In the Residence of His Being

Hebrews 4:3

Now 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.’ “And yet his work has been finished since the creation of the world.”

In the Residence of His Being

“Let your hearts be not troubled.  Believe in God, Believe also in me (John 14:1).”  Burdens are carried when we are in unrest and worry.  

I was reading over in Hebrews 4:3 this morning, “And yet his work has been finished since the creation of the world.”  It was striking me how God’s work is a finished work from beginning to end.  The only way we can be at peace and rest in that finished work is when we are in alignment with it.  God knows our beginning and our end.  Nothing we can do will surprise Him or catch Him unawares.  Our lives and future are still a mystery and an unknown to us, but not to Him.  His work is finished and He knows how every detail is going to work out.  The question we have is, “do we have enough confidence and faith in God to trust Him as we relinquish our lives and will into His hands?”

Peace is not just a state of being but a Person of residence.  The peace and rest of God are found, not in a state of being, but in the person of Christ in us.  The circumstances around us and the human interactions that we are caught up in, so often want to dislodge us from that place and person of peace.  It must of been disconcerting to those who sought to find fault with Jesus, so they would seek to provoke Him or trap Him, but they couldn’t dislodge Him from His peace.  Jesus had the discernment to see the motives of their heart, but more than that He had the residence of the Father abiding in Him.  He didn’t leave that place.  He didn’t see His world just as it appeared before Him in the natural realm, but He saw it through the love and purpose of God.  He discerned the spiritual activity and spirits that were present always scheming how they might kill, steal, destroy and discredit the name of Jesus.  Even with their scheming and devices, their was apparent victory for them when they moved in Judas to betray Him and through the Jewish leaders and Romans to scourge, torture and crucify Him.  What the enemy didn’t see was the finished work of the Father.  What the enemy meant for evil the Father had purposed for good.  That is a principle that we need to remember in our own lives in the trials and tribulations that we go through.  The enemy may be trying to destroy you, but Roman 8:28-31 declares, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

31What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?”  

You see, God is in control of your life.  He has your destiny in His hands.  If you want the perfect will of God for you, then just trust Him for it and obey His Word.  It is only when we quit fighting the water that we learn to swim in it and allow it to carry us rather than drown us.  When we fight God through selfishness, doubt, fear, unbelief and disobedience, we nullify the very things that are in place to carry us into His peace and rest.  Let us not resist Him as the children of disobedience, but rest in the arms of His purpose and love for us.  Philippians 1:6 reassures us,”Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform [it] until the day of Jesus Christ.” 

Blessings,

#kent

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The Law: To Abolish or Fulfill

Matthew 5:17-20
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

The Law: To Abolish or Fulfill

Often times many us think of the Old Testament as being a former dispensation of God that applied to the Jewish people, gave the Law, the history, the Psalms, Proverbs and a lot of good stories. Many might think that because we are a New Testament people that the Old Testament doesn’t have real application and promise to us. After all we are no longer under the Law. While there is truth to this we might be overlooking what Jesus is saying here. Jesus declares that His mission and purpose isn’t to abolish the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them. The Old Testament and the Law provided the foundation and groundwork for the fulfillment of that Law through Christ. What has changed for us is that it is no longer the works of the Law that we are trying to keep through the efforts of the flesh, but it is the Spirit of that Law now written upon the tablets of our heart. The nature of God has not changed or His Laws, but He has taken them from the outward to the inward through the power of the Holy Spirit and His nature that now resides in us. Romans 8:3-4 tells us, “For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, 4in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.” Christ fulfilled what we could not in that He fulfilled all of the requirements of the Law, but more than that, He became the sin offering to take upon Himself all of the penalty of sin for us. His faith in us embraces and appropriates that finished work of Christ that fulfilled the Law. It is that faith in His finished work that is now reckoned unto us for righteousness. The Law is fulfilled in us only through Christ. As we now live in Christ it is His nature within us that fulfills and keeps the Law. As we walk by the Spirit we no longer fulfill the lusts of our flesh. Romans 8:10-11 declares this truth by saying, “You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” In Christ, in this New Testament man, we do not abolish the Old, but we become the fulfillment of it. We have the power, authority and life of Christ to walk into what the Old Testament saints dreamed about. They were our examples and mentors to help us walk into a greater dimension of faith and faithfulness to the Lord. We walk into it by the power of Christ in us and the identification that we have died to the weakness of the Law, which is our sinful flesh. We have the Holy Spirit living in us. We have the finished work of Christ behind us. We have a commission of Christ to bring Him into our entire world. The Law and the Prophets live on. They along with the apostles have become the foundation of our faith. What is it that God is building? Ephesians 2:19-22 declares, “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, 20built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” We are God’s lively stones built upon this foundation to be the holy temple of the Lord. This is that place where God chooses to make His abode. Christ didn’t come to abolish the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them and we a part of that fulfillment as we abide in Christ Jesus.

