Whenever I ponder the following text, I begin to feel overwhelmed… completely submerged and swept off of my mental feet. What the Holy Spirit says about God’s incarnate, resurrected Living Word is way too much for my poor mind to grasp! This text has embedded within it the endless vastness and significance and the Silence that Absolute, Eternal Perfection elicits from any onlooker. I am reduced to that when I try to fathom the depths of His Presence and the Eternal Perfection of the One who is the Infinite Source of all Life. He is the one and only Source; and there is no other:
Hebrews 1:1-6
“God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed Heir of All Things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the Radiance of His Glory and the Exact Representation of His Nature, and upholds all things by the Word of His Power!
“When He had made Purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they. For to which of the angels did He ever say,
“You are My Son, today I have begotten You”?
“And again,
“I will be a Father to Him and He shall be a Son to Me”? And when He again brings the Firstborn into the world, He says, “And let all the angels of God WORSHIP HIM!” (Emphasis added.)
Wavering Disciples
Beloved, the letter to the Hebrews was written to those who had been among the original group of All-Jewish believers in Yeshua. In the beginning, they had defied and contradicted the very strong negative public opinion and peer pressure that most of the Jewish people were exerting as they kept defying and rejecting Yeshua and all of His claims. Most of us could not possibly fathom or sense the depths of personal pain that those original New Covenant believers had to endure… what it cost them to ‘drop everything’ and follow their Messiah into the brand new territory of the New Covenant that God had made with the House of Israel and the House of Judah.
God chose those original Jewish apostles and disciples to lead the rest of Israel… and the whole world… into the awesome, inconceivable Reality-Shift Transition, that Scripture calls, ‘The New Covenant.’ God’s incarnate Son had come to demonstrate for Israel that the time had come for God’s chosen people to allow Him to bring it and its marvels to them, so that He could lead them further… beyond the Covenant of Sinai… and into the awesome Post-Resurrection and Ascension, New Covenant Fulfillment and Restoration of all of Creation!
That was what God’s Son, The Word, had begun to do with them and through them. And now, these Israelite followers of Yeshua were having second thoughts. They were wavering in their faith, and were on the verge of forsaking their Messiah so they could go back to their original Covenant of Sinai ‘comfort zone.’
God’s Mysterious Covenant
Beloved, the New Covenant that God has begun to bring into effect is so mysterious… so DEEP… in Significance and Meaning for God’s Eternal Purposes… I fear that no generation of believers since the first century has yet been able to begin to fathom and ingest and truly embody the Reality that it makes possible. We hear and read what the apostolic writers were saying and teaching in those days… but I’m convinced that we have not yet been pierced and transfixed to the very core of our being by the Truth and Reality that underlie those words… not to the degree that our Heavenly Father desires.
I believe we still fall far short of the full understanding and realization that He intends for us to have. So, we still do not know God and His Word and Spirit, as He truly is. We have not yet begun to plumb the Magnitude and the Endless Depths of what God’s Fullness truly IS. We’ve not grasped the piercing, crushing overwhelming impact of all that the Perfect Love of God has already done on our behalf… through His beloved Son, The Word.
This letter was written to those wavering Jewish disciples soon after God had sent His Son to Earth… in human flesh… to institute and launch the New Covenant apostolic era of Israel’s faithful Remnant. It clearly announces to Israel, as well as to the rest of the world, that, now that we’ve learned what God requires of all fallen human flesh through the instruction of the Covenant of Sinai, and after we’ve seen Israel fail continually to meet God’s Standards…God’s now taking us all into the New Covenant Era in which He Himself will serve as our Eternal Covenant Representative and Champion through the work of His Living Word!
The Work is Done
The Word, appearing on Earth as Yeshua of Nazareth, has personally fulfilled every speck of what God’s Perfect Nature has revealed about itself and what His Standards require of us – and promise to us – in our name and on our behalf.
In the New Covenant, God has covered us perfectly, with His own Righteousness… and His Living Word has already done all of the necessary work as our Eternal Blood Covenant Representative and Messiah and High Priest!
Those wavering Jewish disciples had, for some reason, still not been able to grasp the magnitude of what God had done to them, and in them. They were unable to grasp and absorb the Reality of who Yeshua is, and the Magnitude of what His Death and Resurrection mean… and then to appropriate it to themselves.
Hebrews 5:11-13
“Concerning Him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the Word of Righteousness, for he is an infant.” (Emphasis added.)
Failure to Understand
They still did not know Yeshua, despite the pains God had taken to reveal Him to them! They didn’t realize that God had sent His Living Word into their midst to bless and include them in this awesome New Covenant Era… so that He could remove the guilt and condemnation from them that comes from their failure to comply with the requirements of the Covenant of Sinai, to the degree that God’s Perfection requires! Thus they failed to understand the enormous privilege, honor and blessing God had given to them by entrusting into their care this awesome proclamation of His Son and what He has done for the world.
In the past, there had been many things that captivated the attention and devotion of Israel. The marvelous history of God’s dealings with the children of Israel, and Israel’s continued miraculous, supernatural survival and continued existence, proved beyond the shadow of any doubt that God had blessed them and was with them and is always faithful to them… despite her failures. But this had caused many in the Jewish world to become proud and arrogant and contemptuous of the other peoples of the earth who still wallowed in pagan uncleanness.
Stripping Away False Delusions
But now… through this awesome letter, God stripped away all those false delusions and misconceptions from them. Now He was rubbing their faces in the Reality and Truth that His Living Word is Supreme over everything in the universe that is created… even Israel herself, and even the Jewish world that had emerged out of the Sinai Covenant, with all of its deeply embedded customs and religious traditions!
