The Psalm 23 Adventure, Part 52

 

August 11, 2017

 

It’s hard for me to believe that I’ve been writing on this 23rd Psalm adventure for a solid year by now.  And that doesn’t count a couple of short breaks we’ve taken just to take a breather.  This truly has become a revelation as much for me as it has for those of you who’ve stayed with it during this time.  I sit down to write and things just begin to flow in my spirit.  Sometimes it’s hard to simply stop.  I just keep writing, and ultimately have to break it up into multiple Coffee Breaks in order to keep things down to a readable limit, practically speaking.

 

Anyway, I’m not done with this picture of the running over cup, and it is likely that we will continue for one more week on this topic before we move to the next phase.

 

John 1:12-13:   But as many as believed in and responded to Him, to them He gave the authority and ability to become – and be transformed into – begotten children of God, specifically to those who entrust their future existence and well-being by faith in His name, rank, position, character, personality and being; who were begotten, not of flesh and blood, nor because human flesh determined it by its own decision, nor because the mind and intellect of man seized upon it and willed it into existence, but by God as a sovereign act of His Will and determination.  (RAC Translation & Amplification)

 

Jesus was the Word made flesh.  We become the Word made flesh when we confess with our mouths the Lord Jesus Christ.  We become the Word made flesh when we — with Christ in us — speak the Word that He spoke, and speak it in agreement with Him and the Father.

 

The Holy Spirit — dwelling with us and in us — energizes and empowers that Word so that it has the same creative force that it had when Jesus spoke it.  We’ve been drinking of the Word, Himself!  What needs we have, we ask the Father for in the onoma of Jesus.  The Father — in Jesus — enacts those needs for us by means of the Holy Spirit who is both with us and in us.

 

Are you beginning to grasp this picture?  Are you getting the significance of “Christ in us, the hope of Glory”?

 

The apostle Paul expressed it like this when he was writing to the Ekklesia in Colosse:

 

Colossians 1:26-27:  Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

 

This is a revelation — the concept of Christ in us.  With that revelation comes the understanding that it is not only Jesus, the Son with His anointing, but it is the Father in us as well.  More than that, we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, filling us and permeating us with God’s presence!

 

With The Holy Spirit indwelling us as the power-generating force that gives life to the Word (who is Jesus), we become Jesus to the world around us.

 

The light that radiated from Him was that same light that exploded into being when He spoke those first words of Creation, “Light be!”  That’s the light that dwells in us when we are in the Anointed One and His anointing — and He is in us!

 

John 8:12:  Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

 

John 9:4-5:  I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

 

And Jesus commanded us to duplicate that by being in Him.

 

Matthew 5:14-16:  Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.  Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

 

The parallel that Jesus is drawing in this statement is that He didn’t light us up with His presence just to stick us under a bushel and hide us from the rest of the world.  He illuminated us with Himself so that the Father would receive the Glory.

 

Matthew 10:7-8:  And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.

 

We haven’t become Jesus to the world to do anything less than Jesus did.  He healed the sick.  He raised the dead.  He cleansed the lepers.  He cast out evil spirits with His Word.  He broke the chains that held people captive.  He restored crushed spirits.  And all of the power and authority to accomplish everything that Jesus did has been invested in us.  That’s why Jesus made a point of stating that ALL authority was His, and His to dispense.  And this is something that most of us don’t realize.  He HAD to dispense this to us.  It was mandatory if we are going to be Him in the world, if we are going to be the running over cup.

 

Matthew 28:18-20:  And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power (exousia—authority) is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.

 

Amen.

 

ALL POWER — ALL AUTHORITY!  Get it?  That’s what resides in us by virtue of the Father being in the Son, the Son being in us, The Holy Spirit being with us, in us and filling us … AND … us in Jesus!

 

Let’s try this again, expressing it just a bit differently.

 

The Father and Son merge with one another.  You see one — you see the other.  The Holy Spirit is the energizing power — the same power that upholds everything in the universe — of God the Father and God the Son.

 

And that’s the same power that resides in us.  And that’s the same power that we reside in.  So how come we don’t experience this 24 hours a day?

 

The answer is simple enough.  If we don’t see it, we don’t believe it.  If we don’t believe it, we can’t have it experientially.

 

 Jesus’ prayer ought to be the standard by which we gauge who and what we are.  First, notice how He begins:

 

John 17:1-5:  These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:  As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.  And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.  I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

 

Jesus makes clear that the Father gave Him power over all flesh so that He could give eternal life to as many as received Him.  Next, He says that the Glory revealed in Him before the foundations of the earth is the same Glory He would now have.  We skip forward in Jesus’ prayer to see that we are a people set apart because of Him.

