Hi all,
When
one of our sons was showing his future wife a family photo album, he
paused at the picture of a 19 year old girl in a red bikini standing
knee deep in the Miami beach surf. "She's hot! Who is she? And why is
she in our family photo album? he asked.
Barb,
who was looking over their shoulders explaining the pictures as they
flipped through the pages, said, "...You don't recognize her son?" Son:
"No, who is she?" Barb: "It's your mother son! It's me."
He
erupted, "Ohhh...yuck! I feel polluted! (making motions to scratch out
his eyes and tongue) I just called my mother hot! Ohhh yuck...." as they
all burst out in laughter. And then from an innocence that can only
come from a young man with no fear of death, he asked his mother: "What
happened!?"
His
future wife and Barb gasped and withheld the temptation to do
him bodily harm, and Barb quickly retorted: "3 sons! That's what
happened son! 3 sons!"
More about that visitation
Inside
we feel the same, but our body has changed around our spirit, as our
son learned that day. And while the body changes just as a matter of the
course of nature, being of the earth, our spirit which has been born of
heaven, requires focus and determination to grow in Christ. We are born
again as new born babes Peter said, and told us to desire the milk of the Word that we might grow. We determine our growth. (I Peter 2:2)
I
ended last week talking about how the Lord said He shares intimate
things with us and when we share them with someone, it grieves our
spirit and we wonder why. Don't think these are always deep secrets of
the heart, for the kingdom works on revelation from the Father, so even a
simple thing revealed to the heart when intended to remain in the heart
but then shared openly, will grieve the Holy Spirit, and our spirit in
turn.
For
instance, one time while looking for a job I saw an ad in the paper and
instantly I knew I had that job - we had just moved from Colorado to
Tulsa, leaving as a pastor there to get on staff at a church in Tulsa,
but I needed a job to fill in the gap. I saw the ad and instantly knew I
had the job.
Before
I interviewed I told someone about it and that I knew I had the job -
and my spirit was grieved, that hurt in my spirit my mind immediately
noticed. I still got the job but it had been intended by the Lord to be a
private assurance that He had given me the job. When I violated His
intention my spirit was grieved.
The kingdom revolves around revelation from the Father - starting with the revelation that Jesus is the Christ, and all else flows from that revelation. And consider this - each
revelation from the Father matures us in our spirit if we allow it to,
growing us as we respond to each by applying it in our lives.
The
line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little
people often quote from Isaiah 28:9-13 as ways the Lord teaches us,
according to Paul is actually about tongues and being moved by
revelation from our spirit. Paul quotes that in I Corinthians 14:20-25
about how personal tongues leads to personal revelation but prophecy is
for public revelation of the secrets of the heart (Larger context is
14:14-25).
The
Lord teaching us "line upon line", "precept upon precept" and "here a
little, there a little" is first about personal revelation in our
hearts, one revelation building upon the next. When we respond and apply
each revelation our thoughts change and our lifestyle changes and more
revelation follows. As Jesus said, "Value what you hear, for with the
value you place is how it will be measured back to you again, and to him
who has, more will be given. And if you neglect what you hear, it will
be taken from you. Mark 4:24-25
In that visitation there was more: The Lord told me about the events of John chapter 6
Matthew
14, Mark 6, and John 6 all record Jesus walking on water after feeding a
crowd of about 5,000 men plus women and children. Matthew records Peter
walking on the water, Mark records the fact Jesus would have walked on
by them had they not cried out in fear, and John records when He got
into the boat "...the boat was immediately at the land where they were
going." (v21) In other words, Jesus, the 12, and the boat were instantly
transported roughly half way across the lake of Galilee to the far
shore.
Many
of the crowd that Jesus had fed saw Him send the disciples away in the
boat and saw Him going in the other direction, up a mountain to pray.
Verses 22-25 of John 6 record that the next morning the people who later
got in boats and crossed the lake, and those who had walked around the
lake to get to where the disciples landed their boat, were very
surprised to find Jesus there, and asked Him how He got there.
Verse
26 records that rather than answer their question, He made a statement
that revealed the motive of their hearts: "Truly you aren't following me
for the miracles I did, but because you got your bellies filled." These
were the same people of v15, who after they were fed miraculously,
wanted to take Him by force and make Him king. Can you imagine what
would have happened if He told them He walked across the lake?
Jesus
is the same today as He was then, and in the visitation He shared how
it is situations like this where He will reveal their true motives to
themselves, and then watch what they will do with it.
A modern version of John 6
A
person in our church continually overdrew her bank account because she
liked to shop, enjoy going out with friends and being able to keep pace
with them as they were able to purchase items at will. She would ask me
to agree with her in prayer for favor with the bank to drop some or all
of the overdraft charges. When I suggested she curtail her shopping and
live in a budget, she replied she loved buying things too much.
Some
prayers were for favor with the bank. Others were "Lord give me more
moeny." She even came up for prayer at Wednesday night services asking
God to give her husband overtime to 'bless' their finances. That's
correct, she was praying her husband would work more to support her
shopping lust.
With
each merchant who was forced to refuse to accept anything but cash from
her, with each bank charge, with each argument she had with her husband
over money, the Lord was revealing her true issue of the lust of other
things - but she didn't want to deal with it. Instead of focusing on
her lust and pride, she wanted a bigger budget and kept praying for that
rather than looking at her heart.
She
viewed each bank charge as an attack of the devil against their
finances, and viewed the Lord as the adversary whom she had to convince
to give her more money. At no time did she change her focus to ask how
the Lord might be allowing her to reap what she had sown so she could
deal with her lust of things.
Where is your focus?
In
John 6 when Jesus revealed the motives of the people by saying they
were following Him because of what He could do for them, He began a
parable that was more difficult to understand than other parables. He
told me because they would not deal with their motives directly He used another way to expose their focus and motive. He told them they had to eat His flesh and drink His blood because He is the true manna.
John
6:66-68 reveals that many who followed Jesus stopped following Him
after His statement, their focus and motives exposed, they chose to back
away from the difficult, back away from growth. Many did stay with
Jesus however, because they were following Jesus with purity and no ulterior motives, not serving Him because of what He could do for them.
When Jesus asked if they would leave too Peter replied: "To whom shall
we go? You have the words of eternal life and we know and are sure you
are the Son of God!"
Peter
didn't understand what was going on, but he chose growth in faith, not
allowing confusion to move his focus away from Jesus. Remember, the
night before these events Peter had walked on water, but had begun
sinking when he got his eyes off Jesus and onto the wind and waves. He
wasn't going to let anything get his eyes off Jesus this time. But I see
I am out of room - more on this visitation next week.
Blessings!
John Fenn
cwowi.org and email me at cwowi@aol.com
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