No One Can Love You Like I Do - Secrets of the Unseen Things

 

 No one can love you like I do.

In the competitive world we live in daily, which is more a mindset, the phrase above reads  "our love for God is a competition".   Nothing could be further from the truth.   The truth is Jesus cannot be loved by any other person on the planet the way you, in all your unique identity and gifts, can love him.  

"I have the attention of the King of all the nations."  IHOP worship

 Believers today are steeped in an earthly mindset.  The unseen hardly registers in their understanding.  Heavenly identity is what is unseen in the realms of the world.   The hope of
Christ is that the "Christ in you, the hope of glory" would be "seen" in the world.  Things of the Kingdom work as an opposite, a foil.  The Kingdom moves from the unseen to the world stage by faith.   No one can love Him like you can love him as a sign and witness of his "eyes of fire". 

Paul said,  2Cr 4:18

"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

 An earthly mindset sets Christ into the power structures of the world we know.  The Christ that is known by wisdom and understanding through revelation is "not of this world", "over came the world","Lays down his life for his friends".    When you and I love him like no one else in the world, as not of this world, as one who overcomes the world, as laying down our life for His friends, the most unique love is expressed.  The unseen takes shape in the world. Gets seen.  

No one can love him like you love him.

When we see Jesus in Revelation 1:14 "his eyes were like blazing fire".   Many latch on to this and attach judgement and hell to it.  Jesus broke judgement with grace and mercy.  Repentance and his patience pours rivers of mercy and love by grace through faith into the broken streams of the world.   The eyes of fire are about a love inflamed and lit on fire.  The eyes of fire are about the Heart of the Father.  A heart that knows no boundaries in restoring you and I to love and connection with HIM.   Through faith in the powerful and amazing work of love accomplished by Jesus, captives and prisoners, already condemned, are set free.   These are the days of grace and mercy.  The work of Christ is an ever flowing stream of mercy and love.    Jesus went to the cross, through the world, with the passionate overcoming love expressed in eyes of fire.   Why?  Because NO ONE can love Him like you do.      

His eyes of fire, they consume me in his love.    

The world, which is clearly seen, tears away at the heart and soul with such violence.  The roadway of the Kingdom is to be a people who love with all our hearts in the unseen and war with love in the realms of the earth.   It is a narrow way.   It requires revelation to stand and deep and abiding connection.   The revelation that can set your heart free and lodge the mind of Christ in you more deeply is.....NO ONE can love him like you can love him.   You are the one love he is after.

Jesus longs for the deepest connection possible.   The Father created each of us with crafted handy work.  Every good thing abiding in his image can respond in love in such a way that mouths are shut for the beauty of his love.   LOVE him the way you were made.   Forget the 1000 voices that say you don't have something so valuable about you that God himself would die to have you back in connection with him.  

Love him like no other.  That mouths will be shut for the beauty of his love.

No one can love him like you love him.   The way you sleep.  The way you smile.  The way you dream.  The way you sing.  The way you laugh.  The way you rest.  The way you run.  The way you play.  The way you talk.  The things you say.   The way you hope.  The way you shine.   NO ONE can love him like you love him.   

There is a place in the heavenly realms, where the Father of Hearts abides.  A place that is crying out in agreement with the Heart of Jesus and the Voice of the Spirit.  All of heaven, every creature, creation and thing is in agreement.   The Father wants to know you in love like NO ONE else can love him.   In truth, no one else will ever be able to love him like you do.  

Align yourself with the unseen and start loving him like no one else can on earth.   We find our life hidden in Christ in the heavenly realms.  The earth will not have much encouragement or comfort for you if you set your life to love him like no one else.  But the mystery of the Love of God will be revealed in the earth through how you love him.   

The earth mindset is focused on power.   The Father, in his beauty and true power, focuses his Kingdom on LOVE.   Find the power of love deeply by getting a hold of the truth that 

NO ONE can love him like you love him.   

Pursue the Lord for no other reason than to pursue the Lord.    Remarkably, the greatest power in the seen and unseen realms will overtake and overcome all obstacles in and through you.  

