IMPRESSIONS

IMPRESSIONS - AUDIO

 

As we grow in the Lord and abandon ourselves to Him completely, so He can trust us with more and reveal more.  It is His desire to share His heart with us and so in His mercy and grace, He works in us that which is most needed…faithfulness.  To do this He has to take us through various trials and test our faith.  Not just faith, the faith to believe and trust in Him, but faithfulness, that which endures.  The Word says that faith worketh by love, and so this faithfulness does too. 

I have of late been having some new experiences in the Lord that takes some getting used to.  As I have grown in the Lord my conscience and spirit becomes very sensitive to the slightest feelings, or impressions on my heart.  Where usually I would feel a mild discomfort when something is wrong in the spirit, I will now be so overwhelmed that it disrupts me completely and forces me to deal with it.  So what are these new sensitivities He has been subjecting me to?

This devotional is actually birthed out of such an experience and I believe He wants me to share it for the purpose of sharing His heart.  I was on a fast for a long time and the first half of the fast was a death like no other.  Indeed He brought me to ashes and I spent about 13 days in tears and heart wrenching crying before Him as He showed me the heart of iniquity.  The wickedness of man’s heart and I felt like Job saying I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.  But about four days later I noticed new life in me, for I was dead and frankly did not expect to be raised to new life again, at least not so soon.  Something new was happening in my innermost being and I found myself in new territory so to speak.  A sense of fullness, peace and love has been my reality since then and has never left me.  I have entered into His rest, and that rest is more than just a state of being…it is a Person.  He is our Sabbath Rest.  Interestingly enough the Word says in Hebrews that we are to labor to enter into this Rest, after we have ceased from our own works.

 

Hebrews 4: 10 - 11

¹⁰ For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.

¹¹ Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.

So to enter into His rest we have to labor?  That almost does not make sense, but the reality is that this laboring, is actually to cease from our own works.  And as I have discussed so many times before, this is what the wilderness years are for.  It is in the wilderness we labor because there we learn to walk by faith and how to cease from our works, by abandoning them, but also to abandon ourselves to Him.  The name of the game is SURRENDER.  But this is very hard work, because it is part of the sinful nature to lean and depend on our own understanding, even spiritual understanding, and it takes very long to cease from every single work.  He has to show us and with each “showing”, we have to get to work in dying to that particular “work”.  One can describe Hebrews 4: 10 – 11 in Matthew 11.

Matthew 11: 28 - 30

²⁸ Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

²⁹ Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

³⁰ For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Our works and labor make us heavy laden, but He desires to give us rest.  This rest is to no longer walk by faith, but live by faith.  This only comes as we take up His yoke upon ourselves, because with His yoke, comes rest.  Which is to walk together with Him in the same yoke.  Whilst in the desert we are actually learning to remove our yoke and give it to Him, and when we have taken it off completely, He gives us His yoke.  Logically we cannot wear two yokes at the same time, for the word clearly says in Amos 3:3 “how can two walk together unless they agree?”  This is not to say that He does not teach us about His yoke and rest.  The difference is knowing about it and entering into it.  There is rest for our souls in His yoke, and heavy laden in ours.  So what is His yoke then?  Have you ever wondered about that?  I’m going off on a limb here and I am going to say it is His love.  And with His love, being as multifaceted as the whole of the color spectrum, it has multiple sides and colors like a beautiful diamond.  We will never be able to exhaust it.  I have after 34 years of serving the Lord finally entered into His rest.  And the first dimension of His yoke He has placed on me is this new impressions that I have become so super sensitive to. 

I’ll be honest, in this place of rest, which is Him, I have felt an even greater rift between myself and people.  Now in explaining this to you, is the purpose of giving you understanding that when you abandon yourself to Him completely, you abandon yourself from others completely as well.  This does not mean you become a hermit and do not have anything to do with anybody else. Truth be told you are used even more by Him, but it is now He that lives through you.  However, in the spirit, there is a greater gulf than ever before, because formerly you were still standing on the shore of life with your friends, but now you have left the safety of the shores of the familiar, where you were still in control, into the depths of the sea.  No longer a footing, but entering into the depths of God.  Deeper and deeper.  Those on the shore are not experiencing what you are experiencing.  You have left the shores and having to explain this to them becomes painfully obvious to you that there is no way that you could ever do so in a way that they will truly know.  Only the Spirit can reveal this and desires to do so.  But what happens with this inability to explain yourself and your experience in the Lord, is that you have a deep sense of being misunderstood and very alone.  You can share your heart, but it is always in part.  Before you were alone amongst them, but now you do not even feel as if you are amongst them anymore.  By no means do you see yourself as better, because your heart’s desire is that they would be awaken to this reality and know that this abandonment to Him is worth a thousand deaths.  And yet, you are unable to explain the depth, height, width and length of this love, which is His rest, and His fullness.  Paul prayed this over the Ephesians, because this was his reality.  Listen to the words and pay attention to the deeper meanings of His rest.

