Groaning For The Glory

Each one of us are called to live out the Isaiah 61 mandate within our own sphere of influence. The Mirror Translation captures this passage so beautifully, “The Spirit of the Lord us upon me, because he has anointed me to announce glad tidings to a starving people; he has commissioned me to announce the freedom of forgiveness to those held captive at spear-point by their guilt and shame; also the blind many now look up and be restored in their sight! I am anointed to send out those who are bruised and traumatized, into the freedom of their redeemed innocence. I announce that the Jubilee year of the Lord has come! This is the liberation celebration of the Lord, embracing humanity home”. What is the promise? Jesus is our hope! He is the hope of the nations. It is Christ in you, the hope of glory, the hope of things to come (Colossians 1:27). Francois du Toit of The Mirror says it like this, “He is not hiding in history, or in outer space nor in the future, neither in the pages of Scripture — he is merely mirrored there to be unveiled within you! What God was now able to disclose in the saints is immediately equally relevant in the nations! Christ in the nations is the hope of glory!! This is the mystery of the ages! This is what we were waiting for.” Romans 8:19 in The Passion declares, “The entire universe is standing on tiptoe, yearning to see the unveiling of God’s glorious sons and daughters!” The earth is groaning for the authentic sons and daughters to rise up. What is being unveiled? The Trinity is taking us back to the Garden where it all began. They’re restoring the garden in our heart; They’re restoring us back to the original design. We are being restored in Their image and likeness (Genesis 1:26-27). We are being restored and transformed to the place where we do life from, from a place of partaking from the The Tree of Life vs. the mindsets, paradigms and misalignments that attempt to cause us to partake from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He’s restoring communities, regions and nations backs to their original design, their original DNA; He’s setting things back in motion. What are we being unveiled with? The glory of Jesus Christ! Christ’s glory comes to us, enters us, fills us, envelopes us, then is revealed through us as partakers of the glory. I’ve heard people say that God will not share His glory with “any other” (Isaiah 42). We are no longer “another” for we are one with the Father, with the Son and and with the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ Jesus, just as we were with the Them back in the garden in the very beginning where it all began. When we look at Jesus dying on the cross, ultimately, it was to give the Father back His right to cover the earth with His glory. Ephesians 2:6 has given us the perfection and authority to be co-seated with Him. Jesus keeps looking at us, not as we see ourselves through our own filters and lenses, but turns and looks at us in the heavenly places seated with Him, gazing and focusing on us as complete and whole. A fresh baptism in the Holy Spirit, one of of fire and glory, is coming to encounter us and take us deeper into the heart of the Father—one that sets communities, tribes and nations back into their original design where they live from the place of fullness and glory. From this, God is forming new wineskins in us for the New Wine that He is pouring out like never before. Get ready for the overflow in your life from the intimacy and sustained connection in His heart that this new vintage will yield. May Ruach Ha Kodesh (Holy Spirit in Hebrew), the Spirit of Truth, continue to set our souls on fire as we partner with him as He continues to lead and guide us into all truth. Love,           Joel

Out of the Grey

We truly have an amazing thing going on in us every single day. When some days we feel off or grey, think of this fact; Great, Big, Wonderful God of the Universe has a Spirit and that Spirit lives inside of us! Holy Spirit lives from the realm of the perfect: perfect peace, perfect revelation, perfect love.... That person, Holy Spirit is with us and for us. A constant companion, Holy Spirit, is willing to guide us through everything from the little stuff to the big stuff and more.   Romans 8:14 tells us that “the original life of the Father revealed in his Son is the life the Spirit now conducts within us.” WOW, what a privilege! One of our tendencies is to become dull or fogged over. Often, it’s because we forget the heavenly resource we have within. But as a permanent resident, Holy Spirit is right there, willing to help lift us up and shift us out of the grey and into vibrancy again. Even when we feel stuck about what to talk about with God, there’s help. Check this out: “The Spirit also sighs within us with words too deep for articulation, assisting us in our prayers when we struggle to know how to pray properly. When we feel restricted in our flesh, he supersedes our clumsy efforts and hits the bulls-eye every time. He who scrutinizes the heart understands the intention of the spirit. His intercession for the saints is consistent with the blue-print purpose of God.” Romans 8:26 & 27 Really, we don’t need to spin our wheels, wondering what to do, where to go and so on. We think we do. We even seem to think that it’s irresponsible to be more at ease when we’re facing things. But again, we have one Who knows it all and has our best in mind. He wants to take us from the grey area to where life is flowing. Let’s let him!   John 16:13 “When the Friend comes, the Spirit of Truth, he will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is.”

Never the Same

Pentecost is upon us, the time we celebrate the original dramatic outpouring of the Holy Spirit to signify God was no longer content to be present with his children as a cloud or a pillar of fire or any other external way, but had to live inside each one of us, collectively, within his bride.   In every way, when Jesus was in human flesh, he perfectly modeled the life of our original design. The way God purposed us to live can be seen in Jesus. In humility he was baptized to model for us the need to die to our independent and old ways of thinking and perceiving what we thought was true of God, ourselves and others. Jesus knew we would have no way of doing this on our own, but that God would miraculously include us in Christ’s death on the cross. This is why Romans 6:3 reminds us, “when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death.”   Then, when Jesus came up from the waters of the Jordan River, he was immediately filled with the Spirit, a gift from God. Jesus’ life was never the same after that. Once again, Jesus was modeling for us God’s purpose and design for our lives. Jesus, always the forerunner, experienced what his disciples were to encounter on the Day of Pentecost and what countless followers of Jesus have experienced to this very day—a dramatic and powerful encounter with Holy Spirit’s infilling of love and power, never to be the same again!   Alive on the earth fully as a human, Jesus could not have released his Father’s Kingdom with love, forgiveness, signs and wonders without being filled with God’s Spirit. If he could, then we would not need Holy Spirit. That simply isn’t true.   From the time Jesus was filled with the Spirit, he also modeled complete dependence and showed us what the Spirit-filled, Spirit-led life looks like for us to walk in the same.   Immediately after his baptism, Jesus was tested in the desert, a test of whether Jesus would listen to the lies of the enemy regarding his true identity, or whether he would trust his loving Father and rely upon the power of the Holy Spirit within him to declare the truth of his being the way God knew it to be. He passed the test and showed us how to do the same.   Upon his return from the desert, Jesus declared the purpose of his life as designed by his heavenly Father. By declaring this Old Testament prophecy as his own life’s purpose, he was inviting us to do the very same. As you read this, I encourage you to be aware of how the Spirit you are speaking of vibrantly lives within you. I encourage you to yield to the sweet, tender and powerful Holy Spirit within to brilliantly lead you to live out your life’s true design. I encourage you to follow Jesus’ example and declare what is true of yourself:   “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to announce glad tidings to a starving people; he has commissioned me to announce the freedom of forgiveness to those held captive at spear-point by their guilt and shame; also, the blind may now look up and be restored in their sight. I am anointed to send out those who are bruised and traumatized, into the freedom of their redeemed innocence. I announce the Jubilee year of the Lord has come. This is the liberation celebration of the Lord, embracing humanity.”  (Luke 4:18-19 in The Mirror Bible)