God Is Love
A.E. Knoch
We are never told that God is justice, or God is power, or God is wisdom. These are His attributes, not His essence.
The distinction is of vital import in the conflicting maze of reasoning concerning God’s ways and words. Justice and power and wisdom are relative, but love is absolute. He is never so just as when He justifies the unjust, for that is in line with His love. He is never so strong as when His weakness overpowers human strength, for that links it to love. He is never so wise as when His foolishness confounds the wisdom of men, for that glorifies love.
All of His attributes appear and withdraw at the beck of love. All serve it and never go counter to its commands. We cannot reason that God will do thus and so because He is just, or strong or wise. Love may not give leave. But we can safely lay our heads on the bosom of His love and there learn the great lesson that He is love, and has both the power and wisdom to carry out the dictates of His affection. What clearer proof can be given that all that He has done and is doing is leading up to that grand ultimate when He will be All in all, and love will rest in being loved?
By Chip Brogden
“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love” (I Jn 4:18).
Most of our fears are a consequence of not knowing God well enough. Fear comes from uncertainty. If we are confident, secure, and certain about who we are in Christ, and who Christ is in us, then we won’t be worried about what the devil might do, and we won’t be worried about what other people might do.
Now folks, that’s a lot off your plate. Imagine what a relief it would be to just live your life in friendship with God, unaffected by worries and fears about the devil, unmoved by worries and fears about other people – what they might think, what they might say, what they might do.
Think about all you could accomplish if you were truly unafraid. I’m not saying you go out and take foolish risks. I’m saying fear holds us back. God tells us to go but we’re afraid to go. God tells us to stay put but we’re afraid to stay put. God gives us something to say but we’re afraid to say it. God gives us a talent or a gift that will bless and encourage and help other people, but we’re afraid we’ll make a mistake, or afraid we’ll look foolish, or afraid we might fail.
Let me go ahead and allay those fears right now. Let me share something with you that will set you free from fear of failure, fear of making mistakes. I’m still relatively young, but I’ve been at this for a long time. People say, “How can you know so much and be so young?” I’ll tell you why, it’s because I’ve made enough mistakes for three people twice my age. By the time I was twenty I had made enough mistakes for someone eighty. I have failed more times than I have succeeded. I have fallen down, gotten up, fallen down, gotten up, fallen down, gotten up, and sometimes I think God created me to be an example to others of what NOT to do. I’m only just beginning to experience some victories, some successes, some fruitfulness. I’ve had to learn it the hard way.
But here’s what I want to share with you, to set you free from fear of failure, fear of making mistakes, fear of stepping out, fear of stepping up. Here’s what God showed me: His plan, and His purpose for my life, is based on my making lots of mistakes. His plan accounts for the fact that I’m going to fail. He already has that factored into the equation. We don’t take God by surprise, or derail His purpose, by anything we do or fail to do. His purpose and His plan for your life is not dependent on you never making a mistake. Not only does He know that you will make mistakes, and you will fail, He makes His plans based on the fact that things are going to come along to try and mess up His plans.
Have you ever made plans to do something? Do you plan for things to go wrong, or do you plan for things to go right? Most people come up with a plan and the plan assumes everything is going to go the way it should. But what happens? Something always goes wrong, and then the plan collapses.
For me it happens every Saturday. My wife gives me a little home repair project, and I think it’s going to be pretty simple, just need a hammer and some nails and this and that. So I plan to take five minutes to do this simple repair. Then I get five minutes into the project and realize it’s worse than I thought, I need a watchamacallit and a thingamajig and I don’t have what I need, so now I have to make a trip to the store. They don’t have what I need so I have to go somewhere else. Then I come home and the part I thought I needed doesn’t fit, I need something larger or something smaller, and now I have to go back to the store again. What should have been a five minute project becomes a five hour ordeal.
Now, do you think God is like that? Do you think He is so foolish as to have one plan that relies upon you and me doing everything perfectly, never making a mistake? Do you think you can make a mistake or fail so miserably that you can outsmart God and thwart His plan for your life?
