“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” Romans 5:1
The thought of grace has just enlarged in me and offers an invitation for everyone. There is a dimension of grace that often, we don’t fully understand, of how grace is received and released and exchanged. We will look at Romans and John and the one whom we attribute as the law giver—Moses. Actually, in his own relationship before God, understood the grace of God better than most. Moses transitioned in completing one assignment into the next assignment, while in the midst of a massive failure in the prior transition. He had finished one assignment, on his way to the next, then everything fell apart and went wrong. He then discovered the new grace to continue, go in and finish the next assignment.
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, Romans 5:1
This is also found in Romans 4:23-24
23 Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, 24 but also for us. It shall be imputed (Righteousness) to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, 25 who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.
Our sins put Jesus on the cross—not His sins—but our sins. He was raised for our justification. As much as we are able to embrace that our sin put Jesus on the cross, we also have to embrace that our justification raised Him from the dead. This is a huge truth that if we must allow to be settled in our thinking.
In proceeding with Romans 5:1, we see that have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This is something that we are continually maintain, releasing, letting go, forgiving and re-hearing the voice of God.
2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Here we see an important point. It is very important to be at peace with God. However, we also have access into a grace that has not yet been tapped, to the full level. A comparison would be fields or lakes with when first discovered. And the awareness of how much oil (grace) there is that we have still not tapped into because we have not yet discovered or understood. In this grace, we have a destination which is the glory of God. Which is to fully and be transformed into that glory.
We go on to see that we rejoice in tribulations:
3 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; 4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Romans 5:3-5
We are cheerful, ecstatic, delighted and thankful and rejoice at the anticipation of glory. We are, therefore cheerful, ecstatic, delighted, and thankful and rejoice in our tribulations. This thought will take a repentance” (a mindset shift). BUT, it is important that we stop bemoaning our troubles, or trying to live a life avoiding all trouble. But we can’t hid from trouble because they will find us…even when we are hiding. When one leaves, a new batch of them follows. This is because Jesus intended for us to go through our tribulation and increase in our endurance.
Endurance is simply, exerting ourselves in faith, contrary to circumstances that are trying to stop us from continuing in faith.
Suffering is something we undergo so that we can overcome. An example of this would be when we go to a gym with a resolve to get in shape. We will have to undergo a new discipline so we can overcome an old “waistline”. This a choice we make. We understand that we will have to undergo in order to come over something.
In these times, God will activate our faith by telling us about the victorious life. In ads about getting in shape at a gym, we aren’t shown pictures of someone who is totally out of shape. We aren’t told that “This is you…feel guilty and get going”. Instead, they show us someone who is buff. This is who they say you are…This is the real you…We need to release you into the real you. We simply say “yes” to the answer even if we don’t realize what we have to go through for the answer. There is only one thing we must to—undergo. We say “yes” to resurrection. What is going to happen? We will be acquainted with death. If I say “yes” to glory, I will undergo more.
We, as Christians, say “yes” to a lot of God. God is thoroughly excited about where He has us. But we look at where He has us and we don’t understand why we didn’t get the buff body. We signed up for the classes, went, worked out…but somehow, we are worse off than before—and we’ve lost our place.
There is one thing we can do. We can say, “Thank You Jesus, for all my troubles”. We won’t attract new troubles by saying this. We are talking about our current troubles. “Lord, thank You for all my troubles because in my tribulation I am getting endurance. We don’t usually do this…but we are stepping into this now. When we endure we build “Character in NKJV” or “Experience in KJV”. Through the testing of God’s faithfulness in our efforts and feebleness, we experience God’s coming. We then begin to understand that He is able, and faithful and grace is working. This releases hope.
This is the dimension of hope that is not the natural hope that we carry into the earth through our beginning years. This is the hope against hope. It is the hope that is confident in God. Confident in His word, His faithfulness, His goodness and His love. It is all based on Him. It is a hope that is not disappointed because it is not based on me or our brother, sister, spouse or anyone else. No one can mess up this hope! It is God given hope. It is God fulfilled hope! And once inside of us, it makes us holy and a different person. This is because we can step into that realm of union and agreement with what God is doing at that moment.
5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Romans 5:3
In the second heaven, where Satan seeks to hold his reign and where the church is beginning to re-hold her place of commerce, the movement of spiritual entities—powers and principalities and rulers of the darkness. It is occupied by the dragon who is a fascinator, a deceiver, a slanderer and an accuser. We, personally, also have a very similar in our second heaven, which is our soul.
