So I have looked for You in the sanctuary,
To see Your power and Your glory.
Psalms 63:2

The place David was writing of here is the very rooms you are in - the Sanctuary – the place where the ‘power’ and ‘glory’ of God is first seen. If you want to see power and glory consistently operate through your life, there is no avoiding the transformation you will go through in the two rooms of the Sanctuary. It is here, in these Rooms of Mystery, that David’s secret to power and glory was disclosed. Here is the place of God’s presence. It is here, in Him, that our deepest desires are realized. Why is it that so many try to take a short cut thinking they can circumvent God’s process in their life? Have we made Christianity too cheap? Yes, Salvation is free, but ‘discipleship’ is costly.

TWO STONES
Perhaps this is why these two rooms, are the two two stones, as well as the two chambers of God’s heart yet are one in the bosom of God. Here is the place where passion, desire, discipline, obedience, and submission are mingled into one lifestyle of intense spirituality. It is a place where the cost of the ‘Transition toward Transformation’ is eventually found to be worth it – though you may all too often fight it.

Holy Ground - have you taken your shoes off? No one could enter this Holy room with shoes or sandals on, not even the High Priest. Remember, Moses was told to take his sandals off when he approached God, because the ground where he stood was Holy. That is why this room is called the Holy Place and why the next Room is called the Holy of Holies or the Holiest of All. It is where the presence of God is made manifest.

RIGHT TO LEFT
Now you can make your way to the first piece of furniture in this room that will begin your deeper Transformation. This piece is on the right or North side of the room. Remember, Hebrew writing is read right to left so you proceed to the furniture via the same path – right to left, then to the center piece of furniture, that is furthest from you, and on through the Veil to the next room. But, the process is not that quick and certainly not that easy.

So the first piece of furniture you encounter in this mystical room of smoke and golden amber light is the Gold Table of Showbread. This bread is referred to in the Hebrew as the Bread of Presence or Bread of the Display of His Presence. It was to portray the coming Messiah. Little did even Moses know then how much the tearing of this bread would depict the tearing of the flesh of the Messiah, Yeshua who is Jesus.

WHAT IS THE SHOWBREAD?
Jesus expressly preformed this tearing or breaking of the Showbread the night before His Crucification at the “Last Supper.” He even referred to this bread as His own body when He said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” Thus He equated the Bread He broke as the Showbread of the Sanctuary. That night, in that small, sanctuary-esk, upper room, Jesus spoke of what He was about to do as well as what He was about to become. He was about to fulfill the very fabric of that which the Hebrew children had been observing and practicing for 1500 years. The Table of Showbread would be served to mankind.

The Gold covered, Acacia wood table that the bread sat on is called the “Pure Table” and is mentioned twenty one times by Moses alone. The wood represents the “tree” Jesus would be crucified on and the Gold represents the purity of His sacrifice.

You see this Table is different from the Brazen Altar in the Outercourt. The sacrifice done on the Altar atoned or covered your sin; this is called Grace – which is the receiving of something good that you did not deserve. The tearing of the Bread/flesh that was laid on the Table of Showbread was for the sake of mercy – which is not getting something bad that you did deserve.

POWER AND GLORY
Remember, these two rooms are about power and glory therefore, this table represents something we can receive, and that something is that which only God’s power and Glory can grant, because it comes from within Him. Remember in these two rooms you are within His bosom

Interestingly enough, the height of this Table is the same height as the grate of the Brazen Altar on which the sacrifice in the Outer Court was laid. With this knowledge, you find that Jesus shed His blood and laid down His flesh on the Brazen Altar. On it He offered His body to be sacrificed in order to cover your sin. That salvation is not covered again by the Table of Showbread. But, if this Table and the tearing of the Showbread is not about Salvation, what is this about? Simply said, it is about power and glory, in other words it is about Healing and Miracles that were provided for you through the tearing and breaking of His flesh.

THE TABLE OF HEALING AND MIRACLES
This is why Prophet and Priest Isaiah was able to write, “By His stripes we are healed.” His stripes were not just stripes inflicted by a whip. The reality is that His flesh was torn apart by the metal tips on the nine tailed whip use to flog Him. With every lash, each of the nine tips tore His flesh. There were thirty-nine lashes multiplied by nine metal tips, that means three hundred and fifty one times the flesh of Jesus was torn and broken and that is just from the lashing of the Roman guard. This does not include the whipping given to him by those who held Him before He was turned over to Pilot.

