Longing for Eden

Today I am nearly at the 38 week mark in this pregnancy and the above photo couldn’t be more true – in more ways than one.

First of all, I am longing for my baby Eden to be born and am getting increasingly impatient for his arrival! As the end draws near, there is literal  discomfort and pain in the longing as my body aches from this journey of pregnancy, mixed with hope and anticipation and joy, knowing of the reward to come!

As I talked about in a previous post about how we came to name our baby Eden, part of the reason we chose this name was because it speaks of another, greater longing for the original garden of Eden where man lived in unbroken, intimate communion with God. This is the second longing which I think we feel more intensely even as we sense that His return to the earth is drawing near. This longing is also one of aching as we feel the pain of His absence, as well as joy as we look forward to the day when we finally get to see Him face to face!

In Ecclesiastes 3:11 it says that God has put eternity in our hearts – or in other words, a longing for Eden, our original home, to be restored. I believe that this longing exists in everyone, believer or not, for we were all created this way – with the belief that there must be more to life than what we are experiencing – whether we choose to acknowledge that or not.

I read a quote recently from the book The Longing for Home by Frederick Buechner, where he writes, “What is the connection between the home we knew and the home we dream?…The first home foreshadows the final home, and the final home hallows and fulfills what was most precious in the first.“  As another writer put it on their blog, “Maybe we have lost Paradise but our hearts long for Eden. A place of wholeness. A place where creation and the created ones coincide without incident. We long for the new heaven and the new earth. Creation groans and so do we. We long for things to be put back in place. Back the way they were supposed to be.” The new heaven and earth, our final home, is the fulfillment of the original home that man had with God and it is where all things will finally be made right again.

“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:3-4)

Michael Milton, in his sermon entitled Longing for Eden, writes, “Every man and woman who ever lived intuitively longs for his or her eternal home. You were made for Eden…So there is a longing. That is the eternity God has placed in your heart — to be fully restored with God and to be home with Him. However, the longing is confused by sin. We cannot get home, we cannot identify or come to terms with the longing, much less fulfill it ourselves. We must have help to fulfill it. Jesus is the fulfillment. He is our way home…The longing inside of you, fulfilled in great part by the [first] coming of Jesus and the salvation of your souls, is going to be completely fulfilled at His second coming.”

And so, as I feel the discomfort and pain of longing for my baby to finally arrive and to get to hold him in my arms, I am reminded of the greater longing for my Bridegroom and to finally see Him and be with Him in Paradise.

“Indeed, the Lord will comfort Zion; He will comfort all her waste places.  And her wilderness He will make like Eden,  And her desert like the garden of the Lord; Joy and gladness will be found in her, Thanksgiving and sound of a melody.” (Isaiah 51:3)

Even so, Lord, come! (And you too, baby Eden)

The Essential Jesus – Isaiah 9:6-7 – His Government and Peace

You can read about the origins of this blog series on The Essential Jesus here and catch up on previous posts here.

Though I wasn’t due to write about Isaiah 9 for quite some time, I figured it was fitting to write about it during the month of December, as it is a key prophecy about the birth of Jesus. Since there was simply so much contained in just these 2 verses, I split it up into several posts that each focus on a certain phrase, with the last one being “His Government and Peace”. Merry Christmas!!

Isaiah 9:6-7

When I come into my Kingdom, the government of the earth will rest on my shoulders. I will gladly shoulder this responsibility and I am, in fact, the only one capable of doing so. I am the perfect leader and the burden of leadership over all of mankind is no burden at all for me!

My government is also an increasing one that began thousands of years ago and which is growing daily. The bounds of my Kingdom are ever expanding and its glory is ever shining brighter and brighter until it reaches its perfection.

The gates of hell will not prevail against my Church – it will keep reaching out and taking territory from my enemy. What joy I take in rescuing souls from the kingdom of darkness and conveying them into my Kingdom of light! My government and peace are relentless in their expansion, for I am relentless in my pursuit of the hearts of mankind! I am forever wooing and winning the love of my subjects and conquering sin and wickedness, that I might rule and reign in their hearts.

The more you submit to my leadership and rule, the more peace you will experience, for as my government increases, so does my peace. Allow me to govern your day, your thoughts, your emotions, your actions, your time, your words and watch the result of peace that will flood into your life! The more you say, “yes” to my Holy Spirit within you, the more you will be set free from fear and doubt and anxiety and striving.

As both the Root and Offspring of David, I will rule and reign upon the throne of David and over his kingdom, for my Father has given it to me and has set me on His holy hill in Zion. Where there has been chaos, I will order it and establish it, setting all things in their rightful place. I will be both a King and Judge and I will judge all things rightly with true justice.

