARNED THE SECRET of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I CAN DO ALL THINGS THROUGH HIM WHO STRENGTHENS ME!”
And Peter, his fellow New Covenant emissary, also learned this secret. He gives evidence that he, and the other emissaries, were enjoying the same peace and rest and confidence that Paul was enjoying. And so this is what Peter said, in the introduction to his first letter to the first-century disciples:
1 Peter 1:1-9
“To those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: MAY GRACE AND PEACE BE YOURS IN THE FULLEST MEASURE!
(Notice that the first century New Covenant disciples to whom he writes, were seen to be ‘holy.’ That is, they were clearly and obviously ‘separated from the rest of the world’ and its ‘dog-eat-dog’ systems. God had sanctified them, that is, He separated and set them apart, and reserved them exclusively for His personal service.)
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope THROUGH THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST FROM THE DEAD, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in Heaven (that is, already present and waiting) for you, who are PROTECTED BY THE POWER OF GOD THROUGH FAITH, for a salvation ready to be revealed (when God finally invades this time and space dimension and replaces it with His Eternal Perfection) in the Last Time.
(Peter acknowledges that God has regenerated them. They are new creations! And God has guaranteed an eternal future in which they will certainly share in His Eternal Life! This became a fact when, by His Holy Spirit, God connected them to Yeshua, their risen Lord. And the indwelling Spirit of God is their Guarantee that the Eternal Resurrection Life Yeshua’s Perfect Humanity enjoys even now… is now also theirs, and they will experience its Fullness when the Fulfillment of God’s New Covenant promises to Israel has been completed.
And so the Spirit of God abides in the Lord’s disciples to be their constant Comforter and Ally and to make the risen Lord Yeshua, real and present to them, and active from within all that they are and do. And, on this basis, the Holy Spirit is even now, guiding them, step-by-step, toward the ultimate fulfillment of their God-given purposes on Earth, and their eternal destinies in God’s Heavenly Kingdom.)
1 Peter 1:1-9 continued
“In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various (boot camp training) trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire (in the Arena of Testimony), may be found to result in Praise and Glory and Honor (to Almighty God) at the revelation of Jesus Christ; and though you have not seen Him, YOU LOVE HIM, and though you do not see Him now, BUT BELIEVE IN HIM, you greatly rejoice with Joy inexpressible and full of Glory, OBTAINING AS THE OUTCOME OF YOUR FAITH THE SALVATION OF YOUR SOULS. (That is, the Lord is moving you into the total transformation of your minds, wills, imaginations, and feelings… into Yeshua’s perfect image and likeness.)” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Peter encourages us to rejoice with him because the risen Lord is living and working from within us all. We can know and experience this BY FAITH. The world won’t believe in something until AFTER they experience it. And that will never work in God’s Kingdom. No, true disciples trust and believe God FIRST… and THEN, just as God promised, they are made able by God’s Holy Spirit, to experience His Truth and Reality for themselves.
Thus, if we, like the original apostles, will believe in our total union with the risen Lord’s Presence, and interact personally with Him, by faith, we too will be able to interact with God, by the Power of His Holy Spirit. And thus we’ll prove… by His marvelous works operating in our midst… that our faith in Yeshua is truly being validated, endorsed, and proven by Almighty God to be true. God will do this by His electrifyingly fruitful and obvious Perfect Presence being revealed in our midst!
The Secret of His Indwelling Presence
So, this ‘secret’ can be discovered, and a true, profoundly experiential knowledge and understanding of what Almighty God has revealed, can be had. It happens when we are actually filled and set ablaze by the Fire of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling Presence. Then… we’re finally authentically Divinely-equipped to know, in a very personal and dynamic way, that our Lord has truly risen from the dead and is actually abiding within each one of us, and is always at work in our midst.
The Holy Spirit is our New Covenant ‘Secret.’ Because of Him, we can operate at the supernatural level of New Covenant faith and response to the ‘Follow Me call’ of our Messiah. He equips us to know, even here on Earth… the awesome personal experience of our imperishable, undefiled God-given Inheritance that His Perfect Presence represents to us. Without God truly at work within us, it is impossible for fallen men and women to operate in God’s New Covenant with Israel!
