The Joshua Ministry

Zechariah 3
Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. 2 The LORD said to Satan, “The LORD rebuke you, Satan! The LORD, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?”
3 Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. 4 The angel said to those who were standing before him, “Take off his filthy clothes.”
Then he said to Joshua, “See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you.”
5 Then I said, “Put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him, while the angel of the LORD stood by.
6 The angel of the LORD gave this charge to Joshua: 7 “This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘If you will walk in my ways and keep my requirements, then you will govern my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you a place among these standing here.
8 ” ‘Listen, O high priest Joshua and your associates seated before you, who are men symbolic of things to come: I am going to bring my servant, the Branch. 9 See, the stone I have set in front of Joshua! There are seven eyes on that one stone, and I will engrave an inscription on it,’ says the LORD Almighty, ‘and I will remove the sin of this land in a single day.
10 ” ‘In that day each of you will invite his neighbor to sit under his vine and fig tree,’ declares the LORD Almighty.”

The Joshua Ministry

Zechariah is plainly a book of symbolism, type and shadow. Here we see Joshua, which is the Hebrew word for Jesus. We see in him the anti-type of fallen Adam. We see in him the redemption, salvation and the transformation of the Lord. He represents the priesthood of God, God’s holy nation. In this vision and revelation showed to Joshua we see his state the same as our own as he is standing before the angel of the Lord. We also see the accuser, satan, right next to him telling and declaring how unworthy he is. We, like Joshua, are those burning sticks snatched from the fire by God’s infinite grace and mercy. We, like Joshua, have stood before the Lord dressed in the filthy garments of our flesh and own unrighteousness. What we see next is what the Lord is declaring and doing in His in-Christed ones; those He has set apart unto Himself. Our filthy garments have been removed. Our sins and sinfulness have been taken away and in their place we are now dressed in the rich garments of Christ’s righteousness, honor and glory. Upon our head is put on us a clean turban, which is the renewed and regenerated mind of Christ, thinking always upon those things above.
Next the Lord has given Joshua, and if you can receive it, you as well, this charge: “This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘If you will walk in my ways and keep my requirements, then you will govern my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you a place among these standing here.” The Lord has given to Joshua and to us the garments of royalty and righteousness. But our charge is to walk in God’s integrity and hold fast the ways of the Lord, for He has called us to be governors and rulers over His house and His courts.
In verse eight, the Lord tells Joshua that he is symbolic of the things to come. He then speaks of bringing His servant the branch which we know to be Christ Jesus, that came as a shoot out of the root of Jesse (Isaiah 11:1). He is the chief cornerstone. We see this passage brought to light by what Peter shares in 1 Peter 2:4-10, “As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him— 5you 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. 6For in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” 7Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone,” 8and, “A stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for.
9But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” Through Christ we see all sin removed from our land in a single day. We will invite our neighbors to come sit under our vine and fig tree. We invite them to sit under the anointing and ministry the Lord has brought into our lives. There, men are brought into the light of God’s truth and filled with the knowledge of Him.
We have a holy calling upon us. With the eyes of the Spirit we must see it and with God’s heart we must embrace it. The mandate that was upon Joshua, now rest upon us who will hear and receive it by faith. We must realize and receive in our inner most being that it is not the outward that we live for and are destined too; it is the high calling that we have in Christ Jesus. This is that Joshua ministry. Who among us will hear that call and respond to it today?

Blessings,
#kent

Advertisement

Where We See the Vision of God

Revelations 4:1
After this I looked, and, behold, a door [was] opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard [was] as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.

Where We See the Vision of God

Most of us expect that God is supposed to meet with us on our terms, in our earthly mentality and thinking. We are always wanting more of God, so we invite him into our box, into our preconceived and formed religious thinking and mindset. Remember when, in Acts 10, Peter was on the roof top praying and God showed Him a vision of a great sheet knit on four corners, let down from heaven. It was full of unclean animals, wild beast, creeping things and fowls of the air. A voice came to him and said, “Rise Peter, kill and eat.” Remember Peter three times refused and objected because these were unclean. Peter said, “Not so Lord, for I have never eaten anything uncommon or unclean.” God was challenging Peter’s religious thinking and his doctrinal box. This didn’t fit in Peter’s theology at all. There comes a time when God takes the type and shadow and makes it a reality. There was a whole lot of this going on when Christ came as the fulfillment of so many types and shadows of the Old Testament. This is the reason that Judaism doesn’t fit comfortably in the mold of Christianity. The former was based upon types and shadows and the latter is based upon the fulfillment of those types and shadows in Christ. God’s Word does not change, but the times and the seasons of it do. We don’t reap our harvest in the winter, it isn’t the season. In God there are seasons and Jesus taught us to recognize the seasons spiritually. If our eyes are only fixed on this former season and our minds are narrowed to only walk in what have known, we may miss the season for which we were created and purposed.
In our passage in Revelations, God didn’t come down to John’s level of thinking and reasoning, He showed him an open door in heaven and said, “Come up here and I will show you the things which must come hereafter.” If we, in our generation, have come to this time of hereafter, then it is important that our spiritual eyes, ears and mind are open to the things that God is doing and speaking in this hour. They may well go against the grain of our former way of thinking as they did for Peter. We are quickly approaching the fulfillment of many of the things that the Word has spoken to us, but we have not comprehended them because the hour was not yet. I believe we are already standing in a new season of God and it is imperative for all of us to really be open for God to show us and bring us into a new dimension in our faith and in our lives. We are standing in a new day when the things spoken of as hereafter are now becoming present tense. Be ready for change, not in fearful way, but in a faith-filled way. Keep your eyes and your faith upon Him that when He moves, you move with Him, even if it is not the way it has always been. God is calling us up through that open door in heaven to come up and see the things He is about to do upon the earth. Even as God was showing Peter that He was about to bring the Gentiles into the kingdom of God, He is bringing us into a new season in Him. You will hear the word from God’s anointed and it will sound strange to you, but listen with your spiritual man, then move in obedience to what the Lord will be prompting you to do. This will not make sense now, but it will as the Spirit of God unfolds it.

