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Friday, April 27, 2018

Revival Flames Consuming Fires. Facing The Fiery SON.

Walk into the blazing Son of God.

These are fiery sun moments.  Moments that require a baptism, a complete immersion into grace and surrender.  Fiery sun moments are bright and blinding, like the transfiguration.  Blazing sun moments are all consuming.  Nothing else makes a sound or competes for our attention.  Fiery sun doorways call us with the invitation to walk into the fullness of Christ. Fiery sun doorways are nothing short of a doorway filled with God's consuming fire.  These moments are life filled with God's visitation and moral consequence.  Moments when God is expecting a response.  A yes, equal to our relationship with him.  Equal to our knowledge of him.

When the demands of the Son of God land on us we have choices. The timing, circumstance and situation may be ripe for divine glory to unfold.  Yet, we can and "do" say "no".  The rich young ruler reveals God's willingness to let us walk away.  In the mystery of Christ the Father is painting with the hearts, mind, soul and wills of humanity a redemptive story.  We are a core part of that story.  The family that lives the testimony of worship and relationship with the Father, Son and Spirit, that is who we are together.  Yet each of us will face the blazing doorway of the Son of God.

Do blazing Son moments matter?  If we can just chose another time or season and get the same results why worry at all about visitation? 

On a cold afternoon in November a few years back, I went out into the neighborhood near the church to deliver Christmas turkey baskets and pray with people.  At one of the homes a very old woman greeted us at the door and invited us in.   My co-laborer and I went in and followed her through a maze of books, piles of boxes and into a room overcrowded with old furniture, fixtures and tv.  She took up a chair and we began to talk.  She was a sweet and wonderful woman and we loved talking with her.

As the conversation went on I felt the Spirit prompting me to share the gospel with her.  I looked at my co-minister and she agreed.  I began asking questions engaging her conversation and stories.  At each turn our talk was cut short.  She would wander off and tell us about strange trinkets and or pull out a charm or some kind of memento.  Then explain to us how it protected her or helped her.  Holding these, rubbing them in her wrinkled fingers, and looking longingly at them, we were unable to breakthrough with her into any meaningful dialogue about the Lord Jesus or the Gospel.   I looked at my co-laborer insinuating that I was not breaking through, would she try.   She did with the same result.  We offered to pray for her as we prepared to leave.  She declined.  As she walked us to the door we thanked her and exchanged warm words.


Valley of Fire State Park NV
About six months later I was out in the same neighborhood.  I saw her son out near his garage door and so I approached him.  I told him who we were and asked about his mother.  Visibly sullen, he was quiet for a minute.  Then he said, "she died a few weeks ago."
As I reflect on that divine meeting with his mom,  all I see is the mercy of God and the very real and remarkable visitation of God.  I see the firey sun doorway.  The consuming fire.  The invitation to complete surrender. I see that the Father is working in so many ways. After our hearts and our salvation.  I also see that visitation can come and go.  We can say no and end up missing God's visitation.  What is the point in shaking the dust off is vistation has no recourse?

The Bible is full of stories where God's timing is imperative.
The Christmas story.  Joseph and Mary are to report for the census.  Leading them to Bethlehem.  The entire Roman world was moving about, going back to their places of origen.  Amazingly, the prophetic word about Jesus being born in Bethelehem fell into place.  Bethlehem had a visitation like no other city on earth.  She closed her doors and left the Son of Man outside.

Jesus and God's perfected timing

Such moments are surely like a blazing fiery sun.  Zacheriah met a blazing firey doorway in the Temple.  His response caused him to be speechless for upwards of nine months.  When John was born, he again began to speak again.  Saying John's name.  I'm sure his perception of spiritual things, God's reality and presence, and his willingness for surrender were greately improved.

Moments that require a baptism, an immersion into grace, these are fiery sun moments.  The invitation is to walk in the fullness of Christ. It is nothing short of a door filled with God's consuming fire.  

When these moments, these fiery doorways, stand directly in our path, our choices make a huge difference.  A transfiguration moment, like a blazing fiery sun, is an invitation.  We sense the complete demise of our former understanding.  The slaughter of our present worldview.  The laying down of our cynicism and stoic postures.
Do you recognize these moments in your life?  Sometimes it is easier than others to pick them out.


In early 2010 a fiery Son filled doorway opened up to me.  A road of fire.

