Today

(Luke 9:51-56, Rev. 11:1-13)

I continue to ponder His timing.  In my own life, my walk with Him, He has encouraged me over and over that He can cause me to be right on time for His purposes in my life.  While we pray for divine connections and appointments, I am finding that the Spirit works in the whole earth to bring about those very connections.  He would move us among others to display us as His workmanship, to shine as His letters to be read by everyone we meet.  The Holy Spirit in you wants to pour you out into the lives of others.  Jesus simply said don’t hide your light.  Shine so that others will glorify God.

Jesus was perfectly in tune with our Father.  His timing was synchronized with God’s timing.   God sent Him in the fulness of time and He walked out His life in perfect step, in every detail.  Without Jesus’ doing anything but God working through men with evil intent (remember Joseph’s words to his own brothers at their reunion), He fulfilled the Passover exactly on time.  God, the Almighty and All-knowing One did that.  Men were oblivious to the timing.  Christ and the Spirit were not.  We must be ever listening to what the Spirit is saying.  Today, if you would hear His voice, be still and not easily distracted even by the voice of a brother.  I say this very carefully.  When you know you have been directed by the Lord in something, follow Him.  When you are hungry and being pulled away to go to Him outside the camp, simply take some time alone with Him.  Sometimes it may be for a few years.  It was so for Saul after being blind for 3 days and almost murdered in Damascus.  He went away to Arabia and gained wisdom and insight.

Take much time to listen, to sit at Jesus feet.  If we follow Him, we can expect our Father to replicate His life in and through us.  His timings work in our lives also.  How long was Jesus earthly ministry?  About 3-1/2 years.  That relates to what I recently wrote about time, times, and a half time.  He finished His ministry with an ascension.  In Rev. 11, the two witnesses in Jerusalem (note the city’s spiritual names in vs. 8) speak the Lord’s words for 3-1/2 years (1260 days).  And then, after lying dead in the city for 3-1/2 days, they ascend.  This happens as it did for Jesus.  That time period is repeated through John’s writing of his revelation several times.  The point is not so much about the time period but such a profound testimony of Christ.  We are His very body.  He is making us, His people, to be a true witness of Him in the earth.  He who began a good work will complete it.  He will.

We are rightly seeking to walk out our lives according to His wisdom as the Lord works out the history of this age.  We must be diligent to maintain His ways of lovingkindness and truth as we go.  Otherwise, we are easily caught up in the events and miss Him.  It is the testimony of Jesus that is the Spirit of prophecy.  As we seek understanding of the times in which we live, consider the life of the Savior, of Messiah.  Is he not working all of history together for His purpose which is our good?  Remember that those words of encouragement are for those who love God (theos) and are called according to that purpose ordained before the foundation of this world (cosmos).  It is an eternal, unchanging purpose no matter the rise and fall of nations around us.  I think we add too much of our ideas and ponderings rather than focus on the Lord Himself as they did in Antioch.  So we descend into academic institutions which lack the presence that was known by those men and women we memorialize. So we have seminaries that many refer to as cemeteries.  Not everyone there is missing God but the institutions are temporary and many so disconnected from His ways.  Real training is in the streets.  It is not in an event but among daily lives and the mundane as we would call it.  With all my words here, it can be said simply.  Know Him, know His voice, be filled with the Spirit always and be led by Him.  Take up your cross each day and follow Him.  Your cross is whatever the will of our Father is for you today.  It may be to take your kids for a walk,  It may be to go to the Middle East, Indonesia, or Africa,  It may be a day to pray.  Be sure to read the passage in Revelation and the passage in Luke.  We are born of a Spirit of life, not destruction.  Death and a passing away will happen but His end is always life.

God’s Eternal Clock

(Acts 1:7-8, Dan. 7:25, 12:7, Rev. 12:14)

Have you learned to listen to the Spirit?  Have you learned to sit at the feet of Jesus and ask Him questions and believe for answers?  Do you understand that by the Spirit, the Lord creates a hearing ear in your spirit so that you might know His voice?  If you do not know these truths, you can because God is always searching for hearts turned to Him.  He never changes and is always ready to give us wisdom and understanding.  As we mature in spirit, we also learn not to lean on our understanding and to trust Him fully.  Very often events happen and it throws us for a loop as we say.  Often we have developed an expectation for what he is going to do, or what is going to happen.  And God moves in a very different way, or simply opposite of our expectation. Even as disciples, we sometimes do not know what spirit we are of.  (See Luke 9:53-56)

We need to realize, no matter what we may understand, we know in part.  We may compare spiritual notes with others and collectively think we see what’s coming.  And whoops!  Not what we thought!  And we step back and admit, “Your ways, Lord, are higher than ours.”  I am thinking it is much better to be still and listening than figuring out God’s next step.  I often hear of an excitement over a dream from the Lord.  It is so easy to slide into a fascination with the gift the Spirit gives.  But we learn to maintain a focus on Him.  He wants to bring us into step with Himself.  Jesus says, His yoke is easy and His burden is light.  A burden exists.  The Lord looks for those who share in His burdens, His concerns, His desires.  He calls us into fellowship with Himself and we experience His sufferings, and His joys.

All this works patience in us.  We know that the Lord is going to accomplish certain things.  But they are all on His schedule.  At the start of 2021, I knew I was entering a season of changes, of new connections.  I have learned to be led by the Spirit.  I cannot make the timings right but He does.  Some are concerned that we, His people, can screw up His timing.  I think we overestimate our influence.  Jesus said plainly, “It is not for you (closest disciples) to know the times and seasons which our Father holds in His own authority.  But you shall receive power (great, spontaneous, explosive ability) when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.”  I have changed a few of the specific words that are written in Acts.  Yet we do not look for our understanding to be perfectly correct.  He is true!  We often err by judging His clock by observation.  We are easily distracted.

Mankind, in and outside of the church, has an assortment of calendars.  Paul cautioned those foolish Galatians not to be caught up in observing days and months and seasons and years, saying he was afraid for them.  In modern words, he was concerned that after all his efforts, they didn’t get it!  With all appropriate respect to the Hebrew calendar, the Lord is not bound to follow it, nor should we be.  He does cause many things to align to strengthen our faith.  But the law remains as the tutor, to lead us to Christ.  The new wineskin we are, as softened by the Spirit, is not to be restrained by old forms.  We explore them for understandings of Christ but they are ineffectual for imparting life.  Life comes by our connection with Christ, the head. When the Lord opened heaven to John on Patmos, He gave several specific time periods for certain events.  Yet in one instance He used an imprecise phrase, times, time and a half a time.  That same phrase was used when the Lord was speaking to Daniel.    Have you noticed how that pattern shows up in real time?  We read of two witnesses who speak for 1260 days (Rev. 12).  Divide that by 30 and we have 42 months.  That is the same time period that is for the unbelievers to trample the holy city.  Forty two months is 3 and ½ years.  Time in years, 1 + 2 + 1/2 = 3-1/2 years = 42 months.  This is not given for us to figure out all the patterns.  We may not predict fulfillments correctly.  I remember Jesus words at His ascension.  Now we may remember Daniel’s response to see that the 70 years were completed so he prayed for the restoration of the Lord’s house.  But we do not live in the day of Daniel.  What was John’s prayer at the end of his revelation of Christ?  The Spirit and the bride say, “Come, Lord Jesus.”  Only the Father knows the day and the hour, and we see it is coming quickly.  It is all about Him and becoming His bride.