The Cloud of Witnesses (cont)

(Hebrews 11-12:1)

 The entire letter to the Hebrews is addressed to those who knew of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  I hear the writer, the Spirit also, encouraging the readers, and us, to move past knowledge about them, and join with them in seeking that city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.  As we have recently written, the entire cloud of witnesses are near to us for encouragement.  We can learn, and experience, something of the Lord Himself through each of them.

Abraham, knew the voice of God calling him out singularly.  When he was one God called him and others of his family began to move with him.  He is as a father of faith for us, as he knew the voice of our heavenly Father.  Jesus said that he saw Jesus’ day and was glad.  When he brought Isaac to the point of literal sacrifice, and God intervened, Abraham experienced the heart of our Father in offering the Son of promise.  Have you been led to offer something, a person in close relationship, that you later received back, as it were in resurrection?  Abraham’s testimony, his witness to us is like this.

And what of Isaac?  Isaac was the son and saw God’s provision.  He was in the place of the Son, Jesus, who was offered up for us all.  God was giving a foretaste of what was coming with Christ Himself.  See how the Father, and the Son, like Abraham, and Isaac, moved together in the place of sacrifice and they both saw God’s provision.  The Lord will provide for Himself the Lamb.  They both saw the provision of God, the ram caught in the thicket at the exact moment needed.  In the fulness of time, God sent His son.  At the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.

Isaac goes on to receive a wife from the land of his fathers.  Rebekah is brought by the servant, a type of the Spirit.  Here is a picture of Christ waiting for the Bride that the Spirit is yet preparing and bringing to Himself.  The Father alone knows the day and the hour, but the Son patiently, and expectantly, waits for her.  Are you waiting for deep and lasting relationships?  Jesus is so waiting for us to come to Him, to be brought to Him.  Like Rebekah, we need to say “Yes, I will go with this man.”  Like Isaac, Jesus will bring us into His tent, His dwelling place, (Ps 91& Song of Songs) to know us intimately.  Rebekah never returns home but stays with her Isaac.  We need to continue with Jesus and not turn back.  Again, this is the message to the Hebrews.

Sarah had to wait until she was almost 100 years old for a son.  Not so for Rebekah.  For she soon bears twins.  The Lord later says, “Jacob I loved, Esau I hated.”  Those are His words.  Simply, the Spirit differentiated the spiritual from the earthly life.  Jacob wanted the full promise of God, Esau, a type of our fleshly, earthly life settled for a hot meal.  By the life of Christ with us, and in us, we are led by His Spirit and learn to not yield to the earthly pulls.  For me, this has been a progressive but uneven lesson.  Like Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, I am on my way and learned not to turn back.  He is worth it all.

Now as for Jacob, his story is long and eventful.  It is wrapped with the story of Joseph who bears with jealousy, betrayal, waiting, forgiveness and ultimate reconciliation.  Jacob, like our heavenly Father, loses his son.  Jacob’s loss is deep and takes a long time for the seemingly impossible to happen.  He finds Joseph is alive.  For many of us our story is more like Jacob’s.  We lose hope only to find it restored later.  The church is as dysfunctional as Jacob’s sons.  Reread the story of Dinah.  Such “evangelism” by Jacob’s sons to “avenge” the honor of their sister.  A “foreigner” had wanted their sister as a wife.  So the sons of Jacob, less Joseph, deceive and slay them all.  And Jacob is made odious to the inhabitants of the land.  Self-righteousness results in unrighteousness, and the testimony of Christ is dirtied.

The end of Jacob’s story is a beautiful picture of reconciliation and the end of the age.  Joseph is sent ahead, a type of Christ, preparing a place for the family.  He forgives the ones, his brothers, who had betrayed Him.  Consider Christ Jesus and His relationship with Peter, and then later how Christ captured Saul on that man’s way to do harm to His body, His people.  When Jacob’s family is brought together in Egypt with Joseph, all is forgiven and reconciliation is real and complete in that family.  As his time draws to a close, Jacob prays prophetically over each son concerning each life and destiny.  I see a glimpse of the end of the age, when all God’s children will come before and hear the Father’s declaration over our lives.  Reconciliation complete and each one receiving reward according to what each of us has done, as Jesus said.