In fact, I am the only one worthy to take the scroll from my Father, the title deed to the earth, and to open it and unleash its judgments. I am the only one able to judge the earth and its inhabitants perfectly with righteousness and equity, for I am the only one who was slain and who gave my very own life for mankind. I shed my blood and bore the wrath of my Father in order to redeem you to Him, which makes me the only one worthy to receive the power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.

Just and true are all my ways, as King of the saints, for I alone am holy. I will reign from that time forward, even forever. My Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom and my dominion will never pass away or be destroyed. All peoples, nations and languages will serve and worship me, for it is from every tribe and tongue and people and nation that I have redeemed my chosen ones.

Not only will I reign as King of kings, but I will make my subjects kings and priests who will also reign with me on the earth. For in addition to being a King and a Judge, I am also a Bridegroom and you are my Bride and I desire to have you seated with me, ruling together with me, partnering with me in bringing my purposes to pass.

The zeal of my Father, the Lord of hosts, will perform this! My Father, who is the Lord Almighty, the Lord of the Armies of Heaven – He is jealous for His own honor, to bring to pass His word and to accomplish His purposes. The One who holds the heavenly hosts in His hands, who created all things, who has ultimate power and who commands an angelic army - He is passionate and filled with zeal to see me established on my throne. He trusts me explicitly to rule and reign in accordance to the desires of His heart and He is committed and determined to bring this to fulfillment.

All of this and more was being proclaimed and prophesied in my first advent and you will see it all unfold to its completion at my second advent. Surely I am coming quickly!

** This post was influenced by Matthew Henry’s Commentary on Isaiah 9 and David Guzik’s Study Guide for Isaiah 9 as well as the following scriptures: Isaiah 60; Matthew 16:18; Colossians 1:12-14; Revelation 22:16; Revelation 5:1-14; Revelation 15:3-4; Daniel 7:13-14; Ephesians 2:6-7; Revelation 22:20 **

Naming Baby #3

I am just over 28 weeks in my pregnancy with our third child and at my 20 week ultrasound, I greatly anticipated the possibility of finding out our baby’s gender, as we had with our first two children. However, I was sent to a different hospital this time where they have a different policy about this and they would not tell me the gender at the appointment, though they would put it in the report that they sent to my obstetrician. I was totally bummed, because I really wanted to know right then and now I’d have to wait a couple more weeks to find out!

However, I believe the Lord designed it this way, because a few days later, Joe and I went on a trip to the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, and I had the opportunity to pray for our baby and listen to the Lord speak to me about him/her without any preconceived ideas about the baby based on gender. I really wanted the Lord to speak to me about our baby’s identity and possibly about their name and He was faithful to show me some things.

Now, you’ll have to forgive me, but this is going to be a slightly lengthy story of how our baby’s name came to be chosen…

As I was praying, I recalled how many times in the Bible, babies were named based upon something that the Lord was doing personally in the life of the mother or even what He was saying corporately to His people. So I began to think about what the Lord had been speaking to us and putting on our hearts and He led me to Psalm 132:1-9…

¹ LORD, remember David…
² How he swore to the LORD,
And vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob:
³ “Surely I will not go into the chamber of my house,
Or go up to the comfort of my bed;
⁴ I will not give sleep to my eyes
Or slumber to my eyelids,
⁵ Until I find a place for the LORD,
A dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob”…
⁷ Let us go into His tabernacle;
Let us worship at His footstool.
⁸ Arise, O LORD, to Your resting place,
You and the ark of Your strength.
⁹ Let Your priests be clothed with righteousness,
And let Your saints shout for joy.

Something we have been longing for in this season is for a greater realization of the reality of God dwelling with us. There are multiple facets and levels to the dwelling place of God, the first being the incredible truth that God desires to dwell and abide in us (John 15:4-11; John 14:16, 23; 1 John 4:13-14; 2 Cor. 4:6-7). We are carriers of His presence through the indwelling of His Spirit – jars of clay containing the infinite treasure of Jesus within us!

Secondly, we desire for God to have a dwelling place in our city, that there would be a literal, physical place where He could come and rest and manifest His presence and receive worship and adoration from His people. We long to see a house of prayer established in our city where we could go to worship and pray at any time of the day or night. We long to have His presence in our city, to enjoy being with Him and feeling Him in a tangible way, and so that our city could be transformed by His power to save, heal and deliver the people who live here.

Thirdly, we are eagerly anticipating the day when Jesus returns to the earth and we get to see Him face to face! When He comes, He is going to purge the earth from all sin and wickedness and He is going to make all things new so that He can once again reconcile heaven and earth, that God the Father may come and make His dwelling place on the earth permanently, bringing the New Jerusalem to earth so that we can dwell with God for eternity! (Revelation 21:1-7; Revelation 22:1-5)

As I was praying, I also kept hearing the word “joy”, but didn’t know how it fit in with the idea of God’s dwelling place. But as I read these various passages I mentioned above, I began to notice a common thread of joy throughout them all. When we abide in Jesus and He abides in us, we experience the fullness of His joy in us (John 15:11), when we are in His tabernacle and in His house of prayer, we shout aloud for joy (Psalm 132:9, 16; Isaiah 56:7), and when He comes to dwell on the earth, there will never be sorrow or crying every again – only the sweet, inexpressible joy of being with our God forever (Revelation 21:4)!