Certainly we can delay His purpose, and we can bring a lot of unnecessary suffering on ourselves by being willfully disobedient, but if our heart is right and we’re doing the best we know how to do then God is able to work everything out for His glory, even our mistakes, even our failures, EVEN OUR SINS. I’m not saying go out and sin, because there are consequences for sin. I’m talking about your past right now. Don’t worry that your past disqualifies you, because it doesn’t. You can’t go back and undo these past mistakes, past failures, past sins. I’m saying don’t let fear about your past keep you from loving God now, living life now.
Don’t worry about being perfect in the future, because God’s purpose for your life is based on you being imperfect. God wants to show the world how He can take anything and bring good out of it, how He can take imperfect people who make mistakes and still do something good with their lives.
That is going to be the history of mankind, we’re all going to be amazed one day when we look back and see how God worked all things together for good, brought light out of darkness, and used evil for good.
“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love” (I Jn. 4:18, ESV).
Most of our fears are a consequence of not knowing God well enough. Fear comes from uncertainty. If we are confident, secure, and certain about who we are in Christ, and who Christ is in us, then we won’t be worried about what the devil might do, and we won’t be worried about what other people might do.
Now folks, that’s a lot off your plate. Imagine what a relief it would be to just live your life in friendship with God, unaffected by worries and fears about the devil, unmoved by worries and fears about other people – what they might think, what they might say, what they might do.
Think about all you could accomplish if you were truly unafraid. I’m not saying you go out and take foolish risks. I’m saying fear holds us back. God tells us to go but we’re afraid to go. God tells us to stay put but we’re afraid to stay put. God gives us something to say but we’re afraid to say it. God gives us a talent or a gift that will bless and encourage and help other people, but we’re afraid we’ll make a mistake, or afraid we’ll look foolish, or afraid we might fail.
Let me go ahead and allay those fears right now. Let me share something with you that will set you free from fear of failure, fear of making mistakes. I’m still relatively young, but I’ve been at this for a long time. People say, “How can you know so much and be so young?” I’ll tell you why, it’s because I’ve made enough mistakes for three people twice my age. By the time I was twenty I had made enough mistakes for someone eighty. I have failed more times than I have succeeded. I have fallen down, gotten up, fallen down, gotten up, fallen down, gotten up, and sometimes I think God created me to be an example to others of what NOT to do. I’m only just beginning to experience some victories, some successes, some fruitfulness. I’ve had to learn it the hard way.
But here’s what I want to share with you, to set you free from fear of failure, fear of making mistakes, fear of stepping out, fear of stepping up. Here’s what God showed me: His plan, and His purpose for my life, is based on my making lots of mistakes. His plan accounts for the fact that I’m going to fail. He already has that factored into the equation. We don’t take God by surprise, or derail His purpose, by anything we do or fail to do. His purpose and His plan for your life is not dependent on you never making a mistake. Not only does He know that you will make mistakes, and you will fail, He makes His plans based on the fact that things are going to come along to try and mess up His plans.
Have you ever made plans to do something? Do you plan for things to go wrong, or do you plan for things to go right? Most people come up with a plan and the plan assumes everything is going to go the way it should. But what happens? Something always goes wrong, and then the plan collapses.
For me it happens every Saturday. My wife gives me a little home repair project, and I think it’s going to be pretty simple, just need a hammer and some nails and this and that. So I plan to take five minutes to do this simple repair. Then I get five minutes into the project and realize it’s worse than I thought, I need a watchamacallit and a thingamajig and I don’t have what I need, so now I have to make a trip to the store. They don’t have what I need so I have to go somewhere else. Then I come home and the part I thought I needed doesn’t fit, I need something larger or something smaller, and now I have to go back to the store again. What should have been a five minute project becomes a five hour ordeal.
Now, do you think God is like that? Do you think He is so foolish as to have one plan that relies upon you and me doing everything perfectly, never making a mistake? Do you think you can make a mistake or fail so miserably that you can outsmart God and thwart His plan for your life?
