“And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.” Then He said to me, “It is done. I AM THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA, THE BEGINNING AND THE END. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. HE WHO OVERCOMES WILL INHERIT THESE THINGS, and I WILL BE HIS GOD AND HE WILL BE MY SON!” (Revelation 21-5-7. Emphasis added.)
Beloved, notice how God identifies Himself at the very beginning of Scripture, as well as at the very end of His written Self-revelation. This is what He says about Himself: “I AM THE BEGINNING AND THE DESTINY of, and for, all of My Creation!”
“In the Beginning GOD CREATED the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and Darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.” (Genesis 1:1-2. Emphasis added.)
Notice also that from the very beginning of the creation of the physical universe and the dimension of space and time, the conflict that exists in the heavens, between the spiritual powers of Darkness and the Creator of all things, was already raging full force. The Serpent, the eternal angelic enemy of God, was present. So from the very beginning of this physical Creation, the Darkness that endlessly seeks to derail and destroy whatever Almighty God intended to establish and develop throughout His created universe was lurking and seeking to sabotage, ruin and devastate.
And from the very dawn of our created existence, God, our Creator, was fully present to us and in everything that pertains to, or ever will be, a part of us. Through the Perfect Presence and Absolute Authority of His Living Creative Word, God formed and fashioned us from nothingness. He formed our physical makeup from primordial dust. But His closeness and intimate interactive care were not meant to end there. God’s dynamic interactivity with us and for us must continue into each passing moment of our future! Just as we had to depend on God’s Word for our first instant of existence and for all the workings of our personal spiritual, mental and physical makeup when we first came into being, so must we endlessly depend on His dynamic electrifying Presence to keep us going every moment thereafter, throughout all of our days on Earth.
God’s creative supplying Word must abide with us at this incredibly close and personally interactive level. He must maintain our existence. He must provide our every breath, heartbeat, brainwave, ability and capabilities that we will ever experience and enjoy throughout our lifetime in this time and space dimension… and beyond! The Word of the Living God must serve as our Shepherd, Protector and Provider at all times, because if He should tire of supplying us with everything we are and have and are able to do from moment to moment, and stop doing it… we would instantly disappear and vanish into total oblivion!
So right from the beginning… before man-made religions, theologies, cults, sects and denominations ever had a chance to spring up and develop… God was dynamically present to His beloved humans. His Perfect Loving Presence served like a source of electrical Life-giving energy and power for us. It was as if we had to be ‘plugged into’ God’s Living, Power-imparting Word. He is the Source of whatever God intends to impart to us. The Life that is in Him must be shared with us; or else we are nothing! And He must show and teach us His ways and fashion us into His own image and likeness if we’re going to be truly and fully human, according to His original specifications.
So yes… from our very first moment in existence… God’s Living Word has been everything to us and for us… and in us. And we are made to abide with Him and live from Him at all times and in all ways and at every level possible. We are designed, intended, and made to be His perfect human counterparts… embodying His inner Presence… working as one with and embodying the Activity of His Living Word, co-administrating and caring for Creation with Him, serving as faithful stewards of the beautiful Creation that He chose to entrust to our care:
“For this commandment which I (the Word of God) command you today, is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach. It is not in Heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to Heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’ Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’ But the Word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe (embody and demonstrate) it (through your yielded flesh)!
“See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity; in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the Lord your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it.
“But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess it. I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse.
“So choose life in order that you may live, and your descendants, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this (the Word of God) is your Life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.” (Deuteronomy 30:11-20 Amplification and emphasis added.)
Beloved, even after the fall of our first parents into the trap of Sin and Death, the Life and Power of God’s Living Word is still here with us and in us and in our midst! Although Sin has infected us with Death and renders us to be at enmity with God, our Heavenly Father must still make it possible for all of us to continue to exist in this world at our fallen level! He never forsakes us or forgets about us. It is we who forget and forsake Him! But for His part, in His Covenant Faithfulness, He never abandons or gives up on us.
