You are the Real Prized Possession in God's Heart - God is Our Friend

 In all the mystery and wonder of the Kingdom that God is building, one thing stands out supreme and true:  God the Father is longing and looking to connect deeply and set us into his presence and love permanently.  
 

Summer sky Redmond OR

 Jesus was victorious.  He perfectly completed the Father's desires fulfilling them with power and love and sacrifice.  The desire of the Father's heart is US.  YOU.  ME.  Humanity.  People.  

A Kingdom, a Bride for the Son, that as Iain Bradbeer says, "the Father's gift to say to the Son that he did well and his work was perfectly pleasing and good."  (EPIC Center Bend OR speaker)

God has no need of anything that is physical in the universe. But his heart is completely focused on bringing us into his Kingdom.  He wants to present a Bride to Jesus.  Jesus walked out his Father's desire and now the Spirit moves every day in that perfect work to bring people into the dwelling places of the Father.   

God is our friend.  
He truly is.  
In the work of Jesus every doorway in heaven stands open.  
In the power of his righteousness all will be made new.  
You and I are invited in....but it is so much more that that.

We are swept up in his grace and mercy when we say yes.  He has provided in Jesus for everything needed to perfectly abide in his presence and love.   Nothing is lacking. 
As we activate the Blood of Christ in faith our sins melt away into righteousness and peace and joy. As we arouse the works of Christ on our behalf with faith, trust and hope, all the energies of heaven's new and coming Kingdom begin moving in and through us.  

Power coalesces with his presence and the result are waves of abiding peace.  

You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. 

Isa 26:3

Believers can miss this critical point of activation.   The Kingdom of God is perfect in provision.  Everything Jesus welcomed into our fallen world came with the fullness of his presence, power and peace.   Every true teaching of Christ explodes into life giving action just like the resurrected Lord as we dwell in the presence and abide in His perfect peace.  Faith moves us from the barren places and dry bones and hope sustains us in grace that will always be sufficient for everything he calls forth. 

The secret place is the doorway to the unbounded wide open country of the Father's Heart and LOVE. 

It is a wonder to me that the Father says,

"But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you".  Mat 6:6

Typically for us, when we go into some kind of secret place we do things we don't want anyone to know.  But for the Father the secret place holds the deep wells of change for a thirsty and hungry world.  His presence is a palace of freedom and righteousness that never ends. He is LOVE.  And there is no law in all the universe against the love that flows from the Father of heart.

The Father loves to call us into the secret places.  Deep into his heart.   It is from these places that we learn to abide and overcome the world.  When we are victorious from these places of the deep we receive things like....

"To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it."  Rev 2:17

The Father Loves to dwell in and reveal mysteries

He leads us on a treasure hunt both to find our own lives which are hidden in Christ and to see Christ is us revealed as the Father's mystery.   The deep things keep crying out for deeper things!  (Col 1:27; 2:3)

He Counts Hair

In all the mystery and wonder of the Kingdom God is building one thing stands out supreme and true:  God the Father is longing and looking to connect deeply and set us into his presence and love permanently.   

The Amazing things is he has perfectly completed this in Christ our Lord.   
He opened a "new and living way" (Hebrews 10:19-20) that allows us total access to the Father's house.   Jesus ushered in a Kingdom that is ever expanding and from which we draw upon the riches of his grace and love forever. 

Isaiah says, 

"Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near." Isa 55:6 

The Father is near and calling.  What does your heart say?  

Run with the grace you have!   Give yourself to the lover of our souls.  

Summer Sky Redmond OR

Now is the time.  Today is the DAY to surrender to the deepest cries in your heart and go to him.   

Comments?  Ideas?  Testimonies? 

Stories of the Secret place?  

Let me know what you think.  We can learn much from each other in love.  

Brother Jeff

Jeff Reynolds. Sr. Leader

Capstone Christian Fellowship 

jeffreynoldsministries.com

jeff@jeffreynoldsministries.com

www.mycapstone.org

 

Knowing God: Learning the Ways of Patient Endurance PII

Abiding in hope is the natural state of the Kingdom coming and opposition and conflict should not dislodge us from the presence of the Lord and a deep abiding heart. 

Road to Emmaus by Eikonik

Endurance
en·dur·ance[ in dóorənss ]
1.ability to bear prolonged hardship: the ability or power to bear prolonged exertion, pain, or hardship
2.toleration of hardship: toleration of prolonged suffering or hardship
3.persistence over time: the survival or persistence of something despite the ravages of time.
Imagine a heart filled with freedom, love, and joy.   A childlike heart at rest in the Masters presence.    Now imagine that heart sitting down for lunch at a table with endurance?   What would be the common ground?  What would they talk about?  Would they naturally be close and feel a kindred spirit and "easy fellowship"? 

Endurance has been abiding in long suffering with hope for a while.   Endurance has been kneeling so long over prayers deposited by God they have physical issues.   Endurance can be gruff and resolute and present a hard exterior.   This is not the fullness or the true expression.  Love is the ultimate witness of anything originated in the Father's heart. 

