ZEAL PART 2 - ENDURING LOVE

 

This devotional we can say is part 2 with regard to zeal.  In part 1 we were speaking about the weight of eternal glory and how that is actually what everything hinges on with regard to the Kingdom of God and that we have to be apprehended by the knowledge and the weight of the fact that we are going to be kings and priests of this Kingdom come down.  We have to be apprehended by this.  How will we endure?  There has to be something greater than ourselves.  A cause greater than ourselves, something greater than anything He would do through us.  Something greater that we are fighting for.  The Word says that the Kingdom suffers violence and the violent take it by force.  I was speaking about how zeal has to do with the Kingdom of God and that we need to be apprehended by that.  We need to seek that and the fact that we are going to be Kings and Priests of the Kingdom of God.  Today we are going to continue with the same subject, which is zeal, which will in the end time be that of endurance.  The last time I spoke about zeal, I mentioned that the Greek name for zeal is zelos.  In the Strong’s Concordance it means boiling water, burning hot, burning of the heart and indignation.   Zeal is very much a driving force.  Something that causes you to be able to overcome.  We know that the Word says that when we endure we shall receive a crown.  The overcomers receive a crown.  This endurance will not come easily.  Endurance means at the heart of it, that when you have come to the end of yourself, of all your abilities, where you come to the point where you realize that there is absolutely nothing in you anymore, no strength, no ability to go even further, you are able to stand up from that place and continue.  Not just continue, but growing stronger and stronger.   This can only be done by the grace of God.  However, our minds or our hearts have to be apprehended by the Kingdom of God, the fact that there is such a thing.  That is what it is all about.

Today we are going to go further, what I would say is the one side of the coin, which is the zeal for the King and the other side the Kingdom of God. It is the King and His Kingdom.  Today we are going to address the zeal for the King.  The last time I mentioned that right at the end of Matthew 3 it speaks of how Yeshua was baptized, the Holy Spirit came upon Him like a dove, and out of the clouds it was heard, “This is My Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.  Hear ye Him.”  What does the Spirit do after that?  He leads Him into the wilderness to be tempted.  How many times have we read that and not really grasp the reality of it?  The Spirit leading Yeshua into the wilderness for that specific purpose.  The last time I mentioned that the wilderness is for that purpose.  It is for trials and it is for testing.  The trials point to suffering, persecution, ridicule, trauma and the tribulation, very much a wilderness period that will without a doubt be defined as the time of greatest trouble.  It will be an immense trial.  What is grown and tried in the wilderness through trials?  It is our faith that is constantly purified by the fire of tribulation.  We know that the Word says that our faith that is tried is more precious than fine gold.  Our faith in circumstances where we no longer can endure and still believe and hold on to Him.  It is such a sweet smelling savor to Him.  In this time of the wilderness our faith will once again be tested through the trials to not give up.  Suffering reveals and ultimate suffering reveals ultimately.  Who can prepare us for the time to come?  We can only be prepared to a certain degree.  When we are in those circumstances, what will be written on our faces when calamity happens, will be the ultimate expression of our true reality and state of our heart.  Before Peter denied the Lord, he was saying that he would go to jail for the Lord and even die for Him.  He meant it.  It was said with utmost sincerity and not because he was not willing.  He was willing.  However, when it came down to the “nitty gritty”, what was exposed was his true state.  This was an absolute mercy.  So, in the time to come, we have to understand that absolutely nothing that happens to us will be without going first through the Father in order to get to us.  We will not be victims to circumstances.  You can only imagine what the angelic realm will look like and that even more so in this time His angels will be given charge over His children.  Yes, we will be as lambs for the slaughter and persecuted, but still, nothing will come our way which is not divinely allowed by the Father, unless we leave a door open.  Our faith will be tried to the utmost.  At the same time Yeshua was sent to be tempted in the wilderness.  Temptation has everything to do with the trying of our love or devotion towards Him.  This is the part where the zeal comes in with regards to the King.  The first church mentioned in Revelation 2 is Ephesus.  That which was shall be again.  And the church will in this Apostolic Age again be like the Church of Ephesus at the start.  The church during the tribulation will go through all 7 church dispositions mentioned in the book of Revelation. 

REVELAITON 2: 1 – 7

¹Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks;

² I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:

There will be many false apostles and prophets, which we see now today.  They will be found out by the true apostles that will be anointed.  He is applauding them saying, “I see how hard you are working and how you endure.  I see how you expose the works of the enemy.”  The whole focus is endurance and exposing the work of the enemy.

