Proclamation of Emancipation

Emancipation Proclamation, proclamation issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War, declaring all “slaves within any State, or designated part of a State ... then ... in rebellion, ... shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” The states affected were enumerated in the proclamation; specifically exempted were slaves in parts of the South then held by Union armies. Lincoln's issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation marked a radical change in his policy; historians regard it as one of the great state documents of the United States.
It took the better part of almost another one hundred years for the first ‘black man-Jackie Robinson’ to be integrated into major league baseball. The epitaph that appears on Robinson’s gravestone is one that he wrote himself. It reads: “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”

High and lifted up, suspended between heaven and earth impaled to a wooden cross, a tool of barbaric torture devised in the hellish minds of Roman superiority was one who once resembled a man, only this was “the Son of Man”, Christ Jesus the Lord.
Before Jesus yielded up His spirit, he with a loud voice cried out,” It is finished”! This set into motion in the spirit realm a holy tsunami of unparalleled portion, where sin had once abounded, grace was now going to super-abound.

I am no scholar, but yet I maintain with a certainty I am in the school of the Spirit, the best school according to the Father when he revealed that to me several years ago.
This school choose me; it definitely was not something I would have signed up for.
This being unknown to me at the time, revelation of having been brought into His training school, I was beginning to dimly see the out line of what it might encompass to move from Christ in me, to my Being in Christ!
Christ coming into me was that which facilitated and was meant to fully integrate me IN-to Him. This work has been contested ever since the perfect work of the Father through the Son on the cross cried out with a strong voice, “It is finished.”
The emancipation was instantaneous in the spirit realm (delivered out from the kingdom of darkness into the family of God the Father) as it always is, but this inner work of its integrating us into Him is a life long process.

At best only revelation from the Father, not some seminar is the only weapon that can realign us and center us in the true knowledge of His intended transformational work of grace.
Sin very much alive in our members is a moot point without there being a very real impetus aka Satan, the father of lies, out of which he spawned the very spirit of religion in all its hellishness. It is this unseen-felt entity whose purpose is to oppose-contend-resist our being fully integrated In Him. This continued work of grace is not unfolding by mere osmosis; we have been lovingly engaged and invited into an intimacy of being included and conformed to His death.

I love how the spirit has illuminated this from the Amplified Bible this cry of the spirit within us, “And that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope] that if possible I may attain to the [[spiritual and moral] resurrection [that lifts me] out from among the dead [even while in the body]."

Becoming rightly centered in Christ is that which experientially emancipates us from being ruled by the father of lies through our soul and living as a carnal or mere babe, “rather until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”
There is a vast unexplored realm within the heart of the Father that so many are but experiencing for the first time since being re-birthed, but in tasting how Good He is, there is NO turning back, even so Lord, come!

Rich

An Opened Heaven

The following excerpt from Austin Sparks has sparked something wonderful in me. First I want to share a few ‘heavenly’ scriptures to consider.

“A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven.”

“Now when all the people were baptized, Jesus was also baptized, and while He was praying, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came out of heaven, "You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased."

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”

I wonder if this heavenly realm we now live in, in Christ is all part off why we need the eyes of our heart opened to see what is ours now. “God's thought is not merely that we might go at last to heaven, not just that, but that now we should know what life in heavenly union with Himself means, and what all the resources of heaven mean for our lives here on this earth, that we should enjoy now every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ. That is a great word of the Apostle Paul. Heaven is something vast for present enjoyment, for present experience.”

Rich

“If there is one thing more than another which the Word of God makes clear it is that heaven is closed to man in his unregenerate state. You will find that to be the case wherever you may look in the Word of God. The very elaborate provision made for man to draw near to God at all is itself a declaration that access to God cannot be taken for granted. It is not a thing available without very special provision. Associated with everything provided for man in the Old Testament is the warning: Stand back! This is for you only on very special grounds. There is no advance. There is no approach. There is no access. I think it hardly needs labouring that the Word of God hammers out this fact, that to man in his unregenerate state heaven is closed.

Heaven is not only a place to which we may go. So many people have but one idea of heaven as the place to which you go at last if you are good. Well, it may be. We are all hoping to go there, but it is not in that particular sense that we are speaking of its being closed. The question of a closed or opened heaven is a very much greater matter than that. Heaven is a realm of God. A realm of everything belonging to and related to God; the realm of God and His things. It is the realm of fellowship with God, communion with God. Everything of meaning and value, of necessity and blessing for man's spiritual good, for man's eternal well-being, is bound up with heaven.

That is not something future, that is something for the present. God's thought is not merely that we might go at last to heaven, not just that, but that now we should know what life in heavenly union with Himself means, and what all the resources of heaven mean for our lives here on this earth, that we should enjoy now every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ. That is a great word of the Apostle Paul. Heaven is something vast for present enjoyment, for present experience. The Psalmist said of Zion: "All my wellsprings are in thee." That is what the believer says of heaven, of Christ in heaven. That is heaven in present possession, and present enjoyment, and unless that is true now, before we leave this world, there is not much hope of our going to heaven at last.

These things of eternal value for our well-being, these things of God for our blessing, for our good, are not to be found in the world. Men have searched for them, and sought them in the world, but they have never been found there. They are in heaven, and can only come to us through an opened way to heaven.
But all this - and it is far more than ever we could detail, even were we to stay to speak of it for a very extended period - all that heaven means of resource and of blessing and value for time and for eternity is closed, is behind a closed door, as regards unregenerate men and women, even though they may be religious. One of the great snares which will keep multitudes out of heaven is religion. To be religious does not necessarily mean to have a heavenly life in union with the risen Lord."

