Heavenly Perspective – Part 3

Let’s look at Colossians 3:14, “But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.

How do you put on something? How many of you know that you don’t just get up without thinking and get dressed? If you do, you will be embarrassed when you go out.  You’ll say, “What a mess!”  When you look at yourself may find you got buttons buttoned wrong, you got two different colored shoes and two different colored socks.  When people meet you they will say, “What’s wrong with you? Did the lights go out at your house?”  See, you don’t just get up and put on anything without thinking about it. By the same token, you do not just become something without thinking about it.  To become something different than you are, you are going to have to think about it. Now with that being said, that means if you are acting in fear, doubt and unbelief, you have given it thought.

Let’s stop for a moment and think about what we just said, “If you are acting in fear, doubt, and unbelief, you have given it thought.” No one can fear unless they are thinking about something that provokes you to be afraid.  No one doubts unless you happen to be presented with something that sound far-fetched and hokey.   When situations present themselves in your life, it causes every person to think and analyze what they are experiencing which creates an emotional response deep inside you.  You have consciously or subconsciously gotten up, walked to your closet, got out the helmet of damnation and started putting on doubt, fear and unbelief. So the Bible says, “Above all put on love”.  Spiritually speaking, you walk to your spiritual closet and look around.  Seeing what you are looking for, you say, “Oh, love, there it is. I’m going to put that on.”  That is a decision you make.  That means you have to meditate on the Word of God and find out what the love of God in the Word is, and as you do, that love will live on the inside of you.

Now Paul is talking to Christians telling that the Bible says, “the love of God has been shed in their hearts by the Holy Ghost (Rom 5:5).”  If God has shed His love in our hearts by the Holy Ghost and we receive the Holy Ghost upon receiving salvation, that means the love Paul is referring to has always been in our hearts, but it is not enough for love to be in our hearts, we have to put it on.  The Bible says that “the Lord will beautify the meek with salvation. (Ps 149:4)”, yet all of can attest that we have seen some really mean Christians.  Yes, they are saved, but they just haven’t made the decision to put on God’s love.   Now what does it mean when it says the Lord will beautify the meek with salvation?  It means that the things you have experienced through God will become the predominant influence in your life.  Why? Because you have been thinking about them, meditating on them until you know that you know that you are saved. Your words will show it.  Your actions will show it. Everything about you will show it because you have been beautified by it.  Everyone who meets you will say, “There is something different about you” and they will ask what it is. Tell them, “I put on the love of God.”

Colossians 3:15, “And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body, and be thankful.”

Now how many of you know that in order for the peace of God  to rule in your heart, the thoughts of God have to be in your mind.  You cannot have anxiety while you are meditating on God’s Word and God’s goodness.  You only have anxiety, lack of peace and turmoil in your heart when you have been thinking the wrong way.  Now what did you do? You stopped mortifying the deeds of the old man on the earth.  You stepped out of who your heavenly identity/position in your thought life and came right down to the earth realm by allowing your old nature to rise. You became double-minded and unstable in all your ways (Jms 1:8).

Colossians 3:16-17, “Let the Word of Christ, dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts, to the Lord. ¹⁷And whatsoever you do in word and deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”

 Isn’t this awesome!!! He said, “put on love”, “let peace rule in your heart and be thankful”, and then “let the Word of God dwell in you richly” and this can go beyond that.  When there is peace in your heart and love is being worn by you, people will see it over you both inside and outside, and you will have thanksgiving in your heart.  Now what do you thank God for?  You thank God for what He has promised.  If you wait to thank God for it when it happens, you will see very little results happen in your life.  Thanksgiving looses the hand of God to perform what you already believe.  Remember, you cannot thank God effectively unless you remember you were seated with Him in Christ spiritually.  You have to know where you are and when you know where you are, you will know that what you have been promised is done. Now that is reason to be thankful to God.

Have you ever had something happen in your life that was so good you couldn’t contain yourself?  Well, in those times you were so full of joy that you shouted and hollered.  You may have been so overjoyed that psalms, hymns and spiritual songs rose up inside you.  Next thing you know, you are talking and admonishing one another, and people say, “there’s grace in your heart.”  See, it all came about by a decision to meditate, think upon, dwell amidst, and make the things of the Spirit of reality.  You are so consumed by them that they become the very thoughts you think, but the very feelings you feel.  Now there is not only grace in your heart, but hymns, psalms and spiritual songs in your life.  But the Bible doesn’t stop there.  It says, “whatsoever you do in word and deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.”  Do you know what that means?  It means do all on behalf of Jesus.