1. The first heaven is the natural world that we see.
2. The second heaven is the place of commerce, where in Revelation 12, we see the war of who holds their place. This is ours to hold as Christ places us there.
a. We stand by the blood
b. By His word
c. By not loving our lives to the death
An example of this would be if we were told, “Congratulations, you have just been given 10,000 acres of beautiful land in Northern Iraq.” Currently, we would wonder if we just won something or simply got a sentence of new death. This is occupying—taking a place that we are given but now have to displace what is currently there. This is the way inheritance happened.
3. The third heaven is God’s throne. The third heaven for us is our spirit.
In my mind, I have the same conflict that is experienced in the second heaven. When I overcome it my own “self”, I can begin to hold places judiciously in heaven through prayer, which I couldn’t if I was still being warred over in my mind.
All of the war is through accusation to condemn us.
1. An accusation is a charge (What you did was wrong)
2. A condemnation is “Now, here is what you have to do to make
it right”. Your payment or punishment.
Roman’s 8 tells us that all accusation is to bring condemnation is to create a separation from God—His love. In Roman’s 5 it also talks about at the end of the journey—a greater awareness of love. Love is ours, in Christ. It is ours and poured into our heart by Holy Spirit, Who is given to me.
But the accuser is there to batter us BUT who can accuse us? Father justifies us.
Then the condemner comes and tells us we are never going to be able to move until you have righted what we have wronged, by correcting it and paying some penance. WHO can condemn us because it is JESUS Who paid the penalty! Jesus paid our punishment and went to hell and was raised from the dead and is seated with the Father, and now praying for us!
We become aware that even the most horrific circumstances of life (you can list them in Roman’s 8). First they are mental, conflicting things. Then they become physical situations. But none of them can separate us from love.
Let’s let the love of God reconnect in our heart.
Prayer:
Father, in the Name of Jesus, Not by might, not by power but by Holy Spirit, move every mountain in our soul, that has usurped and risen up as an argument, accusation, condemnation or as a deception. Move every lie, that says that we are not greatly loved by God. We dismantle these by Your Spirit. Pour in its place, a holy awareness of love—Divine love. The love that drives out fear and allows us to yield our life and not seek our life. The love that allows us to be at absolute peace in the midst of conflict. Lord, pour out Love. Make us aware of Your love for us, in Jesus Name. Amen
God is so excited about what He is doing right now, the season we are in. He is so excited. Holy Spirit is so optimistic about the world right now.
Let’s continue in John 1:14:
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
This “only begotten of the Father” is Jesus, Who came from the bosom of the Father to reveal to us Who the Father is. In His death, burial and resurrection, Jesus has become the first born among many brethren. This is where we join in. Here, we begin to see the “first born” or “only begotten” in Jesus, Who is full of grace and truth.
15 John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.’” 16 And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. John 1:15-16
17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. John 1:17-18
Jesus is the essence of the Father, Himself! He has declared Him. John 1:18 is pregnant with beautiful word studies. The whole idea of “He has declared Him”, is that it was His voice, the voice of God. The disclosure of God was through His voice. When we say, I hear Your voice—I am awakened, we declare biblical truth, as also seen in John 5.
Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. John 5:25
This is not speaking of the resurrection of the dead. It is speaking of anyone in a state of death, hearing the voice and awakening—beginning to breathe again.
Let’s consider this from John 1:16: And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.
Years ago, I made a discovery. I was aware of:
- Faith to faith – Romans 1
- Glory to glory – 2 Corinthians 3
- Strength to strength – Psalm 84
But, here in John 1:16 it reads grace FOR grace. Why is it different here? Why not grace to grace?
The word “to” is primarily a preposition of to or into, indicating the point reached or entered. An example of this would be: Faith to faith. Today I hear the voice of God and I then enter a greater faith. As if we are stepping from one stepping stone to the next. It is adding to our faith
Faith can be added to—BUT you cannot add to grace.
As soon as we attempt to add to grace, we begin to violate its very form of God’s ability toward us, His influence upon us and His kindness directed toward us—all because of Jesus. This is why it says here, grace FOR grace.
Here “for”, according to Strong’s Concordance means: Anti – A primary particle; opposite, that is, instead or because…
Example: I have been in this “grace”. It has carried me in the place where I am. Now, I am beckoned into a new place for which I will need “new” grace. I cannot add the new grace to my old grace. I must exchange the old grace and receive the new grace. It is more relational and it is found in encountering Jesus Christ.
