You've heard the saying, "Deep Cries out to Deep"? Those words call out images of wells and cisterns deep inside us. They can echo through our mind body soul and spirit like loud cries in deep caverns. Reverberating off the walls, the sound seems to gain momentum. Gathering up into even deeper cries, longings and affections. Our seeing, worship and abiding in His presence opens even more doors in heaven and in our hearts. The wells of heaven are beyond imagination and deep enough to lead us in abiding through our life times and into eternity. Jesus is heavens deep cistern.
| Col 2:3 | in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. |
Deep intimacy with Jesus is our inheritance. Renewing moves of the Holy Spirit seems to be the Father's joy. So why are so many believers divorced from the depths of encountering Jesus' love as a continual abiding?
Consider these things....
"My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water." Jeremiah 2:3
Each doorway, outside the abiding grace of Christ Jesus, opens to deeper captivities of the heart. Soon we find ourselves digging cisterns that do not satisfy, cisterns that ensnare us. The heart and mind work the same way. The heart finding affections and worship of our new cisterns. We spend our effort and time maintaining them and sowing into them. The mind builds new supporting structures to keep us in the way. These are referred to as strongholds. They "captivate us". Why? Two reasons:
1) God always lets us follow our desires and then allows that way to reap its normal fruit.
Ex. Israel would not serve their God in the land he blessed them with, so God said they will serve foreign gods in a land not their own. Why are so many believers so empty? They are living off broken cisterns they have dug themselves. The natural can only satisfy to limited extent and can never satisfy or touch the deep cries of spiritual inheritance. We are marked with longing for deeper cries. All else falls short.
2) The world order (kosmos - controlled and ruled in fallen hearts and minds by the Enemy of our souls) is designed to captivate us and in turn shut off the deep wells of abiding love.
Ex. Beauty gets ugly. We walk in step with the powers daily and don't even know it.
I just finished a 10 day detox on the Daniel Plan. Really awesome journey. I lost 10 lbs in 10 days. Sweet. I feel better. Clearer. My skin looks more healthy. My body aligning to a more healthy way. But I encountered the powers of the food industry. Thank the Lord the government makes food processors place what is in the product on the outside for us to read. Eating well is difficult. The prevailing culture surrounds us with what tastes good and looks good but in fact kills me and brings me into disease. My addictions to sugar, dairy, bread and cheese were real. They yelled at my on occasion and I realized I was dealing with a power. Something in the world that was captivating me.
We are pounded on with endless messages that store up in our hearts and minds. What will make us happy? how we should live to be legit? In what do we find significance, purpose and deep satisfaction?
The Kingdom of God with its pathways perfectly call out the deep cries of the heart because of it's King.
While the world order is built, temporary as it is, to close off the cisterns of deep cries in the Spirit, the Kingdom when placed first will draw us into never ending pools of abiding grace. The eyes of our hearts drink up more and more revelation of the Lord Jesus as we abide in his presence. An enlightening needs to occur in us. We need breakthrough in the heart. A shaking has to occur. The deep needs to be broken up.
Ephesians 1:17-19 reveals the three parts that need freedom.
HOPE - know the hope to which he has called you. Prophetic encounter raises hope. As the heart is understood and clearly known by the LORD at a given moment through prophetic encouragement, it breaks free and begins to run again in hope. Hope is one of the deep cisterns of abiding. Love always hopes. It is an affection that we cannot let fall out of our hearts. Hope revives the cisterns of the deep and into that hope and new sight Jesus pours encounter, revelation and love in abundance.
Riches of Inheritance - When hope arises again new pieces of the glory are revealed to us. The riches of inheritance that are present in the followers of Jesus. You and I have rich inheritance in the heart of the Lord. When hope's cistern spills over into inheritance revelation and vision our wells go deeper in understanding. We no longer find ourselves clinging to a few key hopes. Rather we find ourselves swimming in the riches of inheritance worship, praise and intercession; abiding in the realms of heavens depths. We are part of the inheritance. Going deeper still, we find our inheritance in the heart of the Father as orchestrated in the victory of Christ. Jesus carries these inheritance victories as the High Priest of the Fathers Heart. They are ever before the throne of heaven. These inheritance visions overflow and bubble up in the deep wells producing encounters with his love over and over and over.
Incomparably great power for us who believe - hope and inheritance vision are kneaded into a dough that when mixed with a clear vision of his incompatibly great power and belief release streams and rivers of his love. This is where the inheritance and hope display the love of God in the world. This is where the smoke of the offering of love, lives laid down to Christ in adoration and worship, rises as a fragrance in the world. It speaks a better word than all the cisterns dug by our own hands.
So, consider Mary Magdalene.
This picture is of her fist vision of the resurrected Christ. Her hands, having just been reaching over his body, now in an instant hold nothing. Her face is captivated by the resurrected Jesus. Her mind and heart whirling. In seconds she jumps to him to hold him. Grabbing hold of the Resurrected Jesus in his new body! Imagine all the Spirit said to her, without words.
unknown author.
If we want to go deeper and revive the cisterns of the deep we need to break away from the powers. We need to revive the hope in us. Restore vision of our inheritance in Jesus and believe in his incomparable great power for each of us to walk in the fullness of our inheritance in the Lord Jesus.
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