Our thinking is so upside down to the ways of the Lord…. We really have to think way out of the box to follow the Holy Spirit as He leads us up the mount of the Lord. He leads us unto the Highway of Holiness as written in Isaiah 35:8-10, A highway shall be there,and a road, and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for others. Whoever walks the road, although a fool, shall not go astray, no lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast go up it; it shall not be found there. But the redeemed shall walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
However, we must remember : For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts, ( Isaiah 55:8-9).
Remember, how the Lord was exalted above all powers and principalities but only after the way of obedience of suffering in the flesh unto death for the sake of love and obedience to His Father for us?
He went the way of rejection from His own. He accepted the ridicule of His own. He received the false accusations of His own. He rejected the power that could save Him from His death for His own. He established His reign through the hate of His own. He bowed to the judgment, our judgment of death, for His own. He took our sins, our hate, our misunderstanding, our rejection upon His shoulders. The nails in His feet and hands were the rebellion of His own turning away from Him…. His broken heart was filled with the rejection of humanity toward their only God.
However, He endured the cost because of the reward, us! The ones who hurt Him, lied about Him, yet He endured for the joy of the reward, us…..He saw beyond what was going on to the creation that would come from His side, His bride. He knew and endured and is still enduring humanity turning their back on Him and His ways and laws that were established by Him…. Yet, His love is enduring and everlasting.
This is the way of the Lord……It is the way of heaven, going through hell, knowing God’s promise is true…. The way of the Lord is lifted up as we go down, down, down…. It is His way of love. Actually the flesh is descending but our spirit man is on the ascending road to holiness…… Rightside up!
In the exaltation from men, there is death. Soon as we are exalted from men, the Lord is faithful to bring those who love Him to death so they can arise to Him…. As written in John 17:1, Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You.
The psalms clearly state that men that are after God will suffer persecution here….. Our spirit man gets stronger as our flesh is weaker.
Remember, the exaltation of Jesus of Nazareth being crowned with palm branches by the crowds….. Then He knew it was time for the Son to glorify the Father, by taking the responsibility of the offense against His Father alone. He walked the winepress alone. His Father saw the bowing or submitting of our King for love and then glorified and exalted Him to the highest place possible, the right hand of the Almighty…..
We must realize that our love for God and His name and fame must be our number one agenda as we bow to Him …. We live as His testimonies on this earth…. We are reflecting Him…. Not all will like that reflection….Jesus Christ was the visible image of the Father and look what man did to Him!
Mans exaltation, leads us into death….. We can not follow man and follow the Lord….. We will always betray one for the other…at some point…. Jesus many times left the crowds because they wanted to crown Him as King….. He knew their intentions were not about Him or our Heavenly Father, but about helping them out of the oppression of the current government…..
If Jesus Christ had gone the way of the agenda of men, usually representing the spirit of the world, He would have lost the Spirit of God’s anointing. The way that He walked on this earth, favoring no man, He proved His love and faithfulness to the Heavenly Father.
Man’s way leads to death and God’s way leads to life, even though it may be through death of our own will and all of our flesh for unto Him. If this is not a truth of God, then the second letter in Revelation chapter 2 to the church of Smyrna, would not be written for our exhortation. There are many saints that have been martyred because of their love and stand for Christ…..not bending to man’s agenda or Satan’s.
Now, today, we are about exalting the name of Jesus and His fame…. If fame comes, beware of our allegiance to keep Him the main Theme….. He is God and we are not….. So whether men acclaim us or blames us, our focus towards God’s purpose through us, should go on like a fighter jet…. We are on a mission and will not deter until completed.
It is all about Him, not us. All abandoned Jesus at the end. It was written, He was to work the winepress of God alone. Paul, also, was abandoned….. left because of the shame of the cross, he was imprisoned…. But look at what happened to our Lord, He was our Forerunner to life….through His death….. Paul was also God’s forerunner to path the highway to holiness by the revelation he received in prison by the Spirit of God…. We would not be as enriched in our walk with God without Paul’s abandonment from men so he could live abandoned to God and be His pen of a ready writer…..
All is right side up in God’s ways but appears to be upside down according to man’s….Men hate the reproach of the cross and all that brings. Actually what it brings for a man that endures- is the blessing of the Lord as new life is brought out from the death as it enlightens us to more heavenly revelation made manifest for the sons and daughters of God, the body of Christ.
How is it that unless some painters are dead their works are then honored and sought out at a high price? Paul’s writings were the exquisite paintings leading to the fulfillment of our Heavenly Father’s purpose through and for the body of Christ.
As written in Revelation of Jesus Christ, the two witnesses described in chapter 11, were about the Testimony of the Lord, not themselves…..When we overcome it is by the way of what is written in the word, not by what some men call the definition of overcoming:
And they overcame him(Satan) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony and they did not love their lives to the death, ( Revelation 12:11).
May it be said of us that when we leave a room, the fragrance of Christ is there. They may know, fear, think about the Lord and not us…. We are here reflecting the Lord Jesus Christ by His Spirit… Speaking when He tells us and pointing always heavenward, to awaken those that are not facing that way…. So they may turn and repent to the Lord today.
This eternal life is lived by us to the fullest, I hope….. but, it is not for us, but through us, people may see the power and love of God that is possible for them….So we die, so He may live through us.