My prayer for our baby became that he/she would know the joy of God dwelling in their inner man, but who would also long for the dwelling place of God here on earth, and who would experience joy in the house of prayer as a priest who ministers before Him, as one who simply loves His presence.

A couple weeks later we finally did get to find out the gender of our baby, which is “inconclusively” a BOY!! While the ultrasound technician’s confidence in their opinion leaves something to be desired, we are thrilled and our son Justice is very excited to be getting a baby brother! However, this news presented somewhat of a dilemma in the naming department. We had a name that we liked for a girl, but nothing for a boy. Joe kept trying to convince me that the name could be used for a boy as well, but I was not budging. I was stubbornly insisting that it was strictly a girl’s name and I simply could not imagine naming our son this. Finally he gave up and threw up a prayer to God to speak to me if this was the name for our baby.

The very next day after he prayed that prayer (without me knowing it), I sat down during my morning devotions and I specifically set out to talk to the Lord about this name and ask Him to show me if this was the name He had chosen for our baby. I decided to look up the meaning of the name in the Hebrew, since it comes from the Bible. The name actually means “delight” or “pleasure”, which certainly seemed to fit with what the Lord had spoken to me about the word joy.

I then began to look at all the scriptures in the Bible where this name appears, and since it is actually the name of a place, I only discovered one person in the Bible who had been given this name. It just so happens that it was a man (a point for Joe’s argument), but also a priest who served in the temple! When I went to read the scripture in context, I found myself in 2 Chronicles 29, which is the story of King Hezekiah, who ushered in a season of revival, especially regarding the restoration of the priestly service. The temple was in disrepair and ministry to the Lord had been neglected, so King Hezekiah reopened and repaired the temple and then issued a call to all of the priests to consecrate themselves and the temple and return to the Lord. His charge to them was this,

“My sons, do not be negligent now, for the Lord has chosen you to stand before him and serve him, to minister before him and to burn incense.”

Coincidentally (I think not), this verse has been a prominent one that the Lord has given to us corporately at Sanctuary House of Prayer, where we attend. We have prayed this verse countless times, asking God to raise up men and women who would love Him wholeheartedly and who would be called to stand, serve, minister and burn before Him. I was stunned when in the very next verse it lists the priest with this name – Eden. He was one of the very first to respond to the call and to consecrate himself to God and who was among those who worshiped the Lord with the instruments of King David’s tabernacle. They worshiped, played music and presented offerings to God, praising Him with gladness and calling the entire nation to return to God as well.

Wow!! I was blown away that the one person in the entire Bible who is named Eden was a priest who also longed for the dwelling place of God to be established in his nation and who desired to minister to Him there. It quickly became obvious to me that this was in fact the name that God had chosen for our child and it also confirmed all the things He had spoken to me earlier.

Not only this, but the Garden of Eden also happens to be the original dwelling place of God where He first lived and walked with mankind before sin entered the world. Eden was truly a place of delight and pleasure, where man walked with God in unhindered, unbroken, perfect communion and this is exactly what Jesus is returning to the earth to restore!

If our baby had been a girl, I may have never searched out the name so thoroughly and discovered these things! But, an added bonus is that if the ultrasound technician’s prediction is wrong, our baby will still be named Eden.

The name is continually growing on me and I am falling in love with my little boy Eden and can’t wait to meet him! Another fun little tidbit is that my initials are JRE and the first initial of my three children – Justice, Rayah, and Eden – match my initials! So, that’s just a special little gift from my Father to me.

Jesus: The Lord Saves

“Grace and peace to you from…Jesus Christ…” Revelation 1:4, 5 

The Lord Saves
So, for my first post in my series on “The Revelation of Jesus Christ”, I want to share some thoughts on the Son of God’s given name – Jesus.  As it says in Matthew 1:21, “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.“  In the footnote for this verse, it informs us that Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua, which means “The Lord Saves”.  Although Jesus was sent to the earth for many reasons, it would appear that his primary reason was to declare and provide the salvation of the Lord.  In John 3:17, Jesus says this of himself, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.“  I think most Christians understand this about Jesus in his first coming, but I believe that this will be a dynamic motive in his second return as well!  Even though Jesus will be coming to release judgment upon sin, we see in Isaiah 63:2, that in the midst of slaying the wicked, he still declares of himself, “It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save.“  When he is unleashing the end-time judgments and when he ultimately returns to the earth, I believe that salvation for the lost and especially for his beloved people, the Jews, will be foremost on his mind and heart.