The Cloud of Witnesses

(Hebrews 12:1-2, 22-24)

 When I asked my son, David, to create this site for my writing, I presented the theme that Christ suffered so that He might fall into the ground and die, to the end that He, as a seed sown, would be resurrected, and bear much fruit that being many sons like Him.  David found two paintings in the public domain, parts of which form the banner of this blog site.  The second frame depicts the cloud of witnesses.  It is written that Jesus Christ is the first-born among many brothers.  Many of these brothers, and sisters, have already gone before us and now rest with the Lord waiting for the transition from this age to the new heaven and new earth.

Who are these brothers?  Jesus defined them as the ones who know the will of God and do it.  I imagine Him gesturing to the twelve and the company of women who ministered to their temporal needs.  Our bodies need each other’s care.  Jesus’ extended company of disciples included more than the twelve men.  Joseph of Arimethea and Nicodemus are disciples, as are the two on the road to Emmaus, and Mary who was first to meet Him after His resurrection.  We should also recognize that His mother, Mary, is among this company as she was present with the 120 in the upper room when the church which is His body was revealed in the earth.

In the reference from Hebrews, we read that we have come to this company.  We are already there by the Spirit, seated with them, with Christ, in heaven.  The completion of this is waiting before us in time but it is a present, eternal reality.  It can be known now according to wisdom and revealing by God’s Spirit.  Eternal life is not something only future, waiting for us.  It is to be received now by receiving Him.  We do this on a continuing basis, pressing in to know Him.

As is written to the Hebrews, the cloud of witnesses includes Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and a host of others who were faithful in the days of the Old Covenant.  For some that phrase “old covenant” is offensive.  I sense that people who are offended by that are still living under law, not under grace.  I repeat what is written, the law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  No one compares with Him.  Since the greater, Christ Himself, has been revealed, let us fix our eyes on Him.  If we do this asking the Spirit to reveal Him daily, our transformation is certain.  He desires it to happen more than we do.

I often do not eat until afternoon and I enjoy a cup of coffee.  I will frequently say “good morning,” even at 3:00 in the afternoon, saying it’s still morning until I have that cup!  And it occurred to me if it’s morning all day long, then every hour is a new beginning.  That’s an encouraging thought.  Like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we are strangers in this land, in this age, journeying from experience to experience of God and His wonders.  But let us not limit honor to those of that time.  As I have written before, consider Watchman Nee, John Bunyan, Nicolaus Zinzendorf, and more recently, David Wilkerson, Jim Elliot, Kathryn Kuhlman, Ruth Heflin, John Paul Jackson, and Bob Jones (the one of Fort Mill, SC).  These have left a rich legacy of lives laid down for Jesus’ sake, and the growth of His body.  For all of these I am grateful.  All glory to the One, Jesus, who poured His life through them that we might continue on.

One Body

(Eph. 4:2-6, John 17)

 My meditations return to the theme of unity.  God’s intention is to have a mature people to represent Christ in the earth.  So much of what Paul, Peter, and the others wrote was to move us toward this goal.  A problem through history has been our human pride that wants to have a position among this corporate man. Do you hear the twelve debating who will sit closest to Him?  Or the mother of one of them asking Jesus to give her son the best seat?  He calls us to sit with Him, but if we sit with Him we will not always be at the table but washing the feet of those who are seated.  But not all the time, meaning sometimes we are right “next” to Him.  More than this, as I shared with a friend, we can maintain a disposition that each of us is always sitting at His feet listening to Him.  That is simple, true humility.