Ephesians 5:17-20
“So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father…” (Emphasis added.)
God, Himself is our New Covenant Legacy! He imparts Himself to us, and endows us with a new, Heavenly Blood Covenant, ‘One with God’ Fruit-bearing Identity! And He is sufficient for us, at all times and in all things. And His Glory, into which He delights to bring us, will never fade away! The Spirit who is always at work within us makes us privy to all that God has already provided and reserved for us in His Eternal Heavenly Dimension! He transmits it to us as ‘our Daily Bread’ and it is always available for those who know His airtight Faithfulness. And through their corresponding airtight faith, they are always protected by God’s Almighty Power and are provided for by their Salvation and Covenant Bond with Him.
All of this can be known and lived out and demonstrated before the eyes of the believing, and unbelieving world. It can be known through New Covenant disciples that have been properly instructed and trained by the Lord Himself! As soon as we’re convinced that the Lord is here, with us, and in us, we can learn to abide with Him in total trust, outrageous confidence, and perpetual expectation. And that makes it possible for us to have a Living Lord who is actually real and present… a Lord we can actually follow in Spirit and in Truth!
But there’s a warning implied in all of this beloved, and it is this: We must not be distracted and drawn off of our Narrow Path of interacting with our Living God… by obsessing over an endless stream of nice-sounding, religious, mental Bible study head knowledge and by losing ourselves in the midst of a lot of religious activities that somehow concern our Master. That is a trap! Too much focus on stuff ABOUT the Lord can easily distract, deflect and disconnect us from our interaction with the LORD HIMSELF!
So, yes, by all means, do apply yourself to studying and penetrating the meanings and nuances of the Scriptures. In that way, you become familiar with what is in the ‘menu.’ BUT… remember that you must always be going past the menu… so that you can continually partake of the Real Food… the FEAST that you can only enjoy if you personally interact with and serve to embody your indwelling LORD AND MASTER!
This was the awesome Secret that our Messiah knew and demonstrated to His first-century disciples! He always embodied and revealed His Father and what He was doing… through every thought, choice, action, reaction and interaction of His Perfect Human Life! As long as He operated on Earth as ‘The Son of Man,’ He remained perpetually focused on the Perfect Presence of His Heavenly Father during all His time on Earth! He didn’t show them how to be tremendous students of the Scriptures and the man-made traditions of Israel. He showed them how to live and walk and dance with Almighty God Himself… in the Arena of Testimony!
John 5:19-20
“Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the Father will show Him greater works than these so that you will marvel.”
And so, when He says “Follow Me” to you and me, that means He is going to teach us how to be and do the same thing with Father and the Holy Spirit that He, the Living Word of God, is always doing! And if we truly do follow Him in this supreme lifestyle, God’s Word will transform us into His personal image and likeness. And we also will be abiding and interacting thereby with the Living Presence of the Living God!
Colossians 3:1-4
“Therefore, if you have been raised up with Messiah, keep seeking the things above—where Messiah is, sitting at the right hand of God. Focus your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Messiah in God. When Messiah, who is your Life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him, in Glory!” (TLV)
Yeshua’s union with His Heavenly Father made it possible for the Fullness of Father’s Holy Spirit to dwell in Him and work through Him. So the Father and His Word and the Humanity of the Word were always working as one, in the Spirit of God. It was God who was revealing Himself and testifying to the Truth of His Word from within Yeshua’s crucified Humanity! This was going on at all times! When you read the Gospels, you are seeing Yeshua, serving as our living demonstration of New Covenant living. What His totally crucified Humanity was ushering into His earthly circumstances as the Holy Spirit transmitted it to Him from His Heavenly Father, is why He is abiding with us now!
He is here to train us to do the same… to embody God’s awesome Presence in the midst of our own earthly situations and circumstances! He embodied His Father then, in His personal Body, but now He is here to do the same thing… through us! In other words, our Messiah was one with His Father, at all times! And the New Covenant Gift of the Holy Spirit makes it possible for those of us who will believe, and take this awesome news to heart, to be one with Yeshua! To be one with Him enables us to be one with His Father! This is what our FMM Marching Orders are trying to convey to us!
