Article of the Month
November
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Article of the Month November | |
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| Inviting the Lord Within At this present time,
the Lord is especially dealing with those who have been seeking something
more without understanding what they are searching for. Many of these are thinking What is happening
to me? This is because they
are being drawn away from any dependence upon, or satisfaction with,
that which is less than the Lords best. Many have been content
with only knowing the Lord as their Savior, and are satisfied knowing
that someday they will be in heaven.
Some have gone further and know Him as the One who provides their
needs and uses them in ministry. However,
the Lord greatly desires to take us beyond these levels of experience. He is, through intervention, beginning to make
Himself known to us as a person who desires both our fellowship and
our cooperation with Him in the outworking of His present day purposes. All too often we become
satisfied with the things of God rather than going beyond this
and coming to know the God of the things. All too often, we get so taken up with our involvement
in working for the Lord, or in being concerned about our problems and
needs, or, the needs of others, that we fail to notice when He comes
to seek a time of personal fellowship with us. We become satisfied with
abiding in the fact of His Omni-Presence rather than taking time
to seek His Manifest Presence. Our
Lord is a seeking God who will draw us into a personal, intimate relationship
with Himself, if we will respond to His seeking after us. Behold, I stand at the
door, and knock: if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will
come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me. Revelation 3:20 In the past, the Lord
graciously allowed us to remain satisfied with our own ways. However, the hour is late and the need is so
urgent that the Lord is moving in intervention to bring about a correction.
In order to accomplish this, He may intentionally withdraw Himself
from our spiritual activities, and stand in the shadows, outside of
the room of our present spiritual experience. My Beloved is like a
roe or a young hart: behold, He stands behind our wall, He looks forth
at the windows, showing Himself through the lattice. My Beloved spoke,
and said to me, Rise up, My love, My fair one, and come away. Song of Solomon 2:9-10 It is important for us
to understand that the (seeming) withdrawal of
the Lords presence from us, and from anything that we attempt to do
for Him, is a blessing meant to draw us up into a higher realm
of relationship with Him. In order to bring about
this ability within us, the Lord will begin to make Himself known to
us as a person, trusting that we will notice Him.
He, the Lord of Glory, will reluctantly remain apart from us
because He desires something better for us.
He longs to manifest Himself to us and spend time with us in
fellowship and communion. If
we will notice and respond, it is here that we will begin to intimately
know Him and come to understand His ways.
Only then will we be able to rightly serve Him. The Lord is grieved when
we do not recognize and quickly respond to His desire to make Himself
know to us. Many of us fail to
respond because we are satisfied to remain within our past spiritual
experience, sufficiently satisfied with all of the blessings that He
has provided. The Lord will patiently
continue to wait without until we begin to recognize that we need something
more than all these things that He has been amply providing, and invite
Him to come within our spiritual experience to abide with us. Because you say I am
rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and know not
that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. Revelation
3:17 The Lord is not satisfied
for us to be content with all these things alone. He longs to bring us into the experiential reality
of personally knowing Him, and abiding in His manifest presence. This relationship transcends anything that He
could ever do for us. He that has My commandments,
and keeps them, he it is that loves Me: and he that loves Me shall be
loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to
him. John 14:21 This experience of His
manifest presence is conditional upon our having and keeping His
commandments. Only as we relinquish
our self-nature to the cross, and come into an experience of oneness
with the Lord, will our obedience be possible.
As we die to our self-will and respond to Him in obedience, He
will be released to manifest Himself to us, and then to others through
us. The word manifest
means that He causes us to become aware of His revealed presence through
one, or a combination of our five natural senses.
His manifest presence begins at the point where we pass from
the letter of the Word into the spirit of the Word. When we enter into His manifest presence, He
will make Himself experientially known to us.
He may lead us to quietly wait upon Him in His revealed presence. He may make known to us something that He desires
to accomplish and our part in its outworking. He may quicken us in a special understanding
of His Word. He may share with
those who have experienced in some measure the Fellowship of His
Sufferings, a specific burden of prayer or intercession. The possibilities are
manifold, and they are marvelous to experience.
The Lord greatly desires to reveal Himself to us as a person
having feelings and desires. Manifestly
means that He does this, not in type and shadow, but as a present reality,
made known to one or more of our physical senses.
The Lord cannot remain satisfied with our continuing to relate
to Him only as the One who produces within us a feeling of anointing,
or power. The Lord has been hurt
so many times by those who take His presence lightly, that He is reluctant
to openly reveal Himself. Therefore,
He will approach us very cautiously to see if we are really interested. Those who are intently searching for something
more will quickly notice when He has withdrawn His presence from
them, and will urgently ask Him to return. My Beloved spoke, and
said to me, Rise up, My love, My fair one, and come away. Song
of Solomon 2:10 The Lord has something
far better to offer us if we will respond to His call to rise up
with Him into a higher realm of spiritual reality.
To this urgent call, He adds a word of encouragement. For, lo, the winter
is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the
time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is
heard in our land. Song of Solomon 2:11-12 We are living in the
time of the birthing of a new day, as we are approaching the time of
the return of our Lord. Herein
is the cause of our wondering, What is happening? as we feel
the birth pains of this new day. All
that Jesus did in a single body during His first coming, He will again
do through a corporate body. Presently, he is preparing those who have been
called apart for this purpose. Winter speaks of a time
of barrenness in our spiritual experience.
It is a period of time during which the Lord is (seemingly) absent from us,
and in which there is little or no moving or quickening of His presence
within us, or in our ministry. The
rain being over and gone speaks of the fact that the Charismatic visitation,
as wonderful as it was in its day, has come to an end. The winter being past speaks of a present
opportunity for us to be birthed into a new realm of spiritual life
and experience. The flowers appearing
speaks of our spiritual growth with the resultant fruit of the spirit.
Our repentant response to the withdrawal of His presence from
us has produced a spiritual breakthrough within us - the initiative
for our life and ministry has passed to Him. We are abiding in Him and He in us. Our lives and ministry are producing results
that were never before seen, as we are being lifted from the gift realm
into the spirit realm. The singing of birds
speaks of worship that flows up to the Lord from deep within
us. The voice of the turtle speaks of our becoming
prophetic and speaking forth His Word with substance and power.
This especially applies to prophetic worship that will release
the manifest presence and glory of the Lord. This experience will
not come through an intellectual comprehension or understanding of His
Word alone. It requires the anointed
impartation of His life to us, as we fellowship (sup) with Him. He is presently without,
looking through the window of our spiritual experience, waiting for
us. We must quickly respond to
His call to Rise up, My love, My fair one, and come away. It is essential that we invite the Lord to come
within, and give Him full control over our lives and all that pertains
to us. Nothing that we could
obtain, while remaining in a lesser realm could compare with this. Come, My beloved, let
us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages. Let us get
up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will I give you My loves. Song
of Solomon 7:11-12 |
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