Here in John, we read that “we beheld Him, His glory, full of grace and beauty”. Therefore, when a new season is upon us, we need to discover Jesus to receive the grace to enter into the new season. Otherwise, we may enter into the new season with an old mindset. We would then bring in the old mindset, which may have become rules and regulations, into the new and therefore not be able to hold our place in the new season.
In going back to that 10,000 acres that we won in Iraq, most of us would say, “Choose someone else. I don’t believe that is for me. Thanks but no thanks”. We would need to encounter Jesus to enter into this new place. We would have to have an experience with Him that defined the way we would go to occupy this new place. 10,000 acres anywhere else, even in a desert, would be better than that, in value and transferability. But, currently this is in a place that is in “an unruly state”. We would need a new grace, apart from what we currently have, to occupy this place.
MOSES
Let’s look at the life of Moses. He was called of God and chosen to be a deliverer. Both his mother and father discerned this, so they held him in their home longer than allowed. They kept him for three months because of the decree at that time, regarding any Hebrew male child, born of the slaves had to be thrown into the Nile and killed. Yet, they saw that something was upon this little baby so they made the decision to not allow that. They came to the place where they could not avoid his being found so his mother placed him in a small ark that she built and placed it in the reeds where Pharaoh’s daughter would be bathing. In faith, she put the child there. Pharaoh’s daughter saw him and moved with compassion. Even though it was a Hebrew child, she decided to keep Moses. She gave him this name because she drew him out of the river. His older sister, Miriam, who watched this exchange offered to get one of the women to be his nurse. This was granted and they kept him until he was old enough to be brought back to Pharaoh’s daughter and be brought up in the ways of Egypt. He could have been in his mother’s home for years.
Moses grows up. He was obviously carrying something. He grows up as a military general, active in his ability to lead. He was intelligent, skilled and trained. But, in his heart, he knows that this is really not his destiny and wants to go among his people. Something inside awakened that he was called to be the deliverer of Israel. He discharges himself from the right to the throne in the Egyptian court. He comes to be known as a Hebrew slave. This is paramount! It would be like the wealthiest person in America wanting to disavow all he has and is to identify himself with those who are lepers in Africa. This is what Moses did.
In his newfound role as deliverer of Israel, sees an Egyptian mistreating a Hebrew slave. His response was of ways he had learned before. He kills the Egyptian and buries him in the sand. This is how he began his deliverance ministry. The next day, Moses meets to Hebrews fighting and asks them why they are fighting because they are all brothers. One of them rises up and asks him, “What are you going to do? Kill me like you killed the Egyptian?” Moses then realizes that something terrible has just happened. Pharaoh must find and destroy him. He wouldn’t be able to allow this inside of his kingdom. Moses flees from Egypt to escape the wrath of Pharaoh. He finds himself in the wilderness where he meets a shepherdess taking care of her flock. He defends them against other shepherds and her father Jethro is thrilled. She tells him that an Egyptian helped them and Jethro invites him to his home. Moses is content since he didn’t have anywhere to go. He is content to become their shepherd. He is content to get married. He is content to live in a home of those another religion. This would be like any of us, on the run, befriended by a Muslim. We come into their home. We marry their daughter and we live under their traditions and conditions.
This is how God trains His deliverers. Moses is excited about the birth of his son. He desires to bring about the covenant that Abraham set. So, he goes to circumcise him. His wife sees him with the flint knife and asks him what he is doing. He response to her that this is the custom of their family. She states that he is not in his family now. She sees what he wants to do as an abomination. She forbids it. As Moses continues in his training, he loses his assertiveness. It gets to the point where his confidence is so eroded that he begins to stutter. The one who was known as an eloquent speaker among Egyptians now stutters.
Forty years later, when he is eighty years old, he encounters the voice of God in a burning bush. The voice of God calls to Moses and tells him that it is time for him to go. “I have heart My peoples cry. I have come down to deliver them and I am sending you”. Reluctantly, Moses goes. He doesn’t want to go. He asks Him to send someone else, I can’t do it. They won’t listen to me. Who should I say sent me?” He just doesn’t need to do this anymore. Thanks but no thanks. Send someone else.
Finally, God says that He will let Aaron go with him—but “go”! Here, God makes a promise to Moses. He is at Mt Horeb around Mt Sinai. God says, “I promise you, that you will go down to the land. It will be a very difficult task. But after I extend My hand and My plagues, Pharaoh will send you out with wealth, as I promised Abraham. And…you will come back to this mountain and worship Me.