 

John 17:17-19:  Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.

 

This word “sanctify” comes from the Greek hagiazo, which means: to purify, to consecrate, to make holy, to set apart unto the Lord as blameless.  This is where we get the radiant picture of light emanating from the Lord — and from those whom He has set apart.

 

John 17:20-23:   Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

 

Jesus has given us His Glory.  How?  Do you see the specific wording in this part of His prayer to the Father?

 

That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us:”

 

There it is again!  The Father is in Jesus and He is in the Father.  Again, I remind you of the picture Jesse saw of them going back and forth into one another.  There are no limitations — no laws of physics — in the realm of the Spirit.  This is why our cup simply cannot contain the life that has been poured into us!

 

Jesus and the Father are One!  But Jesus’ prayer was that we would be One with the Father and with Jesus, and that they would be One with us.  Do you think His prayer gets answered?

 

Absolutely!

 

Consider this.  If we are One with Him, and One with Father, and One with Holy Spirit, our natural beings are going to run over.  We simply cannot contain all of this in these vessels.  We have to give out all of this excess to the world around us in order to bring the Kingdom of God to its fullness in the Earth.

 

This, folks, is exactly how our prayers are answered.  We come boldly before the Throne of Grace — first, because both the Father and the Son dwell in us; and secondly, because we are coming in the onoma of the Lord Jesus Christ.  We have that onoma because Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to be with us, and to be in us.

 

When we pray in the Spirit, we are praying according to the will of the Father and the Son.  We can’t be “in the Spirit” and pray out of God’s will.  The Holy Spirit simply will not permit anything to flow through our lips that is contrary to the expressed desire and will of the Father.

 

Therefore, we can know with full assurance and full faith that what we pray for we receive: no question, no doubt, no unbelief.

 

This is the revelation of Christ in us.  It is the revelation of His onoma fully functional and operational in us.  It is the revelation of Jesus, the Anointed One, and His anointing upon us, working through us, and manifesting the Glory of both the Father and the Son to the world around us!

 

Here it is, one more time!

 

II Corinthians 5:17-19:  So then, if any person is grafted into and immersed in the Anointed One (and His anointing), he is a new fabrication -- a newly formed being; the previous life [the lifestyle and the old characteristics thereof] has perished; you can see and perceive for yourself that every part of one's being is an unprecedented substance -- a new species. 

 

And all that has happened and taken place has its origins in God, Who did this purposefully to reconcile and restore our relationship with Him through Jesus Christ, Who has given us that same ministry, namely, that God was and is in Christ, restoring the world to that intimate relationship with Himself, and not indicting the world for its sins and failures;

 

He has committed to us that Word (and the responsibility) of reconciliation and restoration.  (RAC Translation & Amplification)

 

Now, watch as we see what is unfolding.  We are becoming the cup-bearers to the world!

 

The picture that Paul draws is that not only was Jesus in the Father, but that the Father came to earth IN JESUS!

 

Have a look at another scripture.

 

Colossians 1:19-22:  For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell; And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight.

 

This passage is a revelation all by itself.  Go back to the Cross and take a look at Jesus hanging there.  It isn’t just Jesus: it is you hanging there; it is me; it is all of us hanging there on the Cross.

 

And this is where we will call it a day.  Still have a way to go with this picture.  We’ll try to wrap this up next week before moving on to the pictures of goodness and mercy.

 

 For those of you who’ve been participating in our Monday night Healing Prayer Conference Call, we just want to let you know that beginning with the month of July and continuing until the first Monday night in October, we will be taking a break for the summer.  We’ve found during the past three years of doing this call that participation during the summer months drops significantly because of folks taking their vacations, and being involved in other activities.  That said, we will resume our prayer calls on Monday night, October 2nd.

 

At the same time, in case you are missing out on real fellowship in an environment of Ekklesia, our Sunday worship gatherings are available by conference call – usually at about 10:45AM Pacific.  That conference number is (712) 770-4160, and the access code is 308640#.  We are now making these gatherings available by Skype.  If you wish to participate by video on Skype, my Skype ID is regner.capener.  If you miss the live voice call, you can dial (712) 770-4169, enter the same access code and listen in later.  The video call, of course, is not recorded – not yet, anyway.

 

Blessings on you!

 

.

Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES

RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
Temple, Texas 76504

Email Contact: CapenerMinistries@protonmail.com

 

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