Yes, I, and we, cannot wrap our minds around true humility which is the source of the oneness He is working in us.  If we read the passage referenced above, we are called to patiently bear with one another in love.  Humility is the foundation of oneness.  We are to serve one another in love.  The rest of the church does not exist to support your ministry.  You live to support everyone else’s.  It does not mean you are not obedient to your own calling.  Paul knew his calling.  He went away into Arabia for years to be prepared.  He writes he is a prisoner of the Lord.  He is bound to fulfill what the Lord has given him to do.  And it was not a glamorous adventure.  Adventure it surely was, with opposition at every turn.  But also, alongside the opposition, God prepared those who received him and loved him wherever he was sent.

I hear it said the church and the bride are not the same; they are not one.  But our brother Paul does not make that distinction.  The Spirit does not make that distinction.  Jesus includes every believer in His prayer (John 17) that we be one.  I cannot say that which I hear regarding the church and the bride.  It does not yet appear what we shall be, individually and together.  If we each fulfill our calling, we will seek to propel others to a higher place of true authority than we ourselves.  Ultimately, the Father alone determines our final seat, for the Son confesses it is not within His authority.  It will be given to the one who took the lowest seat.  I am laughing at our complete inability to choose this for ourselves.  Be still and know that HE IS GOD, ALONE.

Yes, He always has a remnant, a bride, the one who loves Him truly above all else.  Consider this from the example of Gideon.  His name represents a cutting down of idols.  Those, in this time, who are closest to Him, in secret like Gideon, are met with heavenly encounter and brought to authority.  They move perhaps secretly, but quietly to cut down idols.  They are praying for the destruction of every proud thought that stands against the true knowledge of God.  Gideon, who would have remained hidden is brought out as a leader.  God so orders the process to reduce his army to a remnant prepared for battle, to fight God’s way.  The warriors are lights within vessels that are broken with a shout and the enemy (Midianites) are sent into confusion and self-destruct.  Yes, the army, the remnant, participates in their defeat.  Follow the story and see that then all Israel joins the fight and totally routs the enemy.  The remnant was prepared to lead the way so that all might know and have a part in the victory.  We have a parallel with the remnant within the church.  Press into your specific calling in Him and others will follow.  The Shunamite (See Song of Songs, Solomon’s) says draw me and we will run after you.

The Lord’s Table (cont. 3^rd message on subject)

(Phil. 3: 4-9, 1 Cor. 5: 7-8, John 13-17)

Paul declared himself as one who in pursuit of Christ, left behind all his religious and earthly background.  I think they were of some benefit but his focus was fixed on Jesus.  He said he now considered them to be no more help.  In fact he writes whatever was of profit, is now rubbish.  The original meaning is, I understand, closer to human waste.  He had eaten from these and they had some benefit but his gaze was now fixed on Christ Himself.

My title continues to be the table of the Lord.  I am still meditating on this reality that I have this close communion with the Lord.  He is always ready to share and feed us with good spiritual food.  As I was writing this, I came upon a booklet I received recently that provided a message on the table of the Lord.  It addressed the subject from a very mature spiritual perspective.  The writer T. Austin-Sparks (I have mentioned him before and you can visit a FB page to learn more about him) points out that the table represents the Lord Jesus being broken for us.  Paul writes that as we share the covenant meal, we are participating in that life, and death of Christ.  We share in that brokenness.

I am still on the words of Paul, “In the night in which He was betrayed.”  Betrayal by a brother.  Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers; Jesus was sold by Judas.  That last man was lost as Jesus says in John 17.  Joseph’s brothers were restored.  The end of their story is reconciliation and provision for all.  God is the judge of the betrayers, not we.  We are called to love our enemies.  I have heard it said, and believe it, that Jesus still loved Judas even as He sent him out to accomplish his work of perdition.  Such love is awesome in the truest sense of that word.

Now consider that the entire passage of John 13-17 is at the table.  For them it was the Passover table.  I urge you to consider that this was the last Passover of the old covenant.  For Christ Himself says, as He shares the cup with them, that “this is the new covenant in my blood.”  It is a sharing of His brokenness and His sufferings.  Are we pressing on to know Him?  Do we really want to know and participate in His death?  What is that?  The Holy Spirit leads us into that.  Those who are led by the Spirit, they are being matured, they are being molded into His very likeness.

