S.B.A.T. IHAO World Prophetic Studies
Studies
Spiritual Laws and Principles
Part 3 - The Sacraments of Devine Healing
May 07, 2000
Part 1 - The Power of Gods Tears
Part 2 - The Hidden wells of the Spirit-gifts
Part 3 - The Four seasons of the Cross
Part 2 - The Hidden wells of the Spirit-gifts
Part 3 - The Four seasons of the Cross
PART I
THE POWER OF GODS TEARS
chapter 1. Soldiers Of Love
chapter 2. The Cry Of Love
chapter 3. The Power Of The Largest Cross
PART II
THE HIDDEN WELLS OF THE SPIRIT-GIFTS
chapter 4. The Well Is Underground
chapter 5. Calvary's Weapon-Arsenal
chapter 6. Inner Healing By The Largest Cross
PART III
THE FOUR SEASONS OF THE CROSS
chapter 7. A New Exodus
chapter 8. Ascension Day
chapter 9. The War About The Sacraments
PART I THE POWER OF GODS TEARS
Chapter 1. Soldiers Of Love
The Bible sais : We know we went over from death to life, because we love our brothers. Who doesn't love, stays in the death (I John 3:14).
We see here it's life-necessary to learn to love. The Love is the bridge to an eternal Life with God. We love, because He first loved us (I John 4:19). If we want to spread Love, we have to have an encounter with that Love and learn to know that Love first. We have to know which Love it is all about :
1. THE FIGHTING LOVE
In this we learned to know His Love, that He launched Himself for us. We either have to launch our lives for the brothers (I John 4:16)
2. THE SUFFERING LOVE
Who now has a living in this world and see his brother suffering, but closes his inside for him, how can Love stay ? (I John 4:17)
A true soldier fights for his people till the end and catches all the hits. He stands between his country and the enemy, to fight, but also to suffer for his people. This is the true Love of the soldiers-heart of Christ. This Love puts It's whole life in to destroy the barriers between God and his people. With this It surrounds and protect the object of Love full of fire and self-offering.
Only this love brings Unity and Mediation.
Only this love brings the warmth and the full bliss of Gods Eternal Paradise.
This Love is the Love of the Cross.
He is our peace, who made the two one and the wall that stood between He broke away, to make a Peace in Himself in which He made the two to one body, to reconcile them with God by the Cross, at which he mortified the flesh (Ephes. 2:14-16)
Only the bearers of this cross willl conquer, when the powers of hell will rise to overflow the world. Only the bearers of this cross will have a strong and firm bridge to reach the other side, in Gods bliss. Who doesn't bear his cross and comes behind Jesus, can't be His discipel (Luke 14:27)
When we want to have a heart-relationship with God, we have to learn to know His fighting and suffering Heart. If your husband or wife doesn't have an eye for your struggles and sorrows, is your relationship good then ?
Today is the day that they don't want the slayed Lamb of God anymore. In which community is place for Him yet ?
They want to see a Jesus with big muscles, who shows his powers to everyone. They want a strip-tease Jesus, who goes out of his clothes everywhere for everything and everybody, and lets the people have fun. They want a Jesus as a statue, which they can roll to the front when they need it.
The slayed Lamb isn't welcome anymore. They don't want to see His tears. They want to party. They want to see fun-faces. The slayed Lamb shows us that He struggles and suffers because of our sins. But one wants a heaven where anybody can party in his own way. That's why it is such a mess in church today.
The slayed Lamb cries .... and is looking for a heart which wants to surround his pains and wounds. He is looking for comforting hearts full of compassion. Where are these hearts today yet ?
Chapter 2. The Cry Of Love
Paul sais : That's why I have a pleasure in weakness, ridicule, lacks and persecutions for Christ, because when I'm weak, I am mighty (II Korinth. 12:10).
Gratefulness and Acceptation of the Suffering, The Bleeding Heart of God, is the base of the cross, the base of a heart-relationship with God. Only when you are grateful with the Bleeding Heart, with the moments of suffering, and you accept it in this gratefulness into your heart, and you melt into it, then God feels comfortable, and then He will give Himself more to you.
Ungratefulness, rejection and complaints while confronted with the cross, will cause the leaving of Gods Spirit as the leaving of a dove. If the cross comes to you, no matter in which form, what will you do ? See, that the cross reflects the begging of God.
See the cross which crosses your path as the Lord who comes to you in His despair and His trust to reveal you His pain. He shares it with you. When you get problems, realize that it is the Slayed Lamb knocking at the doors of your heart :
"I have so much pain, do you see ? I show it to you. Do you want to open the door for Me, please ? I'm so scared. I have so many sorrows."
Hear this cry of the Lamb, His cry for help, which echoes through your difficulties. He wants to make you something clear with it : His pain.
Every problem that comes on your path includes a scream for help out of heaven.
Every need which you face in your life reflects the Slaughtered Lamb of God who looks for comfort.
Every feeling of rejection, every feeling of unsatisfaction and pressure, every torturing thought of fear and lost, glimmers Gods cry for help in our hearts, and calls us to comfort and help Him.
Let Gods tears flow through you, let it flow. Don't be afraid for it. It is His Suffering. The only think He asks from you is if He may weep at your shoulder, if you want to hold His Hand, if you want to embrace Him in His suffering. He says : My soul is very sorrowful, till death. Stay here and wake with Me (Matth. 26:38).
