Inside-Out

"Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John, and led them up on a high mountain apart by themselves; and He was transfigured before them. His clothes became shining, exceedingly white, like snow, such as no launderer on earth can whiten them. And Elijah appeared to them with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. Then Peter answered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”—because he did not know what to say, for they were greatly afraid. And a cloud came and overshadowed them; and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!” Suddenly, when they had looked around, they saw no one anymore, but only Jesus with themselves. Now as they came down from the mountain, He commanded them that they should tell no one the things they had seen, till the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept this word to themselves, questioning what the rising from the dead meant."-(Mark 9:2-10)

The translation for the word "transfiguration" is revelation in and of itself. The Greek word is "metamorpho" meaning to transform either literally or figuratively; to change. It is an active verb which by definition is to "translate into another form", hence the term "metamorphosis" is used for the status change from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly. Furthermore, if you break the word into its two establishing members, "meta" meaning change and "morphe" meaning form, it also operates under the more specific definition "the change of the outward appearance so as to match the inward reality". Jesus' physical appearance is one of mystery and presumption, imagination and idealization. In truth, we can only imagine or surmise what He looked like. In most Christian Art, He is portrayed as Anglo, rarely determining a Palestinian or Middle-Eastern skin-type or heritage. It would appear, for all intents and purposes that the artists responsible for His likenesses in most cases idealized Him as one of their own contemporaries. Perhaps that is due to the closeness of heart that we feel as His followers. We are drawn to His person out of our depth of intimacy with Him, and hence, assimilate that feeling of familiarity into a visage or voice that is also familiar to us. Or, it may well be that the reason He is represented with Anglo pale skin, blonde hair and blue eyes in the majority of Christian paintings, stained glass or colored frescoes is due to the preference of the patron of the craftsman creating the piece. No matter, for it is known to all who have been changed by Jesus, He is BEAUTIFUL to every soul who adores Him, attractive to every heart that has known the Master's touch. But the Word of God does not show us that he was physically attractive. "He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering."-(Isaiah 53:2-3) Which leads me to the prior point: Jesus' transfiguration at Mount Tabor was the change of His outward appearance so as to match the inward reality of His divinity. In that unbelievably precious moment of transformation, the three chosen to stand as witness to this divine event witnessed the outward manifestation of Christ's glory. Jesus was turned "inside-out".

Studying this dynamic moment at the pinnacle of His public ministry leads one to many questions. Why were Moses and Elijah there talking to Him? Why did Jesus choose Peter, John and James to witness this event? Why did the three witnesses receive admonition from the Lord? When we examine the Word of God, and find mystery, there are moments when the answer cannot be revealed by study and dissertation alone, but rather by divine impartation. The Word clearly states through the unfolding of this massively important event that Jesus was there speaking with Moses and Elijah, but it is not directly addressed as to what they were discussing; although many scholars surmise that the topic was the upcoming torture, death and resurrection that Jesus was to experience. These same scholars believe also that the two witnesses in the book of Revelation 11:3-12 are Moses and Elijah. The hypothesis of a "supernatural mission briefing" would, if correct, answer the query of the presence of Peter, John and James at the moment of transfiguration as well. This incredible occurrence would most definitely have strengthened the faith of the three men who would remain closest to the Lord as He endured the coming struggle to which they would be held witness of in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of His betrayal and arrest. Other perspectives on the possibilities weave into the divine event the purpose of showing the fisherman and the sons of thunder, that the Law (Moses) and the Prophets (Elijah) were perfected with the Son's fulfillment of both. When Peter volunteered to build them shelters, the glory cloud came and the voice of God instructed- "This is my beloved Son! Hear Him!"-(Mark 9:7) Which speaks to the preeminence of Christ above the Law and the Prophets. We are to listen FIRST to Christ who has perfected the Law and the Prophets. "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."-(Matthew 5:17) It is also impressive that there were three earthly witnesses (Peter, John and James) and three heavenly witnesses (Moses, Elijah and God the Father-represented by His voice) present at the moment when Jesus' divine person literally "outshined" His natural person.

