Captivated by Awestruck Wonder

 

We need to come to the Lord daily and look to Him. “But as it is written: ‘Eye has not seen, or ear heard, not have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him. But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10)

We have been born again as Spirit into heavenly realms of glory. We no longer have the spirit of the world with the wisdom of the world holding us down and back to all the limitations that were created only to direct us toward God. It is by the Spirit our new life in Him in this Kingdom is revealed.

It is based upon a covenant God made with Himself, accepted by faith and filled with resurrection life power as we are raised into new life. We can’t manage it, rationalize it, put worldly controls on it, organize it, make it happen or direct it. While we have authority in it, all of it comes through the Holy Spirit.

How do we know that our rational mind can’t make sense or live into it? Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:14, “The person without the Spirit doesn’t accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. These things are foolish to them. They can’t understand them. In fact, such things can’t be understood without the Spirit’s help.”

We cannot understand anything about God or the Spirit without the Spirit’s help. It is just not rational. But when we receive it and accept it by faith, the Lord reveals it to us and unfolds it before us as He sees fit. We can choose to embrace it and fully receive it, or resist it and try to rationalize or manage it.

I am coming to believe that this is why some people are not healed. Like Namaan, they maybe are tied to certain ways of receiving. They resist the Spirit of God and do not fully embrace the Kingdom of God wholeheartedly but try to manage it on their own terms using their rational mind. Because of God’s priority in establishing trust, He does not override our wills when we resist or rationalize Him. He just shuts down and lets us determine the direction.

“We love the revelation of Jesus” sings in the background.

Paul says a little earlier in 1 Corinthians 2:7 “No, we announce God’s wisdom. His wisdom is a mystery that has been hidden. But before time began, God planned that his wisdom would bring us heavenly glory.”

The heavenly glory that is spoken of here, planned by God’s wisdom is Strongs #1391, doxa, an especially divine quality, the unspoken manifestation of God in splendor. This divine wisdom of God was planned from the beginning when we sinned in a garden to re-establish us as spirit beings that carry His divine qualities, made in His image, as a manifestation of God in splendor.

We know that we come into this full manifestation when we step out of this world and move into the next world. Ephesians 2:7 says, “that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.”

But He chooses not to reveal this to us at this time. We know that we get a heavenly body and that we can earn treasures in heaven while we are in this world but we do not know how heaven looks, how we will look or what the full manifestation of His glory looks like. It is like a gift that is wrapped and set under the tree but God won’t let us do too much peaking and shaking of it. He just leaves it there for us and we know that it is a gift that will come and be fully unwrapped and understood one day.

Meanwhile, we live in this in between world of having the deposit of His Spirit and an invitation to live a new life out of this unseen realm. This same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is given to us with a call to live out the gospel, go and share with others the good news while we bring His healing, cast out demons, set people free from bondage and share the incredible news with the poor that the Kingdom of God is here and available for them.

So how do we live in to what He has for us by the Spirit? What has been coming to my heart is the need to deal with familiarity and expectation verses living in the wonder of it all. I imagine that during Pentecost, what an amazing whirlwind it was to be called to pray, find yourself being brought in unity and then tongues of fire dancing on your head.

Think they said to each other, “Hey, you have what appears to be tongues of fire dancing on your head”? The other would probably say, “What? Really? You do too!” Then as a few started to speak in other languages by the unction of the Spirit, others thought it was amazing and started in as well. When they did, they found they could do the same with totally different intelligent language. What amazement. It says that people were bewildered, in awe and completely amazed saying, “How can this be?” as they witnessed that the person was speaking in each one of the native tongues of the person standing by them. The disciples had no idea until they started speaking and heard a witness that they were speaking in the original language of the tribe the person who stood by them had came from.

What?! Now, out of familiarity, we often take the wonder out of it and get in arguments over if this was the same as the tongues we see now when someone isn’t able to interpret around them. Ever think that if the Holy Spirit didn’t use the specific original language of the people who were there next to them, we would never have known there was a rational Spirit that had such wisdom and capability behind it? We might think that the Holy Spirit is just a blubbering and chattering noise that makes no sense to anyone or people were making it up.

