TO KEEP UP WITH GOOD WORKS OF GOD
“Just
hold on to what you have until I come. To the person who conquers and continues to do my
works to the end I will give authority over the nations”, Rev
2:25,26
It is never a
common thing to see people able to do more than one thing properly at once, be in two
different places or talk softly and loud at the very same time. I believe it to be
impossible. The closest we have to it, is Philip who has been taken away from the
baptizing of the Ethiopian on his way to Jerusalem, so far away as
the cities of Samaria. All the more
impossible it will be if the works we are busy with are of such a kind that will enable us
to do whatever we have to, in other words, that these works are to install ability, power
and the means to sustain it up to the end. If it were possible, it would amount to the
same thing as to expect to have a car run while being repaired, to win a race while in
pieces. It either is on the road or in the workshop so it may stay riding on to the end
once the repairer states “It is fulfilled, it is done”. But not only so, besides
riding to win, it has got to be fresh at the end, at the very doors of heaven. That’s
the main work of God: “He
removes every branch in Me that does not produce fruit, and he cleanses every branch that
does produce fruit so that it might produce more fruit”, John 15:2. This means we should not take
the road before we may be ready to keep up to the end, unless the workshop is ahead,
unless God Himself tells us otherwise. We should take the time and the pains to become
new, newly installed with a heavenly programmed heart, so we may run according to heavenly
rules, on earth, “as the days of heaven upon the earth”, and so we may be led
through the softness of power and the joy of all strength, so we will conceal the heart
within a mute yet speaking God, powerless yet with such power the world has never known
before. May we have full access to the power in due time, working as a clock without haste
nor retardation and delay, beating with the proper rhythm from heaven itself, opened up,
al the way, to the very power and knowledge we do not have – for we trust on such
things as we have or see we have, and God has to find a way to reverse it fully.
But, if we ever find someone upset or uneasy with the very tools and means
of God Most High, because these are only and always personal and go to the very end alone
– if not He will disdain to come and be Emanuel – we will have to question such
a person’s decision to follow God at all. We read in Luke
14: 27-33: “Whoever doesn't carry his cross and follow me can't be my
disciple. Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. He will first sit down and estimate
the cost to see whether he has enough money to finish it, won't he? Otherwise, if he lays
a foundation and can't finish the building, everyone who watches will begin to ridicule
him and say, 'This person started a building but couldn't finish it. Or suppose a king is
going to war against another king. He will first sit down and consider whether with ten
thousand men he can oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand men, won't he?
If he can't, he will send a delegation to ask for terms of peace while the other king is
still far away. In the same way, none of you can be my disciple unless he gives up all his
possessions." The only thing we and God Himself will ever expect from all of us,
seeing none will ever be able or have the power to take us away from His Hand of holiness
unless we have not this spirit required by Him to work within, is but the time and the
presence of heart and soul in where He alone sees it fit to be. Nothing less than a good,
diligently moved mechanic will ever required from a car and its owner, alone to have it
there where he can fix it by his means. He will require the time, the presence and the
comprehension of all involved with the running of that car. And all will also expect that,
as soon as the car is fully fixed and in full readiness to be put on the way without
becoming a shame to the mechanic nor to the driver right to the end, that it will be set
off in time. This will never happen if the car is either hasty to get off, or lazy to do
so; if the owner is not accepting towards the rules, the tools or the smell of the one who
is to fix it fully, we may never expect the car to run properly ever. God’s grace has
got to find a proper seat to be able to work fully as it is promised. So, if we do not
care, have not the time, the disposal, the patience and the perseverance to be fixed, how
will we ever be set on the road with the eagerness, the oil of a virgin, the heart and
capacity to withhold within the bounds and the power of which we need to be able to keep
up with? We have to be in great need of it, so as to be enabled to choose between be set
off towards the road ready to be slaughtered to hell or to be fully fixed first and above
all and go to heaven. We will only serve one master at a time, will either be fixed to
run, or run. There is a great link between being enabled to obey fully and obedience
itself, which we may never disregard. We read in John 15:10
that “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as
I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love”. We are in great need to
learn, to have how to obey first and above all. None will ever be able to keep the road,
to stay on a track, to abide in a nature contrary to his own for long. The heart equal and
equally moved by the same source of power that is in heaven above, that’s precisely
we need to have at the starting point. To be led through and by eternal life, we need to
be eternal and constant ourselves, “no longer like little children, tossed like waves
and blown about by every wind of doctrine,
by people's trickery, or by clever strategies that would lead us astray”, Eph 4:14. If we learn and lean not
upon full obedience to the end, it will be impossible to keep up the way Who is Christ
Himself, for a long time. The way is narrow, and the Lord alone is able to install in us
the heart, the very means, the access to them all so as to be always fresh and pure up to
the last moment. God is after the heart at the end, not at the race itself.
Everything God
teaches us, amounts to the same capacity, ability and disposition that we find in heavenly
beings, to be kept more than to keep up with the road and track itself. “If
you will fear Jehovah, and serve Him, and listen to His voice, and not rebel against the
command of Jehovah, then both you and also the king who reigns over you shall continue
following Jehovah your God”, 1Sa 12:14. The means and the art of following is what is at stake here right from
the beginning, the ability to look at the source and Lord of our joy and glory in a mined
field always, under heavy fire or in times of apparent peace, in all being enabled to keep
the Lord within, but fully settled. If we understand the prayer the Lord taught us
properly, we will learn that He did not say “Thy will be done”, but “Thy
will be done here on earth as it is done in heaven”. The way to do it, is what is
primordial ever since creation, where Adam was commanded to care after he had been endued
and created according to the nature of God Himself – never before. More than the
will, the way to do accordingly is aimed at by God – at first. We not only have to
depend on the Lord, but be fully dependable by heart and full nature of all He has and is
Himself, the very keys of all life and death.