But it is the "outshining" itself, which for us bares greater attention in accordance with the unction of the Holy Spirit. While every detail, the seen and the unseen of this milestone deserve deep investigation and study, contemplation and meditation, the meat is in the metamorphosis itself. As stated earlier, the definition which shakes the spiritual and the relevant is "the change of outward appearance so as to match the inward reality". Jesus became the heavenly counterpart of Himself that moment; Jesus became His "AUTHENTIC SELF". The word "transfiguration" is the same in another entirely important scripture that holds paramount significance to the life of a disciple of Christ: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."-(Romans 12:1-2) The word "transformed" is in the original translation, literally the same "transfigured" that is used in Mark 9:2, Matthew 17:2 and Luke 9:28. Moreover, that insight itself lends additional weight to Romans 12:1-2. When we present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God, we are presenting our willing un-transfigured bodies as seed to God in the order for us to become our "transfigured" selves. Being transformed by the renewal of our mind means definitively that we do not operate out of the guidelines and precepts of the world, but rather the supernatural necessity that is defined by the Kingdom of God. "Thy Will be done on Earth AS IT IS IN HEAVEN." May we become on Earth who we are in Heaven. We are, like our Lord, to be made in His Holy image, through His blood, fully transformed and then transfigured. We are to be made new and then turned "inside-out", just as Jesus was that glorious day. Perhaps to fulfill a two-fold purpose: To be presented unto God as Holy, and to be presented and stationed to the world as shining, exceedingly white, like snow, such as no launderer on earth can whiten. "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house."-(Matthew 5:13-15) To become our "authentic selves" is not merely to be the best we can in the flesh or the mind. No- it is through Christ. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"-(2 Corinthians 5:17)

When I received my salvation, I distinctly remember hearing from the Pastor, prophetically "Jesus wants to clean you. He wants to make you absolutely new, from the inside-out". And so, in communicating with you regarding this phenomenal moment emblazoned into our picture of the Savior, we wish to inquire of you this question: Is your inward reality or TRUTH one with Christ? If you cannot answer that simply, do not fear. This is a journey for everyone, even believers. But if the reason you could not grant a positive confirmation is a lack of relationship with the Son of God, we encourage you- do not waste one more moment. Ask Him in. "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne."-(Revelation 3:20-21) He alone has the power to make you who you were designed to be. He alone is the architect of your transfiguration, and your eternity. If you make Him your center, your source and your Lord, He will make you a new creation, and turn you INSIDE-OUT.

Love God. Love People.

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."-(Matthew 22:36-40)

Love God. Love People. It IS really that simple. Jesus could very well have delivered a diatribe that unraveled the very mystery of faith and the engineering schematics for creation and God's plans, but He chose instead to encapsulate the heart of the Father with what is essentially the meaning of life. So poignant is this ideal, and so very much like the wonderfully simple ideal of grace, it is almost incomprehensible to our feeble, legalistic minds. We want so desperately to add to it, because "it cannot be that simple..." But the Lord Himself revealed the key to pleasing God and fulfilling your destiny here on Earth. Love Him with ALL of yourself, leaving no part insulated from Him, and love others as you love yourself.

Loving God comes easily for me. I have been forgiven of so much that is, in the natural, and in my own understanding, unforgiveable. But the Holy Spirit revealed to me long ago that I was very similar to the woman with the alabaster box at Simon the Pharisee's house. She was a terrible sinner, particularly in the eyes of the law, but the presence of the Lord, and the Master's forgiveness led her to give all of her love to Him "Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little."-(Luke 7:47) Love for the Lord leads us into His covering. The very presence of the Holy Spirit IS LOVE. When you bask in His shadow, you are encompassed by the purest love in all creation. We love God because He first loved us. Even while we were ignorantly hurting, cursing, defiling and avoiding Him. He still loved us so much that He gave everything. How could we NOT love Him?