Veil-less walking with Jesus is always one step away.  Plunging deeply into the love and presence of God can be your next step forward.
In such moments we have a simple choice. Step or fall it's a fire of total trust and complete abandon. Losing yourself required.  These two, total trust and complete abandon, reach out to us from the fire.  Instinctively we our flesh knows a whole new level of dying is on the threshold.
It's the Spirit who reaches into our fireless and cold realities from the threshold of the consuming fire.  He reaches in separating our true desires from worthless things.  He reveals the measure of our devotion and resolute pursuit of Jesus.  This Spirit of truth measures all by our devotion to Jesus and to the Father.

We can take comfort and courage in this, Jesus, our forerunner, is the first to enter into the consuming fires of God's heart.  The billowing glory of his steadfast love are boundless and Jesus has entered into all of it.   He dwells there now as the High Priest of a new and living way.
In these encounters with God, these fiery doorways, we see Jesus.   Though we may not recognize him.  The choice is quick and one step away.  A step into fiery fullness or to falling back.  Back into our lifeless understanding and limited vision.  Back into the let down as who and what we are becomes clear.
The immersion and elation of the simple step in, is beyond anything we know or experience in normal life. Stepping out on the waters of fiery faith, we will be baptized in the creative, powerful and illuminating glory of God.  The coming of Messiah was a fiery doorway.  It still remain so.

“I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me.

Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.

But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, 4 and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years. Malachi 3:2-3 (NIV)



Jesus' visitation to the temple during Passover and the Passion certainly was a visitation.
Simeon
Anna
The announcement -  in the temple now prophecy and prophets of times to come.

You may say, "That sounds black and white and definitive".  Yes.  Scripture clearly portrays "visitations" that are not re-visted.

Somehow we've rounded the edges off our understanding of divine visitation.  In our minds it's another choice or option on the road to heaven.  In truth God requires us to walk worthy of our relationship and revelation of HIM.


The Messiah himself visited Israel and was rejected.  The corresponding covenant and worship were swept up in a prophetic change, a moment of visitation.  This moment of Messiah's life and work, was nothing short of a perfect time of overwhelming visitation.  His repudiation by Israel led to the complete destruction of the city of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 a.d.  The Lord himself did visit his temple and he was rejected and despised.  The Cross, Resurrection and Ascension started a New Testament in his blood.  And the old was wiped away in judgement.

Later, many found themselves on the "disciplined side" of the city of Jerusalem. Surrounded and starving, they did not head the warning of Jesus (Matthew 24); a last prophetic grace.  The temple and city were completely destroyed in 70 a.d.  Every stone thrown down as Jesus proclaimed (Matthew 24).  The visitation for Israel had arrived with the full wonder of the consuming fire and cleansing grace of God.  (Malachi 3   )  The new covenant erupted on the world like a fiery doorway; born in the blood of the Lamb.  Israel, God's covenant people missed the visitation.

The reality, our flesh cannot contain, uphold, understand, or walk under the weight of the glory of God.  Impossible.  Only by grace through faith can we enter into the blazing eyes and consuming fire of the Son of God.

Humanity is always on the threshold of a fiery burning sun, standing open like a doorway, staring into the consuming fire of the Son of Man. 
The blazing sun poses many questions that go unanswered.  Only one question gets clearly answered.  To whom do you owe your life and allegiance?  The call is a quickening moment, a moral visitation, a deciding moment, a division to bone and morrow.  We can hear the invitation over the fire, over the noise of life, over everything.  "Come Follow Me", Jesus says.  Step into the doorway. Come past the threshold and into the consuming fires of divine love and grace.  It is not the hearing that makes the difference.  It's the stepping over into the call of Jesus and into the Way.

The mind screams, "follow you into that blazing fire?"   The spirit exults at the invitation of God even while the flesh winces, seeing it's own demise.  The tangible real connection, the one deeply longed for, is now upon you.  So is the reality of being consumed.  Consumed in the blazing fire of the Son of God.

Translated from the mind of the Spirit, being consumed in such a way is the highest and greatest invitation known to humanity.  Joining the Trinity God in the consuming fires of steadfast love.  
In such visitations, many things are suddenly intelligible.  But only for a split second. 

