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, 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. 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 on every occasion, with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, keep alert with perseverance and supplication for all the kedoshim.”
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 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
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The Original
Marching Orders
(First received in 1988)
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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 to reflect the atmosphere and urgency in 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 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 them. So they’ll have to do their work while resisting and opposing the forces of Darkness when the age-old war between Good and Evil reaches the zenith level of its 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
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Meditation #8
The Weak Foolish Things of This World
“For you see your calling, brothers and sisters, that not many are wise according to human standards, not many are powerful, and not many are born well. Yet GOD CHOSE the foolish things of the world so He might put to shame the wise; and God chose the weak things of the world so He might put to shame the strong; and God chose the lowly and despised things of the world, the things that are as nothing, so He might bring to nothing the things that are—so that no human might boast before God.
“But because of Him you are in Messiah Yeshua, who became to us Wisdom from God and Righteousness and Holiness and Redemption—so that, just as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast in Adonai!” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31 TLV, Emphasis added)
During the approximately three years they were following and living with the Lord, prior to His death, the Lord’s original disciples clearly displayed the bankruptcy and utter helplessness of their fallen, Sin-corrupted flesh. As you read the Gospels, you see they kept failing miserably during their years of boot camp training. They strove to try to ‘catch on’ to the ways of their Lord; but instead of being able to master His ways, they continually experienced the embarrassments of their errors and failures! Their performance, leading up to their Lord’s death left much to be desired. So obviously, they were fulfilling what Paul wrote about in the text above, about the weak, foolish, lowly, despised things of the world that are as nothing! The Lord chose them… because they were perfect examples of foolish, weak, lowly and despised things that are not, even though, at first, they would not have agreed with that.
So having to go through the exposure and abasement that was so necessary for them, enabled them, finally, to be able to see the vast difference between our thoughts and ways, as opposed to God’s. Yes, they were born into an extremely religious world. And they were very familiar with God’s written Word, which flows out of the Torah that God gave to the world through Moses. They were as familiar with all of that as human flesh could be! But we must remember that they, in themselves, like all of us, were nothing more than children of Adam’s helpless, bankrupt, Sin-corrupted mortal dust!
In ourselves, we never have what it takes to grasp, absorb, and embody the Truth and Reality that underlie what God reveals in His Word about Himself and His plans! And, in those early days, the disciples still lacked the Gift of immersion into the Holy Spirit! Only God’s Spirit makes what God’s written Word says about His Living Word come alive and bear His Fruit in us! He causes Yeshua to come alive in us, when He causes what is revealed, commanded, and promised concerning Him in the written Word, to actually become present in us! Holy Spirit transmits into us, the REALITY OF THE LIVING WORD HIMSELF! The Word has been sent to be our New and Eternal Life! And the Spirit causes Him to become real, alive and eternally Fruitful… in and through our yielded, crucified flesh! But at first, although they had the Torah to guide them, the disciples were still programmed to trust in themselves.
That’s why all disciples have to go through such gut-wrenching self-abasing agony and excruciating embarrassment as their Sin-mangled Self-life fails continually and falls short repeatedly as they are being trained. As long as we continue to strive to be like Yeshua, and do things for Yeshua, or try to do what He does, the way He does it, we keep getting in His way! So the Lord has to ‘rub our noses’ in the utter failure that Self-life always produces as we try to love and serve God in our own strength. He isn’t here to ‘come into my life’ as so many believe. He demands that I forsake ‘my life’ and allow it to be crucified and removed from the scene. Then He is free to bring us into HIS LIFE! And thus what is His becomes ours as well.
This is why in the beginning the Lord allows those He calls and chooses for His service to ‘give their Self-life a try’ and see how well they can do as they strive to ‘follow’ their Messiah in their own strength. Naturally they begin by relying on their own wits and natural devices! That’s all they’ve ever known! And the failure of all that proves to be an agonizing shock! Nicodemas, in John chapter 3, is a great example! But it’s absolutely essential that they experience the vast difference between God’s Ways and the ways of fallen Man, Jewish or otherwise.
God has already finished and provided whatever is necessary! He has it all waiting for us to receive it in Eternity! But we are always limited to what we can see, experience, and feel in this fallen, temporal, broken and totally inadequate world. We can’t see what God has done, nor can we see things as God sees them. And we most certainly cannot duplicate what God is, and has, and has already accomplished. So our Self-life ways must first be exposed and discredited. And only then, can we begin to learn to depend upon God… to be and do everything for us… from the endless depths of His Perfect Finished Works of Creation, Redemption, Reconciliation, and Restoration!
