Our beloved fellow Last Days Disciples, this new series of articles is titled “Marching Orders for the Stephen Generation” and its purpose is to enhance our understanding of what we Last Days Disciples can expect in the coming days… and what our Father has already provided for us in the midst of everything and anything we may face. This series will strengthen and solidify the firm foundation of Truth that Holy Spirit has been imparting to our FMM family and will increase our resolve to fulfill the exhortation we find in Ephesians 6:10-18 (TLV):
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God (which is Christ in you, the Hope of Glory), so that you are able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the worldly forces of this darkness, and against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full Armor of God, so that you may be able to resist when the times are evil, and after you have done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm then! Buckle the belt of Truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of Righteousness. Strap up your feet in readiness with the Good News of Shalom (Peace). Above all, take up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Pray in the Ruach (Spirit) on every occasion, with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, keep alert with perseverance and supplication for all the kedoshim (saints).” (Amplification added.)
We begin with the Original Marching Orders to bring into focus the enhancements found in the Marching Orders for the Stephen Generation. And the reason for that ‘upgrade’ given to us by the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) is because we live in uncharted territory… generations before us never faced the kind of things we do. They could not have conceived civilizations slowly self- destructing after decades of demonically inspired lies and deception. Those who lived during the days of great revivals and outpourings of the Spirit would never have imagined how those fires could have died down to smoldering embers.
So knowing how much the written and Living Word has revealed about the Last Days, I exhort you to take seriously the level of equipping this series offers as we work together to advance the Kingdom of our God and prepare for the coming of His beloved Son.
Love, Mum Nancy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Original
Marching Orders
(First received in 1988)
********
Marching Orders for
The Stephen Generation
(Updated adaptation made in 2021)
The Lord gave me the original ‘Marching Orders’ in the summer of 1988. Soon afterward, He started sending the downloads for what would eventually develop into the material that the Ultimate Journey Ministry shares so successfully today with those who participate in that ministry’s support group disciple training.
But after the Lord gave me the new assignment of cooperating with Him in giving birth to this current Follow Me Ministry, the Marching Orders are just as pertinent and necessary as ever. Only now we’ve updated them by amplifying them to reflect the atmosphere and urgency from which the Last Days disciples of today will be required to operate.
I call these Last Days Special Forces Disciples: ‘The Stephen Generation’, because they will be the ones who will finish constructing the ‘Highway in the Wilderness’ that will prepare the way for the Return of our risen Messiah. (See Isa. 40). And they will do it amid some extremely difficult and often dangerous circumstances… regardless of the cost to themselves. These warriors will have to do their work while resisting and opposing the greatest onslaughts the forces of Darkness have ever unleashed, because the age-old war between Good and Evil will finally reach the climactic zenith level of its age-old intensity.
And since they’ll have to learn to persevere in their service to the Lord in dire and apparently impossible situations, they will be very aware of the fact that only the actual Presence of the risen Lord will be able to see them through. They will have to know what the disciple Stephen (in chapters 6 and 7 of the book of Acts) knew, and do what he did when it was his time to render his unforgettable service.
The Stephen Generation will have to be prepared and equipped to maintain the supernatural martyrs’ mindset focus that the valiant, unstoppable, disciple Stephen maintained and displayed, during his final moments on Earth. Nothing could deter or stop him or the other martyrs! They follow the totally focused example of our Lord! And authentic Last Days disciples will have to do the same. So the training true disciples receive is of vital importance. And that training is what these meditations are meant to help us unpack, explore, absorb, digest, and… embody… as we go through our ‘boot camp’ preparatory stages.
Dad John
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Meditation #12
A Temple Made Of Living Stones
To fulfill our God-assigned Last Days commissions, we must develop into full-fledged members of the New Covenant Messiah-embodying, Royal Priesthood! So, let’s go back and examine the root of the Biblical reality of priesthood, and what it does, to get a basic idea of what we’ve been made to be.
The first mention in the Torah of the job description of the Levites of the Sinai Covenant will soon be totally fulfilled to Perfection. God will do it, in and through the members of the Last Days New Covenant Royal Priesthood generation. So let’s look at what God commissioned His priests to be and to do in the very beginning:
“At that time Adonai set the tribe of Levi apart:
1. To carry the Ark of the Covenant of Adonai (that is, to bear God’s Presence).2. To stand before ADONAI to serve Him (personally and interactively), and3. To pronounce blessings (upon the people of Israel) in His Name—as is the case to this day. Therefore,4. Levi has no portion or inheritance with his brothers—ADONAI IS HIS INHERITANCE, just as Adonai your God had promised about him.)” (Deuteronomy 10:8-9 TLV, Emphasis added)
In Moses’ day, God’s Presence in the midst of His people was contained within the Ark of the Covenant that He instructed the Israelites to construct. And later on, magnificent temples of stone and wood were constructed in Israel in which the Presence of God resided.
