More For His People

Matthew 9:17 - Nor do they put new wine into old wine skins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.

Jeremy Prochazka evangelized a message for us Sunday. It was for our church but certainly for any other church desiring more of God. God has something deeper for those who desire it. He's never done. He's never done teaching or revealing. His mysteries are endless...for those who seek them. We can never have enough of Him. We are to search out the deeper things of God. And if we do He will not disappoint.

Jeremy told us he was grabbing a bite to eat on his drive to Milwaukee from Russellville, Arkansas. The music in the fast food restaurant was loud enough to hear the lyrics. The words were by the Rolling Stones: I can't get no satisfaction. It hit him like it might for many: that seems to be the way of life for many. Never satisfied. Always wanting more, searching for something but nothing totally satisfies.

Well, hey...we can be satisfied in Christ. He will fulfill our desires. Just not as one would think. When we continually seek the things of God, seek what He deems best, we WILL be satisfied. And yet...there is this endless supply. If we continually seek His things, we will never be full, but satisfied! He always has more. That excites me because it's the kind of thing I want to keep searching for. It's like an urging for more. And that more is the better thing!!

When we come to Christ we become new persons. The old man is dead. A new person now lives. Jeremy shared a song with us...The Old Man is Dead. This old man has left his past and now seeks new and better things. Like the scripture above states, you can't put new wine in old wineskins. We can't put the same old stuff into our new man without corrupting it. We choose to be new. We remember where we came from and choose not to go back.

I have heard that if we feel we have lost touch with God, we should go back to the last time you felt a touch from Him. Sometimes that's going back to the day of surrendering to Christ. That day we knew that we knew! But Jeremy pointed out we don't need to go back that far. We can consider what we were yesterday or two weeks ago when we had a touch from God. We just always move forward. It made me think about how just reading His Word and seeing something new, or getting a different or additional insight into a scripture any given day, maybe even a few minutes ago, is also part of that moment in time. We just keep growing and going forward. We press on...toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:14)

God always has more for us. It reminded me of something similar another evangelist said a few weeks ago: God's grace does not grow, it is complete; we just see more of it. We can't take God's grace too far or have too much. He has an endless supply for His people (Tyler Owens). 

God always has more of something. He is eternal, endless, has more than we can imagine. He's willing to give as we desire to receive. We must become like the new wineskin. That means becoming new in Christ first of all. If we become complacent, set in our ways, feeling we have gone as far as possible, then we have become as dry as an old wine skin! We have become dry and brittle  and need refreshing. Like the way old wineskins were treated, we need to be soaked in water and rubbed in oil. Today, however, we are refreshed by Jesus, the Living Water, and filled by His Spirit, symbolized by oil.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? ... (2Corinthians‬ ‭5‬:‭17‬, Isaiah‬ ‭43‬:‭18-19)

And Then

Numbers 11:20b - "'...because you have despised the Lord who is among you, and have wept before Him, saying,  “Why did we ever come up out of Egypt?”’”

Oh, Egypt. Israel was in captivity there for many years before Moses arrived and demanded Pharaoh let God's people go, not without a struggle.

Israel saw the miracles, experienced God's hand of protection upon them and were grateful for their release from slavery to the Egyptians. For awhile, anyway.

Israel, God's people. Egypt, the world. I've written many times about this. Us and them! How is it we, like Israel, forget so easily all that God has done for us...from Genesis to Revelation?

Here we have Israel being led by Moses, who is being led by the LORD, from a land of slavery to a land of promise and their freedom. The thought of that alone should have been exciting. Their journey an adventure knowing that the cloud that protected them during the day and the pillar of fire at night was their God. His presence was with them 24/7. But that excitement and knowledge seemed to have waned after a time. They arose and went when God's presence moved and they stopped when He stopped.

Some time into their journey came the dissatisfaction. They were no longer content with the routine of not knowing their next step and collecting manna each day. Their whining showed how they, might I use the same strong language as in Numbers, detested or abhorred God. ...because you have despised the Lord who is among you... Among you...