Certainly we can delay His purpose, and we can bring a lot of unnecessary suffering on ourselves by being willfully disobedient, but if our heart is right and we’re doing the best we know how to do then God is able to work everything out for His glory, even our mistakes, even our failures, EVEN OUR SINS. I’m not saying go out and sin, because there are consequences for sin. I’m talking about your past right now. Don’t worry that your past disqualifies you, because it doesn’t. You can’t go back and undo these past mistakes, past failures, past sins. I’m saying don’t let fear about your past keep you from loving God now, living life now.
Don’t worry about being perfect in the future, because God’s purpose for your life is based on you being imperfect. God wants to show the world how He can take anything and bring good out of it, how He can take imperfect people who make mistakes and still do something good with their lives.
That is going to be the history of mankind, we’re all going to be amazed one day when we look back and see how God worked all things together for good, brought light out of darkness, and used evil for good.
The article is based on an audio series titled “Overcoming Fear and Worry: Spiritual Principles for Victorious Living.”
THE POWER OF HUMAN IMAGINATION
Darrow Miller
Human imagination is clearly implied in God’s mandate to Adam and Eve to develop the creation out of the raw materials He provided. And human imagination has been at work ever since.
Note the quotation about a bar of iron. The value of an item is not necessarily found in the item itself. For something to have value, it must first be discovered by a human. Human imagination must be applied to envision its potential.
For generations, oil existed underground, brimming with hidden potential. But only when humans discovered it did that potential begin to unfold. Someone wondered, “What is this black sticky stuff good for? Why did God put this here? What is its hidden potential?” The great American scientist George Washington Carver held a peanut in his hand and asked “God, what have you made the peanut for?” He spent his life answering that question and ended up producing over two hundred uses for the “insignificant” peanut.
Imagination can be applied to find the purpose of a discovery. In this vein, people came to develop uses for oil: light for lamps, heat for homes, power for machinery. With oil we have flown around the world and to the moon.
“By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible,” (Hebrews 11:3 NIV). This text establishes that the unseen God produced the seen universe. The invisible produces the visible. The minds of individuals transform the “worthless” into the priceless.
Human imagination enables people as secondary creators working with God’s primary creation
In other words, it is not the limited physical capital in commodities, but the vast metaphysical capital in human beings, that contributes value to the world. The capital of human minds leads to discovery. Human imagination transforms rocks and flowers into colors,[1] and transforms colors into paints that are applied to canvas that produce a masterpiece. This is the capital that can transform “worthless,” insignificant sand into glass, that remarkable invention which admits light while barring weather. Sand is converted into a chip to power a computer or cell phone. Metaphysical capital is found in the human heart (moral imagination) and mind (worldview). It is the metaphysical capital of Judeo-Christian theism that provides the greatest source for transformation of raw materials, communities or nations.
“And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food,’” Genesis 1:29. The Hebrew word “behold” is meant to call attention to something. “Look at the seed!” Do you see a tiny, meaningless bit of matter? Or do you see the vast potential of the seed? What can that seed produce? Can you see the forest in the seed?
So, yes, the real value of an iron bar is found in what a human being will make of it.
However, I would like to qualify the last part of this anonymous statement: “Your own value is determined also by what you are able to make of yourself.”
At least two issues relate to one’s own worth. The first and most basic is one’s intrinsic worth. The other is one’s potential worth. What will you make of your life? What will you do with the capital God has invested in you?
Human imagination is yours to apply to the world
Our value is not found in what we do. Our value is intrinsic; we are made in the image of God . Each of us has intrinsic worth that cannot be augmented or diminished by anyone or by the state. It is built into our very nature.
And each person has been given a treasure of capital. This treasure is evidenced in our interests, skills, and God-given abilities; it abides in our minds, hearts, wills, in our ability to think analytically and creatively, and to act volitionally.