His Name Forever
As I was meditating on his name and what this meant for me, I was struck by the fact that before he became a human, he was simply the Son of God, perhaps manifesting in the Old Testament as the Angel of the Lord, but without a human name.  Of course he knew that this would one day be his name and how humanity would come to call him, but for thousands of years in human history and for eternity past, he was just the Son.  Yet, the Father ordained it and chose this specific name for His Son and told Joseph and Mary to name him, “The Lord Saves”.  He decided that it was going to be at the name of Jesus that every knee would bow and that every tongue would confess that Jesus is Lord!  (Philippians 2:10-11)  And from the moment he was born, for all of eternity, this will be his name forever!  While he has many names and titles, Jesus is his human name – the name that connects him with all of humanity, and he will forever be identified with the fact that he came to save us from our sin and from eternal separation from God in the flames of hell.

He is My Salvation
As David so loved to declare in the Psalms, “The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.”  The thing about salvation is that it is incredibly personal.  When Jesus came to save the world, although he paid the price for all of mankind’s sin, I have to consider that he was actually thinking of me – Jacqueline Ruth – as he hung on that cross.  He came not only for humanity as a whole, but for me!  “The Lord Saves” is my salvation!  How can I ever express my gratitude that he came to save me from my sin and from Satan’s grip upon me?  No matter how good I may have tried to be, I was never going to be able to save myself – I needed a Savior!  I was lost in darkness and destined for eternal death and torment before he came and rescued me.  Without him, I had no hope and would’ve sunk into deep depression and depravity, but in his incredible mercy and love for me, he came and saved me from the curse and bondage of sin – which includes salvation from sickness, suffering, barrenness, and spiritual defeat.  On that cross, he took my iniquity, infirmities, and sorrows.  He took upon himself the punishment that I deserved, pouring out his life unto death and making intercession on my behalf that I might be reconciled with the Father (Isaiah 53).  And while I can write all this, I know that my revelation and understanding of the magnitude of what this truly means is so incredibly limited.  How I long for greater revelation of what he did for me, that it might produce such love in my heart for him! 

Still Asking
I still have so many questions.  What is the significance of the name of Jesus for how I am to relate to him?  What does he want me know and learn about his heart and his character from his name?  What does this say about who he is and what was in the Father’s heart towards him when He chose that name?  What joy and delight does he feel, that every time his name is spoken, that people are declaring “the Lord saves”?  What pleasure does he experience in saving the souls of mankind?  How does he desire for me to partner with him in this mission and purpose? 

He Loves Saving People
In all of this, the one thing that he spoke that reverberates in my heart is this simple declaration – “I love saving people!”  I just felt the joy and pleasure that he takes in rescuing a soul from darkness and bringing them into his light.  This is something I also need more revelation on, that I might have that same passion for seeing the lost saved.  I want to have his heart for salvation, that I might proclaim “the Lord saves” to the world.  In fact, his desire to see as many as possible come into salvation is the very thing that is delaying his return, for “the Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.  He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)

The Revelation of Jesus Christ

A little while ago, Mike Bickle at the International House of Prayer was teaching on the book of Revelation and he spent some time focusing on the fact that this book was meant to reveal Jesus to us, as it says in the first five words of the book, “The revelation of Jesus Christ…”.  For many, this book can be intimidating and confusing, and though it is meant to give us insight into “what must soon take place” by revealing details about the end of the age and the return of Jesus to the earth, it is primarily meant to show us who Jesus is.  The first chapter in this book actually contains 22 descriptions about Jesus (maybe even more), and so I was challenged to being meditating on and praying through them by following the simple acronym that Mike suggested – A.R.K.

A – Agreement: make declarations of agreement to Jesus about who He is and what He does. Simply declare the truth back to Jesus with affection and gratitude. For example, “Jesus, I thank You for being a faithful witness to the truth. I love this about You. I trust what You say”.
R – Revelation: pray for increased revelation of each description of Jesus. For example, “Reveal Yourself to me as the faithful witness and show me more of Your glory in this”. 
K - Keep the prophecy: by committing to respond in faith and obedience to the specific truths about His Name and by asking for God’s help to do so. We make simple declarations of our resolve to obey or to stand in faith in the Word. We also ask Jesus to empower us to do this. For example, “I commit to be a faithful witness to the truth regardless what it costs. Help me to walk this out”.

So, my desire is to go through all the descriptions of Jesus found in Revelation 1, as well as the others throughout the book, while dialoguing with Him, journaling, and blogging about the things He shows me about Himself.  It’s seemingly going very slowly and I am realizing that there is a lot of depth and richness in there that I hadn’t seen before, so I am happy to take my time discovering who He is! 

