Revelation (b) - About the Name

It is startling to me, that so many commentaries, studies and books name the book of Revelation: 'The Revelation of St. John the Divine', (after a man instead of Christ). I guess many of those authors never noticed that God, Himself, named the book in the very first verse, Rev.1:1, 'The Revelation of Jesus Christ.' The word 'revelation' and the word 'apocalypse,' are synonymous and are both derived from the Greek work apokalupsis, which means 'to unveil, reveal or uncover, lay bear, make naked' {Lu 2:32; Ro. 2:5; 1 Cor.1:7; 2 Cor. 12:7; Gal. 1:12} and numerous other references. The Hebrew origin means 'to lift up a curtain,' so as to clearly show what has been covered.
The Revelation had its beginning in the very mind of the Godhead. The Godhead is the trinity and this consists of the Father, the logos (the Son, Jesus), and the Holy Spirit. So Jesus had a part of the revelation in eternity past. But when He was born in the manger as the, 'baby Jesus,' He took on human flesh, emptying Himself of His divine position.  The word used for this is 'kenosis' which means 'to empty'. Our Savior set aside His power, knowledge, authority, His position as the logos, the creator and maker of everything that exists. For a time here on earth in the flesh He (Jesus) had no heavenly authority, He was simply human in His nature.  The Son of Mary and Joseph the carpenter, was born in Bethlehem and lived in Nazareth, giving up His heavenly position for the purpose of Calvary, so as to become the human sacrifice for the sin of Adam in the Garden of Eden. The whole purpose of His birth was to break the curse of sin and death.
I chose two scriptures to help our understanding of this 'kenosis', this emptying. The first description is found in Hebrews 2:7, "Thou madest him a little lower than the angels," and the other in Hebrews 4:15, "but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin".  These aren't exhaustive but they do capture a little of what He did, the 'emptying' we are explaining. The following are some other references on this subject; Rom8:3; Gal. 4:4; Phil. 2:7-9; Isa. 7:14, 11:1-2; Heb. 5:3; Isa 53:2-10; and last but not least Heb.10:5, (Is that a boatload of periods, commas and semi-colons or what)?
 Those thirty three and a half years of His life here on earth are referred to as His "Sonship." Before those 33 1/2 years, from eternity, He was the Logos, the Word. (Read John 1:1-14). As God, in the Trinity, He had no beginning (Mic. 5:2; Jn. 1:1-2). But as a man, He had a beginning, was begotten, was born and had a birthday, and became known as God's Son. Many scriptures tell us that the prophets foretold a time when God was going to have a son and where he would be born.  It would be through a virgin in the 'fullness of  the time,' (Gal. 4:4). He would be the son of humans and emptied for a time of His divine everything.
Now, Christ will always be referred to as Jesus, and numerous eternal titles for Him such as Prince of Peace, Messiah, Lamb of God, will eternally reference His work as our Savior on earth. But when God, in His time, works out all the details for the consumation of the ages, Jesus will return to His glorious position in the Trinity as "logos", to be adored by the universal family as 'the King of Kings and LORD of LORD's, of which we belong.
What's in a name? Well, let's just say that at the name of Jesus, EVERY knee will bow! (Phil 2:10)
(Next: 'The Key to Revelation'.)

Revelation (a)