Here is a valuable lesson: our worth is intrinsic. From this truth we derive that every human has the opportunity and responsibility to use his or her metaphysical capital to create beautiful, edifying and useful things to increase the health and flourishing of our families and communities.
Will you make something of your life that will glorify God and contribute to your community? What will you do with the metaphysical capital you have been given?
Behold, the seed!
AN ANSWER FOR A CITY LYING IN RUINS
By Kelly Stickle
In 586 B.C., the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and its temple. A remnant of Jews left alive were taken into captivity. Then, in 539 B.C., Babylon fell to the Medes and Persians. Again, a few of the Jewish captives were taken as slaves by the Persians in Susa. The book of Nehemiah begins in 446 B.C. as Nehemiah hears a report from his homeland on the state of his city, Jerusalem. The report comes back that the city is in ruins. Nehemiah 1:4 says that Nehemiah wept for days over the report.
What did he do about it? He prayed.
Nehemiah 1:5-6 Please, Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps the covenant and faithfulness for those who love Him and keep His commandments: let Your ear now be attentive and Your eyes open, to hear the prayer of Your servant which I am praying before You now, day and night, on behalf of the sons of Israel Your servants, confessing the sins of the sons of Israel which we have committed against You; I and my father’s house have sinned.
Nehemiah didn’t blame God for abandoning him, and he didn’t even cast blame on the kings and kingdoms responsible for the destruction of his city. He accepted the blame, both personally and corporately. He said, “I and my father’s house have sinned.”
Where you cast blame is also where you assign responsibility. Responsibility is simply the ability to respond. By accepting the blame, Nehemiah also took responsibility for the state of his city, giving himself the ability to respond. He wasn’t just saying words that he thought would appease God. He was sincere.
Look at how specific he got in his repentance.
Nehemiah 1:7-9 We have acted very corruptly against You and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the ordinances which You commanded Your servant Moses. Remember, please, the word which You commanded Your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples; but if you return to Me and keep My commandments and do them, though those of you who have been scattered were in the most remote part of the heavens, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place where I have chosen to have My name dwell.’
Nehemiah was familiar with the commandments given to Moses, as every Jew was. In traditional Jewish education, students would attend synagogue schools by age six. By around ten years of age, they would have learned and memorized the first five books of the Bible, called the Torah.
Memorizing scripture and living by it are two different things. Nehemiah recognized that while he and his ancestors knew the commandments in the Torah, they had failed to do them. Nehemiah included his shortcomings in his repentance by again accepting responsibility, which gave him the ability to respond.
THE PLACE OF EXALTATION
Oswald Chambers
…Jesus took…them up on a high mountain apart by themselves… Mark 9:2
We have all experienced times of exaltation on the mountain, when we have seen things from God’s perspective and have wanted to stay there. But God will never allow us to stay there. The true test of our spiritual life is in exhibiting the power to descend from the mountain. If we only have the power to go up, something is wrong. It is a wonderful thing to be on the mountain with God, but a person only gets there so that he may later go down and lift up the demon–possessed people in the valley (see Mark 9:14–18 ). We are not made for the mountains, for sunrises, or for the other beautiful attractions in life— those are simply intended to be moments of inspiration. We are made for the valley and the ordinary things of life, and that is where we have to prove our stamina and strength. Yet our spiritual selfishness always wants repeated moments on the mountain. We feel that we could talk and live like perfect angels, if we could only stay on the mountaintop. Those times of exaltation are exceptional and they have their meaning in our life with God, but we must beware to prevent our spiritual selfishness from wanting to make them the only time.
We are inclined to think that everything that happens is to be turned into useful teaching. In actual fact, it is to be turned into something even better than teaching, namely, character. The mountaintop is not meant to teach us anything, it is meant to make us something. There is a terrible trap in always asking, “What’s the use of this experience?” We can never measure spiritual matters in that way. The moments on the mountaintop are rare moments, and they are meant for something in God’s purpose.