“He must turn away from evil and do good; He must seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and His ears attend to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”
“Who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good?” (1 Peter 3:11-13)
But we also see, in Genesis 3, that the Father of Lies is also fully present throughout this world… looking intently for any opening he might find that would allow him to wedge himself between us and our Creator and Shepherd and sole Source of Life. His hatred and contempt and rage at God drive him to keep trying to separate God’s beloved humans from their Creator, who is their one and only Source of Life and the Origin of everything that is real, true and good. Everything we will ever need to fulfill our God-given identity, purpose and part in the Eternal Plan of God for His Creation… is meant to be supplied for us by His Living Word and Holy Spirit who are always here with us, for that very purpose!
“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of Righteousness for His Name’s sake
“Even though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I fear no evil, FOR YOU ARE WITH ME; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely (Your) Goodness and Lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.” (Psalm 23. Amplification and emphasis added.)
Beloved… ponder this ‘closeness’ of which I speak. It might be compared to the inner closeness that electrical power has to maintain with some kind of appliance or tool or instrument. In themselves, those things remain dead and inert and utterly useless. But thanks to the electrical power that surges in it and through it, each of these things comes to life and becomes productive and active. So too is the indwelling Presence and Faithfulness of our Creator to us. Try to fathom the depths of this intensely tender and intimate interactive union that God intends for us to have with His Word whom He sends to create, protect, cover and supply us with everything necessary.
Just as He must supply and impart to us everything we can ever be or have or do in this life… so must we correspondingly remain ever-mindful and aware of Him and how much we must rely and depend upon Him, for absolutely everything! He must always be providing, and we must always be cooperating and relying upon and receiving everything from Him… and from Him alone! This is why we must never allow anything or anyone to come between us and our Source of Life!
“O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways.
“Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain to it.
“Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your Presence? If I ascend to Heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me.
“If I say, “Surely the Darkness will overwhelm me, and the Light around me will be night,” even the Darkness is not dark to You, and the Night is as bright as The Day. Darkness and Light are alike to You. For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well.
“My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.
“How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You!” (Psalm 139:1-18. Emphasis added.)
Beloved… who among us could ever comprehend or fathom the depths of love, affection, concern and fierce Covenant Loyalty that our Creator exercises toward each and every human being He has designed, created and destined to serve as His own image and likeness? How could we ever grasp the depth and the height and the expanse of how much He values each one of us and what lengths He has been willing to seek us out and rescue and redeem and restore us so that we could serve as His own image and likeness once again, and belong to Him, and to Him alone?
“So He told them this parable, saying, “What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
“Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost!’ In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (Luke 15:3-10)
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the Darkness, and the Darkness did not comprehend it.” (John 1:1-5 Emphasis added.)
“He (God’s Living Word made flesh) 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.” (Colossians 1:15-17. Amplification and emphasis added.)
Yes… our Heavenly Father… and His Living Word made flesh… and His precious Holy Spirit… love us with an Infinitely Perfect, Everlasting Love… because He regards us through the eternal ‘filter’ of His everlasting Blood Covenant and the intensely personal Bond that makes us to be one with God. He compares this Bond to the perfect human marriage bond between a man and the wife who has responded to his proposal and given herself to him for the duration of her earthly life. That is the way God has designed and intended us to be to Him, and this is how He intends for us to live and abide and interact with Him.
“Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus 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 bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to Myself. Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice (My Word) and keep My Covenant (that makes us to be as one with Him), 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.”
“So Moses came and called the elders of the people, and set before them all these words which the Lord had commanded him. All the people answered together and said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do!” And Moses brought back the words of the people to the Lord. The Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will come to you in a thick cloud, so that the people may hear when I speak with you and may also believe in you forever.” Then Moses told the words of the people to the Lord.” (Exodus 19:3-9. Amplification and emphasis added.)
“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. THESE WORDS, which I am commanding you today, SHALL BE UPON YOUR HEART! You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9. Emphasis added.)