Blessings,
#kent

The Blood of the Lamb

The Blood of the Lamb

Revelations 12:11
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

The Word of God makes the analogy that the life of flesh is in the blood. The Word makes very clear and specific statements concerning the blood of beast in Leviticus 17:13-14, “Whatever man of the children of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell among you, who hunts and catches any animal or bird that may be eaten, he shall pour out its blood and cover it with dust; 14 for it is the life of all flesh. Its blood sustains its life. Therefore I said to the children of Israel, ‘You shall not eat the blood of any flesh, for the life of all flesh is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off.’ “ We see that much symbolism is given to the blood with regards to the law and the sacrifices. The blood is used to cover, to seal, to protect, to sanctify, to dedicate and redeem. What is more, Hebrews 9:22 tells us, “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.” The blood became the vehicle and the bridge by which we were redeemed and reconnected to Father God, because our sins were washed and blotted out by His blood. The blood remains the fountain of life and cleansing whereby we are partakers of the righteousness of Christ through faith.
Sin carries with it a great price and certain fearful expectation of punishment. It requires a perfect sacrifice, without spot or blemish and it requires the blood or the life of the sacrifice be offered for the remission and the forgiveness of those sins. That is why every day each one of us as the children of God should be giving thanks to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, because He was our lamb and perfect sacrifice. He paid the price with His perfect blood was shed and poured out for us for the remission of our sins.
Just as blood had to be shed to establish the first covenant under the law, Jesus became the high priest and mediator of a new and better covenant sealed with His own blood. Hebrew 9:16-28 tells us, “16 For where there is a testament, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. 17 For a testament is in force after men are dead, since it has no power at all while the testator lives. 18 Therefore not even the first covenant was dedicated without blood. 19 For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, 20 saying, “This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you.” 21 Then likewise he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. 22 And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission. 23 Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; 25 not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another— 26 He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. 27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, 28 so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation”. Thus we see the blood of Christ, the Lamb of God, as our lifeline to God. Jesus states this, much to the dismay of many of Jewish listeners in John 6:53-58, “Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. 56 He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. 58 This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.” “
While we have a commandment in Leviticus 17 not to partake of the blood of any beast, here we have Jesus telling us that unless you eat of my flesh and drink of my life you have no life in you. Obviously Jesus is speaking on a higher dimension than just the natural application. He is the “bread of life” and His blood is the means for us to partake of that life. That is why there is so much power in the blood of Jesus. It is the power of God’s life in us. We know that the way that we drink and partake is through faith in Him and the finished work of Calvary. As we partake of God’s Word, instilling and implementing it into our daily lives through faith and obedience, we are literally partaking of spiritual manna and the bread of eternal God life. As we become identified with both His death, which is represented in our death to self and His life is our partaking of His resurrection life, we are overcoming by the blood of the lamb. What is taking place is that we are speaking into being, LIFE, by the word of our testimony and the confession of our faith. It is in the essence of this Life that satan is defeated. This is what makes you an overcomer today. It is the word of your testimony and the blood of the Lamb. Drink deeply of the fullness of the life and blood that Christ has imparted to us.

Blessings,
#kent

Ascending up into the Golden Mount of Life

Ascending up into the Golden Mount of Life

Life is a gift given by God, an opportunity to discover His purpose and will and a journey to develop, mature and grow in His likeness. Many in this world will never truly understand the meaning of their existence beyond the natural realm of just living life, breathing, surviving; seeking security and happiness that meets or exceeds the needs of their natural person. There are those, who in the course of life, have an encounter with the living God, through Jesus Christ. If they venture on to really know Him, beyond just a religious tradition and into a true personal relationship, then here is where the ascension of a spiritual journey truly begins.