Have you ever listened to someone pray?  You hear them asking God to do things on their behalf, but God is saying, “I gave you power, you do it?”  They will say, “Lord heal them, because I can’t” and God will say, “You heal them, I gave you the power.”  Why do they think they can’t?  Because they still see themselves as the old man they used to be.  That old person they were before Christ didn’t have the power to do, but you are not that old man.  That old man died with Christ and you are now a new man seated in Christ.  You are a new man that has Christ’s name, Christ’s power and has been sent by Christ to do on His behalf and what can that man do?  He can do all things (Phil 4:13). You are risen, you are not going to rise in the rapture, you are risen already.  In the rapture, you are just going to catch up to what Jesus did for you already.  Your identity in Christ is right now.  It is in Christ.  When you get into that holy place in prayer, you walk right into the Holy Place of God and “with boldness, you obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Heb 4:16).  Wait! Did you catch that?  That means you don’t even pray in an earthly realm, you pray in the spiritual realm, in a dimension that gives you immediate access into the presence of God where you get out of God the strength you need to minister in the power of the Spirit.

So Paul tells us, “whatever you do, do on behalf of Christ, do in the name of Jesus, do with an absolute knowledge that you have been made a recipient of the full power of attorney.”  What is a power of attorney?  It is a legal and binding contract or agreement that permits the holder to do all things on behalf of the person giving the agreement.  With that, we can now read Colossians 3:16, “whatever you do, do knowing that Jesus gave you a letter, His will, His living testament, His authority/permission to do all things on His behalf.”  Simply said, Jesus is telling you, “Go, you can sign on my behalf.  You got all my power behind you. Go out and conduct biblical business as if I was there doing the work myself. Whatever you do, do it as a representative of Me, so everybody will know that you are doing it in My name.  Whatever you do, do it in My name!”  Now when Christians and the body of Christ gets a hold of that revelation, they are going to see changes happen before their eyes.  Remember, we are not talking about getting this revelation in our minds, we are talking about getting this revelation into our very spirit, so that we diligently pursue this thing.  Things just don’t happen, we have to diligently pursue them. We have to go after them and get a hold of it.  Whenever you get a hold it, your life will begin to resemble Christ’s life.  You will begin to see people prospering.  You will begin to see people ruling over circumstances.  You are going to see people that nothing can defeat because they got a revelation of this very fact.

“And whatsoever you do, do in the name of Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father by Him”.  How do you give thanks to God by Jesus?  How do I give thanks to God?  You first identify who you are in Jesus and then you identify Christ is your life.  When you do that, you identify you have the Spirit of Christ and you identify that “as He is so are you in this present world (1 John 4:17).” So when you identify that, you lift your heart and hands to God without doubt and fear, and say, “Abba, Father. It is by Jesus…” Guess what happens at that moment?  Your praise goes right out of your heart into Jesus who is sitting at the right hand of God and right out of Jesus’ heart to the throne of God.  That power of praise hits God.  So how do you give praise by Jesus.  You give God total praise by giving the old man absolutely no access to your thought life whatsoever.  You do not identify with the old man you used to be, remembering that man is dead.  You remember, you owe nothing to the flesh.  You are free and you choose to follow God and do what He says. Now when you give praise like that, what happens? When you give the Lord total praise, the praise goes right through the spiritual realm into your life that is hidden with Christ in God.  Only your new life in Christ can gain access to God.

When we pray through the new nature, life goes right into the life that is in Jesus Christ and praise is made unto God by Jesus.  When God turns around, He is excited because praise is emanating right out of Jesus to the throne of God.  Remember God is omniscient (all knowing).  He can identify every individual’s praise in the body of Jesus.  He is not going to mistake my praise for your praise. It is all coming out of Jesus, hitting the throne and God knows whose praise is whose.  Did you know that every praise that has made its way to the throne, has already qualified for an answer?  Once the thanksgiving says “it’s done”, it is put into motion and all things begin to work for your good (Rom 8:28).  So the only way to give Him praise, is to make the throne and the only way to make the throne is to sever yourself from the old person and identify yourself with the new person.  Now once you allow this new nature to operate in you, that new person is living.  He is linked in good with Jesus.  He’s tied to Jesus.  He’s hooked up to Jesus and has the boldness and access to God.  As a result, God hears him, identifying both his petition and his praise.