It is clear that once we learn how to do something, we will loose sight of
the goal, decreasing all concern substantially, seeing we will never add unto it by
worrying, so as to concentrate on how to do it at first. But never do we find someone
fully able to do something properly, who is alone able to grasp what the will itself is;
we will find somebody knowing what the will really is, without knowing how to go about its
effectual carrying out with perfection. We read “And that servant who knew his
Lord's will and did not prepare, nor did according to His will, shall be beaten with many stripes. Luke
12:47. And also “His lord answered and said to him, Evil
and slothful servant! You knew that I reaped where I did not sow, and gathered
where I did not scatter”, Mat 25:26. We learn that it is very easy to know and still be slothful, to know and
never carry out because of the state of heart, of timetable, of worldly affairs and many
kinds of thorns, of love towards whatever and whoever is not the Lord Himself. But to know
how to carry out, out of a pure and great heart, we will surely know and achieve to the
will we are to aim to, and also to know what it is really all about. That is what 2Pet 1:8 tells us, “For if these
things are in you and abound, they make you to
be neither idle nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ”. He
is talking about those virtues we need to carry the will out, virtues fully able to be our
own, move and make move freely without force but out of ourselves within God, where one is
not able to unlink where does God start or where does man end, it being a perfect union to
the end. Let’s read carefully the verses preceding this one: “through which He
has given us exceedingly great and precious promises, so that by these you might be
partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world
through lust. But also in this very thing, bringing in all diligence, filling out your
faith with virtue, and with virtue, knowledge; and with knowledge self-control, and with self-control, patience, and with patience, godliness, and with godliness, brotherly kindness, and with brotherly kindness, love. For if these
things are in you, and abound, they make you to
be neither idle nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ”.
If
we know how to do, we will know what to do – but the other way round is not promising
the same at all. But to be able to keep, to be able to believe, to love with full interest
and care right from the first love to the end, having the love grow up instead of being
lost at the end or even before, to become and be driven by a voluntary, freely
enterprising spirit, fully blessed and tossed up by God Himself, is all there is to it.
God does never give Himself to someone easily. To know and be able to do it, makes us
people who will be given much to carry out faithfully. The key to the will, is the access
to it, and few have it in them. It will be hard to get through to it, just as hard as it
would be to trespass the grounds of the flaming sword which protected the Tree of Life
from sinners and devils. We are faced with something as great, as divine as Peter put it
to those in early Jerusalem:
“Therefore repent and convert so that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence
of the Lord. Having raised up His son Jesus, God sent Him to you first, to bless you in turning every one of you away from
his iniquities”, Act 3:19,26, at first saving from sin and installing a new nature moved by new gas
and power, prompted by holy motives right through. A natural faith does not become
startled through miracles like the opening up of the red sea, is not self-inflicted,
feigned to life, nor through Satan unless it is a close imitation of it and no more. It
not only requires a voluntary spirit of enterprise, but one which can be led right through
without looking back ever. That is what we are promised to have right through, for we read
in Is. 32:3-5, “And the
eyes of those who see shall not be dim, and the ears of those who hear shall listen. And
the heart of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of those who stutter
shall be ready to speak plainly. The fool shall no more be called noble, nor the miser
said to be bountiful”. “Those
who erred in spirit shall come to understanding, and those who murmured shall learn doctrine”, Is.
29:24. This is what there is all about: to be fixed up by God
Himself, in Whose hands nothing is left untouched.
Without having full access to this bountiful gate of real heaven within
for real, which is Emanuel Himself as we learn from the very speech of Peter, the only
thing God is after is to will, to do, but above all to have and carry the means to be
fully made to do and will according to the way it is done in heaven right here in sinful
earth. Without having full access to the armor, to the power and heavenly nature which
alone accepts and fully and voluntarily lives with such kind of power for ever, we will
always be given over to contradictory feelings and misbelievings of power and faith which
will make us wear the garment of the feast of the Lamb, but still be thrown out promptly,
as soon as the bridegroom has a proper look on His guests. It is acceptable that one may
start off in the flesh, but end up in it is as good as to be cursed forever. Jesus learned
obedience – why shouldn’t we? We start off by bringing the wall of separation
between us and God. “For He is our peace, He making us both one, and He has broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in His flesh the
enmity (the Law of commandments contained
in ordinances) so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, making peace between them”; Eph 2:14
Eph 2:15. From this,
to the obedience of those who inherit the Holy Spirit, because and for the sake of full,
unconditional obedience to the end – of the kind which is settled fully and forever,
feeling at home with heaven within – is what God’s real works are still.