This creates Unity. And Unity with God creates Victory ! In this all will came to a good end. God asks us if we want to carry Him, so also His suffering, into our hearts. This offers Him softening and comfort, encouragement and healing.
See in every problem, every pain which comes towards you, a Tear of God. Can He cry his heart out with you ? Are you grateful to receive His Tears ? Are you grateful to receive this deep Unity between God and you ? He wants to share everything with you.
As soon as you accept these Tears of sorrow in gratefulness, these tears will change into tears of joy, and they will bring you glory : Enjoy when you have part in the suffering of Jesus Christ, so that you either have part in his pleasure when He reveals His glory(I Peter. 4:13). As soon as God may pour out his tears in us, these tears will be transformed into the Latter Rain, the tears of glory.
If you cry of loss and someone embraces you, then these tears become tears of joy. That is true, isn't it ?
An enormous power will be released, when the suffering of someone gets connected to the love of someone else, if we bear each others crosses. Then it is like the plug is in the socket, and the lights go on to chase away the darkness.
Let us realize that suffering disappears, when we carry each others suffering.
That's why we don't have to be afraid to carry the suffering of God and His people, because when we do this, the love raises up and then that is the solution for suffering.
Chapter 3. The Power Of The Largest Cross
Because Christ suffered in the flesh, you have to arm yourself with the same thought, that who suffered in the flesh is detached from sin (I Peter 4:1)
As I look to the fact that the church can't detach from sin and misleading, how can our suffering be too large ? How can our cross be ever too broad ? I ask for myself the largest suffering and the broadest cross, to escape as fast as possible out of sin and lies !
As we ask for the largest cross, then we ask for the largest unity with God, because He is the One that carries the largest cross. Then we have also the largest power and with that the largest victory ! Then we truely realize that His Yoke is soft and His burden is light, like the Bible sais in Matthew 11:28-30. The cross of Jesus Christ is truely sweet for our souls.
If we ask for the suffering, we lighten the heart of God and become truely one with Him. Then Satan realizes that he lost it, and he will leave. There where we ask for Gods tears, there where we drink those tears, there satan will give up.
Ask for the Suffering of Jesus ! Lighten His heart. Carry the suffering with Him. Then your heart-relationship with Him begins. Then your life of victory begins.
It's His bleeding heart,overflowing with tears. It's the slayed Lamb, who begs if He may enter in.
Now you may think : "Yes, but Jesus doesn't hang at the cross anymore, I thought. I thought He was risen and that there is a feast in heaven now."
No. Every time we sin we nail Jesus at the cross again (Hebr. 6:6). The largest cross will come for Him, now sin is almost raised to it's climax. The Spirit of God can be grieved for sure (Ephes. 4:30), yes, He can be even quenched (I Tessal. 5:19).
Jesus' suffering here on earth only has been an outward manifestation of His endlessly deep and heavy suffering which grows and grows in heaven. Jesus showed us Gods salvation-plan in a nut-shell, but that's not the end. The whole salvation-plan have to be expressed through the church, the body of Christ. Then the suffering of heaven will be completed and Gods Glory will fullfill everything.
PART II. The Hidden Wells Of The Spirit-Gifts
Chapter 4. The Well Is Underground
I Korinthians 12 gives us a little list with the tools God gave to us. They are the Divine senses which we need to live in the Heavenly kingdom together with the others : You can also call them the leaves of Gods trees, for the healing of His people, as we can read in Revelation 22.
The secret of those healing leaves, which are also called spirit-gifts by the bible, can't be found above the ground, but just under the ground. The tree has to take roots to grow healthy and stable :
II Kings 19:30
The part of Judah's House which remained, will take roots again below and bear fruits above.
This phrase we can't turn upside down, because then large accidents will happen. If we want to bear more fruits, then we first have to take roots in deeper grounds. We have to grown at the underside, below, to devellop a firmer base first :
Hebr. 5:13-14
Because everyone who still lives by milk has no idea of the right preachings : he is still a baby. But the normal food is for the grown-ups, who used it to skill their senses in discernment between good and evil.
THE SOURCE IS IN THE PROBLEM OF THE OTHER.
We would like to hear, see, feel, smell and taste in the spiritual world so much. We want to receive the gifts of the Spirit. But God doesn't give these things right away.
James 1:27
Pure and clean religion for God, the Father, means caring for the orphants and the widows in their needs and to keep yourself clean of the world.
Hebr. 13:2-3
Dont forget the Hospitality, because of that some of you lodged angels unaware. Remember the prisoners as if you yourself are prisoned with them ; think about those who are abused, as people who have a body yourself.
Do we first want to feel what the lonely people feel ? Seeing them ? The abused people, the rejected people, the poor and the hungry ? Do we want to hear their scream ? Do we want to smell and taste through what they are going ? Or do we want to act at the surface again ?
If we won't care for the suffering of this world, if we refuse to feel Gods Pain, we won't feel anything at all. Then we won't get something to see or hear. Then the doors of the spiritual gifts will be totally locked.