Romans 13:11-12, 14; “And do this, knowing that now it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. ¹²The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. ¹⁴But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.”

Now the Wuest translation of the Bible says,

“and this, knowing the strategic season, that it is an hour now for you to awake out of sleep, for now our salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. ¹²The night has been on its way, and the day has arrived. Therefore, let us at once and once for all put off the works of darkness and let us once and once for all clothe ourselves with the weapons of the light. ¹⁴But clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ and stop making provision for the sinful nature with a view to a passionate craving.”

You are in a strategic time! Now the Bible is clear about your heavenly identity. So clear that we have to really misappropriate biblical warfare to step out of the authority that He paid for us. Here it tells us that the time we are living in is a strategic time.  There is an opportunity to rise out of sleep.  How many of you know that sleep and slumber spiritually speaking is a byproduct of a lack of knowledge of the Word of God or a lack of willingness to act upon what we know is in the Word.  So when it is talking high time to awake, it is saying, “it is time to get a revelation of the Word of God and do the Word.”  And then it says, “to put on the armor of light”.  How many of you know what the armor of light is?

The Bible talks about putting on the whole armor of God (Eph 6:10-19).  It talks about the helmet of salvation.  How do you put on the helmet?  You put it on by thinking and meditating on the salvation He gave you, Scripture relating to that salvation and what that salvation provides.  All of a sudden, your mind is guarded by a weaponry or piece of armor that God provided for you.  Now how many of you know that the devil attacks the mind?  That is why you need the helmet of salvation.  You put on the helmet of salvation by making a conscious decision to wear it.  So the armor of light is the armor of God and every piece of that armor you put on is put on by consciously deciding it is available and wearing it.  When you put it on, you are protected.  When you know the Word and you have it in your mind, your mind is protected by the Word so that when lies and doubt come, you will say, “No!” to them because you know the Word.  When you got the belt of truth on, then you are prepared to run, you are prepared to fight, you are prepared to move, you are prepared for every activity in life because you know the truth.  When you are prepared to spread the gospel, it is like you have shoes on that can lead you to the battlefield. When you know the Word of God, it is like you got the sword of the Spirit.  The point I am trying to make is that you can consciously meditate on who you are in Christ, your heavenly position through Him and by getting that revelation out of the Word of God, you can be dressed for and be protected in the middle of any battle.

So it is high time to wake up and you wake up through revelation of the Word of God.  It is high time to put on the armor of light, but it also high time to put away from you once for all the works of darkness.    God said, “Make a decision to peel off, to take away, to put away from you the old nature.” That tells me that God is telling born again Christians to remember that they were born again and to make a decision to once and for all say “I will no longer struggle with my old nature.  I will never again doubt whether or not I am what the Bible says I am.” How many of you know that it doesn’t mean you will not be tempted?  You can never just make a decision to put away the works of darkness and never have to deal with them again.  No, you can make a decision to put them away from you, by disassociating them and disclaiming them.  You say, “No!, that ‘s not me!” Now they will keep trying to come around but because you made a decision that they are not you, you can have authority over them every time they try to come around by saying, “that’s not me! I put that away from me.  I am a new person.  I am wearing the armor of light.”

Now watch what it said here and this is the key verse, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof.”  The Wuest translation says, “clothe yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ and stop making provision for the sinful nature.”  Simply said, Wear the Word. The Word is alive (Heb 4:12).  Put it on. Put it in your heart.  Put it in your mouth.  Put it in your mind and put it on your body.  Put on the Lord Jesus.  That means when you put the Word on, you remember that you are everything that the Word says you are in Christ.

Heavenly Perspective – Part 2

Now we are going to take what I taught you from the first half of lesson 1 and build upon what you have learned so far.  If you recall, we are told, “Constantly set you mind on things which are above”. What does that do? That causes you to become the recipient of everything you are thinking about.  Simply said, you are the byproduct of your thoughts.   So let’s talk about your thoughts. Did you know that your thoughts come by a spiritual influence?   That’s right. Every thought you have comes from one of two spiritual sources – those from God and those from the devil.  Those that are contrary to the word of God, come from the devil, the spiritual influence of evil. That means there has never been an evil thought until the devil thought it and projected it to man.  Through that thought, he caused man to fall.  When man fell from God’s grace, the devil caused man embrace his fallen nature.  Now I bet you have never thought about it much, but did you know your thoughts are not your own?  Did you know that every thought you have comes from either God or the devil.  That’s right; no one is thinking their own thoughts.  Every evil person is just thinking the thoughts of the devil. How do we know? Jesus said, “You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father, you will do (John 8:44)”. Where did those thoughts come from? The spirit being that is influencing that person. Well by the same token, good thoughts are not generated by man either, they only come to and flow through man, but they are generated by God.