The provision for healings and miracles is a matter of the Kingdom and the right for that Kingdom to exist was purchased through the entire process of Calvary. The whole of the Tabernacle, and the two rooms of the Sanctuary is a prophetic picture of that which was planned before the foundation of the World. Is it also the Dark Night of the Soul? Yes, for we will go through the same thing Jesus went through. We will have to take up our Cross and follow Him. As He provided for us, there are many parallel ways we will have to provide for others. What we have freely received, we must learn to freely give.

I’ll write more on the Table of Healings and Miracles (Showbread) and how I came to this understanding in my next post.

May you enter this next year with the passion to process through this room and beyond.
Blessings,
John Paul

CROSS-TIES
Here, in the first Room of Mystery, you have come face to face with The Dark Night of the Soul. It is a place where obedience and discipline become the two tracks on which the rest of your life will ride. Each “cross-tie” under those tracks are there to stabilize you. Yet, too many see them as obstacles to their future. What are the “cross-ties” in your life? Cross-ties are things God places in your life that you have little choice over and if they are not there you will not become the man or woman of God He created to be. The train of your life will fall off the track when you hit unstable conditions.

WHAT ARE CROSS-TIES OF THE SOUL?
Cross-ties are the relatives you have, the geographic location where you live, the boss you work for, even the personality of the children you have. Cross-ties are also the flat tire you have, the dog that digs up your flowers, the cranky neighbor, and the stop light that always changes to red right before you get there. All these things and many more are “cross-ties” and they are there to help you become more self-disciplined and obedient. As you grow or mature in these two areas, you will notice a remarkable shift in your emotional makeup and in the way others act when they are near you. Just what do I mean by that?

PET PEEVES
If you are like me, there are things others do that drive you crazy! In some cases it is so bad that you may even try to steer clear of them. It has been a wonderful, self-revealing, surprise to find that as I become more disciplined and obedient to that which God has called me to do, others stop doing the things that irritate me. Further, when what they do stops irritating me, they stop doing the thing that irritates me.

It is almost as if God provokes them to rub me the wrong way just to work on me. Can you imagine that! God is always working on our emotional Stability, and He uses cross-ties to do it.

This room is designed to work on the matters of the soul. The area you just came from, the Outercourt, dealt with matters of the flesh. That is why what you are going through is called, The Dark Night of the Soul. It is depicted in what Jesus said right before they took him to be crucified, “My soul is exceedingly troubled.”

THE CORE ISSUE OF THIS ROOM
In this protected and covered place God deals with your internal make-up and takes you one more step, one room at a time, toward Holiness. That is why the Scripture calls it the Holy Place. The problem is this, here in the Amber swirl of this room, you will feel anything but Holy. You may even have the feeling that if this room is a Holy Place, then if God finds out you are here, He will instantly ask you to leave. Here then is an important lesson, God does not take you into this room because you are Holy, He does it to help you become Holy.

YOUR AGENDAS VERSE GOD’S

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The first step to Holiness is drawing close to Him who is Holy, the second step is to choose His agenda over yours. That takes discipline and obedience – those two facets then allow you to make the right choice on any decision that lies before you. When you exit this room you will be able to make wiser choices than you have ever been able to do – and life will get better!

The Dark Night of the Soul has little to do with religion, economics, war, politics, or geo-physical issues. It is not about what goes on around you, it is about that which goes on within you. First we change, then the world will change. It is a WAY of God.

In my next posting I will write about the first “Deep Mystery” of this room. This one will be quite a shocker!

Blessings,
John Paul

For those who are actually pursuing a deeper, vibrant relationship with God there is a cost. Yes, salvation is a free gift from God through Jesus the Messiah, but the spiritual life many search for is only found by letting go of the old in order to gain the new. In other words you gain by losing. The loss is of nothing you can hold onto, it is a loss of a thread of something that you might think is good, but it is actually keeping you from your destiny. It is a virus, an infection, a germ that needs eradicating before it can metastasize.

ALL NEW THINGS BEGIN IN DARKNESS
From pregnancy, to creation, to anointing, every new day begins in darkness. It has been that way from the first day of creation and it continues today. There are three levels or deep times of darkness that we will encounter on the road to true, pure spirituality. With each one you feel like you are immersed in a deeper darkness than you have ever been in before. At each deeper level you see less clearly, if at all, where you thought you were going. During each new level you most likely will not understand the purpose of it and why God is allowing you to go through such a dark, difficult time.

You do not go through these times back to back. There is a season of recuperation and rest between each one. You can stop and not go on to the next one, but if you do that, you have chosen to walk a more worldly walk and there one is susceptible to a deeper, evil darkness.