A helpful resource for your own meditation and study is an outline with the descriptions of Jesus and space to write your own brief notes using the A.R.K. acronym.  If you’re interested in reading the notes from the other sessions in this series by Mike Bickle, or even listening to the MP3′s, you can find it all here.  To read all of my blog posts on this subject, feel free to check out “The Revelation of Jesus Christ” category and I hope you will be stirred with hunger to search Him out as well and find yourself falling more in love with this God-man who is returning to claim us as His bride!

Read, Hear And Take To Heart These Words

Revelation 1:1-3 (NIV)
1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place…2 that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. 3 Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.

Jesus, I ask that You would give to me a desire for Your Word and a hunger in my spirit to eat the scroll and partake of these words that are the revelation of who You are.  Where my spirit is dull and where I am complacent and apathetic towards this book, I ask that You would deliver me and that You would sharpen me and cause a zeal and a tenacity to rise up within me.  Jesus, I want to eat the scroll.  Jesus, I desire Your words and I want to honor the prophetic word that You declared to Your church in order to reveal Yourself to us and to prepare Your Bride for Your return.  Stir up longing and hunger to read, hear, and take to heart this testimony of You.

Jesus, I ask that You would bless my mind to read the words of Your prophecy and anoint me with wisdom and revelation to understand them.  I ask that You would bless and open my eyes to see what You are desiring to show me and that my vision would be opened to enter into what John was seeing.  Jesus, as I read, may the words come to life and be branded upon my mind.  I ask for the grace and strength needed to read these difficult words and the discipline and perseverance to meditate upon them continually.  May I enter into the blessing that You promised for those who would read this book, by Your grace.

Jesus, I ask that You would bless my ears to hear the words of Your prophecy.  I pray that I would not be one who just hears these words and then immediately after forgets them, but that I would be one who hears and does!  I ask that I would be one who heeds Your Word and intently inclines my ear to listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.  Open my ears to hear what You are saying and remove anything that is hindering my hearing.  If there be any lies of the enemy that I have listened to and believed, I ask that You would dismantle them and destroy them.  If there be any compromise or sin in my heart that prevents me from being able to hear Your words, would You set me free and cause a turning to occur within me. 

And may I not only be one who hears, but also one who speaks the words of this prophecy.  Jesus, would You bless my mouth and anoint my speech to be a messenger in these last days.  I ask that as I hear these words, that faith would be produced in my heart, leading to a boldness to proclaim the words that I am hearing You speak.  I ask that even as I speak these words in my own prayer life, that the whispering of the truths found in this book would impact me.  I ask for courage to declare Your heart as You have revealed it in this prophecy and that I would proclaim it accurately, in grace and truth.  Would You give me wisdom and grace upon my lips to speak with clarity and authority and power!

Lastly, Jesus, I ask that You would bless and anoint me to take these words to heart.  I ask for You to soften my heart and tenderize it so that the soil of my heart would be open and ready to receive the seed of Your Word.  Would You till the soil and break up the areas of my heart that are hardened by sin and compromise.  I ask that You would enable me to take Your words to heart, allowing them to impact me and transform me.  I ask that this book would begin to pierce me, strike me, and wound me with the urgency of the hour and the reality that the time is indeed near.  I ask that I would not be able to simply glaze over the words without them entering into my heart and changing the way I think, feel, and live my life.  I ask that my heart would be ruined by the corrections You give Your church, by the promises You offer to those who overcome, by the images and events I see portrayed in Your judgments, by the glory of the coming age and the unimaginable beauty and rapture of the fellowship with God that is ours to enjoy in that day.  I ask that it would absolutely wreck me for an average, ordinary life and that I would have these words so burned and seared upon my soul that I could do nothing less than agree with them fully and enter into partnership with You in seeing them fulfilled.

So be it.  Amen.

The Oil of His Name

Song of Songs 1:3
3 Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes (good ointments);
your name is like perfume (ointment, aromatic oils, purified oil) poured out.
No wonder the maidens (virgins) love you!

Yesterday, my husband pointed something out to me that I had never considered before.  I have read the verse above from Song of Songs countless times, so I was a little surprised that I had never made the connection that he did, that this verse could be related to the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25.  Of course, I then became intrigued and had to look at this story through this new lens!

As you may know, this parable is pertaining to the End-Times, when the Bridegroom of heaven returns to the earth.  We can probably relate to these ten virgins who were waiting for the bridegroom to arrive, but who became drowsy and fell asleep when he was “a long time in coming”.  Yet, while all ten of the virgins became weary in the waiting, still, five of them were wise and five were foolish. 

Five were prepared when he finally arrived and five were not.  The five wise virgins had extra oil for their lamps, but the five foolish virgins ran out of oil.  Five were welcomed into the wedding banquet and five were turned away at the door.  Five were known and five were not.