Can you see how intent God’s Word is on reserving and setting us apart for Himself alone? We were made by Him and for Him. He designed and intended us to belong to Him exclusively and forever. Truly our God is jealous concerning this relationship He desires to have with us! We are the Inheritance and Treasure that the Father of the Living Word of God has reserved for Him alone! And for His part, the Word is ready to put into each one of us whatever we will need and whatever it will take for us to reciprocate and return to Him the same level of intensely loyal and personally intimate and exclusive love, affection and Covenant Union and Loyalty that He first gave and put into us.
And this is what the Serpent is always so intent on destroying. His hatred for God and resentment of His True Authority and Preeminence has dragged him to an insane level of rage and furious malevolent depravity. But why? Why does Satan hate God’s humans so much? He has decided to make us his targets precisely because he knows that by hurting us and doing damage to our nature and character and human purpose… he can inflict intense pain and agony upon the heart of Almighty God! This is why our perpetual enemy is always so intent on inserting himself between us and the Father who loved and wanted us to be and to serve as His own beloved image and likeness! The rage of envy and jealousy against God’s Word, His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased, is what drives Satan to hate and despise us to such appalling depths.
We are an utterly important and essential factor in the total Redemption and Eternal Fulfillment of God’s Creation. But the Serpent wants for himself, the Honor and the Status and Inheritance that belongs only to God’s Son. And we are that Inheritance! And this is why the Word’s enemy and rival is perpetually driven to do whatever he possibly can to destroy us and obliterate everything God has designed and created us to be as His image and likeness. By attacking our union with His Son, he can destroy us and foil and stop the Fulfillment of God’s Eternal Plan! As long as he is able to block and delay the fulfillment of God’s Plan… he can buy more time for himself before he and his minions will be forced to face the Ultimate Judgment and Condemnation that await them!
This is why it’s so important for the Serpent to separate us from our intended total union to, and with, God’s Life-giving Word. Our Heavenly Father created us and He is ready to supply and maintain us to our Total Eternal Fulfillment, through and by His Living Word. And as long as Satan is able to interfere with what God is intent on having, God’s Plan cannot be properly and completely fulfilled; and the workings of His Lovingkindness on our behalf cannot run their full course. It is by and through our Covenant Union with His Word that our Heavenly Father is able to reveal more and more of Himself to us and is able to become one with us. It is through His Word that He instructs us and shows us His ways and standards and give us His commands. And it is through His Word that He is able to fulfill everything He intends and requires us to be and to do. He sent His Word to be and to do to us… for us… in us… and through us… what only Almighty God Himself could ever be able to do for us. And His Word is here to be and to do all of that… for our sake… and in our name… as long as we remain as one with Him.
“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own 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, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26-28)
“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 (with the deadly destructive effects of Sin), 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 find rest for your souls. For (because God has already done all of the necessary work on your behalf) My yoke (which I offer to you to share with Me) is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:25-30. Amplification and emphasis added.)
So our Lord, the Word of God made flesh, is always here for us. We are never ever separated from His Perfect Presence, for it is He who maintains, protects and supplies us with everything we need to keep going through this life from moment to moment and day by day! In addition to that, He has revealed that He has already supplied and done everything that will be necessary for us to be redeemed, and reconciled to God, and restored fully to our original image and likeness Creation Specifications! Yes, it’s all Finished and Perfect. The Works of Creation and Redemption that Father sent Him to accomplish in our name have been completed and fulfilled TO ETERNAL PERECTION AND CONSUMMATION!
And now, all that remains is for us to repent of our radical independence and our humanistic Self-adoring and God-ignoring ways. And if we come back to God’s Word that our Father sent to serve as His Infinitely Perfect Atoning Lamb… and we abide under His spiritual Covering… He sets us free from the coils of the Serpent and from all the lethal destructive damage into which the fall of our first parents dragged us. We could have never done anything to save or redeem or restore ourselves… but God has done it all… in and by His Perfect Living Word made flesh!
“Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy?
“Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in Abundance. Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live; and I will make an Everlasting Covenant with you, according to the faithful mercies shown to David (My Living Word made flesh). Behold, I have made him a Witness to the peoples, a Leader and Commander for the peoples.
“Behold, you will call a nation you do not know, and a nation which knows you not will run to you, because of the Lord your God, even the Holy One of Israel; for He has glorified you.”
“Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the Lord, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will My Word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.
“For you will go out with joy and be led forth with peace; the mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Instead of the thorn bush the cypress will come up, and instead of the nettle the myrtle will come up, and it will be a memorial to the Lord, for an everlasting sign which will not be cut off.” (Isaiah 55. Amplification and emphasis added.)
Since the Serpent rebelled against Almighty God, it has been his quest to usurp everything that pertains to the Word, through whom God creates and sustains and completes all things. Our enemy strives incessantly to take the Supreme Authority of all of Creation upon himself by deposing God’s Word and undoing and replacing all that He has revealed, commanded, promised and established in His Father’s Name. If God created and established it, Satan is automatically against it; and he does whatever he can to mar, deface, twist, morph, destroy and replace it with counterfeit substitutes of his own devising. And so, it is because of his intense hatred of and animosity toward his Creator, the Word of God, that Satan is so intent on defacing and obliterating those of us who were created to be the beloved human image and likeness of Almighty God! And it is for our destruction that the Serpent’s traps and schemes are intended.
This has always been his aim since he first stalked and cornered our unsuspecting mother, Eve. His intent was to insert himself between Eve’s mind and heart… to separate her heart from its original bond and abiding union with the Creative Word of God. The Word gave Himself to the first humans to always be with them to sustain, maintain, protect and provide for them so that, together, they could fulfill the Purpose and Plan their Heavenly Father had in mind when He sent His Word to create them, and the human race that would descend from their union.
“Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” (Genesis 2:15-17 Emphasis added.)
When we ponder the exalted purpose and destiny God imparted to His human image and likeness, we can better understand why the Serpent despises, fears and resents those that God has created to abide and interact at such a close and intimate level of loving obedience, trust, cooperation and synchronization with His Living Creative Word. Just as a loyal faithful wife cleaves to and clings to her beloved husband… so were we created to love and cleave to our awesome Creator and Shepherd and Sustainer. The Word of God summons us to become His… to ‘marry into’ all that He is and has and enjoy the Good of all that He has done in our name and for our sake. He is commissioned, from the moment that He creates and brings us into being, to abide with us continually, to supply, equip, protect, maintain and serve as the total Fulfillment of our intended purpose and destiny in the Plan of Almighty God.
The Serpent realizes that God intends to fulfill His Plan and care for his Creation by and through the image and likeness cooperation of the humans that He created to serve as stewards, administrators and protectors of His entire earthly order of Creation. And so he set out to destroy Eve, and Adam her husband, and all the rest of us who are the descendants of our first parents.
So beloved… when the Serpent managed to inject doubt, unbelief and mistrust of God into Eve’s heart… those things became like razor-sharp wedges that severed the minds and hearts of our first parents from their God-given interactive cooperative union with God’s Word who was given to them to serve as their perpetual Life Source and Guardian and Provider, Protector and Shepherd. Thus they fell into the terrible state of Death… which is the state of radical independence from the One who is the Giver of Life Himself! When they fell, our first parents truly did die, and we died with them. Death entered human nature and from the moment onward, it has been at work in each one of us from the moment of our conception! And, as long as we remain in that state, we can no longer serve as the image and likeness of our Creator. Instead we remain the image and likeness of the Serpent… who chose to separate himself from the One who is Eternal Life!