LOVE REMAINS FOREVER

Let me know your thoughts? 
Jeff Reynolds

jreynolds@mycapstone.org

www.mycapstone.org 

How Do We Break Into the Deep Places of the Heart? A Heart and Mind That Are ONE in The Spirit

With all I have experienced in the past 3 years, I find it a bit frustrating that I cannot fully explain things and most important really help people find their way into these pathways. 
I may have helped a few, but not as many as my heart wants to embrace.  

I have never experienced the depths of the Lord to this extent.  Never felt the despair in my soul over my condition in the Spirit like this.   I have never seen such wonders and peered into heaven so regularly.    I have wept for hours.  Worshiping for hours with encounter after encounter, I would be laughing and then convulsing with the deepest soul realization of Jesus I have ever had.   

All my life I have been focused on following Jesus.  Granted.  Some seasons carry more zeal than others.  One thing has been clear to me, I am a follower of Christ.   Yet, there have been seasons where the Spirit opens my heart and life up so deeply that I feel as though I was never a follower of Jesus at all.   But I was and have been.   In comparison the new understanding makes it seem as though I never knew him at all.  

Something is stirring in this country and the world that takes us away into revelation and understanding of the LORD that is not book learning, studying or earned.   It is a grace from the Holy Spirit.  An overcoming wave of glory and power that sweeps through your soul and spirit like a Tsunami.  Literally tearing away everything that does not find allegiance to the Spirit's righteousness.

I have been walking in these places for years now.   And still I have a hard time explaining what is going on.  

One thing I have noticed.   I have boundaries in me that my soul and flesh want to keep.  The Spirit of God wants to decimate each of these with freedom, love, and peace.  

I learned about the boarders years ago.  While traveling in Japan on mission the Spirit was doing some incredible things.   In one church everyone was on the floor after ministry.  They were lying around the room toppled in the Spirit.   I actually thought it was something they learned to do.  You know.  A cultural expression of their fellowship or something (uh, can you say fleshly and earth perspective?).   The first thing that happened in that meeting was a whole family fell over about 15 feet away from me as I waved my hand.  

I had an inner conflict with the Spirit.  Boarders that I was afraid to allow to be crossed.  Fears that were lodged in me.   Fears which I justified, nurtured and upheld.   Misconceptions about the Holy Spirit, religion and brokenness. 

I felt the fear and the boarders clearly and was confused.  My mind and my heart were not one.  And this is what I have come to understand about limiting the Holy Spirit.   Both my mind and my heart are places for incredible freedom and love, but fear and a desire to control my experiences with God limit my experience of HIS fulness. 

I did make a heart commitment.  Nothing was going to ever hold me back from experiencing all the Spirit had for me.  I was no longer going to allow fringe people or actions that may offend my sense of order hold me out from experiencing the Spirit in fulness.   

My heart and my mind have often been out of synch.   When this occurs I find my heart takes the brunt of it.   My mind can shut down the ongoing flow of revelation and joy in the Holy Spirit.   My mind can hold me out because of the crazy things I see or hear.    

Here are a couple things I have found to help me keep pressing in regardless of what is going on around me. 

1) Focus on the Lord Jesus and on engaging him as deeply as possible.
2) Focus on the heart first in any move of the Spirit.   Feed the heart first with first love and deep desire.  Make some lists.  What do you want to know, find and hear from God. 
3) Learn the ways of receiving as a child and trusting the Spirit to let you know when something is not right.    We were never our best discipler.   The Spirit is capable and the Heart of the Father protective enough to cover us with love and lead us to life. 
4) Focus on learning to abide with the Spirit and listen.  Capture revelation and act on it.  
5) Challenge your mind with your heart.   If you lack zeal your heart is not working right.  If you lack joy your heart is missing something vital.   Challenge your mind with your heart condition and then let the Spirit do some heart surgery. 
6) The heart needs some outlandish desires to stay alive and thrive.  The Spirit is accommodating.   Find your heart desire and put it before the Lord.  NO matter what it is.  He is a loving Father who believes in us and plants good desires in us for him and his Kingdom. 

Often the heart has been shut down by the mind.   Remember.  The first and greatest commandment gives the divine order.  Love the Lord Your God with all your HEART - the heart is first.   

With Love and Joy in Jesus,

Walk in the Power of the Spirit and Love of Jesus with the Father's Heart. 

