Come Up Higher
--
by Grace Wiebe, August 2005
As many of you do, every Christmas/New Year's season I spend time asking the Lord for more specific direction for the coming year, or a sense of what He is wanting to do in my life in that year.
A few of the main things I felt He was saying to me at that
time this past Dec/Jan. were that He was inviting me to:
+ ARISE! and COME UP HIGHER
+ Break up my unplowed ground
+ and letting me know that everything that could be shaken would be shaken
+ I also felt that He wanted to give me a deeper understanding of the Kingdom
of God and the Church's role in that in these days.
As I prayed and meditated on all of this and asked for further clarification on what this all meant/might mean, some of the things that came to mind were the following. Interestingly, as the year has been going by, I have found that these are similar things He seems to be doing in much of the Body of Christ in these days! Perhaps He is also doing similar things in your hearts in these days?
So what does it mean to COME UP HIGHER?
For me, here is some of what it means:
First of all, to give you a bit of helpful input about what MOUNTAINS symbolize in Scripture, click here: to summarize, it refers to God's abode and His Kingdom. Governments/kingdoms were often represented by mountains in the Bible.
1. INVITATION TO COME INTO DEEPER INTIMACY WITH HIM - Often in Scripture we are encouraged to go up to the 'mountain of the Lord'...which is an invitation to come into deeper intimacy with Him and to experience life in His Kingdom and family with increasing depth and reality...
Some of the reasons to grow in intimacy with Him?
+ WHOLE-HEARTED, TOTAL-LIFE LOVE/WORSHIP: He of course wants us to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and as an overflow of that, to love our neighbours as ourselves. The more I meditate on this, the more it helps to simplify my complicated life. When we realize that it all boils down to LOVING GOD and as a result LOVING OURSELVES and LOVING OTHERS properly and in truth because of His love and our relationship of love with Him, the simpler life and ministry becomes! We increasingly realize this life with Him is a daily lifestyle based on relationship with Him and others and not on the often-complicated structures/programs we tend to create because of what we're used to.
+ EVERYTHING SHAKING - BECOMING A BRIDE WITHOUT SPOT OR WRINKLE: It is a time of great transition in the Church and in the world - a time where He is apparently shaking everything that can be shaken! (Heb.12:27-29) and if we are to keep from falling or being crushed in these days of increasing evil (2 Tim 3:1-9,etc.), we need to be deeply rooted in Him, have Him as our True Foundation/Rock and experience increasing intimacy with Him as He is in the process of maturing His Bride and bringing her to that place of being 'without spot or wrinkle'. (Ephesians 5:25 "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing[b] her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless." (NIV)) See plasticine figurine
A helpful article about the shaking: The Best Year of Your Life and a helpful article about The Great Change
+ CONFORMED TO HIS LIKENESS : It is in this growing place of intimacy with Him where we experience, more and more, His long, high, deep and wide love for us, where He is formed in us (Eph.3:14-20) and where we are increasingly conformed into His likeness. This passage says that the reason that He wants us to know His long, high, deep and wide love is SO THAT we will be FILLED (with what?) TO THE FULL MEASURE of ALL the FULLNESS OF GOD.!! Wow!! That is His desire for us - this is what will please HIS heart!!
+ PERFECT LOVE CASTS OUT FEAR: The more we experience intimacy with Him and experience His long, high, deep, wide love for us, the more His perfect love CASTS OUT FEAR (1 John 4:18). How desperately we need this in a day when there are reasons for fear on every hand and when we are often still so gripped with the 'fear of man'/people pleasing (Galatians 1:10 "Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.") - how will we ever remain true to Him or be bold/courageous in stanging up for Him/the Truth/justice and righteousness in the coming days - when persecution is rapidly spreading around the globe - if we don't have that confidence in His love which drives out the fear?? If we give in to fear because of fear or rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of suffering, etc., we will be cowards. It is easy enough for me to be a coward in peace times in many situations - so how will I remain firm when the stakes go up?? I believe we will not survive what is to come or be able to remain faithful to Him if we don't COME UP HIGHER.
Some more Scriptures about God's Love for Us:
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son; that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." 1 John 3:1 "HOW GREAT is the love the Father has LAVISHED on us, that we should be called CHILDREN OF GOD, and that is what we ARE!" "...We love Him because He first loved us..." Ephesians 3:17 "…And I pray that you, being rooted and established in LOVE, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the LOVE OF CHRIST, and to KNOW THIS LOVE THAT SURPASSES KNOWLEDGE - (so) that you may be FILLED TO THE MEASURE of ALL THE FULLNESS OF GOD!"
Another related Scripture that has been blowing me away: John 15:9 - "AS THE FATHER HAS LOVED ME, SO have I loved you". How does the Father love Jesus?? THAT is how Jesus loves us!!!! How we need a revelation of such love in these days!!! Do our HEARTS really grasp such love? I don't think so...I think so often we have had largely an intellectual grasp of His love, but I believe He is calling us to COME UP HIGHER so we WILL have a growing HEART understanding/grasp of His incredibly long, high, deep and wide love for us! He then says "Now remain in my love. IF you OBEY MY COMMANDMENTS, you WILL remain in My love." (John 15:10). (an article which I have found helpful recently, and which you may also find helpful in this regard, is: What Is Legalism? I think this is an important question in these days...I think we as the Church have gone from one extreme to the other in many cases, and I think this article gives a helpful perspective.)
+ HEALING & RESTORATION - see more about this right below re Job 22, etc. The more deeply we grow in intimacy with Him, the more healing He does in our hearts and the more He is able to bring restoration into the dry/dead-looking/wilderness areas of our lives - He desires to bring STREAMS INTO THE WASTELANDS...(Isaiah 35, Isaiah 43, Isaiah 61, etc.) More about this below in the Hosea 2 passage as well. See plasticine figurine of Streams in the Wasteland - (symbolism explained below the image)
+ GOD'S PERSPECTIVE - THE GOSPEL IN A FEW VERSES: because of what He desires to do through us, His Church, in these last of the last days...He wants us to see things increasingly from His perspective and therefore calls us to COME UP HIGHER.
Job 22 is kindof a summary of this process - (this passage is one He has reminded me of countless times in the past year and months especially....It blows my mind what He wants to do for, in and through us as we come into that place of intimacy with Him!!)
vs. 21 "Submit to God and be at peace with him; in this way prosperity (my note - in ALL aspects of life - which is the biblical perspective on prosperity) will come to you.