JUSTIFYING OUR OLD LIFE
At the beginning of all three dark nights there is a natural tendency to look into our life to see what is wrong with us. Usually the first things we find are not the issue God is getting at, things like anger, jealousy, fear, are real issues, but they are surface issues. When we start to get closer to the real issue we will find that we will tend to justify the very matter God is after, that in itself is a clue to what this time is all about. It may be the actions we have taken, emotions we have harbored, and why we do what we do, but much of the time we actually believe we have a right to do it, feel it, or think it – at least initially.

When we touch the issue God is after we will often naturally recoil and in so doing it becomes easy to blame someone or some event that impacted us. We actually think that what happened gives us a valid reason for doing, thinking, feeling the way we do. We may even believe we can continue what we have been doing without any guilt.

SELF-IDENTITY
What may surprise you is that most who enter this Dark Night find they actually take some form of self-identity from the very issue God is wanting to reshape or get rid of in our life. It may be attitudes, ego, self-promotion, control, manipulation, or a thousand other issues, yet each one will keep us from the leadership and influence we should be having on others. To reach the purpose for which God created us, we must have no thread of iniquity that is not being addressed.

Even for a while after we are well within the dark night’s eerie confines we will continue to do the blame shift or use the problem as a crutch – for a short while. To some that short while may be a day, to others that may take a week or even a year, but it will eventually come to an end and the quicker the better.

A SENSE OF FAILURE
At some point in all three phases, as we finally realize that what we have self-justified is actually hindering our destiny, and with this realization there is often a sense of failure or sorrow or both. This is actually the initial sign of healing, you are on you way out. It is the light at the end of a long tunnel, it is hope for a better life and it is soooooo refreshing. Though you know there is still the rest of the tunnel to go through, you know you will make it. However, up to that point, which occurs at each level, you’re pretty sure you won’t.

THREE DARK NIGHTS
The three dark nights are commonly known as the Dark Night of the Wilderness or Desert, the Dark Night of the Soul, and the Dark Night of the Spirit. One leaves the first two with a hunger to get on with life, to accomplish something and in so doing a hunger to please God. The dark Night of the Spirit is a little different, but we’ll get to that later.

Next post I’ll address the Wilderness or Desert, which is the entry level to our greatest change.

Blessings,
John Paul

“I have looked for You in the sanctuary, to see Your power and Your glory.” Psalms 63:2

It is clear that David understood the Glory and the power that were present in the two rooms called the sanctuary. David knew that God’s power and Glory were there to help him change. Here, in the Sanctuary, one can see and experience The Spirit of God at depths far beyond mortal abilities and as you ascend to higher spiritual levels the change needed stretches beyond our own capability.

INCREASED PRESENCE
In this first room of the Sanctuary, drenched with a seeming unearthly light, one learns the introductory finery of a life aided by an increased presence of the Divine. Yet, even in David’s most intimate moments with God, he was left wanting for more. How is that? Because, he could not experience what you have the opportunity to experience today. What is that? He could only experience being in the presence of the Spirit of the Living God – you see David could not experience the very Spirit of God residing within him. You have this opportunity. The very Spirit of God desires to dwell within you. At the time of David one could be infilled with the smoke, but not The Presence it represented. Today, you have this Spirit within you and that very Spirit is seeking to take over – if you will allow that to happen, for He will not violate your will.

ICONS
These pieces of furniture in the Holy Place, as well as the screen, the smoke, the bread, the light, and the gold were all merely shadows of things to come. They spoke and prophesied of a coming era when light would not come from a candlestick, smoke would not come from incense, bread would not be made by hand, and the Spirit of God would speak directly to your heart, not through icons. These pieces of furniture can still help you visualize the enormity of what God has provided and as such they are very good, but they are not the fullness of what they represent.

TWO PURPOSES FOR THE FURNITURE
Speaking in broad terms, the furniture of this room is designed for two purposes, first, to help you understand God, second, to prepare you to present yourself to Him. The latter will come first. Before you can fully understand as much as you can about God, the dust must be swept from your thinking. You see nothing sticks when dust is on the floor. Therefore, before you take the first step toward the furniture, you will encounter the cleansing astringent of the “Dark Night of the Soul.” The fact is - by the time you are here you are already in it.

