And a man lame a from birth was being carried up, who was placed at the temple gate called “the Beautiful Gate” every day so he could beg for moned from those going into the temple courts. Acts 3:2
The following blog entry summarizes my thoughts taken from several meetings and telephone calls in the last couple months. They are a wonderful witness of people working together and in the Spirit, often not knowing of each others words, coming up with a whole that is astounding, fresh, and timely.
It began with a word about letting go and holding on.
[Tweet “Letting go and holding on. Do the first to allow for the other.”]
In order to reach into the things God has for us in this time, we will have to let go of things that hold us back. otherwise, our reach is just short of what we are supposed to grab and hold on to. This will be a key to open the door that lays before us. And one can see how it is done in the life of Gideon.
First, Gideon was given identity. Just as he cowardly hid to save his crop from the Mideanites, the angel of the Lord came to him and called him a mighty warrior. He then had to act on this and tear down the altars of his family. Doing this at night for safety reasons, he was found out, but his father strengthened him and covered his back. Gideon then had to gather the Israelites, but had to let go 99% of the men – some for being in fear, some for being careless and ego-centrical. After God strengthened Gideon’s faith once more, they defeated the Mideanites with only 300 men.
[special]Identity, obedience, a loving father, faith, and the right company. Not only Gideon’s recipe for success.[/special]
Success being: doing God’s will.
Later, through another, God painted a picture of what he is going to do now in Switzerland – and I am sure, all over the world.
A word given about a year ago stated that:
[Tweet “I – God – will now finish what I started 500 years ago.”]
500 years ago, Zwingli started the reformation in Switzerland and wrote the first German bible, two years before Luther. The reformation brought back the necessity of a personal relationship with God through the work of Jesus Christ only by faith (sola fide), based on scripture (sola scriptura) in God’s grace (sola gratia).
But it also brought about the new move of the Spirit about water baptism as a free decision as adult. The Anabaptist movement. And just as it was in Germany, the former move turned against the latter. Both German counts as well as Swiss cantonal governments told the reformers that they would withdraw their much needed financial and military help in their fight against the catholics from them if the would support adult baptism. Church records on baptism were the basis for taxation, and adult baptism would leave people be unknown to medieval IRS. So Anabaptists were tracked down and drowned in the river Limmat or otherwise put to death for about 100 years following the reformation. Thus, they fled to the US. Some of them are known today as Amish.
So the word God gave this time around:
And just as it was with the Israelites in Egypt, when God heard their cry and sent Moses, God wants to send somebody to answer the cry.
And just as every seed sown for God calls for a harvest, this blood, this sacrifice given for God will bring forth fruit.
The only question: will you be a part of it?
The door into this has been unlocked. God gave us identity as mighty warriors. This was second and established by the remembrance of yet another word, given by Scott MacLeod 2002, The Lion of Light. In it, the lion of the memorial in Lucerne, seemingly dead, rises again and cries a war cry over the land.
This lion was built in remembrance of 500-700 Swiss mercenaries guarding the French king Louis XVI before the French revolution. When the people stormed the palace, the king ordered the soldiers to lay down their weapons, and so all of them were killed without mercy. The memorial has the inscription “to the loyalty and bravery of the Swiss”. For many centuries, the Swiss were fierce and loyal fighters, usually hired to guard kings and popes, as they trusted the Swiss more then their own.
So for years, the Swiss had served the wrong kings. But know, their identity as loyal and brave soldiers for the king is restored. This time serving the right king for the right cause.
[Tweet “The Swiss identity: loyal and brave warriors for the King of kings.”]
Sounds like Gideon.
At the same time, God is restoring spiritual fatherhood in the land. What is needed from us? Obedience, faith, and the right company.
The same was true for Peter and John at the gate called beautiful. They were in the right company – on their way to prayer, together, and with the Holy Spirit. For only a short time before that, they would have had nothing to offer to the beggar. Before Pentecost, they surely walked by this very same man several times, but had nothing within them. But now…
The word translated beautiful is horaios. Timely, at the right time and place, fruitful.
So they were at the right place at the right time. The place of prayer, as Jesus spoke over the temple that the house of God ought to be called a house of prayer. We now are the temple of God – we better be called a house of prayer. At the right time, as they now walked in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Looking for the phrase “at the right time” in scripture – as scripture will always interpret itself – we find:
Opening his store- house in heaven, the Lord will send rain on your land at the right time, blessing all the work of your hands:other nations will make use of your wealth, and you will have no need of theirs. Deu 28:12
Rain – as the premise of fruitfulness – and financial provision. At the right time. Within season.
Now let us give worship to our God, who gives the rain, the winter (early) and the spring (latter) rain, at the right time. Jer 5:24
Which rain? The early and the latter rain. The first brakes open the land for sowing and waters the early seed. The second brings to fruition and maturity.
Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in Jehovah your God; for he giveth you the former rain in just measure, and he causeth to come down for you the rain, the former rain and the latter rain, in the first month. Joel 2:23
Put another way:
Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. Amo 9:13
Behind this door to the next season it is already raining the former and the latter rain. The door is unlocked through identity, opened through prayer in the right relationships. Relationships with God and Jesus, spiritual fathers that cover us, and the right company of co-warriors that complement and help us.
Therefore, pick up your identity, position yourself in the right company and under the right spiritual father, strengthen your faith and your prayer life, and then go through that door.
What are you waiting for?