 So that is why God wants you to set your mind on good thoughts.  Good thoughts are those that are according to the will of God.  As you think according to the Word of God, the Spirit of God will cause you to be transformed and changed into the very thing you are thinking on – for as he thinks in his heart, so is he (Proverbs 23:7).  It is for this reason, you must set your affections, set everything about you toward your new nature.  As you give way to your new nature, as you meditate on it, you will begin to be exactly what that nature says you are.  Now Colossians 3:3, tells us we “died, and our life is hidden with Christ in God.”  Our old nature died with Christ and our new person we have become has risen up with Christ.  Now most of us know very little about this new person we have become.  That is a good thing from the enemy’s viewpoint, for the more ignorant we are of who we become, the less chance we will operate in the power this new person possesses in the Spirit.  It is for this reason, that we now learn and it is for this reason, we now take the time to find out what the Word of God says about him.

 Now, I bet you think you know all about him, but do you really?  If you knew what you needed to know, you would be what the Bible says you are.  Now I won’t dispute you may have a rational awareness of them, you may even have an informative knowledge of him, but until you have an experiential revelation, you will not know how to yield to this new nature.  Before you can rule and reign in life by Christ, your mind has to be transformed though the Word of God.  The Bible says, “You died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” That means that when Jesus was buried, your old life was hid in that burial. When Jesus rose, your new life was hid in His resurrection. So when you set your affection on that fact, you begin to see that and your spirit begins to be illuminated to that.  How to you receive illumination?  You meditate and think about your new nature.  The more you do, the more you find out. The more you find out, the more you are changed from glory to glory. (2 Corinthians 3:18).  The Bible says, that you are changed because you are beholding as in the mirror the glory of the Lord. Now why is that important?

 The glory of the Lord will change you.  As you begin to get revelation of your new identity in Christ, you will realize that the God’s glory is your glory.  As change takes place you will begin to associate yourself with Christ in such a way, that you will look at Him with an open face, boldly declaring that very fact.  You will see yourself joined with Christ, one in nature with Him, knowing that when He rose from the dead, you rose with Him. When He ascended into heaven, you ascended with Him.  When He sat down at the right hand of God, you sat down with Him.  Now somebody with a closed veil will not see this revelation clearly.  They will not see themselves one with Christ.  They will say to themselves, “Yes, I believe that is Christ, but this is me down here.”  They are not going to be changed by His glory because they do not believe that what He did for them provided them with the privilege of receiving the very provisions He paid for.  For those who get the revelation and come with an open face, they will say, “Wow! That’s me in Christ.  I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21).  Did you get that? You are not “a” righteousness of God; you are “THE” righteousness of God.

Now meditating should be an easy thing, if all we had was God’s influence in our life, but there lurking in the invisible realm is an enemy.  While you are trying to focus your affections on the things which are above, he is injecting thoughts in your mind, saying, “but you are a sinner!”  Yes, that’s right; he will speak into your thought life lies that will get your mind to lose focus on the things of God.  To prevent that from happening, you must monitor your thoughts. When thoughts contrary to the Word of God enter your mind, you must tell the devil, “No! No! That sinner is dead in Christ. That is not me. I am a new creation, with a new way of thinking.” Then you have to meditate on that fact.  You have to see in your mind’s eye that old nature dying with Christ.  You have to see him dead in your mind’s eye.  You have to see that old nature buried.  Then as you do, you find out a new person rose with a new identity and with a new authority.  When you see yourself in Christ, when you realize that He is in you, you will always look at the adversary from your heavenly perspective and see yourself seated with Christ.  You will see Christ’s glory as your glory.  Now if you will be diligent in the things of God, if you will study the Word of God, if you will do what you ought to do and pray in the Spirit, you will graduate from one level of glory to another.  Remember, God does not put limits on your spiritual growth.