John 17:22-24
“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” (Emphasis added.)
So, if our generation of disciples is destined to cooperate with God as He brings His New Covenant Era on Earth to its Ultimate Fulfillment, we too will have to be trained, equipped, disciplined and drilled in the art and science of serving as God’s image and likeness, by becoming the image and likeness of His Living Word! And, once we learn to follow Yeshua’s lead in walking this awesome ‘Narrow Path,’ the world will begin to see and know that the God we proclaim is actually present and working in us and is always among us too… just as He was with Yeshua and the original disciples of the first century. And that is how He will let this jaded, God-less generation know the Truth, Reality and Eternal Heavenly Splendor contained in, and bestowed through, Yeshua’s claims and promises!
John 5:19
“Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner!”
John 15:4-8
“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the Vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing! If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away like a branch and is dried up. Such branches are picked up and thrown into the fire and burned. If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you. In this, My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be My disciples.”
The New Covenant Gift of the Holy Spirit makes Yeshua’s disciples to be one with God! And when the Spirit is free to do His work, He causes whatever is in Yeshua, who is now seated at His Father’s right hand in the Eternal Dimension of Heaven, to be transmitted into us, and through us, as we operate in the space and time dimension of this world! This is in fulfillment of what God’s Living Word revealed to Jacob in Genesis:
Genesis 28:10-17
“Then Jacob departed from Beersheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and spent the night there because the sun had set, and he took one of the stones of the place and put it under his head, and lay down in that place. He had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven, and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
“And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants. Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and THIS IS THE GATE OF HEAVEN!””
“Because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree, you believe?” Yeshua replied to him. “You will see greater things than that!” And He said, “Amen, amen I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God going up and coming down on the Son of Man!” (John 1:50-51 Emphasis added.)
So now beloved, ponder the following text and what took place between the risen Lord and these two disciples that had not yet received the New Covenant level of the impartation of the Holy Spirit. At the time this text reveals, they had no clue that they were receiving the awesome Gift of a visitation from the risen Living Word of God. They were Yeshua’s disciples, they had known Him very well in the flesh… but now that He was in the Resurrection Glory State of His Being, they were not yet equipped with the spiritual faculties needed to connect with and recognize, and interact with His Spiritual Presence:
Luke 24:13-27
“And behold, two of them were going that very day to a village named Emmaus, which was about seven miles from Jerusalem. And they were talking with each other about all these things, which had taken place. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus Himself approached and began traveling with them. But their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him. And He said to them, “What are these words that you are exchanging with one another as you are walking?”
“And they stood still, looking sad. One of them, named Cleopas, answered and said to Him, “Are You the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days?” And He said to them, What things?” And they said to Him, “The things about Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word in the sight of God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to the sentence of death and crucified Him. But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, it is the third day since these things happened. But also some women among us amazed us. When they were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find His body, they came, saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said that He was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just exactly as the women also had said, but Him they did not see.”
“And He said to them, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His Glory?” Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” (Emphasis added.)
Dear ones… can you see it? Before Yeshua’s death and resurrection made it possible for them to receive the New Covenant Gift of the Holy Spirit, His beloved disciples were in exactly the same position that Nicodemas and all of the other first century Israelites were in! It didn’t matter who it was. We can consider those who were publicans and sinners and tax collectors; or, we can consider those who were the spiritual ‘elite’ of the high priest’s Sanhedrin entourage… or even Yeshua’s mother and brethren and His hand-picked disciples themselves!
None of them was able to make the full, mind-boggling, overwhelming connection between the Yeshua that they knew in the flesh, and all that Moses and the prophets had written about Israel’s Messiah in the Tanach! His Holy Divine Resurrection Presence was standing before these two clueless disciples on the road to Emmaus! They had no idea who He was… that the Living Word of the Living God was there, reaching out to them and endeavoring to connect them to the Eternal Dimension of Heaven, just as He had once done with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses!