Disciples Join Yeshua in His Death ‒ and His Resurrection
So, by this trial-and-error process, the Lord led His future apostles along this excruciatingly demanding ‘narrow path’ through which they finally realized how abysmally bankrupt and helpless in themselves they actually were. Thus, they learned to join Yeshua in His death so that they could then also join Him in the Overwhelming Victorious Glory of His Resurrection!
So after the Lord ascended back to Heaven to be reunited with His Father, He endued them with ‘Power from on high’, immersing them in the overwhelming, totally energizing, eye-opening Holy Spirit! And thereafter, they were empowered to realize much more clearly, that nothing would any longer be about them or any created human device. It has always been, and always will be, about Living out from the Life and Spirit and Perfect Finished Works of the uncreated, but resurrected, Eternal Lord of Glory… in all of His Absolute Triumph over the powers of Darkness! And this is what the apostles began to demonstrate and teach to the New Covenant disciples that the Holy Spirit drew into their spheres of influence… including Stephen.
In the midst of all that was happening to Stephen in Acts 7 on that fateful day, Scripture gives us the real Truth about what was actually going on. Stephen’s enemies thought they were serving God by ridding Israel of another one of those Yeshua-proclaiming ‘pests’ they had learned to despise. But in Reality, even though they would kill Stephen’s original temporary human body, they were actually coming up against Almighty God, who was present in Stephen and covering him with His Everlasting Blood Covenant Faithfulness and Lovingkindness. So what that situation actually did, was to open the way for God’s Word to begin to pierce, penetrate, and impregnate the hearts of those rabid angry Jews, including Saul of Tarsus, with the Truth Stephen was proclaiming, and the Messiah-embodying Reality he was displaying before them. It was like embedding and concealing a powerful bomb with a delayed fuse in their heart of hearts!
Despite the self-righteous rage of his religious enemies… Stephen’s faithfulness to His Lord pierced their minds and hearts profoundly. They saw what a truly faithful death-defying disciple of Yeshua is really like. We can be sure that not one of them ever forgot Stephen in the succeeding weeks, months and years. The Holy Spirit used the memory of his example to continue to push, prod, and disturb their hearts concerning the Truth and Validity of Yeshua and His claims long into the future. And we know for sure, that the memory of Stephen predisposed one of their ringleaders, Saul of Tarsus, to receive a subsequent revelation of God’s Living Word, that would drive the last nail in the coffin of his personal radically independent, religiously impeccable, yet God-rejecting Self-life.
“But whatever things were gain to me, these I have considered as loss for the sake of the Messiah. More than that, I consider all things to be loss in comparison to the surpassing value of the knowledge of Messiah Yeshua my Lord. Because of Him I have suffered the loss of all things; and I consider them garbage in order that I might gain Messiah and be found in Him not having my righteousness derived from Torah, but one that is through trusting in Messiah—the righteousness from God based on trust. My aim is to know Him and the Power of His Resurrection and the sharing of His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death (just like I saw Stephen do)—if somehow I might arrive at the resurrection from among the dead.” (Philippians 3:7-11, Amplification and emphasis added)
And, as a wonderful byproduct of all that violent outrage and venom that spewed out of that crowd, we see the awesome ‘graduation and promotion’ of the Lord’s beloved Stephen, taking place. So let’s consider what was really going on with Stephen, as God was taking him beyond the temporal realm, and putting him in position to receive His Heavenly Father’s Perfect Eternal Inheritance:
“Then they secretly instigated men into saying, “We have heard him (Stephen) speaking blasphemous words against Moses and against God!” They also incited the people, the elders, and the Torah scholars; and they rushed at Stephen, seized him, and led him away to the Sanhedrin. They set up false witnesses who said, “This man never stops speaking words against this holy place (the Temple) and the Torah. For we have heard him saying that this Yeshua ha-Natzrati will destroy this place and change the customs that Moses handed down to us.”Watching him intently, everyone who was sitting in the Sanhedrin SAW THAT HIS FACE WAS LIKE THE FACE OF AN ANGEL!” (Acts 6:8-15 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added)
And so, operating from this unique New Covenant level of ‘Life-Exchange’ with His risen Messiah, Stephen was allowing the Holy Spirit to act and speak through him, in his name. And the Spirit was applying to Stephen, everything he needed to keep going. Father had already provided all he would need through the Perfect Finished Works of Creation, Redemption and Restoration that He had sent His Eternal Living Word to create and supply. Stephen didn’t have to be concerned about any of that. So he was free to focus on drawing what he needed from His Messiah, and revealing his risen Lord Yeshua, whose Wisdom and Strength were radiating out from within Stephen. And all of those enraged bystanders that surrounded him in that Arena of Testimony saw the Glory of God radiating out of Stephen’s presence. And this is why the Holy Spirit said about Stephen that his face was ‘like the face of an angel!’