³ And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.

⁴ Nevertheless (meaning, “in spite of” everything you have been doing for Me…) I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.

⁵ Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.

⁶ But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate.

⁷ He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

If the time is coming where the Holy Spirit will be poured out and that the apostles will be sent out, it stands to reason that this disposition of the Church of Ephesus is already in the works.  There are already those who are readily exposing the works of the enemy, who is enduring and the race has already started. The disposition has already been nurtured and grown and a focus is there.  At the same time, the first love has, like a flame, died down a bit and is also in the works at the same time and starting to happen in several of His workers and the Church.  We know this is true about the Church in general.  However, today I am specifically speaking to the Workers.  Obviously it is applicable to everybody.  Father has put it upon my heart that we do not have it made.  It is going to be a great time of testing through temptation.  Think of the Israelites when they were in the wilderness.  They longed or desired the fleshpots of Egypt.  One can imagine after so much manna how they had in their mind’s eye this lush meat and vegetables and what they used to eat in Egypt.  You can imagine sitting in a concentration camp in the time to come, or cave or tent, who knows, not having a decent meal for so long.  How great the temptation will be, just like them, and to long for that and grow bitter in your heart.  The Word says that they grew bitter in their hearts.  This is not an instant process.  Eventually, during the wilderness journey, the Lord sent snakes into the camp that bit them.  He could not handle this moaning and groaning.  He could not handle that they did not believe that the same God that got them out of Egypt would get them out of the wilderness.  Who can blame them when we look at their circumstances?  We can easily read the Word and think that they were so ungrateful.  But, look at where they were living for 40 years and having to endure that.  We should not be too quick to judge.

In reading Revelation 2 with regard to the church of Ephesus, we see that there is a great zeal for the work that they did for the Lord.  A great zeal to expose the enemy and endurance.  However, the zeal for Him was not there.  Like I said, there is the zeal for the Kingdom of God and the zeal for the King.  Both of these have to be in conjunction with each other in the time to come and both will be tested.  The fire grew cold.  When you make a fire when camping or a fireplace at home, you get busy and after a while, you realize that it is getting cold in the room.  You see that the ash has become so much and that the fire has lost its potency and heat.  Only simmering coals there.  What do you do?  You move the ash away, blow a bit on it, put extra wood upon it and there you go.  You started the fire again.  When I hear the word ash, I think of Job and how he sat on an ash heap.  Job is a very good example of the tribulation of what will be.  Being so overwhelmed by your circumstances, the ash could be the trials and one can see the ash as symbolic of the trials that will be so heavy that it will easily dim the love that we have for Him.  It can be so overwhelming that we lose sight of Him and the fire and zeal in your heart for Him will start growing cold.  Every day little by little.  People that have been exposed to tremendous suffering come to a point where they no longer want to hope.  Even to hope is painful for them.  You can imagine how that love for Him starts getting colder and colder.  “Where is He?  Why is He not answering?”  The cry of the people at that time will be, “God has forsaken us”.  Will they be able to look to us and say, “We do not have hope, but why do you have hope?  You are going through exactly the same that we are going through.  How come you have hope?”  We need to be able, not just through our words and knowing the right thing to say, but our very lives have to be the living epistle that they can read and see that we have hope.  And it is not that we will be perfect, but there will be times that we will have our moments of breaking down.  Because we are real, made of flesh, but we will have the ability to endure and get up. 

In 1 Corinthians 13 it starts with having the tongues of angels, having the faith to move mountains and having all knowledge and understanding mysteries, and that without love I am just a clinging cymbal.  If I do not have love, I am nothing.  Then it says that if I give my body to be burned, or give all my goods to the poor and have not love, I am nothing.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things.  That is profound.  Giving your body to be burned or the clothes off your back or your goods, or being able to do miracles and wonders, these are quite profound things to do.  This is right in conjunction with the Ephesus church.  They could do all things, but He said to them, “Nevertheless, you have forsaken your first love.”  In the same way Paul is saying here, “Even if you can do all these things and you have not love, you are nothing.”  It is that love, His love for us and our love for Him that will cause us to endure all things, believes all things, hope all things and bear all things.  He is saying, “Yes, I will use you greatly and you will do mighty things.  Yes, you will expose the works of the enemy, BUT, if you do not have a fervent love and zeal for Me, it will be for nothing.” 