Jeff
Comments?  Ideas?  

jreynolds@mycapstone.org
www.mycapstone.org

Bring The Fire With YOU - worship from a different starting point

I am living like a homeless man.  Searching for words like scarps of food.  I want to help people "join the fire" of what the Spirit is doing in worship. 

change ONE. 
We have to bring our own flame to the celebration.  
 
 So much of the culture we have come to know as worship focuses on us.  The table is set and we expect to get something.  Something we like the taste of.   It focuses on what we gain, we experience, we like, we prefer in a worship celebration.  We spend most of our efforts on all the things seen and have limited understanding or experience delving into the vast landscape of the unseen and open heavens worship.  

 This "us focused" mindset delivered up Sunday after Sunday is linked more to earth than to open heavens.  It is so prevalent people don't know what to do when they encounter a group of people who minister to God in worship.    Fear seems to be the response.   People have no idea what is going on when a whole room of people are engaging God deeply and in love.  The heart is read and it comes up empty.  There is little love for God in it.  So, when the entire atmosphere is swept up in the Holy Spirit's voice, fears are exposed.    Fear and control go hand in hand.  Fear and the Kingdom do not.    When worship has far to much earth attached to it people think they are experiencing God when it just might be an "agreement of the soul".

 Weeks ago, I spent the whole worship celebration on my face in tears.   The Spirit was speaking volumes, the deep things were ringing in my heart.   Heaven enveloped the whole place.  The Lord's voice was clear, resonate, everything moving with him. 

I have been on my face a number of times now in worship.  I've had opportunity to be foolish in the presence of the Lord.  At this point, I have too many stories to turn back and act as though things are not different.  It would be foolish.   

What is this thing that is happening in Worship?

I was watching Austin City Limits on a Saturday night.   Fun was the band.   The lead singer said, "There is something special going on here tonight.  We're so glad to be part of it."   I sensed it myself.  A connection was happening in the environment.   The band played and people were moving with them.  A unity filled the atmosphere.   Something was sweeping everyone up into a common taste, sound, feeling.

People were joining the fire.   But it was a soul fire. 

Worship is not soul fire, but many worship settings mistake soul fire for open heavens and the wisdom and revelation of Jesus to the eyes of the heart.  


Change TWO - A shift has occurred Something shifted.  I wondered at first if it would remain.  If it was a passing season?  If it would leave us with a different worship team, a leader going away or changes that usually signal a change in the worship atmosphere.   It didn't leave or change.  It's going on 2+ years.  It grows deeper and deeper.   It isn't linked to the quality of our music either....we are a small fellowship with youth worship leaders and teams.   

Through many changes something stayed constant.     Unity fills the atmosphere, heaven opens and we move with the fire.  


Change THREE - Unity/ agreement are the heart foundation

This past week as we were moving in that atmosphere, I felt compelled to take a break and write some notes.  I want to unpack this so that more and more people can move into the incredible blessing of what the Father is doing in worship.

When all of us start seeing the Father at the same time......

 We are bringing our own fire.   Believers carry a revelation of the Lord.  Their understanding of Jesus is revelation based.   He has revealed to them a certain depth of knowledge and wisdom.   We worship from that place.   Spirit and Truth worship is a worship that matches the knowledge of the eyes of the heart.   It is a link up with understanding in the believer.  Believers carry identity and understanding of their heavenly Father and worship from that place of understanding.   WE carry our own flame.   We worship from a place of revelation of Jesus.  

All the trappings, bands, music, lights, camera, action, ride on one truth.  Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God and he is the presence.   Worship is activated at the point of understanding and revelation of the LORD.   All else is culture, feeling and affirmation of earth.   Heaven affirms the glory and power of Jesus Christ.  Heaven agrees with Jesus.  Worship is connection and real time experience of the Heavenlies and the Heart of the
Father.   

Bring the fire with you

The fire of faith.  The fire of identity, heavens identity in you, through you, to Christ.  Bring the mind of Christ to worship.  Bring the Christ in you to worship.   Heaven resides in us.  There is fire in us.   We each bring a flame to worship.   The key to worship is in the Spirit's leading in agreement.   Our hearts agree in unity of revelation.  That the Father's heart is in us, that Jesus is the High Priest leading worship and that we carry the flame of his presence everywhere all the time.   


