Double Grace and Beyond the Law

For some time now, I've been seeing the number 55 so often--and I'm not talking about speed limit signs!  No, it's mostly been coming up in a time on the clock or in verse numbers in the Word.   55's even been coming up through TV shows and phone numbers.  I've been seeing it pretty regularly.  So I really felt the Lord was unearthing something.  But what does this all mean?

In Christian symbolism, 55 is associated with "double grace".  Praise God!  And that's what it's been recently--His grace has been a major encouragement.  Grace upon grace and mercy upon mercy--that's what the Lord gives us.  The mercy is new every morning (Lamentations 3:23), and the grace allows us to get through the day and persevere.

Now, God gives grace to all without finding fault (James 1:5).  Praise God!  But I feel like grace is not rightly conceptualized by much of the American Church today.  Grace is for gifting, not for sinning.  Let me elaborate--we all sin and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), and it is indeed grace that allows us to be redeemed from sin.  But more than that, grace is also meant to allow holy gifts to rest in impure vessels.  Grace is meant to have the gifting rest in us!

"And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all."                        Acts 4:33

Great power calls for great grace!  Otherwise, the Lord's power would be too much for us to contain. We have His treasures in jars of clay (2 Corinthians 4:7), and grace is what allows us to experience the gifts nonetheless.  We need the grace to accommodate the gifting.  We need God's grace to operate in power while staying in purity.  (For more on purity and power, see this post.)

If we have double grace, good!  That means we'll need it to attain to the gift of God.  There must be a big gifting, a big mission, and a big mandate ahead of us.  We have all been called to mighty things, and between us and that attainment, there is a reservoir of grace awaiting our use.  And there is some distance between where we are now, and the fullest extent of what God wants us attaining!  We have some catching up to do.  The gift needs to be fanned into flames (2 Timothy 1:6), and our character has to be brought up to a higher standard, also.

And we also have this grace to allow us to fulfill the law.  It's not easy to fulfill the law!  It takes grace.  It takes grace and God's goodness that leads us to repentance.  Now in the Old Testament, the Israelites  had all those things.  But they didn't have within them He who is greater than the sin of the world (1 John 4:4).

But Jesus came so that we could fulfill.  With the Holy Spirit, we can do more than fulfill the law--we can transcend it.  In a sense, we are above it.  Keep in mind that we do follow the law--that's important.  But now, we have a list of "do's", not a list of "do nots".  Now we can live out the law in an expression of love--a new commandment.  We can embrace the Spirit of the law, not just the letter.  We can have the law of liberty written into our spirits (James 1:25), and we can receive a double portion of grace in getting there.  Hallelujah!

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another."                                                 John 13:34

Snapshot: Holy Earthquakes

God has promised to shake things--to shake us in discipline, to shake the earth in judgement, and to shake the heavens in preparation for Christ's returning.  This is a promise!  A promise that those who are right with God can look forward to the fulfillment of with eagerness and joy.

And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying: "YET ONCE MORE I WILL SHAKE NOT ONLY THE EARTH, BUT ALSO THE HEAVEN"      Hebrews 12:26

We were reading through this section of Hebrews in Church today.  So God is doing spiritual shakings within believers today--to purify us, to shake off any potential hindrances..  Praise God! And He will do a literal shaking of the entire earth on that day.  On a slightly different note, I believe earthquakes can be a sign from God.   It happened in the book of Acts:

"After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken.  And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the Word of God boldly."

Wow!  We also touched on this a little in Church.   I guess a few of our members were praying once and during their prayer, there was a small earthquake.  I'll take it by faith that this was from God.

A few moments after the speaker brought this up, there was a loud knocking that came from outside the building.  It began knocking so powerfully, that it sure felt like a shaking to me.  The Church was shaking!  Thank you Lord for confirming your Word in such creative ways!

We need to have power in prayer.  We need to have conviction in our prayer.  Our words can and should have power (Luke 4:32).  They should be full of the power of life!  We have to be shaken by God first.  We have to come out of purification "as gold" and then transmit that testimony to others (Job 23:10). We have to know how perfectly God hears us.  We need to know that prayer changes things.

Confirmed: Recently I read a word from 2012 that James Goll has sent out a word on the Elijahlist about this kind of holy shaking. In it, he details a powerful prophetic dream that he had.  Below is an excerpt:


All of a sudden, the late John Wimber, former leader of the Vineyard Movement and voice for the Third Wave, was firmly standing on the newly purple-carpeted platform. The cultural atmosphere was now pregnant with a realm of the glory and the thick majesty of God. Then I heard and felt the voice of John Wimber echo an invitation that rattled the entire place. He simply declared, "COME AGAIN HOLY SPIRIT!"

People started crashing to the floor en masse under the impact of the power and authority that resonated in those simple words. Once again another sound wave was released, "COME AGAIN HOLY SPIRIT." It was not gentle Jesus showing up or the comforting dove of God manifesting. It was not just another renewal or revival meeting - though it seemed to include all of those qualities. It was the violent invasion of Heaven entering a time and space world. It was a Church quake.