More than the works, above the doing itself, the way to do so is to be
fully set up and fully settled down. We read about Jesus who answered and said, “This
is the work of God, that you believe on Him whom He has sent”, John 6:29. But also that the “the
end of the
commandment is faith unfeigned (and love out of
a pure heart, and a good conscience), 1Tim 1:5. We also read in Rev
2:19, “I know your works and love and service and faith and your
patience, and your works; and the last to be more
than the first”. So, there is something such as “increasing in faith”
or decreasing in it, but surely, there is the way to do so too. Not only the kind of love,
but the full way to it is at stake in the full range of all God’s works. Not only the
works and the faith which works them out, turning them possible, but the way to keep it
fully safe from shipwreck and drowning to the end, is what we have to learn right through,
(1Tim.1:19) – the way
to free from sin, is here at stake indeed. This is what grace is all about, in being and
to do, so it works out a seat to deliver from, so that our works increase with the
decrease of flesh and force something which, is available and fully grasped through the
understanding spirit of holy saints of God alone. No fleshly man will come to the
understanding of this ever, it will be no use to explain it to such! These are the kind of
works which serve and do well as the stamp of God Himself upon our very lives, for we read
in Is. 26:12,13 “Jehovah,
You will ordain peace for us; for You also have worked all our works in us. O Jehovah our
God, Lords besides You have had the rule over us; but by You only will we make mention of Your
name”. “And He saw that there was
no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor.
Therefore His own arm brought salvation to Him; and His righteousness sustained Him”,
Is. 59:16.
These are the things I have within my heart to pour out to you, which
things I think are too hard to explain to man in proper fittings of grace still. It will
be far better, dear reader, if you get down on your knees and find food such as this
yourself, for you and those around you. Nevertheless, I want to try and bring it to you,
from the fountain of the heart of man right to the very commandment of our dear Lord of
lords, which says that we should preach the gospel to the world, “teaching them to
observe all things, whatever I commanded you”. Mat
28:20 – not just to teach, but teach how to do and how
to be able to get to the tools to do the works – that is the gospel as far as I know.
It was added unto these words, “Lo, I am with you, always”, stating of that
presence which makes your heart strangely warm to the end. We will have to be able to
factually see God in ourselves, or our work will never work out. And we all know why the
pure and clean in heart will be so much of a blessed kind for “For they shall see
God!” Mat
5:8. I may agree that it is always of a process made true, but I shall add
that it may be as gradual as submission is, for that will determine the speed of the
working out of all we have to actually work out for and towards God Himself. Right from
where the handwriting that was against us has been taken out of the way, having been fully
and factually nailed to the cross, Col 2:14, up the full way to sanctification right through the justification I have
never mentioned here, without which none will ever see God at all – only them will we
ever be prepared to do and to will as it is done in heaven. Even this sanctification will
only be the start off towards the works on those around us through our doings of grace.
Even a fully sanctified person is but the starting point of real salvation to others: how
can lifting a hand in a service to say you have given your heart to Jesus ever do the work
you are trying to skip yourself from through those doings? It will only lie to you by
“saying ‘Peace, peace’, when there
is no peace”, healing the unhealed hurt slightly, Jer 6:14. This will never be the way
to full access to these privileges of grace we are talking about: the way to get right
through, to the end and arrive there as Moses did in his death, not dim nor weary –
that is the fruit God is after, above the works of all. It has to be set off with a full,
unconditional confession of all sins, bringing the peace between man and God, and man and
man, and the work of these peacemakers is to be praised fully Mat
5:9; but this together with the coming sanctification is but to serve as the
means to be able “to see God” - our
starting point towards the real works of God – so as to be endued with the power of
the obedient to work, Heb
12:14. There are always words of greater meaning than we ever give to it; for
example, these words in John 1:12 which states only “as many as received Him, He gave to them
authority to become the children of God, to those who believe on His name”, with no
feigning faith at all.
We will also be able to see that to stop doing God’s work is not to
stop being active in church at all, for those who are backslidden are likely to be more
active than any other, seeing the fruit the saints bring up without force constrains them
to match up and rival with them constantly. To cease to do, is but to stop having the
blessing and the means of God fully available, which turns the work of God easy and
prospering to the end. This is what we see in many, in a multitude of churches all over
the world today, people being driven through the power of hypocrisy, seeing they have
somewhere, somehow, denied the very power they have been begotten with and through –
if they have at all! If we do not match up with the first love in growing style alone to
the end, sin is surely kept at the brim of our doors, beeping at us. It does not matter if
lying and steeling is kept outside, in form of temptation alone, if our first love,
instead of increasing succumbed somewhere, somehow! Such
are already fallen from grace, “For he
in whom these things are not present is blind and cannot see afar off and has forgotten
that he was purged from his sins in the past. Therefore, brothers, rather be diligent to
make your calling and election sure, for if you
do these things, you shall never fall”,
2Pe 1:9,10. There are such as never have started the real work
of confession and purification at all, how much less coming to forget the forgiveness of
those sins which have never been forgotten by God at all! We clearly read the habit among
the people of God, the so-called people of God, even by the Bible Itself, that they easily
and eagerly remind themselves in a constant basis – as much as their conscience fight
their truth against them – that they are children of the Most High, forgiven and much
more. We read in Hos 7:2,
“And they do not say within their hearts that I still remember all their evil. Now
their own doings have hemmed them in; they are (still) before My face”. And if it
happens to be that people forget the forgiveness they have been blessed with, how is it to
be true that God will ever remember that forgiveness? Do we not read about the wicked
servant that “And his Lord was angry, and delivered him to the tormentors until he
should pay all that was due to him (after having forgiven). So likewise shall My heavenly
Father do also to you, unless each one of you from your hearts forgive his brother their trespasses”, Mat 18:34,35. God may come to forget the forgiveness we once have been endued with,
fully.