How do we die? We die when we learn and live His grace is sufficient or His grace is our strength when we are ridiculed, rejected, falsely accused, persecuted for His name sake….. Then we live in the truest riches of a heavenly life….We have the companionship of the Holy One….. Our inheritance, the Richest Inheritance found in heaven and earth, our God.
Are we ready? Are we ready for His way -church of the west? Loose our rights so our God obtains His over us in through us to others?
To die is to live with Him forever and be known by Him as overcomers….We eat of the hidden manna. We partake of the tree of life. We rule and reign with Him over the nations as the second death holds no power over us as we walk with Him in white garments. The greatest reward for us is that we have the name of our God, His city, the new Jerusalem upon us and we have His new name…..Soooooo… What does this look like?
When Jesus healed the blind man, the man was cast out from the temple, but then believed in the Lord…. He had His sight, natural as well as spiritual….. He calls us out with Him…. Remember in Hebrews 13:13, it is written, therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach.
This has been the way with God from the beginning of the written word after He cast out Adam and Eve from the garden….. He called out Noah, Abraham, Moses. As we read the Word and learn the patterns of the Lord, we then can join His way in delight….. but this way is not the way of the crowds…….
Moses, God’s man, went also outside the camp, to meet with the Lord in the Tent of Meeting…..This is a good thing…. as the ways of the Lord are upside down to us, but right side up to Him.
Jesus was anointed for His death and burial and the crowds were exalting Him….. His death on the cross was all about new life and rending captive death upon those that misunderstood Him.
So now, we live in Him and this is the way of the Lord….. We die to live and live to die more, so more of His life might live in us so that all may know the Lord Jesus Christ as He shines from within us. So we may be found having no righteousness of our own, but are only found in Christ’s righteousness.
I am the true vine and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away, and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it might bear more fruit.
You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.
If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
( Remember, it is written John 12:31, Jesus said, now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.) Hmmmmm……This puts new light on as we meditate on verse 6 of John 15—-If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered…….
If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples, ( John 15:1-8).
This is the way of the kingdom…… Lay down to rise in God’s greatness….. As He is glorified by us then His glory is revealed in us…. As we lay down again and again and again, He is risen up again and again, by the exceeding greatness of His power to those that believe ( paraphrase Ephesians 1:19).
Exodus 27:20, And you shall command the children of Israel that they bring you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to cause the lamp to burn continually.
Olive’s pressed are symbolic of the sufferings of Christ or us suffering for His sake, His body…. As written by Paul in Colossians 1:21, I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh, what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church…. If this was not the way of Christ, then there would be no martyrs or witnesses suffering in the past, or present. This is the way of God and is right in His eyes so it will continue until the end of this age. It takes Christ in us to suffer and pray for the unrighteous to bring them to righteousness in Christ.
Remember in Isaiah and Revelation, it is written that He worked the winepress by Himself? Now we grow through the winepress, but He is with us. We aren’t alone I can guarantee if He wasn’t in us, we would not go through the winepress or the way of the cross…..We would be running the opposite way!
When Peter denied the Lord, Peter had to grieve over it alone….. Now when we miss the mark of the high calling, He is with us and encourages us to keep the mark, keep going….Peter then many years later, was crucified upside down for the Lord’s name….. But Peter was not alone, Christ was very big in Him to strengthen Peter to lay low for His name….
Pressed olives….. What is the hidden meaning regarding the parable of the ten virgins?
Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish. Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept.
And at midnight a cry was heard: Behold, the bridegroom is coming; so go out to meet him! Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out. But the wise answered saying, no lest there should be enough for us and you; but go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves,( Matthew 25:1-9).
Grapes and olives are made to oil or wine from crushing them to a pulp. Then the skin is removed….. Well, to die to this world is embracing the life in the kingdom of heaven…..It comes by the winepress of God…..He prunes and prunes and prunes until He sees the outcome He wants….. His Son in the reflection of the wine or oil…. The purification of the water pots in chapter 2 of John….. He changed the water,—-the word in us to wine for the Master…..
We want to be made wine, ready for the bridegroom to return. So when the Master calls Him, we are ready for Him…. Let us be wine….. our flesh is crushed by death, but we are so alive unto righteousness in Christ that we hear His footsteps returning and the pounding of His heart beat. Let us understand the signs of the times we are in and what He is about to do….Let us have the mind of Christ and become the sons and daughters of God maturing from childhood.
Are we ready? And while they went to buy the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also saying, Lord, Lord, open to us! But he answered and said, Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you.
Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming, ( Matthew 25:10-13).
What is the meaning from the Holy Spirit in the exhortation of the five foolish virgins…. They knew the Lord but allowed the world to put them to sleep. Therefore, withholding the Holy Spirit from creating the throne inside of them for the King of Kings…..
It is written, He knows His own….. His own is one in the Spirit with God. These other wise virgins allowed the Spirit of God to do His work within them making their fruit into the special wine for the Lord at His coming….. Death leads to life in the way of the kingdom…….Lay down in His kingdom and you are raised in His likeness over and over again in greater measure….
Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends, ( John 15:13).
Our choice is daily to be known by Him or not…..Our choice is daily to pick our cross or not….. Our choice daily to be filled with the Spirit in communion or prayer with Him or not…. Our choice to obey His word or not…..
May we see the smiling face of our King when He acknowledges us on His Day! We will reap what we sow!
Selah!