22 Accept instruction from his mouth and lay up his words in your heart.
23 If you return
to the Almighty, you will be restored:
If you remove wickedness far from your tent 24
and assign your nuggets (my note - our treasure; our idols) to the dust, your
gold of Ophir (my note - apparently this is one of the most precious kinds
of gold?) to the rocks in the ravines, 25 then
the Almighty will be your gold, the choicest silver for you. 26
Surely then you will find delight
in the Almighty and will lift up your face to God. (my note
- without shame, etc.) 27 You will
pray to him, and he will hear you, and you will fulfill your vows.
(my note - the next part is INCREDIBLE!!!!!!!!! - Let the impact of that penetrate your heart!)
28 What you decide
on will be done,
and light will shine on your ways. 29 When men are brought
low and you say, 'Lift them up!' then he will save the downcast. 30
He will deliver even one who is not innocent, who will be delivered through
the cleanness of your hands."
Wow!! This is awesome!!!
+ WOOING US IN THE WILDERNESS: Hosea 2 - God WOOING US in the desert/wilderness is part of His process of having us COME UP HIGHER - the purpose pf His wildernesses is for intimacy and restoration - something God seems to be in the process of doing all over the globe!!! PTL!!! (If you're in a spiritual wilderness and need some encouragement in that regard, here are some resource - click here).
Hosea 2:14 "Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her.
15 There (my note - there, IN THE DESERT!!!) I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor [a] (my note - Achor means 'trouble') a door of hope. There she will sing [b] as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.
16 "In that day," declares the LORD, "you will call me 'my husband'; (my note - notice the increase in intimacy) you will no longer call me 'my master. [c] ' 17 I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; no longer will their names be invoked. (my note - here He will remove the idols from our hearts)
18 In that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the creatures that move along the ground. Bow and sword and battle I will abolish from the land, so that all may lie down in safety.
19 I will betroth you to me forever; I
will betroth you in [d] righteousness and justice,
in [e] love and compassion. 20 I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you
will acknowledge the LORD. (note the amazing biblical significance of BETROTHAL!!!
It will give her heart a whole new appreciation for what this passage is (and
others are) talking about!! - Significance
of Betrothal in Scripture (click on the link)
21 "In that day I will respond,"
declares the LORD—"I will respond to the skies, and they will respond
to the earth; 22 and the earth will respond to
the grain, the new wine and oil,
and they will respond to Jezreel. [f] 23 I will
plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called
'Not my loved one. [g] ' I will say to those called 'Not my people, [h] '
'You are my people'; and they will say, 'You are my God.' "
+ HIM IN ME / ME IN HIM: the more I come into increasing intimacy, the more I know Him and understand WHO HE IS IN ME!!!!, and the more I understand WHO I AM IN HIM. The more that happens, the more I can become all He has created me to be/who He has created me to be.
John 15 has been a passage He has frequently had me meditating on the past months...ie. REMAIN IN ME.... and Jesus' prayer that we will be one with Him as He is one with His Father. (John 17)
+ DESIRES: the more I grow in intimacy with Him, the better I hear His voice; the more I know His heart/desires, the more I desire what He desires, and therefore the more He fulfills my desires because they are actually HIS desires! - Psalm 37:4 "Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart."
+ COVENANT: the more we grow in intimacy with Him, the more we come to understand (on a heart level) His covenant with us and desire to be faithful in our covenant with Him.
This whole aspect of His covenant with us/our covenant with Him has been somewhat of a mystery to me for the greater part all my life. It still is in many ways, but as I have been doing some Scriptural study on it this year, it is becoming much more meaningful to me.
Basically the gist of it, as I understand it, is that He's the one who is experiencing almost all of the cost of the covenant, where He has basically promised us EVERYTHING - our part of the covenant is this: LOVING Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and OBEYING Him...out of a heart of love - not out of a heart of duty. Therefore, in order to fulfill our part of the covenant, we can't obey Him out of 'religious duty' - which is often the result of having an intellectual or religious Christianity - what we need and what He desires is an increasingly intimate RELATIONSHIP. He is passionate about us and He longs for us to be passionate about Him!
I've quoted it in the past but will quote it again...John Piper's awesome quote that: GOD IS MOST GLORIFIED IN US WHEN WE ARE MOST SATISFIED IN HIM.
+ KNOWING HIS NAME - so often in Scripture it talks about 'His Name' and knowing His Name and calling on His Name, etc. What does this mean? For example, Isaiah 50:10b says: "Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in THE NAME OF THE LORD and rely on His God." Do you have need of direction? Does the way seem dark to you and directionless? The solution, in this verse, is to trust in THE NAME OF THE LORD. But what does that mean? I have been thinking about this a lot the past while and hope to do further study on HIS NAME in the coming months.
Biblically, names in Jewish culture were of great significance. They were often prophetic, sometimes symbolic, and also often described characteristics/character aspects of the person with the name.
As such, when we meditate on the many Names of God/Jesus in Scripture, it helps us to grow in intimacy with Him and grow in confidence that He is who His Word says He is. It helps our hearts to BELIEVE and trust in His character and His promises, and out of that our hearts SPEAK with faith, and we see these things coming into being. (2 Cor 4:13 "...It is written: "I believed; therefore I have spoken."[b]With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak...")
Therefore, the more we KNOW HIS NAME as we COME UP HIGHER, the more He is able to be in and through us who He desires, and to fulfill His purposes for us. (Ps.57:2)
For example: Jesus is our SHEPHERD.
Psalm 23 and John 10 tell us some things about that...What does a shepherd do? They protect the flock. They feed them. They lead the sheep to green pastures and beside still waters - so there's a sense of nurture physically, practically, spiritually, emotionally, etc. They protect the flock from danger. They lay down their lives for their sheep. They speak to their sheep and their sheep hear their voice. They bind up the wounded sheep. Etc.
Or another example:
One of God's Names: El Shaddai - our Nurturer (I'm sorry I can't remember which web site I found this at)...
Definition: "El-Shaddai means God Almighty. El points to the power of God Himself. Shaddai seems to be derived from another word meaning breast, which implies that Shaddai signifies one who nourishes, supplies, and satisfies. It is God as El who helps, but it is God as Shaddai who abundantly blesses with all manner of blessings. Meaning:God desires to bless man and provide in abundance all of mans needs. This name is indicative of a God who is powerful enough to do." see plasticine figurine
Here are some of God's Names for you to meditate on if you wish to do so: click here.