Bring the fire with you and let it out with abandon, passion and truth.  

Heaven is waiting to agree with you.  

As always please let me know your thoughts.

Jreynolds@mycasptone.org 
www.mycapstone.org
facebook.com  

The New Breed of Disciple - Treasure Hunting Presence Lovers

The Heart is the battle ground.   Not that is hasn't always been.  

And in the battle fields of the heart the Holy Spirit is jealously stripping away everything that hinders holy affection and love for Jesus.  I believe a move of the Spirit is taking place that is dramatic in it's proportions and very "internal" in its fire.   

People are coming into contact with this internal fire and are flooded with a choice.  Or choices in a string or series of cascading fires.   Will we really surrender our hearts to the extent to which the Spirit is calling and place first love as our first priority?    That seems to be the Spirit's priority.  And, imparting a righteousness that comes with "the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him". (Eph 1:17)

This is not a trial.  This is a turning point.   This is not a season of cleansing.  this is a retrofit of righteousness.   The process,  if looked at as a trial will overwhelm every instrument learned to date to "cope" by means of worldly wisdom or comfort.   I believe that is a large part of the Spirit's work in all this, return us to a horizon filled with Christ.   God is looking to be our only comfort, security, strength, and love.   The Father's heart is jealous and the Bride of his Son has wandered from the passion and zeal that shaped her heart in the beginning.   

"But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first."  Rev 2:4

The new breed of disciple being called out is a TREASURE HUNTER.  Touched by the Spirit, they are experiencing an overwhelming new reality of the presence of God.   They are seeing into something they never understood before.  The presence of God is a never ending palatial invitation to the heart forever.   An invitation from the Father's heart to live in first love and know God in the fulness of Christ.   

"in whom are hidden ALL the treasures of wisdom and knowledge."  Col 2:3

 What are you hungry for?

So many believers are living in a state of survival.  They have no hunger.  They've decided scarps, left overs and fast spiritual food is enough.   

The heart says something different.   We were made for so much more.   The heart can't survive.  It gets sick without drinking in the deep waters of the love of God.   It was made to hunger and thirst.   The presence of God satisfies the heart like nothing available in the world.   Because when the heart drinks in the presence of God in freedom, joy, hunger and hunting it finds the heart of the Father open, receptive, and pouring out the deepest love known on earth.   

Treasure hunters – The new breed of Disciple - Presence lovers – expanding from the inside out.   Not a breed of believers looking for something to come their way.   The kind of disciples that toppled the Roman empire were carrying presence with them.   It was all suffiencent grace and power to overcome everything brought their way in the world.  

So many need a breakthrough.

·         It’s not that we didn’t see God in the past.   It’s that He is the God of the present.  The NOW.  And what we have to do is live from the heart now.   It's not that we didn't have encounters with his love.   It's that we have to live it – transformed inside – in the ways of God.  

Hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge – IN Christ Jesus, are for the hungry.  The Treasure Hunters.   God honors the habitations of the hungry. 

Where is your heart?   Are you sensing the move growing around you?   Are you sensing something stirring in the Spirit?    

When the Lord falls on you.  Drink it all in.  Let the Spirit lead you to new and deep wells of presence.   

OFFENSE - The Only One That Get Hurt Is....

 What if one of the "ways of God" was to bring us to a place where we were forced to make a choice?   

To choose to be offended. taking up the offense in our hearts or....
To choose to forgive, grant forbearance and love?  To choose his Kingdom, faith, hope and love, which believes all things? 

So many believers are offended.  Offended at God.  Offended at one another.  Offended at churches, denominations, Christendom in general.   Offended at history.  Offended at "the way they were treated".   Seems as though the list never ends.  

This captivity eliminates the greatest blessing the world has every known.  That in Jesus every brokenness is healed.  That in Jesus we are called into being the fragrance of real life, truth and love.   We are the people of hope who are to forgive 7 x 7 in one day.   Grace is unlimited and overcomes sin, brokenness and every human shortcoming.   Forgiveness is one of the greatest gifts Jesus gave us.  We are called to be those who freely bestow it on the world.  Our hearts included. 

