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.