+ THE HIGHER WE GET, THE MORE INTIMATE WE BECOME
There are many more reasons that He wants us to COME UP HIGHER, I'm sure, but these are just a few.
More of what it means
to me to COME UP HIGHER
2. ARISE MY DARLING - For the past year or more I have constantly kept becoming aware of Jesus' call to me and to His Bride to ARISE in these days! It's true that He has been calling the Church to ARISE for a long time, but it seems to be an urgent call in these days!
A couple of years ago I felt God gave me a song about that...a song He was singing to me but also, I felt, something He was saying to His Bride...ARISE MY DARLING - click link - it's from Song of Songs 2.
The Matthew 25 passage about the 10 virgins has been on my heart a lot lately and I feel, as do growing numbers of others, it seems, that this is the time we are in...Let's look again at what it says:
Matt 25:1"At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. 2Five of them were foolish and five were wise. 3The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. 4The wise, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. 5The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep. 6"At midnight the cry rang out: 'Here's the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!' 7"Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. 8The foolish ones said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.' 9" 'No,' they replied, 'there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.' 10"But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut. 11"Later the others also came. 'Sir! Sir!' they said. 'Open the door for us!' 12"But he replied, 'I tell you the truth, I don't know you.' 13"Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour."
Again, this is also significant in light of what we see here: Significance of Betrothal in Scripture
Eph 5:14 "Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and
Christ will shine on you."
In may ways the Church has been asleep for a very long time...there's a lot more here about what the Bible says about ARISING, etc.
Isaiah 52:1 "Awake, awake, O Zion, clothe
yourself with strength. Put on your garments of splendor,
O Jerusalem, the holy city. The uncircumcised and defiled will not enter you
again. 2 Shake off your dust;
rise up, sit enthroned, O Jerusalem. Free yourself from the chains on your
neck, O captive Daughter of Zion. 3 For this is what the LORD says: "You
were sold for nothing, and without money you will be redeemed." 4 For
this is what the Sovereign LORD says: "At first my people went down to
Egypt to live; lately, Assyria has oppressed them. 5 "And now what do
I have here?" declares the LORD. "For my people have been taken
away for nothing, and those who rule them mock, [a] " declares the LORD.
"And all day long my name is constantly blasphemed. 6 Therefore my people
will know my name; therefore in that day they will know that it is I who foretold
it. Yes, it is I." 7 How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those
who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim
salvation, who say to Zion, "Your God reigns!" 8 Listen! Your watchmen
lift up their voices; together they shout for joy. When the LORD returns to
Zion, they will see it with their own eyes. 9 Burst into songs of joy together,
you ruins of Jerusalem, for the LORD has comforted his people, he has redeemed
Jerusalem. 10 The LORD will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the
nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God.
11 Depart, depart, go out from there! Touch no unclean thing! Come out from
it and be pure, you who carry the vessels of the LORD. 12 But you will not
leave in haste or go in flight; for the LORD will go before you, the God of
Israel will be your rear guard."
Soooo, something I have been asking God over the last couple years, is HOW DO I/WE ARISE? How do we WAKE UP???
I think a part of it is the fact that as it says in John 10, HIS SHEEP HEAR HIS VOICE, and so as we as His people sense Him stirring our hearts to WAKE UP and to grow in intimacy with Him, and as we sense Him moving us increasingly into what He is calling us to be in these days in this generation, and as we sense Him calling us to come up higher, etc., it is up to us to respond to His wooings and to allow Him to keep drawing us closer.
Because we have tended to be 'asleep' in many ways, we may feel spiritually groggy, lethargic and even apathetic - I know I sure have been struggling with this and have then often tended to feel guilty and condemned until I realized again that IN MY WEAKNESS HE IS STRONG as I DEPEND on HIM and NOT ON MYSELF!! (2 Cor 12) and as I have been reminded again and again to "TRUST IN THE LORD with all my HEART and LEAN NOT TO MY OWN UNDERSTANDING..." (Prov 3:5,6)
But there is more...
RENEWING OUR MINDS: LIES & TRUTH:
The more I pray about this and the more God seems to be leading me in the Word about this, the more I sense that a HUGE part of WAKING UP is for us to have our MINDS RENEWED by MEDITATING on the Word and SPEAKING THE WORD as an evidence of faith in our hearts, because the more we speak the Word/the TRUTH, the more it exposes and expels the deceptions in our lives and the more we are able to live in the TRUTH and be set FREE to live fully in the ABUNDANT LIFE that Christ has called us to.
I have been thinking a lot about what the Bible says about being deceived, especially in the last days...and for the past several years have been asking God often to reveal the remaining deceptions in my life and to continue to renew my mind on His Word so that I can increasingly be all He is calling me to be in these days.
I think it is often hard for us to admit (as it was for me!) that we are being deceived in some ways, especially if we have spent most of our lives as Christians and if we were raised in a reputable denomination, etc. It seems we often think OTHERS are deceived, but 'NOT ME'!! I think this is one of the reasons we are exhorted in 1 Peter 5 to humble ourselves, because if we are too proud to admit that WE might be deceived, God says He will oppose us; BUT He GIVES GRACE to the humble.
If it is true that we are not really deceived, then I have asked myself why there are so many warnings about this in Scripture?
And if we're not deceived, why are we told to RENEW OUR MINDS (Romans 12:1,2)? The reason is to replace the lies/faulty thinking with THE TRUTH which will SET US FREE! John 8:32 "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Gal 5:1"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery..."
What are these YOKES OF SLAVERY? What are the STRONGHOLDS of the enemy? They are his LIES! That's why 2 Cor 10:1-5 tells us we need to TAKE CAPTIVE OUR THOUGHTS and DEMOLISH the thoughts and pretensions that set themselves up against the KNOWLEDGE OF GOD... (do you ever sense the enemy telling you that God is NOT faithful or trustworthy? or that He will not protect you or provide for you? and that He can't do the impossible because it's impossible?).
That's why, as mentioned earlier, it is crucial for us to KNOW THE NAME of God - to truly know who He is/know Him intimately, so we won't be deceived by the enemy's lies. As noted above, he attacks us by lying to us about WHO GOD IS ("the knowledge of God"). And how important is it that we have a TRUE knowledge of God?? See below...No WONDER he attacks us in this regard!!!!