Blessings,
#kent

Lean on Me

Lean on Me

1 Kings 18:21

Now, behold, thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed, [even] upon Egypt, on which if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so [is] Pharaoh king of Egypt unto all that trust on him. 

Through the exodus of Israel out of Egypt we can easily see the type and parallel of our spiritual deliverance out of the bondage of sin and the world.  We see how the Passover lamb and the blood applied upon the door post of Israelite homes was a type of the blood of Christ being applied to the doors post of our hearts when we trusted in Him and His blood to take away our sins.   We saw the Red Sea as a type of our baptism into Christ.  As we walk out on the other side of Egypt into a new life, we find ourselves there in the wilderness, our supply and dependence is no longer in Egypt and Pharaoh, but in God alone.  Pharaoh was that type of the god of this world, satan, who does everything he can to hinder and prevent our deliverance and salvation, but God is greater and the things satan intends for evil, God can turn to good.  Satan continues to come to us, as he did to Jesus in the wilderness, seeking to bring us again into bondage, submission and reliance on him.  

This parallel and type continues to carry through in our scripture for today.  It is interesting that the Word refers to the world and satan a bruised reed.  It reminds me of Genesis 3:15, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. ”  These were the words that God spoke to satan after the fall in the Garden of Eden.  The woman is a type of the Church with her seed bruising the head of satan and satan bruising the heel of her seed.   Romans 16:20 says, “And the God of peace shallbruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ [be] with you. Amen.”  From this we can see that we are the seed of the woman and through Christ, satan is bruised beneath our feet.  So why would we want to trust again in this “bruised reed”?   Why do we want to put our dependence in a defeated foe and in that which is passing away?   The Lord is warning us not to lean on this bruise reed, because as surely as we put our trust back in the natural things of this world it will end up piercing through our hand.  One of the greatest pitfalls and the place where Israel grieved God the most is when they were being tried and tested, they wanted to go back to Egypt.  It is an ironic thing that people would rather go back and live in bondage and slavery rather than have to exercise faith in what they can’t see and what is not familiar to them.  

Recently we talked to a soldier that just returned from Iraq.  He was relating to us that the mentality of many of the people is they would rather have Sadam back than to have freedom and liberty from bondage and fear.  He said their reasoning was that even though Sadam was evil and did many terrible things, they knew what to expect and they were use to the way things were.  That holds true a lot with people being unwilling to let go of this world and all of the fear, bondage and slavery to sin that it brings to us.  We would often rather continue on in this natural way of life because it is all we have ever known rather than put our dependence in God.  We can’t see freedom.  It is like faith, it exist to liberate us into a higher dimension of life, but because we can’t see it and always understand and quantify it we want to lapse back into our former way of living, even if that is bondage.  

God is calling us to, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding,  In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.  Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil” (Proverbs 3:5-7).  In much the same way we in America are willing to sacrifice our lives for the freedom we have come to enjoy and live in, God wants us to have that same type of commitment to our faith in Him and in His Word.  We in America enjoy the highest standard of living of anyone one in the world.  We experience freedom and riches that most of the world can only dream about.  This is a type of what we have in Christ.  It was even said of Moses that he had such a revelation of God, “Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward. (Hebrews 11:26).”  When we really catch the revelation of what we have and who we are in Christ we realize that even the downside of trials and reproach is greater riches than what the world can only offer us on a temporary basis.  Let our confidence, hope and joy be found wholly in Christ and His Word that is able provide all that we need and beyond.  Let us lean wholly on Him, ‘who is able to meet all of our needs according to His riches in glory.’  

Blessings,

#kent

Thy Kingdom Come. Thy will be Done.

Mark 6:10
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as [it is] in heaven.

Thy Kingdom Come. Thy will be Done.

Jesus Christ is the King and the revelation of the coming kingdom of God. He has already come in past shadow and type. He is come in physical manifestation, glorification and presence in the earth and in His body. When Jesus exhorted His disciples to pray, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven”, what are we praying for? Most of us embrace a concept of the Second Coming of Christ in glory to establish His kingdom in the earth, but if He is going to do that anyway why do we need to pray this now?
Every day that we exist in Christ we need to be pressed deeper into the birth canal. We need a greater revelation of who Christ is in the earth today, what His kingdom is and how we are a part of that. When we pray, “ Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done” we are praying out the old man of the earth and praying in the new creation of heaven. We are identifying and embracing our kingdom citizenship even as we walk in this earth. When we pray “thy kingdom come”, we are embracing the vision by faith of who we are in spirit. It is that Christ we are in spirit that we want to be manifested in our earth, our bodies and to the world around us. When God’s will is done in us it will have an impact upon the world around us. It is the people of God that set the moral temperature of a nation. It is the people of God that bring light and knowledge of the eternal into a land. We are the current revelation of the King of Kings. If His will is not accomplished and seen through us, then who?
As we pray this phrase of the Lord’s prayer don’t allow it to become just rote words. Allow it to impact you that as God is in heaven so He wants to be in your earth, in your life and to manifest through us, His will to the world around us. Even today as all of creation groans under corruption, we ourselves groan, within ourselves. We are seeing the vision of the hope that is within us. We continue to press into that hope until it is no longer a hope, but a manifest reality of God’s kingdom and will in the earth. We are the portals of heaven for God’s will to be done. Are we an open window or a closed door? It is His body that is paving the road for the King of Glory to enter in, for the Kingdom to come and His will to be done.

Blessings,
#kent