All of humanity travel down the road and the seasons of life. The broad way, the way most traveled, is tread by those content with this world or ignorant of anything higher. Some actually have the knowledge of a higher, but it proves to be too steep and challenging so they exit off back to the more comfortable and less challenging way of life. Here they will be content to live and do things their way or in just religious way. They still may aspire to knowing and professing a relationship with God, but are regulated by a mixture of flesh and spirit. A path one might term, “lukewarm”, but not a temperature highly favored of God. Yet, there remains the high road, the road less traveled. It is not taken because of its ease or because the fruit of its path is readily seen with the natural eye. It is a path of faith, of commitment, obedience and promise. It is a path that is adventurous, but full of challenges and difficulties, trials and tribulations. It is a path whose way is not always readily discernable and understood. In order to travel this way the affections for self and the more immediately gratifying ways of life must be left behind at the “Cross Road”, where the two paths separate. This high road is a road of promise that must be traveled by faith in the God that called us to it. It is an ascending path to glory, but whose glory is often not much seen until its completion. The ascending path to the Golden Mount is one that will test us, try us and bring us to our end, but for the glory that lies before us we fix our eyes upon the prize of the high calling and hold fast to the Christ in us that has promised to be with us to the end. Upon this ascending path we walk each day through life, finding our way and our strength with the guiding presence of the Holy Spirit. As we ascend this path, each day we become less and He becomes more. We find that it is not in our effort and struggle that we ascend, but in our rest in the finished work of the cross. In that place, through trust and obedience, we have confidence as we learn to fellowship and worship in His presence. His Word provides the road map for our journey. As we study and meditate upon it, it provides us with our identity, position and purpose in life that supersedes the life that we live in this body. We find our bodies are the instruments, the vehicles and the temple through which the kingdom of God is planted and dispensed in this earth as we travel this road.

It is not to say that we won’t and don’t have our stumbles and setback along the way. This ascension along this elevated path is not an easy one, but it is a progressive one. It is pathway into the maturity and perfection of Christ and as we know from our childhood, we made our share of mistakes, wrong turns and poor decisions, but that was a part of our maturing process. No one walks this path perfectly, for we don’t walk in our own righteous, but by faith in the righteousness of Him who went before us to show us the way. The further we travel the more we realize that this is not a path of religion, tradition or of works. It is a path of losing ourselves in the identity with Christ. As we travel this path, many may stumble for a time and lose their way. They may lose their vision and their stamina of faith, but if we are truly called of Him then His Spirit, through our spirit keeps wooing us and calling us back to this upward path we first began. As the saying goes, the prize is not to him who starts the race, but to him that finishes.

As the years of life go by and we have run our course, let us have no regrets that we didn’t follow our destiny and calling as we ascended into the Golden Mount of Life. May we not settle for less, even if we haven’t lived our best, we can give God the rest. As long as there is breath, there is hope and if we have been idle or distracted or misdirected, it is never too late to pursue this path that leads home.

Yes, as the years of life go by and we see the end of this life before us, let us lift our eyes with ever more fervent desire and commitment of faith to ascend beyond and above the gates of death and to ascend upward on this path that leads us into the Golden Mount of life.

Blessings,

kent

Rest

Hebrews 4:1-5
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, 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.’ “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.” 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.” 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.

Rest

What does it mean to rest? When we are truly resting are we still worrying and laboring with our mind and body? Resting is entering into another state of being than when our body and mind are active and working. Resting is a state in which the mind and body are being turned off and labor has ceased. Many of us have experienced insomnia where we tried to rest, but we can’t get our minds to shut off and sleep eludes us. Instead of rest we find restlessness and are wrestling to find sleep.
When God talks to us about entering into His rest what is He telling us we should do? Are we to just sit down where we are and expect God to do everything and provide everything for us? Is that rest? No, God is talking about a state where we turn off the natural mind that is filled with its desires, concerns and worries. He is talking about a state of obedience and trust in Him where we see the finished work of Christ and the Cross. We rest in all that it represents to us and all that has been and is being accomplished through it. Most of us are pretty aware that we can’t earn our way into heaven through our own goodness and righteousness, but in many ways we haven’t learned the place of rest that is in Christ Jesus. As long as the natural mind is always actively seeing and reacting to the circumstances around it, it remains in a state of insomnia and restlessness, never able to fully find its peace. In order for the message of the rest of God to have any value and substance to us it has to be combined with one key ingredient and that is faith. “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” God never created us to be gods unto ourselves; He created us in His image to be the expression of who He is, of His nature and his character. He created us to abide in harmony and fellowship with Him. We can never find that place without faith. If we truly have faith then it will result in obedience out of love. The more we intimately know God, the more we will grow in trust, obedience and love. The more we intimately know God in and through Christ Jesus the more identified we will become with His life and the finished work of the cross.
The reality check is this; we live in a natural world, filled with many godless people and we have to function in an economy that is not spiritual and filled with greed and selfishness. That must mean I have to really struggle to be godly and fight the devil. I need to condemn sin and every sinner I see so that I am not like the world. Isn’t that how many of us see our calling and our faith? It is a war, it is a struggle and I have to try harder to do better and to fight sin?
Have you ever seen a person trying to swim in water when they didn’t know how to swim? There is no lack of activity. They violently thrash and kick just to keep their heads above the water and not drown, but that isn’t swimming, that is just trying to survive. When we learned how to swim we had to learn to work with the water and not against it. We had to lose our fear and learn that if we would trust the water we could actually float without a struggle. Learning to swim is an exercise in learning to trust. The rest of God is the same way. We can’t rest with all of our thrashing and work to overcome sin and live righteous. What God is teaching us is that rest is a matter of trust. Christ has overcome, He has paid the price for sin and He has conquered sin and death. Why are we trying to accomplish what He has accomplished for us from the beginning? Our rest is learning to rest in and appropriate what Christ has already done by full association and reliance upon Him. It doesn’t mean we cease living and functioning in this world; it means that now we function in identification and trust in His life. We no longer live out of our goodness or our ability, but His. “Christ in me” is my hope of glory; my flesh can never accomplish that for me, no matter how hard it tries. The rest is the trust to let Christ be in me, to have expression and to have full dominion over me.
Rest, like swimming, is something that we practice. We learn not to fight God in our ignorance, but rather work with Him, as one with Him. Hebrews 4:12-13 says, “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. 13Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”
As we begin our rest in God, yielding and trusting the Holy Spirit. As we read and meditate upon God’s word to intimately know the One we are to be like; then that Word, quickened by God’s spirit, will begin its spiritual surgery within us exposing what is of Him and what is of the flesh. He exposes our true motives and intents. He will show us that a lot of what is religious and looks outwardly good is just spiritualized flesh, but it is not Spirit. Rather than us thrashing the water and trying to change ourselves from the outside in, in the rest of God we will find Him changing us from the inside out. He will sanctify us, spirit, soul and body. The transformation that takes place in us through the rest of God is one in which we cease to struggle and strive with Him and we simply, through faith and trust, come into compliance with what He is revealing to us. It is a process of shutting our eyes to the circumstances and the fears, concerns and the sin that surrounds us. Instead we are opening our consciousness to the Spirit and the Word as together they guide and support our rest. In the process we sometimes inhale a little water and we start to spit and sputter. We immediately want to forget our position of rest and go back to trashing and struggling, but we begin to learn that it is only counter productive to our rest, so we have to let down and again rest our head upon the breast of Jesus.