But, thanks to the Perfect Atonement that was made for mankind by the Lamb of God in the New Covenant Era, God sends His Spirit to dwell within the spirits of His spiritually regenerated, new creation people! And these God-filled and God-fueled ones are now rightly called ‘The Temple of the Holy Spirit.’
In addition, the New Covenant disciples are also commissioned to serve as God’s New Covenant Royal Temple Priesthood. They serve as ministers to God’s Holy Presence as He abides within them to extend the Blessing God gave to Israel to all the other families of the Earth! And Peter calls this awesome generation of Royal Priests the Temple made of Living Stones, whose Chief Cornerstone is the risen Lord Yeshua, Himself! (See 1 Peter 2.)
This Royal Priesthood will be the ultimate fulfillment of what God first introduced to His chosen people through the Sinai Covenant of Moses. He set the Tribe of Levi apart to be His exclusive personal servants. They had the honor and privilege of serving God by carrying out His commands and instructions, as He resided in their midst within His humble earthly Sanctuary. They attended to His every stated requirement. Thus they ‘ministered’ to, or rendered personal service to, the Living God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
And, whenever it was time for God’s people to relocate, the Levites were responsible for carrying His Presence (within the Ark of the Covenant). So God was always with them, and they were always to be with God… serving Him as His inseparable Covenant servants… and they were to be bonded to each other forever. So when Levites carried the Ark to distant locations, they were bringing the Presence of God with them. And during times when the Ark remained in the Tent of Meeting, or the Temple, they abided there, in His Presence, to attend to His requirements.
God’s part in the Covenant bond uniting them moved Him to pledge Himself to serve as their personal Inheritance – their sole Source of Support and Protector. So they were to place their faith and expectations exclusively upon Him and look only to Him for whatever they would need. That’s why they received no share in the Land of Israel when it was divided and apportioned among the other tribes. God alone was to be the portion for the Levites. So the people of Israel’s other tribes were required to take from the produce of their lands, and income from their occupations, to contribute regularly for the care and maintenance of the Levitical families.
Our Discipleship Journey Begins
So please note this well, beloved friends: if you really want to know and accurately understand our risen Lord and what He is here to fulfill through us during the Last Days Fulfillment of all that has been leading up to where we are today… you must go back to the origins of these fulfillments. Then trace them throughout Scripture, all the way back to the present and extend them beyond their starting point, and follow them all the way to the very end of their journey… where God will fulfill them to the maximum extent of His Promises. If you unpack the contexts and situations into which God first planted the first mention of those things, and trace their developments throughout Israel’s history, you’ll have a much more accurate understanding of the Significance of our Messiah and His Perfect Finished Works… and the part that His Last Days disciples are being called upon to fulfill.
Knowing the origins will open your eyes and enable you to trace them to the depths of their Fulfillment. That’s why we must understand all that came from the very beginning. This process is an organic progressive continuum, an unfolding or development of what was contained in the original seed of the ‘first mention.’
So to understand what will have to happen in the Last Days Era, the Hebrew Scriptures in the Tanach (a/k/a, ‘The Old Testament’ ) will supply the orientation that is so important and necessary for enabling you to understand the New Covenant apostolic writings! Each portion is a key for unlocking the other!
So now, in the New Covenant, we disciples of God’s Living Word are called ‘The Royal Priesthood.’ And once we understand what God means by ‘Covenant’, and ‘priesthood’, and ‘temple,’ etc., we’ll have a clear and authentic grasp of what the Fulfillment in the Last Days will include, and what it will mean.
So for those of us who live in the New Covenant Era, things are much better. We no longer have to seek God’s Presence by traveling to a certain location in order to be with Him. Now, He lives within us… permanently! So, in this sense, we are the New Covenant’s equivalent to the ancient ‘Ark of the Covenant.’ We bring God’s Presence with us wherever we go! And we are God’s Temple now… a mobile, flexible, living Temple without walls, from within which God can now continue to fulfill the promise He made to Abram:
“My desire is to bless those who bless you, but whoever curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed!” (Genesis 12:3 TLV, Emphasis added)
We are God’s ‘Royal Priesthood’… perpetually filled with, and baptized into, the Fiery Presence and Power of Almighty God’s Holy Spirit! And Holy Spirit abides in us to cause the actual Presence of God’s Living Creative Word to abide, and act from, within our spirits. And He does this for the very same purpose that God revealed to Abraham… so that all the families of the earth can finally be blessed! This is why our Messiah does not discriminate or pay inordinate attention to one group over another. He is here for us all, and we all belong to Him because not only did He create and continues to sustain us in existence, but He also purchased and redeemed us from our Sin Debt to God’s Infinite Justice, by the shedding of His Atoning Blood!
