I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.

Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.

Revelation 3:18-20

The message to the church of Laodicea was clear.  Get tested and tried faith, get righteous acts, and get healing for your sight, so you can see. Read more…

In the Glory, I will stand.  In the Glory, I will rise.

The prophet Ruth Ward Heflin wrote of the Glory, after pioneering many revivals, that the Glory was the New.  What, before, could take years, could happen very quickly in the glory.  Where a church she knew could have been 5 years away from revival, it could happen within a very short time in the Glory.

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:18

Read more…

Superlative: [O]f the highest kind, quality, or order; surpassing all else or others; supreme; extreme: superlative wisdom.

via Dictionary.com

It is almost a wrong label to call the Kingdom superlative.  It is Beyond that.  John the Baptist was the superlative of human attainment.  A life of solitude, of extreme separateness and consecration to the Lord was his.  Jesus gave the man this testimony, and the comparison to the Kingdom.

Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist! Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

Matthew 11:11

John was a man, a prophet, of the Old Covenant, under the law and order of Moses.  He signified the demarcation point between Old an New Covenants.  As the Law came through Moses, and Grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ, the exchange between the two marked the transition from the age of the Old Testament and the coming of the Messianic Age.

The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John; since that time the gospel of the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it.

Luke 16:16

Read more…

In the depths of poverty, in the realms of despair, no matter what it seems, He is there.

By faith alone we stand, against the storms and the dregs, no matter what the devil unleashes, because of Christ alone, I live.

There is a saying that goes like this.  Faith is faith when God has you out on a limb, sawing off that limb, and the tree falls. And the limb, severed, remains aloft, with you on it.  A Faith walk is not described as walking across a gap where you see no bridge, it is walking off a cliff when you don’t see the other side.

Read more…

John answered and said, A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven.

John 3:27

The Spirit of Revelation was Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 1:8, that God might grant it unto His people.  Jesus operated by a Spirit of Revelation, through the ministering of angelic messengers (John 1:51, Luke 22:43, Luke 2:9, Mark 1:13).  By way of revelation, because it is the revelation that makes it known to be followed, Jesus did only what He saw His father doing (Luke 5:19), and He spoke only what the Father gave Him to say (Luke 14:24).  Jesus was not a “free” man unto Himself, He waited for His proper timing in everything, whereas for other people, any time was acceptable (John 7:6).  In short, Jesus was a solder.  He was a man under authority with others under Him (Matthew 8:9 — think angels, which is the only possible explanation of this passage in context with the Centurion to whose house Jesus never went).  He didn’t operate as His own agent, but only out of the place of revelation to be about the business of His Father.

Not only did Jesus Himself operate in revelation, it was so important, that John the Apostle said that testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophesy (Revelation 19:10).  It was by revelation, by means of a vision, that John received the last book of the New Testament, and revelation is a key factor in all of the books in between there and the Gospels.  For, it was by revelation that Paul received all His great insights (Galatians 1:12).

Read more…

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Matthew 6:9-10 (portion)

His Kingdom is an Eternal Kingdom.  As He is never changing, neither is His Kingdom.  Jesus’ prayer for His disciples was that it would be on the Earth here even as it is there, in the Heavens.

When we pray for His Kingdom, we are not praying for a kingdom some day to show upon the Earth and rule physically in the world, although that may be a portion of its manifestation some day.  But, as the Holy Ghost is invisible, and He is like the wind which is here but you don’t know where it comes from or where it goes, so is the Kingdom by His power.

Read more…

For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my face,  that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself,in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge

Colossians 2:1-3

It is by faith alone that we understand the mystery of God, namely, Christ.  It is by faith alone that we come to see who He really is.  Who He is, in all of His depth, width, breadth, and length, is the mystery, the great secret of God.

Through all of the Mosaic law, through all of the tabernacle, through all of the feasts, it is Jesus that there, right there.  He is the heavenly tabernacle, He is the rock in the wilderness.  He is the scarlet thread hanging in Rahab’s window.  He is the branch cast upon the waters to make the ax-head float.

Read more…

Faith is a substance.  Faith is a communicable dis-ease with the status quo.  Faith makes a way where there seems to be no way, and calls those things that are not as though they are.  Faith looks beyond the facts, and sees God’s Truth, what He has said.  Faith hopes beyond all hope, and is righteousness to God.

When one hears a Word of the Kingdom and doesn’t understand it, the evil one comes and snatches it away.  This is the word of the Kingdom.  This is the Word of Faith, which we speak.

1 Corinthians 13:13 says that these three remain:  faith, hope, and love.  Hope is what we wait with expectancy to happen.  Faith is the substance of that, now.  We might hope for a piece of bread to eat, but Faith is to have the substance of that, despite my natural hand still being empty.

Read more…