Let's take a look at 2 Peter 1
"1 Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours: 2Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
Making One's Calling and Election Sure
3His divine power has given us everything we need for life
and godliness through our
knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4Through
these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through
them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in
the world caused by evil desires. 5For this very reason, make every
effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6and to
knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance,
godliness; 7and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness,
love. 8For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will
keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge
of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9But if anyone does not have them, he
is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from
his past sins. 10Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your
calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall,
11and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ."
Soooo, how do we demolish these strongholds?
With THE TRUTH...we need to ask Jesus to expose the lies,
and then we cooperate with him in expelling the lies as we ask Him to reveal
HIS TRUTH to our HEARTS, which then replaces the lies and brings freedom!
The Bible tells us it is very easy for us to be deceived and therefore we need to be alert. If Eve, who was perfect and in God's Presence all the time, was able to be deceived, how much easier is it for us when we are constantly bombarded with the lies of the enemy from every direction?
We are told that if we are merely hearers of the Word and not doers, we DECEIVE OURSELVES...(James 1:22 "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.") Wow...how many times have I deceived myself by hearing so much of the Word but not putting into practice what it said, even though I wanted to?! For example, how much did I hear/put into my intellectual memory banks in Bible college, without putting it into practice, and therefore deceived myself?
If the lies of the enemy were easy to detect, we would not be warned that he masquerades as an angel of light. (2 Corinthians 11:14 And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.)
Col 2:8 "See to it that no one takes you captive
through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which
depends on human tradition and the basic
principles of this world rather than on Christ."
John 8:44 "You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies."
The interesting thing is that we do not know that we are deceived in various areas because we ARE deceived in those areas. Unless the light of Jesus exposes the deception and brings it to our attention, we will not see that we are deceived.
If you think about it, that is the enemy's major (perhaps only?) BASIC weapon against us, though it comes in many forms...
For example:
+ the devil lies to someone and says God won't protect them...so they find ways to protect themselves...carried to the extreme, this could lead to criminal activity. But the worst problem is that it cuts them off from the protection of the Lord and intimacy with Him!
+ the devil lies to someone and says God won't provide for them...so they initially try to make things happen to provide for themselves rather than trusting God to lead them and cooperating with Him as He unfolds His plans to them. If they take this to more extremes, they could become very greedy, hoard, steal from others or all kinds of other related activities. Again, the worst problem is that this then cuts them off from the provision of the Lord and intimacy with Him! We may not be at this extreme, but I suspect most of us struggle with some degree of deception in these areas of our lives.
+ the devil lies to someone and they believe they are a failure - rather than believing with the head AND THE HEART what God says about who they are in HIM, and so they are always held back in some ways. (Col 1:19 "For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, Col 2:9 "For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.") and WHO HE IS IN THEM (Col 1:27 - Christ in Us, the Hope of Glory)...Because they believe the lie, they will never live up to what they could be and will also bring others down around them, unintentional and subconscious as this is...This, again, is an attack of the enemy on the KNOWLEDGE OF GOD - because in this case we believe the lie of the enemy and not the truth that God is and says about Himself and us.
+ James 1:5 "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; 8he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does."
I've been thinking quite a bit, the past weeks, about double-mindedness in Scripture and how deeply it affects us. I think that we often think it has to do with changing our minds on rather superficial things, but I don't think we often realize how significant our double-mindedness really is or how deep it goes.
For example, if, such as mentioned above, we have believed, as a result of some traumatic experience when we were young, that God could not protect us, or WOULD not protect us, and if that lie has never been uprooted and replaced by God's TRUTH in our HEARTS, all of our lives we will continue to struggle with this because our thinking/believing is fautly. Some times we believe that He will come through for us and protect us, and other times not....we will be double-minded.
The result of double-mindedness is INSTABILITY and lack of faith, keeping us from receiving what we want to receive from the Lord and which He has promised to us if we meet the prerequisites of the promises (ie. IF my people will humble themselves....THEN I will hear from heaven....)
Not only that, but much more serious is the fact that, in essence, we are calling GOD A LIAR when we do not believe His Truth!
Rom 3: 3 "What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God's faithfulness? 4Not at all! Let God be true, and every man a liar. As it is written: "So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge."
Calling God a liar WILL have consequences in our lives! Basically if we call God a liar, we are AGREEING WITH SATAN and saying Satan is true and God is not! God CANNOT bless that! (thankfully He is sooo willing to forgive us and cleanse us as we repent!!)
These are just a few brief examples, but the basis of fear,
disharmony and all other sins, I believe, is LIES of the enemy, and that's
why it is soooo important to know JESUS, THE TRUTH!!!!!!!! - not just in our
MINDS but in our HEARTS!! see Romans 10:9 "That if you confess
with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," AND believe
in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Thankfully we have a Wondeful Counsellor - John 16:13 "But
when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all
truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears,
and he will tell you what is yet to come." If we were no longer in deception,
there would be no need for the Spirit of truth in believers.
The more we see the lies exposed and expelled from our lives in favour of the TRUTH, the deeper the level of TRUTH in our lives, resulting in increasingly deeper freedom and deeper intimacy with Christ!
2 Cor 3:16 "But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the
veil is taken away. 17Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where
the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18And we, who with unveiled
faces all reflect[a] the Lord's glory, are being transformed
into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the
Lord, who is the Spirit."
What is the veil? I don't know for sure but I imagine it is deception. In 1 Cor 13 we are told that "we see through a glass darkly"...I imagine that is also because of the deception we are under to some degree or other as long as we're here...
THAT is why it is IMPERATIVE that we RENEW OUR MINDS which
then transforms our HEARTS!! and then our WORDS which then begin to bring
God's promises into our lives...ie. 2 Cor 1:20 "For no matter how many
promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. And so through
him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the
glory of God."
So all this to say that I believe a major part of the Church's ARISING in these days is wrapped up in LISTENING TO HIS VOICE, RESPONDING IN HUMILITY, MOVING INTO DEEPER INTIMACY WITH HIM, RENEWING OUR MINDS AND SPEAKING THE TRUTH so that His purposes and desires are accomplished in and through us.
I believe a very important part of this is MEDITATION, which is different than memorization. See Memorization or MEDITATION?
This process of having Him RENEWING OUR MINDS/HEARTS can be very scary and feel very insecure and confusing...but I believe it is a crucial part of His SHAKING of everything that can be shaken!
I think epecially if we've been in Bible college/seminary or involved in ministries/missions, etc., we can tend to think we 'have it all together' theologically...