I will be writing this blog series intermittently along with my regular blog, but this will be as a series on the book of 'Revelation'.  I hope you enjoy this series of writings and that they help you to begin your life as a 'watchman'. Yes, a watchman. He is the one assigned the task of looking, searching and penetrating the nothingness in order to observe the predator who has moved within it.
 A watchman's job is to watch and warn so that appropriate measures can be taken with reasonable speed and preparation.  Without an observant watchman, the enemy can come down quickly and we would find ourselves unprepared to take the proper measures, whatever those measures would be.
   So the word for you today, dear reader, is to be a 'watchman'! You are to have your saved and sanctified eyes on Jesus. Everything you do in life is to make sure that if Jesus comes, your reservoir of oil is with you and your lamps are filled to the brim. 
?What are you watching for you may ask? It might be better to note some of the things you are not watching for......you are not watching the nations. The news will never hurt you so long as you're not in it. The Jews in Jerusalem, or your personal friends are also not suspects. You are watching for the most dangerous enemy you will ever encounter other than the devil's minions themselves.
The enemy you are looking for is the one who will fail you in trials, will abandon you when he has sworn to stay beside you, or has gone to sleep when he has promised you he would stand guard faithfully for you...that enemy is as dangerous and unscrupulous as Judas, as deceitful as Tamar, as controlling as Jezebel and as unpredictable as the Pharisees and Sadducee's. The enemy you have to watch is, 'you'.....
There are seven churches in Revelation 2-3, each one receiving various warnings, but common to each one of them is this fact: they are all filled with 'you's.'  Yes 'you'...the born again and many times Pentecost-filled believers. And to each church there is a warning of a blight with those dear ones in those churches. God has something He needs to straighten out within those houses of worship. The 'you's' have stopped watching, lost focus, something has captured them other then Jesus Christ.
In this present "Church age" (which I believe is drawing to a close), you are responsible to guard your heart; to endure to the end, to hold fast, run the race, gain the prize. The Bible is filled with phrases teaching us that we are to be responsible 'watchman' to 'watch' our personal faith so that it stays strong against predators. 
So, before we begin Revelation, the warning must be to you, that little in Revelation and the study of it matters if you are not transformationally sound. If you are not right with Jesus and have less than an intimate, personally close, deep and warm relationship with your God, your Savior, then it would be wise for you to sit down and forget Revelation and get right first with the God who wrote it.

(Next article is "About the Name".)

Missing Our Greatest Breakthroughs? part 2

We left Part I of this blog by asking if we could be missing some of our greatest needed breakthroughs because we fail to fast. Earlier in the article we had talked about a three-twain cord (Eccl. 4:12). Well if you turn to Mark 4:8, 20, you can read of another three-twain reference which starts with a 30, 60 or 100 fold return. I like to think of it this way, when we pray, we get a thirty-fold blessing and when we give and are generous we get a sixty-fold blessing but if we pray, give and fast as a normal part of our lives, the hundredfold return can be released. If that is the case, you have to wonder what blessings are not being released.  What answers to prayer are not getting through? What bondage's are not being broken because we fail to fast?
Matthew tells the story of a father who had a demon possessed son.  I am sure many of you readers know the story, but if you don't and want to refresh it in your mind, it is found in Matthew 17. There were years of suffering for that father who stood by terror stricken as he watched his son suffer with severe convulsions.  As the boy grew older, the attacks became so brutal that the boy would often throw himself into a fire or at times try to drown himself. A spirit of suicide tormented him constantly. The whole thing came to a crisis point where it was life threatening.  He brought the possessed son to the disciples but those men knew only what Jesus had taught them to that point. I'm sure they prayed the best and hardest and with the most compassion that they could muster but it was to no avail. They didn't have a full tool box. You can only do the things you know...what you don't know, you can't do. Enter a perfect teaching opportunity where Jesus is in the vicinity and the
desperate father takes his son to Him.  He approaches Jesus and says, 'Lord have mercy on my son: for he is a lunatic, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him" (Matt.17:15).
At this time, Jesus, His heart full of love and filled with compassion and just about ready to burst out with mercy, tenderly greets the father.  Now the father is on edge because Jesus is a rabbi, and he himself a lonely broken and worn out old man. Jesus comforts that father, and the father now is drawing strength from the warmth and tenderness of the Messiah who welcomed him. Jesus asks him what it is that he is so distraught and in tears over and the father looks at the Master with lips quivering and eyes weeping, turns and points to his son who is now in a state of agitation because the devil in him knows who Jesus is!! (Remember this "bondage maker" is a created being from yesterday past and this devilish thing knows exactly who Jesus is.) The Lord goes over to the boy, "rebukes the devil; and he departed out of him, (v.18).
But what made the difference? After all, Matthew 10:1 tells us that Jesus had given the disciples power to cast out evil spirits and to heal every disease.  So why couldn't they cast out the demon and cure the son from this terror? The disciples came to Jesus later that night and asked Him.  Lord, why not us? Jesus told them, "Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting" (Matt. 17:20-21).
OK, we have all read this section many times and if you ask most readers they will focus on the statement, "and nothing shall be impossible unto you." I have preached on this same thing before as well. Jesus told them they needed faith and with that, just the faith of a mustard seed. But that wasn't the whole of the matter.  A while before this incident at the beginning of Jesus' ministry the Holy Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert for forty days and forty nights. ?Do you remember that? What did Jesus do while out in that desert?  He prayed and fasted...He the Master miracle worker, the Creator of all things, was in the desert for forty days and nights fasting...giving up food and comfort. Yes, He just didn't give up food...he fasted companionship, a soft, comfy bed and blanket, He fasted social happenings and friends....come' on work with me here. What is out in the desert that's fun?
......"howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting."  For our Savior, casting out that stubborn demon wasn't impossible at all.
But here is the lesson for us...if Jesus could have accomplished all that  He came to do among men without fasting, why would He fast?  The Son of God fasted because it powered Him up! He was juiced after and during a fast. Supernatural things were released that way...The hundredfold was released in him so that what He did in private (fasting) was seen openly in (miracles).
see you in part 3of 4.