An angel in Scripture is a heavenly message or messenger from God, being given to men. So it wasn’t Stephen that those enraged men were looking at. What they were really seeing was a crucified disciple in and through whom the Living Word of God, the risen Messiah of Israel, was now dwelling. Thus Yeshua was now able, by the Power of the Holy Spirit, to abide and speak and work through the yielded flesh of His well-trained human ‘Blood brother’! So, as those rabidly hostile men heard what Stephen was allowing Holy Spirit to say through him, God’s Word reminded them of how hard-hearted they, and most other Israelites, had been to that point whenever God’s Word, and what He was requiring of them, was brought to their attention:
“This Moses—whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who appointed you as ruler and judge?’—is the one whom God sent as both ruler and redeemer, by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years. This is the Moses who said to Bnei-Yisrael, (the children of Israel) ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers!’
“This (Moses) is the one who was in the community in the wilderness, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. He received living words to pass on to us. Our fathers did not want to be obedient to him, but shoved him aside. And, in their hearts, they turned back to Egypt, saying to Aaron, ‘Make gods for us who will go before us. For this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt—we have no idea what has happened to him.’
“And they made a calf in those days, offered a sacrifice to the idol, and were rejoicing in the works of their hands. But God turned and gave them over to serve the (demonic) host of heaven, just as it is written in the book of the Prophets:
‘It was not to Me that you brought sacrifices and offerings for forty years in the wilderness, was it, O House of Israel? You also took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, the images you made to worship. And I will deport you beyond Babylon.’
“Our fathers had the Tent of Witness in the wilderness—just as the One speaking to Moses had directed him to make it according to the design he had seen. Our fathers received it in turn and brought it in with Joshua when they took possession of the land of the nations that God drove out before our fathers. So it remained until the days of David, who found favor in God’s sight. He asked to find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. But Solomon built a house for Him.However, Elyon does not dwell in man-made houses. As the prophet says,
‘Heaven is My throne, and the earth is the footstool of My feet. What kind of house will you build for Me, says Adonai, or what is the place of My rest? Did not My Hand make all these things?’
“Oh you stiff-necked people! You uncircumcised of heart and ears! You always resist the Ruach ha-Kodesh; just as your fathers did, you do as well. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed the ones who foretold the coming of the Righteous One. Now you have become His betrayers and murderers—you who received the Torah by direction of angels and did not keep it!”
“When they heard these things, they became enraged and began gnashing their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Ruach ha-Kodesh, gazed into Heaven and saw the Glory of God—and Yeshua standing at the right hand of God. And he said, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”
“But they covered their ears; and crying out with a loud voice, they rushed at him with one impulse. Driving him out of the city, they began stoning him, and the witnesses laid down their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul. They went on stoning Stephen as he was calling out, “Lord Yeshua, receive my spirit!” Then he fell on his knees and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” After he said this, he died.” (Acts 7:35-60 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added)
Beloved, notice what it was that so captivated Stephen’s mind and heart during these critical last moments. Yes, he was absolutely captivated and overwhelmed… but not by what most people would expect! No, it wasn’t that screaming mob or the mortal danger, or the pelting rocks. NO! Stephen was filled with the overwhelming Presence and Preeminence of the manifest Presence of God! Stephen’s mind and heart were being filled to overflowing by something he was seeing coming into him from Eternity! He was as captivated as Isaiah had once been when the Living God revealed Himself to him. He was beholding the Perfect, Eternal Excellence and Glory of His risen Lord!
“In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw Adonai sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the Temple. Seraphim were standing above Him. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. One called out to another, and said:
“Holy, holy, holy, is Adonai-Tzva’ot! The whole earth is full of His Glory.”
Then the posts of the door trembled at the voice of those who called, and the House was filled with smoke.”