Personally, however, I'm sensing God calling me, more and more, to be like the Bereans and to check EVERYTHING against Scripture to see if it IS true - or is it just human tradition? or the world's way of thinking which we have picked up by osmosis, etc.? (Acts 17:11"Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.") Over the past number of years, especially, I'm finding that He is really 'messing with my theology' and challenging me on many of the things that I had believed and which I'm now seeing are very different than I had thought! It is not a pleasant process, but I believe it is very necessary! It is also a breath-taking journey of discovery with Him, our Teacher!
If we as the Church were living according to all the Truth all these years, one wonders why the Church has not been more effective than she has been? and why today she resembles the world as much as she often does?
If we are to see the Church come into the plans and purposes
that God has expressed for her in Scripture, she must be different than she
is now, and that will come through being transformed by the TRUTH and allowing
Him to remove the deceptions from our lives. It is through the WORD, the TRUTH
that the Word says His BRIDE was made to be without spot or wrinkle... so
I would encourage you not to resist the discomfort of having Him shake your
'theology'!
To this end one of the other passages that has been speaking to me a lot lately is Phil. 3: 7 "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. 12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. 15All of us who are mature should take such a view of things."
Paul had all the correct 'theology' of the day, and Moses had the best of Egyptian training...but what did God have to do with both of them? He had to take them to the backside of the desert to enable them to UNLEARN much of what they had learned!!! It was now seen as 'rubbish' by Paul! - a seeming LOSS compared to the surpassing greatness of KNOWING CHRIST JESUS, for whose sake he lost all things.
As God has been 'messing with my theology', too, the past years, and having me go through the 'unlearning' process in the various spiritual wildernesses He's led me into over the years (God LED Paul, Moses, Israel, Jesus, etc. into their wildernesses), I have also been increasingly feeling like I can better understand Paul here when he said what he did about much of what had seemed to him, earlier, like profit, now appearing to him as rubbish. This does not mean that God didn't use it at the time, and He does want to use everything for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose, but there was also a transformation that had taken place and he no longer saw things the same as he had before. More about this process below regarding the breaking up of the unplowed ground.
3. COMING UP HIGHER MEANS SIMULTANEOUSLY GOING DOWN LOWER
The Bible is full of paradoxes....one of these is that to increasingly reflect Him by growing in intimacy with Him, the more we must decrease...
One of the first things I sensed when I felt impressed that God was wooing me to COME UP HIGHER was that it was not a flippant decision for me to make to choose to respond to His invitiation. I immediately knew that while the thought of deeper intimacy and experiencing more of His covenant blessings in and through my life was a thrilling thought, it also meant there would be a cost involved, and that I would have a choice.
John 3:30 - "He must increase, but I must decrease."
- KJV
30 "He must become greater; I must become less." - NIV
Why must we decrease to go up higher??
2 Cor 4:7 "If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That's to prevent anyone from confusing God's incomparable power with us. As it is, there's not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we're not much to look at. We've been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we're not demoralized; we're not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we've beenspiritually terrorized, but God hasn't left our side; we've been thrown down, but we haven't broken. What they did to Jesus, they do to us--trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us--he lives! 2Corinthians. 4:1-12 ("The Message" paraphrase of the Holy Bible) "...but we have this Treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us..." 2 Corinthians 4:7 - New International Version Bible
The Treasure in Clay/Cracked Pots - see plasticine figurine
In the Gospels we are told we have to die to self; we're to lay down our lives; we're to count the cost; take up our cross and follow Him, etc. Matthew 10:38 "and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me." Matthew 10:37-39 Matthew 16:24 'Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.'
So as I sensed Him also reminding me of the cost, I felt like He was again asking me, as He has from time to time over the years, " Will You Drink my Cup?" (see plasticine figurine)- "…Are you able to drink of the cup that I drink (my note - suffering), or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?" Mark 10:38 (NIV).
It is always a very sobering thing when He asks this (as you are probably very well aware in your own lives!!) and has already cost me a great deal in many ways (in one way of looking at it), YET the blessings have definitely FAR outweighed the cost and especially the aspect of knowing Him better as a result! So that has given me courage to once again, after some weeks of prayerfully considering the potential cost and dealing with those fears, choose, by HIS GRACE, to respond to His invitation about COMING UP HIGHER and DRINKING HIS CUP with a YES. It is by His power and by His Spirit, because otherwise there is NO WAY I would have the courage to 'climb this mountain'!!
Another aspect to this process of GOING DOWN LOWER in order to GO HIGHER is the aspect of Jesus, our Gardener, (John 15) PRUNING US.
This is something He has been doing a lot of in my life this year and it HAS NOT BEEN FUN!!! (Heb 12:1-13 especially vs. 11"No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.") I'm soooo glad that's in there so we don't have to think that we're having a problem if we FEEL that it's PAINFUL!! Thankfully He doesn't say, 'pull up your bootstraps and SMILE when you're going through the pruning/discipline'!! He understands our pain and doesn't undermine it!
Thankfully, though, He also reminds us that the fruit of this painful discipline and pruning will produce a HARVEST OF RIGHTEOUSNESS AND PEACE if we allow ourselves to be trained by it...and He assures us that He disciplines those He LOVES!!! so even though we usually don't appreciate this type of expression of His LOVE at these painful times, we can be encouraged that it is for our GOOD! and we are not being rejected in the process, which is what we often tend to fear, I think...?
John 15 also reminds us that He prunes us SO THAT we may bear MUCH GOOD FRUIT THAT WILL LAST!!!! That's what I want!!!
Being
Pruned to Produce More Good Fruit That Will Last - see plasticine figurine
Being
a Blessing To Others Through our Pruning - see plasticine figurine
Another aspect of this process of going down while going up is that He asks us to Break Up Your Unplowed Ground - see placticine figurine. Hosea 10:12 "Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers righteousness on you." (NIV)
Yeow!!! Another painful process!!! Unplowed ground is unproductive, hard and not easy to deal with. Not exactly the farmer's dream! It takes a lot of work to see the ground plowed and made pliable and soft so it can be properly worked in and the ground can be properly prepared for a crop which the farmer wants to get a harvest from!
So as I've sensed God asking me break up my unplowed ground, I also realized it would not be a pleasant experience, but necessary, and thankfully He is a Good Gardener and Husbandmen! and the BEST at what He does!
But it says to us that we're to break up our unplowed ground!!! What does this mean??? since only He can transform our minds/hearts!