But God is so much bigger than being constrained by our rational thought and familiarization. So, in not letting us come up with a rational explanation, program, or description, reasoning or even way of discussing it beyond wonder and amazement, He gives us this heavenly prayer language that is unique to us. Each person gets their own unique heavenly language created just for them to proclaim the amazing tributes of God. Some people have more than one language depending on the situation, prayer need, or just request to Him for it. Wow. Yet, we would not know that it is empowered, intelligently designed language unless we had a witness from the first outpouring. Now we can trust that it is, by His choosing, and be caught in the wonder of it all.

For myself, I have multiple languages at times. It always surprises and amazes me. What I love best though is when “Papa” and “Daughter, Daughter, Daughter” come out. I just feel so close and loved by Him even when I don’t understand what all else I might be speaking. I know we share passion around “My holy land” as this often comes out when I pray as well and it deeply matters to me in my spirit even if it doesn’t totally make sense to me.

At the same time that the Holy Spirit was being poured out in such an amazing way at Pentecost, some could not come out of their rational mind and ridiculed them for being drunk. They just couldn’t believe. This is the same as when some people heard God speak about Jesus being His Beloved Son in whom He was well pleased, some heard this and others just heard thunder. All that to say that we can not be in a position to receive what God has for us.

Sometimes we can even be resistant to what God has because it makes us uncomfortable or we are too familiar. The Pharisees were very familiar with the Word, but they didn’t see Him standing right in front of them. I imagine it is this resistant familiarity, to a lesser extent, that also caused the other 380 that were told to tarry until the Spirit was poured out to not show up and miss out. They must have been distracted with worldly priorities or too familiar to wonder, hunger for more and become enthusiastic.

While I do not want to live under a fear of missing out, I pray often for this kind of enthusiastic obedience. I really don’t want to miss out on such wonders of the Lord and do not want His miracles, signs and wonders to ever become familiar or a theology to me I can explain. God healed me and set me free. I had nothing or deserved nothing, and He picked me up and rocked my world in unimaginable ways. I will never be the same. Let’s not define it, explain it or try to own the corner on it. Let’s just be amazed. And, let’s just release it as we are called by Him in deep gratitude for the partnership of Him sharing His glorious splendor with us and putting it inside us.

To rationalize and program it, we destroy the whole point that we serve a wonderous God of amazing capabilities and mercy and we have not began to see His immense beautiful glory. We are still on the shores. Let’s not try to explain it or come up with a clean theology that explains everything. He is a mystery. He blows up every one of the boxes we try to put Him in. Can we just stand back for a moment and be in awe? Speaking to myself here as well as I have been struggling with this.

Perhaps this is why we have so many denominations. His face is so beautiful and has so many sides that are reflected through His body. We just begin to get glimpse of Him through all these denominations and His goodness and mercy in each one of them. He reveals different aspects of His beauty through each one and reveals Himself to them in differing aspects.

Moses got that God’s spender and glory was immense beyond his understanding. He told the Lord He wanted to see Him in all His glory. But He couldn’t because it is so unimaginable, unfamiliar and unexplainable that it would just have totally blown his human mind. Like the sun, he couldn’t look straight at it. Instead, the Lord in His mercy, placed Moses in the cleft of the rock, covered with God’s hand and, His back, with all His glorious presence passed by Him.

“Caught a glimpse of your splendor in the corner of my eye, the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. It was Like a flash of lightning, reflected off the sky, and I know I will never be the same. Show me your glory” sings in the background.

As this miracle of Pentecost happens, Peter points out that this is the days that Joel talked about that He will pour out His Spirit, men and woman will prophesy and wonders will be done both in heavens as well as signs on earth before the great and glorious day of the Lord.

The wonder of this! Do we stand in awe and receive these promises by faith? All of this is available to us. Do we embrace who He is and all He wants to be or are we resistant, controlling or make excuses for not paying more attention to Him? Do we make a program and theology out of Him? My heart is deeply grieved by us as the creation trying to measure or own the creator’s ends and depths. But I know that I have done this myself.