So how do you find out who you are in Christ? You get in Christ with your thought life.  2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “if anyone be in Christ, he is a new creation.” The moment you make Jesus the Lord of your life, your spirit man will experience a new birth, become a new creation and now abides in Christ.  The moment you make Jesus the Lord of your life your new identity, your heavenly perspective, your heavenly authority, the glory He gave you, and everything He gave you pertaining to life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3) are hidden in God.  So how do you get in Christ in your thought life? You meditate on the Word of God continually.  Now in order for you to claim the benefits of that new nature, you have to find out about him.  Let me explain.  From the time your mother gave birth to you until this very moment in life, you grew and matured into the person you are now.  Your life is a continuous cycle of learning through your past experiences, failures, successes and personal relationships.  Every day of your life, you have been on a venture to find yourself and with each day, you learned more about who you are – your likes/dislikes, your strengths/weaknesses, your desires and more.  In the same way, you now have to invest time in learning who you are as a new creation in Christ and how to live in the realm of the supernatural.  How do we find out about our new nature? We study the manual of life – the Bible.  Within the pages of this book, you will find everything you need to know about your new nature in Christ, and through diligent study and meditation, you will be transformed into the image of Him.

 Now let’s look at Colossians 3:4, “When Christ who is our life appears, then we also will appear with Him in glory.”  You are going to appear with Him in glory because He is your life, so that means if you want the new life of Christ to be active, visible, effective and flowing through you, you have to go to Christ in your thought life.  You have to go to Christ in your meditations.  You have to receive from Christ through an act of faith everything He already gave you in your new identity.  Now how do you do that?  How do you go into Christ? You go into the Word of God.  You go beyond the ink.  You have to pray in your heavenly language, meditate on the Word of God until the living Spirit takes your spirit into a revelation and dimension in God where the Word lives.  As a result, you will receive from Christ that portion of yourself that He resurrected when He rose from the grave 2000 years ago.  When you get a revelation of that fact you will say, “I am a person who never quits.  I am a person who never fails.  I am a person who never falters. That’s me! I am consistent. I am abounding.  I am unmovable.”  Before you know it, the joy of the Lord begins to rise inside you.  What has happened?  You looked to Christ and began to change from glory to glory.

 Let me give you an example.  Have you ever known a person who was diagnosed with a disease?  As he continues to see doctors, they tell him he is going to die, that the disease is incurable.  That person comes home and every day they pray to God for a healing.  He reads the Word of God looking for food to feed his spirit.  As he begins to continually feed upon the promises of God, the Word of God begins to live in him.  The Scriptures he has read a thousand times in the past begin to take on a life in him. Suddenly, a supernatural injection of revelatory knowledge goes right out of the Spirit of Christ into his being and he shouts, “I going to live.  I am not going to die.”  What has he done?  He has begun to cash in on something that was available to him all the time.  Now you don’t get that through thinking with your intellectual mind.  You have to go beyond the rational mind and get into a realm where the rational is not your authority.  You have to get into the realm of the Spirit, where the Spirit of God causes the Word of God to live inside you because faith comes by hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17).  It is at the moment of revelation, that the Word becomes rhema and your spirit man says, “I got it, that’s it!”

Suddenly the Spirit of the Lord begins to show you His healing power.  This Word that you had read so many times and didn’t do anything, all of a sudden rises out of your spirit and becomes God’s method, God’s living ability to get the power of that revelatory Word into your spirit.  Now why is God trying to do that?  Because He wants you to become what He has paid the price for you to be.  Christ died not just so you can go to heaven, but so you can be changed internally in order that you might live a changed person in heaven.  Did you know that if Jesus died for it – a new identity, a new perspective, and then we ought to invest in the thing and pursue it.  God loves you too much to keep you where you are.  You need to change.

 Let’s look at Colossians 3:5, “Mortify your members which are upon the earth…”

 Look at the key word “members”.  Members where?  That’s right. On the earth.  Some people think that means the body, but it is not talking about the Bible. It is talking about the old nature that will continually come back to your remembrance not because it is not dead, but because the devil knows that if he can only get you to think on it, the old nature will experience a resurrection in your life.  That means that those members that used to walk around in doubt and unbelief are not you.  No, that’s the dead man who died when you believed in Jesus Christ, but the devil is the accuser (Revelation 12:10).  He will come back and try to remind you in order to get you to meditate upon it, for as long as you think, you will be.  When you meditate on it, then the resurrection of the old nature will rise up and dominate your life.  Now the Bible says, “Mortify those members which are where?”  Upon the earth.  Now where is the man writing from?  He is writing from the earth, but you can be on the earth and not talk of the earth realm, not write out of the earth realm.  You can be on the earth and live from heaven.  You can be on the earth and see from heaven.  Why?  Because you are not relating yourself with the person who you used to be on the earth.  You are relating yourself with the person you are in Christ in heaven.

