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Faith’s Enclosure

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The African impala can jump to a height of over 10 feet and cover a distance of greater than 30 feet. Yet these magnificent creatures can be kept in an enclosure in any zoo with a 3-foot wall. The animals will not jump if they cannot see where their feet will fall. Faith is the ability to trust what we cannot see, and with faith we are freed from the flimsy enclosures of life that only fear allows to entrap us.

We have discovered that self-centeredness, and fear act as enclosures in our lives limiting the heights we can attain through faith. When Jesus is drawing us to where He is in the dark – we have nothing but self-centeredness, and fear keeping our faith enclosed. Self-centeredness, and fear hold us to the ground of what we think we see and understand. We believe that the dark, unseen, unknown abyss we are being challenged to stretch our faith towards will only “reward” us with emptiness. Graham Cooke refers to this as the hiddenness of God. He states: So while manifestation takes place in our reality; hiddenness happens in His. And hiddenness is what draws us into a new place in the Spirit. Because of this, we all have to learn to walk by faith, not by sight. When God is manifested toward us, He is so in a tangible way. We can feel Him. We access Him emotionally. We laugh, we cry, we feel as His peace declares His heart and joy in us. His love often  overwhelms us, and we feel gratitude and praise as a tangible expression of our response to His Presence. Rejoicing, thanksgiving, praise, worship, and adoration—they are all physical indications that our emotions are fully engaged in blessing the Lord. That’s because God’s manifest Presence is both physical and emotional. It sets us free to experience God fully. However, when God is teaching us to walk by faith, not by what we feel, He withdraws from our emotions. He hides from our feelings. So instead, we have to take on trust that He is with us. In His hiddenness, we learn to believe that “God will never leave us or forsake us,” and we establish a pattern of simple faith that “He is with us always.” God has not left us — he has only withdrawn from our feelings for the purpose of establishing trust and simple faith. It’s a tough lesson initially, but also immensely rewarding. It is a key discipline to learn, and one that the Holy Spirit is so brilliant at teaching us. Perhaps the simplest way to explain it is to say that: Manifestation is a time of blessing, while hiddenness is a time of building.

Be encouraged that in the hiddenness of seeking Jesus outside the camp, pursuing for the unseen as if it is seen, that Jesus is simply building your faith. Like the impala you will never know how far you can jump until you take your eyes off of your enclosures and trust that God will meet you as you take that leap. What are your enclosures? Weariness, pain, tiredness, spiritual dryness, feeling distant from God, anger, unforgiveness, emotional hurt, or lack of feeling? Whatever the enclosure or limitation, build your faith by reaching past it. 1 Timothy 4:7-8 states: Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. Your enclosures, or perceived limitations, are actually opportunities to “exercise,” and train, your spirit man to be strong like Jesus.

Hide and Seek

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A pastor phoned the home of some recent visitors to his church, and a voice on the other end of the phone answered with a whispered “Hello.” The pastor said, “Who is this?” The whisperer said, “Jimmy.”  The pastor said, “How old are you, Jimmy?”  “Four.”  “Well, Jimmy, can I please speak to your mom?”  “She’s busy.” “Well then, Jimmy, can I please speak to your dad?”  “He’s busy.” “Jimmy, are there any other adults in your home?” “The police.” “Can I speak to one of the police officers?”  “They’re busy.” “Jimmy, who else is there?” “Firemen.” “Well, Jimmy, can you put one of the firemen on the phone?” “They’re all busy.” “Jimmy, what are they all busy doing?” “They’re busy looking for me.”

1 Timothy 6:16 states: Who alone has immortality [in the sense of exemption from every kind of death] and lives in unapproachable light, Whom no man has ever seen or can see. Unto Him be honor and everlasting power and dominion. Amen (so be it). On the other hand Psalm 18:11 He made darkness His secret hiding place; as His pavilion (His canopy) round about Him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies. Psalm 97:2 Clouds and darkness are round about Him [as at Sinai]; righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne.