When we think of a couple being married for many years, let’s say 22 or 25 years, and one day your spouse comes and says to you, “It is not working for me anymore.  I do not love you anymore” Then the golden words, “It is not you, it’s me.”  Where does that leave you?  It is their choice to love you and there is nothing you can do, because they just told you that it is not you.  How does something like that happen?  Many people say, “We just no longer made any effort with one another.  We took one another for granted.  So many things happened between us.”  That is the trials, the ashes. 

How does love begin?  The thought that came to me is that it starts with a look.  Two people see each other across a room, and it starts with one look.  They catch each other’s eye and there is something about that person’s look or persona that draws one another.  A look becomes a gaze and a gaze becomes being lost in each other’s eyes.  I always think that falling in love is one of the most beautiful things that the Lord God has made.   It starts with a look and without one word even being said.  Yeshua talks about our eye that needs to be single, a single devotion unto Him.  That single eye is a reference to dove’s eyes.  A dove does not have a peripheral vision and can only see one thing at a time.  It cocks his head in order to see.  If you throw something on the ground it will not look straight at it, but will turn his head in order to see.  It can only see one thing at a time.  He is saying to us that He has dove’s eyes towards us and the Bride has dove’s eyes towards Him.  

SONG OF SOLOMON 5

¹I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.

² I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.

¹² His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly set.

Commentary on this “fitly set” speaks of a gem that is set in something.  A dove has a ring around the eye and it looks like a gem fitly set.  It is washed with milk saying that it is with pure eyes that He looks on His Beloved.

SONG OF SOLOMON 4

⁹ Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck.

In other words, “When you just look at Me with those eyes that are so devoted to Me, that is so in love with Me, you ravish My heart.”  When a couple is in love…O! Just that one look and what it does to a heart!  He wants us in this time to remain and endure in this disposition of being in love with Him.  A classic example is that of Romeo and Juliet, how a couple in love are willing to die for each other.  And did not Yeshua say that in John 15?  “Nobody has greater love than he who is willing to lay his life down for his friends.  You are My friends.” 

2 TIMOTHY 1: 6 – 7

⁶ Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.

⁷ For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

He is telling them to stir up the gift.  When I looked up this “stir up” in the Strong’s it speaks of rekindling a fire and that you need to remove the ashes.  In the same way, Paul is saying that the gift has to be stirred up, and Yeshua saying to us that in this time we need to stir up the gift or love.  He has not given us a spirit of fear.  Think of how rampant fear will be in the time to come.  We need to read scripture not only in its historical context with regard to what happened, but also in the “what is to come”.  Read the scripture as when you are in tribulation.  Reading further on…

¹⁵ This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.

Phygellus means “little fugitive” and Hermogenes is known as an apostate Christian.  Those in Asia turned away from Paul.  We must remember that Paul is an extension of Christ, the man of the resurrection and they fell away.  They no longer followed the Gospel.  This is the greatest time of testing and trial and this is why they need to stir up the gift.  We know it is the Spirit.  The Word says that He gives His Spirit to those who obey Him.  It is also the Spirit that pours out the love of God into our hearts.  How much are we going to need in the time to come to stir up the gift?  To allow the Spirit of God to rekindle our love for Him continually.  It is something that needs to be guarded.  I find it interesting that Charles Spurgeon spoke on a term he called “ministerialism”.  He said that he caught himself reading the Word of God thinking of how it applies to his next sermon.  How is it applicable to his congregation?  He stopped applying the Word of God to his own heart, always thinking of how he will use it for others.  It is very easy to fall into that trap and way of thinking.  The mindset is that of wanting to help others and minister to them.  Later on, you forget to use the Word of God as a mirror for yourself.  You read something, but your first modus of operandi is to think how it is applicable to others, because you want to serve others.  That is a great danger.  We first have to read for ourselves.  For instance, when Father gives me a word to give to people, I always have the responsibility of looking to myself and asking how it applies to me first. When I speak that word it has to be in authenticity.  It has to be true of myself first, otherwise I am not a pure vessel.  It has to come out of a pure vessel and therefore I have to allow Him to try me first.  In the same way as ministers we need to be willing to keep the Word first as a mirror before ourselves.  It is easy in the time to come when ministering to people, and there will be a lot of people to minister to, that you can forget about your own heart.  The Word says that out of the heart flows the issues of life.  Everything comes from out of your heart and if you heart starts to grow cold in the midst of tribulation, even without you being aware of it being so busy, then you can stand the chance of falling away, just like Phygellus and Hermogenes. 