God is now building and maintaining and protecting His own Temple through the obedience of the disciples’ faith! These are the Realities and personal treasures that our Marching Orders are meant to sow deeply into us so they can be reinforced, magnified, intensified and put into awesome Fruit-bearing action in the middle of this poor fallen, despairing world.
“As you come to Him, a living stone rejected by men but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house—a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Messiah Yeshua. For it says in Scripture, “Behold, I lay in Zion a stone, a chosen, precious Cornerstone. Whoever trusts in Him will never be put to shame!” (1 Peter 2:4-6 TLV, Emphasis added)
Now let’s consider some other analogies God gave us to better understand the coming ‘Day of Fulfillment.’ The Eternal Covenant, into which we have all been grafted, is described by God as:
“And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, “This is what you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the sons of Israel: ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to Myself.Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel.” (Exodus 19:3-6 NASB, Emphasis added)
“I am the true Vine, and My Father is the Gardener. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He trims (prunes)so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the Word I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I will abide in you. The branch cannot itself produce fruit, unless it abides on the vine. Likewise, you cannot produce fruit unless you abide in Me!” (John 15:1-4 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added)
“But one and the same Ruach activates all these things, distributing to each person individually as He wills. For just as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of the body—though many—are one body, so also is Messiah. For in one Ruach (Spirit) we were all immersed into one body—whether Jewish or Greek, slave or free—and ALL were made to drink of one Ruach!”
(1 Corinthians 12:11-13 TLV, Emphasis added)
One Body Under One Head
If a holy, priestly body that is separated from this fallen world and its ways is to remain alive and able to function properly, the members must be connected to their Head, and also to each other. But to be properly connected as One New Man, each individual and group must truly die to whatever identity they used to cling to in their separated past! And God tells us that He has chosen to fulfill His Plan and purposes regarding His physical Creation, and the human race, by creating and equipping humans to serve as a single, completely integrated, synchronized working unit (a Body) ,through which His Living Word can be present on the Earth, and fulfill everything His Father has revealed, commanded, and promised to do for His Creation. And in this Body, there is no room for divisive selfishness or individualism, or haughtiness or discrimination.
Our risen Lord has, by His Perfect Finished Work of Redemption, forged each of His priestly disciples into one glorious Vine or Body in which He can abide, and through which He can reveal Himself and fulfill His Father’s Plan for the Earth. As He abides in and through us, He obeys His Father and fulfills His will, which is to bless His Creation. And that’s why we disciples are deployed and stationed in various locations all across the world. Each of us is personally connected to Yeshua, our common Head and, therefore, we’re also personally connected to each other, by the connecting Life and Power of the Holy Spirit… to reveal our risen Lord and His Life-giving redemptive Love to the whole world. This is what God’s eternal Covenant has made possible. Now, all true Jewish and non-Jewish disciples, can be transformed, from being a rabble of individualists, into a crucified and resurrected Covenant unity… One New Man in Messiah… bound together forever by the transforming redemptive Love of Almighty God!
And here’s another analogy that will help us understand this New Covenant Reality: This perpetually unified Blood Covenant Family serves God by functioning like a giant living ‘Fishnet.’ that encircles the whole earth. And God’s Spirit can continually wield this net to gather and include more and more humans who have not yet come to know God. He joins them to His Body also, and begins to teach, train and equip them to join all the other veteran disciples in His service. As this process continues, the Vine, or the Body, or the Net, that contains and reveals the Resurrection Life of God’s Living Word continues to grow and spread and expand and distribute God’s Blessing… to every point and corner of this world!
“Now as Yeshua was walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon who was called Peter and Andrew his brother. They were casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And He said to them, “FOLLOW ME AND I WILL MAKE YOU FISHERS OF MEN! Immediately they left their nets and followed Him (to become part of His Net) .” (Matthew 4:18-20 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added)
“Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you also were made dead to the Torah through the Body of Messiah, so that you might be joined to another—the One who was raised from the dead—in order that we might bear fruit for God!” (Romans 7:4 TLV, Emphasis added)
Because the Living Word of God is our Head, we are His living members and together, we form one Body (Cf. 1 Corinthians 12:12-31). The other analogy God gives us of the Vine and its branches, gives the very same message in another format. And we must absorb these paradigms into our heart of hearts and garden them and cause them to sink their roots as deeply as possible into the depths of our being.
