Hello again. I have much to share in this post. It will not be the typical take on the Christian journey.
As much as I try to finish the series with 1 Peter 3:18 – 19 (Christ’s personal journey and the imprisoned spirits) new things continue to pop up, as in this post. I have some new insights on 1 Peter 3:18 – 19 you do not want to miss.
Jesus, Not a Life Jacket
Christianity is a journey unlike any other – a baptism into the person and nature of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Christ is not offering us a life jacket, but, a personal and vibrant connection with him.
Men and women go to great lengths and extremes to master challenges and adventures. Lives are given and lost to earthly endeavors for temporal rewards and praise.
Not so with Christ. The journey with Jesus is spontaneous, unplanned, and disruptive to the schemes and plans of man.
Christ is after the treasures we’ve hidden and secreted away in the deep places of our being. Neither he nor you and I will be satisfied until all of the land of our heart is redeemed and possessed in righteousness.
How can one put into words salvation, partaking of the divine nature, and entering into the promise and inheritance of Christ?
How is it possible to aptly describe the deep move of the Holy Spirit, connection with Christ, and the presence of God? And how does one explain the experience of undergoing intense changes in the inner man?
There is no easy or surefire way to explain the things of God.
There is a deep move of the Holy Spirit you and I do not want to miss. It is building and will be revealed in its own time and season.
Now is the time for you and me to press into the things of God, that he, might work the work of righteousness in our lives.
Don’t listen to the whisper, all the great things of God are passed, and things continue as they have for past generations.
No, instead, let your heart be entertained by the Scriptures and the movement of God’s Spirit, and see the handiwork of God in your midst.
The journey is long, requiring patience and endurance, and above all else, the receiving of “care” from God deep in our inner man.
“Jesus, come, take us unto yourself, cleanse our thoughts and motives, purify our inner man, do the work of righteousness in us, bring rest to our afflictions, rightly prepare us for the work of God. Amen.”
Christ, Personally Committed to You and Me
There is nothing in the natural realm that compares to the presence and Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. His anointing and Spirit reach to the “darkest of darkness” in your life and mine.
He is here to drain and cover once and for all the wells of bitterness and darkness we so easily drink from. Instead of feeding on our own wounds and brokenness and the temptations of others, he is here to give us new appetites from his special “feed,” prepared just for you and me.
Jesus knows the deep – seated wounds and darkness in our lives. He knows the injustice we have suffered and suffer, and has a unique and special plan of redemption for each and every one of his children.
You can only go so far in the vista and adventure of Christ in a corporate setting. Jesus has a personal “baptism” – adventure – for every one he calls and chooses to go deep in him.
Christ does not have traffic jams like those you see of climbers waiting to ascend the last few hundred feet of Mount Everest. Jesus won’t let you die of altitude sickness on his mountain.
He will make sure you get the proper care and treatment for the injuries, wounds, and brokenness afflicting you.
Each and every one of us have a unique fingerprint – body, soul, and spirit – and all the attendant wounds and sins and history that goes with it. Only Christ has the secret blueprint for your care.
Only Christ has revelation and understanding of how the enemy has worked in your life and mine to strategically and systematically wound and ultimately destroy our ability to receive care and embrace our true identity and destiny.
God is not asleep to the enemy’s plan. He is a lot more active in developing our rescue plan then we may think. And it is more than a life jacket. It is a new creation in Christ.
Jesus is doing a lot of “behind-the-scenes work,” to bring many things to fruition in his plan to cleanse and heal the whole man.
When the time is right, and only Christ knows when that is, he invites us, yea, he takes us where we would not naturally go, just like he did with Peter in John 21, and leads us into the baptismal adventure in him.
This is the heart of the gospel. To bring to death the hostility of the flesh in our members and be renewed in Christ, to new life.
Time, Change, and Distance
My friend, we only have so much time personally and corporately. There is a time limit to the plan of God and all things.
There comes a time in a Christian’s life when a lot of things come together and Christ chooses to take them deep in him. Sadly, not all Christians reach this point or choose to go on the journey with him.
Some camp at the feast of Passover – the new birth experience. Some go farther and camp at the feast of Pentecost – the baptism in the Holy Spirit. And, some have their sights set on the feast of Tabernacles – connection and union with Christ, coming into his rest.
Unless I be misunderstood, our adventure in Christ is not about attaining to an Old Testament feast fulfilled in the New Testament or things of that nature, but is everything about attaining to the fullness of Jesus Christ which Paul promises us in his letter to the Ephesians.
None of us really know what all of this entails or looks like. But that’s part of the journey.
Christ is seeking those he can unite in holy union. That is the vision of the baptismal journey in Christ.
A Little More About Me
In 2013 the Lord spoke over me through a visiting minister that he, in so many words, was going to take me on an adventure in his Spirit, among other things.
It’s hard to even talk about because so much is involved. But I can say this, it seems many things came together at the right time and the right place in 2013, launching me on a deep journey in Jesus.
Some of my journey is so deep and personal it’s reserved solely for the tables of my heart. As many of you know, it’s hard to describe the deep things of God in one’s life to another.
The better evidence is one’s testimony in living and relating. Ultimately, Christ’s work of righteousness ultimately bears fruit in one form or another.
When Christ chooses you for a deep work you are ushered into a place of grace and depth and expansion unimaginable to the natural man.