This was a true test in trusting God and following Him. Not knowing what each day held. For us it is the self-sufficiency of which we must let go. This is difficult sometimes. We as humans think we always know what is best, giving no thought to what God might think. Don't we believe He knows what's best? We are a rebellious lot...we cling to our Egypt and remember the good old days when we thought we had it better.

Israel whined about the good food they had despite their being slaves. Somehow they forgot about the treatment they received and could only think about their physical hunger and physical needs.

This past week as we listened to Jeremy Prochazka preach at The Church in Wisconsin on The Yoke Shall Be Destroyed Because of the Anointing, he brought up an "and then" statement. It was referring to Elijah's mantle of prophet being given to Elisha. It happens to us also. We are asked by God to do something, first to follow, then act. It must happen at the proper time. Elisha said to Elijah in 1Kings 19:20: And he left the oxen and ran after Elijah, and said,  “Please let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.”

Like some, Elisha didn't hesitate. The anointing of God was upon him. He immediately turned from Elijah and sought to do as he said, which included giving up all that was seemingly important, and then returned to follow. It reminds me of times when men wanted to follow Jesus but only after they had said their goodbyes to family. Elisha did as he had said he would. Others go back to family and never return because the comfort level was greater there.

Elisha had twelve yoke of oxen. He was a prosperous man and he was being asked to leave it all behind because an anointing was upon his life. We have to free ourselves from any yoke that is upon us that interferes with God's will for us. The yoke is always a worldly thing, whether physical, mental or emotional. We know that each of us is part of the body of Christ, each with a gift that God has given us. I look at that as His anointing, whether great or small.

If God has asked you to move to another level in Him, to seek Him over the things of Egypt, He has also provided the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome...but sometimes you must make the first move...which is to just let everything go and follow. Is our Egypt too great; does it have too much to offer, so we think? Are the things we hold so dear just that, too dear? Might we ask ourselves why we left Egypt?

If we have been called to follow we will be called to make sacrifices, to let things go. It might not always be easy but what is on the other side of obedience will be. As Jeremy stated: the anointing will change us but it will also empower us to make changes. We must be willing to change, to let go of the yoke that holds us captive.

Jesus' yoke, He exerted, was easy and His burden light. He is the one who gives peace that passes all understanding. He is the one who makes us lie in green pastures. He is the tower we run into when our strength fails us. He is the cleft in the rock where we seek refuge in times of trouble. It is His hands which hold us, which have us engraved in them.

Which yoke do we want, the world's or His? Do we want to carry the burdensome yoke or allow His to carry us?

Isaiah 10:27 - It shall come to pass in that day that his burden will be taken away from your shoulder, and his yoke from your neck, and the yoke will be destroyed because of the anointing oil.

A Kid in a Candy Store!

Ezekiel 37:5-6 - Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: "Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you; and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the LORD."

I think I was asleep and have been going through a time of awakening. I was becoming comfortable in my life in Christ, despite the deep seated desire to grow deeper in Him. As the days grow more ominous we know our strength must come from some place other than our selves and our resourcefulness. The only way to gain that strength is to go to the Source, which is Jesus.

Our church (The Church in Wisconsin) is being bombarded by several nights' worth of powerful, eye-opening words of a young evangelist, Jeremy Prochazka. Old truths have been brought forth as reminders of what being in Christ means. As one sermon leads into the next they are all connected by a fresh view and a common thread...the Lord. I feel like a kid in a candy store. So much to "look" into and take in, not that I haven't heard it before, but that I need to be reminded. That's what revival is. Dry bones coming back to life.

Jeremy started with the Church and how if Christ is in it that's what it's all about. And those churches which are doing it right by not watering down the Word or preaching man's version of the Gospel and are allowing the Holy Spirit full access, the Latter Will be Greater than the Past, as his first message was entitled. There will be a remnant in the end who will rebuild the Church to what it should be, who will be standing only on the truth of His Word...what it's all about.