“Oy to me! For I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I am dwelling among a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, Adonai-Tzva’ot!” (Isaiah 6:1-5 TLV)
Circumcised Hearts Are Essential For All Disciples
Just like Isaiah, Stephen was also transfixed and engrossed in and by his ability to actually see and experience the Glory of God! So as God commissioned him to testify on behalf of His beloved Son, Stephen’s mind, heart, and conscious awareness were light years removed from what was happening to his mortal temporary body as it lay bleeding in the dust of Jerusalem! The text makes it clear that he wasn’t even slightly deterred by the hate-filled, rabid, murderously violent mob that surrounded his flesh. And, as we shall discuss later, this showed the vast difference between Stephen’s heart that had truly been ‘circumcised’ and the cold, stone-hard hearts of his killers, who had only been circumcised in their flesh.
So when you realize this, you’ll understand why I would center our considerations around such an apparently gruesome and highly distasteful topic as a man being stoned to death! If people consider this from merely a natural worldly standpoint, they’ll miss the point completely and ask why a normal, right-minded person would want to ‘wallow’ in something as unpleasant as this! But disciples of the Last Days will have to be prepared, trained and equipped to ‘know better’ and we’ll have to be aware of what is, and what is not, supposed to captivate the focus and attention of our hearts! And the closer we get to the end of this age, the more important knowing these things will become!
I pray that, thanks to what God will be revealing to us, we will all be able to see that there’s much more to this than what appears on the surface. It is not primarily about what happened to Stephen’s earthly body. Yes, that body was being murdered, but that’s not at all the point! Something much, much deeper and more compelling that is of eternal consequence was taking place at the same time! So this is about the awesome supernatural way in which God’s Love and Eternal Life are able to fill, overwhelm, and empower a mortal human… and to lift him or her to supernatural heights of Glory, Exaltation, and Victory at just the right time! And when this happens to such God-blessed people, it can never really be adequately expressed in human words, by those who must still remain behind! Nevertheless, I feel compelled to try… for the times in which we live require it!
Stephen was already being ushered into his eternal reward in God’s Heavenly Kingdom… even during the last moments of his body’s earthly sojourn! How can that be properly expressed by the mere words of one who still remains outside of the glory of that awesome experience? What the natural carnal eye sees, when it reads this story, is a man suffering the agonies of rejection and total hostility leading to a horrible death. But what was actually going on in Stephen’s mind, heart and personal experience was the Eternal Reality of being present before, and being forever united to, the resurrected Son of the Living God… and basking in the Glory of His everlasting Love at the right hand of the Father!
Dear ones… THIS is what the awesome Gift of, and immersion into, the Holy Spirit makes possible for us all… if we will only believe, submit, and learn to cooperate with Him! And THIS is the area that highlights the importance of our FMM Marching Orders, which prompt us to learn, even now, to abide by the obedience of our faith and to focus our minds and hearts on ‘things above’ where our Messiah is already seated at the right hand of His Father… in the Eternal Glory of His Victory over the world, the flesh, and the Father of Lies!
The carnal eye can’t perceive any of this, but God’s Word is revealing supernatural Heavenly Reality. That Reality is also here for us! But we must be equipped with New Covenant ‘spiritual eyes’ before we can see it. If the Holy Spirit equips us, we’ll be able to see what Stephen saw. But if we’re not equipped, we’ll remain as blind as boulders on a hillside!
“I have come in My Father’s Name, and you do not receive Me. But 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 comes from God alone?
“Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father. The one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have put your hope! For if you were believing Moses, you would believe Me—because he wrote about Me! But since you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?” (John 5:43-47 TLV, Emphasis added)
So in light of the evil days in which we now live, and in light of all of the radically shocking and horrific changes and shifts in attitude, practice, and direction that our modern nations and societies have decided to take, are we not seeing the Last Days Scriptures starting to be fulfilled before our eyes? And in that case, would you not love to know what Stephen knew, and be able to have and treasure what he had, that took him through that extreme ordeal in such a gloriously supernatural way?
Stephen’s spirit and soul were so far above and beyond what was happening to his body, that I doubt very much that he was even able to feel the stones! Inwardly, he was so in tune with the Lord who was filling Him and acting within him, that his mind and heart were actually already in another place, even while his bleeding broken body lay dying before his enraged murderers!
And Saul of Tarsus, who was a part of that raging mob, sensed that there was something totally supernatural about Stephen in his last moments. And after the risen Lord confronted him on the road to Damascus a few days later, the risen Lord pierced Saul’s heart to the core when He informed him that what he and that mob of religious thugs had done to Stephen, they were actually doing to their own Messiah!