These contemporaries of Yeshua could not enjoy God’s Presence the way the Holy Spirit had enabled their Messiah to enjoy it. But a few days later, Father had released Yeshua to launch the New Covenant Era by imparting the baptism of the Holy Spirit upon those 120 disciples of His (See Acts 2). And because they were waiting in Jerusalem, as ordered, those Israelites were then empowered to enjoy and interact with God in the same way they had seen their Master do it before His death! And from that point onward… the New Covenant Remnant of Israel appeared on the Earth… and began to grow and spread and make its way all across the globe!
The Spirit-Given Interaction With His Presence
So… only after the New Covenant was actually launched upon the earth did those same two first-century Emmaus road disciples receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit. And then they were equipped to recognize, and interact with, the Presence of the Spirit of God, who connected them to the spiritually perceived Resurrection Glory of their Eternal Messiah, the Lord of Glory! And this is what Peter and Paul and the other apostles were able to introduce to any Jew who would listen to them, and also to all of those newcomer Gentiles that God began to graft into the Olive Tree of Israel in the first century!
This Spirit-given ability to recognize and embrace and interact with the awesome Presence of the risen Lord is the Secret Paul was writing about. It is God Himself, who serves as our Source of the unique New Covenant level of Peace, Joy and Rest! He imparts to us a marvelous ‘Emanuel Awareness’ – that knowing that ‘Almighty God is not only all around us, but now, He is actually living and working from within us!’
This is the New Covenant sense of total security, peace and fulfilled satisfaction that God has made possible for us through the Life, Death, Resurrection and Heavenly Enthronement of our Messiah! Now it’s possible for us to actually ‘taste’ and enjoy the first fruits of the Ultimate Fulfillment that will be ours for all Eternity!
Now we can begin to pursue the part of our Exodus Journey that leads us into God’s actual New Covenant Land of Promise! He is here… preparing us to give the awesome Testimony He commissions us to give before all the powers of Darkness and the unbelieving world… when the end of human history, as we currently know it, is finally at hand. This ability to abide with God in His Eternal Perfection, even now, is the Fruit that comes from this firm Spirit-imparted knowledge and grasp of the awesome Perfection of God’s Word and the All-Sufficiency of His Perfect Finished Work!
When we know for sure that God’s Word has already foreseen, factored in, provided and paid for and given EVERYTHING to us, past, present, and future and that God, through His Spirit is here with us to supply us with it… then we never again have cause to worry or fret or be anxious about anything! There’s no need to search for or seek to acquire more than what is always available to us in Yeshua. Our Lord contains all of the Fullness of God within Himself. And so thanks to Him, we can abide in God’s own Peace and Rest and be continually filled with His Eternal Righteousness and Joy, regardless of whatever may be happening… and regardless of any issues, situations or circumstance, we may have to encounter and deal with in this fragile, fleeting, temporary world.
Isaiah 26:2-4
“Open the gates, that the righteous nation may enter, the one that remains faithful. The steadfast of mind You will keep in perfect peace because he trusts in You.
“Trust in the Lord forever, for in God the Lord, we have an Everlasting ROCK!”
Matthew 7:24-27
“Therefore everyone, who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on The Rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on The Rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!”
The Lord was not telling His disciples to base their lives on the Torah… He was telling them to base their lives on the Living God, the Living Torah, who reveals Himself through the written Torah! And there’s an enormous difference between the two. The written Torah is a created instrument. But God is THE CREATOR who reveals Himself in what is written! So the Torah is the ‘Menu’ that proclaims and reveals what is available to us… God is the one who is our Living Feast! He is THE ROCK!
And His Holy Spirit makes God real and present to us. He is also our awesome Eternal Guarantee of Salvation because He is the Connecting Link that unites us to our Heavenly Father. And the Spirit makes it possible for Father’s Living Word, Yeshua, the one who has already routed the world, the flesh and the devil, to live and work and reveal Himself from within us and to continually transmit the Righteousness and Self-less Love of His Heavenly Father… into us, and through us!
In Yeshua, God’s Perfect Living Word, we can now be part of His already accomplished triumph. In Him, we have already won the war with Satan and our fallen flesh, and we are no longer in bondage to the Serpent’s Sin and the Death Sentence that follow it. Now, we can enjoy the spoils from our share in His victory, and share them liberally. We can inject God’s blessings into every one of our experiences, activities, and interactions, at all times, even in the midst of atrocious earthly conditions and circumstances!