LEAVE THE TEMPLE
By T. Austin-Sparks
Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God! (Acts 7:56 ISV)
One, perhaps supreme, factor in the significance of Stephen was what he saw at the end and said with almost his last breath: "Behold, I see the heavens opened; and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God" (Acts 7:56). Here we have the central and basic reality of true New Testament Christianity, of the Church and the churches – Jesus on the right hand of God. The government, the authority, the headquarters, vested in the ascended Lord, and centered in heaven; not in Jerusalem, nor anywhere else on earth.... The Jewish rulers and Stephen's accusers were quick and shrewd enough to recognize the implications, for they had no less and no other import than that the "Temple made with hands" was finished; the dispensation of the Law was ended. There was an implicit call to the Church of Jesus to leave the Temple and all that went with it and to move into the greater, the fuller, and the abiding reality.
The tragedy is that, with [the book of] "Hebrews" in their hands, responsible leaders of the Church can still adhere to a system and form which is but the extension or carry-over of the Old Testament, with certain changes of phraseology. The immensity of the change and gap has certainly not been apprehended. Some of the most terrible things in the whole Bible are contained in that letter in relation to the crisis and the two ways and realms. The issue is no less than that of Life and death. All this has much to say regarding the true nature of the Church and the churches. He that hath eyes to see, let him see!
From: According to Christ - 4
Yesterday, September 21st a memorial was held for Charlie Kirk who was assassinated on eleven days before on September 10th. There were many who spoke during the memorial and lifted up the name of Jesus but none of what they said compared with Erika Kirk's testimony of God's love and forgiveness in when she "I forgive my husband's assassin."
The complete memorial is available to watch onTurning Point USA's YouTube channel and what Erika Kirk shared is available to watch in the video below..
Most of you are probably aware that Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA was felled by an assassin's bullet on Wednesday in Utah. Charlie Kirk founded Turning Point USA in 2012 just after he graduated from high school at age 18. From its small beginning 13 years ago Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA grew synonymously to become well known across the USA and beyond.
You may not be aware that last night Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk, spoke publicly for the first time since her husband was killed.
In watching Erika Kirk's message I saw God's love, faithfulness, goodness, grace, comfort, peace, strength manifested. She gave a moving tribute to the love of her life that moved people to tears and stirred peoples hearts, including mine.
In addition to his wife Erika, Charlie Kirk leaves behind a 3-year-old daughter and a 1-year-old son. Lord we commit them into your loving care!
Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what He is saying. (Revelation 3:22 NLT)
A striking feature of our time is that so few of the voices have a distinctive message. There is a painful lack of a clear word of authority for the times.... Why is it so? May it not be that so many who might have this ministry have become so much a part of a system? A system which puts preachers so much upon a professional basis, the effect of which is to make preaching a matter of demand and supply; of providing for the established religious order and program? Not only in the matter of preaching, but in the whole organization and activity of "Christianity" as we have it in the systematized form today. There is not the freedom and detachment for speaking ONLY when "the burden of the word of the Lord" is upon the prophet, or when he could say, "The hand of the Lord was upon me." The present order requires a man to speak every so often; hence he must get something, and this necessity means either that God must be offered our program and asked to meet it (which He will not do) or the preacher must make something for the constantly recurring occasion. This is a pernicious system and it opens the door to any number of dangerous and baneful intrusions of what is of man and not of God. The most serious aspect of this way of things is that it results in voices, voices, voices, a confusion of voices, but not the specific voice with the specific utterance of God for the time....
Here we have the necessity for an awakening to what God has to say. In the Revelation this is "He that hath an ear, let him hear," and in the case of Laodicea – which represents the end – it is "I counsel thee to buy of Me eyesalve that thou mayest see." "And I turned to see the voice that spoke with me," said John. God is speaking, He has something to say, but there must be "a Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your heart being enlightened."