THE CATAPULT
It is the increased presence of the Divine that actually catapults you into The Dark Night of The Soul. There is a spiritual law that says, “The denser the atmosphere, the greater the change,” and the Dark Night of the Soul is all about change, deep, lasting change, transformational change. Change so deeply felt that one eventually loses track of what they once were. Here, the past seems like it happened to another person, and old things become new. More than likely, this process will be far to slow for you. None-the-less, the purpose for creating you will ultimately become clear – one cell at a time.

More on the Dark night of the Soul in my next post.

Blessings,
John Paul

I am sorry it has taken me so long to post this. I have been busy with speaking and trying to get the next AWE TV program, “The Coming Perfect Storm,” ready for the January 5, viewing date. I have never done this type of thing before, however, what is coming to America and the World needs trumpeted. You will not want to miss this prophetic broadcast.

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So some of you didn’t catch the hint of the deeper mystery. I’ll keep chipping away. But here is a dose of reality, without “eyes to see” you will read what is written and still not see it. Please read carefully and think about what you read. No, this is not a test, but it is training. So you live in parallel universes of The Tabernacle, The Throne Room and you.

YOU, THE EARTH, AND THE THRONE ROOM
So God is taking the earthly, wild, nature of you and subduing it – at the same time, you are subduing the wild, earthly nature of those outside the Garden. It is a slow process to be sure – and everlasting life is painful, but worth it. That is why it is called, “Taking up your cross.” It is also why patience is a virtue. The Tabernacle structure is more than cloth, skin, Gold, and brass; to those with “eyes to see” and “ears to hear,” the Tabernacle represents God Himself.

THE FIRST REAL MYSTERY OF THE ROOM OF MYSTERY
The Tabernacle was a structure designed by God. It was meant to help mankind draw close to and worship God. For man to worship God, man then needed to be in a place where nothing separated him from the God he worshiped. The Tabernacle was designed to remove that sin of separation. But, it had one more purpose and that was to help man know God. That is the crux of the deeper mystery – deeply knowing God.

The Rooms of Mystery, which is the Sanctuary, as well as the tent of the Tabernacle, is also known as the tent of meeting and the tent of witness. Those who made it here met with God and as a result came away from the experience full of His presence. It is here that the breath of God entered Moses and it is precisely why God said He talked with Moses “Face to Face” or literally translated, “Mouth to mouth.”

So what did God provide you to help you know Him? When we study the design of the tabernacle and we study the description of God, by the Apostle John.

THE DEEPER MYSTERY
When we read the description of God sitting on His Throne that the Apostle John wrote in Revelation 4 you will find John describes God as having two stones in him.

I have hinted at it, and alluded to it, but here is the First Deeper Mystery. The Tabernacle is the bosom of the Father and the rooms of mystery spiritually represent the two stones in the bosom of the father. Here, in these two rooms, you are learning to enter into Him – in the next room you will learn to let him enter into you. Jesus stated that He came forth from the bosom of the Father and when He went back the Father would send His Spirit which would also come forth from His bosom. So …. one of these rooms represent an aspect of Jesus and the other represents the Holy Spirit. In deeply knowing God you will know every aspect of every room. Again, it is more than knowing about Him - it is ‘knowing’ Him.

Yes, these two rooms are the two stones in the bosom of the Father. Here in this Tent, it is you in Him, discovering Him, and learning to know His ways. In the next Room it will become Him in you, revealing you to you. Selah

The Bible also calls this tent with two rooms, “The Tent of Meeting,” because here is where God made Himself known to mankind. It is from here that God sent His Son to meet with us. It is from this room that God sent His Spirit to dwell in us. The greatness of this place is that God wants you to know Him and it is in this Tent that the “knowing” begins, - the Mystery of this place is that you can be in Him and He in you all at the same time.

Blessings,
John Paul

Discipline, the second phase of Transition is the most difficult phase and, like it or not, can last months or even years. That is precisely why it takes discipline. Not only will you have to keep your eyes on the vision ahead, you will have to navigate through the land mines of discouragement the enemy will lob your way. Consequently, you will actually determine the length of the delay. Few there are who will go through this phase unscathed. Fewer still who do not end up blaming someone or something else for the delay.

The courageous will look toward themselves before they blame others and realize the peripheral issues were not the problem. The thread of truth that God is addressing lies within ourselves; no matter what the external problem might seem to be.

THE MAGNETIC PULL
In this phase the magnetic pull of our “tomorrow” seems to be contrary to the circumstances of our life and/or the situations we find our self in. These outside events may even seem to war against God’s call, but it is all a part of God’s preparation for our transition. During the Discipline stage we are taught to overcome the last of our weaknesses that will limit our success on the other side of transition. We cannot become what God created us to become if we do not let go of the baggage that will drown us in the waters ahead.