Ephesians 3: 17 - 19

¹⁷ That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,

¹⁸ May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;

¹⁹ And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.

 

Did you know that He wants to fill you with His fullness?  This fullness is His rest, because the fullness of God is His all sufficiency in you.  You are in His sufficiency and all your needs are met in Him as He is in His fullness in you.  This sufficiency is His love, healing, power, wisdom…all of Him and therefore His rest.

Jesus even told His disciples that there were many things that He wanted to tell them, but that they were unable to receive it.  And so the misunderstanding, creates a loneliness of a different kind, not because you are actually alone.  I know people love me and I love them too.  The reality is that this is a new normal, because as I progress into Him, the greater the gulf.  It is a new way of being that I somehow have to learn to slot into.  No attachment to anything anymore, completely cut off.  I can see Enoch who walked with God, or John the Baptist and Elijah being these strange men that lived their lives before the audience of One. 

And so this new experience caused me yesterday to wake up with such a sadness.  My heart felt wounded.  The whole morning I walked around like this and I could not understand why I felt so deeply wounded and broken.  And then it dawned on me that of late He has allowed me to become more sensitive not to what I feel, but what He feels.  Totally different ball game!  I then asked Him why I was feeling this way.  What is He showing me?  As I was going about my morning, he showed me that what I was feeling, is what He feels.  That He was impressing on me His suffering of not being understood, of being alone, of not being truly loved.  And it dawned on me that this was a different sharing in His suffering.  Before the sharing I had in His suffering was by my own suffering, whether by rejection, abuse, not being loved, etc.  But this was different, He was allowing me to feel His own personal suffering.  I was sharing in His suffering as He suffers, even now.  He is still the man of sorrows.  Not that He has no joy or that I do not have any joy, but the life He lived here came with immense loneliness and sorrow of heart.  I should have known that this was what He was doing in me when I saw the heading of a video on YouTube which I completely passed by.   The heading was “I can feel your broken heart”.  I remember thinking that I cannot watch this, because it will be too much for me to endure, and little did I know that He was showing and sharing with me His broken heart already. 

 We do not share our hearts just with anyone, and the truth is, “Why should He?”  We all have friends that are merely acquaintances, those we speak to only on our birthdays, or at a social event.  Then there are those friends we have known for years and have even gone on holiday with.  And lastly, there is that one friend that knows your deepest darkest secrets, your face without make up so to speak, and cries with you and will get up in the middle of the night to be with you.  That friend where you do not have to pretend or keep face.  You can let your guard down, because you trust them enough to be vulnerable with them.  Jesus had these three types of friends.  In John 6 we read that He had many “followers”, but after hearing some hard words that they were unable to digest, they all turned around and left Him.  Those who stayed with Him was His disciples.  They knew that He had the words of life.  But then we find 3 of His disciples that went with Him to the Mount of Transfiguration, John, Peter and James.  The circle just kept on getting smaller and smaller.  But John was known by a very special name.  He was called “The disciple the Lord loved”.  He was also the one to be found on the bosom of the Lord at the last supper.  His proximity to Him was indeed very close, so much so that as a grown man, he laid his head on His bosom.  In Afrikaans you have a word describing a very close friend, which is the word “boesemvriend”.  And that is exactly what it means…a friend of the heart.  And to this great man of God was given the Revelation of the End of Days.  John was His friend…His very close friend.  It was not just that John was Jesus’ friend, but that Jesus was his friend.  Trust lies at the heart of true friendship.  Can I trust you? 

This made me think of the human side of our Savior, as the Son of Man.  How He still desires those friends with whom He can share His heart.  Such a friend is He.  He shares His heart…he shares His heart.  The trust that He has to have in anyone to be willing to do this, is not borne out of the fact that He loves them.  Because He loves all His children.  But He does not trust all His children.  No matter how we would like to spin this, the question remains, “Can He trust me enough to share His heart with me?”  And this is the whole point of exchanging our yoke for His yoke.  Because in laying down our yoke, our faith is tried and with it faithfulness is birthed to the extend that He starts to share the deeper things of His heart.  Are you allowing Him by your life of abandonment and surrender in obedience to Him, to make you this friend He can trust?