Now He was stating New Covenant Fulfillment Reality… introducing the Reality that will prevail and remain Supreme and Preeminent for all of Eternity. Now He was pointing the way to them that would lead into the Era of the Last Days Fulfillment. YESHUA MUST INCREASE… until everything that has been created by Yeshua, correspondingly decreases!
Now it is the appointed Time for the awesome Final Era… when the Living Word of God will enjoy Supreme, Absolute Authority over all things… and now, Father is in the process of removing all opposition and resistance to His Living Word’s Total Enthronement! Now God’s Living Word is about to become THE ALL… in all things, at all times, for everyone and everything else!
Ephesians 1:9-14
“He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an Administration suitable to the Fullness of the times, that is, the Summing Up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him also we have obtained an Inheritance, having been predestined according to His Purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the End that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, would be to the Praise of His Glory!
“In Him, you also, after listening to the Message of Truth, the Gospel of your Salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of Promise, who is given as a Pledge of our Inheritance, with a view to the Redemption of God’s own Possession, to the Praise of His Glory!” (Emphasis added.)
What We Are Called to Do
Dear ones, this is the message and the Reality and the emphasis that I believe Father has commissioned the FMM Family to embrace, absorb, practice, embody and demonstrate to whoever happens to be around us. This is the Last Days Testimony of all of the Lord’s disciples who wear His uniform and are engaged in His active service.
But now, going through the motions and donning religious disguises while our hearts and souls remain filled with worldly things that blot out the image of Yeshua and drown out the voice of God, will no longer be allowed in those Last Days disciples! Father will not permit us to merely try to ‘say our Message.’ We can’t just mouth nice things about The Fulfillment.
Now it is time to demonstrate it… by the supernatural manifestations of its Truth in our flesh and circumstances and interactions with the people around us! It is time for disciples to become God’s ‘living proof’ – the actual living demonstrations of the coming Reality of this Awesome Fulfillment!
Isaiah 40:3-11
“A voice is calling, “Clear the way for theLordin the wilderness; make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. Let every valley be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; and let the rough ground become a plain, and the rugged terrain a broad valley; THEN the Glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh will see it together; for the mouth (Word) of the Lord has spoken.”
“A voice says, “Call out.” Then He answered, “What shall I call out?” “All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever.”
“Get yourself up on a high mountain, O Zion, bearer of Good News, lift up your voice mightily, O Jerusalem, bearer of good news; lift it up, do not fear. Say to the cities of Judah, “HERE IS YOUR GOD!”
“Behold, the Lord God will come with Might, With His Arm (Living Word) ruling for Him. Behold, His Reward is with Him and His Recompense before Him. Like a Shepherd He will tend His flock, in His arm He will gather the lambs and carry them in His bosom; He will gently lead the nursing ewes!” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Our Job is Not to Debate or Demean
Beloved, it will not be enough for us to try to preach, pontificate, dogmatize or argue in the presence of unbelieving people. No matter how logical or clever our remarks and intellectual gimmicks may be… that will never convince this current, demon-possessed world to bow before Yeshua and His Truth. No, this is not a message that any of us will be able to cram down anyone’s throat.
In the Last Days, our job will not be to argue, debate, criticize or demean people who refuse to believe. God forbid that we should descend to that worldly carnal level of operation in the performance of our task. Isn’t our world already overburdened with that kind of animosity, strife and conflict? Do we not have more than enough already of bitter adversaries that do everything in their power to decimate and tear to pieces and utterly destroy their opposition?
No! We have a Message that is not at all of this fallen world! Our Message is ALIVE AND DIVINE! Our Message is a PERSON… who is Living, Real and dynamically Present. And He is here to actively reveal His Eternal Fruit… the Fruit that flows out of Heaven, from the Inexhaustible Treasury of His Perfect Finished Work! The Last Days issues will not be about us, or the people who oppose us. Everything will shift, radically and profoundly! And thereafter, everything will be about the Glorious Living Word of the Living God… and the Perfection and All Sufficiency of what our God has already DONE… THROUGH HIM!
The Living Word… Among Us
The Resurrected Messiah of Israel is the one who abides within His Spirit-empowered disciples. And He is here to reveal and prove to the entire universe that He truly does contain, within Himself, the Fullness of the Power and Majesty and Authority of Almighty God! Yes, Yeshua is the actual Living Word of God made flesh. He is our Message! And He will be here in us and among us… TO SPEAK FOR HIMSELF!
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
“And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of (natural human) wisdom, BUT IN THE DEMONSTRATION OF THE SPIRIT AND OF POWER, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the POWER OF GOD!” (Emphasis added.)
In the past, we all did some of that arguing and debating that still goes on incessantly. But when we did that, as we now well know, we ourselves were still deceived! We may have been eminently religious, but we had no idea of just how clueless we still were! We knew tons of things ABOUT the Lord… but very few of us actually KNEW HIM, AND INTERACTED WITH HIM, AND EMBODIED HIM… AS HE REALLY IS! So all we could do was to talk and blow smoke… while the world continued to yawn and nod off to sleep.
Luke 6:39-46
“And He also spoke a parable to them: “A blind man cannot guide a blind man, can he? Will they not both fall into a pit? A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye?
You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye. For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit, nor, on the other hand, a bad tree which produces good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush. The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart. Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”
The Lesson of Cain & Abel
So what has the Lord been telling us all this time, beloved? Was He not reminding us to remember always, the lesson He taught us through the examples of Cain and Abel? In Genesis 4 He revealed to us what Father will accept from us and what He will not accept. Abel offered to God exactly what God asks of us… a sacrificial lamb… the perfectly Sin-less sacrificial life of a blood covenant substitute representative. In other words, Abel was following the pattern given to him by God’s Living Word… Yeshua!