Loving our neighbors as we love ourselves is not immediately easy for most of us. I imagine that the enemy would like to keep us divided and reclusive due to the revelation of the power that unity creates. It would seem, at first glance, that loving others is an issue based entirely around the behavior, reciprocal treatment and the "lovability" of others. My Spirit-Man knows otherwise. We are so often used by the enemy to believe that it is "their fault" or "them" that has the issues that block our love. But I would pose this query to you: What if you do not truly love yourself? How is it possible to love others as we love ourselves, when we truthfully do not? Loving ourselves oftentimes DOES NOT come easily. When we receive the transformative power of salvation, we immediately cling to the Love of God, but it takes many of us a lengthy period of time to be delivered from the lies the adversary tells us about ourselves. Sometimes, it takes an entire lifetime. Sometimes, sadly, it never happens. I know dozens of "saved, blood-bought believers" who are absolutely loveless because they are constantly crippled by the whispers of inadequacy and inferiority from the enemy. I was one of those people. I listened to the lies. Even knowing the Word of God, I believed the fallacies that once plagued my quiet hours. "You are no good. You do not deserve any of this... No one loves you, they are all against you." But God got a hold of me one day long ago and revealed that without Him those statements were true. But WITH HIM, I was forgiven, delivered, renewed, recreated and most importantly LOVED. How do we love ourselves and others? We receive God's Love for us, and He LOVES THROUGH US.

We can do nothing without LOVE. God IS LOVE, and we can do nothing without GOD. Your gifts, talents and earthly tools will never give you entry into the Kingdom of God. Your best laid efforts to enter eterntity based on what you consider as service to the King will be crushed and unrecognized if you do not follow these commandments. The Apostle Paul said it flawlessly: "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing."-(1 Corinthians 13:1-3)

We are all in "full-time ministry". We are all required by God to minister to one another. Do not leave that up to the oracle ministries. Jesus tells us that the entirety of the Law and the Prophets hang upon loving God and loving people. He FULFILLED the Law and the Prophets and then gave one NEW COMMANDMENT reiterating the importance of our LOVE: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."-(John 13:34-35)

So the next time you find it challenging to LOVE someone who by the world's standard is unlovable, (perhaps even yourself) think on the Words of the Master. LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS HE LOVED US. LOVE GOD. LOVE PEOPLE.

The Wind of the Spirit- Part II

"Only the Eagle knows the way the wind is blowing!" Pastor Benny Hinn passionately admonished his new music minister. Moments prior to his rebuke, the young man had decided to alter the music in the midst of the move of the Holy Spirit. Under the anointing, the somewhat reserved man of God is a fiery instrument of the Lord's power. When he gave that rebuff, it had been momentarily uncomfortable for all, but as the Spirit acknowledged the validity of the correction, it became a valid learning experience for us. It is for God to choose and appoint a specific timing and vessel for His anointing to flow through. In the midst of the presence of the Holy Ghost at work in many different meetings, we experienced the wind of the Spirit in multiple capacities. But I can personally attest that for the appointed times of our leadership in the ministering of the Gifts, it is a weighty responsibility to properly obey the prompting of the Comforter. It cannot be manufactured, manipulated or put into a formulaic equation. The Wind or Breath of the Spirit is as the natural wind itself. One cannot instruct the Wind to blow westerly or southerly, but rather must allow the rudder and the marriage of wind and sail to propel his vessel. However, with reference to this point, it is only for the Captain to steer his ship, not the boatswain.

Obedience is key to flowing with Him. It may be intellectually uncomfortable or pragmatically odd to be moved to and fro in the midst of the current, yet, when we allow our intellects or flesh to dictate the atmosphere of the anointing, it dissipates. Church bodies and gatherings where the Spirit is not flowing are almost inevitably lacking in the atmosphere of faith and therefore, allowance of the flow itself. Although we may be certain that God will move, that does not mean He is WILLING to move in the particular way we are desiring. Our ways are not His, and His thoughts and motives are higher than ours. It is not for us to place boundaries or theorems on Him. There is an entirely different teaching buried here, dealing with distinguishing God's LAW from man's FORMULAS, but let us uncover that treasure at another time. Just as Wind does not respond to the calendars, clocks or impatience of man, so neither will the Spirit of God be bound to our defined borders. A service where there is a time-limit for reasons of popularity rarely sees the type and degree of power that is wrought from open hearts and schedules. Please, understand that I do not attest universal truth to the idea that if a service is 6 hours as opposed to 1 it will rend more anointing. That is not necessarily the case. Some of the shorter services we have ministered in have seen greater moves than some of the marathon services we have experienced. Some of the longer services where the intent is to "tarry" can also lead to a fruitless time of, well, "tarrying" when the waiting is without faith, expectation or anointing. Waiting on the Lord in not passive. When our faith is stirred and the agreement of all is a level above the natural, then the supernatural comes to our revelation. God is always working, and our reception or acknowledgement of His work is dependent more on our openness to bear witness in SPIRIT AND TRUTH, rather than our "show me Lord" spectatorship. It takes a genuine HUNGER for His presence and a thirst for His Spirit to be truly obedient. "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled."-(Matthew 5:6) When we thirst for Him in obedience, spirit and truth, we witness and receive His POWER.