John writes in 1 John, that if we say we abide in Him, we ought to walk even as He walked.  Communion with Him includes walking alongside Him.  But we find we stumble.  James writes, we all stumble in many ways but if a man can control His tongue, he can control his whole body also.  How I stumble in that category!  And I find as I go on to learn to walk with Him, as I stumble, He is walking with me and steadies my feet.  He is so faithful to maintain the communion He initiated with that shared cup.

We know that the goal of the Lord is to have a bride prepared and complete for His appearing.  I think it may not look like we expect.  Only the Father will know when she is ready.  We also hear this fullness expressed as many sons coming to glory.  The mark of a true, mature son in Jesus’ own words, is that we love our enemies and so prove to be sons of our Father in heaven.  So, as Paul did, let us press on in communion with Him, leaving every other device and means behind.  As we do, He provides a table for us in the presence of our enemies.

The Lord’s Table (cont)

(Heb. 13: 10, 1 Cor. 5: 7-8)

 I am seeing that the Lord has an eternal table always available for communion.  We can always come to Him in that sense of sitting at a table with Him.  Years ago, having understood and entered a relationship, a fellowship, with Him, I would share meals with Jesus.  If I were eating lunch alone I would be aware of His presence.  This was in faith; no special sense was felt but I would take a conscious posture that He was right there with me.  He is omnipresent, whether we are aware or not.  How often then would His presence manifest itself in some way, and I would experience, I would know, that presence.  Read Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God.  It is a classic that keeps us aware that what is new for us, has always been.  He is the great I AM.

Paul wrote to the church that the those who follow the law have no right, no basis, to share the Lord’s table.  See Hebrews 13, especially verse 10.  To those among us who are in some measure following the letter of the scriptures, a greater reality awaits you.  An altar exists, where we eat His flesh and drink His blood.  This is what Jesus shared with those at that last meal. It is the sprit that gives life.  The entire book of Hebrews addresses the coming out of the shadows.  We are all still in this process of setting our affections fully on that which is above, which is heavenly.  We are pursuing Him as He is continually possessing us to be fit representations of Himself.  See Phil. 1:6 and 3:14.

To those at Corinth, Paul wrote that Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.  He Himself is the fulfillment of that feast.  We are told to do this, share this table and only two elements are used, bread and wine.  Where is the Lamb?  He Himself is the Lamb.  Where are the bitter herbs?  He took and ate the bitterness, absorbed all the bitterness for us.  Only bread and wine are served.  Most important to see that we live in a new covenant reality.  The words that I speak to you (rhema) are spirit and they are life, Jesus said.  The flesh profits nothing.  The tearing of His flesh and His death were to taste death for every man.  The death He died, He died once for all.  If Christ died for all than all died.  We are all (have been) dead in trespasses and sins.  He has made us alive in His life. He is bringing a people past this earthly life to overcome death.

My point here with these fragments of Jesus’ own words, and Paul’s, are to emphasize that it is the Spirit that gives life.  Jesus shared a most significant meal with those present with Him before that sacrifice was consummated.  This is that altar referred to in Hebrews 13:10.  Do you see the difference between the altar of the covenant of the law, passing away, and Christ Himself as our altar?  It is superseded by a greater reality.  It was manifest visibly in this earthly realm that we might know the love of God for us.  We are invited to that same table.  To those who are lukewarm, or asleep, He invites us to wake up and sit at the table with Him.  He knocks at the door of Laodicea, and says if we open, He will sup with us and we with Him.