“Your love oh Lord, reaches to the heavens, Your faithfulness stretches to the skies” sings in the background.

He is so amazing and immense. I think I have been in this place of familiarity. I feel a little like Job who has tried to own too much control. I have sized God up to an extent. Even though I am in awe, I think I may have tried to bottle Him up in my expectations instead of getting out of the way and getting caught up in the wonder. I don’t want anything about His beauty and glory to become a recipe in my life. I just want to be open to all that He has and enthusiastic about it coming forth.

Just think, the wonder state we will be in when His Kingdom does fully come. When we fully behold His glory and beauty. It will take away all words as He is indescribable in a multitude of a zillion languages at once. We are each, just one small stream, a deposit of His splendor. But at the same time, this is no small stream. Can we even get that? All of us together (those in the seen realm of the world and those in the unseen heavenly realm of the Spirit), operating out of the Spirit in unity, make a picture of His beauty together in holiness as all sin is vanquished and we become His Bride without spot or wrinkle.

Speaking to myself here, Moses did not spend all his time reading books from mentors about how to experience the glory of God or walk into it. Moses just simply said yes to God when he was called. He didn’t quit or back down but became more and more dependent upon God for help. He deeply hungered for relationship with God and made this his priority. He did not allow distractions or discouragements to detour him.

Moses left a life of comfort, power, and control to step into the unknown by faith with His eyes on God. He thought it was better to suffer for the sake of Christ than to own the treasures of Egypt, so He chose to share in their oppression and suffering for he was looking ahead to his great reward. (Hebrews 11:24-27)

All that to say is that books can teach and mentor us some, but we need to fully step into the calling of God in our life to really experience Him in awe and wonder. We can’t put limits or expectations on Him, or we start living a program rather than a relationship. We need to keep turning to Him.

Also, we cannot shy away from sacrifice. It is in this place of sacrifice that He meets us more powerfully. Again, maybe I am making God a recipe or a formula in some way but it seems that when we are obedient to the Lord and willing to say yes despite the cost or sacrifice, He meets us in it powerfully. We encounter Him in ways we would not otherwise.

Also, obedience and sacrifice is not a one time decision that gives us a ticket to encounter God in a greater way. Moses made decision after decision, day after day, to embrace the wonder of God and sacrifice to build this relationship. He never experienced the cloud by day or fire by night until it showed up to protect them as they were leaving. But when it did, He received it. He never saw a sea split ore even heard a testimony of it, but when they needed it and God spoke, he ran across the waters and invited everyone else to go too. He embraced all that God had for him.

At the same time, at every turn, Moses was challenged. Moses became tired and depleted and even made poor choices on delegation, but what got him through and into the victory was continually placing the Lord before him. He was hungry for God, willing to say yes, and refused to make anything a formula. He didn’t expect God to provide for Him daily in a certain way, but he obeyed God and anticipated His goodness to meet them. Day after day, Moses came to the Lord to ask for fresh instructions. Some days he was to stay and camp, and other days he was to move. All this to say that we need to come to the Lord daily and look to Him.

Also, Moses never murmured or complained when he came across bitter waters and all the people grumbled, he just kept on pressing in by faith to God and saw His miraculous provision. We know how well he finished as he was talking with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. Even there, there was a temptation by Peter to build tents and make a production out of what God was doing. As the Scripture reminds us, he didn’t know what he was doing or talking about.

All that to say, I believe that God calls us to run the race with endurance that He sets before us (Hebrews 12:1). But not in just trudging through and following all these recipes for success. Rather, hand-in-hand with the Lord walking into our eternal destiny with Him together in wonder and awe of who He is while seeking Him moment by moment. We need to embrace every step of the way and look to Him for our response rather than responding and reacting to the situations around us. We need to realize that He is the master of our sea and let Him set the full course with enthusiasm and joy.

Lord, forgive me where I have become familiar or rationalized anything about you. Let us be caught up in the wonder of who You are. We want to see Your glory and see You for who You are, not make a program or recipe out of our relationship. Guide us and help us to walk into the fullness of what you have hand-in-hand with you.