God’s Living Word is the Vine, and His disciples serve as His living branches. The Vine is the Living Creative Word of God to whom all Authority in Heaven and on Earth has been given. And only His nature and Life can produce God’s Fruit. Because we, His branches, are totally united to Him, our Vine, He transmits His Life and Nature into us, to produce His fruit in and through us! And thanks to our abiding union with Him, we’re empowered to serve God by bearing the Fruit of His Word and sharing it among His people… for the Eternal Glory of their Heavenly Father… and the best and highest good of all the families of the earth.
We’ve been considering some much higher levels of interacting with the Lord which extend far beyond the elementary entry level God opened up to Abram the Chaldean in Genesis 12. And our Marching Orders are meant to help us rewire and reconfigure our inner workings, to that effect. God sent His Living Word to reveal Himself to Abram, and after the introductions were made, He made His promises to Abram, who believed and trusted God. He still had no proof that God would make good on His promises, but He believed and accepted what God’s Word told Him AS ABSOLUTELY TRUE. And thus he rested and relied on God’s credibility with an airtight faith. And that wholehearted trusting response is what God needed to save Abram and graft him into the Eternal Covenant, and begin living with him as His Divine Blood Brother, or Covenant Friend and Representative Champion.
This wholehearted giving of one’s trusting faith to God is the initial salvation-giving response God requires of those He summons to follow and serve His Son. But that’s only the start of what God has in mind for us. He fully intends to lead most of us (those of us who live long enough earthly lives) to follow His Word into much deeper and more mature levels of Covenant Love and Union.
In that case, God will cause us to explore further and deeper into the Mystery of the Covenant Bond God has established between Himself and us. By each succeeding step we take throughout our lives, He’ll require us to prove that God’s Word and Spirit actually live and work within us, empowering us to love, obey and serve God. It will not be by our Self-striving, but by feeding upon the Bread of Life that God’s Word is here to be to us and in us. This is how God will lead us into higher, more personal levels of growth in our involvement and interactive personal intimacy with God’s Living Word. Everything will still be done entirely by faith… but our faith will be proved to be authentic and living, by the obedience of our Messiah, who will be given to us, and move us to live and cooperate as being one with Him.
Now that we are the Lord’s disciples and have been taken into our era of intensive boot camp, growth-enhancing, and combat training, we can fulfill our Last Days commissions. The Lord now has us ready to promote and commission us to move far beyond our original primary ground-level entry point of knowing and cooperating with God. Our Heavenly Father desires to see a lot more willing, proactive intimacy and affectionate, purposeful interaction developing between us and His beloved Son… much more than was originally possible when we were still only helpless infants and toddlers in the Faith.
Now we’ll be taught, stimulated, disciplined and trained in the fuller levels of adult-level spiritual maturity. Now we’ll learn what it means to be well-prepared, educated and trained, mature adult sons of God… who are truly prepared and equipped to honor and serve, and work with our Lord as co-administrators in the tending of His enormous Kingdom.
Why does God use the word ‘circumcision’ in the context of describing the relationship He desires to have with His people? Obviously, He must have had a good reason. He wanted to teach us His Heavenly ways. And because His ways are not the natural ways we inherited and were taught by this fallen world, I believe He supplied us with our FMM Marching Orders to serve as tools to embed His Heavenly ways into us with ‘jackhammer-level repetition. These Orders help us develop the intimate, wholehearted love, devotion and attitudes that make it possible for us to have true mature, wholly yielded, fully-circumcised hearts.
God wants us to give ourselves to Him and to Him alone, freely and wholeheartedly, just as wholeheartedly as He has given His own Living Word and Holy Spirit to us! He wants us exclusively for Himself in the deepest level of intimate friendship possible. But as you can see, this takes us far beyond the initial primary entry level of Covenant involvement. This is a much higher, ‘major league’ level of Covenant love that actively reciprocates and returns God’s Love back to Him, through our obedience to His Word.
Becoming God’s True Image And Likeness
At this higher level, God frees us to truly transform into His image and likeness! And we can serve Him at that awesome higher level, even while we still have to live in the midst of this fallen, Sin-corrupted world! What God wanted us to be at the very end of His Story of Salvation is what He put into the seed we came from in the very beginning! And so He even uses the trials, disappointments, frustrations, and tragedies we experience now to continue to purify, soften, garden, strengthen and reconfigure us into what we’re going to be by the end of this awesome growth process.