In preparing the devotion Father reminded me of Peter in Luke 22.  Peter we know represents the church as a whole.  He can represent the left behind church as well, but he also represents the church as a whole.  We know that by the examples I have given that everybody will be subject to being tested in the wilderness.

LUKE 22: 31 – 32

³¹ And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:

That desire means to beg, to implore or demand.  The enemy being very persistent, coming to the Lord and say, “I want him, give him to me, I want to sift him!”  That is exactly what is going to happen.  Satan will desire to sift the church, demanding it.  This is a type and shadow of what is to come.  We know it is the wheat harvest that will be brought in and the wheat will be sifted.

³² But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.

His faith is not to fail. What will be tested in this time?  Our faith.  He is saying, “Your faith is going to be tested and I have prayed for you that your faith will not fail.”  Know that He is praying for us in this time that our faith will not fail.  He then says, “Once you have been converted, once the process of your faith that has been tested, every time, there will be a conversion that takes place.  There will be change and maturity.”  You will either fall back or you will grow.  These are the only two options. Stagnation is also falling back.  He says, “Once you have been converted, strengthen your brethren.”  This “strengthen” means to make them as pillars, establish them, make them strong and build them up.  Whatever we will be going through, our faith will be tested every time.  Even now, as we live our day-to-day lives, how much more then?  Every time our faith is tested it is for the purpose to convert us so that we may strengthen one another.  It will be exactly the same, however, amplified.  This made me think of Job.  The enemy came to the Lord God.  The Lord God asked him what he was up to.  He said that he was roaming the earth going up and down.  The Lord God asked him whether he has seen His righteous servant, Job.  And he said, “I don’t think he is so righteous.  You have this hedge of protection around him and there is no ways I can get to him.  How can you say this if I have not tried him?”  We know the Lord God allowed this and in the end Job said, “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now I see and I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.”  There was a conversion that took place and after that conversion, he received double.  All this is the process the Lord will take us through, even in the time to come.  The process in the wilderness will still be a time of much growth in tribulation.  We will not have arrived just because we have been filled with the Spirit, because we are able to do great miracles.  It will still be a time of testing.  We have the example of the Word of God.  For example what Paul went through, being flogged, shipwrecked…you name it.  Peter was crucified upside down.  All the apostles and prophets have one thing in common and that is persecution.  They also have glory, miracles and great things in common.   Suffering and glory goes together.  Weakness and strength goes together.  These things will all glorify the Lord God. In the end, there is only one who is to get the glory.  We will constantly be placed in a place of weakness.  The Lord God knows that if He is going to use us mightily, He has to humble us greatly.  That needs to be said again.  If He is going to use us mightily, He has to humble us greatly. To keep us on track.

Peter was standing outside of the temple, warming himself at the coals the night he denied Yeshua.  This particular word “coals” is mentioned in Romans 12 where we are told to love our enemies, because we heap up coals upon their heads. This love places such a guilt because of the mercy that is shown.  It brings conversion.  In John 21 Peter decides that he is going back to his old job, he is going fishing.  He has had enough and he cannot do it anymore. Some of the disciples went with him.  Spending the whole night keeping the boat warm, they caught nothing.  Yeshua came to them, telling them to thrown their net in on the other side.  They caught 153 fish.  Who was waiting on the shore for Peter?  It was Yeshua.  What was He doing?  He was preparing a meal on coals.  The coals on His enemy’s head.  Not that Peter was His enemy, but Peter denied Him.  Yeshua showed him love by making a covenant meal with him.  Every time Yeshua makes a meal with us, it represents covenant.  He is preparing a meal for Peter.  After this temptation, He asks Him, “Peter, do you love Me?”  Not, “Peter, did you keep on believing in Me?  Peter, did you endure?  Peter, did you do great miracles?”  No, He said, “Peter, do you love Me?”  He asked him thrice, because he denied Him thrice.  The last time, Peter said, “Lord, you know.”  Peter was so humbled by this, because he understood that no matter how much he confesses his love, the heart of man is before God and He sees all things.  He knows the truth of our heart.  Yeshua said to him, “Feed My sheep.  Strengthen the brethren.”  Remember, He said to Peter that after his conversion he is to strengthen the brethren.  This conversion was a zeal and a love for the one who made covenant with him.  Not just with fish and bread, but with His body.  There was a fervency and an enduring love that burned so hot after all the trials and testing.  It created in him a fervency for Yeshua, a zeal to endure.  The Peter before the cross that said he would die for Him and the Peter after the cross, is a different Peter.  The Peter after the cross walked in resurrection life and he walked in the love of God.  He knew who he was and that love caused him to endure. 