But Cain was not following the Word of God. He was trusting in his own fallen understanding and living a radically independent, externally religious, living dead existence! Abel offered the slain sacrificial lamb to God, in the place of his own personal Sin-corrupted fleshy makeup and activities. But Cain offered what he thought God would like… the best he personally had to offer… and God, in His Perfect Righteousness, turned His back on that abomination. And He always will.
This was the pattern that God had already revealed to fallen Adam and Eve, who in their desperation and shame, tried to cover their Sin-full nakedness and do what they could to make themselves more presentable to each other, and to God. They decided to gather and use fig leaves of their own design behind which they might hide. But God rejected that false covering. Instead, through His Living Word, He covered them Himself, using the skins of innocent animals that had given their lives to take their place before God. Those substitutes that had no Sin, made a substitute covering on their behalf.
Everything Must Be Done By Him
This was the issue in the story of Cain and Abel. And in telling us this, God is revealing His Blood Covenant Pattern, the Pattern He uses with us throughout all of Scripture: Everything must be done for us, not by our own efforts, but by the Finished Work of God’s own Living Word, for He is the Eternal Lamb of God! God will only accept from us, what He has first given to us through His Word. So, when we rest in Yeshua, and offer Him and His Perfect Finished Works of Creation and Redemption to God… we are putting 100% of our faith, hope and trust in Yeshua, our Eternal Covenant Representative! And we are drawing everything we need, from His Perfect Finished Works of Creation and Redemption. And because we do that, God is totally satisfied and pleased with us.
But He will not accept anything that comes from our own Sin-corrupted, Death-ridden fallen flesh, no matter how ‘religious’ or ‘theologically correct’ or ‘spiritual’ we may try to make it appear before God and Man. God sees through all of that phony emptiness. He knows it well – it is the radically independent self-life of the Serpent!
T. Austin-Sparks puts this truth quite well in several of his writings. Here’s one example taken from His free online book entitled, ‘Spiritual Fruitfulness’:
“Fruitfulness is related to the Word of God. What are the properties of that Word? “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” These are not abstract elements. What is said about the Word is said about the Lord Jesus – He is “a life-giving spirit”. The Word is Christ mediated to the life. Fruitfulness is a matter of Christ, as Spirit and Life finding increase in us through the Word, so that He becomes Spirit and Life to us, and through us to others. It is Christ living in us, expressing Himself through us. It is the increase of the living Christ.
“Various things are said in relation to this. Even this may be in different measures and degrees; the hundred-fold, sixty, thirty. The hundred-fold is where Christ is all and in all. But there may be sixty-fold, very good; thirty-fold, good, but the Lord would have it a hundred-fold! How can that be? What leads to the hundred-fold? What leads to fruitfulness, or the increase of the Lord as Spirit and Life? That brings us again to the seed sown.” T. Austin-Sparks
And here’s a second example; it’s taken from his daily devotionals for July 22nd. (If you wish, you can subscribe to his devotionals from his website: Austin-Sparks.net):
John 5:16-17
“The Jewish leaders began harassing Jesus for breaking the Sabbath rules. But Jesus replied, “My Father is always working, and so am I.” NLT
A New Direction
“A true knowledge of the Lord Jesus will reverse a good many of our ideas, and a good many of our procedures. A true knowledge of Christ and union with Christ, with all that that means, will make us begin to follow an entirely new direction from that in which we were originally accustomed to go. Then we shall be governed by this one consideration: it is not what we would do for the Lord, but what the Lord would do through us. That is alone to rule. It is a very testing way.
“You can hardly believe, unless you have been the same way, how often and intensely and bitterly the enemy fights and tempts you to come down on to a lower position, and to take up things again for God and launch big schemes, enter upon big undertakings, set up some thing on the earth that can be seen, because all those who are governed by that standard of things seen, have said: “You see, you are doing nothing! Show us what you are doing! You cannot show us anything for it all!”T. Austin-Sparks
Satan’s Lie
“Satan does work on that line. To the flesh that is not easy, to go on with God and have nothing to show for it, never to be able to have the work written up in the papers, to publish no reports, nor statistics, and yet to know in your heart of hearts that, although it is hidden, something is going on, and that you cannot do otherwise than you are doing; that is far from being a path of ease to the flesh.
“It is a testing way, but, blessed be God, if we do endure the testing and go on patiently with Him, in His time, when that flesh has been finally laid low; when the voice of natural ambition is no longer sounding and having influence, and we are now utterly at the place where if things are not going to be of the Lord then there is not going to be anything at all, then the Lord has a free way, and He is able to indicate that all the time something has been going on.
He shows how He has been at work, and how that in time there will be manifested a work of God, a work that shall have such a large percentage of spiritual value and meaning in it that you are very glad, after all, that you walked with God and not with men, in the work of God.” T. Austin-Sparks
Everything Will Be Made New
This is what God’s Living Word teaches us about the Absolute Perfection and All Sufficiency of God’s Finished Work of Creation and Redemption. We see it brought up throughout the entire Torah of Moses! He taught this to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and they finally learned the lesson. And this is why Abraham didn’t think that he had arrived, just because he was able to move his family to the physical land of Canaan, to which God had promised to lead him.
Abraham knew that there had to be much more to God’s Promise than that! In those days, and throughout all of human history, to this very day, the physical land, special as God’s blessing and activity has made it, is, nevertheless, a created, Sin-corrupted place that is being continually contaminated by sinful men!