But God most certainly did not leave it at that! Now His Blood Covenant heart and His Everlasting Lovingkindness and Faithfulness to His beloved human friends have been fully aroused! And He sent His Living Word to seek Adam and Eve and to call them out of their hiding place. And He came to their defense, covering their shame-ridden nakedness with His own Perfect Atoning Righteousness. And then… He began the agonizing and still ongoing process of seeking out and saving each and every one of their fallen, Death-infected and Sin-corrupted descendants. And so His Word is here to come to our defense and initiate His Rescue Mission so that He can set us free from the Serpent and from Sin and Death and from slavery to his powers of Darkness.
“How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, you who have weakened the nations!
“But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to Heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north. ‘I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’
“Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol, to the recesses of the pit. Those who see you will gaze at you, they will ponder over you, saying, ‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world like a wilderness and overthrew its cities, who did not allow his prisoners to go home?’
“All the kings of the nations lie in glory, each in his own tomb. But you have been cast out of your tomb like a rejected branch, clothed with the slain who are pierced with a sword, who go down to the stones of the pit like a trampled corpse. You will not be united with them in burial, because you have ruined your country, you have slain your people. May the offspring of evildoers not be mentioned forever. Prepare for his sons a place of slaughter because of the iniquity of their fathers. They must not arise and take possession of the earth and fill the face of the world with cities.”
“I will rise up against them,” declares the Lord of hosts, “and will cut off from Babylon name and survivors, offspring and posterity,” declares the Lord. “I will also make it a possession for the hedgehog and swamps of water, and I will sweep it with the broom of destruction,” declares the Lord of hosts.
The Lord of hosts has sworn saying, “Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned so it will stand, to break Assyria in My land, and I will trample him on My mountains.
“Then his yoke will be removed from them and his burden removed from their shoulder. This is the plan devised against the whole earth; and this is the hand that is stretched out against all the nations. For the Lord of hosts has planned, and who can frustrate it? And as for His stretched-out hand, who can turn it back?” (Isaiah 14:12-27. Emphasis added.)
Such is the lot and fate of those unrepentant angels and humans that the Serpent has managed to cut away from God’s Life-giving Word. Because they are no longer bonded with, and able to draw Life from, God’s Living Word, they are doomed to share the terrible fate of the Serpent and all of his unrepentant powers of Darkness. And this is what will happen to the humans that are born caught in the coils of the Serpent… UNLESS… they heed the voice of God’s Word and take His warnings to heart… and turn from their wicked Self-adoring ways… and return to Him… so that He can bond them to Himself once more and be Eternal Life to them and in them.
As long as human beings remain alienated from the Living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and as long as they are strangers and enemies to His Living Word, who is their Source and their only Redeemer, Savior and Hope, they will remain at enmity with God and will not be able to pass His Righteous Judgment at the end of this age. So the need for Reconciliation and Reunification and the Restoration of Oneness between God and Man is absolutely essential… for all of us… if we are ever going to be able to be truly Human… truly the beloved image and likeness of God… by being restored to Oneness with His Living Word… who became flesh for this very purpose.
“Nicodemus said to Him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into Heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have Eternal Life.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have Eternal Life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the Name of the only begotten Son of God.
“This is the Judgment: that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the Darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the Truth comes to the Light (that is, he becomes one with God’s Living Word made flesh, through the New Covenant that God made with Israel) so that (the Holy Spirit who is then given to him, may demonstrate through his repentant flesh, that he now belongs to God and is living from God and thus) his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God!” (John 3:9-21 Amplification and emphasis added.)
“For He (Almighty God) rescued us from the domain of Darkness, and transferred us to the Kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have Redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 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; 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 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.
“And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach—if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister.
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His Body, which is the Church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions. Of this Church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the Word of God, that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the Hope of Glory. We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ (that is, in Israel’s Messiah).” (Colossians 1:13-28 Amplification and emphasis added.)