“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness! Let them rule over the fish of the sea, over the flying creatures of the sky, over the livestock, over the whole earth, and over every crawling creature that crawls on the land.” God created humankind in His image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them. God blessed them and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the land, and conquer it. Rule over the fish of the sea, the flying creatures of the sky, and over every animal that crawls on the land.” (Genesis 1:26-28 TLV, Emphasis added)
God’s own image and likeness is what we were designed and created to be from the very beginning. And nothing short of this will ever satisfy Him, nor will it fulfill and satisfy or complete us! That’s why the Holy Spirit is always in the process of working to lead us, step by step, further and deeper into the glorious Fulfillment of what He has always intended for us to be… beloved begotten sons and heirs and co-administrators of the Almighty Living God, the Creator of all things… the Author and Finisher of our Faith! So the Covenant Bond with God gradually transforms God’s people into freemen, a priesthood, a temple, a Fruit-bearing Vine, and a Body that abides under the Headship of our risen Messiah through which God’s Living Word can reveal and distribute the awesome Eternal Fruit He produced for us since Eternity past!
When we are truly and exclusively His, God and the Perfect Selfless Love that energizes His Kingdom can freely operate from within our inner core (our English word ‘core’ is taken from the French word ‘Coeur’ or Heart). So it is this most mature and intimate love, attention and devotion welling up out of our inner being, that God desires to receive from us. This is why the union of Blood Covenant, at its highest level, is symbolized by authentic genuine marital union (total Oneness) which is the ultimate unifying Consummation and Fulfillment that God wants to bestow upon us.
The word ‘circumcision’ introduces some very intimate, personal, refining, purifying and polishing realities that are not often explored or even mentioned in the many encounters and interactions of ordinary, self-adoring, ‘I’ll do it MY way’ worldly societies. This is why it is seldom deeply explored. But, when it comes to our calling as disciples, we need the FMM Marching Orders to help us venture into the deeper more intensely passionate levels of understanding and commitment that the Hebraic Biblical mentality is meant to instill in us.
When you hear the word ‘circumcision’, what is it that automatically comes to mind? The human sex organ that gets circumcised is what comes to mind. In the Biblical world, the male organ, which is the origin of the seed that originates human reproduction and makes multiplication possible, is what comes to mind. The reproductive organs God gives to men are meant to join and unite with the reproductive organs of their wives. And that brings to mind the intimate personal act of sexual intercourse, by which a man and a woman become ‘one flesh!’ And that is the ultimate in ‘loving oneness’ that fallen humanity is capable of understanding in this world. So that’s why God uses marriage as the metaphor for what He REALLY wants to get across to us, and to share in His Spirit, with us. (But what He REALLY has in mind goes much, much further and deeper than what humans can achieve at the earthly flesh level of intercourse.)
So when two previously radically independent human individuals join themselves to each other and consummate their blood covenant love union at that marital level, God considers them to be one flesh from that point onward! And this ultimate level of earthly carnal Covenant love union is what we can begin to compare to the level of Spirit-to-spirit union that God really desires us to become aware of, and that He yearns to have with us! It’s comparable, but what God makes possible for us to have with Him in the Spirit is inexpressibly deeper, more intimate, and indescribably glorious!
“Don’t you know that your bodies are members of Messiah? Shall I then take the members of Messiah and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! Or don’t you know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For it is said, “The two shall become one flesh.” But the one who joins himself to the Lord is ONE SPIRIT WITH HIM!” (1 Corinthians. 6:15-17 TLV, Emphasis added)
“For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it—just as Messiah also does His community, because we are members of His body. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great—BUT I AM TALKING ABOUT MESSIAH AND HIS COMMUNITY!” (Ephesians 5:29-32 TLV, Emphasis added)
God uses this highly intimate marital example so he can build on it and eventually lead us far beyond that earthly level, so that we can ascend to an understanding of the deeper levels of intimate union He desires to have between His Spirit and our spirits. And this is light years beyond what exists in this fallen world! What God really has in mind is wholehearted SELF-LESS love! That’s the DIVINE, Major League level at which His Love naturally operates! And notice also: we know that if the human-level uniting mating process is not artificially interfered with, that level of Love-bonded oneness results in ‘fruitful reproduction.’ In other words, more human lives are regenerated and brought into this world.