But that’s not the full extent of what God had promised to give to His people in the Torah! Scripture tells us that at the End, everything, even Israel and its capital city Jerusalem, will become brand new. What is old will be replaced by a brand New Reality that is 100% directly from God! It will descend to us from the Perfection of His Eternal Realm!
Revelation 21:1-4
“Then I saw a New Heaven and a New Earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the Holy City, New Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from God, made ready as a Bride adorned for her Husband.
“And I heard a loud voice from the Throne, saying, “Behold, the Tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; THE FIRST THINGS HAVE PASSED AWAY!”
And somehow, Abraham came to know this. He knew that what God had in store for him was going to be an eternal Heavenly Reality that would not fall short of the Presence and Reality and Truth and Fullness that can only be found within the Living Word of God Himself! And Yeshua said to His disciples, to make sure they understood what Abraham understood:
John 14:6
…I am The Way, and The Truth, and The Life; no one comes to the Father but through Me! (Emphasis added.)
Cling to Yeshua
So, as far as Father is concerned, nothing short of the Fruit that only our resurrected Lord can produce in us and through us will do. Therefore, the same should be true of us. From now on, we cannot afford to fall for what is counterfeit and fraudulent! As long as we remain deceived, we will continue to idolize created things, and endow them with the highest level of priority in our own estimation. But beloved, not even Israel, and not even the written Word, and our limited and often flawed ability to understand it, can legitimately be placed above the Authority and All-Sufficient Infinity and Perfection of the Living Word of God! And that is exactly what the recipients of the letter to the Hebrews were in great danger of doing!
But the Lord was taking great pains to remind them once again: You MUST cling to My Son, and to Him alone! Be worthy children of My friend Abraham! Learn from his example! Let go of every one of your false created idols! NOTHING that I have created, not even My beloved Israel and her broken Covenant of Sinai, will ever be able to serve as a substitute for My Living Word and My New Covenant which He fulfills!
That’s why Yeshua emphasized to His Jewish contemporaries that it isn’t enough to have a bunch of Scriptures ABOUT God’s Living Word. It isn’t enough to belong to created organizations or movements or theologies or religious rituals that somehow, someway PERTAIN to God and His Word. Beloved… WE MUST HAVE HIM… THE LIVING WORD HIMSELF!
John 5:39
“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have Eternal Life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have Life!(See also Deuteronomy 18:15-19; and Isaiah 53)
John 5:39-47
“I do not receive glory from men; but I know you, that you do not have the love of God in yourselves. I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the Glory that is from the one and only God?
“Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me! But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My Words?” (Emphasis added.)
The written Word reveals and announces Yeshua, the Living Word of God, and what He will be doing on behalf of helpless, spiritually bankrupt Israel. Israel is the demonstration model for the whole world… the model of human living death and helplessness, being transformed into resurrected, regenerated eternal sons of Almighty God! But the Living Word of God is, in Himself, the True Fulfillment of all of this. He is the True Land of Promise! Yeshua is our Perfect Fulfillment and Consummation before the Father.
Rest in Him
Whatever we were created to be and to do and to have from our Heavenly Father… comes to us IN YESHUA! It is all IN HIM! And that is why all of us must make our Exodus from our miserable existence of Sin-murdered radical independence… to Eternal Life IN HIM AND FROM HIM! And this is why our hearts will never be able to rest until they rest IN HIM! He must become our Indwelling LIFE… the only LIFE that is able to produce the FRUIT that Almighty God will be able to accept and enjoy and share with His Creation. And beloved, in the Last Days… He will have to be The Message that we, and everything about us, will be proclaiming to the world… loud and clear… in living supernatural Color!
Matthew 11:25-30
“At that time Jesus said, “I praise You, Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.
“Yes, Father, for this Way was well-pleasing in Your sight. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.
“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I WILL GIVE YOU REST! Take My Yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will (finally, at long last) find REST for your souls! For My Yoke is easy (for those who rest) and My Burden is light (for those who rest).” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
The ‘hundred-fold’ yield that Yeshua spoke of in Matthew 13 comes about in a person’s experience when our Messiah, God’s Living Word, has become ‘All in all’ to a person. God doesn’t want us to try to ‘share the load’ with His beloved Son! He doesn’t want us to try to help Him out as best we can. God told us that Sin has killed us!
That means we’re dead even before we start out! And the dead can do no work! The dead, in their personal bankruptcy, can only REST in peace! The dead MUST wait for and depend upon Another… one who truly is ALIVE… one who has already done all of the necessary Work of pleasing and satisfying God in our Name! And that is why Yeshua said: “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life, and no one comes to the Father but through Me!”
His Finished Work
When Yeshua finally becomes our one and only Lord and Source for all things in our estimation, then… He is our Lord 100% of the time… in 100% of each situation, need, challenge, event and interaction, THEN, 100% of the fruit yield that comes up in us and all around us is genuinely derived from His Finished Work. It is part of the overflow from His Perfect Eternal Accomplishment! And in that case, we can know God’s Living Word as He REALLY IS! And we can know that Father will be 100% satisfied and pleased with what we offer to Him.
Then it can be said that we have truly transformed into the faithful and accurate image and likeness of the one who is the Perfect Image and Likeness of the Father. Only this level of Perfection will please and gratify our Heavenly Father. And this is what Paul was expressing in this passage of Ephesians:
Ephesians 5:11-21
“Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of Darkness, but instead even expose them; for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things, which are done by them in secret. But all things become visible when they are exposed by the Light (the Perfect Presence of Yeshua, God’s Living Creative Word, as He abides in and works through the crucified flesh of His disciple), for everything that becomes visible (in such a yielded disciple) is (Yeshua’s indwelling) Light. For this reason it says,
“Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
“Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine (or any other created thing or person to whom you might look for your personal satisfaction and well being), for that is dissipation, but be filled (continually fill yourself) 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 (because God has already provided all things for you) in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; and be subject to one another in the fear (awe and the grateful respect) of Christ.” (Amplification added.)