Matth. 25:31-46
When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:
And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
We desire to taste the things of God. But this will not happen if we won't taste the tears of others first. We desperately want to feel the things of God, but this will not happen if we don't want to feel the sorrows and the fears of others first. The gifts of the Spirit don't come to us with the wind outside Calvary.
The key to experience God is to experience the suffering and the pains of others, becouse THERE IS GOD ! The key to hear the Voice of God is to get listening to the cry for help and the weeping of the people in need. THERE IS GODS VOICE.
Do you want to hear and understand Gods Voice ? Listen to the scream for help and the begging of the people in need. God lives in the needs and problems of people. He's always looking for that. He is with the people of a crashed heart. (Jesaja 57:15)
God speaks in the suffering. Listen to His voice in the suffering. Without His Suffering and Discipline, we cannot hear and understand His Voice ! Listen to His Tears in your life ! Listen to what His Suffering has to tell you. His pain cries for Attention. His sorrow begs for a listening ear.
Listen to the Slaughtered Lamb ! Feel Him, smell Him, see Him ! He gives us the spiritual senses which we need so much to discern good from evil and to live in the Kingdom of God. The Slaughtered Lamb contains the senses we need.
THE SOURCE OF TRUTH
In this Light we never have to be afraid of lies. It's the way we need to go : The way of the cross. Not a frivolous name-cross ... but a deep Character-Cross. On this way we will keep going.
John 8:12
I am the Light of the world ; who follows Me, will never walk in darkness, but he will have the Light of Life.
HOW DO I COME TO THE SOURCE ?
Hebr. 4:15
We don't have a highpriest who cannot feel our weaknesses with us, but one, who was tested in all ways, just like us, although he never sinned in this.
We will have to experience all the things Jesus experienced. We have to walk His Paths Of Suffering, His Footprints. He could engage and feel all the wounds of others and we can do that also. He could carry the suffering of the world and so can we. By this He could come into full unity with others and so can we.
People who feel rejected and put down, will not be helped by people on high pedestals. By this they would feel more disdained and scorned. Jesus took their place. he didn't come to them as a sturdy hero who came to save the pitiful. No. Jesus came to them as a rejected person, as a scorned one. He thought higher about them than about himself (Filipp. 2).
my cross is the tunnel to my fellow-creatures
Wounded people are searching for people who understand them deeply and who can feel deeply what they go through. They search for someone who gives them worth, someone who respects them, understands them and thinks high about them. We often gathered crosses to serve this purpose.
God showed us a tunnel which would lead us to a deeper unity with our fellow-creatures. A tunnel through which we could help them. But we scorned this tunnel, and by this we scorned our fellow-creatures. We locked these tunnels. We threw sand in it and stones and locked up all our problems. We wanted to keep our pedestals. We wanted to be superman. And that is understandable. This earth only honors superman and superwomen. The rest is put down and placed on the zero-line. Back to start.
i dig up my cross where i burried it
But we want to bear the cross to help and understand others. This means that we have to bring our crosses to the surface, the crosses which we burried under our feet. We will go into these tunnels to carry the suffering together.
This is a possibility for us to digest our old and locked up pains :
Ps. 4:1-4
Blessed is he who takes care of the weak ; when disaster comes the Lord will save him ; The Lord will guard him and keep him alive ; he will be praised on earth ; God, You won't deliver him into the hands of his enemies, the Lord will support him when he's laying sick in bed, in his sickness You, oh God, will change his couch.
We have to come down from our pedestals and through our pains we have to reach out for our fellow-creatures. Open these old pits, because they are still there and they make us proud, boasting and superficial. These locked pits became our pedestals, through which we think higher about ourselves than about others, aware or unaware. In a way we are unreachable for others, especially for people in need. By this people feel rejected, because we have them under our feet spiritually. We rejected the Slaughtered Lamb. He wanted to save people through us, but we didn't want to be like Him.
We can only feel the same as others and understand them if we experienced what they experience. Look for these moments again, the moments in which you felt like they feel now. Get that cross where you are standing on out of that place and carry it. We went through these things, so that we can come closer to other suffering people to offer them understanding and love.
If we want to help people from outside these tunnels, then we are really too proud and egoistic. Then we refused the cross. That is a sin which forms a wall between us and our fellow-creatures. Like this we become colder and harder, more and more with a lack of understanding and haughty.
Break down these walls and reach for these crosses. Then you have a bridge to come to people in humbleness and plainness. Then will your heart be opened to them and then you can cry again about the sorrows of someone else.
Do you want to see the cross of the past ? Or are we going to lock it up deeper and deeper ?
God wants us to bear the cross of all times, yes, the largest cross. Only then our arms are tall enough to reach God and all the people who He has on His mind.
the cross which is there because of my sins counts also
Hebr. 2:14-18
By His death He would replace the one who had power over death, and He would save they who were slaved by the fear for death. That's why He had to be equal to his brothers in all area's, so that He could be a highpriest of compassion and faithfulness, for God, to carry away the sin of His people. Because He suffered in the trial, now He can comfort those in trial.
Jesus came into the deepest room of death TO OVERCOME DEATH AND TO DELIVER OTHERS ! We have to enter the deepest little room of every problem and pain, to face the largest powers, the roots, to survive every form of sorrow and to save others.
These ways, these tunnels, are made for us already. We may walk them in humble victory.