If you consider Song of Songs 1:3, this oil could represent the sweet perfume and ointment of Jesus’ name.  When the virgins have a revelation and knowledge of the name(s) of Jesus, then they are filled with love for Him.  In 1 Corinthians 13:12, Paul writes, “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”  The foolish virgins in the story were not known when they came to the wedding (Matt. 25:12) and I believe there is a direct correlation between us being known by Jesus and our level of intimacy with Him and our knowledge of Him.  The oil we need is the revelation of His name – the knowledge of who He is and what He’s like, what He thinks and feels. 

The reason the virgins in Song of Songs loved the Bridegroom was because they were partaking of the sweet fragrance of His name.  At the end of the age, there will be those who have lived a pure and virtuous life, yet who will be found lacking in actual knowledge of the Bridegroom and consequently, also lacking in love for Him.  

Lately, the cry of my heart has been a desperate plea to know Jesus more.  I keep asking, like Paul writes in Ephesians 1:17, for the Spirit of revelation that I may know Him better.  I want the fragrant oil of His name to be poured upon my heart, that I would know Him and be known by Him.  I want an intimate knowledge of His heart, His personality, His character, His thoughts, His words, His emotions, and His actions.  In that day, when He returns, I want to be found ready, with oil in my lamp, and with passionate love burning in my heart.

Will He find faith?

A passage that has been floating in my mind lately is Luke 18:7-8, which says, “And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

This brought a rather sobering question to mind – is it possible to be in the house of prayer and crying out to Him day and night for Him to bring justice, yet still be missing what He will be looking for in my heart?  When it says that the Son of Man will be searching for faith on the earth, what does this mean?  As I was reading some commentary from Matthew Henry, here is how he interpretted this passage…

Now, when he comes, will he find faith on the earth? The question implies a strong negation: No, he will not…In particular, he will find few that have faith concerning his coming…Even his own people will begin to despair of it, and to conclude he will never come, because he has passed their reckoning…But this is our comfort, that, when the time appointed comes, it will appear that the unbelief of man has not made the promise of God of no effect.

It seems to me that this is very true of the Church today – that there are “few that have faith concerning his coming”.  Honestly, my faith wavers all the time!  I don’t think I doubt that He will come someday, but I am still constantly tempted to believe that it’s unlikely that He’ll come in my lifetime.  Now, this is also the type of faith I was instructed to have – we should believe He’s coming, because the Bible says it’s so, yet it’s foolish to have faith that He will come during any given period of time.  The popular opinion is that many have thought He was coming on a particular day and the doomsday preachers have tried to predict His coming countless times, yet always been wrong.  This I agree with, for it’s clear in scripture that even Jesus does not know the day of His return, however, He also rebuked the scholars of His day for not perceiving the signs of His first coming (Matthew 16:1-4).  I was also taught that the day of His return will come like a thief, catching all of us off guard, which will be true for the unbeliever, but Paul said, “But you, brothers, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief” (1 Thessalonians 5:4). 

I believe that it is the desire of Jesus to find His bride with not just a casual belief about His coming, but a strong, steadfast faith in His return!  He desires to find a bride that is watching and waiting expectantly for Him, with no doubt in her heart that He is coming for her!  And not only for her to be watching, but for her to be ready and prepared for it – not caught off guard and scrambling to put herself together (Matthew 25:1-13).  In fact, I have had several dreams where I dreamt that I knew Jesus’ return was imminent and fastly approaching and I was filled with regret and panic, feeling like I wasn’t ready for Him to come, knowing I hadn’t lived my life “worthy of the calling” (2 Thessalonians 1:11).  In one dream in particular, I woke up in my dream, somehow knowing that that day Jesus was going to come.  Foolishly, I was scrambling for my makeup case to try and make myself look pretty for Him, the whole time, knowing full-well that He does not look at the outward appearance, but He looks at the heart.  The same could be applied to our outward acts – I don’t want to be one who does all the right things and says all the right prayers and looks good on the outside, but in my heart, have Him find that there was no actual faith that He would come and actually answer my prayers!

Lastly, there is a verse in Hebrews 11 that always convicts and challenges me.  It’s the infamous “Hall of Faith” passage, describing all the men and women who under the most horrible circumstances somehow had strong and enduring faith in the promises of God, so much so that the “world was not worthy of them” (vs. 38).  But the striking thing is the next verse which says, “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.”  This is the type of woman I want to be – someone who believes with fierce assurance until the very last second before I take my last breath, even if I don’t see the promise of what I was believing for.  I do not want to be one who wavers in my faith, always doubting, “blown and tossed by the wind” and “double-minded” (James 1:6-8) – I want to be a woman of faith, specifically one who has faith in His appearing and that He will be true to His promise.  I want Him to find faith in me, whether it’s when He returns to the earth or when I die and come before His judgment throne.  Either way, I want to hear Him say, “Well done, good and faith-ful servant.” (Matthew 25:21)