JAMES 1

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.

Your disposition towards those trials, everything we will endure in the time to come, will determine whether it will produce endurance in you, or whether you will fall down in self-pity.  Obviously, nobody will blame you for feeling sorry for yourself and it is not that we are told not to be saddened.  That we are not to cry over loved ones and are supposed to be these super humans.  This is about enduring in spite of it and that we need to understand that nothing will happen to us that the Father did not divinely allow.  One day we will understand it all. 

JAMES 1

¹² Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.

¹³ Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:

¹⁴ But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.

¹⁵ Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

¹⁶ Do not err, my beloved brethren.

The first part in verses 2 – 4 is the trying of your faith and then from verse 12 it talks about temptation.  Remember, that temptation during the tribulation will be for the testing of our love for Him.   It is a matter of the heart.   There is only one who does this tempting.  Lust is like a seed that conceives.  When it conceives it is bringing forth death in the end.  That flame of love that dies is the death that sin brings.  The temptation brings forth sin and the sin brings forth death.  We know that the enemy only needs a little gap.  Just one little gap at a time.  Today the gap is “this” big, tomorrow as well and before you know it, it is big enough for him to get his foot in.  If we do not see that gap in the light of the territory that he takes every time, he will get into the door. 

What is the purpose behind temptation?  It is to lure use, seduce us, to ensnare us and ultimately to cause us to fall away.  Like I said previously, how do we fall in love?  We fall in love with that first look. In the same way temptation also works with a look, with your eyes.  We know that Eve in the Garden of Eden said that the fruit on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were good to look at.  Temptation starts with the eyes, whether a physical thing you see, or something in your mind’s eye.  The Israelites must have imagined the fleshpots of Egypt when they were tempted.   In order to be tempted, to look at something, you ultimately have to look away from something else.  Yeshua is saying, “Look unto Me.  In the time of the wilderness, you will need to look to Me in everything.  Your focus will have to be Me.  The enemy will come through suffering and through temptation and every purpose will be to cause you to look away from Me.  You want to know how to endure in this time, look to Me.   Be conscious of what it means to look to Me.” 

Getting practical, in what way is the enemy causing you to be tempted?

I made three groups, and there are probably more.  The first group is:

COMPROMISE.

1.        DESIRES.  This is the most obvious with regard to examples like food, addiction, gaming, movies, and materialism.  People are addicted to information, not being aware how they crave new information.  Wanting to expose the enemy they get involved with it, but take their eyes off the Lord.  There is a lust for the knowledge of good and evil.  People get a lust for evil, exposing it, but there is a strong addiction in it.  It is very subtle and you need to be aware how much time you spend with it. 

2.       MOTIVES.  Remember it is about our heart.  Sometimes we are drawn away from Him because we have a desire to be used by Him.  The motive sounds pure, but if that motive comes out of a poor self-image, then it is built on wanting to please Him for your end and not because you love Him.  It is very subtle.  It is easy to feel as if you are in fact doing it for Him.  But, you are doing it for yourself.  This is why you get people feeling so despondent when they do not have certain gifts of the Spirit.  For them it means that they are either not accepted by the Lord, they are not good enough, they feel ashamed and rejected.  There are various things that go through people’s hearts and minds when they feel that they are not being used by Him.  They lose focus on what He is busy with them in their lives and they want to run ahead.  A lot of people desire dreams and visions.  The moment they receive one single thing, all of a sudden they are a prophet and they run ahead, because there is this absolute desire and craving to be used by Him. For them that equals being loved and accepted.  This is how subtle the enemy is in using our motives.  The Lord God wants to heal these issues and you need to allow Him to do that.   Everything has its season and time.