 So you tell the enemy, “that’s not me! This is who I am” and although you re here, subject to the laws of the natural realm, you are actually in the spirit realm.  You are above the circumstance.  You are above the principalities and powers.  That is why you must seek those things which are above because you are risen, because your old man is dead, because your life is hid with Christ in God.  You got a new life.  You are not on the earth in your position.  You are not on the earth in your identity.  You are not on the earth in your viewpoint.  You are not on the earth in your ministry level.  You are not on the earth in your conduct.  You are a heavenly creature born again in the Spirit of the Lord to live miraculously and to think supernaturally.  So every time an old thing tries to creep up, you have to look at it from a heavenly perspective.

 This is where the enemy gets people.  This is the key point of failure in many people’s faith walk. It is when they begin to think their hands are tied because they are subject to something they cannot overcome.  Look at problems people face – unhappiness, financial problems.  What are they doing?  They are coming down from the position and identity, and they are operating on such a low level realm that the thing Jesus died for, the curse of the law of poverty is now dominating their thought life.  Why is that?  They have been meditating on it from the wrong perspective.  See you can look at finances, but if you look at them from the heavenly viewpoint, they look small.  The key is to look at these things from a heavenly perspective and position of authority in God.  You are not subject to the circumstance.  You must know that you have the authority through Jesus and that authority will exemplify and manifest itself strong in your life if it is a byproduct of an experiential revelation of where you are in God.  When you spend time in a heavenly place, you will deal with life from a heavenly perspective.

 The Bible tells us in Colossians 3:9-10, that the deeds of the old man belong to the old man.  Why is that important?  The devil will try to get you to claim the deeds of the old man, the one who died and say they are yours.  The Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), so we must remember that the deeds of the old man belong to the old man.  That old man is dead. By nature, the old man is the child of the devil.  He acts like the devil. He talks like the devil and he receives retribution of being like the devil.  He lives under the curse.  He can’t be blessed.  That’s why the devil knows all he has to do is get you to identify with him and he’s got you operating under the curse.  You can’t be blessed if the old man is living.  You cannot put the old man to death unless you take him out of your thought life.  Every time he tries to rise up in you, say, “that is not me! The deeds of the old man belong to the old man.  He fails. He doubts. He gets sick. He’s the one that lies! I am a new man. He thinks right. He acts right. He is blessed in his going and in his coming.  He is blessed in his thought life.”  When you do that, you put off the old man.  Now this doesn’t happen automatically.  It is a process and happens over time.

Remember, you must strip him off. You must put him away from yourself.  As you do, you will gain things.  Colossians 3:10 tells us to put on the new man, the person you are after you are saved, the person who is constantly renewed with an advanced and perfect experiential knowledge and which is in the image of the One who created him.  You put him on.  You remember you got him at the resurrection.  You remember you are changing into the image of God.

The Golden Candlestick (The Holy Place) – Prayer – Part 13

The golden candlestick or menorah (Exodus 25:31-40) represents light and illumination, so it symbolizes divine understanding of the Word, the next level of insight and revelation where Word and Spirit are one.  At this point, you are becoming able to see and apply the Word whenever and wherever it is needed.

The menorah was made of solid gold.  There was no wood in this piece of furniture and there were no measurements given.  Since there was no wood, humanity wasn’t represented in the candlestick.  The function of the candlestick and what it symbolized has nothing to do with humanity.

In studying Jewish culture, it is said that when God instructed Moses to make the menorah, Moses lamented because the dimensions, details, and curves of the candlestick were impossible for him to envision.  So God showed him a menorah of fire and eventually instructed him to throw the stem into the fire from which the completed menorah emerged.  Moses didn’t have the tools to create the menorah according to God’s specification, so God formed it supernaturally.  This leaves us with the understanding that when you embrace the menorah, you have come to the place where God begins to perform everything He reveals to you in prayer.  You receive the illumination and God does the work.  This means there are no limitations as you embrace the element.  You have access to the mind of the Spirit and are able to discern the deep things of God.