Jesus said to His disciples in John 15 that He no longer calls them servants because the servants do not know what the master wants, but He calls them friends.  His friends know what He wants.  Before you can become a friend of God, an intimate friend of God, you have to live the life of a servant.  You have to become nothing.  Servants have one aim only…to serve their master in obedience.  A life of obedience upon obedience, is a life in which faithfulness to the One who is faithful and true is forged after trial after trial.  For the testing of our faith brings us to that place of perfection, where we lack nothing.  This is His rest.  In His rest there is no lack. 

James 1: 2 – 4

² My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

³ Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

⁴ But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

Moses was called a friend of God.  We read the following in Exodus 33.

Exodus 33: 11

And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.

He spoke to him face to face, and yet when you read further you read something of great significance.  “He turned again into the camp”.  At first we would see this as merely Moses going into the camp and continuing with life, so to speak.  But the next sentence tells us more.  BUT, his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle! Firstly, Joshua was his servant.  The first requirement, which is to serve.  And then we read the difference between Moses and Joshua.  Moses went back to the camp, but Joshua departed not out of the tabernacle.  Moses was also the one who through his disobedience, which is unbelief according to the Word, not allowed to enter into the Promised Land.  You see, it does not matter what amazing experiences you have had with the Lord, even as Moses had the miracles that happened in Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the miracles in the wilderness, not to mention the 10 commandments up in Mount Zion.  What matters is our faithfulness towards Him.  As God’s friend, Moses failed Him.  I suspect that the reason for this failure was the fact that he went into the camp again and that the murmuring and ridicule of the people wore him down.  He ended up striking the Rock twice. And he was only to speak to the Rock, once.  Moses gave in to his anger and the demands of the people.  The noise of the people drowned the still small voice of God. 

I do not think that the words in Exodus 33: 11 is said for nothing.  There is a clear distinction made that should have our consideration.  Like John, and so with Joshua, proximity is of the issue.  Are you leaving the tabernacle or do you abide?  Are you living your life from without or within?  Are you faithful as His servant never to leave His side?  Those who abide in the secret of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty (Psalm 91: 1). 

Psalm 25 14

The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He will shew them his covenant.

This word “secret” is the Strong’s word, H5475, meaning company of persons in close deliberation, by implication intimacy, consultation, a secret, assembly, counsel, inward, secret.

From this we see that whatever the sharing, it is not for everyone’s ear or heart.  And in essence we can also reflect on what the cost is of our disobedience and unfaithfulness.  Our God is holy, and yet in His holiness, as the Son of Man, He desires to share His heart with His friends.  Did He stop to be the Son of Man and the Man of Sorrows?  Has He stopped mourning the loss of souls to eternal damnation?  Has He stopped His righteous indignation over the abused and lost, even the animals?  He is still the Man of Sorrows, and it is with His friends He shares in secret counsel.  Those who do not depart out of the tabernacle. 

So let us then with our whole heart and being lay aside those sins that causes us to be tripped along the way.  Those sins that causes us to lose focus.  Let us once again depart from the camp, and stay in the tabernacle, in the secret place, for it is there where He will speak to us in due time.  There He will show us the hidden and deep things of God.

I end this devotional with a quote from Madam Guyon regarding abandonment and revelation.  She says…

“Abandonment is the means that the Lord will use to give you revelation.  The revelation you receive will come to you as reality rather than knowledge.  This is made possible only by abandonment.  You must remember to whom it is you are abandoning yourself.  It is the Lord Jesus that you abandon yourself.  As revelation comes to you, something happens; Jesus Christ actually makes an imprint of Himself upon your soul.  Each time He comes to you, He leaves a new and different impression of His nature upon you.

Soon there are many different expressions of His nature impressed into your being.

Paul did not ponder the sufferings of Christ; he did not consider the marks of suffering on the Lord’s body.  Instead, Paul bore in his own body the experiences of his Lord.  He even said, “I bear in my body the marks of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6: 17).  Did he do so by considering such marks?  No.  Jesus Christ had personally imprinted Himself upon Paul. 

When the Lord finds a believer who is completely abandoned to Him in all things without and in all things within, He will often choose to give that person special revelations of His nature.  If such should be your experience, accept these revelations with a thankful heart. 

Always receive everything from Him with a thankful heart, no matter what it is He chooses to bestow.”

Philippians 1: 29

For unto you it is given on behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake.

Romans 8: 17

...if so it be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together.