Moving the Heart of the Judge

I’ve been reading and meditating on Psalm 106 over the last few days and my thoughts are still very incomplete, but I’m going to attempt to make sense of them through writing…

They exchanged their Glory
In verse 20 and 21 it says, “They exchanged their Glory for an image of a bull, which eats grass. They forgot the God who saved them…”  This hit me personally and I felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit, for how many times have I had the choice directly in front me to either choose communion with Glory or exchange Him for something so much lesser and I have chosen the lesser?  When I choose to give my time, energy or resources (essentially, my worship) to something other than the Lord, how often do I reflect on the immense, infinite value of what I am giving up in exchange?  I don’t think I have a true revelation of the Glorious One, the God who has worked miracles and awesome deeds on my behalf and who saved me from the most horrific eternal destiny of hell that was my lot. 

I then was listening to a teaching by a woman of God name Shelley Hundley who was “coincidentally” (read “divinely”) speaking from this very same passage and she went back to the telling of this story in Exodus where the Israelites are getting a glimpse of their beautiful and terrifying Glory in a way they had not yet seen.  In 20:18-21 they are trembling in fear as they gaze upon a mountain shrouded in thick darkness, surrounded by thunder, strikes of lightning and engulfed in smoke.  While they had been invited by God to come close, up to the boundaries He had set for them, they shrank back in their fear and remained at a distance instead of embracing this gift of the fear of the Lord that God wanted to give them in order to keep them from sinning and keep them in intimate relationship with Himself.  As a result, in Exodus 32, when Moses takes too long to return from the mountain, Shelley proposed that the reason they created the idol was for the simple reason of boredom!  They had been given the opportunity to gaze upon the Glory of the Lord and be completely fascinated by His power and beauty, yet instead they distanced themselves and grew bored, exchanging Him for a lifeless golden calf crafted in the image of a soulless creature that eats grass!  Again, I ask myself, how many times have I exchanged the opportunity to be fascinated and captivated by my heavenly, eternal Glorious One in order to give my affections to something that is earthly, temporal and fading away?  Too many.

They shed innocent blood
The next thing that pierced my heart was verses 37-43 which starts off by saying, “They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons.  They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was desecrated by their blood.”  It doesn’t take a genius to make the connection with this verse and the spilling of innocent blood that is occurring today through the abortions of millions of babies in North America.  While it may seem to some that abortion is only the removal of a piece of tissue, the reality in the spirit is that these living babies with a soul and spirit are being sacrificed to the gods of this age – convenience, selfishness, fear, lust, call them what you like, but there are real demons feeding off the blood of these innocent ones.  I know it sounds harsh, but we must see abortion for what it is – demon worship and murder. 

The passage goes on to describe how the Lord was angry with his people for these horrible acts and brought judgment upon them, yet still they would not turn from their sin and were “bent on rebellion”.  Another reality is that there is real judgment coming in response to our sin.  We are naive to think that we will escape judgment, for even if we die before the end of the age and miss the end-time judgments, we will certainly face it when we come before the throne of God.  I truly don’t mean for this to be a doomsday post, but I want the reality of the Word to grip our hearts!  I don’t want to read this and gloss over the weightiness of what it says - we need to be pained over this and understand what lies ahead if things don’t change!

Moving the heart of the Judge
And yet, while judgment is imminent, there is hope.  When the Israelites built their golden calf, Psalm 106:23 says, “So he said he would destroy them–had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him to keep his wrath from destroying them.”  The Lord is longing for a people, like Moses, who will walk in intimacy and friendship with Him to such a depth that when they stand in the place of intercession on behalf of a sinful and wicked nation, that their weak words actually move the heart of God and turn away His wrath!  He is crying out for this generation to respond to the call of Joel 2:12-14, “‘Even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.’  Rend your heart and not your garments.  Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.  Who knows?  He may turn and have pity and leave behind a blessing…”  I long to have revelation of Jesus as a Righteous Judge who will not allow injustice to go unpunished, yet who is fiercely in love with people and is more merciful than we know.  We must know this so that we will approach His throne of grace with boldness as Moses did and stand in the breach that He might have mercy on us.  The cry of repentance for exchanging our Glory and shedding innocent blood must ascend to heaven, as a people who are friends of the Judge rise up in intercession to move His heart…

“But he took note of their distress when he heard their cry; for their sake he remembered his covenant and out of his great love he relented.”  (Psalm 106:44-45)

Making Ready a People Prepared

Lately I’ve been reading and meditating on Isaiah chapters 61 to 63 which contains several scriptures pertaining to the coming of the Messiah, both His first coming and His second.  The verse which stuck out to me recently though was Isaiah 62:10 which says, “Pass through, pass through the gates!  Prepare the way for the people.  Build up, build up the highway!  Remove the stones.  Raise a banner for the nations.”