Our Perfect God is always here with us, to reveal His Perfect Presence and Covenant Faithfulness to us. He assures us, and those around us, that through His Living Word and Holy Spirit, in His Eternal, Infinite Perfection and Glory, He always has His own covered and protected and provided for, to PERFECTION!
This was written in the Scriptures that God inspired Moses and the prophets and the psalmists and other Wisdom writers to deliver to Israel, and through Israel, to all of mankind. All of this Reality was already given to Israel’s generations. And there were many in Yeshua’s generation who believed and received it. And they were able to recognize and follow Yeshua as Israel’s ‘First Fruits Ingathering’ of the New Covenant Blessing! Those multiple thousands of Israelites who were able and willing to believe Moses and the prophets in the first century were able to recognize Yeshua’s True Identity and embrace Him as their long-awaited Messiah. They knew that if they believed and followed Yeshua, they would have nothing to worry about or agonize over. They would never again have to strive to try to make things better than He has already made them be!
John 3:9-15
“Nicodemus said to Him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
“No one has ascended into Heaven, but He who descended from Heaven: the Son of Man. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so, must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life!”
God, in the Infinite, Eternal Perfection of His Nature, is forever complete and All-Sufficient in Himself. And, through His Living Word, He has already done everything necessary to unite us to Himself so that He can provide for our total wellbeing! So all we have to do is to truly learn ‘The Secret’ – that God is Present to us and in us; and that He is always Perfectly All-Sufficient for us… in and through Yeshua. This was the Messiah-centered Gospel that was preached by His apostles in the first century.
At that time, most of Israel, with all the advantages that God had given to them, was not able to grab hold of this, despite the advantages God had given to them. And, as long as they remained stuck in the Covenant of Sinai, and the viewpoint and mentality and attitudes that emerged from it, a veil continued to cover their spiritual eyes. This was true to some extent, even with Yeshua’s chosen apostles and disciples! But when the time came for God to launch the New Covenant Era… they were filled and ignited with the Fire of the Holy Spirit baptism. Then their true understanding of their God-given Inheritance could be fully activated, implemented and actually released so that they could experience Yeshua’s invisible Presence in their corporate life and in each of their individual, personal heart of hearts!
But sadly, even today, if you observe large portions of Israel and the Christian Church, you’ll see that most of them are also not allowing God to graft them into His True New Covenant Israel and her ‘Olive Tree’ as Paul describes them in Romans 9-11 and in chapter 2 of Ephesians. Thus, many who belong to both groups, Jews, and Christians, are holding back and refusing to enter into the Lord’s Spirit-imparted New Covenant Resurrection Reality, in Spirit and in Truth.
Getting Past Lip Service
God requires all of us to get past the level of lip service and religious ritualism. He wants us to penetrate that soulish barrier and move into the Realm of His Holy Spirit! Only then can we be in direct touch with the Presence of God! And this is why so many of us are still missing out on so much of what God promises to do in and through His New Covenant. As long as God’s people remain forgetful and unmindful of this tremendous Gift, they, as a whole, will continue to remain relatively powerless and devoid of spiritual authority and helpless in the midst of the ever-increasing Darkness that continues to engulf this fallen world. As long as we do that, God will not be free to fulfill completely His promises to Israel, or to His Church.
It will not happen until the two groups both repent of their unbelief and disobedience and willingly come into their proper complementing positions together. Each group must fulfill its God-appointed function and begin abiding with the other group, as a United Family… under the Full Authority of their common Head, Messiah Yeshua!
If each group repents of its radical independence from God’s will and purposes and does what God requires, then God will be free to fulfill His New Covenant promises to each group. He will bring them into their proper, respective, God-given New Covenant positions and proper relationship with each other! The two portions of God’s New Covenant Family MUST come together and allow the Holy Spirit to transform us all into One New Man in Messiah… in Spirit and in Truth. And, if we do not allow God to transform us, God’s Word, as given in Ephesians 2 and elsewhere, will not be fulfilled in our generation!