It is a place of little strength, where more and more of one’s strength comes from the Lord. A place of no turning back, just like Israel of old in the wilderness.
It is a deep and intimate place were Christ begins the process of removing the building blocks of life we created, uprooting the plants we planted, weeding the soil of our heart, and planting new seed and erecting new building blocks for our life.
Jesus Christ is the master builder. He knows how to reach those deep wounds and sins, expose them to the light of his word and grace, and bring streams of water to the desert places of our being.
I have found the journey long, at times hard, and at times difficult. But nothing compares to his cleansing and healing. The experiential revelation of God’s delight and love in you and me is a treasure worth Christ.
The journey in Christ is not for the faint of heart, as the saying goes. But Jesus would say, yes, you are right, my journey is not for the faint of heart.
Because, my journey will birth in you a new heart, a fleshly heart, a heart of confidence and trust, that you, my son and daughter, may impart to others who are quick to faint.
The Gospel of John, Chapter 10 and Revelation, Chapter 3 – the Marriage and Joining of Scripture is Coming
John Chapter 10 is a marvelous story of the heart of the gospel. In the parable of the sheep, fold, and shepherd, we see a beautiful story of the redemption of you and me.
This is not a story of the redemption unto salvation. For the story starts out with sheep who are of his fold. These are sheep who know Christ and know his voice.
The sheep have a relationship with Christ before they leave the fold. I liken the fold to the courtyard of the church. The fold is a place of body ministry, the body of Christ collected together we recognize outwardly as the church.
The fold is mainstream Christendom. It’s Christians in the courtyard of the church, protected and cared for under the light of the moon by guardians.
It’s a time of living in the types and shadows of the Old Testament more than living in the fullness of sunlight, the light of Jesus Christ.
It’s a time of seeing Christ in types and shadows, darkly as through a stained-glass window, half asleep – in and out of sleep – like the Shulammite in the Song of Songs.
(Remember, the “moon” is a type of the Old Testament – it has no light of itself, rather, a reflection of the true light, the New Testament. Likewise, the “sun” is a type of Jesus Christ. It is no coincidence the sun, moon, and stars were created on the fourth day of creation, comparable to the fourth dispensation bringing closure to the Old Testament, and birthing the New Testament in Christ.)
The courtyard is open to the rain and wind of the Holy Spirit. The sheep are exposed to the movement of the breath of God and partake of revival rain, summer droughts, and the winds and storms of fall and spring.
The courtyard is also an open place for the contraction and weathering that occurs in the winter time of our faith and walk in Christ. It’s a place of gathering, and openness, waiting for spring to come and hoping to be among that number that has a June wedding.
It’s the time of learning and experiencing all that mainline Christianity has to offer. It’s Passover and Pentecost at its best.
A time of learning, growing, and maturing in Christ through the resources and opportunities commensurate with the faith and Spirit in the church at large.
In verse three, Christ calls the sheep one by one from the fold and takes them on a personal journey in him. He calls them by their name – their identity and destiny – and summons them in him, the door.
The good Shepherd “leads out” into the journey and paths he has prepared for them. (One of the uses of the Greek word for “leads out” may refer to one being put to death, executed.)
And that is what Christ leads us into, to put to death the sinful nature and practices of the carnal man, to be renewed to walk in new life – the baptism of Jesus Christ.
This is the vibrancy of Christ taking possession of our entire being, executing judgment on the money changers in our temple. The revelation of Jesus Christ in grace to purify and cleanse sins, trespasses, transgressions and iniquities – to heal and restore us, body, soul and spirit – entering into the rest and promises of God.
And John 10:4 goes even deeper in Christ. Here, the good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, speaks of his intentional exertion to drive out, expel, eject and cast out the works of darkness and injustice in your life and mine. (See Strong’s Number 1544, Greek definition of ekballo, brought out.)
This verse depicts the heart of the gospel in the parable of the good Shepherd and his sheep. Christ goes to war for you and me.
The Last Days
And it only gets better in the last of the last days. Though the church of Philadelphia in the book of Revelation, Chapter 3, is an actual church at the time it was written, it also looks forward to a special season in God.
We know this because the seven churches of revelation at a high level reflect the growth and maturity and journey of the body of Christ in the New Testament age.
In verse nine of John Chapter 10 Jesus says he is the door and if we enter into him, we will be saved. He also says you and I will “go in” and “go out” and find pasture.
In verses three and four we see Christ’s action on our part in our journey. In verse nine we see our actions in our baptismal journey in Christ. How many times in our daily walk are we “in” and “out” of Christ?
In our baptismal journey, warfare and healing, battles come and go and we go in and out of Christ in the struggles of our warfare and journey. But Christ ensures that we can find pasture when we are “out” of him.
And now comes the marriage of Scripture. We see in Revelation Chapter 3 verse 12 (a church by the way Jesus reveals an open “door,” see verse eight) when we finally overcome and attain to the fullness of Christ, he will make us a pillar in the temple of God and never again will we “go out” of him.
Whether that day is in store for our generation I do not know. But I do know this, the Scriptures will be fulfilled, joined and married as one, as we with Christ.
One final thought. During Christ’s earthly ministry he could see the mountain tops of prophecy, which he left for us to read and study in the gospel accounts. But after his ascension, he was privy to the fullness of prophecy – seeing the completed plan of God in its fullness – which we have in the book of Revelation, and in the record of the seven churches and the ages they also represent.
Blessings, Drake