Missing Our Greatest Breakthrough part #1 of

We all have some things that cause us to miss the greatest breakthroughs needed in our lives. During this series of articles that I'll be doing during the weeks of January/2014, I will be blogging my little fingers off about fasting.
I believe in it...I believe it is a powerful tool to help God's people receive a bunch of blessings. Yeah....a bunch. Fasting is good for the body...it is tremendous to the soul, it is impressive to God and it is even better as a game changer in life.
Let's clear the air about what a fast is. Refraining from food is not a fast. That is a diet. But refraining from food for a spiritual purpose.....that dear one's is a fast. From a biblical perspective, fasting has and is to be a normal part of a strong and vital relationship with God. David, the Goliath killer,
communicates that to us in Psalms 42 where he credits fasting (42.1-3) as the means to having a deeper(42.7), more intimate and powerful relationship with the Lord.
When a person deliberately, and with a purpose for spiritual growth, eliminates food from his/her diet for a given period of time, that person's spirit becomes uncluttered by the things around them and super sensitive to God. As David stated, "Deep calls unto deep"(Ps 42.7). David was fasting. His hunger and thirst for God exceeded his basic desire for food. That kind of want for God made it so that he could find God's presence and comfort in any situation. Even when Absalom forced David into a short term exile from his God-appointed throne in Jerusalem.
For anyone who has ever experienced an intimate relationship with the Lord and the numerous blessings that come with His favor--your whole perspective of life changes. You are not a victim anymore and you will never be conquerable anymore. You realize that His favor has come, in a huge part, from fasting. 
During Jesus' ministry on this planet, one of things He did was to teach and demonstrate to His disciples the principles of the kingdom of God. If you've spent any reasonable time in your Bible, you know that those principles conflict with the worldly life of today - and of back then. Jesus taught a tremendous message titled 'the Sermon on the Mount' (Matt. chpt 5-7). In chapter 6, He teaches us the pattern by which each of us is to live as a child of God.  That pattern deals with three main issues of a Christian's duty: giving, praying and fasting.  The Bible records Jesus' words this way, "When you give..."When you pray"....and "When you fast." Making it perfectly clear to everyone, that fasting, giving and praying are to be a normal part of a Christian's life.
King Solomon, earlier in biblical history wrote a book for all of Israel to read and learn from. In that book he made a very special point about strength. He uses a rope(cord,wire) for his example. You can find this illustration for yourself in Eccles. 4:12, where Solomon says, "a person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord(rope, wire) is not easily broken" (NLT). And that is the way it is when giving, praying and fasting are joined together in the life of a believer. It creates a trilogy of actions and efforts, a three-twain cord that is not easily broken. Do you remember when Batman was on TV every week? They would put up the words; "Bang, Bam, Boom" when he and Robin were in a skirmish. These three words described-with excitement- Batman and Robin's conflict and their beating up on their opponents.
Well to the Devil,  it is not "Bang, Bam, Boom",  it is praying, fasting and giving. Through these three, we open the pathway to victory in our lives. To the victor goes the spoils, [so we get to drive off in the batmobile!] Could it be, oh lover of Christ, that we may be missing our biggest breakthroughs because we fail to utilize all three of these amazing tools? More specifically: fasting.
C u in part 2.