Sometimes our sins bring us into prisonment, in one or another deep problem. God uses our sins in His plans. Let your failures discipline you, Jeremiah 2 sais ! If you accept the cross of sins, then God will use it to destroy your largest enemies. In these deep dungeons of death we can sting a deep sword into satans heart !
Simson knew this. Sin doesn't have the last word. By his sins he came into the temple of the Filistines, but he could destroy their whole kingdom from that point. He conquered more enemies than he ever conquered. God used his sins for the good.
We don't walk the paths of suffer to be destroyed, but to destroy the devil. We break his kingdom off to the ground. We come in the name of humble love, in the name of Jesus. We follow Him. He went on this path to face the devil on his throne. God lead Him to the deepest part of hell to do some clean-work there. That is what we call good root-taking.
Jesus went into the ravine and took roots there for all of us. We may grow there, we may finally bear fruits there.
These roots are His Paths of Suffer. Without these roots we will be blown away.
Let us give these roots room to grow.
my crosses are my spiritual senses to pick up the sorrows of others.
Hebr. 2:9
We see Jesus, who was placed below the angels for a time, because of his entering into the realms of death. He would taste the death for all of us, which is His crown of Bliss and Honor.
THIS is the way our spiritual senses start to grow ! THIS is the work of a high-priest, what the book of Hebrews is all about.
So come and see the Sufferings of your past and know that these are the tunnels to reach other people in suffering. See the pains of the past as your senses to taste the disasters of others. That's how you can taste God, because he lives there. He was already equal to that disaster (Gal. 3:13)
i have to watch my cross better, then i will see the cross of the other appearing
Gal. 6:1-2
Brothers, when you see someone in sin, help him, you who are spiritual, discipline him in a spirit of softness, watching YOURSELF, you who also can come into trials. Carry each others problems ; by this you can fulfill the law.
Look at your own life. If you see anyone in need or in trials, look at your own past at your own needs or trials. In this you can come to this person in softness to take his place.
If you are still on your pedestal and not reaching the people by your own pains, then it won't work at all. Then you can't help others. We all have our own pits. Only by facing and accepting our own pit, we can reach and help others ! The beautiful thing of this is that every pit crosses the other pit in the centre, the axle, Jesus Christ. Come into those pits of your live, deeper and deeper, till you reach the cross of Jesus. He's always deeper than you are. This is how you can set others free.
In the cross of Jesus you are able to meet other crosses.
You can never help anyone from above, but always from below. Come from the bottom, otherwise you will feel yourself higher than the other aware or unaware. Pride cannot help people. Pride can only reject.
See the other person as more important than yourself By this you can get him out of rejection. People in problems often feel rejected by God and people. They don't need pride proud hero's, but they need persons who feel how they feel and who understand them.
Filipp. 2:3-11
Without selfishness or vain strive after honor ; but in humbleness you have to see the other as more important. Let this character of Jesus Christ be in you, who humbled himself, who became a servant, equal to man. He obeyed the cross.
Today there are many people waving at the edge of the pit, throwing their wires. Many leaders, church-people and other sorts of so-called servants are ready to show us their skills in counceling. But don't accept them, because they are spirits of rejection. They want to use us to pump up their ministries and their honor. They want to feed their hearts by our own flesh. Don't take these qires. These are heros' of hell who want to reject you and getting you under their feet. Don't walk their ways, you aren't a number. You are not a piece of meat. You are a beloved child of God and He helps you to become one with you in all your pains. This is how we can recognize true servants of God. They come from the bottoms of your pains.
Ezekiel 34
1
And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2
Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto the shepherds; Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks?
3
Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock.
4
The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them.
5
And they were scattered, because there is no shepherd: and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, when they were scattered.
6
My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them.
7
Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the LORD;
8
As I live, saith the Lord GOD, surely because my flock became a prey, and my flock became meat to every beast of the field, because there was no shepherd, neither did my shepherds search for my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves, and fed not my flock;
9
Therefore, O ye shepherds, hear the word of the LORD;
10
Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them.
11
For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out.
12
As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.
13
And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country.
14
I will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be: there shall they lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel.
15
I will feed my flock, and I will cause them to lie down, saith the Lord GOD.
16
I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick: but I will destroy the fat and the strong; I will feed them with judgment.
17
And as for you, O my flock, thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I judge between cattle and cattle, between the rams and the he goats.
18
Seemeth it a small thing unto you to have eaten up the good pasture, but ye must tread down with your feet the residue of your pastures? and to have drunk of the deep waters, but ye must foul the residue with your feet?
19
And as for my flock, they eat that which ye have trodden with your feet; and they drink that which ye have fouled with your feet.
20
Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD unto them; Behold, I, even I, will judge between the fat cattle and between the lean cattle.
21
Because ye have thrust with side and with shoulder, and pushed all the diseased with your horns, till ye have scattered them abroad;
22
Therefore will I save my flock, and they shall no more be a prey; and I will judge between cattle and cattle.
23
And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd.
24
And I the LORD will be their God, and my servant David a prince among them; I the LORD have spoken it.
25
And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods.
26
And I will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing.
27
And the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be safe in their land, and shall know that I am the LORD, when I have broken the bands of their yoke, and delivered them out of the hand of those that served themselves of them.
28
And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the land devour them; but they shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid.