This is an encounter that imparts a grace volume for Moses to leave Mt Sinai, go into Egypt, pull the people out and return to Mt Sinai. There is grace for this entire journey.
They cross the Red Sea, come into this new land, they rejoice and start facing some of the struggles of provision. They struggle with not having enough water or wondering from where is their food is coming. The people have now gotten to Mt Sinai and God wants to everyone to meet. God tells Moses to bring them all together and He will come down from the mountain and talk to everyone.
The mountain experience with God is similar to volcanoes when they erupt. It is earthquakes, thunders, lightning and smoke like a furnace. Here comes God’s booming voice and the people are freaking out!
First Moses goes to the mountain and God tells him to stop because the people will see Him and die. Moses disagrees but God tells him to go down. So, Moses goes down and gathers the people. God begins to speak out loud and the people freak out. They beg Moses to not allow God to speak to them. They want Moses to be the only one God speaks to and they will obey whatever Moses tells them. This is how the law came into being.
This was not God’s first choice but it is usually our first step into relationship—to be told who God is by someone else. We then experience who He is for ourselves.
After this, God says to Moses to get Aaron and some of the elders and come up to the mountain and worship from far away. They then would receive all that they will need. They go up and have a living encounter with God. God then instructs Moses and the others to go back down and wait. He tells Moses that he will go up and God will give him the pattern of the tabernacle. Aaron would be in charge while
Moses was up on the mountain.
Moses is being pulled further and further into God.
This was so that God could give the people what they need in order to function in their new nation. All the people see is comparable to Mt St. Helen—a burning, blazing mountain on fire. Moses begins his assent and gets to the cloud of the furnace of fire. He stands there for six days. He understands that he mustn’t come in until invited. God tells him to come in on the seventh day. He is supernaturally sustained for the next forty days. He doesn’t eat or drink. He is completely sustained by God. God begins to fashion the tabernacle so He can have worship among his people. He then fashions the priesthood so they can administer on behalf of the people. He then gives him the Ten Commandments on two tablets that the finger of God wrote Himself. He said that they were now ready.
The people, on this same day, had been staring at a burning, thundering mountain for over fifty days. You couldn’t even see the sun because of all the smoke covering the entire sky. They come to a place here they are unable to further handle this. They want to have something they can tangibly see and feel. This was too esoteric for them. They decided that they had to have representation of the God that delivered them.
So, Aaron gathers all the jewelry and molds them into a calf, and declares that this is what the God that delivered them looks like. About the time of this presentation of the golden calf to the Israelites, God sees it and is displeased. He tells Moses to go down to the stiff necked people. He says that He will destroy them all and start over. This was not good and God rose up. Moses intercedes, brings God back into repentance. God does change His mind because of the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Because of His Name, God won’t do this thing.
This story of Moses is to show that we all need to reframe our thinking. God tells Moses that He will do all that was promised to Abraham but He can’t go with the people. God would send an angel to complete all that was promised. Moses responds to God that if God won’t go then he doesn’t want to go either. So, Moses puts his tent outside the camp because God said that He wouldn’t be in the camp. He spends time processing with God, outside the camp. The people become aware that something terrible has happened and are in remorse. Moses would talk to God and His presence would come. Joshua would stay there and perceive God in awe.
God chooses His next leaders from those who love His presence.
In Exodus 33, Moses finally has the moment of exchange.
We are in a new season where we must encounter Jesus anew, in order to get the new grace for the new season. We have had grace to get where we are. Remember the promise God made, “Moses, you will come to this mountain and worship” He did not have a grid for the future. He had no idea that 2.5 million Jews couldn’t wait for God for fifty days. He had no idea that God would get so upset over sin. He had no grid. He had no grace for it. He had not gone this way yet.
12 Then Moses said to the Lord, “See, You say to me, ‘Bring up this people.’ But You have not let me know whom You will send with me. Yet You have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found grace in My sight.’ Exodus 33:12
In our fast paced society, we might be inclined to assume that because we are known by name and have found grace in His sight that we have a right to move to the future. But, Moses continues this conversation:
13 Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight. And consider that this nation is Your people.” Exodus 33:13
Previously to this, Moses had grace to get him to the mountain. But now, he needed grace to get him into the inheritance. He needed a new grace FOR the old grace. A Grace brought him this far, but now he needed to know God’s way. For us, it is so easy. It is not complicated—God’s way is JESUS.
This is why, in John, it says we beheld Him, Who became the very bosom of God being revealed. This is where the grace is received. This is where the old grace can be given back to God and the new grace received.