So too, the act of cooperating with God at His level of Covenant Love, results in the creation of even more new life for His Eternal Kingdom! This goes far beyond the mere human process of generating new temporary human lives with which to populate this temporal earthly world. No… this is the process through which God transforms temporary earthly lives… into beautiful, unique, Eternal, God-filled Heavenly beings whose spirits are endued with eternal, God-given LIFE, and Heavenly identities, purposes, and destinies so that they’ll be able to populate the Eternally Glorious KINGDOM OF GOD!
So God is showing us how we can cooperate with Him in the spiritual realm, causing His Heavenly spiritual Family to grow and increase out of the same depth of personal union with His Living Word.
“Hear, Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! And you shall love the Lord your God with ALL your heart and with ALL your soul and with ALL your strength. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart!
“And you shall repeat them diligently to your sons and speak of them when you sit in your house, when you walk on the road, when you lie down, and when you get up. You shall also tie them as a sign to your hand, and they shall be as frontlets on your forehead. You shall also write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 TLV, Emphasis added)
The Sacredness of Covenant Commitments
In the text above we can see that God wants us all to live with Him in His personal household! In God’s Plan the marital union of men and women is the means by which humanity’s God-given purpose, in relation to this world, is fulfilled. For men and women to fill the earth and subdue and rule over it in union and cooperation with their Creator, they must protect and safeguard the sanctity and sacred exclusivity of their union with Him and with each other. And their ongoing union serves as the utterly essential nurturing and rearing family home matrix within which their children are properly cared for, and instructed, and equipped to take their places in this world and pass on this God-given legacy to future generations. This is how we can preserve and pass on His ways across the world, the ways of that faithful, reliable, blood covenant level of love through which God intends to teach, train and multiply His Heavenly spiritual Offspring.
So this is another similar but much higher level of Family Life. God desires for us to cooperate with Him in transforming the original Adamic family that was made mortal by being corrupted by Sin. The disciples of His Word can allow God’s Word to impregnate them with the Eternal Life that He desires to impart to every member of the fallen human race so that He can transform them by giving them His Spirit and His Eternal Resurrection Life in exchange for that temporary Sin-corrupted existence they must be willing to lay at His feet in exchange.
When our relationship with God is involved, God must be given priority and precedence over any earthly human relationship so that He can make sure that the plan and purpose He had in mind for every human being that is ever conceived and born can be perfectly fulfilled all the way into Eternity!
“Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to turn a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a person’s enemies will be the members of his household.
“The one who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and the one who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And the one who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. The one who has found his (flesh-bound) life will lose it, and the one who has lost his (flesh-bound, Self-adoring) life on My account will find it.” (Matthew 10:34-39 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added)
“Then His mother and His brothers came, and while standing outside they sent word to Him, calling for Him. And a crowd was sitting around Him, and they said to Him, “Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are outside looking for You.” Answering them, He said, “Who are My mother and My brothers?” And looking around at those (disciples) who were sitting around Him, He said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God, this is My brother, and sister, and mother!” (Mark 3:31-35 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added)
In this natural physical world God uses human marriage and the family it continues to add to as a symbol for the intimate Covenant union He yearns to have with His Word’s chosen Jewish and Gentile disciples., It is that Covenant union which enables them to unite and cooperate with Him in adding to the population of the Family that God wants us to bear for Him for His Eternal Heavenly Kingdom!
“The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the Glory that is to be revealed to us.
“For the eagerly awaiting Creation waits for the revealing of the sons and daughters of God!For the Creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the Creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the Glory of the children of God!
“For we know that the whole Creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only that, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons and daughters, the redemption (resurrection) of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, through perseverance we wait eagerly for it.” (Romans 8:16-25 NASB, Amplification and emphasis added)
This ongoing union and its lifestyle that God desires to share with us is the lifestyle with His Father’s Spirit that our risen Lord demonstrated for us while He was on Earth. And our Marching Orders help us to describe and unpack for our own understanding at this stage of our journey what it takes for us to prepare our minds, wills and affections to enter into at that same awesome Messiah-Life level! Thus we sow abundant amounts of the seed of God’s ways into ourselves, so we can deeply absorb the depths of the love God wants to exchange with us that transcends by far, the primer-example of earthly, body-to-body marital intimacy. We must graduate from that level to a much fuller understanding of the depths of the awesome intimate Spirit-to-spirit union that God is training us to engage in with Him!