I've had plenty of real time reasons to get offended.  Everyone has.  Everyone will have these moments.  We live in a fallen world with fallen hearts.   I've experienced real blunders, mishaps, mess ups by people in the church, churches, etc....     So have you.   I have been the source of some of those as well. 

Here's one for you....

Denominational leader over me takes over a mission I spent 10 years on, forces me out of leadership and takes over himself.  Tells me about it after the fact, done deal, never lets me say goodbye to my friends in the country and a few years later leaves his wife who was dying of cancer for the church secretary.   Stellar performance.   Yea, that hurt.     So now what?   The choice? 

Herein lies the opportunity.  Will the Kingdom of God sweep in and bring faith, hope and love, and a refreshing dose of the blood of Christ and his forgiving power, or will the heart take up an offense (one that will most likely never get resolved - meaning "justice").   The offense will lead to destruction.   Forgiveness will lead to life....for everyone involved. 

The only one who wins when we carry an offense is the DEVIL.  

Don't get me wrong.  We all have "good reasons" why our offense is more justified than the power of the blood of Christ that takes away the sins of the world.   
Jesus said,  "But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins."  Mat 6:15   Pretty simple equation.   I've seen it over and over in Holy Spirit infused settings.  People get offended at the strangest simple things.  

Key: The Kingdom of God is expanding not shrinking.  It is exploding in every corner of the world.  

So why does it seem like Christians are getting smaller, more and more petty, less generous, and offended at inconsequential things?   

 Here are some of the things an offense does to us.

1) Lodging and offense in my heart does damage to my worship.   Connection Lost

                        Test One: Worship is the first thing to go in an offended heart


Love the Lord your God with all your HEART.   It is tough to do with an offense ruling it.   The heart was made to serve the Lord with freedom, joy and truth.  To worship without boundaries is the inheritance of the Saints.   An offense at God ruins the relationship.  The connection starts dying without some serious attention.  The Way is an easy yoke....forgive as Christ forgave you.   You didn't deserve it.   Yet he gave his life for us to have the connection with the Father through forgiveness of sin.  


 2) Lodging an offense in the heart cuts us off from connection with Kingdom relationships

Here is the one thing about "being offended" that gets overlooked.   These offenses typically work one very simple thing throughout the Body of Christ; the offended ones are typically  cut off from the relationships connected to the offense.   This is clearly a work of the DEVIL.   

Offended at a particular church = no contact, judgement of the people connected with it, etc...
Certainly one could not fellowship with the Devil.  (Amazing how the ones we offended at are no longer worthy of our connection)   That gets bigger over time.  Soon these folks are not in a church at all.  Soon everyone is pictured in the offense.   The offense become a new set of eyes, mindset and way of seeing.  Problem: the eyes of offense are not Kingdom eyes or vision.  Seeing the world through the eyes of offense means you are no longer the fragrance of the Kingdom and of the Christ.  


3) Lodging an offense against the church, church leadership, cuts us off from progress in salvation. 

The very thing we need, deep abiding relationships in the freedom and blessing of Christ and solid fellowship in the Word and Spirit are cut off in our offenses with the church.   Yes, people make mistakes, sin, fall down.....of course you and I never do that.   Be a kingdom adult.  Apply the truths and grace of the Kingdom to situations that may require your suffering to succeed.  Your sacrifice may be required.  That is what adults do for kids, sacrifice.   Be a father or mother in the Kingdom of God and bear the sufferings of Christ for a different church.   BE the different church.   Or rather, be a kingdom follower of Jesus Christ.  The offense places us into the pathway of judgement.   Jesus explained that pathway.   Judge and you will be judged.  Measure for measure.   

All this is bad stuff.  Are you getting hold of the picture? 


The Saints who believe in a Kingdom, with a culture of honor and love,  have to grow up and be adults in it.   Someone needs to jump into injustice and bring the peace of Christ.   

Offense is not in the Kingdom heart.   Offense produces bad fruit.   Offense is conquered by forgiveness and the Loving Kindness of Christ.  


Ps 139:23-24  Is an invitation to freedom - Let the Spirit have his way with you. 

"Search me, O God, and know my heart.  Try me and know my thoughts.  And see if there is any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."  


Leave comments!   Does this spark dialogue?  

Email me at jreynolds@mycapstone.org 

As always LOVE in the LORD

Jeff Reynolds