So beloved… I urge us all to beware of anyone or anything in Creation that would serve to come between us and the Living Word of God. He is our Life! He has come to make us to become as one with Him… FOREVER! And as long as we remain one with Him… He is free to impart everything we will ever need from the Fullness of God that is within Him. And this is why our Covenant Bond and intensely Personal Union with Him must always be protected and preserved intact. No doubt or mistrust or alienation of any kind can be allowed to slip itself between our indwelling Lord, and us. For the moment we allow such deception entry into our mind and soul, it will corrode and eat away at the Covenant Bond that unites us to God’s Word. And that will create separation between us and our Life Source… and then of course… we will die!
And so I continually urge each and every member of our precious Follow Me Family of disciples-in-training to take our ‘Marching Orders’ to heart, and to use them as a pattern that will enable us to maintain our mental and emotional focus permanently bonded and riveted to God’s Living Word made flesh… Yeshua, our glorious resurrected, Spirit-imparted, Messiah who dwells and abides within us!
Here are our ‘Marching Orders’:
- Take My people further in their understanding of what it is to be a temple of My Presence.
- Teach them to think along with Me, in all things.
- Teach them to listen to Me at all times, even as they are thinking!
- Develop a great tenderness and sensitivity for My Presence within them. Teach them to worship Me in the depths of their spirits and innermost minds, in all things.
- Teach them to understand clearly and thoroughly, what it means to be faithful to seek, in all things, My viewpoint and the purpose of My Kingdom, Kingship and Righteousness. If they do that, I, for My part, will add all other things for them.
- Take them further in their ability to understand the depths of the New Covenant.
- Teach them how to respond to Me in even the tiniest matters.
- I AM WITH THEM IN ALL THINGS AND IN ALL WAYS… I want them to be with Me in the same manner!
Beloved Family… can you sense the intense and intimately personal union and loyalty and dependence of mind, heart, will and soul our relationship with God’s abiding indwelling Word requires of those of us who are called to be His true disciples? Fulfilling these orders will keep us continually focused upon and connected to our Divine Power Source! Only God’s Word can supply us with what is real and true and good! So a Covenant-level type of abiding union and connection with God’s Word is not just a casual ‘hobby’ or ‘religious game’ to which we have been called. It is an intensely serious Blood Covenant Bond that is Eternally established for Life or for Death! God is utterly and intensely sincere when He says He wants us to follow and be one with Him! He really means what He says to us and about us, as He describes His relationship with His Father… and their relationship with each one of us:
“But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves. 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.
“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, THAT THEY ALSO MAY BE IN US, SO THAT THE WORLD MAY BELIEVE THAT YOU SENT ME!” (John 17:13-21. Emphasis added.)
Just as God’s Living Word came out from His Father at the dawn of Creation and spoke the physical universe into existence… and just as the Word and Holy Spirit have faithfully been abiding with and brooding over the chaos and destruction created by the Serpent and the powers of Darkness in order to try to destroy the handiwork of God… so are the Word and the Spirit of our Father right here with us… to reconcile and reunite with us and to save and maintain and restore us and take us all the way home to be one with Almighty God… now and forever!
In a very real sense, the Word is perpetually creating and forming and guiding and providing for us and protecting His ‘Investment’ in us with unending, everlasting Covenant Mercy, Goodness and Faithfulness. What God’s Word was sent to begin… He is still here, waiting to enter into us and to serve like a Bolt of Divine Energy… TO FINISH AND PERFECT GOD’S PLAN AND FULFILL HIS WILL… FROM WITHIN US… IN OUR NAME!
“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” (Hebrews 12:1-3. Emphasis added.)
Beloved friends… as long as we remain as one with God’s Living Word who abides within us, there is nothing that the Serpent or his demonic powers will ever be able to do to stop or deter or thwart Him from fulfilling the Purpose for which He was sent by His Father. God’s Word has done His assigned Works to Perfection. Everything is Finished, Complete, and Perfectly acceptable to the Father. And He did all of that work for our sake, and in our name, so that we could share in the Credit and Reward that is due solely to Him!
“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the Firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified!
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written,
“For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
“But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord!” (Romans 8:28-39. Emphasis added.)
“… And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world!” (1 John 4:3-4)