As I've meditated on that, my understanding is that as in the figurine I made of this, where I'm lying in a row on the ground in a garden, I'm willingly lying there allowing Him to do the work of plowing the unplowed places of my heart (removing the lies which have caused hardness and replacing them with His Truth) and cooperating with Him in the process...TRUSTING HIM that He knows what He's doing and will be able to bring a harvest out of this. So I think our part is humbly submitting to His processes of pruning/plowing and trusting Him in the process, as painful as it is.
Another picture of this is of Him exchanging our heart of stone for a heart of flesh...see OPEN HEART SURGERY plasticine figurine.
I made this figurine as He has recently been impressing on my heart the story of the Israelites having to go through circumcision at GILGAL just after they crossed the Jordan River and were about to start taking the Promised Land. (I personally believe that this is basically the type of place where we as the Church are at in these days as God is preparing us to take the Promised Land He has given us as our inheritance...). The cry of my hear the past several months has been, LORD, PLEASE CIRCUMCISE MY HEART!
From: http://bible-history.com/isbe/G/GILGAL/ - this page says: "...and here (Josh 5:5 ff) the people were circumcised preparatory to their possession of the land, when it is said in Josh, with a play upon the word, "This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you."
I believe this is a day in which God is bringing many in His Church through a 'circumcision of the heart' in order to roll away the 'reproach of Egypt' that the Church has had over the past centuries, as He is now preparing His Bride to be without spot or wrinkle for what is to come.
It is interesting that this is coming at a time when many of God's people and His Church as a whole seem/s to strongly sense that we're in a major transition and on the verge of God doing something totally amazing in and through His Church in these last days - so there is eager anticipation!
This is also happening on a personal and ministry level with many of God's people - they have had vision burning in their hearts for years, many of which have eventually basically petered out or died (a corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die before it can bear much fruit, says the Word), but many are now sensing God is about to bring these visions to birth, but it is also NOW that God seems to be doing this circumcision of the heart to a greater depth than before.
Like for the Israelites, where I'm sure they wondered about God's logic in having them in such a painful, vulnerable state when they were easy targets at that time...and just before they were to start to take the Promised Land?!! - the vision was so close they could taste it! but God had them wait to go through this first! Seems crazy!!! (but perhaps that vulnerability encouraged them to trust in GOD more and not in themselves as they made their way to the first city after they had sufficiently recovered from the circumcision?)...anyway, like for the Israelites, I think many in the Church today are feeling quite similar - they can almost taste the vision they've been waiting for - waiting, often, for many years - but they're now in major pain as the circumcision of the heart is causing them/us to be in such a vulnerable and painful spot - and having to wait when we want to GO!
Some other helpful articles about this from others:
Victory
Over Death - The
Liberty of Death
Another aspect to going down as a part of going up is the aspect referred to numerous times in Scripture where God says He needs to uproot and tear down, destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant, etc.
Jer. 1:9 "Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, "Now, I have put my words in your mouth. 10 See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant."Hosea 6:2 1 "Come, let us return to the LORD. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds. 2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence. 3 Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth."
There are other similar Scriptures as well.
How I see this as part of the process is like this.
We are told to build on the TRUE FOUNDATION which is Jesus Christ -1 Corinthians 3:11 "For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.". (see plasticine figurine - True Foundation) and Ephesians 2:20 "...built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone."
However, along the way we have often gotten hay and stubble mixed in (1 Cor 3:11 "For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work.")
How good would a building be if the building material was mixed with hay, stubble, etc. instead of concrete or whatever the building was being built with?
So in order for God to build the spiritual house He's building with these living stones that we are, into the building that He wants it to be, (1 Peter 2:5 "...you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."), He has to 'tear down, destroy, uproot', etc. the parts that are not built with the proper materials, or are which not built TRUE TO PLUMB.
The Bible says quite a bit about plumblines and measuring rods... I believe we are in a period in time where God is bringing Him plumbline/measuring rod (standard) alongside the Church and is doing some uprooting and tearing down (tearing down the lies of the enemy - and the idols we have erected because of the lies of the enemy that we have believed) before He can build further, plant and RESTORE what He desires to do. It is also a very necessary part of the process, however painful! But what He does is done in His LOVE and MERCY.
A couple of the areas that I believe He is in the process of restoring, are the aspects of His justice and righteousness being expressed through His people.
I recently did a word study in Scripture of where those two words were together in the Bible, and I was floored how many times it is like that! The Bible is FULL of God's heart regarding JUSTICE & RIGHTEOUSNESS (which the Bible says are the FOUNDATIONS OF HIS THRONE!!) and yet it seems that this is not something that has been much of a focus of much of the Church over past centuries...as well as the Church's involvements in ministering to the poor, which is, of course, all part and parcel of His justice and righteousness.
It is interesting to me that these aspects of justice and righteous, and ministering to the poor and oppressed, among other things, are things that God seems to be bringing to higher levels of attention to His people all over the globe in these days as He is preparing His Bride to cooperate with Him further in His plans of restoration!
1 John 3:3 "But we know that when he appears,[a]we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure."
4. GREATER FAITH - Luke 18:8 "...However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"
This is a major question that I believe Jesus
is asking His Church these days...and is something I have felt that He has
been asking me and talking with me about regarding COMING UP HIGHER. When
He comes, WILL I BE WALKING BY FAITH? or will I be walking by sight because
of fear and unbelief?? Very sobering thought, since the Bible says
we can't please Him without faith (Heb.11:6)
2 Cor 5: 7 "We live by faith, not by sight." (NIV) "Walk by faith and not by sight" - (KJV)
How do we get faith?
Romans 10:17 "Consequently, faith comes
from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ."
Faith comes by hearing the RHEMA of God - Definition and comments from here:
Rhema : (Greek), "that which is spoken, what is uttered in speech
or writing; a word or saying." Additional comments: Rhema is distinct
from logos in that it does not just refer to the Bible as a whole. Instead,
it refers to a revelation, word or insight from God through the Holy Spirit
concerning an individual scripture or series of scriptures. Ephesians 6:17
says that the Word of God is the "sword of the Spirit." Hence, rhema
is the "revealed Word of God"-the insight revealed to one's born-again
spirit."
So then when His sheep hear His voice, as we are told in John 10, faith comes.