29
And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen any more.
30
Thus shall they know that I the LORD their God am with them, and that they, even the house of Israel, are my people, saith the Lord GOD.
31
And ye my flock, the flock of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the Lord GOD.
by H.T.J. Strijker
TO BE CONTINUED
THE POWER OF GODS TEARS
chapter 1. Soldiers Of Love
chapter 2. The Cry Of Love
chapter 3. The Power Of The Largest Cross
PART II
THE HIDDEN WELLS OF THE SPIRIT-GIFTS
chapter 4. The Well Is Underground
chapter 5. Calvary's Weapon-Arsenal
chapter 6. Inner Healing By The Largest Cross
PART III
THE FOUR SEASONS OF THE CROSS
chapter 7. A New Exodus
chapter 8. Ascension Day
chapter 9. The War About The Sacraments
Chapter 1. Soldiers Of Love
The Bible sais : We know we went over from death to life, because we love our brothers. Who doesn't love, stays in the death (I John 3:14).
We see here it's life-necessary to learn to love. The Love is the bridge to an eternal Life with God. We love, because He first loved us (I John 4:19). If we want to spread Love, we have to have an encounter with that Love and learn to know that Love first. We have to know which Love it is all about :
1. THE FIGHTING LOVE
In this we learned to know His Love, that He launched Himself for us. We either have to launch our lives for the brothers (I John 4:16)
2. THE SUFFERING LOVE
Who now has a living in this world and see his brother suffering, but closes his inside for him, how can Love stay ? (I John 4:17)
A true soldier fights for his people till the end and catches all the hits. He stands between his country and the enemy, to fight, but also to suffer for his people. This is the true Love of the soldiers-heart of Christ. This Love puts It's whole life in to destroy the barriers between God and his people. With this It surrounds and protect the object of Love full of fire and self-offering.
Only this love brings Unity and Mediation.
Only this love brings the warmth and the full bliss of Gods Eternal Paradise.
This Love is the Love of the Cross.
He is our peace, who made the two one and the wall that stood between He broke away, to make a Peace in Himself in which He made the two to one body, to reconcile them with God by the Cross, at which he mortified the flesh (Ephes. 2:14-16)
Only the bearers of this cross willl conquer, when the powers of hell will rise to overflow the world. Only the bearers of this cross will have a strong and firm bridge to reach the other side, in Gods bliss. Who doesn't bear his cross and comes behind Jesus, can't be His discipel (Luke 14:27)
When we want to have a heart-relationship with God, we have to learn to know His fighting and suffering Heart. If your husband or wife doesn't have an eye for your struggles and sorrows, is your relationship good then ?
Today is the day that they don't want the slayed Lamb of God anymore. In which community is place for Him yet ?
They want to see a Jesus with big muscles, who shows his powers to everyone. They want a strip-tease Jesus, who goes out of his clothes everywhere for everything and everybody, and lets the people have fun. They want a Jesus as a statue, which they can roll to the front when they need it.
The slayed Lamb isn't welcome anymore. They don't want to see His tears. They want to party. They want to see fun-faces. The slayed Lamb shows us that He struggles and suffers because of our sins. But one wants a heaven where anybody can party in his own way. That's why it is such a mess in church today.
The slayed Lamb cries .... and is looking for a heart which wants to surround his pains and wounds. He is looking for comforting hearts full of compassion. Where are these hearts today yet ?
Chapter 2. The Cry Of Love
Paul sais : That's why I have a pleasure in weakness, ridicule, lacks and persecutions for Christ, because when I'm weak, I am mighty (II Korinth. 12:10).
Gratefulness and Acceptation of the Suffering, The Bleeding Heart of God, is the base of the cross, the base of a heart-relationship with God. Only when you are grateful with the Bleeding Heart, with the moments of suffering, and you accept it in this gratefulness into your heart, and you melt into it, then God feels comfortable, and then He will give Himself more to you.
Ungratefulness, rejection and complaints while confronted with the cross, will cause the leaving of Gods Spirit as the leaving of a dove. If the cross comes to you, no matter in which form, what will you do ? See, that the cross reflects the begging of God.
See the cross which crosses your path as the Lord who comes to you in His despair and His trust to reveal you His pain. He shares it with you. When you get problems, realize that it is the Slayed Lamb knocking at the doors of your heart :
"I have so much pain, do you see ? I show it to you. Do you want to open the door for Me, please ? I'm so scared. I have so many sorrows."
Hear this cry of the Lamb, His cry for help, which echoes through your difficulties. He wants to make you something clear with it : His pain.
Every problem that comes on your path includes a scream for help out of heaven.
Every need which you face in your life reflects the Slaughtered Lamb of God who looks for comfort.
Every feeling of rejection, every feeling of unsatisfaction and pressure, every torturing thought of fear and lost, glimmers Gods cry for help in our hearts, and calls us to comfort and help Him.
Let Gods tears flow through you, let it flow. Don't be afraid for it. It is His Suffering. The only think He asks from you is if He may weep at your shoulder, if you want to hold His Hand, if you want to embrace Him in His suffering. He says : My soul is very sorrowful, till death. Stay here and wake with Me (Matth. 26:38).