This is why I keep harping on the vital need for our FMM Family members to successfully complete their boot camp training, and to take our FMM Marching Orders (listed elsewhere on this website) to heart. We must train ourselves and rewire our brains and reprogram our minds to align with God’s New Covenant Revelation. We must struggle to persevere and overcome all obstacles and opposition to God’s Plan that may still be lurking within us. This must happen if we are going to be able to finish the Exodus Journey that we started. Only then will we be able to enter entirely and completely into God’s Eternal Rest’.
This will not happen unless we are properly and adequately trained to be able to see and accept and believe and trust and rest in the fact that Yeshua’s Perfect Presence is always with us at all times! He is Israel’s Life… and also the Life of all of Creation! So how can we humans not be one with Him? And, because He who contains the Fullness of God is always with us, and in us, we must be trained to look to Him and draw everything that the New Covenant guarantees to us, from Him, personally, as He supplies everything we need, from the Infinite Treasury of His All-Sufficient Finished Works of Grace!
Zechariah 4:6-7
“… This is the Word of the Lord to Zerubbabel saying, ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘What are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become a plain; and he will bring forth the Top Stone (of God’s True New Covenant Temple) with shouts of “Grace, grace to it!”’” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
None of this New Covenant glory can be true and alive for us as long as we remain merely religious and soulish. We must come to know Messiah Yeshua in His electrifying Reality and learn to abide in His Presence so that we can begin to follow His leading. This is why we must do a complete reconfiguration of our brain’s hard wiring and our mental onboard computer’s programming.
Romans 12:1-3
“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. For through the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”
Philippians 3:12-16
“Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let us, therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you; however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained.” (Emphasis added.)
This is what the New Covenant apostles finally were able to do, once they had been baptized in the Fire of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit equipped them to see and know what even the spiritual leaders of Israel could not grasp! No wonder they were able to rejoice and rest and abide in God’s Peace even when they were being beaten and arrested and given dire threats of disaster and death by those unbelieving Israelites and Gentiles who opposed them! No wonder the apostles didn’t cave in or wallow in self-pity! No wonder they were not self-serving or greedy or timid and fretful! No wonder they were able to remain so serene and content in times of want and trouble and apparent hopelessness!
They knew, despite all current appearances… and despite what others around them were doing, saying and threatening… and despite what current circumstances might cause their natural soulish faculties to perceive or think and feel… they had already won the victory in and through their Covenant Champion, Yeshua! The War with the powers of Darkness was over; and their risen Lord who abides at the right hand of His Father, was always there with them, to serve as their Eternally Victorious Covenant Champion and Provider!
And, once we know what that ‘First Fruits’ company of disciples knew immediately after they were baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit, we too will know God’s Glory and be filled with the love-motivated courage we need from the Holy Spirit. In the Last Days, God’s people will experience the Fullness of the Harvest of the seeds God planted into Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob! And we of this generation will walk in and act out God’s Fullness, as we abide under the Wings of the Supreme Eternal Victor and Supreme Lord over all of Creation.
Because He is the Lord of Creation… He is also the Lord of all of our situations, circumstances, and needs, cares and concerns! And just like the first-century apostles who knew this, and were no longer driven or influenced by earthly anxieties or by greed or the world’s addiction to control everything, we too will no longer be enslaved by earthly self-centered perspectives and opinions and assumptions and natural feelings. We can now be rooted in something much, much deeper and infinitely more solid and reliable – God, and His Living Word and Holy Spirit!
Psalm 125:1-3
“Those who trust in the Lord are as Mount Zion, which cannot be moved but abides forever. As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds His people from this time forth and forever. For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest upon the Land of the Righteous, so that the Righteous will not put forth their hands to do wrong.”
Beloved, ‘The Rock’ mentioned in Scripture is the Living Word of Almighty God Himself… in all of His Infinite, Eternal Perfection and Wholeness! God, through His Word, which He spoke forth to Israel and sent to be her Perfect Constant Covering and Shepherd (see Ezekiel 34), has revealed that His Love and Eternal Faithfulness and Loyalty to us are contained in our Lord Yeshua, the Son of David. He is our Eternal Guarantee of Perfect and unassailable Messianic Victorious Wellbeing!
Romans 8:28-39
“… We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the Firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified!