I've sensed that God has been impressing on my heart, in many ways this year especially, that He is in the process of deepening my faith in many aspects of life! More of this will be talked about in my personal newsletter update, but one of the ways that He has been doing that is by having me face, head-on, many of my big FEARS!
FAITH IS THE OPPOSITE OF FEAR!
That, again, is why we need to KNOW HIS NAME and KNOW HIM/THE TRUTH and be delivered from our fears, which are basically LIES of the enemy which we have believed.
As we call to Him IN our fears, I am finding Him, more and more, revealing His Presence to me in encouraging and specific ways IN the midst of the fear and seeing Him do the following as I call out to Him in my fear - Psalm 56:3 "When I am afraid, I will trust in you." Psalm 34:4 "I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears."
Through these experiences,
by His grace I am increasingly learning to take refuge in the shadow of His
wings until the disaster has passed" (Psalm 57:1...Have mercy on me,
O God, have mercy on me, for in you my soul takes refuge. I will take refuge
in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.") see plasticine
figurine of the same
A book which I have found VERY helpful in dealing with the TRUTH and the power of God's Word/Truth, is the Charles Capps book - "The Tongue: A Creative Force". This is not a 'name-it and claim it' book, but, I believe, a balanced perspective on the power of our words, both positive and negatively - truth or lies, from a biblical basis. I think that in many of our Christian traditions we have been on one extreme of thinking in this regard, while there has also been the 'name it and claim it' extreme on the other end of the spectrum. I think we have therefore tended to 'throw out the baby with the bathwater' and have as a result missed out on a MAJOR thing that God is, I believe, wanting to stir up in His people today....SPEAKING HIS TRUTH OUT OF BELIEVING HEARTS in order to see HIS purposes coming into being! This brings FAITH, and I believe is a MAJOR way that God is going to cause His CHURCH to ARISE in these days!! It is NO WONDER the enemy would try to get us to miss out on this by camping on one or the other extreme instead of checking to see what Scripture really says about this! You may not agree with everything in the book, but I encourage you to seriously consider the truth.
BAD REPORTS OR GOOD REPORTS? - FAITH IS A HUGE DEAL TO GOD!!
If we look at the story of Joshua and Caleb and the 10 spies that were sent to check out the land of Canaan (Number 13 and 14) , we see how serious it was for those that brought back a BAD REPORT to the people, discouraging them and causing doubt and rebellion towards God instead of inspiring/encouraging faith.
This year when I read this story, the severity of the consequences of a fear-filled report (a BAD REPORT) instead of a faith-filled report, really hit me hard!
Num 13:25 "At the end of forty days they returned from exploring the land....26 They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. 27 They gave Moses this account: "We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. 28 But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. 29 The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan." 30 Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, "We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it." 31 But the men who had gone up with him said, "We can't attack those people; they are stronger than we are." 32 And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, "The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. 33 We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."
Numbers 14
The People Rebel
1 That night all the people of the community raised their voices and wept
aloud. 2 All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole
assembly said to them, "If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this desert!
3 Why is the LORD bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword?
Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn't it be better for
us to go back to Egypt?" 4 And they said to each other, "We should
choose a leader and go back to Egypt."
5 Then Moses and Aaron fell facedown in front of the whole Israelite assembly
gathered there. 6 Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among
those who had explored the land, tore their clothes 7 and said to the entire
Israelite assembly, "The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly
good. 8 If the LORD is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a
land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us. 9 Only do not rebel
against the LORD. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because
we will swallow them up. Their protection is gone, but the LORD is with us.
Do not be afraid of them."
10 But the whole assembly talked about stoning them. Then the glory of the LORD appeared at the Tent of Meeting to all the Israelites. 11 The LORD said to Moses, "How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them? 12 I will strike them down with a plague and destroy them, but I will make you into a nation greater and stronger than they."
13 Moses said to the LORD, "Then the Egyptians will hear about it! By your power you brought these people up from among them. 14 And they will tell the inhabitants of this land about it. They have already heard that you, O LORD, are with these people and that you, O LORD, have been seen face to face, that your cloud stays over them, and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. 15 If you put these people to death all at one time, the nations who have heard this report about you will say, 16 'The LORD was not able to bring these people into the land he promised them on oath; so he slaughtered them in the desert.'
17 "Now may the Lord's strength be displayed, just as you have declared: 18 'The LORD is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.' 19 In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now."
20 The LORD replied, "I have forgiven them, as you asked. 21 Nevertheless, as surely as I live and as surely as the glory of the LORD fills the whole earth, 22 not one of the men who saw my glory and the miraculous signs I performed in Egypt and in the desert but who disobeyed me and tested me ten times- 23 not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their forefathers. No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it. 24 But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it. 25 Since the Amalekites and Canaanites are living in the valleys, turn back tomorrow and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea. [a] "
26 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron: 27 "How long will this wicked community grumble against me? I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites. 28 So tell them, 'As surely as I live, declares the LORD, I will do to you the very things I heard you say: 29 In this desert your bodies will fall—every one of you twenty years old or more who was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me. 30 Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. 31 As for your children that you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land you have rejected. 32 But you—your bodies will fall in this desert. 33 Your children will be shepherds here for forty years, suffering for your unfaithfulness, until the last of your bodies lies in the desert. 34 For forty years—one year for each of the forty days you explored the land—you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you.' 35 I, the LORD, have spoken, and I will surely do these things to this whole wicked community, which has banded together against me. They will meet their end in this desert; here they will die."
36 So the men Moses had sent to explore the land, who returned and made the whole community grumble against him by spreading a bad report about it- 37 these men responsible for spreading the bad report about the land were struck down and died of a plague before the LORD. 38 Of the men who went to explore the land, only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh survived.
39 When Moses reported this to all the Israelites, they mourned bitterly. 40 Early the next morning they went up toward the high hill country. "We have sinned," they said. "We will go up to the place the LORD promised."
41 But Moses said, "Why are you disobeying the LORD's command? This will not succeed! 42 Do not go up, because the LORD is not with you. You will be defeated by your enemies, 43 for the Amalekites and Canaanites will face you there. Because you have turned away from the LORD, he will not be with you and you will fall by the sword."
44 Nevertheless, in their presumption they went up toward the high hill country, though neither Moses nor the ark of the LORD's covenant moved from the camp. 45 Then the Amalekites and Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and attacked them and beat them down all the way to Hormah.
--
It is sooo easy for us to believe the BAD REPORTS!! We seem to do it all the time - our society seems to be wired that way and the Church is not much different - BUT I believe God is calling us OUT of that place and into a place of faith where we believe the GOOD REPORTS.