These messages have touched me. Each one so far has struck a conviction, one that started probably a year ago when I was beginning to become dissatisfied with something I couldn't put my finger on...which culminated in one day just knowing God was leading me to make a change, a very big one, in order to go deeper with Him. That change moved me to a new church, a difficult decision but when God is behind it, a good one, of that I was sure.

The Church: it's not about the building but the people within it...if Christ is in the heart, He is in the home as well. He had no luxurious place to rest at night. It was whoever took Him in, or whatever rock was available to rest His head. This speaks corporately and personally, too.

All things that are not of Christ must be removed. There is a shaking going on. I have felt that there has been a sifting and when that is done the shaking within Church walls will come thereafter. Perhaps some churches have been sifted and are now being shaken, some are still being sifted. Is the Church, or ourselves, Christ-centered or not? Shake it out if it is not.

Again, I have felt complacency, but desiring more. Where I am now I don't think I can remain with all the people around me. That is good. Now three weeks later I'm really sensing I am lacking compared to them. Ah, but we are not to compare ourselves, which Jeremy brought up last night, and as I've heard before. And no one should compare in Church. It's where edification should take place if it is the church (any church) it claims it to be. If there's comparison, it's wrong.

We're at different spiritual levels and that's okay. It's that we want to reach the next level that is important. And it starts in a church that is of one accord, all wanting this same thing, no matter what level we're on. Shaking causes shackles to be broken and that equals freedom. We are all given a measure by Christ. If He has given us that measure, don't try to fix it. Go with it.

Jeremy talked about the dry bones in Ezekiel 37. Shaking of the Church isn't always bad but will produce good. You shake to stir things up, to open eyes, revive, restore, bring back together. Once the bones are shaken the flesh will reappear and growth will occur.

In his sermon on Controlled by the River Jeremy discussed Ezekiel 47:1-11. There was a vision of a man measuring the waters that flowed out of the temple. First they were ankle deep, then knee high, then to the loins until the waters were so deep they could not be crossed. These are like the depth of our spiritual walk with the Lord. And He is the Man measuring. When He moves, we move with Him, but never before Him. It reminds me of Jesus as our living Water. And it is about the Spirit of God which flows in us and directs us. Just keep moving when He moves into that deeper place with Him, beyond where you now are. Follow Him is all He asks and there will be healing and life.

If we get to a place where we can't grow anymore, He will move us. Oh, I saw it when I knew it was time to move from one church to another but this message was such confirmation. I'm sure more revelation will come! Hallelujah.

Monday night in his Conditions of Defeat and Conditions of Victory Jeremy talked about how we might go through seasons of defeat...early on, in the middle of our walk or the end. Sometimes the condition is based on those around us. If they are lax, so will others be. But if they are Spirit-filled and of one accord, it will stand to reason I will be also. And at the same time we must continue to realize that He has given each of us a measure, which I mentioned above. I cannot become frustrated that I can't "measure up" to the person next to me. Jesus has done the measuring; be satisfied with that.

In Acts the early day church all came together in one accord...all 120 people! They prayed and fellowshipped together and the Holy Spirit came upon them. They were then able to go out, with the full measure that Christ had given them and preach to all the world. And the Church grew in number. His Spirit, which stirred the waters in Genesis, stirred their spirits in that upper room. He moved and they followed, each with and in the measure He had given them. He does the same today...let our Church be as the upper room, filled with the glory of God, sending forth the people with praises of God and the healing power to save, increasing the remnant Church.

An interesting point brought up: Ezekiel 47...the first step forward into the river was only ankle deep. That's our first step of faith in our walk with God. In Acts the first healing that took place as the disciples went out to begin their preaching ministry was a lame man. His ankle bones and feet received strength! This was the lame man's first step of faith in trusting the mighty healing power (spiritually as well as physically) of God. He had to start somewhere, like we all do. And sometimes we need to get back into step!

Ezekiel 47:9 - And it shall be that every living thing that moves, wherever the rivers go, will live. There will be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters go there; for they will be healed, and everything will live wherever the river goes.