By T. Austin-Sparks from: The Candlestick All of Gold
THE HUNGRY BIRDS
Sundar Singh
Once as I wandered in the mountains, I came upon an outcropping of rocks, and as I sat on the highest rock to rest and look out over the valley, I saw a nest in the branches of a tree. The young birds in the nest were crying noisily. Then I saw how the mother bird returned with food for her young ones. When they heard the sound of her wings and felt her presence nearby, they cried all the more loudly and opened their beaks wide. But after the mother bird fed them and flew away again, they were quiet. Climbing down to look more closely, I saw that the newly hatched birds had not yet opened their eyes. Without even being able to see their mother, they opened their beaks and begged for nourishment when- ever she approached.
These tiny birds did not say: “We will not open our beaks until we can see our mother clearly and also see what kind of food she offers. Perhaps it is not our mother at all but instead some dangerous enemy. And who knows if it is proper nour- ishment or some kind of poison that is being fed to us?” If they had reasoned thus, they would never have discovered the truth. Before they were even strong enough to open their eyes, they would have starved to death. But they held no such doubts about the presence and love of their mother, and so after a few days, they opened their eyes and rejoiced to see her with them. Day by day they grew stronger and developed into the form and likeness of the mother, and soon they were able to soar up into the freedom of the skies.
We humans often think of ourselves as the greatest living beings, but do we not have something to learn from these common birds? We often question the reality and the loving nature of God. But the Master has said: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” Whenever we open our hearts to God, we receive spiritual nourishment and grow more and more into the likeness of God until we reach spiritual maturity. And once we open our spiritual eyes and see God’s presence, we find indescribable and unending bliss.
There's something unique, important and essential about this parable because Jesus made a point of stressing that if you don't discern and understand this parable, how will it be possible for you to discern and understand all the parables?
One could also conclude that the information in this parable is essential because the content in all three of the synoptic gospels is similar.
2 Timothy 3:16 Every Scripture is God-breathed (given by His inspiration) and profitable for instruction, for reproof and conviction of sin, for correction of error and discipline in obedience, [and] for training in righteousness (in holy living, in conformity to God's will in thought, purpose, and action),
Many times the scriptures seem difficult to understand. We look at things from a limited, earthly perspective while the writers were inspired to convey a heavenly message using human words.
Father knows those who earnestly desire and seek more than superficial understanding and has commissioned the Holy Spirit to help them discover and uncover deeper revelation and understanding regarding the Truth of Jesus Christ, the living Word hidden beneath the surface.
Jesus’ response focuses upon important perspectives that must be considered.
Firstly, Jesus primary objective was to conceal the Truth from those not chosen to ‘see’ by separating the curiosity seekers from the Truth seekers. In other words, Jesus is saying that the parables are meant to divide the crowd.
While this may seem as if Jesus denied some people access, the difference He means is not in the message, but in the response. Jesus’ teaching in parables simply divided the listeners into two distinct groups, those who would hear His Wordseed and apply it to their lives, or those who, like the first 3 kinds of people/soil who would hear His Wordseed and still not take them to heart and apply them.
1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural, nonspiritual man does not accept or welcome or admit into his heart the gifts and teachings and revelations of the Spirit of God, for they are folly (meaningless nonsense) to him; and he is incapable of knowing them [of progressively recognizing, understanding, and becoming better acquainted with them] because they are spiritually discerned and estimated and appreciated.
The entire Bible contains allegories, metaphors, mysteries, secrets, shadows, pseudonyms and parables which are all meant to conceal Truth from the natural, nonspiritual, carnal man. It is totally impossible for the natural, nonspiritual man to discern spiritual teachings.
Even though Jesus first objective was to conceal, His second objective was to reveal the mystery of the kingdom of God [that is, the secret counsels of God which are hidden from the ungodly]
Deuteronomy 29:29 The secret things belong unto the LORD our God....
Proverbs 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal a matter: but the honour of kings [those chosen] is to search out a matter.
The scriptures were deliberately written with secret and hidden meanings. The secret, hidden and concealed things are hidden for, and not from the searchers of Truth.
If you are a searcher it suggests that you are a chosen king, a functioning part of the KING of Kings (Revelation 1:6, 5:10, 19:16).
The word matter is the Hebrew word dâbâr which means “to arrange.”