Even if we are not overjoyed at the thought of transition, we eventually begin to feel like we just want to get it over with. So many matters seem out of our control. This is just where God wants us to be – out of our control. Once we give up the need to control our destiny, God looses us to go there.

THE DISCIPLINE OF “BEING”
Here we also learn the discipline of “being” where we are. The act of “being” keeps our focus on today. In “being” we learn not to overlook the mundane of today for the supposed joy of tomorrow. The Bible calls this “occupy,” and it is hard to keep doing, but it does build leadership in us.

WHEN GOD IS SILENT
Yes, as is often the case, in the discipline phase God does seem to be silent – why? Because, we have yet to fulfill the last thing He directed us to do. It is not necessarily disobedience; it is usually a matter of timing or finishing the process needed for the transition to occur. In either case, here we learn a major attribute of broad leadership – a double dose of patience!

For the prophetically gifted – this is a true “death to self” process and there are no short cuts. For those so gifted, I empathize, it is hard to see the future and then have to wait for it to come.

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The next post will be on “The Delight of Transition”

Blessings,
John Paul

How can humans love darkness rather than light, is on one hand somewhat perplexing to me, and on the other is totally understandable - I know for I have been guilty of loving it. If one can discipline themselves to remember that darkness is merely an absence of light or should I say, “that to the degree light is, darkness is not,” then there is no choice, but when the passion of the soul grips us, spiritual thoughts seem to be nonexistent.

Both natural light and spiritual light are proven to be good for us. If light is good and it is, just ask those who live in northern areas where light is almost a luxury, therefore it makes sense that we should long for light, right? So why would anyone love darkness when it is not good for you? One would not, unless they first perceived that evil was good, but then evil seldom appears as evil does it?

Before we get too far out on this topic, bear with me while I make a couple of statements.

Loving darkness rather than light, hummmm – First, we have to consider that if one did not love darkness there would be no temptation, or would there?.

Second, to be tempted one has to want that which they are tempted with. Conversely, without the “want” there is no temptation. The key to overcoming any temptation is to stay out of darkness and get rid of the “want” in our lives. The term want is, at its root, a very selfish term and most of us learn this at a very early age. So I wonder, can temptation and darkness exist without each other?

Third, darkness hides the act or the fact that we succumbed to the temptation. For those who want to pretend they did not sin, darkness is then good – but wrong tree thinking. Why hide the act? Perhaps it is to keep others from thinking less of us? Perhaps it is so we do not have to face the realization that we obtained something that is not the best for us? Or, perhaps it is to be justified in self-deception – we can say, “I didn’t know …,” when we really did. Darkness is a great hider of temptation. It allows for all sorts of excuses. No wonder humanity loves it!

Finally, there is a flip side to temporal joy of temptation and that is the side of regret. No one ever yields to temptation without the aftermath of regret. Oh sure, the regret may be infinitesimally small and short lived. Still the more we yield to it the smaller the tinge of regret becomes until we eventually become calloused, at which time regret passes through our heart hardly noticed. This condition is Scripturally called hardness of heart.

We seem to find that darkness hides all manner of things that can hurt and even kill us. Also, we find that temptation flourishes in darkness and it begins more often than not as a small seed that is hardly noticeable. You see the serpent is shrewd, he knows more radical things jar our spirit and we quickly and easily run from the danger. Thus, he plants small things that enter here and there and in so doing these tiny seeds become insignificant to us as we rush through our lives. This is just one of the reasons for quieting ourselves, but that is a different topic.

Along this smallish line of thinking, a friend of mine nearly died once of Deer Fever that most likely started from an unnoticed mosquito bite months earlier. How, could the small amount of bacteria on the tip of the needle like nose of a mosquito kill a large human? It multiplies, and like the bacteria of Deer Fever, the small unnoticed bacteria of darkness multiplies within us, and as it does it affects and effects everything it touches within our lives and relationships.

What are some characteristics of temptation and/or darkness that you have noticed in conversations with others, or perhaps in yourself?

Blessings,

John Paul

Sometimes, transition requires us to go someplace or do something so undefined that we are clueless to the next step we are to take. Much like Abraham in Genesis we have to go someplace that we don’t know. In the midst of the journey, it is easy to feel lost and perhaps alone. Once in a while we know what the end goal might be, but we don’t know where it is or how to get there. Just imagine that God told you to pack your bags, gather your belongings and go — just go.