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
“Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written,
“For Your sake, we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered!”
But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord!” (Emphasis added.)
These apostles were speaking and writing from years of personal experience! They KNEW what it means to be loved and treasured by Almighty God! They KNEW what it means when He decides to enter a Blood Covenant Bond with human beings and makes them one with Himself! They had already been enabled to see with their own ‘spiritual eyes’ that the Lord was always working invisibly within all of their earthly experiences! He was in the midst of all the tangible, visible events they were living through! What was true for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Moses and the prophets, was now, also true for them.
What was true for the Hebrew slaves that God’s Word led out of Egypt and cared for in the wilderness was also happening for them now. All of this was true for Nicodemas and all the first century Israelites. But they could not grab hold of it until they received the Gift of God’s Precious Holy Spirit… in order to be fully equipped and prepared to enter into the New Covenant Reality. This is what we’re going to need to overcome amid the Last Days challenges we’ll face in The Arena of Testimony. Because God lives and works from within us, we can overcome any and all demonic opposition! The apostles understood this. And this is what Paul was referring to when he wrote these words:
2 Corinthians 3:7-18
“But if the (Sinai Covenant) ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was, how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with Glory? For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the (New Covenant) ministry of Righteousness abound in Glory! For indeed what had glory, in this case, has no glory because of the Glory that surpasses it. For if that which fades away was with glory, much more that (New Covenant Reality) which remains is in Glory.
Therefore having such a hope, we use great boldness in our speech and are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not look intently at the end of what was fading away. But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted because it is removed in Christ. But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart; but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the Glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”
The Lord’s abiding New Covenant Spirit-given Presence and Lovingkindness were causing awesome supernatural Fruit to emerge on behalf of the post-Ascension apostles. It was happening consistently and continually! They KNEW He was with them at all times. They KNEW that He was their Eternal Covenant Covering. They KNEW that what this changeless, eternally reliable God had been to them in the past was what He would always prove to be for them in the future. They KNEW that God’s New Covenant transforms God’s people into living ‘torches’ of His fiery Presence. So they were delivered from having to continue to be ‘God seekers’ The New Covenant transformed them into Spirit-inflamed ‘God Bringers’!
And we too can now also know this. Why? It’s because God is PERFECTION… AND PERFECTION does not ever change… and God has made us one with Him! So, the Truth is: in our Messiah, we have already won everything there is to win! Like the apostles, we too can experience for ourselves what the word ‘Shalom’ really and truly means, for those who love and trust God and abide with Him in His Covenant Loyalty and Reliability. It is to be at total peace with Almighty God… and if we’re at peace with Him, we can be at peace with ourselves and with whatever else may be around us… even in the midst of this fallen, broken agonizing world!
God’s Perfect Eternal Presence and the Perfect Covenant Love that He showers upon us, is our ‘Secret.’ David knew this Secret by faith in God’s Word. Elijah and Elisha, Isaiah and Jeremiah and Daniel and Hosea and all the other prophets knew it too, by faith in God’s Word! And the New Covenant apostles of Israel’s Remnant came to experience and know the Secret in their day, by their Spirit-given, ‘supercharged’ faith in God’s Word, who is our Resurrected Messiah Yeshua! Yeshua saw Abraham’s day… and the days of all of his descendants.
And now, thanks to the New Covenant, through our faith, He is here with us too because we have the advantage of being empowered even more by the Holy Spirit’s New Covenant Assistance and Enablement. And this is what God has made available to us so that we can transform into the Last Days Fulfillment of all that has gone before! Now it’s our turn to learn and to personally explore the fullness of the awesome depths of what this awesome Secret is ready to make possible for God’s Last Days Covenant Family!
Psalm 136:1-4
“Give thanks to the Lord, for He is Good, for His Lovingkindness is Everlasting. Give thanks to the God of gods, for His Lovingkindness is Everlasting. Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for His Lovingkindness is Everlasting. To Him who alone does great wonders, for His Lovingkindness is Everlasting…” (Emphasis added.)
Psalm 23
“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake.
“Even though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I fear no evil, FOR YOU ARE WITH ME; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely Goodness and Lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever! (Emphasis added)