Jesus gave us the dâbâr, an arranged order to follow in Luke 11:9 So I say to you, Ask and keep on asking and it shall be given you; seek and keep on seeking and you shall find; knock and keep on knocking and the door shall be opened to you.
- Ask = The Holy Spirit seems to always begin His work with a desire/craving to know.
- Seek = Investigate and explore. Our seeking often has its origin in a question that just will not go away.
- Knock = Expect the Holy Spirit to reveal and bring knowledge and understanding.
Father has blessed me to be inquisitive and a questioner and I pray that HE will also bless you with many questions.
In Matthew’s account of this parable he wrote For whoever has [spiritual knowledge], to him will more be given and he will be furnished richly so that he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. Matthew 13:12
Never be content with what appears on the surface, always be prepared to go deeper, higher, further than the obvious. Never be content with less because there will always be more until the Perfect comes.
After this Jesus then goes on to explain the meaning behind this parable to his disciples.
God is always speaking His Wordseed so this parable is always relevant and in present day context.
Click the link below to read the rest of this message.
OPEN MY EYES
By Preston Eby
When you uncover a thing you don’t have to bring it from some other place, you only need to remove the cover, because what is under it is already present. This book reveals to our wondering spirits that Jesus Christ doesn’t have to come crashing down through the clouds from outer space in order to be revealed! He is covered up, His glory is concealed in this world by a fleshly, religious mind; His grace and mercy are concealed by a harsh, legalistic mindset that thunders right out of mount Sinai, and is full of death; His love is concealed by false church doctrines of divine vindictiveness, judgment, damnation and eternal torture for billions in hell fire; His righteousness is concealed by human good works, self effort, and outward laws and regulations; His truth and purpose are concealed by natural, carnal understanding; His power is concealed by soulish religious exercises, rituals, ceremonies, programs and promotions. To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life! The Lord is the Spirit! The Lord, the Spirit, dwells within us! To uncover the real Christ has nothing to do with Christ coming from heaven, or us going to heaven — He must be UNCOVERED WITHIN US! "But... it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb (the old-order religious system), and called me by His grace, to reveal (unveil) His Son in me..." (Gal. 1:15-16).
The veil that hides Him is upon the mind. It is not something apart from us or away from us. The veil must be removed from where the Christ is concealed from us within ourselves, for we are the body of Christ, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all. The Lord is not hidden in some far-off heaven somewhere, He has already come within us, for Christ is in us, except we be reprobates — counterfeits (II Cor. 13:5). Those who are walking with the Lord in the light of this new Day know that it is not Jesus coming down from heaven that shall reveal Him, but the uncovering of the full reality within ourselves of Him who is our life. The veil has been upon our minds, when we saw Him we looked through all the trappings of religion, the traditions, creeds, doctrines, forms, and concepts of men who know Him only after the flesh. But when you know Christ after the flesh, as He was two thousand years ago, you can never see Him as He is.
Every believer should seek that God would open his eyes to see the glorious Christ of God as He is. The sad truth is that the hope of the Christians in the church systems today is to again see Christ as He was. They cannot conceive that they can see Him, that they can look upon His face, unless they see the form of the man who walked the shores of Galilee. Like Thomas the doubter, they stubbornly refuse to believe that it is the Lord unless they can see the nail prints in His hands, thrust their hand into His side, and gaze intently into His piercing blue eyes. Not having this Jesus of Nazareth to see and know, they focus on the baby in the manger. But if you return to that every December 25, and make Him a baby again, you will never know Him as He is. Christmas is an invention of the carnal Babylonian religious system! Furthermore, it is a commercial season, sponsored and kept alive by the heaviest retail advertising campaigns of the year. The so-called "Christmas spirit" is created each year, not to honor Christ, but to sell merchandise! That is not the path that leads to sonship. It is the path that leads to spiritual foolishness and spiritual stalemate and infancy.