My favorite apostle is John.  He was part of the inner circle with Jesus and he was there to see with his own eyes people rising from the dead.  He saw Jesus on the mount of transfiguration.  He was at the cross.  He was at the tomb with Peter.   He described his life in the Lord this way.....

I, John, 

your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom 

and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus, 

was on the island of Patmos 

because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. Rev 1:9

Our Brother.  Our brother of the heart after Jesus.  The one who rested on the breast of Jesus at the Last Supper.   The one who received the revelation of Jesus and the encouragement of the book we love, Revelation. 

John is the childlike heart and the endurance of the Kingdom in one person.  And so would all the apostles of Christ be as this is the normal way of following Jesus.  Jesus was completely one with the Father's heart and will and moved about the world in love.  Certainly Jesus was one with the Father in his heart and worshiped in all that he did freely and with the very childlike freedom.  He called the disciples to it.  Yet, we marvel at the work of the Cross.  Jesus patiently endured the suffering that brought down the sins of the whole world.  Jesus paid for our shortcomings with his own blood.  He opened the new and living way to the presence of God forever.   He felt what a forsaken heart can feel.  But he remained with the Father, walked through hope and fulfilled his mission in love. 


John "sees" prophetically and he sees Jesus in so many circumstances and revealed ways throughout his life.   John sits down in the Kingdom with a childlike heart and patient endurance.   He knows the deepest abiding love of the Lord Jesus in a wide vision and revelation and he has linked this with hope and patience.  He saw the rule and reign of Jesus coming into the earth through his life. 

John, the apostle, sits down at a table with a childlike heart that sees and patient endurance that abides in hope.  

• This world's fallen reality did not ruin him or his heart.   Why does it take our so easily?  (Our modern mindset is that all troubles are somehow direct results of the Lord. So we take offense at God and our hearts cannot abide in his presence.) 

• His life reality did not take away his ability to see the Kingdom of the King.  From Jesus' words we know that that requires a child like heart....to see the kingdom.   John the Apostle saw some of the most amazing things in the Kingdom of God.  He also suffered persecution and boiling in oil as well as banishment.
  And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Mat 18:3

• John has something squared away that modern Christ followers have all but lost.   
• Abiding in hope is the natural state of the Kingdom coming and opposition and conflict should not dislodge us from the presence of the Lord and a deep abiding heart. 

The Kingdom Jesus is bringing is kind to the childlike heart.  In fact it calls out love for God and experiencing the Love of God as the core focus.   We love with the heart.  We love first as we are first loved.   Loving God with all our heart is a permanent abide for believers. 

Endurance is a key quality in those who would accomplish great things with the Father.  Yet our understanding of how life works has clouded our ability to love God with all our hearts, to run free in the vast resources of his presence.  We are called to patient endurance in hope for all that we are assigned in the Kingdom to accomplish, while abiding in perfect grace and love with the Lord Jesus.

Hope is the fuel for patient endurance.    

So why do we stumble?  Why do our hearts loose confidence in his presence?
Here are a couple ideas.

1. We fellowship with the mind of the flesh  (Rom 8:1-11)  We sit down with a dead man or woman and seek life.   Not gonna happen.

• The mind of the flesh is death 
• The mind of the flesh cannot please God
• The mind of the flesh cannot fulfill the law of God
• The mind of the flesh is by nature at war with God
• The mind of the flesh is equal to all the plans, ideas and pathways we conceive of to advance us in this life that do not originate in Christ Jesus.  

2. We translate opposition as personal punishment - We are presence carriers - empowered ambassadors of a heavenly Kingdom.  We carry life change all over the world everywhere we go.   It is not always or possibly even mainly about us and our personal world.  

• We have the Mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16)
• Christ Dwells in us  (Col 1:27)
• We are Temples of the living God (I Cor 3:17)
• We are living stones (I Peter 2:5)

Opposition is natural as the Kingdom of God comes into a life, a household, a city, a region.  It takes patience and endurance to wait on the Lord with a living hope.  

3. We know we are in Him if we walk as Jesus walked.  Jesus walked in a heart of Love with the Father.  We can also.  Jesus fulfilled the calling on his life in perfect worship while confronted with immense opposition and struggle.   He overcame the world.  We can as well.

Overcoming is what Jesus calls us into.  Revelation 1-3.  Each city church was called to overcome in a particular way.  Reward awaited them for each type of overcoming grace.  


Patient Endurance is not a pathway to a wounded heart.  No in the Kingdom of God.
We can love God forever with all our hearts and be tough overcoming Saints who see the world change through his power everyday.


Thoughts?  Comments?  I love hearing from you.

Brother Jeff
Jeff Reynolds. Sr. Leader
Capstone Christian Fellowship
www.mycapstone.org
jeffreynoldsministries.com
jeff@jeffreynoldsministries.com