We might be justified in asking, “Where do I go?” But God simply replies, “Go!” So we press again, “Okay, but at least tell me what direction to go. North, south, east or west?” Again God simply says, “Go!” We answer, “O Lord, please tell me so at least I can tell my family where we are going and my friends won’t think I loony.” Once again we hear that heavenly voice: “They’re going to think that no matter what you tell them — go!”

ABRAHAM’S JOURNEY: FINDING YOUR PROMISED LAND
Little do we know how important that first step of faith is. One day, we will transition from being dependent on others to being the leader of others, all because of this first step. But we don’t know that today. We just know that we want to obey God, and He said to GO! So we do it.

However, how do we balance obedience and responsibility? We have a family and responsibilities. Abraham even had livestock that somehow must be fed. Since we don’t know the path, we end up doing as Abraham did and let the livestock follow the grass trail — we simply try to handle each day as it comes. We don’t know the destination or how to get there, so every day the flock moves slowly, in seemingly random ways.

Months go by like this; the herd meanders from one pasture to the next, and we have not heard from God in a long time. In fact He has not spoken since we heard Him say, “GO.” Our friends are now looking at us with querying eyes, and even we are wondering, Was it just a dream?

To make matters worse, some family members lose faith in us and our ability to hear God speak. Some of those in our charge decide they can do better by themselves and run off to find their own destiny, as Lot did. In many ways, we don’t blame them, because the reality is we still don’t know where we are going! At least we’re surviving, and the grass trail before us continues to be plentiful.

A few more weeks go by, and we are pretty much at the lowest point of our journey. We start to tell our family that we’re rethinking our options, weighing their advice, waiting on God — but, deep inside, we are trying to decide if this is worth it. In a conundrum, we climb one, last mountain to look for the next pasture and tired on multiple levels we slump on a boulder to rest — exhausted, weary and oppressed. What are we going to do?

Then it happens. Without warning, we hear His voice again. “Lift your eyes up — now! Look to the north, south, east and west! All the land you see is yours. This is the land to which I told you to go. I will bless you here. Not only that, but I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. And all your descendants will inherit this land.”

Overcome with emotion, our eyes fill with tears, and we collapse on the boulder and openly weep. We now understand that He had been guiding us all the time — but why didn’t it seem like it?

This is the agony and the awe of transition. We know we are called to do something, but we are totally incapable of getting ourselves there. Sometimes it seems even the beasts of the field know more than we do. Yet, we eventually arrive at our destinies. Looking back, we see God’s hand was quite active, but we recognized little of it while on the journey.

THE THREE-PART SECRET OF TRANSITION
Herein lies the secret to transition that Abraham discovered. This is why God changed Abram’s name. All three parts of this secret synergize with one another and must be consummated before we will achieve God’s purpose for our lives. Without the three parts in place, our understanding will not be complete and our destinies will not be reached.

Part One
The first part of the secret is simply this: Where God guides He provides. In Abraham’s case, God grew the grass that the livestock ate. God knew that the livestock would follow the food source and that Abraham would follow his livestock to the Promised Land.

Part Two
The second part of the secret is this: What God births He protects. This allows us to know that beyond a shadow of doubt, God has directed us to do what we are doing. We will need this confidence and this faith on multiple occasions before we reach the end of the journey. If the Lord told us to go, we will get there.

Part Three
Finally, the last part is realizing that if we expect God to guide only through the overt and the obvious, we will be blind to most of His guidance. God wanted Abraham to know that all of creation will be used by God to help him on his journey. As the apostle Paul wrote, “We do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen” (2 Corinthians 4:18). In other words, God causes the grass to grow even when we do not hear Him speaking; He leads even when we don’t realize we’re being led. (Can I hear an amen?)

When grasped, and trusted, these three facets of the Secret of Transition will become huge anchors that will allow many other divine elements to come to light and help you reach the purpose for which God created you – here lies the zenith of delight.

There’s more on delight in the next post.

Blessings,
John Paul

As the years have passed in my life and ministry I have gone through several times of “transition” I have noticed three distinct phases to transition, Desire, Discipline, and Delight. I’ll address the first, Desire, below and the other two in the next posts.

DESIRE
The first phase, Desire requires a very intense time of mental and spiritual reorientation. Here you experience one of two types of deep felt emotion, either elation or sorrow, as the reorientation becomes more defined.

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Some, at first, experience elation only and with it a false sense of euphoria. I say “false” because at this time you sense the excitement of the future and seldom consider that hardship will eventually be mixed with destiny. You just want to get there - now - and like a bad penny, you cast any flickering thought that there might be a coming cost to your newfound destiny aside.

