What glory is waiting to get out of you? What fears of failure, weakness and falling short has limited you from throwing yourself on the King of Glory?
Open the Gates. Let the King of Glory come in. Let grace have its way in you. Shed the past in the fires of HIS unending love. He will meet you at the point of your desire.
OK so I am coming clean.
I have always wanted to be the champion of those saints who were willing to throw it all on the line. Stepping out in faith and going for that crazy thing the Lord had spoken to them. My understanding of the Kingdom is that it calls out reckless abandon in the Saints as the King of Glory enthralls them.
Why do we draw back? What inside us turns us away from open heavens?
I think I as I reflect on this, that I have sought to encourage myself. I have believed from the first that Jesus was the only “most valuable” thing I’ve had in life. And in so doing I have encouraged others to live for the highest ideals of the kingdom of God. To run after Jesus as the end and sum total of what living is about. To adore him and worship him with no constraints and follow him literally in this world, in this life, is the true meaning of life and living.
As much as I have set my life to encourage that kind of devotion in the heart of those I love and walk with, I believe I’ve only seen the curtain drawn back partially in over 33 years. Nothing has made me happier than the smile of a Saint that has been captured new and fresh with the love and presence of Jesus. When the revelation lands on them with joy and a smile, and the revelation knowledge that they belonging to Him and He to them settles on them, I rejoice deeply. Heaven seems to resound in those moments.
Never before have I had the opportunity to walk into “what I have always felt my life in His Kingdom to be about”. Today, I am standing on the threshold. And in seeing that doorway before me, I am completely humbled and emptied. It is not a way that I can affect. It is heaven coming to earth not earth reaching to heaven. As I stand before all this and “see into the heavens” the earth in me, which is such a disappointment, rises. As the wine press of HIS love tightens and constricts my flesh, I inevitably see the biter and earth minded rise to the top of my life. Again, my King scrapes away the dross and new life appropriate for the time leaps up and envelops my soul. The Father is completely good.
There is sweet wine on the way!
When that dross expresses itself among the people of the King I am undone. I am talking about the sin of not walking in the calling I’ve received for fear, the wine press that comes with it, and sheer weakness. I’ve not experienced weakness like I have over the past 4 months. The magnitude of revelation has dwarfed me. I have to admit that I have failed more than succeeded in walking in the revelation and in the new. His strength is perfected in weakness. This I know all to well.
Even perceiving heaven, I constantly want to move out of that place of weakness and into my strength. It is here at the foot of Jacobs ladder that I have been wrestling with the Spirit of the Lord. My flesh rising and screaming for prominence and my Spirit reveling in the true Son of God; day to day, I have fallen short. Thus my confession.
When I am really outside my anointing and the life giving love of Christ’s gaze, I see my actions and weep. Anyone close to me in ministry has seen my blemishes and I repent to the Lord for those distortions of his glory. Standing juxtaposed against the amazing revelation of the Lord and the desire to be one of HIS mighty men, dross is painful and disappointing to the core. Over the years I have delivered my share of dross to the table of the Saints. My heart breaks over this.
The revelation. I’ve tasted it. Here for a moment. Here for a day. Here for a weekend. Here for weeks on end. Revelating with the Spirit and lost in worship, I want to walk in it every moment. I’ve seen the vision and I want to walk in it. It presented itself as a door before me. I ran in. I determined to run with no hesitation; to throw off every hindrance and abandon myself to the Love of the Son.
Trying to explain the deeper things is like trying to order food in a different language. A phrase and a line but never the ability to lay out the whole order.
And then my own limitations and fears rise up. The wine press has kicked in and I have failed on occasion to deliver the revelation as delivered to me for my dross and fears. Trying to explain the deeper things is like trying to order food in a different language. A phrase and a line but never the ability to lay out the whole order. Kingdom calling is at times very lonely. Mercy and love triumph over judgment.
The culture of honor is the environment that releases the beauty of the King. Everyone benefits in an environment where failing is allowed and our goal is Christ glorified and his servants honored in their station.
So, the time is up. It is time to come clean and spill my guts. I’ve hidden in the respectable place for far to long. I said to the Lord, “I am willing to be your fool” and I have to commit myself to doing and saying and speaking what he has revealed. Foolish as it may be. Tough as it may be. I need to let out the reality of what God is doing and not hold back. I’ve been too interested in pastoral acceptance and the praise that comes with following the norm and the acceptable paths of the day. Frankly, those paths are dead wood. The tree has but a few green branches and we are living in the past. New revelation has come and the prophetic word of Malachi 3:1-4 is alive and happening now in the Body of Christ. There is a way that leads to glory and flows out of the knowledge of the Lord and is from faith to faith to faith. Time to move in and let it out. Time to end the hiding place. Time to give up the hiding place. I am going to continue to press into all that the Lord opens up. Run with abandon. He said he would meet us at our point of desire? All my requests are being answered as they relate to heaven and desire to see.
What requests are stored up in your heart? What heaven do you long to see?
For me, coming clean means really letting everyone who knows me know that I realize I am weak, poor, naked and blind. I’ve made more mistakes in ministry than in any other sphere of life, or so it seems. My failings here are so much to bear against the Love of Jesus and his sacrifice. Maybe they stick out more clearly because of the equal love I have for the Saints and the Bride. I realize that nothing good has drifted off my lips or out of my heart that had life outside of the Spirit and the ministry of Jesus.
It amazes me that the Spirit would use me at all. Do you ever feel that way? I know what he knows, all of it. And he is able to take that broken tattered vessel and in matchless grace sow seeds of grace, freedom and love into the Saints. Life is rising out of the ashes of the zombie. I’ve been short sighted and bumbled on God’s precious people. I’ve been short sighted and or answered out of my limitations and have misdirected the people of the King. I walk with a limp.
Coming clean – sounding like a fool…. yes and amen. I need to commit to the crazy and wonderful full disclosure of what the Lord is doing in me and through me to his glory. I kept things quiet. I need to step up and let some of it out. Here we go.
What about you? Can you come clean? Are you ready to live in the glory and let some of that glory out?
The Bride is transformed as each part does it’s work.
What glory is waiting to get out of you? What fears of failure, weakness and falling short has limited you from throwing yourself on the King of Glory?
Open the Gates. Let the King of Glory come in. He will meet you at the point of your desire.