This creates Unity. And Unity with God creates Victory ! In this all will came to a good end. God asks us if we want to carry Him, so also His suffering, into our hearts. This offers Him softening and comfort, encouragement and healing.
See in every problem, every pain which comes towards you, a Tear of God. Can He cry his heart out with you ? Are you grateful to receive His Tears ? Are you grateful to receive this deep Unity between God and you ? He wants to share everything with you.
As soon as you accept these Tears of sorrow in gratefulness, these tears will change into tears of joy, and they will bring you glory : Enjoy when you have part in the suffering of Jesus Christ, so that you either have part in his pleasure when He reveals His glory(I Peter. 4:13). As soon as God may pour out his tears in us, these tears will be transformed into the Latter Rain, the tears of glory.
If you cry of loss and someone embraces you, then these tears become tears of joy. That is true, isn't it ?
An enormous power will be released, when the suffering of someone gets connected to the love of someone else, if we bear each others crosses. Then it is like the plug is in the socket, and the lights go on to chase away the darkness.
Let us realize that suffering disappears, when we carry each others suffering.
That's why we don't have to be afraid to carry the suffering of God and His people, because when we do this, the love raises up and then that is the solution for suffering.
Chapter 3. The Power Of The Largest Cross
Because Christ suffered in the flesh, you have to arm yourself with the same thought, that who suffered in the flesh is detached from sin (I Peter 4:1)
As I look to the fact that the church can't detach from sin and misleading, how can our suffering be too large ? How can our cross be ever too broad ? I ask for myself the largest suffering and the broadest cross, to escape as fast as possible out of sin and lies !
As we ask for the largest cross, then we ask for the largest unity with God, because He is the One that carries the largest cross. Then we have also the largest power and with that the largest victory ! Then we truely realize that His Yoke is soft and His burden is light, like the Bible sais in Matthew 11:28-30. The cross of Jesus Christ is truely sweet for our souls.
If we ask for the suffering, we lighten the heart of God and become truely one with Him. Then Satan realizes that he lost it, and he will leave. There where we ask for Gods tears, there where we drink those tears, there satan will give up.
Ask for the Suffering of Jesus ! Lighten His heart. Carry the suffering with Him. Then your heart-relationship with Him begins. Then your life of victory begins.
It's His bleeding heart,overflowing with tears. It's the slayed Lamb, who begs if He may enter in.
Now you may think : "Yes, but Jesus doesn't hang at the cross anymore, I thought. I thought He was risen and that there is a feast in heaven now."
No. Every time we sin we nail Jesus at the cross again (Hebr. 6:6). The largest cross will come for Him, now sin is almost raised to it's climax. The Spirit of God can be grieved for sure (Ephes. 4:30), yes, He can be even quenched (I Tessal. 5:19).
Jesus' suffering here on earth only has been an outward manifestation of His endlessly deep and heavy suffering which grows and grows in heaven. Jesus showed us Gods salvation-plan in a nut-shell, but that's not the end. The whole salvation-plan have to be expressed through the church, the body of Christ. Then the suffering of heaven will be completed and Gods Glory will fullfill everything.
Chapter 4. The Well Is Underground
I Korinthians 12 gives us a little list with the tools God gave to us. They are the Divine senses which we need to live in the Heavenly kingdom together with the others : You can also call them the leaves of Gods trees, for the healing of His people, as we can read in Revelation 22.
The secret of those healing leaves, which are also called spirit-gifts by the bible, can't be found above the ground, but just under the ground. The tree has to take roots to grow healthy and stable :
II Kings 19:30
The part of Judah's House which remained, will take roots again below and bear fruits above.
This phrase we can't turn upside down, because then large accidents will happen. If we want to bear more fruits, then we first have to take roots in deeper grounds. We have to grown at the underside, below, to devellop a firmer base first :
Hebr. 5:13-14
Because everyone who still lives by milk has no idea of the right preachings : he is still a baby. But the normal food is for the grown-ups, who used it to skill their senses in discernment between good and evil.
THE SOURCE IS IN THE PROBLEM OF THE OTHER.
We would like to hear, see, feel, smell and taste in the spiritual world so much. We want to receive the gifts of the Spirit. But God doesn't give these things right away.
James 1:27
Pure and clean religion for God, the Father, means caring for the orphants and the widows in their needs and to keep yourself clean of the world.
Hebr. 13:2-3
Dont forget the Hospitality, because of that some of you lodged angels unaware. Remember the prisoners as if you yourself are prisoned with them ; think about those who are abused, as people who have a body yourself.
Do we first want to feel what the lonely people feel ? Seeing them ? The abused people, the rejected people, the poor and the hungry ? Do we want to hear their scream ? Do we want to smell and taste through what they are going ? Or do we want to act at the surface again ?
If we won't care for the suffering of this world, if we refuse to feel Gods Pain, we won't feel anything at all. Then we won't get something to see or hear. Then the doors of the spiritual gifts will be totally locked.
Matth. 25:31-46
When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:
And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
We desire to taste the things of God. But this will not happen if we won't taste the tears of others first. We desperately want to feel the things of God, but this will not happen if we don't want to feel the sorrows and the fears of others first. The gifts of the Spirit don't come to us with the wind outside Calvary.