“In the same way, husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it—just as Messiah also does His community, because we are members of His Body! “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother (make an Exodus from his former life) and be (free to become fully) joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is great—BUT I AM TALKING ABOUT MESSIAH AND HIS COMMUNITY!” (Ephesians 5:28-32 TLV, Emphasis added)
God uses earthly physical human marriage to explain the ultimate, eternal spiritual union… the Marriage of the Lamb and His Bride that God has always been pursuing since the beginning:
“On that day, Sadducees (who say there is no resurrection) came to Yeshua and questioned Him, saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If someone dies having no children, his brother as next of kin shall marry his widow and father children for his brother.’ Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died; and having no offspring, left his wife to his brother. In the same way also the second, and the third, down to the seventh. Last of all, the woman died. So in the resurrection, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had married her.”
“But answering, Yeshua said to them, “You’ve gone astray, because YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND THE SCRIPTURES OR THE POWER OF GOD! For in the Resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, BUT ARE LIKE ANGELS IN HEAVEN!” (Matthew 22:23-30 TLV, Emphasis added)
So we see that Father uses the idea of natural, earthly circumcision, not as a literal end in itself, but to serve as a symbolic learning tool. It enables us to better understand the dynamics of the mind, will and affections of people who truly engage in a spiritual union and interactive lifestyle with God’s Living Word and Holy Spirit. This is why He makes it possible for His Word and the Spirit to indwell us! And, by submitting and cooperating, we become one with God’s Life-giving Word. And the Word can produce His Fruit in us… and through us… for the good of others. And this is what the Stephen Generation of the Last Days will REALLY need to know… in advance!
This level of understanding doesn’t come about by accident. It is something with which we must deliberately, diligently, and faithfully cooperate with the Spirit of God. God does all the necessary work, but we must cooperate by embodying and allowing His Spirit to nurture, protect, and garden it to full maturity, first in our own brains and minds… and then by empowering us to act it out… in our everyday lives and outcomes!
God is telling us how He sees us, and what we mean to Him, and the ultimate purpose for which He created and endowed and equipped us. When He uses terms like ‘circumcision’ and ‘covenant love and faithfulness’ and the consummation of the marital union, He uses those physical earthly terms we can all understand… that He desires to have us serve Him at that much higher level… in the realm of the spirit… in His Eternal Heavenly Realm!
The more we understand this, the more accurate and precise insight will we receive from the natural human symbols and the sexual, marital connotations God uses. And we can then move beyond that level… and plumb the depths of the spiritual intimacy and total union that God (who is Pure Spirit) really has in mind and is drawing us into.
“When I passed by you, and saw you kicking in your blood. I said to you, ‘In your blood, live!’ Yes, I said to you, ‘In your blood, live!’ I made you grow as myriads, like a branch of the field. You grew up, got tall and came to full adornment. Your breasts were formed, your hair sprouted. Yet you were naked and bare.
“Again I passed by and saw you, and behold, you were truly at the time of love. I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness. I swore to you and entered into a covenant with you,” says Adonai. “So you became Mine. Then I washed you with water, rinsed off your blood from on you and anointed you with oil. I clothed you with embroidery and put sandals of fine leather on you. I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk. I adorned you with jewelry, put bracelets on your hands and a necklace on your neck. I put a ring in your nose, earrings on your ears and a crown of glory on your head. So you were adorned with gold and silver, and your raiment was of fine linen, silk and embroidery. You ate fine flour, honey and oil. You became exceedingly beautiful, and advanced to the kingdom. Your fame spread among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect, THROUGH MY SPLENDOR, WHICH I BESTOWED ON YOU!” It is a declaration of Adonai.” (Ezekiel 16:6-14 TLV, Emphasis added)
Our God Relentlessly Pursues His Goals Of Salvation and Redemption, Making A People Of His Own… His Beloved Ones
Beloved, He speaks to us like this because it is what we can understand. At the beginning, we can only understand it in earthly terms! So He begins there, and gradually and persistently begins to lead us beyond that level and into higher altitudes. He calls Himself ‘a jealous God’ and He speaks to His faithless, unbelieving, idolatrous chosen people in terms of Israel being a ‘harlot,’a‘prostitute’ or an ‘adulteress.’ He does it because, thanks to the great damage and Sin-corruption that the fall of our first parents inflicted upon us, we humans, Jewish or otherwise, tend to continually forget about and ignore God and His Living and written Word. But it is through His Word that God reveals Himself and His nature and character and ways. Instead of continuing to allow us to fawn over the earthly things that He has created, He wants us to become totally enamored of and taken with HIM! And it is through our wholehearted response to His Word that this incomprehensible, exalted new identity and union and its status levels can become possible and available for us.
In many ways and at many times, God has revealed that He, and He alone, is our one and only true Source for all things! Only He is the one true Source of whatever we need and desire! So He is the only one to whom we should look, and upon whom we should rely, and upon whom we should shower 100% of our faith, hope, love, trust and expectation! This is the true distinction between what is ‘Flesh’ and what is ‘Spirit!’