3.       HUNGER.  When we look at the example in Matthew 4 where Yeshua was tempted, He just fasted for 40 days and nights.  The enemy knew that there was a natural hunger for food.  Obviously He was hungry.  He basically said, “Here’s the stones.  I know who you are and you have the ability.  Why not do this?   It is not wrong for you to want to eat, right?  You are hungry and it is a natural desire.  There is nothing wrong with it.”  And so I use hunger here as an example because there are people who are “hungry” for healing.  Who can blame them?  They have suffered so much.  They have endured so much and they are “hungry” for healing.  There are people who are poor and are “hungry” for provision.  People who have always had to do things the difficult way.  Suffering tremendously because of poverty, always have to use “hand-me-down”, always having to depend on others, hungry to be able to provide for themselves.  These are all natural desires or hungers.  Who can blame them?  But, the enemy knows how to manipulate these things in order to cause us to lean on our own understanding and not wait on the Lord God.  It is so easy when you want something so much and have prayed for it, and He has not answered you, for the enemy to bring something across your path on the internet or YouTube that could possibly solve your problem.  You can easily think that it is the Lord’s provision.  Saying, “This must be Him.”  You do not wait on Him, not questioning it or discerning.  When a person is hungry they stuff their mouth with the food in great eagerness.  What are you “hungry” for?  Are you an easy target are you for the enemy because you are so hungry for it that you will grasp at it, because it is lawful?  The Word says that not all things that are lawful are profitable.  We have to wait on Him, because the enemy will use that hunger.  I remember when I myself got ensnared in deception.  I was hungry for the Lord and wanted more of Him and the enemy found a way to get me into something to deceive me.  I was so grateful for that lesson.  I would not be able to talk to you about this in authenticity if it was not for that lesson.  Now I can strengthen you and say, “Do not fall in the easy trap to fulfill the desires of your heart, even the desires of the Spirit, meaning you wanting to do right by Him.”  The enemy comes as an angel of light and he will use it.  Do not compromise, wait on the Lord.

PRESUMPTION (Taking advantage of the Lord God’s grace and mercy)

1.       FORGIVENESS.  His forgiveness is a mercy unto us.  It is very easy to sin and have as a disposition of thinking, “I have sinned, but I know I can just ask Him forgiveness.  I know He will forgive me.”  That is to abuse His forgiveness that He paid such a dear price for.  We know that His mercy is everlasting and then we think, “I will tonight when I go to bed ask forgiveness.”  There are people who think like that.  Do not be presumptuous.  Do not do that.  Do not test Him.  Yeshua said to the devil when He was tempted on the temple mount to throw Himself off the mount, Satan quoting Psalm 91, that “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord your God.”  The truth is there were stairs.  Sometimes the enemy will quote a scripture to help you out, but there is an escape via stairs and not the easy way out.  Do not presume upon Him.

2.       LOWERING THE STANDARD OF HOLINESS.  This can happen when we watch things that exposes the enemy.  A lot of times we can watch something that is defiling.  Things that are occult.  We are willing to watch things for the sake of truth that the Spirit cannot place His holy eyes on.  The Spirit is in us.  We compromise with holiness and lower our standard.  We lower our standard with how we speak.  With regards to jokes.  We lower our standard with regard to whom we allow in our lives.  Do not lower your standard.  Holiness IS the standard.  Without holiness and peace with one another we will not see God (Hebrews 12). 

3.       IGNORING THE PROMPTINGS OF THE SPIRIT.  Here we have the Holy Spirit speaking to us every day and we ignore His voice. We watch something and His name is used in vain.  We watch something and the “F-word” is used.   But, for the sake of truth, we will show it to others.  We listen to jokes we should not.  Ignoring the Spirit, that still small voice speaking to you.  These are the type of things that causes the love of our hearts to grow dim, the first love for Him.

4.       PROCRASTINATION (Delayed obedience).  Delayed obedience is still disobedience.  We know that it needs to be done, but we just do not feel like it.  Day in and day out things are left, or you do just that much to get by with.  Procrastination is the devil’s playground.  He knows.  Boredom is also his playground.  Be busy with the things of the Lord God, do not allow the enemy to cause you to take your eyes off Him and prevent you from doing what needs to be done.  Stay vigilant.

5.       LAZINESS.  There is arrogance that comes with laziness.  “I deserve it. I have worked so hard.”  It is not that the Lord God does not want us to rest, but how often do you do it and for how long?  Laziness has a self-pity element to it.  You feel you need to reward yourself and you indulge.  It creates a foothold for the enemy to come through indulgence.  Be vigilant, because if you do it often enough that seed will conceive and produce sin, allowing the enemy in and your love will grow colder. 

GENERAL

1.       DISTRACTIONS.  Through distractions the enemy gets it right to get your focus, your eyes off Him.  For instance, different things that goes wrong at home, like technology, problems in the family, people that need your help, various sins that you have given up a long time ago.  People that you have not seen for years, now pitch up and things of this world, what is happening in this world.  In order to catch your eye in temptation the enemy lures your eyes away from the Lord God. 