Some will experience sorrow because you are being directed to leave a place you have come to love. Others will have sorrow with the leaving of family. This might mean cutting the strings they have to you and/or you have to them. That cutting is often emotional and painful, but you cannot become a leader if strings of control are attached to you. In addition, you cannot follow the wind of the Holy Spirit if you are anchored to your friends or your family.

At this juncture in transition, it is as if God is taking you away from the desire of your heart and that departure often creates a spiritual quandary. So the Lord begins the process of making you uncomfortable where you are. Some might say, “He stirs the nest.”

Sometimes one feels both sets of emotions within minutes of each other as your desire for the location, job, or career to another location, job, or career.

One thing you can count on - when God orders you to go through a time of transition, regardless which emotion you have, God is bound to make you restless and uncomfortable to insure you become willing to leave where you are so you can become what He has created you to be. He is simply waiting for our “yes” to His direction and for our desire to become His desire. It is here that He gives us the “desires of our heart.”

Blessings,
John Paul Jackson

I am sorry this is so long, but I could see no way to make it shorter without it losing it’s spiritual potency. Please bear with me and finish reading this post.

I previously mentioned that the Laver, as well as every piece of furniture in the Tabernacle was sprinkled with the blood. Further, each piece of furniture was to be anointed with oil, and in the case of the Brazen Laver, filled with water. This is that of which the Apostle John wrote:

The Strength of the Witness of Three

“For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one.” 1John 5:7-8

Here in we find a Divine Principle, God never does anything without a witness. Jesus bore witness of the Father on Earth and we are to do so as well. But, equally as important, in some strange and wonderful way – through the Holy Spirit – these three actually do bear witness of who we are and these three do so as “one.” In other words, there is perfect unity and no division as to what they are bearing witness to. We will need this “witness” to enter the rooms of Mystery that await across the court yard.

What are these three bearing witness to? First, they are a witness to all that God has done for you. But there is more, after the next two facets of the Brazen Laver, they will bear witness that you are ready for presentation to the Father and communicate to all that you are ready for the Rooms of Mystery, and you are ready to draw closer to the Living God. They do so in perfect accord – as one.

With the application of the Brazen Laver to your life, the Spirit, the Water and the Blood now bare witness of the new life you are ready to live. The only way we can live it is to live a cleansed life by daily being washed by reading the Word of God.

Looking at the water in the Laver did not make anyone clean. It may have been a means of revealing grime that needed to be removed or things that were out of place, but there was no cleaning without application of the water to the flesh.

Regeneration is the result of “procreation” by the Spirit of the Living God. At salvation we are changed into a new creation. But, just as the newborn baby needs washing off, so do we in order to be prepped for the new life we will now venture through. Water baptism is the next step in this process and represents seven matters of Heaven and Earth.

Doctrine of Water Baptism
“Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” John 3:5

Water Baptism is a command, not an option, for those who want to live a life full of the presence and power of God. The Kingdom is, simply put, the reign of God. Water Baptism is the outward sign that the reign of God is active in your life – you no longer have to be a slave of the god of this world. It is your choice.

As Jesus said, the Kingdom begins within you. From you it will spread to others.

As you will be able to ascertain, I like Baptism by immersion, because I believe it more fully represents all that is going on in the act of Water Baptism and the initial evidence of what Water Baptism represents.

Water Baptism represents:

1.    The Divine principle that water cleanses. It is the reason God purged the Earth with water with the flood. After the floodwaters resided, there was a new Earth/creation – that is now you, you are made from the dust of this Earth.

2.    That you are buried with Jesus as you sink below the surface of the Earth. Remember, the surface of the Earth includes the surface of the water.

3.    That you are raised/resurrected with Him as you rise to break the Earth’s surface. This is the initial evidence and promise of your coming resurrection. Remember, the fact that Jesus resurrected from the dead proved He conquered Death (the curse of the fall), Sheol (hell), and the Grave (earthly laws). It proved He was the Son of God – the Creator of it all.

4.    That you, through Jesus, now have the power to overcome anything the god of this world throws at you.

5.    A sign of your new birth. The greatest evidence that a woman is about to give birth is when her water breaks. Baptism is the breaking of the water of that which has been pro-created again and a new creation is born to interact on this Earth.

6.    A sign that we now surrender. Just as the Baptizer lowers you into the darkness below the surface of the water, God takes you into darkness to raise you to new light and life. For this to happen, you have to surrender your life, your future, and your very breath to God. It is all His. We do this by spending time in the Bible, meditating upon what we read, praying to Him, listening to Him and receiving a in a very new way His power, given by the Holy Spirit.