From all this we may learn that God is now but to teach us fully a way and
the means to be able to observe and keep, with and through power, and above keeping, every
believer has to kindly and lovingly deal with the means to do so more than just merely
doing them or knowing about them. It is about the power and the manner we are talking
about, to be made, to become, the very children of God, recreated upon His new image,
according to what Christ Himself is. Let’s
read carefully what the gospel is all about, beyond forgiveness, “Create in me a
clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Your
presence, and take not Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways; and
sinners shall be converted to You”, Ps. 51:10-13. This is what we are to give and receive freely, without having people
pay up to get hold of it all. Whoever receives to give, has nothing to offer but self
indulged lies and powerless, devilish imitations of what they understand through self out
of the Bible. Because these receive back, they feel like giving more, and because they
receive from people, stealing from them, these believe to be blessed by God himself,
somehow!
We know what sustains the fruit, the root of the tree which sustains the
fruit. We know that from the starting flowering of any fruit, right to the ripening of it,
all in due time without haste nor delay unless the waters fail, we know about this truth
fully: “it is not you that bears the root, but the root bears you”,
Rom 11:18. There are things
which we must have, lacking noting (of them) which even David said of “I shall not
want”; they have to be in us, in and out, instead of that multiple charade of doings
things as we know best, think best, get the most money from, the most praise, the most
emotion. We may never afford to be blinded towards these many issues, thinking highly of
ourselves daily so as to draw force from that pit to carry on, alone. People in sin,
unless they are loved and lied to, they have no strength to carry on. Those who do things
but have them not at all, will be handled as Cain who knew not how to do good, just as the
churches in Revelation were wanting of many things with the exception of two of them. Cain
did not humble himself until it had been too late, before Whom is always able and powerful
enough to change man. Not to do the works of God, is but to loose out on how to carry them
out, and never to loose sight of them at all. Cain tried his way out, imitating his
brother fully, but to no avail at all. It is but to do them but not as they happen to be
done in heaven itself. How do you do things, Christian? Are all you works wrought out in
God, are they blessed, do they really grow in quality and juicy sweetness when you pray to
God concerning them? Does God Himself seal all your works for you? Does your land drink
from heaven, or is it slightly matching with Egypt where the crop seldom fails because of sin? We read all over Scripture
similar things to this truth layout: “But the land which you are entering to possess
it is a land of hills and valleys,
drinking water from the rain of the heavens”, Deut 11:11. To cease the work of God is not stopping to be active and bright in
finding ways to match fully with whatever you may understand correctly from the Bible, but
to loose the access to the first love, to have it drop down instead of having it become a
tree where all those who fly, to nest there, fulfilling Is.
60:8 fully, which says “Who are these who fly like a cloud, and as the doves to their
windows?”.
We read in Rev 2:2-4 “I know your works and your labor and your patience, and how you
cannot bear those who are evil. And you
tried those pretending to be apostles, and are not, and have found them liars. And you have borne, and have patience, and for My
name's sake you have labored and have not
fainted. But I have against you
that you left your first love”. I don’t know if you match up with at least half
of what this church was able to do for God. Even so, you fear not, you carry on because
you believe to have accepted Him your way. Just tell me, tell yourself, Christian, who
does kill Saul in your life, for the sake “of truth that is in us”? Who rains
your work to full growth? You, God or a river you deviated to fill up the lack God would
want you to feel up – because God wants you to feel forsaken, which thing you fully
avoid through own doings yourself so you may not want to repent yourself after having
preached to so many others to do so, if you have at all? Think of David, (1Sam.
24:6,10; 26:9), never becoming
king by his own doing, seeing he feared God and wished so much to have a testimonial
granting of the throne By Him in person! Do you do the same, do you fill up your needs
without telling anybody about it when you really
have them, without tempting God, does God come bless your work Himself? Grant an
honest answer to yourself at least, before God Himself. The truth of the promise is “And
the Lord shall always guide you and satisfy your soul in dry places, and make your bones
fat; and you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters fail
not”, Is.58:11. It is a
common thing nowadays, whenever heavenly gardening and watering fails, that we create a
spring of our own which we water ourselves with, always. Instead we should readily humble
ourselves to the dust of earth and hell if it need be, so as to avoid creating a cistern
of our own! “For My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken Me, the
Fountain of living waters, to hew out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can
hold no water. Is Israel a servant? Or is he a servant of the house? Why has he become a prey?” Jer 2:13,14. “For they, being
ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own, have not submitted
themselves to the righteousness of God”, Rom 10:3. Any kind of self righteousness is there alone to prevent full,
unconditional submission unto God Himself – always.