Come, Holy Spirit!  He wants to come.  He wants us to want Him to come.  Come, and make real life real to us!  Make us see things as they really are--reveal to us your Love, your sacrifice, and your character. (1 John 3:2)

Confirmed:  Yesterday the Lord quickened to me a sign that said, 'The Shakers'.  I don't know what that particular sign--a street sign--was referring to, but I knew what it meant to me.  The Shakers were a charismatic, Utopian community back in the eighteen hundreds.  I think a few of them are still around today.

And we can all be 'shakers' for the Lord--ministering with salt (Colossians 4:6--get it?) and power as we walk with Him and align with His will--which is to shake all that can be shaken.

Boating

Around the start of this year, I have several visions of boats.  Vanessa, too, has been getting images of boats, even cruise ships.  There wasn't given much insight into this until January 5th, when I read at random Acts 21.  Also, while in street ministry I felt instructed and guided to simply 'flow' in the Spirit and allow His Love to guide me here and there.

"We found a ship crossing over to Phoenicia, went on board and set sail."  Acts 21:2

But praise God that His messages are never really random! (Proverbs 16:33)  God gives a vision in steps so that our seeking Him in faith reveals the next part (1 Corinthians 13:9).    In leading me to Acts, I felt God was speaking to me about Vanessa and my upcoming mission trip.   Further confirmations followed fast after this one.

Confirmed 1/6/15:  Patricia King featured on the Elijah List with a word called, "Remember My Promises in 2015".  Below is an excerpt, in italics:


"Your life is in My hands. I am the Captain of your ship and I will lead you through the channel of promises into a glorious place. Remember My promises in 2015."


God is the captain of our ship!  Aha!  He is the one who steers us towards His will.  He is the one who guides us continually and broadens our path (Isaiah 58:11).  More on this later.

Confirmed  1/6/15:  Jennifer Rivas also released a new word this day.  Here it is.  In it she exhorts the body to "Anchor yourself" to the Word.

Confirmed:  There was a post on the Quickened Word entitled, "The Angel of Change On The Good Ship."  Wow!  In it were so many confirmations and encouragements.  The site's author even posted a picture of a cruise ship!

Thanks to the revelation that each of the above ministers shared (Romans 12:3 and on) a clear picture came together.  The Lord combined the above themes and what He's been revealing to me, and led me into the truth!

God is taking the chosen onto a new boat.  This boat has been designed by the master architect Himself!  He has helped us in the past, and He is still helping us today.  He has given us inspiration in our personal lives.  This inspiration, these dreams from Him, are what the boat represents.

God is taking us to a new spiritual place, and that may have aftereffects in the natural world.  It did for the apostles in Acts 21.  He is taking us to a place where we work for Him.  He will captain our ship, and He will steer us where He pleases.  All we need to do is flow with Him and have faith.  We need to let Him navigate like only a captain can.

"At this rate they were afraid we would soon be driven against the rocks along the shore, so they threw out four anchors from the back of the ship and prayed for daylight."  Acts 27:29

There is another level to this, though.  As God takes us on this boat, from Glory to Glory, we need to stay grounded in the Word through all the journey.  We need to always be aligning and realigning with the truth.  There will be trouble, and there will be stops.  All of these trials will be included on our boat ride with God.  When waves come, we need to let the Word be our anchor.  Simply go back to His promises, and go back to the written and prophesied Word.   He who trusts in Him, and in the things He's spoken, will never be shaken (Psalms 125:1).

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away."  Matthew 24:35

God is the captain, the Word is the anchor......and our tongue is the rudder on the Ship.  God knows where He's going.  And He knows where He wants to take us.  He wants to steer us, but we need to align our mouths with Him.  We need to use the power of our tongue to choose life.  We can align the rudder of our God-given ship with it's captain.  We need to align our rudder with His heart.

"With the fruit of a man's mouth his stomach will be satisfied; He will be satisfied with the product of his lips. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit."  Proverbs 18:20-21

Imagine how frustrating it would be if the captain of a ship was constantly trying to steer a ship whose rudder just would not cooperate.  What if it had a mind of it's own?  Wouldn't that be so annoying?  I bet that's how God feels when He tries to guide us, but we confound His efforts with our words.  Or He may be waiting for us to set sail, but we in our speaking and praying remain unaware of His desire to initiate or change our course.

What a long-suffering job God might have as our captain of our lives, if we didn't speak and pray His Kingdom come.  But we have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16)!  We can be at one with our Captain.  We can by our words be a cooperative rudder that listens and knows the desires of the captain.  Let's get the boat moving.  Let's allow Him to relocate us.  Let's allow Him to take us across new seas, just like Apostles Luke and Paul.  Let's also position ourselves to receive from our Lord gifts from other ships! All we need to do is provide the agreement of our thoughts and tongues.

"Surely the coastlands will wait for Me; And the ships of Tarshish will come first, To bring your sons from afar, Their silver and their gold with them, For the name of the LORD your God, And for the Holy One of Israel because He has glorified you."  Isaiah 60:9