On the surface this appears to be a contradiction. God dwells in unapproachable light, and clouds and darkness surround Him? Which one is it? It’s actually both. One describes the manifestation of God – the Light, and the other the hiddenness of God – the Dark. We’ve been exploring meeting Jesus outside the camp through prayer and seeking. Yet one aspect of the seeking is to realize that you will eventually have to encounter the horrors of the cross. Scripture records that It was now about the sixth hour (midday), and darkness enveloped the whole land and earth until the ninth hour (about three o’clock in the afternoon), While the sun’s light faded or was darkened; and the curtain [of the Holy of Holies] of the temple was torn in two. And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit! And with these words, He expired. (Luke 23:44-46)

Jesus found Himself in the darkness. What’s more, Matthews Gospel records what Jesus was experiencing: Now from the sixth hour (noon) there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour (three o’clock). And about the ninth hour (three o’clock) Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?—that is, My God, My God, why have You abandoned Me [leaving Me helpless, forsaking and failing Me in My need]? (Matthew 27:45-46) Jesus was experiencing what some would call separation from God as the sacrificial Lamb of God, took on the sins of all mankind. This is a great mystery. How can Jesus, the Second Person, be separated from the Godhead? He can’t – but His flesh, soul, or carnal man can. His soul man felt the estrangement, but it is my belief that His Spirit Man knew where the Father dwelt. And it is through His Spirit Man that He prevailed by faith over His soul, or flesh.

Graham Cooke has spoken, and written extensively, on the hiddenness and manifestation of God. He states: A key part of God’s nature is the fact that He moves in two ways: hiddenness and manifestation. When we come to terms with this truth, we are set free spiritually to ebb and flow with whatever God is doing. We begin to acknowledge that there are times when God reveals Himself to us and times when he hides. And he has reasons for doing both. I think we all love times of manifestation. I love it when God is right in my face, speaking into everything He can.  But for every time of manifestation, there is a season of hiddenness, where God seems to move away from us. When God hides from us, He is trying to draw us into His presence. So while manifestation takes place in our reality; hiddenness happens in His. And hiddenness is what draws us into a new place in the Spirit.

If, and when, you are experience what St. John of the Cross called the Dark Night of the Soul (La noche oscura del alma) – know that your spirit man (or woman) is being drawn to where Jesus is. The conscious awareness of separation, or distance from God, is simply God’s way of making you aware that He is drawing you to where He is. It’s this understanding that allows you to cooperate with God instead of fighting Him off through it. Understanding is the key to growing through this process, and faith is the handle that will pull you through to the other side.

Positioned For Presence

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Two paddleboats left Memphis about the same time, traveling down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. As they traveled side by side, sailors from one vessel made a few remarks about the snail’s pace of the other. Words were exchanged. Challenges made, and a race ensued. Competition became vicious as the two boats roared through the Deep South. One boat began falling behind because of insufficient fuel. There had been plenty of coal for the trip, but not enough for a race. As the boat dropped behind, an enterprising young sailor took some of the ship’s cargo and tossed it into the ovens. When the sailors saw that the supplies burned as well as the coal, they fueled their boat with the material they had been assigned to transport. Lightening their load, and renewing the fuel needed to keep the ovens burning, they won the race. But at what price?

Positioning your self to enter into the Presence of God’s Holy Fire will cost you everything – even your life. Dt. 4:11-12; 33;36 And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, with darkness, cloud, and thick gloom. And the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the voice of the words, but saw no form; there was only a voice.…Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you heard, and live?…Out of heaven He made you hear His voice, that He might correct, discipline, and admonish you; and on earth He made you see His great fire, and you heard His words out of the midst of the fire.