Let’s start
right from the beginning then. So we may have a starting relationship with God Himself, we
must fully confess all known sin. We will have to meet Him face to face, walk in His
presence feeling fully at home there and soon, a relationship where there is no room for
doubt and sin. We must have all the means to stand before the Son of Man, feeling well
there, feeling fully settled and at home always any time, through any hardship or joy. For
that we must exchange our past, our present state, our future dreams and pleading wishes
for the Lord alone, Who has no comeliness as to attract us unto Him, nothing that we may
desire at first. All we have, together with all that steered up and managed all we had,
all we are ourselves, all of it and more will have to be dead or God will not be there to
be alive in us at all. This is the whole of the gospel Jesus brought unto, into, us all,
“For
the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that having
denied ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live discreetly, righteously and godly, in this present world, looking for the
blessed hope, and the appearance of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,
who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify to Himself a
special people, zealous of good works”, Tit 2:11 Tit 2:14. All details have to be thrown
out never to come back again, for if they find it empty, it will surely turn worse seven
times “for it would be good if such did not come to know the truth” at all. All
sordid details will have to be either sorted out or promptly blotted out through the
Blessing of God. If you ever stop in any of the small details of all these things, you
have ceased to do the works of God. No baptism, no singing, no preaching will save you
from being thrown out of the kingdom of heaven on earth. Many stop at the narrow door,
many more at the end of the hard way, to say the least of those who stop somewhere between
al this. You have to humble your whole self again, before child, friend or enemy. Dare not
refrain from doing the very first works once more, for there is no other way to escape
from the doom of eternal death eventually. Thus said Jesus, to all who still have ears to
hear, for those who had ears, can hear no more. I am just quoting, and you know I am.
Beyond the narrow door, beyond many years of revival and real holy
flooding waters, you still incur the danger to drop down. I think the most we hear of in
the whole of the New Testament, is something like “those who keep up to the end”.
That massage stands out. Maybe not in these exact words, but it surely amounts up to it.
But, we know from the church of Ephesus, that to be truthful, genuine and genuinely
keeping all as we ought is what is at stake, not to go the end without giving up, seeing
that church made it right through. Do you share His peace, as He alone grants, or do you
fabricate one of your own? If you have real peace, what on earth makes you think all is
done, all fully accomplished in you? Can Jesus entrust Himself unto to you, be seen and
found with you, in your sermons and doings, at work, at home or somewhere else? Can He
afford that to happen without feeling ashamed, without having you put to shame in front of
people? It is said that “But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew
all and did not need that anyone should testify of man. For He knew what was in man”, John
2:24,25. It is common
knowledge He does not entrust Himself, nor His things to such as have not the proper seat
for Him. God, Who is able to transform, to replace with true and genuine holiness which is
always natural and fresh to the end, does seldom give Himself to a man, as He already did
many times, unless they have changed into holy, most obedient beings. You will not entrust
your best jewelry to thieves, will you? To possess a heart similar to Christ’s
Himself, is but what is at stake here. Do not become deceived dear reader, for it is God
Himself who will grant it to you whatever is impossible to man to achieve and strain
himself to. Go to Scripture and find such words as are the primer will of God, the written
and clear will of God, such as “this is the will of God, even your sanctification”.
Let none of it escape from you, for if you ever lack in anything, you will not make it to
the very end unless you are able to repent still. Never say “Oh, I do not know what
God’s will is for me” while you have sin at your doorstep, in the horizon of
your heart. You know not what you are saying. Calm down and hunt peace, hunt
sanctification from there, from that peace and end down within a fullness of Life to which
you will have to be gladly obedient to the end of you single pilgrimage. At the end, God
will taste the juice of your fruit, the fruit from within, the joy, the oil of your lamp
and the amount of it – not so much the pilgrimage itself. The way, the state you are
found at the end, that will allow you into heaven. That will determine whether you go into
that rest or not. You will be still have to be fully able to stand before Him just as
Scripture states: “Watch
therefore, praying in every season that you may be counted worthy to escape all these
things which shall occur, and to stand before the Son of Man”, Luke 21:36. Elijah walked, slept and
talked continually in the presence of God as a son of bright shining light. Moses as well,
for when he walked mount Sinai he did not enter there in a state of fear, but walked up
the mountain and stayed in His presence forty days, or may I say, up to today! So, when
you asked things like “what is the will of God for me”, maybe you happen to
willingly duck away from humbling yourself by praising Moses for something you ought to be
able to do yourself. Maybe you are not doing things yet just as they are done in heaven
above. Maybe you are not ready to die, not ready to work at all, yet you preach and go
around dreaming and thinking to be like Paul, who was as Job who preached to few –
not as many as Paul. The amount of work of Paul compared to the works of Job, is not to be
compared. But, who, do you think, will have greater reward? I strangely doubt about that,
for I know not which of those two had the humblest heart. The capacity to lay down all
glory unto God, to Whom it really belongs to, that alone will insert the amount of
rewarding greatness into your hands. Everyone will have up to whatever he or she can
manage faithfully – no more.
How is your heart, woman of God? Are you ever able to marry someone as
Rebecca did simply upon the Word of a man of God you never saw before? Can you be still
and know for sure what God is doing concerning you? Or do you prefer the blue eyes story
above the one we read concerning Isaac? Did you get hold of a heart which listens and
obeys easily and without murmuring and fear of the unknown? Are you able to die without
crying out, just as sheep do, seeing all Christians, all true ones, are marked and branded
to die and be slaughtered always and not only sometimes? “As it is written, ‘For
Your sake we are killed all the day long. We are counted as sheep of slaughter’."
Rom 8:36. Are you able to stand in the very presence of God Himself? If not, how
do you aim to be in Him in heaven one day? Let me remind you of Christ, whom many of us
profess to follow day and night. We read: “but He made Himself of no reputation, and
took upon Himself the form of a servant,
and was made in the likeness of men. And
being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross”, Phil. 2:7,8. Then we also read: “Therefore
be followers of God, as dear children”, Eph 5:1. Further, “And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, welcoming
the Word in much affliction, with the joy of the
Holy Spirit, so that you were examples to all who believe”, 1Th 1:6,7. Peter further states as this:
“For you were not called to this? For Christ also suffered on our behalf, leaving us
an example, that you should follow His steps, He who did no sin, nor was guile found in
His mouth”, 1Pe 2:21,22.