But our Sin-corrupted DNA causes us to tend to mistrust and disbelieve God. And because at this stage of our development we are still easily distracted by worldly things, we pull away from Him and develop an urge to migrate from Him, to seek after other imaginary, alternate, earthly sources of wellbeing. And that is what Scripture calls ‘idolatry’ or ‘idol worship.’
“Then God spoke all these words saying,
“I am Adonai your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me. Do not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or on the earth below or in the water under the earth.
“Do not bow down to them, do not let anyone make you serve them. For I, Adonai your God, am a jealous God, bringing the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to the thousands of generations of those who love Me and keep My mitzvot (commandments).” (Exodus 20:1-6 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added)
Beloved, this fallen world is teeming with all kinds of ‘false gods’ and false, non-existent ‘sources’ to which fallen, Sin-corrupted, rebellious human beings look, and upon which they place their faith, hope, trust and expectations. Humans look for peace, salvation, redemption, forgiveness, provision, protection and total personal gratification from within a vast array of beings and gadgets, and pleasures and physical wealth that God has created and given for our use! But instead of acknowledging the Beauty, Glory and Goodness of our Creator, we forget Him and obsess over His artifacts! Those temporal things are all just as vain and empty and powerless and temporary as we are! So each time a human elevates created things over and above God, they are operating at a profoundly degraded and insane level that has no basis in Reality and Truth! Therefore, that deluded state is totally inappropriate for those who are designed and created to be His personal image and likeness!
“But you trusted in your beauty and used your fame to become a harlot. You poured out your enticements on everyone who passed by—they were his. You took your garments, made high places decked out with various colors and fornicated on them—this should not happen, it should not be!
“You also took your jewelry—My gold and My silver, which I gave you—made male images for yourself and committed harlotry with them. You took your embroidered garments, covered themand placed My oil and My incense before them. My bread that I gave you, fine flour, oil and honey that I fed you with, you set before them as a sweet aroma. That is what happened.” It is a declaration of Adonai.” (Ezekiel 16:15-19 TLV, Emphasis added)
God teaches and instructs us by using the symbolism of earthly marital intimacy, intercourse, reproduction, and betrayal. But He doesn’t want us to zero in on that literally and obsess over it:
“So now, O Israel, what does Adonai your God require of you, but to fear Adonai your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve Adonai your God with all your heart and with all your soul, to keep the mitzvot of Adonai and His statutes that I am commanding you today, for your own good? Behold, to Adonai your God belong the heavens and the highest of heavens, the earth and all that is in it. Only on your fathers did Adonai set His affection to love them, and He chose their descendants after them—you—from all the peoples, as is the case this day.
“CIRCUMCISE THE FORESKIN OF YOUR HEART therefore, and do not be stiff-necked anymore. For Adonai your God is God of gods and Lord of lords—the great, mighty and awesome God, who does not show partiality or take a bribe. He enacts justice for the orphan and widow, and loves the outsider, giving him food and clothing.
“THEREFORE LOVE THE OUTSIDER, for you were outsiders in the land of Egypt. Adonai your God you will fear—Him will you serve. To Him will you cling, and by His Name will you swear. He is your praise, and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things that your eyes have seen.” (Deuteronomy 10:12-21 TLV, Emphasis added)
“See, just as Adonai my God commanded me, I have taught you statutes and ordinances to do in the land that you are about to enter to possess. You must keep and do them, for it is your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the peoples, who will hear all these statutes and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has gods so near to them, as Adonai our God is whenever we call on Him? What great nation is there that has statutes and ordinances that are righteous—like all of this Torah that I am setting before you today?
“Only be watchful and watch over your soul closely, so you do not forget the things your eyes have seen, and they slip from your heart all the days of your life. You are to make them known to your children and your children’s children. The day that you stood before Adonai your God in Horeb, Adonai said to me, ‘Gather the people to Me and I will make them hear My words, so that they learn to fear Me all the days that they live on the earth, and so that they teach their children.’” (Deuteronomy 4:5-10 TLV, Emphasis added)
“But the Pharisees, when they heard that Yeshua had silenced the Sadducees, gathered togetherin one place. And testing Him, one of them, a lawyer, asked, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Torah?”
“And He said to him, “‘You shall love Adonai your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ The entire Torah and the Prophets hang on these two commandments!” (Matthew 22:34-40 TLV, Emphasis added.)
Additional Articles in this series (available at www.follow-me-ministries.org website)