And this is what our Master was teaching His disciples to grasp and to do:
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 as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much(of My Perfect)FRUIT, and so PROVE TO BE MY DISCIPLES!” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
The Lord is warning us: He must train and equip us to be able to make the critical transition from self-life to Messiah-Life. We must be living demonstrations of the difference between the Life of Israel’s Messiah… which, by the Power of the Gift of the Holy Spirit, is meant to flow into us and back out, like rivers of Living Water from deep within us, as opposed to empty, corrupted useless spasms and twitches that can be seen coming from the world’s unbelieving, rebellious, living dead children of Adam.
Bankrupt Acts from Empty People
Because they’re dead and empty, and they have no real faith in the one true God, they endlessly strive to suck life and well being out from the created temporary, Sin-corrupted things and people and death-ridden resources that we encounter in this fallen world. They idolize creatures, including themselves. And they feel driven to try to ‘be somebody’ or to ‘get someplace’ by trying to appear ‘religious’ and by trying to ‘do spiritual things.’ Those are the acts of living dead people who are bankrupt, needy, empty and hopelessly self-centered at all times. And, unfortunately for them, the created things to which they look and upon which they place their hopes and expectations, are just as dry and dead and empty and temporary as they are!
So people who do not know God, as He really is, are always empty and dead. And whatever comes out of them is also empty and dead. It’s as if they are then forced to develop ‘intake tubes’ that they keep trying to insert into the created things that they believe will be able to meet their needs. But disciples who know God’s Living Word, as He really is, know that all things are contained in Him. So they seek to know Him and to follow Him at all times. And because the risen Lord can abide with them from within… He is able to supply them with whatever Father sends Him to be and do for them.
Reliance on God
Thus they can continue to draw everything they need from Him, instead of looking to the systems of this fallen world. And because they already have Everything that matters, they stop looking to this fallen world for anything. And the Lord was referring to this when He prayed to His Father on our behalf, shortly before the time came for Him to go to the Cross:
John 17:14-19
“I have given them Your Word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the Truth; Your Word is Truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in Truth.”
So, as the Last Days disciples learn to live and act as one with the Infinitely Perfect God, they will have no need to look to the created things that are around them for life, sustenance and well being and satisfaction. The indwelling Presence and Life of God’s Living Word is always consummating and completing them. Yeshua is that Word; and He was sent by the Father to be Everything for His own. The Power of God’s Life and Holy Spirit equips and supplies us with everything necessary.
Thus disciples who are ‘always God-filled’ develop ‘overflow tubes’ instead of ‘intake tubes.. They have no more need to try to get what they think they need from dead empty sources. They always fill themselves from the Inexhaustible Reservoir of the indwelling Presence of Almighty God! God’s Life-giving Fullness causes them to overflow with His Abundance! And the Abundant Fruit that God is to them, transforms them into givers, rather than takers. They become part of God’s Solution, as opposed to those empty needy unbelieving problem people that remain empty and ravenous and addictive.
Your God-Given Identity
So beloved… ask yourself: do you know God as He really is? If you do, then you too know that He is always with you and in you to supply whatever you will ever need to fulfill your God-given identity, purpose and destiny. And you are able to understand that you already have Everything! Then you’ll be able to understand what Yeshua was saying to His terrified disciples when they were all in a boat during that awful, life-threatening storm:
Matthew 8:25-27
“And they came to Him and woke Him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing!”He said to them, “Why are you afraid, you men of little faith?” Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it became perfectly calm. The men were amazed, and said, “What kind of a man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?”
If you live as one with Yeshua, then you’re a true, Peace-filled, resting, Spirit-empowered disciple. And you also know what Abraham, Isaac and Jacob learned so long ago, after God’s Living Word called them out of their former places in this fallen world. As He kept revealing His Word to them, these men learned to look to and follow the Word. After He revealed Himself to them, they were spoiled for all the empty fraudulent enticements that this fallen world has to offer. None of that was able to capture their attention and focus. They could see through all of the demonic lies that enshrouded this world in Darkness. So nothing that this world had to offer was able to continue to tempt or gratify them any longer.
That is why they persevered and overcame. The were able to finish their Exodus because they kept following the Word of God… away from whatever was created… and into the Uncreated Reality and Truth that can only be found in God and His Word and Holy Spirit. That is the Land of Promise that God’s Perfect Finished Work has waiting for us. This is the Fulfillment of the New Covenant that we have been called to embody and demonstrate in the Arena of Testimony:
Hebrews 11:8-10
“By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he lived as an alien in the (physical, tangible) land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same Promise, for he was looking for the City (which can only be found in God Himself) which has (spiritual, uncreated, eternal) Foundations, whose Architect and Builder is God!”
When we finally come to know God the way our spiritual forefathers knew Him, we know that we’ll never be able to stop our Exodus Journey prematurely. We’ll know that whatever we see and encounter along the way is not what we’re made for, and not the Destination for which we have been designed and created. All of this created, temporary stuff is not the True Israel, the Real Land of God’s Promise. And so we keep going, following our Master. And we won’t stop until He tells us to stop!
Don’t Stop Moving and Growing
So, because we realize that He’ll never tell us to stop following Him, we do not ever reach a point in the Journey where we can begin to assume that ‘we’ve arrived.’ Nor do we assume that ‘we know everything and have nothing more to learn.’ We don’t dare stop our Exodus or dare to cut it short! No, we keep on going and moving toward what God’s Word is still leading us into. We won’t stop learning and growing and proceeding until our Commander says: ‘Here we are! WELCOME HOME!”