2.       SUFFERING.  Sometimes a person can go through so much suffering in their life that they define their relationship with the Lord as that of suffering.  That is all they see.  They know He loves them and wants to help them, they are enduring, but all they see is suffering, day in and day out.  It seems that there is no reprieve, no time to just be.  Without knowing it they define their relationship as suffering.  The enemy gets it right then that that suffering “ash” smothers the love.  It takes a real effort to take your eyes off the suffering and onto Him. By His mercy He will give you the grace to be able to do His will.  Do not define your relationship with Him with just that of suffering, because all suffering’s end purpose is glory.  Remember, suffering goes with glory.  He has a purpose with all our suffering and there comes a time that the suffering ends.  It ends in His time and season.  Not when you want it, but when He wants it.  If you hold fast to Him, if you look unto Him, remember, love endures all things, you will be able to endure whatever you need to suffer so that at the end He will overflow you with His love.  He will provide.

3.       PRIDE.  We come to a place where we take our eyes off Him and only look to what He does through us.  Your eyes are off His face and they go towards His hands.  What He gives and does through you.  It is then easy to walk in pride.  I remember once when the Lord said to me, “Your humility stinks.”  Very straight forward.  It was false humility, coming in the form of “Oh, I’m so grateful for how the Lord uses me!”  It is so subtle, because you are boasting in what the Lord has done through you, but the focus is actually you.  If we do not stay vigilant to that kind of religious pride that creeps in, we will easily think that you are “the bee’s knees” and think that it is all about you, when it is all about Him.  He can take everything that you do away in a split second.    You must be willing that He does.  Your hand must always be open.  Whatever He does through you or give you, He must be able to take away at any time.  Even your ministry.  Even your family or your money, your health, your child or husband.  He must be able to take everything.  Are you not a living sacrifice?  It is very difficult what I am saying, but if you do not have that disposition, you will cling to it.

4.       FEAR.  Fear has the ability to keep our eyes on that which is impossible for us.  Fear of intimacy.  There are people who have gone through so much pain and suffering that needs personal, emotional and spiritual healing.  They have been traumatized so much that they are willing to stay in that prison for as long as it takes.  They just cannot be that vulnerable in His presence.  That fear causes you to only look on what you have experienced and that you are not willing to go through it again.  Not willing to deal with those things, rather ignoring it and keeping it under the carpet.   If you look at that and not at Him, you will not see the love, the compassion, the grace and mercy that He will give to you in order to endure.  You will look at the difficulty, suffering and vulnerability and not look at Him.  But when you look to Him all these things will disappear and He gives you grace.  People have problems trusting Him because of what they endured.  But if you go to Him and say to Him, “I do not trust you, you know this already.  Please give me the grace to trust you.  I am just going to do it”, He will help you.  Then there is a fear of the cost.  I used to do that a lot.  When He showed me the things that He will do through me, I would run.  All of a sudden I had a lot of things to do in my house and be very productive.  I took my eyes off Him and placed my eyes on the cost. What it will cost to do His will.  He knows how difficult it is for us.  He knows how weak we are.  Much like when you have to walk on something high and your father stands in front of you and says, “Don’t look down, and just look at my eyes.”  This is exactly the same.  Do not look down or around to the mountain, just look to Him. Then, a fear of the result of your obedience.  When you have to confront someone or do something.  Sometimes we fear what will happen out of our obedience.  If we can trust Him with the act of obedience, we can trust Him with the result.  The result of our obedience is not our problem.  It is not our responsibility.  Only our obedience is our responsibility and He will give us the grace.  We can trust Him with the results.  Sometimes we fear the results, taking our eyes off Him.  Our imagination goes wild as we see the things that could possibly happen.  In the end we procrastinate or not do it at all.  The enemy steals time, joy, and our focus and our love grows dimmer and dimmer as time goes by. 

JAMES 4

⁴ Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

⁵ Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?

⁶ But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.

⁷ Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

⁸ Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

⁹ Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.