Phil 4:8 "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you." (NIV) In the KJV it says: "8Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of GOOD REPORT; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."
I am being challenged this way a LOT lately!!
In prayerfully considering
this, I also wondered WHY God made the consequences SO SEVERE!!!!!!! As I
asked Him about this, He began to remind me of a verse about considering the
KINDNESS & SEVERITY of God.
(Rom11:22 "Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God:
on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue
in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. (KJV) "... 22Consider
therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell,
but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise,
you also will be cut off." (NIV))
Then I was reminded of another situation where God seems to have absolutely HORRENDOUS consequences for not walking by faith: Heb 4:1 "...Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. 2For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith.[a] 3Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, "So I declared on oath in my anger, 'They shall never enter my rest.' "[b] And yet his work has been finished since the creation of the world. 4For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: "And on the seventh day God rested from all his work."[c] 5And again in the passage above he says, "They shall never enter my rest." 6It still remains that some will enter that rest, and those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not go in, because of their disobedience. 7Therefore God again set a certain day, calling it Today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts."[d] 8For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. 9There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; 10for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. 11Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.
Again, the consequences seem sooo harsh to me!! But as I meditated on this, what I sensed the answer was is that God makes the consequences of lack of faith SOOO HARSH so that there is NO WAY that we'll want to go that way!!! It is like He is using negative motivation to encourage us into His BEST and most LOVING plan for us, which is to ENTER INTO and RECEIVE ALL THE PROMISES He has for us - in taking the Promised Land, or in ENTERING INTO HIS REST, etc.!!!
If the consequences were minor, would we really take this as seriously as we need to??? I think not....even WITH these devastating consequences we tend to be rather lethargic and apathetic about 'taking the land' and walking by faith...we STILL tend to walk by sight, and still tend to strive and depend on ourselves instead of ENTERING INTO HIS REST. (ENTERING HIS REST - by Marc Brisebois (click on web site and then look under ARTICLES).
So I have come to see that His SEVERITY is in reality also His KINDNESS!! (see article: The Kindness and Severity of God).
Part of ENTERING HIS REST, I believe, is for us to learn
to do only what we see our Father doing and saying only what we hear Him saying...as
Jesus did: John 5:19 "Jesus gave them this answer: "I tell you the
truth, the Son can do nothing by himself;
he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father
does the Son also does." I think that is what it means to
'take my yoke upon you and learn from Me'...in so doing we can find our rest
in Him (Matt.11:28). If JESUS could only do this, how much more do
we need to follow His lead in this and depend on HIM in these days of shaking
and transition? If we are looking to our programs and methods rather than
to Him, we're going to miss it...things are just changing too fast...we need
to KEEP IN STEP WITH HIM and WALK AS JESUS DID (1 John 2:6)
Thankfully, He will teach us!! As mentioned earlier, His
Spirit will guide us into all truth. 1 John 2:27 says: "As
for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not
need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things
and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you,
remain in him." That doesn't mean we don't want to learn from others
that God provides to encourage and exhort us, etc. but it does mean HE is
our Teacher. (Matthew 8:19 "Then a teacher of the law came to
him and said, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." Matthew
22:16 "They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. "Teacher,"
they said, "we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the
way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men, because
you pay no attention to who they are."...etc. Matthew 23:10 "Nor
are you to be called 'teacher,' for you have one Teacher, the Christ."
Psalm 32:8 "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you and watch over you").
COMING UP HIGHER also means increasing our dependence upon Him. As we increasingly KNOW HIS NAME, WALK BY FAITH AND NOT BY SIGHT, RENEW OUR MINDS, etc. etc., we will find ourselves becoming more dependant on Him and experiencing more of the ABUNDANT LIFE He has for us! (John 10:10b "...I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." 3 John 1:2 "Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well." Psalm 23, etc.)
The more this happens, the more we will know Him EXPERIENTIALLY as our ALL IN ALL...our Source for everything!
There are probably many more
things that COMING UP HIGHER MEANS, but this is some of the things that this
has been meaning to me at this point.
MOUNTAINS - BIBLICAL SYMBOLISM
From: http://www.dawnbible.com/2003/0304cl-1.htm
“It shall come to pass in the last days,
that the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established in the top
of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall
flow unto it.” —Isaiah 2:2
DURING THE TIME WHEN the nation of Israel was a kingdom under God, its kings sitting upon the “throne of the LORD” (I Chron. 29:23), the governmental headquarters of the nation were located in a mountain—Mount Zion in Jerusalem. Zion was Israel’s Capitol Hill. From this mountain, the LORD ruled over the nation. How appropriate, then, that the Bible should refer to the kingdom of Christ as “the mountain of the house of the LORD.”—Mic. 4:1
Mountains always occupy a dominant position with relation to the surrounding terrain, and, from this standpoint, fittingly picture kingdoms, or governments, in their dominating position over the people. Thus the prophecy which speaks of ‘the mountain of the house of the LORD’ as being established ‘in the top of the mountains,’ very beautifully portrays the fact that Christ’s kingdom will take control over all the nations of the earth, that the “kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ.”—Rev. 11:15
===
Mountains are often symbols of kingdoms in Scripture (cf. Ps. 68:15; Dan. 2:35; Obad. 8–21; Amos 4:1, 6:1),
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God's above is symbolized by mountains
====
Haggai 1:7 "...This is what the LORD Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways. 8 Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored," says the LORD..." (NIV)
OTHER ITEMS RE 'COMING UP HIGHER' - articles, etc.
Come
Up Higher
The
Heat is On.... Come up Higher
---
... saying "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after
this." John
had to decide whether or not he would go though that door and go to a higher
...
place
From:
http://www.acctv.com.au/featuredetail.asp?id=1150
In Revelation 4:1 John says that he saw a door in heaven open before him and
he heard a voice saying "Come up here, and I will show you what must
take place after this." John had to decide whether or not he would go
though that door and go to a higher level and it's the same for you and me,
we too have a decision to make.
RISE
TO A NEW PLACE, ---YOU'VE COME TO HEBRON
The Lord wants you to rise to a new place. See you have come to Hebron. And now the Lord has showed me that you became fathers and mothers in the spirit and you took a hold of your destiny to go heal the nations. And that's why you are going to Israel, to Jerusalem.
COME UP HIGHER - poem
Great Commission Worship & Arts Center