The key to experience God is to experience the suffering and the pains of others, becouse THERE IS GOD ! The key to hear the Voice of God is to get listening to the cry for help and the weeping of the people in need. THERE IS GODS VOICE.
Do you want to hear and understand Gods Voice ? Listen to the scream for help and the begging of the people in need. God lives in the needs and problems of people. He's always looking for that. He is with the people of a crashed heart. (Jesaja 57:15)
God speaks in the suffering. Listen to His voice in the suffering. Without His Suffering and Discipline, we cannot hear and understand His Voice ! Listen to His Tears in your life ! Listen to what His Suffering has to tell you. His pain cries for Attention. His sorrow begs for a listening ear.
Listen to the Slaughtered Lamb ! Feel Him, smell Him, see Him ! He gives us the spiritual senses which we need so much to discern good from evil and to live in the Kingdom of God. The Slaughtered Lamb contains the senses we need.
THE SOURCE OF TRUTH
In this Light we never have to be afraid of lies. It's the way we need to go : The way of the cross. Not a frivolous name-cross ... but a deep Character-Cross. On this way we will keep going.
John 8:12
I am the Light of the world ; who follows Me, will never walk in darkness, but he will have the Light of Life.
HOW DO I COME TO THE SOURCE ?
Hebr. 4:15
We don't have a highpriest who cannot feel our weaknesses with us, but one, who was tested in all ways, just like us, although he never sinned in this.
We will have to experience all the things Jesus experienced. We have to walk His Paths Of Suffering, His Footprints. He could engage and feel all the wounds of others and we can do that also. He could carry the suffering of the world and so can we. By this He could come into full unity with others and so can we.
People who feel rejected and put down, will not be helped by people on high pedestals. By this they would feel more disdained and scorned. Jesus took their place. he didn't come to them as a sturdy hero who came to save the pitiful. No. Jesus came to them as a rejected person, as a scorned one. He thought higher about them than about himself (Filipp. 2).
my cross is the tunnel to my fellow-creatures
Wounded people are searching for people who understand them deeply and who can feel deeply what they go through. They search for someone who gives them worth, someone who respects them, understands them and thinks high about them. We often gathered crosses to serve this purpose.
God showed us a tunnel which would lead us to a deeper unity with our fellow-creatures. A tunnel through which we could help them. But we scorned this tunnel, and by this we scorned our fellow-creatures. We locked these tunnels. We threw sand in it and stones and locked up all our problems. We wanted to keep our pedestals. We wanted to be superman. And that is understandable. This earth only honors superman and superwomen. The rest is put down and placed on the zero-line. Back to start.
i dig up my cross where i burried it
But we want to bear the cross to help and understand others. This means that we have to bring our crosses to the surface, the crosses which we burried under our feet. We will go into these tunnels to carry the suffering together.
This is a possibility for us to digest our old and locked up pains :
Ps. 4:1-4
Blessed is he who takes care of the weak ; when disaster comes the Lord will save him ; The Lord will guard him and keep him alive ; he will be praised on earth ; God, You won't deliver him into the hands of his enemies, the Lord will support him when he's laying sick in bed, in his sickness You, oh God, will change his couch.
We have to come down from our pedestals and through our pains we have to reach out for our fellow-creatures. Open these old pits, because they are still there and they make us proud, boasting and superficial. These locked pits became our pedestals, through which we think higher about ourselves than about others, aware or unaware. In a way we are unreachable for others, especially for people in need. By this people feel rejected, because we have them under our feet spiritually. We rejected the Slaughtered Lamb. He wanted to save people through us, but we didn't want to be like Him.
We can only feel the same as others and understand them if we experienced what they experience. Look for these moments again, the moments in which you felt like they feel now. Get that cross where you are standing on out of that place and carry it. We went through these things, so that we can come closer to other suffering people to offer them understanding and love.
If we want to help people from outside these tunnels, then we are really too proud and egoistic. Then we refused the cross. That is a sin which forms a wall between us and our fellow-creatures. Like this we become colder and harder, more and more with a lack of understanding and haughty.
Break down these walls and reach for these crosses. Then you have a bridge to come to people in humbleness and plainness. Then will your heart be opened to them and then you can cry again about the sorrows of someone else.
Do you want to see the cross of the past ? Or are we going to lock it up deeper and deeper ?
God wants us to bear the cross of all times, yes, the largest cross. Only then our arms are tall enough to reach God and all the people who He has on His mind.
the cross which is there because of my sins counts also
Hebr. 2:14-18
By His death He would replace the one who had power over death, and He would save they who were slaved by the fear for death. That's why He had to be equal to his brothers in all area's, so that He could be a highpriest of compassion and faithfulness, for God, to carry away the sin of His people. Because He suffered in the trial, now He can comfort those in trial.
Jesus came into the deepest room of death TO OVERCOME DEATH AND TO DELIVER OTHERS ! We have to enter the deepest little room of every problem and pain, to face the largest powers, the roots, to survive every form of sorrow and to save others.
These ways, these tunnels, are made for us already. We may walk them in humble victory.
Sometimes our sins bring us into prisonment, in one or another deep problem. God uses our sins in His plans. Let your failures discipline you, Jeremiah 2 sais ! If you accept the cross of sins, then God will use it to destroy your largest enemies. In these deep dungeons of death we can sting a deep sword into satans heart !