When Jesus trod the pathways of earth He called twelve men to be His disciples. They followed Him, heard His wonderful teaching, saw the mighty signs and wonders, and enjoyed communion with Him as no other man or woman on earth. Yet Jesus said to these men, "No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him" (Mat. 11:27). Surely these men knew the Son! No, not at all! Not one of them knew the Son of God. "No man knoweth the Son, but the Father." These men knew Jesus, but they did not know the Son of God. Even in the days of His flesh He could only be known after the Spirit! To know Jesus after the flesh did not qualify as knowing Him at all. One could walk with Him, talk with Him, eat with Him, share His most intimate human experiences, and yet never know Him!
It was many years afterward that one of these disciples, John the beloved, was granted the revelation of Jesus Christ. Only then did John truly see Him as He is! Through the book of Revelation John has shared, in the limited measure any writing can convey reality, that revelation of Jesus Christ. What he really has communicated to us is the way, the manner, the process by which the revelation of Jesus Christ takes place. But it must become our very own personal experience just as it did to John. This revelation doesn’t come out of the manger, this revelation doesn’t come out from the shores of blue Galilee, this revelation doesn’t come from the resurrected One who appeared for forty days to His astonished disciples, this revelation doesn’t come from the pages of a book. A mere glimpse of this revelation came to Peter one day when Jesus asked, "Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?" And Peter replied out of an illumination that burst forth from his spirit, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God!" In that one brief moment the veil came off of Peter’s mind and he saw the man in front of him as He actually is. He glimpsed in that inspired moment the glory of His sonship in all that it means. It was A REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST!
After the Lord Jesus ascended into the heavens, He remained hidden behind the cloud that had received Him on the mount of Olives. When He came back in mighty spirit-power on the day of Pentecost to indwell His people on earth, He still, for the most part, has remained hidden behind the veil of the carnal mind, behind the selfhood of our natural life, and behind the traditions and forms of religion. But on Patmos, to John, there comes THE REVELATION to unveil Him! From this we understand that all that pertains to this writing of John is to reveal, to uncover Jesus Christ. All that has been hidden or obscured to our thinking, consciousness, understanding or experience of Him is to be plainly grasped and made a glorious and eternal reality. As the scenes depicted in the book are experienced truly and spiritually within our lives, Jesus Christ emerges within our reality demonstrating in and through us the fullness of His nature, character, love, wisdom, power and abilities. Understood as the revelation of Jesus Christ in and through His body, immediately the book is changed from a prophecy of apocalyptic end-time events, to a progressive unfolding of the very life, victory and triumph of Christ in His elect and unto creation! With the increasing light of the Holy Spirit of Truth shining upon its pages, we are entering into more and more of its hidden truths, howbeit, we have much yet to learn of the full and complete vision. But be assured that in very truth every scene within the book, of the woes, thunders, trumpets, earthquakes, conflicts, vials, beasts, etc., in all their sundry manifestations, serve but one purpose, and contribute but to one end, namely, to bring forth THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST IN ALL THE SONS OF GOD.
As this revelation comes to its magnificent conclusion in this great Day of the Lord, HE shall stand revealed, uncovered, seen, touched, experienced, expressed and manifested unto the unbounded heavens! "We don’t know what we shall become in the future. We only know that, if reality were to break through, we should reflect His likeness, for we should see Him as He really is!" (I Jn. 3:2). Reality shall break through! And we shall be like Him! "Wherefore, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ" (I Pet. 1:13). Paul writes of "waiting for the coming (revelation) of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall confirm you unto the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ" (I Cor. 1:7-9). There is a grace that is brought to us by the revelation of our Lord, it is a grace which will climax all the processings and travail, bringing us into the ultimate realm of His glory — the fullness of His abundant life. God is faithful! He is confirming unto the end all those blessed ones who have received the call to separation unto Him, to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth, to be conformed to His image, to put on His mind, to be sons who reign with Him in His kingdom. He has confirmed you, precious called one, unto full redemption of the purchased possession — complete salvation in spirit, soul and body — the unveiling of HIS LIFE!