Jesus is clear.  The picture of our life is clear.  All the dead things we are dragging along become clear.  The two dimensional teaching, the one dimensional prayer, the limitation of our translation of life and power in Christ, we see it.  We see it all for a brief moment.  It flashes before us. The fiery sun, the step into the doorway, the consuming grace and love, crystal clear and fully comprehensible.  Right before our eyes and heart and understanding, it looms.  Yet little is offered in answer to our immediate questions of the outcome, security, benefit, pleasure, joy or experience it leads to along the way .  And so many simply stand staring into the fiery doorway until it disappears.  And they do.

Peter experienced such a moment.  On a boat fishing with Jesus, he saw deeply into himself,  into everything in a brief moment.  The miraculous catch is being hauled in.  Rolling on the waves in the middle of the Sea of Galilee, Peter sees himself in the face of Jesus.  He came undone.  A righteousness beyond his ability came into focus.  A doorway stood wide open out on the lake in the little boat.  For Peter the real door was presented when they hit the beach with the catch.  When they hit dry land he "immediately followed him".  Through the threshold of the Fiery doorway, into a whole new life in the revelation of the Lord Jesus.  With that initial step off the boat onto the ground and after Jesus, Peter entered the consuming fire.

Everything seen in the fiery threshold starts moving the moment we step in.  This is visitation. This is a call.  Stepping into the consuming fire starts the motion, the blazing fire of consuming love.

Fiery doorways speak a thousand words all at once.  And each one seems to reach into the deepest parts of our heart, mind, soul and love for God.  The consuming fire is the deepest satisfaction we can know.  To step all the way into God in a moment he has orchestrated, is beyond what we now know.  Into the life that pours out of the fire, into our souls comes an infusion of grace, love and activation that touches every part of us in one moment.  Elation and fear vy for our loyalty and decision looses its ability to resist in the weight and beauty of divine encounter.  Elation. God is speaking to me.  I'm known by him.  Fear.  Where does this lead me?  How will this turn out?  Will I be as happy as I am right now?




Turning from the Fire....

Turning away forges a new path of its own;  a winding path around the mountain.  Something like a training and weigh loss program.   This new path will step for step open smaller avenues of the fire over time.  It will also open seasons of adjustment and trial.  Times of equipping in every good thing and in the perfection we lack.  We'll get more opportunities to fall headlong into the fiery sun. God is gracious and full of mercy.  He will deepen your knowledge of his love and character so you can spend trust in Him day after day.

Peter clearly fell.  And he was clearly restored.  A reminder miracle was repeated.  A miraculous catch of fish after all night catching nothing.  Jesus repeated the miracle for him.  A new invitation stood before him.  It was a visitation of the living Christ.  Could Peter let go of his own guilt and shame?  Could he throw off another layer of his failure and weakness and dive into the ocean of God's healing love?  He did.
We arrive one way or another because he is faithful.  Stepping into the visitations when he presents them before us, invites us into the heartbeat of God and the wonders of overwhelming intimacy.  Chose the Son now!  He will form the Son in us with patient endurance and powerful hope.  Our shortcoming cannot cut short the boundless victory he won for us.  When we are faithless, he remains faithful (II Timothy    ).  When we turn form the fiery doorway something different gets written but we remain sons and daughters.


Story:
It started happening to me on my drive home from work.  I put on some worship and headed home, a half hour drive, and would arrive home in a pile of tears.  The Lord would come over me in waves of love, revelation and his voice.  He overwhelmed me.  At first I felt unworthy.  Like I didn't deserve his affection. Affection so overwhelming and deep I convulsed and shook from my soul outward.  But I was so hungry for his presence that I poured myself into each moment.  As the Spirit spoke and revealed,  I found myself going deeper and deeper.  The half hour drive swallowed up in tears, worship, prayers, and thanksgiving, God was riding home with me.

The drives turned into mornings in prayer in which I was completely caught up for hours on end.  I literally had to pull myself back to food, chores of life and the day.  I felt so conflicted.  I wanted to remain there forever.  The presence of God being so rich, overwhelming, abundant, rolling rolling on and on, I did not want to leave.  I gave myself over to the compelling love and the invitation of God to know him like never before.

One thing was evident.  I continued into the fire.  It was always an invitation.  It was always a desire that led to an encounter. Going further and farther than I had ever known.  I wanted more and more of the Lord.  I wept hours on end.  I would stand back in my minds eye and look at myself.  Wondering what I would say if one of my kids came in or my wife still found me weeping and praying after hours and hours.