There
is a man in the Bible who deeply touches the whole of my inner being through his example.
Let’s study Joseph, what went through his little mind from the heat of the bosom and
preference of his father, up to the reigning of Egypt,
where he was loved because of benefit and ability to interpret dreams through God. The
Lord granted him a few dreams, of which we know only two, which, instead of bringing up
his faith and trust in God, would have sunk him down in despair and unfaithfulness, unless
he had a clean heart from which God could work out an assurance which he could not ever
have and reach to otherwise. He was sold because God granted him those dreams which his
holy and old father interpreted for him unwillingly. He did not ask for any of those,
neither for any of the things which befell him. He more than Naomi could tell all people,
“call me Mara. For the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and
Jehovah has brought me back empty. Jehovah has testified against me, and the Almighty has
afflicted me”, Ruth 1:20,21. He never asked his brothers to come and bow down before him, he did not
desire it before the dreams! Yet God Himself had put him in a situation which he did not
believe them any longer since he was sold, seeing his life was delivered up to die alone
where he would not guess at all. He could have reasoned with himself, saying he talked too
much, he should have kept his dreams to himself and such like things. He could start
thinking God could not rival up against bad people, his own brothers, deal bitterly and
harsh against that kind of bitterness a family treason always causes within; nor would he
ever fulfill those dreams since he had been taken away from those who would bow down
before him against the wishes and will of his own father, whom we would but obey against
such a thing, for his father would never assert to it at all. He had many reason to
mistrust all those dreams. Would those dreams come from God? How would he ever be able to
draw trust upon anything which would come up into him again, as he did with those who had
been his companions in prison so as to open a way out for him? Dreams were the things
people most believed as coming from God – how would he ever trust a minor thing that
came up in his heart, as he did to Pharaoh? You see, there must be something else holy
people really have against all odds, proofs and opinions, for if it were not so, Joseph
was a fool to trust anything in himself at all, again!
He could have brought up manifold reasons never to be holy again. Because
he had been against adultery and lust, because he had feared God, he had been thrown
innocently into dungeon. He could have started to hate to see that holy hand following him
up, blessing the grounds wherever he put his feet and eyes. The very testimonial grace of
God would leave him no room to think otherwise. He could not understand anything
concerning all things which had been making him a mockery of his life style. Maybe God had
shown him concerning His future will, but we are not to know if it had been so or not.
Then, there dawns a day when God shows him two people whom he knew of a certainty were put
there to open up a way for him before Pharaoh. Somehow, he was linking things to Pharaoh.
But, instead, the man God showed him to have come to his relief, forgot all God told him
about. He had no choice but to wait and wait for over two years until all of a sudden most
of the things God told him came true. What now, Joseph, where did you learn to hear God,
how did it happen that you did not know how to rule, yet communed with Whom knows all
about it all? In prison and in hardship, he learned how to commune, how to hear and obey
Who rules, so he himself could come to rule through Him. From then on, he could not but
obey – he could not but be of obedient nature itself. He knew just how, just when but
not fully why. He had become so powerful, yet never do we read about any time that he
thought to go and find out about the whereabouts of his father, who he knew had suffered a
whole lot because he loved him much. He could have sent to know, to bring him over seeing
he had to do God’s will there. He could have done that. In the eyes of the worldly
man, maybe in the eyes of his own wife, he was strange and awkward not to use his position
to send a delegation for his father. We neither read anything about vengeance against
Potiphar and his wife. Do you find this a beautiful story? Maybe that is especially
because you have not been through it all yourself! I wonder if you would have waited nine
years to see your father and family, your younger brother whom you guess daily how he
looks like now. Unless you had been granted a heart such as God alone shapes and forms, we
can only guess at what would you have done there, in his stead. But Joseph was the kind,
the shape of man, whom God, after having shaped him, could and would entrust the salvation
of the whole world into his little, shaky hands, once blue in the cold of the dungeons. He
could firmly and softly pray: “O Jehovah, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes lofty;
nor have I walked in great things, nor in things too wondrous for me. Surely I have
behaved and have quieted my soul, as one weaned by its mother; my soul on me is like one weaned. Let Joseph hope in Jehovah
from this moment and forever”, Ps. 131. To know God as he came to know, that is what eternal life is all about,
“the life that now is” as Paul states it to Timothy. 1Tim.4:8. We read about the real meaning
and reach of the words of Jesus in John 17:3, “And this is life eternal, that they might know You, the only true
God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent”.
We may come to read a whole lot about that testimonial presence of Christ
from deep within us, burning as fire in love, and alone then may we come the real meaning
of the words “without Me, you can do nothing” or even “whoever does not
gather with Me scatters” Mat 12:30. Few come to see God so, as Joseph did, as Moses and Elijah did, but not
because they were above us – they were below. This is the Promise of the Father of
light, the one Who said, the smallest in the kingdom
of God will be greater than John the Baptist, who was greater than Joseph,
Elijah, Daniel and Moses. May God Himself come out and say of you “Now you are clean
through the Word which I have spoken to you”, John
15:3. But allow me to remind you of this: something has been
added unto the statement few would love to hear from God Himself. He added “Abide in
Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it remains in the vine,
so neither can you unless you
abide in Me. I am the Vine, you are the
branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit; for without
Me you can do nothing”, John 15:4,5. Not alone is God to abide fully settled in us, but we in Him seeing He
will never change nor become polite because we suffer somewhat. Peter would not bear fruit
because of being Peter, but of being in Him continually. Politeness is a sign of tiredness
and death within. None may handle that as a fruit, or as a seed to beget fruit from.