Simson knew this. Sin doesn't have the last word. By his sins he came into the temple of the Filistines, but he could destroy their whole kingdom from that point. He conquered more enemies than he ever conquered. God used his sins for the good.
We don't walk the paths of suffer to be destroyed, but to destroy the devil. We break his kingdom off to the ground. We come in the name of humble love, in the name of Jesus. We follow Him. He went on this path to face the devil on his throne. God lead Him to the deepest part of hell to do some clean-work there. That is what we call good root-taking.
Jesus went into the ravine and took roots there for all of us. We may grow there, we may finally bear fruits there.
These roots are His Paths of Suffer. Without these roots we will be blown away.
Let us give these roots room to grow.
my crosses are my spiritual senses to pick up the sorrows of others.
Hebr. 2:9
We see Jesus, who was placed below the angels for a time, because of his entering into the realms of death. He would taste the death for all of us, which is His crown of Bliss and Honor.
THIS is the way our spiritual senses start to grow ! THIS is the work of a high-priest, what the book of Hebrews is all about.
So come and see the Sufferings of your past and know that these are the tunnels to reach other people in suffering. See the pains of the past as your senses to taste the disasters of others. That's how you can taste God, because he lives there. He was already equal to that disaster (Gal. 3:13)
i have to watch my cross better, then i will see the cross of the other appearing
Gal. 6:1-2
Brothers, when you see someone in sin, help him, you who are spiritual, discipline him in a spirit of softness, watching YOURSELF, you who also can come into trials. Carry each others problems ; by this you can fulfill the law.
Look at your own life. If you see anyone in need or in trials, look at your own past at your own needs or trials. In this you can come to this person in softness to take his place.
If you are still on your pedestal and not reaching the people by your own pains, then it won't work at all. Then you can't help others. We all have our own pits. Only by facing and accepting our own pit, we can reach and help others ! The beautiful thing of this is that every pit crosses the other pit in the centre, the axle, Jesus Christ. Come into those pits of your live, deeper and deeper, till you reach the cross of Jesus. He's always deeper than you are. This is how you can set others free.
In the cross of Jesus you are able to meet other crosses.
You can never help anyone from above, but always from below. Come from the bottom, otherwise you will feel yourself higher than the other aware or unaware. Pride cannot help people. Pride can only reject.
See the other person as more important than yourself By this you can get him out of rejection. People in problems often feel rejected by God and people. They don't need pride proud hero's, but they need persons who feel how they feel and who understand them.
Filipp. 2:3-11
Without selfishness or vain strive after honor ; but in humbleness you have to see the other as more important. Let this character of Jesus Christ be in you, who humbled himself, who became a servant, equal to man. He obeyed the cross.
Today there are many people waving at the edge of the pit, throwing their wires. Many leaders, church-people and other sorts of so-called servants are ready to show us their skills in counceling. But don't accept them, because they are spirits of rejection. They want to use us to pump up their ministries and their honor. They want to feed their hearts by our own flesh. Don't take these qires. These are heros' of hell who want to reject you and getting you under their feet. Don't walk their ways, you aren't a number. You are not a piece of meat. You are a beloved child of God and He helps you to become one with you in all your pains. This is how we can recognize true servants of God. They come from the bottoms of your pains.
Ezekiel 34
1
And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2
Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto the shepherds; Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks?
3
Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock.
4
The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them.
5
And they were scattered, because there is no shepherd: and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, when they were scattered.
6
My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them.
7
Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the LORD;
8
As I live, saith the Lord GOD, surely because my flock became a prey, and my flock became meat to every beast of the field, because there was no shepherd, neither did my shepherds search for my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves, and fed not my flock;
9
Therefore, O ye shepherds, hear the word of the LORD;
10
Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them.
11
For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out.
12
As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.
13
And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country.
14
I will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be: there shall they lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel.
15
I will feed my flock, and I will cause them to lie down, saith the Lord GOD.
16
I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick: but I will destroy the fat and the strong; I will feed them with judgment.
17
And as for you, O my flock, thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I judge between cattle and cattle, between the rams and the he goats.
18
Seemeth it a small thing unto you to have eaten up the good pasture, but ye must tread down with your feet the residue of your pastures? and to have drunk of the deep waters, but ye must foul the residue with your feet?
19
And as for my flock, they eat that which ye have trodden with your feet; and they drink that which ye have fouled with your feet.
20
Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD unto them; Behold, I, even I, will judge between the fat cattle and between the lean cattle.
21
Because ye have thrust with side and with shoulder, and pushed all the diseased with your horns, till ye have scattered them abroad;
22
Therefore will I save my flock, and they shall no more be a prey; and I will judge between cattle and cattle.
23
And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd.
24
And I the LORD will be their God, and my servant David a prince among them; I the LORD have spoken it.
25
And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods.
26
And I will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing.
27
And the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be safe in their land, and shall know that I am the LORD, when I have broken the bands of their yoke, and delivered them out of the hand of those that served themselves of them.
28
And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the land devour them; but they shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid.
29
And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen any more.
30
Thus shall they know that I the LORD their God am with them, and that they, even the house of Israel, are my people, saith the Lord GOD.
31
And ye my flock, the flock of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the Lord GOD.
by H.T.J. Strijker
TO BE CONTINUED