In the life of David, this welcome to the Lord’s table is exemplified in the story of Mephibosheth.  David had promised Jonathan, Saul’s son, that he would always take care of Jonathan’s family.  Jonathan’s life is a unique story in itself but we must stay focused.  Mephibosheth was crippled and fearful of David because he knew that his grandfather Saul had persecuted him.  But David loved him and actually sought him out.  Sounds like Jesus pursuit of us, yes?  Before we know Him, He loves us and is pursuing, by the Spirit.  He is the good shepherd who seeks out the one who is lost.  Like Mephibosheth, we are all crippled in some way, unable to pursue Him.  That man was the crippled because of trouble in an earthly family, in this present imperfect world.  David sought him out and determined he, the crippled one, would sit at his table forever.  So it is with Jesus Christ, our David, He sets a table for us and says come and sit with Me in my Father’s house, forever.  His covenant is an eternal covenant.  His communion table is an eternal table.

The Lord’s Table

(1 Cor. 11: 17-32, Ps. 23: 4)

We have glanced at the meal Jesus shared with the 12 before His betrayal.  Later Paul wrote that He received instruction from the Lord concerning this meal, that it was to be kept.  Remember that Paul spent years away pondering and processing all he had learned as a Pharisee.  He had been taught at the feet of Gamaliel.  That man had the sense to urge his fellow religious leaders to stop fighting the outpouring of the Spirit upon these Galileans.  He was more open than the rest of those religious men.  He was not far from the kingdom; I think he was on his way.

While Paul pondered much before the Lord, Jesus Himself gave instruction to this apostle, this one born out of season.  Consider this, Jesus taught Him directly.  For all of us, as He would send us into our appointed fields of true service, we can, and must, hear His voice.  The Spirit uses the Law and Prophets to teach us.  In them, Christ is revealed in so many wonderful ways.  The tabernacle, its furnishings, the ark of the covenant itself.  But all of these are a shadow of the reality that the Spirit leads us into.  It is all that we may know Christ.  To be found in Him at the end of the day was Paul’s desire.  It must become ours as well.

The Lord has been meeting His people at a table in many ways for a long time.  Moses and the elders sat before the glory of God and ate and drank before Him.  David spoke of the table set before him, in the presence of his enemies.  The table of showbread was in the tabernacle.  David understood the lovingkindness of God so he was not afraid to eat that showbread when hungry.  A quiet joy in the gift of the Lord is ours when we commune with Him and receive the bread and the wine.  He Himself is, and becomes in our experience, the bread and the wine.  We know Him, and His great love in a deeper way.  We need to discern His body as we do this and examine ourselves, by the Spirit.

While the bread represents His body to us, we may also recognize that we ourselves are His members.  We are His body here in the earth today.  Are we loving and caring for one another as the very members of Christ?  Paul’s letter reflects on this, that they were not doing well is this regard.  Are we discerning, seeing one another, as His body?  Are our shortcomings in this a reason for weakness, sickness, and sleep (death) among His body?  No guilt or shame in this, but an encouragement, an urging for greater love and caring for one another.

Paul delivered this instruction to the Corinthians.  They needed a deeper communion with the Lord Himself and an outworking of that in a true communion with one another.  Let’s face it, they were a mess and we can be like them.  But they belonged to God and Paul called them saints, sanctified ones, knowing that nature was based on God’s working, not in their behavior, immature as it was.  They were lacking in the most fundamental ingredient of maturity, love for one another.

They needed to practice very basic ways of love among themselves.  Dragging one another to law courts, seeking their own benefits to the loss in other lives were some of the problems.  Paul instructs them regarding the Lord’s meal, that table and mentions, “in the night He was betrayed.”  Betrayed to His torturers and murderers, He was.  And we moan and groan over much less and then seek to extract a tooth for a tooth.  Will we love one another, even when we see a betrayer at the table with us?  Jude writes us, warns us, that some so-called brothers at our love feasts are like clouds without rain, those having a good appearance but no substance.

More will be written here concerning a table, a place of communion.  The underlying message is this; grace, grace, and more grace.