These moments are supported only by the trust factor.  By our knowledge and trust in the character and person of Jesus himself.  These fiery moments are a baptism of instruction and new learning in his ways.  Such encounters stamp revelation on our spirit.   They endlessly mark us with love and a revelation of the character of Jesus.  They are the Spirit of wisdom and revelation pouring over our heart, mind, soul and strength.

Inherently we sense the power and furry of the fire.  Intuitively we know that our "former way of life" will disappear in the flames of his burning eyes.
If we turn from the blazing sun, a road awaits us.  A path of training unfolds.  Training in the natural, subjecting your body to the pains of getting in shape, are nothing compared to the effort of forming Christ in us.  We turn aside from physical training, at least I do.  I want to be lean and more adgile but balk at the work required to loose the fat and eat well.  Weighed against the enormous price Jesus paid for us, and the grace provided to accomplish his will, the training path is much more challenging.  The Holy Spirit is so persistent and remarkable about getting us to a place of understanding of the changes and healing he wants to work in us.  So, I believe, we will more slowly acquire the revelation of his character and the trust required to walk in the way, if we turn from the fiery doorways, the Way before us and the Father's vision to form the image of Christ in us does not diminish. But it may take other paths.  The life and times of Peter clearly portray a much more patient God.  The life and times of Israel clearly portray the patience of God and his full hope of loving kindness for us who believe.   (I Corinthians 10)  Yet, we cannot push off or leave out of our understanding the incredible cleansing rebukes of the Lord to Israel.  Jeremiah's lamentation,
Rest assured the Holy Spirit will disciple us in Christ and bring us into his fullness.
II Tim 1:12

Are we under the discipleship of the Spirit or our own discipleship?

When we act as our own discipler, we find ourselves clinging to our abilities, our thoughts, our plans and our understanding of the way before us.  The only strength, wisdom, love and devotion that can carry us in the way of the fiery door is complete surrender and the power of the Spirit.

 

When He disciples us, we walk in the Spirit, cling to Christ and live on his every word.

 

To the pure in heart all things are pure?

The doorway begins with purity.  The Spirit is holy.  God is holy.  In Christ, we are holy.   The fiery door is really a step into wisdom and the realms of the Holy Spirit.

I have been pondering this phrase, "To the pure all things are pure".  What does that mean?  I think it means that as we agree with the purity of Jesus through the Spirit that we possess by faith in Christ, purity itself draws purity toward us.  The mystery and reality of wisdom is that it draws and attracts purity to us from the purity within us.  If we allow the Spirit to spring forth from within us, we can clearly identify and do identify the things which are pure around us.  To the pure everything is pure because they identify the pure all around them.  Wisdom calls forth wisdom. Purity calls forth purity.

The fiery doorway standing before us, who is Christ himself, calls forth purity from within.  From rivers of living water and wells of purity in Christ, our inner man and woman can welcome Christ's purity and connect with the fallen world. In purity's love and redemptive power the purity of Christ in us draws purity into our vision, action and choices.




The son of God is a blazing consuming fire by invitation.
If we seek to find our lives we will lose it.  If we lose our lives for and in him we fill find it and eternal life.
Numbers 6:26  God look you full in the face and make you prosper.

Walk into the blazing Son of God.


What are your thoughts?  
Comments?  
Thank you for plus 1's - so appreciated. 

Here are some related blog posts you might like.....


Never be lacking in zeal. Need Some Revival? To Hear God? Dial Into A New Frequency and Remember the Lord's Character


2)Time for a Healing Story - Distance Healing Testimony 


10 Keys to Praying with Power
http://jeffreynoldsonedesire.blogspot.com/2014/11/10-keys-to-praying-with-power-moving.html

10 Keys to Sustaining Supernatural Life 
 http://jeffreynoldsonedesire.blogspot.com/2014/12/10-keys-to-sustaining-life-in.html

2017  
Transfiguration! 


Look forward, eyes filled with Abundance, Boundless, Victorious vision in Jesus.  

 Get a copy of my Prophetic Review 2016 - Salvation's Mountain Erupting with Open Doors, Shifts and Invitation.   Encouragement, focus, wisdom and insight into the prophetic seasons of the new year.  
www.jeffreynoldsministries.com 




Thanks for Reading!   



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Jeff Reynolds   --- 

Brother Jeff


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