Here we have the greatness of the secret kept for centuries: “but
this shall be the covenant that I will
cut with the house of Israel: After those days, says Jehovah, I will put My Law in their
inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My
people. And they shall no more teach each man his neighbor and each man his brother,
saying, Know Jehovah; for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest
of them, says Jehovah. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sins
no more”. Jer.31:33,34.
What is the secret all about then? How are we to come out at the end in a juicy state of
heart, how are we to bear the fruit of joy and tirelessness when ending a hard way, just
how is it to work out properly? We know Jesus comes after the heart we have there, after
the oil of the lamp, not so much after the works we may have accomplished, the time we
have endure patiently on a slumbering watchfulness to await for Him to come. The kind of
relationship we may have at the end, that is what counts. How are we, today, to keep such
a heart within God that will eventually be fresh at the end, even more than the day before
and much more than the first love experience? There is a little secret I would pass unto
you. You have to be spotless, always; you have to be fully related to the Lord Himself, to
His cause always and alone; but there is something else I want to pass over to you.
Imagine
a car race which you cannot afford to loose. Suppose a powerful Person comes in and says
“there is all at your disposal for a win”; that alone increases your
responsibility to shock. But suppose you know from the start things will be tough, hard
and the enemy has full access to the race so as to hinder as best as he can. We read
“confirming the souls of the disciples, calling on them to continue in the faith and
that through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom
of God”,
Act 14:22.
We have the keys to the racing car, the confessions of all of our sins. We have the car;
we have oil, just as the ten virgins did, right there at the reach of a clean heart,
having no presumptions, for we need it not to keep up the good mood and encourage
ourselves, nevermore, for we have a hidden Manna to eat from, from now on. The race is
real, the reward and punishment for winners and loosers is too. But, do not be misled by
the idea of the race you have, for to win alone, is not the commandment at all – if
it were, the Church at Ephesus
would not be disregarded. The runner has got reason and ways to get hold of daily endless
refreshment and soon enough, so as to be always and continually fresh. The refreshment
will not end, ever, but increase. So, the problem is the heart, the attitude to get to it,
to be free and always enterprising and willing enough to be fresh within hardships, never
linking our attitude to the whole of the race and the things we live day on and day off.
We may not afford to end the race as we started off, for the main goal of it all, is that
we gain a new way, heart and life, so we may be fit for heaven. To win, is to have the
heart fit to enter and live in heavenly garment at the end, free yet using that freedom
for a common good and not for self, able to stand in the continuous presence of God
without being unable to feel at home in Him fully, so much so, that we may not even think
of feigning such an attitude at all! The goal of the race will always be the heart, its
normal state, its capacity to remain in God alone, without having God to grant things
loose from Him and His own nature. If He takes away, we feel it not, for we have Him
alone; if He grants, the same heart will be the same thing towards God and people around.
That’s the goal, to have a heart fully reconciled with God, His ways and nature, just
as Christ is one with the Father, just as
reconciled and agreeable. If we reach not such a heart, we loose the race.
If we read carefully what the Lord told those Churches we read about in
the beginning of the book of Revelation, what kind of things we are revealed about people
who did much more than any Christian I know of today, yet they were said to be in danger
of hell fire. To persist under heaviness, is not to be fit for heaven for we read about
those who persevered fully to the end; to have patience is never enough; to live where
Satan has his throne and overcome and keep His faith and name there, will never be enough
– that is not what we have been called to achieve, for we have been called to be
fully God’s, with or without opposition; to repel and find false apostles, though
worthy of praise from God, is never enough; so, what else is God after, then? The whole of
the heart is precisely what is at stake here, the heart that stands firm and is diligent
by itself, without force; one which is always fit to defend the glory of God against
sinning with the proper power and proper winning attitude, for we may not have a heart
that will ever afford to leave it unto the Lord to come and do Himself whatever we should
have done ourselves properly, as we read in Rev 2:16 “I will come to you quickly, and will fight with them by the sword of My mouth”. When He comes, there
must nothing left to do for Him and to carry out with full perfection. We may not be found
investigating when and how He comes, but have a heart full of readiness and love, just as
a bride waiting for the bridegroom. She is not concerned that He comes, but look forward
to His arrival. She might be concerned about herself, so as to be ready. He said “I
will come”, so she awaits Him. Do you remember the day when you started a new job, a
new home or anything else which meant so much to you? What God expects of us all, is to
have such joy, such eagerness but better, holier and calmer than then, in fact, all
features of that first love at the end if the road of hardships and persecutions. That is
just to know what really is your heart’s goal, motivation, love and concerns. If your
care is set on the house, your heart will crumble if it burns down – unlike Job. If
your children die, you may never lift up your head in praise again – and that shows
you love not the Lord above them all. You see, many people do grumble even concerning
minor things such as food, and such like things, after the miracle of having been born
again. What makes them different from those Israelites who died in the desert? So, the
main issue here, is the state, the kind, he longings, the cares, the feigning or not in
duty, the lightness and the kind of heaviness of the heart at the end of that holy race.
