Turn To See

John 20:15-16 “ “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She TURNED and said to him in Aramaic,“Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). “

Is it possible that the thing you are crying over is actually over and you don’t know it yet?

It was so with Mary Magdalene.  She had reached such a high point in her grieving and was so immobilized by it, that she couldn’t even recognize the Man in front of her to be the One who she was crying over. Jesus, the Risen Lord, stood in her sight as the living proof of the invalidity of her grief and yet Mary could not reconcile it with what she was seeing with her eyes. Are our eyes so clouded with tears that we cannot see that our prayers are being answered, are we mourning over unfulfilled promises, when they are in fact, fully-fledged out and asking us “who is it you are looking for?”

We can get so overwhelmed by what we see or know in the natural that it becomes impossible for us to comprehend when the supernatural occurs, even if it has been promised to us by the infallible word of God. Such was what happened with Sarah, that when she considered her body that had lived out its natural purpose and the age of her husband, she laughed at the promise God gave Abraham, that He would surely bless them with a son within the year (Genesis 18:11-12 “Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?”“).

It’s a natural reaction, right? ….Well, should it be?

Mary crying at the grave side, is such an obviously expected behavior, that it should have surprised her when she was asked why she was doing it. I believe that Jesus was calling her attention to how she was perceiving what was happening around her, just as the Lord addressed Sarah’s hidden laughter (Genesis 18: 13-14 “The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son””). You see, we are called to be spiritual beings. But when we try to process things as natural men and women, there is a gap in our understanding which can result in our perceiving things of the spirit incorrectly or partially and emoting to the confusion we see rather than the confirmation that it is  (1 Corinthians 2:14 “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”)

YOU CANNOT SEE THROUGH THE FLESH WHAT CAN ONLY BE SHOWN TO THE SPIRIT

Please look at this image below:

What God speaks to us can look like this if we try to understand it in the natural. Just like an encrypted email can only be opened by the recipient who has the password given to him by the sender because of the confidentiality that he enjoys with him, the heavenly secrets can only  be accessed by the children of God who commune with Him in spirit and in truth. God is Spirit and He made us to be spiritual beings who discern things in our spirit and not in our flesh. He gave us the Holy Spirit to aid us in this endeavor. (John 16:13 “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth,…”) The real question is: Are we sometimes anxious, depressed, angry, fearful, doubtful or weary because we have been trying to reconcile the very real challenges we are going through with the promises of God based on our human interpretation and failing ? If we have, then we need to know that there is a disconnect in our life with the divine, because THE DIVINE CANNOT BE COMPREHENDED AT THE LEVEL OF THE HUMAN; NO MATTER HOW INTELLIGENT THE SAID HUMAN IS.

It is our own fleshly knowledge that veils our hearts. This veil is manifested as the grief in Mary’s heart that she wished for the body of the crucified Jesus while standing in the presence of His resurrected self and it is manifested as the defeat in Sarah’s heart that she dismissed the supernatural blessing as impossible. I wonder if we too are looking into an empty grave while the Lord is calling to us. I wonder if we too are standing behind a DOOR and listening to what God is speaking, instead of  meeting Him face to face (Genesis 18:9-10 “They said to him, “Where is Sarah your wife?” And he said, “She is in the tent.” The Lord said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him.”) Our spiritual eyes can be opened wide enough to believe God only when we are truly facing Him. It was when Jesus called our her name that Mary TURNED to Him and realized the risen Lord (John 20:Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).”)

2 Corinthians 3:16-18 ”  But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit“

When we turn to the Lord, we are are truly unveiled and guess what: not only is our understanding about spiritual truths clarified but we are freed from disappointments caused by our fleshly interpretations and our very countenance begins to reflect His glory. No more weeping in grief or laughing in disbelief, just boasting in the goodness of God, unveiled in Christ Jesus.

GOD BLESS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boast in Christ Not in Past

2 Corinthians 10:17-18 “ “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.”

We can be boastful without even meaning to. That’s the fact. Humility doesn’t come by accident. It is not the default position of the heart to be humble. If it is our desire to do the will of God, our heart must first, consciously, take the right position- an inclined posture leaning on His works, His testimony, His words of wisdom. Or else, we stand at risk of making a move or speaking a word that can unintentionally be self-serving or self-appraising (Psalm 119:36 ” Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain!”).  When we are constantly watching reruns of the past from which Christ Jesus has rescued us, it ceases to be boasting about God and turns into boasting about ourselves, even with the ‘Hallelujahs’ and the ‘Praise the Lords’. It is like looking at a picture in of you in a roller-coaster and remembering the ride and not the guy that opened the gate and let you out. 

The tendency to pat oneself on the back arises especially when we take a trip down memory lane. Oh those days! We see the great gulf between the ‘Where-I-had-been’ to the ‘Where-I-am-at’, and our heart swells with inadvertent pride. A splendid opportunity to accredit God with the logistics really! (Psalm 40:2 “He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.”) Sometimes, we reminisce about how lengthy the trials had been and how tricky the mazes were out of which God’s righteous right hand has navigated us.When we love telling tales about our own wicked past, we are indulging in a perverse glorying in the suffering or in the ignorance that was part of us in the past. If we are talking about “the bog” more than “the Rock”, we need to know that we are ‘gossiping’, because it is a story about someone that has died to those works (2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”)

Our humility is in the boasting of God’s work that is alive in us, that is producing a new fruit in us everyday, not in the dead works that we have walked out of (Ephesians 2:4-5 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— “). The difference between boasting in Christ and boasting in self is how often we remember what He is doing over and over again in us versus what we did once upon a time.  We are called to count our blessings, His benefits, and not keep the books of the losses before that. When we do this we truly enjoy the rewards of God’s approval- we soar high in His commendation of who we are in Him  (Psalm 103:2-5 “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”)

We need to be careful of what memories we choose to relive and what we choose to keep in their graves. If what God has chosen to forget is something we choose to remember, isn’t that prideful? And He has chosen to remember our past no more for His name’s sake. There is no glory to God in our resurrecting the dusty old bones from the closet (Isaiah 43:25 ““I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.”) If we insist on doing it we need to be aware that we are idolizing our ‘has-been’ and actively blocking our visibility of the ‘will-be’ plans of God for us. That is why God asks that we let go of the past and look forward (Isaiah 43:18-19 ““Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”)

Today is a great time to quit looking in the rear-view mirror and get the wipers going on the windshield ahead and put the gear on God’s Drive into our future.

God Bless.

 

 

 

 

 

You need THE OVERTAKER not an undertaker!

Philippians 2:10 “so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth AND UNDER THE EARTH”
You don’t require the services of an undertaker to bury your dead situation. You need the touch and voice of the OVERTAKER- Jesus Christ, who overtook death and overpowered the grave (1Corinthians 15:55 ” Oh death where is your victory, Oh grave where is your sting”)

God bless