So we keep going because we know there’s much more waiting for us up ahead that God wants to reveal to us. He will continue to unpack and unpack more and more of the endless, Infinite, Inexhaustible Riches of the New Covenant Fulfillment… which can only be found in the Living Person of God’s Infinitely Perfect, Eternally Inexhaustible Living Word!
No More Wavering
This is what God was endeavoring to begin to teach to first century Israel. And this is what the apostles were striving to continue to communicate… first to their own Jewish brethren… and then also to all of the families of the earth:
Colossians 1:15-20
“He is the Image of the Invisible God, the Firstborn of all Creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the Heavens and on Earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also Head of the Body, the Church (the New Covenant Israel and Covenant Family of God); and He is the Beginning, the Firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have First Place in Everything!
“For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the Fullness (of God)to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile (redeem and restore)all things to Himself, having made Peace through the Blood of His Cross; through Him, I say, whether things on Earth or things in Heaven!” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Resist Temptation
The Letter to the Hebrews was warning the first century Israelites who felt tempted to cave in under all the peer pressure and contempt that was being heaped upon them by hostile Gentiles and also by their unbelieving Jewish families and relatives, and former associates and spiritual leaders, to forsake Yeshua and His disciples, and come back to their former ways. So God was warning them to wake up and stop wavering, and to come back to their first love… back to the point when Yeshua first revealed Himself to them and pierced their hearts with His overwhelming Truth and Reality.
God was telling them to stand and hold their newly received New Covenant Ground… and to resist the temptation of the Serpent that was doing his utmost to halt their Exodus and drag them back to the ways of ‘Self-life Egypt’ once again. They were to remember the promises that God had made to those Israelites that were striving so religiously to make the Covenant of Sinai work, and who thought that was all they needed.
So the letter to the Hebrews reminded them about what the Torah, and prophets like Jeremiah, had said about God’s All-Sufficient Grace and of what the New Covenant promises had revealed about the difference between trying to earn and achieve salvation by working for it… and learning to live in a way that proved, by their Spirit-empowered and God-given righteousness, that they were truly already saved! So the Jewish writer of this letter said to his fellow Israelite disciples:
Hebrews 4:1-5
“Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His Rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. For indeed we have had Good News preached to us, just as they (the first Exodus generation of Israelites) also; but the Word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard.
“For we who have believed enter that Rest, just as He has said, “As I swore in My wrath, they shall not enter My Rest,” although His works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has said somewhere (in Genesis) concerning the seventh day: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”; and again in this passage, “They shall not enter My rest.”
So God was reminding these wavering Israelites of the awesome Fulfillment of the Covenant of Sinai that was still waiting for them up ahead… IN YESHUA… in the New Covenant!
Jeremiah 31:31-34
“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the (Sinai) covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. “But this is the Covenant which I will make with the House of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My Law (My Living Torah) within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people (once My Living Torah, the risen Messiah Yeshua begins to live in them and be their Covenant Fulfillment by the Holy Spirit).
They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” (Amplification added.)
Preparation for Disaster
The people that received this letter did not know it then, but in truth, the Lord was preparing them for the disaster that was about to sweep over all of Israel in a few short years… the total destruction of their beloved country, and of their long-revered Covenant of Sinai and its temple sacrifices and all of the ways and traditions and lifestyles with which they had identified and to which they weren’t able to stop clinging. The day was coming soon when the Roman legions would destroy all of that, and the surviving Israelites, regardless of what persuasion they embraced, would be barred from the physical Land of Promise… and, like it or not, they would have to resume their Exodus Journey once more… wandering all across the earth, waiting for God to show them what was next.
Wandering… and Eternal Rest
And then it happened. In 70 A.D., the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob demonstrated most graphically and painfully, that Israel’s current Covenant of Sinai attitudes and mindset left much to be desired. Stopping there was not what God intended. The Truth was that Israel’s journey was not over; they had not ‘arrived.’ They did not know everything nor did they have ‘all the answers.’ There was still more to their Journey and discovery of the Fullness of God that they had to experience and explore and absorb.
So it was not time for Israel to stop her Exodus or to allow herself to become arrogant and self-righteous. There was still much more that God wanted her to see, and to learn about their awesome Almighty Creator… because there was still more God had to teach the rest of the fallen human race… through Israel! And so this is why Yeshua went to such great pains to explain things to His disciples before His death and resurrection!
John 16:1-27
“These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling. They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God. These things they will do because they have not known the Father or Me. But these things I have spoken to you, so that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them. These things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you.
“But now I am going to Him who sent Me; and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning Sin and Righteousness and Judgment; concerning Sin, because they do not believe in Me; and concerning Righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; and concerning Judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.
“I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of Truth, comes, He will guide you into all the Truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me (His Living Word), for HE WILL TAKE OF MINE and will disclose it to you! All things that the Father has are Mine; THEREFORE, I said that HE TAKES OF MINE AND WILL DISCLOSE IT TO YOU!
(That is, Father will prove to you by His Holy Spirit, that I am His Living Word… the Living Fulfillment of everything God said to Israel in the written Torah. I am the Living Torah! So don’t stop now… CONTINUE TO FOLLOW ME INTO THE TOTAL FULFILLMENT THAT AWAITS ALL OF ISRAEL IN THE FUTURE!)
“A little while, and you will no longer see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me.” Some of His disciples then said to one another, “What is this thing He is telling us, ‘A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me’; and, because I go to the Father’?” So they were saying, “What is this that He says, ‘A little while’? We do not know what He is talking about!”