The menorah had a stem (representing God) and six branches (representing the number of man, the church, which was born out of Him) (John 15:5).  The golden candlestick helps us to see that Jesus is the vine (stem) and we are the branches (six candles) coming out of Him (John 15:6). An intercessor who disconnects from the vine goes back to the outer court.  By illumination of the candlestick, the only thing you are going to ask for in intercession is the will of God because in this realm, His will is the only thing you desire.

The branches of the candlestick have the same decorations as the stem, a design that was beaten and shaped by fire.  This design represents the attributes that Jesus gave the church when we were birthed out from Him.

Jesus gave us His glory (Matthew 5:14). Part of being this light to the world is reflecting His image, symbolized by the fine gold that was beaten for the candlestick until it was smooth and reflective.  The design on the candlestick was comprised of almonds and flowers which again was beaten and burned into the menorah by fire.  The almond on Aaron’s rod was the first branch to bud and blossom, bring forth fruit to the nations of Israel (Num 17:8). This speaks of the everlasting resurrection.  As you embrace the work of the menorah, God will make sure to burn the image of the almond into your life. When the image of the almond is in your spirit, it doesn’t matter how many tests you endure or how many trials you go through, you have eternal “getting up power”.  You have life and can speak life into any situation.

The flower represents everlasting beauty.  If people cannot see the beauty of Christ when they look at you, if they cannot experience the sweet anointing of the Holy Spirit, if there’s nothing about your person that others desire, then the image of the flower isnt apparent in your life.

One final aspect of the golden candlestick is the fact that it was lit by the coals from the brazen altar.  The fire of God that lit the altar originally came from glory in the third realm, lighting the golden altar of incense and then the brazen altar.  By revelation this means that if there has never been any sacrifice in your life, and if you fail to willingly put yourself on the altar of sacrifice daily, then there will be no fire to light the golden candlestick in your life.  There will be no reflection of God’s character for others to see.

The fire on the brazen altar will go out unless you continue to sacrifice to put your flesh and your will on the altar of sacrifice.  If this sacrificial fire goes out, the fires of illumination on the golden candlestick will subsequently be extinguished.  Even worse, the coals of the golden altar of incense will smolder and die.

Sacrifice is a vital element. Saying yes to God in your mind and in your spirit continually adds wood to the brazen altar and makes it possible to receive illumination in the holy place, making it easy to worship Him at the altar of incense.  Personal sacrifice safeguards your understanding of what God desires to do in the lives of the people for whom you are praying.  Sacrifice lights the way to prayer.

The golden menorah was crafted of the finest solid gold.  The almond shape represented the resurrected power and the image of the flower represented everlasting beauty.  This means when we go into intercession and the enemy starts shooting fiery darts at you, your love does not change, your joy isn’t hindered, your peace keeps flowing like a river, and your long suffering/temperance kick in as you carry the burden of the Lord. When you reach the golden lamp stand you will have a solid gold encounter with God.

You may wonder what kept the menorah lit.  God instructed Aaron and his sons to keep the lamp stand filled with pure olive oil (Exodus 27:20-21).  The pure oil of crushed olives symbolizes the anointing of the Holy Spirit. When you look into the process they used to make this olive oil, it speaks strongly of the threshing process.  Basically, as the olive grows to maturity, the early fruit falls to the ground.  Then at harvest time, they beat the trees with long sticks to yield the rest of the crop, and then gather all the olives off the ground.  Then the oil was pressed out by crushing the olives in the hollow of a stone or by treading on them by foot.  When the olives were first pressed, two different lots of oil would come forth.  The first press was called extra virgin olive oil, meaning in its purest state.  This was the oil that was used to keep the golden candlestick burning.

When you go to the point of wanting to be used by God, we must receive the anointing of the pure olive oil that illuminates.  This goes beyond just having fire or intensity because the menorah will stay lit continually only if it is filled with the oil of the anointing.

One final aspect is related to the golden candlestick (Acts 2:1-4). As an intercessor, you need the oil of the spirit on a daily basis.  This means that it is an absolute necessity for you to be filled with the Holy Spirit as the disciples were on the Day of Pentecost. Without that infilling, there will be no supernatural utterances from heaven in your prayer closet. Since oil symbolizes the Holy Spirit and oil had to be refilled in the candlestick twice daily to keep the holy place illuminated, there is a strong emphasis on the vital role this experience hold in an intercessor’s life.

(Teachings from Juanita Bynum)