To Better Understand

Part 3 of 5 - TO BETTER UNDERSTAND OUR POSITION AS AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST

Let us consider the position of ambassadorship itself.

1. An ambassador is an official representative of a ruler or state. It would do us all good to realize anew that God has left us here for one great purpose: to represent His Son. Our first responsibility is not to build the Church or even to get souls saved—it is to represent Christ and to bring His message to the world. As God beholds us in Christ, so the world must behold Christ in us. As Christ represents us before the Father, so we must represent Christ before the world.

How far even the fundamental Church has departed from this! Imagine the Lord Jesus or John the Baptist or Peter or Paul using some of the methods our modern evangelists are using to attract crowds and get people saved! Let us write it down as a principle and never depart from it: We are ambassadors for Christ in this world of sin—the official representatives of God the Son. If we are true to our calling souls will be saved, to be sure, and not only saved but established and knit together in love. They will not be won to Christ merely through some emotional story or the thrill of a crowd or a prolonged invitation, but because the living Word of God has exercised its mighty power in their hearts.

We realize that this is contrary to popular opinion, but “What saith the Scripture?” Where in its pages do we find room for the shallow, frivolous entertainment which is being offered in many a fundamental church today? All about us Christians are saying: “Our first business is to get people saved.” The Church has been putting man first instead of putting God first. The result of this philosophy is that many of our leaders are stooping to the most unscriptural practices to get souls saved somehow. And as they forget the dignity of their position they lose their spiritual power as well as the respect of thinking people. No wonder the apostle exhorts us to “walk worthy of the Lord!” (Col. 1:10). Let us then remember it and never forget it: “We represent God in this world of sin.

2. An ambassador is always sent to another nation, never to his own. It may at first seem unnecessary to point this out but it is most important here, for the fact that our Lord is sending ambassadors to all the world implies that He has no nation on earth which He can call His own. All mankind has been alienated from God by sin. We speak of Christian nations, but in reality there is not one single government on earth of which it can possibly be said, “This is the kingdom of God. Christ reigns here.” Indeed, our blessed Lord is quite left out of the best governments on earth.

Israel was once on the way to becoming the kingdom of God, but she refused the King from heaven and the kingdom of heaven and has been cast out of God’s favor until “the day of His power” when He will make her “willing” (Psa. 110:3).

3. An exchange of ambassadors denotes a state of peace. It must be remembered that until the kingdom was offered to Israel, her position before God was very different from that of the Gentiles. As we have said, all mankind had been alienated from God by sin, but whereas the Gentiles were enemy aliens, God still maintained diplomatic relations with Israel. There were covenants between God and Israel and they exchanged ambassadors. There were the priests to represent Israel before God and the prophets to represent God before Israel. The Church of Rome has reversed this order, for her priests assume the position of prophets and presume to speak for God. In the Scriptures, however, the priest is the pray-er while the prophet is the preacher. From the very beginning of Israel’s national existence it was so. Aaron the priest appeared before God on behalf of the people, while Moses, the prophet, brought God’s Word to the people. Whatever may have been Israel’s unfaithfulness to God during the centuries after; there was still a state of peace, a covenant relationship, so long as God and Israel exchanged ambassadors.

There is a wonderful sense of peace and assurance I have only because of the One who said, "And I will build my Church" is the same One who said, "I will make you witnesses unto Me"!
Likewise Christ said, "I have called you to Be me to this world.

Rich

It's a Darn Shame

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

It’s pithy how such little words as ‘in’ can have such a powerful momentum/impetus. Kind of like my classic illustration of, ‘Even a blind man can count the number of seeds in an apple, but only God can count the number of orchards in a single seed.’

Because there are NO vacuums, if we are not deriving our true identity based completely upon the love of God the Father, then we are going to establish it another way, interesting when you consider that He is the only Way…hmmm?

From the fall of man there has been an indelible stain that his sin has permeated him with, and that is shame. Sin and its fruit sins, are specifics things we have done, but shame, well this is a twisted monster for sure. It has manifested itself in blatant overt ways, and in just as hideous covert ways. Shame is that which has defined all of man kind, and the only hope for man is pointing to that illuminating word ‘IN’ Christ!

None of us know what real love is until it is experienced in a face to face encounter with the God that IS Love, and even then it can take a very long time as the soul is being transformed, weaned from its strangle hold on us, hidden yet within us the under current of sin still trying to dictate-define who we still are, no matter what we say we believe God has said/done.

I am experiencing along with so many others, the slow day in day out transformational workings of the grace and love of this Father who has promised to finish in my life what He alone started.There is NO healthiness or well being outside of His love and its power freeing us from the vicious lies that keep multitudes endlessly trapped in the unnecessary cycle of either seeing themselves as unfit, unworthy, or, ‘hey, look at me I’m mister wonderful.’
If we have (in the natural) come from ‘poor stock-pedigree’ we are always trying to cover up our shame, but those who see themselves coming from ‘good stock-pedigree’ do not as easily recognize their hidden shame. Funny thing is all stock according to the flesh, good and bad has had a collision course encounter at the cross in the person of Gods son Jesus Christ.

The wonder of His love is invading so many hearts and lives and with it bringing in a living message of hope and freedom. In experiencing His love, we are learning to NO longer define our worth, value or significance based on our color of skin, our education, our sex, our financial status, the neighborhood, the car we drive or don’t drive, having friends or no friends, go to church or outside the church, etc!

Rich