That was the lightning bolt of revelation that slammed into Saul’s consciousness! And we can be sure that he never forgot what he saw happen to Stephen and what was going on inside of his own wicked heart, and those of the rest of Stephen’s killers, on that fateful day. So Saul too, came to understand the depth of the meaning of the Blood Covenant Bond that God revealed to Israel in His written Word, in a way he had never seen or understood it before. Now he realized that Yeshua had actually been, and still was, united to Stephen and vice versa. And he later came to realize that all of the other disciples like Stephen, were endowed with the same unity, ability and blessing that Stephen had demonstrated and displayed! And so he began to understand the depths of God’s Covenant Reality and be aware of what came to be known as ‘The Earthly Body of our Messiah.’
“Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food”—but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. Now God raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power. 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 6:13-17 TLV, Emphasis added)
After some time, Saul transformed into the apostle Paul; and he too learned the ‘Stephen Generation Lifestyle’ for himself. And he began to teach and demonstrate it to the many Jewish and Gentile disciples that God was calling and developing and placing under his teaching authority.
“My eager expectation and hope is that in no way will I be put to shame, but that with complete boldness Messiah will even now, as always, be exalted in my body—whether through life or through death. For to me, to live is Messiah and to die is gain!” (Philippians 1:20-21 TLV,Emphasis added)
“For through law I died to law, so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Messiah; and it is no longer I who live, but Messiah lives in me! And the life I now live in the body, I live by trusting in Ben-Elohim—who loved me and gave Himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God—for if righteousness comes through Torah, then Messiah died for no reason!” (Galatians 2:19-21 TLV, Emphasis added)
Dear friends… when will it finally dawn on us that God Himself is waiting for us to welcome Him personally into our heart of hearts… so that, once we’re out of His way, He can actually live and operate from within us? Paul was finally able to grasp this and so he began to share and teach and multiply that awesome Stephen lifestyle among many of the New Covenant first century brethren he encountered. He shared it and trained the ever-increasing number of Jewish and non-Jewish saints that the Lord was now bringing into his sphere of influence, to do the same even for still others! He was teaching wherever the Spirit led him… the things that the risen Lord had taught him… concerning the unforgettable testimony and example of Stephen, the beloved Covenant friend of the Living God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob!
“Therefore, if you have been raised up with Messiah (like Stephen was), keep seeking the things above—where Messiah is, sitting at the right hand of God. Focus your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Messiah in God! When Messiah, who is your Life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him, in Glory!” (Colossians 3:1-4 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added)
And so, the truth is that all the while the mob was stirring itself up to the point of murder, Stephen was totally enthralled with the Reality of being one with His risen Lord, the Son of God! How’s that for two different simultaneous ‘wave lengths?’ This was true even as that rabid mob that was surrounding Stephen’s dying, bleeding body, continued to vent their rage against an adversary that was, in his own subjective mind and heart, actually no longer present with them! He was, as was already his habitual custom, rooted permanently in the Presence of Almighty God… in the highest place of the Heavenly Realms… far beyond the reach of anything Evil and Dark and Malevolent in this fallen terrestrial dimension!
So, beloved, wouldn’t it be wonderful for us if we too would manage to learn what Stephen, Paul and the others learned? What if we could master living and dying in the same way they did? Would that not be the perfect preparation we’ll need to deal with the turmoil and chaos and strife that lie in store for us Last Days disciples in the days ahead? In a world that is filled with such demonic evil and wickedness as we’re seeing today, beloved, there are saints of God in our generation, an increasing number of them, that are learning to be and do exactly what Stephen once learned to be and do. Isn’t it time that we joined them? Isn’t it time people began to look at us… and see ‘the faces of angels?’
Don’t be afraid of what is merely temporal! Get used to filling yourself with God’s precious Holy Spirit! He is with you even now… to lift and escort you into the Living Presence of Almighty God! So don’t hold back. Don’t hesitate… GO FOR IT! This is what our Marching Orders I believe the Lord (so many years ago) entrusted to me and commissioned me to share are meant to help us to do!
After you consider these things, even though our Marching Orders do not specifically come out of the Bible, I pray that you will be able to realize that they are aligned with the heart and spirit that underlie what is written in the Word of God… concerning the indwelling Reality of the Living Word of God!
Additional Articles in this series (available at www.follow-me-ministries.org website)