Repeatedly Moses positioned himself to be consumed by God’s Holy, Fiery Presence: Ex. 34:2 Be ready and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to Me on the top of the mountain. Although Moses was never physically consumed by God’s Fire, his sinful nature was. Numbers 12:3 states that Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth.” And we know from Scripture that as Moses’ sinful nature was consumed his physical countenance began to glow with the Glory of God. Moses positioning himself to meet the Lord was more than an attitude. It also involved his willingness to go the extra mile to meet with the Lord. His efforts in hiking far outside the camp, ascending and descending the mountain on numerous occasions, demonstrate his faith and humility. When we read the Scriptures regarding receiving answers to prayer, healings, or miracles – often times their manifestation was the direct result of their willingness to go the extra mile to position themselves to receive. Personally I can recount numerous times of seeking the Lord for an answer to prayer that eventually led to my going the extra mile to meet with God to hear His response. Often I’ve prayed, and worshipped way beyond the limits I had set upon my worship; far beyond Sunday only Christianity. There is an unusual, and mysterious passage of Scripture that most have turned into a formula for answered prayer that I believe points way beyond our 2 dimensional understanding. It’s found in Mt. 17:21 And He replied to them, This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting. Preceding this verse Jesus states something that sounds preposterous. He states that we could speak to a mountain to be uprooted and cast into the sea. Seeking to draw near to God is more of a mountain than many want to face. The truth and question that this text is asking, even requiring a response to is this: How bad do you want an answer? Are you willing to pray persistently? Are you willing to go to extra lengths in order to see it manifest it’s reality? The praying and fasting Jesus emphasized in this passage wasn’t a “one and done” formula for answered prayers. Not at all. It was a lifestyle of praying, fasting, and tossing into God’s Fire the cargo of our lives in order to win the “race.” Are you positioning yourself to receive the manifestation of Jesus’ Fire; seeking to see Him; to meet Him on His Mountain?

Vision

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Sunday many of you responded to the call to seek God to catch fire through His Spirit. As a testimony to your desire to take off your old way of walking in order to turn to see God, and catch fire from the Burning Man – Jesus, you placed your shoes on the altar, praying a prayer of dedication. Yet, responding to the call is only the first step. What’s next? You have heard the Scripture, Where there is no vision the people perish. (Prov. 29:18)

To receive the vision from the Lord for the next step in your walk you will need to constantly keep in mind 6 principles of seeking: (1) The role of faith, hope, trust and perseverance; (2) Modes and means of manifestation; (3) Power and potential of positioning; (4) Addressing the boundaries and limitations of rituals through the power of Grace; (5) Understanding the call to seek God through prayer and fasting is a call to meet with Him in the wilderness; (6) and Passing the test of the illusion of being passed by, and rejection.

Hebrews 11:1-3, 6 states: Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.…And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

To begin this new walk all of the principles of seeking have to be bound tight by faith, hope, trust, and perseverance. Romans 10:17 states that: So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. In order to see the vision you must first seek God to hear how to walk. The Greek word used for “word” in Romans 10:17 is the word “rhema.” Rhema simply means “out of the Mouth of God.” It’s His revealed and inspired words. Faith, hope, and trust will lead you to seek the words of the Lord for the vision. Perseverance will lead you to continue on in your search. Through these meditations we have been asking, How can I meet Jesus outside the camp? Through faith, hope, and trust you begin to seek Him to answer the practical ways He wants you to accomplish this.

For example in Exodus 33:7 Moses pitched his own tent – for people to seek God. Then in Exodus 34:1-3 Moses proceeded to cut two more stone tablets, readied himself, ascended the mountain, climbed alone, and presented himself before the Lord. Moses took 6 practical steps to what he sensed and heard from the Lord. What’s interesting about both passages is that it doesn’t say why Moses pitched his tent. We can infer he simply had a sense to do this, and obviously a desire to pitch his tent – far outside the camp. Secondly it states that the Lord spoke to Moses but it doesn’t say how, or where? Did Moses seek God alone in His tent and receive this word, or did Moses come to the base of Mount Sinai to ask? It doesn’t say. What it does say is that the Lord spoke to Moses, and Moses proceeded in taking the steps he believed were from the Lord.

Thus the next step from the church’s altar is not only to continue asking, Lord, how can I meet you outside the camp, but to also begin asking, What practical steps can I take to meet you there?