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Try to imagine what it would have been like to have lived as a devout
religious Jew in the time of Jesus’ visitation. His life and death were the end of the Passover age and the beginning of the Pentecostal age. These Jerusalem Jews were probably the most observant and spiritually attuned believers in Yahweh that were in the earth at that time. They had become lost in ritual, dried in religious rules and without Spirit life. Within a period of one week an age ended and a new age began. Suddenly all old teachings, religious activities, social organizations, governments were irrelevant. They were introduced to an inward dwelling Spirit they had never know in this way. It came with fire on top of your head, speaking in strange tongues, and an inward power and knowing of all truth. All physical boundaries were shattered: walking on water and into sealed rooms, shape shifting, ascending into clouds, transporting etc. Maybe the hardest thing to get over was that some were saying "the Kingdom has come!" The need to go to temple, observe feasts and rituals, honor manmade priesthoods, animal
sacrifices all gone within days and weeks. Forever. The new paradigm was to give
all your property away, gather with others of like Spirit daily, spread the good news of the gospel. New leaders who were servants of all rose up. Nationalist identities (Jew or Greek) social status(rich or poor, slave or free) were things of yesterday. Old identities had to be surrendered or caught up in the new. Very few of those who lived in that time and region were able to transcend into this new age in spite of the inspired teaching of the apostles and Paul. The age of Pentecost began but many devout in Jerusalem missed it totally. In fact if we look around us now we have many who still hold to and observe many of the rituals and belief systems of the previous age (Passover) after nearly 2000 years. The things of the former age were truth and were relevant until the appearance of the new. After that they were enfolded and defined by the new. How absolutely strange and needless the yearly ritual of killing a lamb and eating a Passover meal became once the revelation of Jesus’ sacrifice dawned on them. It simply became a truth that foreshadowed a greater truth. I am convinced we are there again and an age is finished (Pentecost) and we are being asked to be caught up to the next age.(tabernacles). Are we ready to transition to the next age? What new truths, revelations and shifts will we need to embrace? What will we need to let go of in order to be relevant, vibrant and in the flow of the new? What pearls(truths) will need to be traded? Are there fatted calves(secure thoughts) sacred cows(religious dogmas) that need to be sacrificed? Will we sell all we have and buy the field? Sometimes I wonder how that midnight visit with Jesus, and the events of the passion week effected Nicodemus. Was he able to make the shift? Could he be honest with himself and stay a Pharisee? Teach and propagate a truth system that had been exposed as old and dead?
In a dream of 1-25-14, I was put into the army/ militia and issued a nice new bolt action, military style rifle. As I looked at it and saw although it was not new it appeared to be in good condition, shiny and freshly oiled. It had a large shell capacity. In the dream I was proud of my new weapon and felt secure to hold it. When I opened the chamber, threw the bolt, the entire bottom fell out of the action. I could not believe I had been ready to go fight with this gun. Inside the action, the chamber, the barrel, were dust and dirt, cobwebs. I realized that had I shot the weapon I could have been injured. I started to clean and make ready the gun for fighting. End of dream. I have to own this dream. What spiritual tools and weapons that I am so proud of and feel secure to hold, look outwardly good, but are filthy inside, and actually dangerous and not ready for action. Will my “action” fall on the ground when opened and exposed?. Is my hidden chamber dirty, and unused. These are things we all must look at now, we are the army of Joel, called to March. The age of Pisces(church/fish) is completed and the age of Aquarius is here. One of the last instructions Jesus gave his followers was to follow the “man with the water jug”. This age speaks of upper room intimacy, feasts, communion, serving one another, Jesus passing from one form to another, rivers of living water flowing out of us. Four days ago I was privileged to see these things operating in a small group of men. My eyes were opened and when I dropped my judgments, and expectations, I was able to see love, service, respect for the sacred, friendship, inner and external healing, governance and order. Everything around them is coming into beauty and perfection. This was unexpected to me. I knew these men after the flesh, not after the Spirit. I left there humbled and excited. These men who are nothing in most peoples eyes have walked into something very special and inviting. I felt like Simeon and Anna who had seen the Christ after waiting so long. We need to be ready to receive this Kingdom in whatever form it comes. This is going to stretch us, and hopefully change us. Some of the most foundational beliefs we have had are going to be shaken. They say when an earthquake takes place you want to get out of man made structures as quickly as possible. Sounds like good advice.
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