Hello again. I hope you are gleaning nuggets of truth from this series. It’s an honor to share with you what the Lord has sparked in my heart.
Christ, the Person
The word of God transcends heaven and earth connecting you and me to our heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is real, practical, and operative for our daily life.
It is with great anticipation and pleasure the Lord reveals his word to his sons and daughters.
Though Christ is complete in all things, I think there is a sense of emptiness in his heart to know and be known, just like we want to know and be known. Everyone is uniquely made and can never be truly replaced by another individual.
It is his passion for intimacy and connection with you and me, and the revealing of his person, that produces a vibrant, tangible and real testimony of the living Christ in one’s life.
Christ is seeking those who he can cultivate a deep and intimate union. It is a complex endeavor to bring an unsanctified heart into oneness and sonship. It is with great risk and cost. Only Jesus Christ knows the path to our heavenly Father.
I pray your heart is stirred to go deeper in the things of God. The church of Jesus Christ is rich in tools and resources for healing and restoration. There is an abundant storehouse just waiting for you in Christ.
The Lord has gone to great lengths through generations, circumstances, and situations to bring invitations and opportunities to you and me in this very hour.
No expense has been spared to provide the church everything it needs for a deeper walk with Jesus. He is faithful to make sure you and me have all the resources we need to finish the race well.
My prayer is you consider the deeper things of God, your place in history, the resources God has made available to you, and today’s invitation and future opportunities. I pray this series encourages and broadens your horizon on the vastness of the kingdom of God.
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I learned something last fall from a class I was taking, which is, clarity comes with action. And the biggest roadblocks to action can be perfection and procrastination. These are obstacles I’ve had to face time and again.
I also learned resources are found when action is taken. So, if you’re thinking about stepping deeper into the pool of God, Jesus will provide what you need and keep you from the whirlpools and undercurrents.
A Little More About Me – Truth or Consequences
There are truths in this series one won’t get in the morning news or in the evening newscast.
I was brought up on the news. It was my primary means of human conversation, so to speak, at home as a teenager and young adult. Even as an adult there were times the news had a strong hook in me.
There wasn’t much in the way of conversation in my home as a child. You may have had parents who asked you things like, “How are you doing?”, “How did your day go?”, “Are you okay?”, “You don’t seem yourself?”, etc. That was not my experience.
My father and mother were in such a tremendous struggle in their own lives they weren’t able to enter my life and tell me who they were and invite me into discovering who I was. The age-old desire to know and be known. And it is painful for me to think about how much I missed in this area as well with my children.
In the absence of being known and knowing, I spent countless hours in front of the television set. And the news was my primary staple.
During 2012 I was involved in a number of prayer ministry sessions and in between one of those sessions the Lord gave me a revelation about the news.
During this time period I was learning a lot about judgments, beliefs, and vows, and how we live those out in our life. Judgments, or agreements as some call it, are words and expressions we cast at ourselves or others, defining ourselves or someone else as such and such, typically because of a wound or hurt.
Beliefs are what we believe about our self or someone else which may be true, or, a lie arising from a wound or hurt. And generally, vows are the ways we practice our life based on the judgments we hold and the beliefs we entertain. And connected like a web are “expectancies,” where we cast the past into current relationships and situations and forward into the future.
For example, we “judge” someone for hurting us – condemning them for their actions (we embrace the offense, instead of grieving the wound and forgiving) – all the while “believing a lie” about ourselves, such as we are unlovable or deserving to be hurt, and then executing “vows” to never allow ourselves to be placed in such a position again because we “expect” the same thing to happen again in the future.
These practiced ways of living, the sinful nature, become deeply rooted in our identity and destiny and they can produce horrible consequences for you and me and those in our sphere of influence.
This world view of the natural man, how the natural man conducts his life in a fallen world, is cast into many of the things presented for viewing and reading in the various mediums used to capture our attention and hearts.
It’s the natural order of things in a fallen world. But Christ has a better alternative, HIM.
The Lord has been helping me shift my focus and attention more and more to the things of God, his kingdom, and the “news” from the printing presses of heaven.
Christ is teaching me what it means to “care” for my heart and the hearts of others. He’s changing me in the inner man, causing the appetites deep within me to be about him, his kingdom and his will.
Jesus Christ can change your appetites as well. He has a banquet table just for you in the richness of his word and spirit. And he, given the opportunity, can change the focus of your heart and attention from the affairs of this world to the affairs of the kingdom of God.
Write the Vision Large
Habakkuk chapter 2 says, “2 Then the LORD replied: ‘Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. 3 For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.’” (NIV)
1 Peter is Peter’s revelation of himself – his heart and mind – to you and me, of what Christ has accomplished in him. It is the Word made flesh in the life of Peter.