“Jesus knew that they wished to question Him, and He said to them, “Are you deliberating together about this, that I said, ‘A little while, and you will not see Me, and again a little while, and you will see Me? Truly, truly, I say to you, that YOU WILL WEEP AND LAMENT, but the world will rejoice; YOU WILL GRIEVE, but your grief will be turned into joy. Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that a child has been born into the world. Therefore you too have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you!
In that day you will not question Me about anything! Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My Name (that is, when I am actually free to live in you and you are free to live as one with Me), He will give it to you. Until now you have asked for nothing in My Name; ask (when you learn to walk in the New Covenant Spirit-filled way then you will speak in My Name) and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full.
“These things I have spoken to you in figurative language; an hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but will (be able to abide within you, so that I can always speak to you and) tell you plainly of the Father. IN THAT DAY you will ask in My Name, and I do not say to you that I will request of the Father on your behalf; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from the Father (you and I will become as one. You will all be one New Man – in Me)!” (Amplification and emphasis added.)
Beloved, the first century Israelites, including the disciples, were just like all the generations before them had been. They too had been stuck in the Sinai Covenant that had failed. But it was not producing the fruit that God intended to see coming out of His people! That’s because His people were not yet privy to the kind of Spirit-filled and Spirit-empowered Life that Yeshua Himself had been living before them. He came to demonstrate the Spirit-filled Life before them, to show them what they were still missing! But He fully intended to make it possible for them to have it… after they became willing to follow Him into God’s New Covenant and the awesome ETERNAL REST that God gives to His people through that awesome Covenant!
John 7:37-39
“ Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes IN ME, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”
But now… Yeshua has been glorified! And now… we have been filled with God’s own Spirit! And now, because of the New Covenant which Yeshua opened up to us all by His Death and Resurrection, those who believe His claims and obediently act upon His promises… are able to move beyond the confines of the Covenant of Sinai and all of its self-striving, religious traditions and failures. Now we are free to follow our risen Lord deeper and deeper into God’s New Covenant Territory! Now He Himself is able to be for us, from within us… everything we could never be in and for ourselves as long as we try to live according to the Sinai Covenant.
One With The Living Word
Now we are equipped by the Holy Spirit to learn to ‘PROVE’ that God’s Word is living and working within us by the Fruit He can produce in us and through us. Now we can continue and finish our Exodus… following our Messiah… into the Fullness of the Perfect Fulfillment and Eternal Perfect Rest that the PERFECTION of Almighty God has made possible for us to share. And now that we’re one with God’s own Living Word, we can absorb and enjoy and demonstrate the Righteous Fruit-producing Life of God that is within Him… FOREVER!
This is the most awesome Revelation and state of Well Being imaginable – God Himself is with us, right now, to impart Himself to us! He is here to be our Righteousness! That’s why He has chosen us to be part of His own special ‘priestly nation’ as active members of His New Covenant Royal Priesthood. This is why, in order to be able to reflect and embody His Glory and All-Sufficient Fullness with accurate precision, we must get to know Him by the most intimate and personal interactive experience possible. We must personally experience for ourselves just how Great, Good, Powerful, Capable and Faithful our Almighty God truly is!
So… here is the catch:
The only way that such awesome prevailing knowledge and intimacy can be achieved… is by being able to know Him from within the depths of human desperation! Only those who have truly been crucified with their Messiah, will be able to experience what it means to share in the Glory of His Resurrection!
Our Last Days Testimony
To know how Real and True and overwhelmingly Good and Sufficient our Creator is, we will have to know the difference between what He is, and what we are by nature, through gut-wrenching experiences! We’ll have to experience the most dreadful, frightening and dire depths of human need, and danger, and hopeless desperation! It is only when we’re experiencing that profoundly intense level of helplessness and imminent Death (the kinds of things that the world will be experiencing in the Last Days, when the supreme levels of ‘wilderness-level’ experiences will be sweeping over the whole earth)… only then will we truly get to know the Greatness and All Sufficient Abundance that is ours now that we are one with Almighty God!
Disaster-level events will be the fitting ‘backdrop and platform’ from which we will be called upon to give our Last Days Testimony. People around us will have to know for sure that, in natural terms, all is lost and there is no earthly hope or possibility whatever remaining to any of us. And, when we all know for sure that there is no way we will be able to survive and come through the pressures that the wilderness is imposing on us from every side, then God will ACT… in and through His Word’s disciples! And the Holy Spirit will demonstrate just how truly Magnificent and Joyous our God actually is… as He works and validates the Word of God from within our yielded crucified flesh!
Colossians 3:1-4
“Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are The Whole House of Israel; behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off!’
“Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, My people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, My people. I will put My Spirit within you and you will come to LIFE, and I will place you on your own Land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and done it,” declares the Lord.’” (Ezekiel 37:11-14)
“Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. FOR YOU DIED and (from now on) your life is hidden with Christ in God! When Christ, who is our LIFE, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in (His) Glory!”
And this is why the Holy Spirit can make such blessed and glorified disciples say, in Spirit and in Truth:
Psalm 18:1-19
“I love You, OLord,my Strength.” The Lord is my Rock and my Fortress and my Deliverer, my God, my Rock, in whom I take refuge; my Shield and the Horn of my Salvation, my Stronghold. I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies.
“Thecords of death encompassed me, and the torrents of ungodliness terrified me. The cords of Sheol surrounded me; the snares of Death confronted me. In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried to my God for help; He heard my voice out of His Temple, and my cry for help before Him came into His ears.