Wisdom as Mixed Her Wine

(Prov. 9: 1, 2, 5, Ps. 46: 4)

 Wisdom has mingled, or mixed, her wine.  Something about the old KJV word mingled gives a different picture then the simple word mixed.  For me personally, it has a greater weight.  In our modern culture, mixing is done by throwing stuff in a blender.  The Lord is more thoughtful, caring, kind.  He is not mechanical.  It doesn’t mean we won’t feel the change and know the process.  It may still hurt and result in loss but we know that any loss is for His best in our lives, individually and corporately.

The Lord has a distinct purpose in how He brings His life into a situation.  The people that He chooses, the ingredients He brings together to make us something of our lives together that He can pour out into the earth and bring His life to many, even to the creation itself.  We focus upon what He is doing now, teaching now, speaking now.  That is important but I am increasingly moved to remember the past, to consider the good wine He poured out through the lives of His bondservants before us.

He began with those 12 and sat at a table with them at a momentous meal.  Consider what was happening.  Jesus presented the new covenant that had been spoken by Jeremiah.  He took the cup at the end of the meal.  Now, in context, for the ones present, this was a Passover meal.  They had done this many times before.  A reverent attitude was present but they had no idea, no consciousness, of the magnitude of it all.  “This is the new covenant in my blood,” Jesus said.  Recently, a brother leading a service had a long table set out up front.  We went up at and sat in His presence. It was awesome and tender.

A cup of wine.  We need to receive from all the streams of living wine.  Some have gone long before us.  The truths recovered during the period we call the Reformation are sometimes lost in the shuffle of the prophetic words of the month.  What some dismiss as “old” is newer than the “new” word.  A revelation of the new covenant will bring us to see, like Paul did, that that cup, that blood, is the blood of the eternal covenant.  A covenant sealed from before the foundation of creation.  Fixed, immutable, secured by the living God for all mankind.  Receive the new wine the gift of His Son continually flowing to and through us.

All the hidden riches of wisdom and knowledge are in Christ.  It says ALL.  The One by whom, for whom, and through whom, all things were created; He understands every detail of us and of our lives.  We run here and there for help.  To be sure, in many counselors we find wisdom.  We are here to help one another.  But many run outside, away from the truth, because they cannot face themselves.  Run to Him, and do not refuse wise counsel.  We all have done it somewhere along the line.  Then, hopefully, we see the mess we are in and return to Him.  Stick close to Him, and as our friend Brother Lawrence penned long ago, ask Jesus to keep you closer.  He sticks closer than any other.  He is always near.  To share a line from a Hillsong hymn, “my ever present help, speaking truth when I can’t find it.”  Listen to the still small voice of wisdom and follow it.

One Wine, A Variety of Vessels

(John 15, I Cor. 12-14)

 The Lord prompted me to visit the local wine shop which I frequent and know the owner and his staff.  I have had wonderful conversations there.  On this particular day it was quiet and I surveyed the variety of red wines on the shelves.  Quickly, I was receiving a message about the variety of grapes and their earthly sources.  The very grapes themselves are all different by a natural heritage.  And they hailed from different countries; Germany, Italy, France, South Africa, Argentina, even America (?!).  We have all grown in a particular environment, natural and spiritual, as children maturing into adulthood.  It gives us a natural identity, the person we are, the vessel through which the Spirit will touch others with the life of Christ.  As the wine bottles are different shapes and sizes, so are we as members of His one, glorious body.

As we have written, we are all grapes in His vineyard, and then in His winepress.  We are reminded of John the Baptist’s words, His winnowing fork is in His hand and He will thoroughly purge His floor.  As our brother Graham Cooke often mentions, we are continually in process.  Another sister, Elaine Tavalocci, has noted how often we find ourselves in transition.  So we are continually processed to be poured out by the Master of the vineyard.  He knows which one of us will bring the drink needed.  The shepherd used oil and wine for healing of the sheep’s wounds.  How often, I have seen Him bring me to someone, or someone to me to provide a help.  He knows which one of us, His vessels, with our particular natural identity, and particular gift of His life can meet a specific person’s need.