Christ has written the revelation of himself on the tablets of Peter, and Peter is running, heralding the work of Christ in him for others to come and eat of the banquet of Jesus Christ.
1 Peter is Peter’s opportunity to publish the “good news” of Jesus Christ in him through testimony and exhortation. And it is a pattern for all those following in Christ as well.
Peter is saying in essence to his readers, “You know the wounds, brokenness, and the presence of evil among your members – tormenting your heart and mind with fear, anxiety, depression, anger, resentment, hatred, bitterness, immorality, leaving you trapped in cycles of condemnation, despair and hopelessness, etc. – instrumental not only in wounding and hurting you but in wounding and hurting those close to you, past and present, “their time has come to the full” – the “appointed time” of justice for you is here, now, in Christ.” (1 Peter 1:13)
“Jesus Christ is here, now, present to intervene in your life by the power of the Holy Spirit and bring justice to you. He is here, now, to uproot the sorrows and bitterness planted in your heart as a young man or as a young woman, defiling your hopes and dreams, defiling your relationships with those you desire to love and those who desire to love you, and poisoning your thoughts about yourself, others, and about God.”
“Jesus Christ is here, now, present to speak new words over your life, a new song over your future, to release your true identity, talents and gifting’s from the chains of darkness into the light of God, healing your heart and mind from the expectancies of repeated failures and struggles, planting his word and forming a new nature in you like unto his.”
“He is here, now, present to give you a new destiny and another chance in him, new thoughts and attitudes and proclamations of his delight, favor and love for you, and grace in your weakness and brokenness.”
Peter saw the “vision” of God expressed in Jesus Christ. Christ chose Peter shortly after his crucifixion to begin the journey of going deep in God – putting to death the sinful nature of the old man to walk in newness of life – to fulfill God’s vision and plan for man in Peter and in those Peter would come in contact with, all the way down to you and me today.
Christ, Our Hope Today, or After Death? (Is the Gospel for Today or Heaven?)
I would like to close with your attention to a couple of verses in 1 Peter. In 1 Peter 5:1 and 5:4 most renderings (translations) give a sense of these events happening in the future.
At some point in our Christian heritage there was a “shift” from what the apostles experienced and wrote to what we see in the writings of commentators and translators concerning certain beliefs.
For example, the belief of a 2,000 plus year gap between Christ’s first coming and second coming. You see it and hear about it a lot in writings, sermons, commentaries and conversations.
People, for whatever reason, have come to believe the words coming, appearing, revealing, taking (in a few cases), etc., used in the New Testament in reference to Christ describe and identify his literal, physical, Second Coming.
The majority of these terms used in the New Testament letters refer to Christ taking Christians unto himself for a deep work of sanctification, not the Second Coming of Jesus.
(There is a second literal physical coming of Jesus Christ ushering in the Millennium, but it is not the subject of the verses in question.)
In John 21, Peter was the first to be taken by Christ on this journey (See Part 5 in the series). Suffice it to say, Jesus himself said he would not leave us as orphans but he and his father would come to us.
It is impossible to journey the journey of Christ without Jesus. Only Jesus knows the path to Christ likeness. In each generation he calls and chooses those to share in the journey he “pioneered.”
In 1 Peter 5:1 and 5:4 Peter is referring to the present time and not the time commonly thought and taught as the Second Coming of Christ. Even the translators of the original Greek have noted the “addition” of words in the Greek to give the context as having a future meaning (re: verse 4).
I invite you to look at the literal Greek to see for yourself. If we wait for the Second Coming, appearing, revelation, etc., of Christ to have the gospel work done in our heart, it will be too late.
I repeat, the New Testament is for today, salvation and sanctification are for today, and Christ is here, now, to do the deep work in your heart and mind necessary for your sanctification.
The same Jesus, who conversed with Peter in person, some 30 years or so earlier, as recorded in John 21, and invited him on the journey to a deeper life, is here today taking many into the deep things of God, walking them in the path he took, best described in Psalm 23.
And by the way there’s a very interesting passage in 1 Peter and it’s the reference in chapter 3 to Jesus preaching or making a proclamation to those who were disobedient to the preaching of Noah (1 Peter 3:19).
Is a possible there was a special dispensation of grace God granted during the time of Noah for people to hearken to him through repentance and forgiveness?
There seems to be a special connection between Peter and Noah as Peter refers to Noah in both his letters. What is it about Noah, Christ, and Peter, though separated by over 2,000 years, that brings them together in the writings of Peter?
I will look at this in the next post.
Blessings, Drake
(NIV) Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.Zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblical, Inc.™