7.    Sign of submission to discipleship - Immersion is the final deep - not shallow – it is a commitment to die to self and live for the Messiah by his power in us. To be successful in this new life we must, as a child does, learn. To learn, we need others to teach us. Thus the call to discipleship expressed in immersion means submitting to those who will mentor you and hold you accountable as you learn to live out the commandments of Yeshua. They will also teach you how to ask questions of the text of the Word so you can accurately understand and apply what is written in the Word.

Doctrine of Sanctification download howlin wolf the real folk blues
Here is the final aspect of the Brazen Laver – taking all you have experienced up to this point; you learn to present your self to God as a clean vessel. When you have this concept deeply engrained within you, you will quickly notice any new spot, blemish, or wrinkle that smudges you.

As earlier stated, the Laver was sprinkled with the Oil of the Holy Spirit. Oil floats on the surface of water, thus when you break the surface, you are covered with that oil. Thus the Oil (Spirit) bears witness, the Water has born witness, and the Earth has absorbed the blood of the sacrifice now bears witness, and they do so as “one.” We now can come boldly before Him to find the Grace He extends in time of need.

You see, no ministry, not even priestly ministry was acceptable to God without cleansing. Total cleansing and a pure heart were necessary in order to minister before the Lord. Having no further defilement from walking in the mire of what we used to walk in, we now easily love Him and are humbled that He loved us before we ever thought of loving Him. Therefore, we are mandated to spend time simply opening ourselves to Him, seeking to perceive more deeply, and embrace more fully, the love God has for us which is manifest in Yeshua.

The Apostle John made a point to write that before Jesus was taken down from the Cross, His side was pierced and both blood and water came out of His side. Both of these ran down onto and into the Earth.

Thus, the Water, the Blood, and the Earth – as one - bore witness of what happened. This was conclusive proof, especially to the Jews who knew the Law, that Jesus was the Passover Lamb, the Messiah, the Savior of the word, the Son of God, and as that Lamb He took upon Himself the sin of the world. While this moment did signify the death of His flesh, it also fulfilled ancient Scripture of the Brazen Alter and the Brazen Laver.

Talk about Transformation! And lest we forget, transformation is what “Transition” is all about. You cannot transition to that you are called to do without being transformed and in that transformation being equipped to accomplish that which “Transition” is taking you toward.

In the outer Court, though you may not know it, God has you on a long leash and great grace is extended toward you. But, when you enter the Rooms of Mystery, you will find the rooms are much smaller and the leash becomes much shorter. The closer you come to the purpose for which God created you, and His purpose in you, the shorter the Leash becomes.

In the Outer Court one learns of the Priestly functions – for we are all priests that are to minister before Him. But in the Rooms of Mystery, you will be taken through a process where you learn and yearn to minister to Him.

The Principle of the Trial

Here is another principle; before each entry to a new room in the Tabernacle there is a trial or a test. That test is designed to take you to the breaking point. Why? Because only in breaking does one become capable of withstanding what they have never been able to withstand, lifting what they have never lifted, and achieve what they have never dreamt they could achieve.

Going Back
Yet, in this there is a problem, one always wants to go back to that which they were comfortable with before they got to this room and the breaking began. Egypt always looks good in the test of the moment. If you turn back, you are not instantly jettisoned from the Tabernacle, but the process does begin all over and time is lost.

So now you think you ready for the hidden protocols of presentation found in the Rooms of Mystery – we’ll see. But, for sure, from here the Rooms of Mystery are a little closer, still they are some 300 feet away – so it will take some time to get there.

The Conclusion of the Dark Night of the Wilderness
What then is the conclusion of “The Dark night of the Wilderness?” When you get to “The entrance of the Rooms of Mystery, you will look back and be able to see that you have conquered those things that used to control you from the “outside.” You have overcome the errant influence of others. You have learned how to conquer the flesh. You are stronger, more confident and ready for use.

If you choose, you must now head for something much deeper and arriving there you will need all the faith and hope you can muster as you now enter the Rooms of Mystery. That journey begins with “The Dark Night of the Soul.” Many will quit before they get started, just from looking through the curtain at the entrance to those rooms. The cost will be too much for them, the unknown will be too daunting. Many more will simply turn around and be content to spend the rest of their life wandering in the wilderness of the Outer Court never realizing the total joy, peace, contentment, and fulfillment that awaits them just beyond the veil.

Blessings,
John Paul