Many of you have been in a season where you feel like your dreams are over and no matter what you do, you keep running into disappointment. Many of you also feel like there is a pruning going on. You see and discern so much that is happening in the Body of Christ right now, and that God is desperately wanting His Bride to know who they are in Christ and not who they are based on what they do.
The Answer to Everything
Friends, I have good news for you. The only thing you have to do right now is to give up. You read that right! It's time to fully give up and fully surrender to the unfailing grace of the Lord Jesus Christ on your life, and let that grace produce its perfect work in you again and again.
My friends, I can tell you, your struggle is over and your dreams are about to be released! Let me share an encounter I had that will encourage you.
Recently in a dream, I was standing over a pool of gorgeous waters of life. Light was shining up in the atmosphere and on everything and around me. The Lord began to speak to me and my heart was awakened to the mysteries and the depths of Christ's unfailing love.
I could feel my heart burning within me as He said with absolute passion and abandon, “I want to tell you the the answer to EVERYTHING.”
Now, just wait right there. How many of you would like to know the answer to everything? Well, I know I would, so I'll go on.
He said, “What I have done on the Cross through My Blood is the absolute answer to everything. All you have to do is constantly yield to it by My grace.”
I woke up from the vision with a renewed sense of discovery and a need to run to Paul's epistles in this season of my life and recover no other revelation but the grace of God though our Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, friends, let me share with you that this is what I have been doing in the Word lately, I have been studying Paul's epistles since this encounter. I've been learning all over again about our heavenly identity in Christ. This is what I've been hearing from many in the Body right now, that God is bringing them back to that place.
“Doing” Begins with “Being”
The Lord also began to speak to me very candidly about how His saints have been warring with frustrations over feeling like they are not doing enough, and yet, He would rather them first understand how they are enough by just being. You are either “being” or “doing.” In life you can't have one without the other, but you must “be” first in order to “do.” If we were just “being,” the “doing” would almost be effortless. Now, I know that sounds crazy, but let me explain it more through Christ's victory on the Cross and His Spirit's inner work in our lives.
You see, when God looks for fruit He doesn't look at a person's legalism, religious efforts or works as their identity. In other words, He doesn't look at their “doing, doing, doing.” In Matthew 7:16-17 Jesus said that the we would know a good tree and a bad tree by its fruits. Now, this is not to say that He doesn't know our works. Jesus says in Revelation 2:2, “I know your works,” but He doesn't say that He knows us by our works. No. He knows us for who we have become in Him, by our fruits of the Spirit.
Fruits vs. Gifts
We should never see our identity in a gift. Gifts are wonderful, but should only to be utilized as functions. You see, we are not known in Heaven for what we do but for who we are. For example, in Heaven we are not known as deliverance ministers or performers of signs or good works. We are known by our fruit.
So important is this understanding of our identity that in Luke 10:20, Jesus cautioned His followers about it. For the first time they had just cast out demons and were ecstatic over their experience. But Jesus told them that they should rejoice because their names are written in Heaven, and not because demons listened to them in His name.
This is massive proof that the Lord is more concerned about His Kingdom becoming an inner work in us than He is about it being demonstrated in an outer work, though both are amazing! The work on the inside of the disciple's souls was worth more in His eyes than the work that was manifesting though them on the outside, because of what He was about to do for them through the Cross.
When we see our Kingdom identity as more of an inward work than an outward power, we have discovered everything! It all begins with grace. His gifts, which flow through us, are by grace alone. It is by grace that we so graciously get to steward our gifts, but they are not who we are. They have a function that points the entire world to Christ.
“Against Such Things There Is No Law”
Our true identity in Heaven is an inner-working of the Holy Spirit that we can't produce unless we fully surrender ourselves to His grace. For example: if the fruit of the spirit of joy is consistently yielding in our lives, we are known by the Father for our joy because of Christ's completed work on the Cross in our lives. But we must remember that joy in and of itself isn't a work we do, it is the Holy Spirit's work in us. It just takes full surrender. Isn't that a relief?
I want to quote the words of a Gospel song coming from the Lord's perspective that my father, Hank Martin, so beautifully wrote and recorded in New York City in the 1980s. It's called “To Be Victorious.”
“To be victorious, you must surrender, surrender completely to Me. To be victorious, you must surrender and I will set you free. I still can part the sea, the victory is in Me.”
There is a great error in thinking that just because God manifests His power in our lives, we can continue to live however we want. For example, a minister can see God working through their life in miracles and think that because God does miracles through them, He might validate their lifestyle of sin.
Let me be clear here, the Lord is merciful and His gifts are without repentance. He moves through people because He loves people. Souls are the uttermost business of Heaven. But if we are in sin, just because He moves upon us and through us does not mean He validates our rebellion. He still wants purity and His gifts of the Holy Spirit yielding in us. When His fruit is yielding in us, then the law has no power over us.
Paul said about the fruits of the Spirit, “Against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:23). The reason many will be told, “…Get away from Me, you workers of lawlessness” (Matthew 7:23), especially people who moved in God's power, is because there was never any matured inner works of the fruits of the Spirit in their identity…Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. Rather, they based their identity and their excuse off of their efforts. They will say, “But Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, or cast out devils in Your name, and do so many wonderful works in Your name?” But the Lord will tell them, “Depart from Me, workers of iniquity, I never knew you” (See Matthew 7:22-23).
They wanted the Lord's approval of them based on what they did as a function, when it had nothing to do with them in the first place. It had everything to do with Jesus. This is trying to get the Lord's approval by the law, continuing in defeat and sin, and yet missing love itself in the new-creation reality that we have become. You might as well try to climb into Heaven on a string of dental floss. His grace alone is what saves us and makes us new creations.
It reminds me again of Christ's admonishment: Don't rejoice because demons listen to you in My name, but rejoice in your eternal salvation.
I sense the Lord is bringing us back to that joyful place of blessed assurance in Him. And you know what? If there is iniquity in your life, you can just lay it down right now, making no more excuses. He is faithful to forgive you right now and cleanse you of all unrighteousness! Isn't that good news? You can't do it, but as you simply surrender, Jesus can!
“Doing” Begins with “Being”
As we head into the year 2020, a year which Prophet Bob Jones believed his prophesy of a harvest of one billion youth would come to pass, we can't forget what the Lord showed him in Heaven in 1975 when he died of a heart attack and then came back to life. Bob said one amazing thing. In his encounter in Heaven, he was standing in a line of people before the Lord, and the Lord asked each person standing in front of Him one question: “Did you learn how to love?” He didn't say, “Did you learn how to prophesy?” or “Did you learn how to heal the sick?” Those are all gifts that operate as an outer function of the Lord's goodness. But our blessed, new-creation reality tells us that the Kingdom of God is an inward work that makes us loving where we were once hateful, joyful when we were once depressed, forgiving when we were once bitter…the list goes on and on.
When we begin to take credit for something that is only a byproduct of being a Believer, we dangerously err.
The Ace Up God's Sleeve
The ace up God's sleeve is to live John 15. If we abide in Him and let His words abide in us, we will bear much fruit. By this we will show ourselves to be His disciples. While we desperately need power in the Church and miracles that demonstrates His goodness, we can't do the one without the other.
Friends, the world is getting darker and darker, but the Church is getting brighter and brighter! This is a an amazing season of the Lord bearing fruit that will remain in our lives by the simplicity of knowing Christ who was crucified.
Let's pray: Lord, I thank You in this season that You are restoring our true heavenly identity in the simplicity of Christ, and by knowing this simple truth, we will know the truth all over again and the truth will set us free! Amen and amen!