This is like the why the American Flag should not be thrown into the trash when it has become tattered. It is to be burned. It is to be offered back up as a sacrifice because it is sacred to our Nation. So is this gift of grace that God has given us. It was given to bring us into this place, but it is not meant to bring us into the next place.
God hears Moses’ prayer and tells Him that His presence will go with him.
14 And He said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” Exodus 33:14 – This was the way.
He goes on to say:
15 Then he said to Him, “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here.
We are in a place that with take a bit of time. Don’t rush God and try to rush into the new. Let God have the intercourse with us until we understand the place to go into the new. Here it is, and will always be…His presence. A million dollars without His presence is a million troubles. Anything without His presence is not worth. In verse 16, we see the encounter, His presence:
16 For how then will it be known that Your people and I have found grace in Your sight, except You go with us? So we shall be separate, Your people and I, from all the people who are upon the face of the earth.”
He has the promise. Do we think he should get going? Moses continues and asks for one more thing that is needed. He says, “Show me your glory”.
Remember, we beheld Jesus’ glory, the glory of the only begotten Son of God, full of grace and truth. I need to see You! I need to see Your glory. He continues:
17 So the Lord said to Moses, “I will also do this thing that you have spoken; for you have found grace in My sight, and I know you by name.” 18 And he said, “Please, show me Your glory.” 19 Then He said, “I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” 20 But He said, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.” Exodus 33:17-20
I address this in my book, Saved Your Seat. This seeing and not seeing His face. What Moses was stepping into was a whole expression of God and fullness that he had not seen yet. Yet, he needed to be hidden in the rock, Christ, to behold God passing by him. God’s goodness being seen and His Name being proclaimed. This is a picture of glory.
In glory, there is always goodness and a revelation of His Name with an experience. We say, “I encountered you in the bush which got me where I am right now”. But, now, we have to encounter God in a new glory. We need to go from glory to glory if we are to transform. If we are to carry grace in our new assignment, we have to encounter God prior to entering into the assignment.
We live in a rushed society that sometimes we don’t have the time to perceive a new season upon us so we must have the new encounter experience in order to enter the new season with the new grace.
Moses goes to the mountain and God begins to decree Himself as He passes by (Exodus 34)
6 And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, 7 keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.” Exodus 34:6-7
Moses response:
8 So Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped. Exodus 34:8
In this new place, Moses says that even if we are stiff necked, even if we are an impossible people for You to lead, I ask You to be gracious and merciful, as You have just revealed Yourself to me as, and take us as Your own. Immediately God says, “YES”. You are ready. I brought you up higher so I can bring your people through.
This is what is happening to every one of us. All of us are being drawn out of necessity, to receive and know Jesus’ anew. It is not that He will be different than He was. He will reveal something of Him that you didn’t have before this. So, the assignment can be carried out because grace comes through the revelation of Christ. It is HIS grace that is sufficient, not our grace.
Prayer:
Father, may You open the Door for us to all have our face to face conversation with the God we know, and Jesus we have encountered. Until we come to the end of the place of knowing and need to know past what we knew; until we understand the grace that we have been given so we can recognize our need to know You. Father, I want to know You. In knowing You, I can find grace again—new grace for the new day.
Heavenly Father, where hell has broken into our lives and ravaged our minds, emotions, our souls, where we have been trampled on by the foot of men, where we have incurred bankruptcies, divorces, losses, where our dreams have become nightmares…How much more do we need to encounter You? Jesus, I know that every time You come, You take all of my questions and You reveal You as the answer. You take all of my problems and they go right into Your glory. Suddenly, I am a new creation again and again.
Lord, give us grace as a people to linger outside the camp. Lord, we want You. May You be the only one we are assured of and then from You all other things can come. Come to each one of us brand new as vegin a fresh. Fill us with Your Spirit. May we find a new revelation of You, In Jesus Name. Amen.
Upcoming Events
Wednesday, January 7, 2014, 7pm: I will be leading our service into “Dimensions of Grace” How we can discover and become carriers of the manifold grace of God.
Sunday, January 11, 2014, 9am: Peter Skidanov will be sharing “In 2015: His Presence, His Voice, Your Victory”.
Sunday, 10:20am: Join us in Praying for the Nations. A time of declarations and petitions for the Kingdom of God being established in all Nations.
Sunday, 11am: I will be sharing “Transformation from Glory to Glory” How the Holy Spirit reveals the glory of God in the face of Jesus and how we are transformed by this. There is much grace available for us in Christ for this New Year.