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."-(Acts 1:8) We are given the POWER of the gifts of the Spirit, as well as the evidence of the FRUIT of the Spirit, for the express main purpose of being Christ's witnesses to and throughout the ends of the Earth. We are given wisdom and providentially provided with exactly what to say in the operation of testifying to the Gospel when we flow with the Spirit. When Stephen was seized by Jewish authorities, they witnessed that power firsthand. "These men began to argue with Stephen, but they could not stand up against his wisdom or the Spirit by whom he spoke"-(Acts 6:9-10) Even before Jesus fulfilled the Law and the Prophets, and before the Great Commission, the Spirit of the Living God bore witness to Himself and His Power in multiple instances through this same medium of potency. And when Moses fearfully complained of his lack of eloquence and his speech impediment... "The LORD said to him, "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD ? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say."-(Exodus 4:11-12) God imparts different gifts for specific needs and missions in the process of building His Kingdom through the working power of the Holy Spirit. "There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men."-(1 Corinthians 12:4-6)

"The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life."-(Job 33:8) "The Spirit of God" or "Ruach Elohim" is transliterated from Hebrew as "Breath or Wind of God". The Breath of Life itself, comes from and IS the Holy Spirit. The WIND of the Spirit, IS the Spirit, the Holy Spirit of the Living Lord. How marvelous. How truly magnificent. The Person of the Holy Ghost is God's very breath, He is GOD. When we experience the Wind of the Spirit, the breath of God, WE EXPERIENCE GOD. We cannot, in our mortal bodies experience the Father, the Godhead directly. We would disintegrate in His presence. But our Spirit-Man is blessed to commune and receive from the awesome, loving presence of HIS SPIRIT. We are blessed to be given CREATION- the Spirit of the Lord is the likeness in which we were created , "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness."-(Genesis 1:26) We are blessed to be given REVELATION- God reveals Himself and His Plans through the prompting of the Holy Ghost. We are blessed to be given REDEMPTION- The Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin, then the Holy Spirit leads us to the repentance of our sins. We are blessed to be given the INDWELLING- We are Born Again by His Spirit, and become vessels for His inhabitation. "Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? "-(1 Corinthians 3:16) We are blessed to be TRANSFORMED- "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord."-(2 Corinthians 3:18) We are blessed to be FILLED, to be given OVERCOMING POWER and thereby testify to His GLORY. The Ruach Ha-Kodesh or "Breath or WIND of the Holy One" is the most amazing, active and POWERFUL GIFT we as believers receive from God following the vicarious atonement that we have been given through the Savior's sacrifice and blood.

The Wind of the Holy Spirit is blowing. In it is the very power of God made manifest here and now on Earth in the land of the living. Miracles did not cease with the death of the Apostles. On the contrary, through the currency and power of the Holy Ghost, the greatest miracles are still yet to come. "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father."-(John 14:12) If you have never experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit, evidenced by speaking in other tongues, you have not yet experienced the Spirit-Filled Life. Jesus came so that we would have Life and have it more abundantly. If you seek to have this "abundant life", you must receive the miraculous gift of the Holy Spirit. Ask God to direct you to a strong and pure Spirit-Filled Church and speak with one of the servants of Christ there about receiving the Comforter yourself. I promise you- your life will be forever changed and altered to the most incredible level of faith and growth when you do this. If you are already a blood-bought, Spirit-Filled Believer, then let us join in absolute and total agreement together right now, that God is still doing great things! Where there is agreement and the atmosphere of Faith, the Wind of the Spirit is FLOWING- And then let us all proclaim as Kathryn Kuhlman so often declared- "I believe in MIRACLES, because I believe in GOD."