Prepare the way for the Lord
I believe this verse has many layers of meaning, but it’s especially important to view it through the lens of Jesus’ return to the earth.  This is quite clear from the following verse where the Lord instructs Isaiah to proclaim, “See, your Savior comes!  See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him.”  The Lord desired for Isaiah to preach a message that the Savior was indeed coming, bringing with Him both a reward for His people and vengeance for His enemies.  Yet, before this message could be proclaimed, obstacles needed to be removed and the path built up and prepared so that the people would be able to receive the message.  This a similar calling to what was given to John the Baptist who was a forerunner that was to ”pass through” ahead of others and go before to prepare the way of the Lord… 

A voice of one calling in the desert: “Prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”  Isaiah 40:3-5

Make ready a people prepared
In the case of John the Baptist, a key aspect of preparing the people’s hearts was to call them to participate in the baptism of repentance.  For them this was an outward act to demonstrate the inner response of their hearts to turn from their wicked ways and return to the Lord.  But what is the Lord saying to the forerunners of today?  What do we need to do to prepare both our own hearts and also the hearts of those who God desires us to proclaim this message of His return to?  How can we remove the obstacles in the way, the things that are hindering us and them from being ready on that day?  How can we do what is necessary to “make ready a people prepared for the Lord”?  (Luke 1:17)

Watch and pray
I think a key component to being prepared for the Lord when He returns is found in Jesus’ talk with His disciples in Matthew 24 and 25.  After warning them of the signs of the end of the age, Jesus exhorts them to be like the faithful and wise servant who was found watching and waiting for his master’s return and the five wise virgins who kept oil in their lamps and were ready when the bridegroom appeared.  Among other things, I believe this speaks of prayer, for when Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane, he implored the disciples to “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation”.  (Mark 14:38)  Prayer is one of the most strategic ways that we can keep our hearts alert and on guard, full of oil and lit with the fire of passion for Jesus, as opposed to slumbering and being caught unaware when He returns. 

Remove the stones
Intercession on behalf of others is also critical for the removing of the obstacles in their way – we need to be watchmen on the walls of our cities that are never silent day or night (Isaiah 62:6-7), warring for the demonic influences over people to be taken out and for the blinders to be removed so that they are able to “see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4).  I believe this is one of the biggest stumbling blocks for people – that they are unable to see Jesus for who He is and that He is the express image of the Father.  Many, including myself, do not have a correct view of Jesus or the Father and we need to intercede for wisdom and revelation to know Him better (Ephesians 1:17) and also preach about who He truly is, tearing down the wrong mindsets and ideas of what He’s like and how He feels about us.

Return with fasting and weeping
Another passage of scripture that contains several instructions on how to prepare our hearts for Jesus’ return is Joel 2:12-17.  There’s too much here to go into great detail on each item, but the Lord calls for the people to return to Him with all their heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.  If we desire to be prepared and desire to make ready a people prepared, then repentance, fasting, and mourning need to be an essential component of our daily lives.  If we do not want our love to grow cold (Matthew 24:12) then we need to turn from our sin and turn to the Lord wholeheartedly – holding nothing back.  He wants our whole hearts – He desires for us to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30).  I believe that adding fasting to your repentance is an incredible accelerator to the process, as you are choosing to kill the desires of your flesh and live by the spirit (Romans 8:13-14).  Also, when we are able to connect with the reality of how our sin grieves the Holy Spirit and we can mourn over our spiritual condition and the condition of our cities and nations, our hearts will be tenderized and the gift of weeping and groaning will allow us to enter into partnership with the Spirit in intercession (Romans 8:26).

Raising forerunners
So what does this have to do with raising forerunners?  As a soon-to-be mother, I have been impressed on my heart with the importance of my calling to make ready my children to be ones who are prepared for the Lord’s return and who will also be forerunners that will prepare others.  Imagine what it was like for Elizabeth, realizing the destiny of the child she carried within her and how vital it was for her to raise him as the Lord had commanded and teach him the ways of God, instructing John about his destiny to prepare the way of the Lord and ready the hearts of the people for their coming Messiah!  I feel this same urgency, this same weight of responsibility.  I know that the child in my womb has an incredible destiny and purpose and it is my role to disciple them and prepare them for it, with the help of Holy Spirit.  I certainly cannot do this on my own and sometimes the thought of it overwhelms me, but I also must trust that the Lord has given this child to us and will equip us to train him or her in the way they should go.  I have a new appreciation for the story of Samson’s parents, who when told of the special calling on their unborn child’s life, cried out to God, “O Lord, I beg you, let the man of God you sent to us come again to teach us how to bring up the boy who is to be born.”  (Judges 13:8)  God answered their prayer and as I make this prayer my own, I believe He too will come and teach my husband and I how to raise this little forerunner in the making.

Next Page »