We have a common identity in Him, yet each of us is unique.  And each of us is uniquely loved by Him.  Don’t resist the winnowings, the prunings, the pressings.  Count it all joy.  It is His mighty hand humbling us to be a greater servant than we have been before.  As I looked at the bottles of wine, they each had a distinct label, a distinct identity.  At different times, we are drawn to different people and ministries.  They satisfy a need in us.  We need to be careful not to so cleave to some and be critical of others.  As the Corinthians were provided an attitude adjustment, away from the I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, or even the super-spiritual, I am of Christ syndrome, we need to recognize the variety among the members of Christ.

I have seen for myself, in striving to be spiritual, I have wanted to ignore the fact that I am human.  The perfection He brings us to is a maturity that is a deeper dependence on Him.  Jesus said apart from the Father He did nothing.  And in the same way, apart from Him, the true vine we can do nothing.  We grow as people still carrying this earthly body and real needs, physical, emotional, and otherwise.  Some of what we need is supplied by other believers, other members of His body.  We grow and mature through our relationships.  We cannot deny our parents, yet we must love Him more.  We cannot ignore where we were born or our natural heritage, but we pursue heaven’s culture.

I have lately chewed on Jesus’ words to Peter after that man’s confession of Him as the Christ.  He said Simon Bar Jonah, Simon son of John.  He was saying you, Peter, are of human flesh and blood and God has revealed this to you.  Peter did not yet get that level of dependence on God for understanding and learned the lesson through a painful process.  He was being pressed, and crushed to become the man who would deliver that message on the day of Pentecost.  He was made into the vessel that would pour out great joy with new wine.  He himself became the message and the wine.  As He, Jesus, is so are we becoming while in this world.  That is in one of John’s letters.  Go check it out.

The Master Vintner

(John 15, Luke 5:37-38)

 He alone knows how to make wine, that is, spiritual wine.  It represents His joy, and he wants to fill us with it.  Jesus prayed that His joy might be full in us (John 17.  I cannot get away from that prayer.  Why would I want to?)  I have recently expressed to a sister that I felt like I was dying on the vine.  She responded that the grape must ferment in a cold, dark place.  Some weeks later when I saw her, she repeated those words about her own situation.  Wow.  He has us as grapes in His winepress.  No, we are not grapes of wrath.  Jesus drank the cup of wrath for us all.  We are in His wine press that His joy might fill us and overflow to others.  That joy is His life.  He turns water, living water, into new wine, joy unspeakable and full of glory.  I am understanding that the feeling of being in the winepress is that work of the cross causing us to let go of the things not pleasing to Him.

Jesus spoke of the need for new wineskins.  The oil that is the Holy Spirit of God will keep us flexible and supple.  Let Him flow over you and soak in to the dry places.  The dry, cracked skins would burst because of the continued fermentation and effervescence in the vessel.  Today I saw this finish of His process related to our modern wine bottle.  The natural skin provides such a wonderful picture and I prefer it especially as Jesus used it.  But He still speaks today with new pictures for each of us, and for us together.  A brother twice prayed for me for the Lord to pop the cork, the Spirit using that picture of a wine bottle.  The Spirit did frequently erupt from me during the worship and even during the preaching.  I was in a gathering where that could happen.  The main instance of such an eruption occurred during preaching one Sunday  at the mention of love for the brethren.  (That includes the sistern too, by the way) From within me erupted the words, “Fervent love of the brethren.  May we love like Paul and those who wept on his neck when they parted.”  Paul Black was preaching, and he responded, “My heart is pounding in my chest.”  The Spirit erupted with fervency from my inner man.

Back to the bottle.  Now we distribute wine by bottles.  At the right time the vinter draws the wine from the cask, or whatever vessel they use, and fills the bottles.  As we ferment, as we mature, being processed by His Spirit, He can pour us into other vessels, other people, and they can receive life and joy.  Paul (the apostle) wrote that he was being poured out on behalf of others.  At the time he wrote those words the hearers were observing his manner of life from a distance.  He was in custody in Rome, expecting to lose His life on the earth. That was a true witness.  They knew what Paul had endured for Jesus’ name sake.  A tremendous lesson for us all.