Blessings,
kent

The Accomplishment of a Finished Work

The Accomplishment of a Finished Work

John 19:30
When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.

Often a finished work sets the stage for the accomplishment of what the work was finished for. Jesus was the restoration of right relationship with man to God. What Adam lost in the fall was restored in the cross. That finished work is now becoming the accomplished work of the body of Christ.
When a woman becomes pregnant and gives birth there is a life that has been brought forth from one finished work, the birth of her child. That is the beginning of a life of accomplishment in this new little being that has come forth. What Jesus has finished through His life, ministry and sacrifice upon the cross is now what we are living to accomplish and fulfill. The Lord Jesus set the stage for us to potentially come into and fulfill all that we were conceived and brought forth for. In a newborn child lies all the potential that life can hold. Only as that child grows into maturity and develops to the manifestation of that potential within them can we know who they are and what they will be. The seed and life of Christ is that which has been planted in our lives. The power of that life is not in religion, or works, or trying to keep all of the commandments, it is life joined through faith and in union, fellowship and relationship with the One who has given it to us. Christ in us, lived through us is our potential and accomplishment of His finished work. It is not seen and fulfilled in any one man, but in a many membered man birthed with a destiny and calling of God in their lives. It is a man that is becoming jointed and functioning as one and not many, for the many are the one and the head of that one is Christ. Out of Him each member lives and moves and has its being to the glory of God the Father and the accomplishment of Christ in the earth. That which the head has already finished the body will accomplish through its union with the head. “And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ [be] with you. Amen. (Romans 16:20)”
We are God’s creation and creatures of accomplishment to fulfill the purposes and plans of God. What an awesome privilege we have been given and what an awesome responsibility to live into the fullness of that for which we were called. There is an appointed time for this God-man to come to birth. It is a God-man because the Christ is fully manifested in His body and there is the fullness of transition and transformation from the mortal to immortality, from death to the fullness of life. It is a time when indeed we no longer live, but Christ in us to the full accomplishment of His kingdom purpose and the establishment of His kingdom in the earth.
We are often so quick to lose our vision and purpose through the course of daily life and living, but if we lose our vision, we perish. We are here for the purpose of accomplishment and God has given us each a piece and portion of that. We, through the direction and relationship of the Spirit, must realize what and who we are in the light of God’s kingdom purpose. We then must become faithful to live and fulfill that for which we were created for. Remember you are the accomplishment of what Christ died for. May our lives be focused and given to be His fulfillment and accomplish what He has given us to do through faithful obedience to the Spirit of Christ within us.

Blessings,
kent