¹⁰ Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

The first thing is to humble ourselves and break our hearts before Him.  If you realize today that your heart has grown cold and that you have been so focused on other things, allowing the enemy to tempt you with small things, falling into the trap of saying the right thing, but you know that the love in your heart has grown cold, there is no longer that fervency and longing, then you need to humble yourself today before Him.  How many people long for the escape, but they do not really long for Him?  They think they long for Him, because they know how to say the right thing.  They long for the escape from this world more than what they long for Him.  Their hearts have grown cold.  The first act is to humble ourselves and only then we resist the devil and he will flee away.  It is from that place of humility that He will pick us up.  This will remain our testing and our trial to come.

Do you recognize your season that you are in?  Is it the testing of your love for Yeshua or the testing of your faith?  Or both?  Is your disposition of such that your eyes are on Him, knowing exactly what He is working in you?  Are you focused on Him?  Has your love for Him grown cold?  If your love for Him grows cold now, how much more in the time to come?  How much more vigilant do you need to be?

In Song of Solomon 8 it speaks of the Bride coming out of the wilderness leaning on her Beloved.   Will we as the Bride, as the workers, come out of the wilderness leaning on our Beloved?  She expresses her love for Him saying that it is a jealous love.  That word “jealous” means zealous in the Strong’s Concordance.   It is a burning hot love.  In this time to come our love will either grow cold or it will grow piping hot for Him.  It is only that love that will cause us to endure.  A love, a zeal for the Kingdom of God and its King.  That love is stronger than the grave.  That love, many waters cannot quench it.  Paul says in Acts 17 on Mars Hill to the Greek philosophers that our ultimate purpose is to be found of Him.  The Lord God says, “If you seek Me with your whole heart, you will find Me.”  The ultimate purpose is all about Him.  Do not lose sight of that.  Is everything you do today still about Him?  When you do Bible Study, is it still about Him?  Or is it about you?  Is it still about Him?  Is He able to share His heart with you?  Yeshua said in John 5 speaking to the Pharisees saying, “You seek Me, and you think you can find me in the scriptures.”  Yet, He was standing right in front of them.  They sought Him in the scriptures, being diligent.  They were seeking Him in the letter, but not in the Spirit.  Are you seeking Him in the letter, thinking that you are seeking Him in the Spirit?  If you seek Him in the Spirit, you will find Him.  You will not just find knowledge, understanding and revelation, but you will find Him.  And when you find Him, that love, that zeal, that flame will grow stronger and stronger.  I implore you to seek Him again in the scriptures for Him.  When you worship Him and your devotional time, do you spend time loving Him?  What is your vocabulary like when you speak to Him?  Do you say words like, “I adore you, I love you so much that every part of my being yearns for you”?   Do you say words like that?  Do you say words like, “I cannot breathe without you”?  Words like “deep is calling unto deep. My desire to be close to you and to be in your presence overwhelms everything.  I long for you”?  Is that your vocabulary?  Do you speak, not with lust as some do not know where the line is, but with a devotion that comes by the Spirit, because you speak by the Spirit?  Or do you get down to business?  “Lord, I need this, this and this”?  Do you long for Him?  Do you know what it is to be still and quiet and wait for Him to speak?  To trust Him to speak to you?  Do you know what it is to just sit in His presence and enjoy that and He does not need to speak?  Just being in His presence fills your whole being.  Can you do that? 

When last have you done that?  When last have you looked in His eyes?  When last have you allowed Him to look into your eyes?

Word received 10^th January 2022, speaking to His Bride.

DOVE’S EYES

My bride has been captured, but not by Me.  She has been wooed, but not by Me.  She has fallen, but not for Me.  As I stand with hand extended, she sees everything, but Me.  And yet, I long to see her eyes. 

Those eyes of single devotion to Me now. Those eyes that are drawn ever to Me.  Those dove’s eyes that rapture My heart.  But, she does not see Me, because she is searching, ever searching, but have still not found Me, right next to her. Right next to her.

Am I to be the jealous lover vying for her attention?  Longing for one glance when I have not taken my eyes off her for once.  Am I to fulfill all her desires whilst My desires lay barren? 

Yes, My dove, My sweet dove, I long for you.  I long for you to become still and be.  Just be in My presence so that you may listen.  That I may draw you nearer, ever nearer.  But, you have roaming eyes.  You no longer gaze long enough.  No longer lost in Me, but lost in the world.  Lost in the happenings and have not seen me standing right next to you.  The reality you long for is right next to you My dove.

As the world is driven more and more into the Meta-reality, you are to be drawn more and more in Me.  Not about Me, but the reality of Me.  I long for just one of your gazes.  I long for your dove’s eyes.

Come My Beloved, come away with Me.