So is the working of God’s Spirit among us, a work of growth and refining.  Personally, my attention was drawn to the fact that the neck of the bottle is narrow.  The Lord knows how to direct the flow out of us.  He is able to do that very accurately and precisely.  I am all too aware of my imperfections and humanity in this matter.  Yet He has surprised me by doing that through me.  I am learning I cannot be overly concerned about the reaction of others.  Yet I honestly want to be a blessing, and a benefit.  So, as our brother Bob Jones has said (as from the Lord), “Did you learn to love well?”  We are all learning to love well, and to love fervently from the heart.

Out of the heart, the mouth speaks.  Are our hearts fully His?  Do we love Jesus, and so spontaneously love those who are truly His?  Do we love all men, and especially those who are of His family?  Paul described it as the household of faith.  What if they don’t say it like us?  What if we see their imperfections?  Love is patient, kind, and long-suffering, bearing with one another.  So much comes down to this.  Reminds me of a song that came out in the 70’s, “Jesus, Reduce Me to Love.”  Not a bad prayer.  We have the truth, and like His most wonderful son, Jesus, He is making us to be letters read of all men.  He is making us vessels that represent and bring the truth that Christ is.  Let Him mold you in the secret place of His presence.  There, as you worship Him, He will fill you up so that He may pour you out, as He only can.  He anoints my head with oil; my cup overflows.

TRANSITION

The previous messages posted on this site will be published in the near future and be available as a book.  Yes, printed in black on white and bound together.  I love books.  The Lord of glory Himself uses books.  The Spirit uses some of our current technology to paint pictures for us, but also methods of communication as old as the tablets from Mt. Sinai.  We are continually listening for the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, to speak to us.  We have filters, usually some sort of cultural filters that bend the message.  We also have false concepts that distort the messages.  During what we call the Reformation, much of the horrible doctrine that allowed the Dark Ages to ensue, was dispelled.  We learned this as a people, that every believer is a prophet, a priest, and a king.  In Christ, by the true anointing of the Holy Spirit, we can be born into His kingdom, His divine family, and grow into these three functions which become His way of bringing His kingdom into the earth.

As I consider the words just written above, I must say that God foresaw the circumstances of the Dark Ages.  Provision was coming to end the Black Plague through perfumers and essential oils.  I believe The Lord always had a remnant, true to Him.  Such a people recognized Him and followed the Lamb in their own lives.  They demonstrated the life of Christ, bearing those fruit of love, joy peace, patience, long suffering, gentleness, meekness, and self-control.  I probably misstated something there.

We are people, human beings growing up out of a fallen condition.  Do we understand that salvation is a process?  We are born from above by an incorruptible seed.  And we grow.  So Paul writes to the Hebrews that he wants to move them from the elementary principles.  Go read, or re-read, that passage.  The elementary principles are quite different from what we think is elementary.  Laying on of hands is elementary.  Really?  How we need the Holy Spirit as our teacher.  Each one of us.  You will notice that I do not give references for all the scriptures I use.  I want you to dig for yourself.  Many of us have incomplete knowledge of the law and the prophets.  We need to Spirit of wisdom and revelation of the knowledge of Christ.

This is my motivation in writing, and in my life, that we would grow in a revelation of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  I would say that, like Paul, my heart is that every man, including myself, would be presented to God, complete in Christ.  I think I have written before, and I expect I will write again, that He will see the travail of His soul and be satisfied.  Christ died to demonstrate God’s great love for mankind, and that He would thereby purchase out of every nation a bride fit for His Son.  Yes, this is shrouded in mystery.  What does that really mean, “travail of His soul?”  It is not a doctrine to be posted on a wall.  It is the truth to be written in and through us to attract others to this beautiful One Jesus.