“Then theearth shook and quaked; and the foundations of the mountains were trembling and were shaken, because He was angry. Smoke went up out of His nostrils, and Fire from His mouth devoured; coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also, and came down with thick darkness under His feet. He rode upon a cherub and flew; and He sped upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness His hiding place, His canopy around Him, Darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies. From the Brightness before Him passed His thick clouds, hailstones and coals of fire!
“TheLordalsothundered in the heavens, and the Most High uttered His voice, hailstones and coals of fire. He sent out His arrows, and scattered them, and lightning flashes in abundance, and routed them. Then the channels of water appeared, and the foundations of the world were laid bare at Your rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the reath of Your nostrils.
“He sent from on high, He took me; He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from those who hated me, FOR THEY WERE TOO MIGHTY FOR ME! They confronted me in the day of my calamity, BUT THE LORD WAS MY STAY! He brought me forth also into a broad place; He rescued me, because He delighted in me…” (Emphasis added.)
Psalm 46
“God is ourRefuge and Strength, a very Present Help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains quake at its swelling pride.Selah.
“There is aRiver whose streams make glad theCity of God, the holy dwelling places of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, she will not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns. The nations made an uproar, the kingdoms tottered; He raised His voice, the earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold. Selah.
“Come,behold the works of theLord, who has wrought desolations in the earth. He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth; He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two; He burns the chariots with fire.
“CEASE STRIVING AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD! I WILL BE EXALTED among the nations, I WILL BE EXALTED in the earth.” TheLordof Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our Stronghold!” (Emphasis added.)
God’s Absolute Trustworthiness
Beloved, it is only at such dire, hopelessly desperate levels of wilderness experience that God is able to prove Himself to us at this supremely supernatural and utterly comforting and reassuring level! There’s no other way we could know Him as He really and truly is! Only when we know His airtight, Absolute Trustworthiness, are we able to respond in kind, with airtight, absolute trust and joy and peace and rest.
God revealed this to Israel during the time when He parted the sea to deliver them from the thundering chariots of the pharaoh of Egypt… and He revealed this as He sustained them in the wilderness for forty years and brought them through the many tragedies that overtook them throughout the centuries leading up to the destruction of the first temple and the total devastation of Jerusalem and the second temple in 70 A.D.
And He did the same afterward, as He kept them going through every persecution, pogrom, massacre and expulsion that afflicted His people. All that time, even leading up to and through the Holocaust – and even now, in the light of all the enemies and dangers that surround them in the present day… God is proving to Israel and to the world that He truly is God and He truly is with His people… and He truly will fulfill every promise He has ever made to them.
God Will Sweep Away Delusion
But Israel cannot know the Greatness of her awesome God at these supernatural depths if she fails to recognize and follow the Living Word! And she can’t embody the Final Fulfillment God wants her to have, as long as things remain pleasant and comfortable and everything seems to be going her way! At such times, all fallen flesh, including Israelite flesh, invariably begins to assume once again that the good successful times are coming because of what we are and what we are able to do to get such wonderful results.
So God will have to sweep all of that delusion away, once and for all. And that will happen when we’re all about to reach the end of our Exodus Journey. The veil will only be completely lifted from our eyes when we pass the brink of total disaster and destruction and death! Every created thing we thought we could not do without will be wrenched from our clutches. And we will all, Jew and Gentile alike, feel the loss of all temporal things and resources deeply… and Death will loom over us and overwhelm and take us over completely. Then, we finally reach the Zero Point of all human wits and abilities and resources, and THEN… it will be possible for us to know the Living God, the Airtight, Infinitely Trustworthy One… as he really and truly is!
Genesis 2:7
“Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”
We will know Him as He really is, as soon as we know in the marrow of our bones, that we are but dust before God. That’s when we will reach the Zero Point of our abilities and devices… and enter into the Fullness of the Death that our Messiah first had to experience on our behalf. Then, we will know ourselves as we really are! And then… we will finally see the Dawn of the Resurrection Life and Power of Almighty God approaching to save and enfold the earthly Body of His beloved crucified Son… those still-living members, who have, by faith, learned to become one with Him… AS HE REALLY IS!
Jeremiah 29:12-14
“Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me WITH ALL YOUR HEART! (THEN)I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will restore your fortunes and will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile.’
According to God’s written Word, that’s what it will take for Israel, and those who are truly grafted into her Olive Tree, before we all experience the New Covenant Fullness of God’s Promises. Then we will see and feel the actual Truth of our God’s Greatness and Goodness and Infinite Faithfulness to us. That depth of Awareness and Experience will bring us into the full experience of God’s Supernatural Love and Reassurance and Overwhelming Joy and Relief and Confidence that knowing and experiencing God and His Faithful Lovingkindness are able to bestow upon us.
Forever Free
We can only know the Glory of His Light and what it means to have God be our Life and Joy and Peace, at the point of Total Crucifixion, Total Death and Total Darkness! That is the Point through which we must all pass, before we can encounter the Resurrection Point. And at that point, God takes over totally and He throttles and engulfs and totally blots out the Darkness and Death that had us by the throat… and sets us FOREVER FREE from our demonic enemies and their malevolent schemes… by His Saving Grace!
Only after He has brought us back from the death of our radically independent self-life rebellion and turned our created resources back to dust, can we know the maximum experience of the total weakness, bankruptcy and mortality and dependence that all Creation is… apart from God. When we truly get to know from that experience what we really are in ourselves… THEN we can know Almighty God as He really is, in Himself and we will truly appreciate the Magnitude of what God sent His Living Word to be and to do for us… from the very beginning!
Genesis 3:21
“The Lord God (through His Living Word) made garments of skin for Adam and his wife,and clothed them.” (Emphasis added.)