The whole race is but to achieve a heart which is able to please a God from Whom none in
the whole world is ever able to hide something, anything from. “Keep your heart
with all diligence; for out of it are the
issues of life”, Pro 4:23.
There is only one way to achieve to all this and more. May you become
faithful unto it. We know what we are up to now; we also know the goal is never changing;
the Lord and the oil is fully available to the end; the length of the way to the end, the
keys to the car, nothing will change unto eternity; so, there is only one thing to be
concerned about: the heart of the one who is entering the narrow gate to dispute a new
heart. That heart without God is as good as nothing, seeing it drinks from heaven alone.
So, the heart has got to be such that it yearns and yells after God and all He has to
grant for that cause alone – and none other, nor any other cause at all! What if you
come to find out your life is at stake here? Well, about more than your life, your
eternity, perhaps? If you know what the goal is, the end of the racing ban, what will your
instinctive reaction be as soon as the Lord tells you what the race is all about, what the
goal is? Won’t your whole concern be the goal itself, won’t you treat it as the
apple of your eye from then on? If you do, the One who is to be that apple will be put out
of sight! You see, it is not as difficult as it is dangerous. There must be nothing linked
to selfishness once you set your eyes upon the road and track you are commanded to follow
without looking back ever. So, because the goal, the Lord, the means will never move away
nor change, if you are concerned about any of those, you think by that you are the only
one who has not to change, seeing you fear other all things to come to change besides you!
You trust yourself out of the love and faith born from that love in you for yourself, you
think you cannot afford to feel otherwise to be fine, putting the blame on the wrong
person or thing to turn your eyes fully away from the real danger: you. That shows just
how much you love yourself above all, including God. Now is the time to change all of that
– not to look away from it in fear that He might not be able to accomplish all He
Himself has promised, for we fully read that “For the grace of God that brings
salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that having denied ungodliness and worldly
lusts, we should live discreetly, righteously and godly, in this present world, looking
for the blessed hope, and the appearance of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus
Christ, who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify to
Himself a special people, zealous of good works”, Tit
2:11-14.
What is there that is more unto it then? Is there any secret we should
know about? Well, there is for me, for we get hold of the Lord alone by having a heart
greatly observing up to all fulfillment of one single day in joy and love alone, only as
far as today’s things, great or small, praiseworthy or not – today’s task
alone in the fullness of the Spirit of God, for God in God forever. No concerns for
tomorrow if today’s cares are great and worthy to be always thought of by you. What
counts is how to go about in the very doing of all those things, the way, the heart, the
means, the disposition of heart, the faithfulness – nothing else. Joseph in dungeons
was taught to be, just as God alone is. We are to be taught to be alone; to do a single
thing; to worship a single God. To be doing fully and well enough, as in heaven, today’s
task, is to be eternal, is to be prepared, fully prepared for eternity’s ways.
Eternity is but one single day alone, a endless day. The Lord’s way is to have one
day look like one day and one day like a thousand years. If we add unto it the presence,
the power of God Himself, the advise and counsel, His beauty and shine, the heart to be
fully able to take in fully all of those, that is because we have been made to be perfect
beings. That is just how we will be fully enabled to stand when the Son of man comes, for
we are as we are and there is nothing in us He dislikes or disdains upon. “Yea, I
will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will truly plant them in this land with all
My heart and all My whole soul”, Jer 32:41.
Let’s read some pieces of Scripture none should never go over them
lightly. Let’s start: “But let patience have its perfect work, so that you may
be perfect and entire, lacking nothing”,
Jam 1:4. “Therefore
take to yourselves the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil
day, and having done all, to stand”,
Eph 6:13. “Watch therefore, praying in every season that you may be counted
worthy to escape all these things which shall occur, and to stand before the Son of Man”, Luke 21:36. “Teaching them to observe all things, whatever I commanded
you”, Mat 28:20. To
have done all is not enough, for we still have to stand before the Son of Man after the
race, after we have done all just as if nothing had been done at all. To observe is
nothing if we compare it to the way to observe. Not that we are ever able to observe His
things unless by Him by His means. But I am stating it this way so as to put forth the
massage that is upon my whole heart. “Does
he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not. So
likewise you, when you shall have done all the things commanded you, say, We are
unprofitable servants, for we have done
what we ought to do”, Luke 17:9,10.
I
recall about Marin Luther, I believe, that once he had been asked what he would do today
if he knew the world would end up tomorrow, if Jesus would come the next day. He said that
he would do all his work today, the same way he would have done anyway. This is remarkable
if it is to be true of a man. His heart would be found working and doing as he ought, not
because of the work that would stay behind, but because of the heart that was within him
to be fully working anyway, anyhow. The Lord would find him doing.
Isn’t
that what we read from Scripture? “Blessed is
that servant when his Lord comes and finds him doing”, Luke 12:43. “Blessed are those
servants whom the lord will find watching when he
comes. Truly I say to you that he shall gird himself and make them recline; and coming up
he will serve them. And if he comes in the second watch, or comes in the third watch, and
find it so, blessed are those servants”,
Luke 12:37,38. It is the state of mind and soul, the kind of things the heart holds
himself with, the faith – the kind of faith – the Love it has at the end. It is
like a fruit which, in the beginning is sour yet promising, and at the end in the harvest
will be sweeter than ever. “Yet when the Son of Man comes, shall He find faith on the
earth?” Luke 18:8. Will
He, in you?
