We have heard for many years that God wants to do a new thing. I'm sure everyone has experienced many new things in their walk with the Lord. A song tells us that His mercies are new every morning. Each morning we awake to a new day and the Holy Spirit reveals new truth to us every time we look into the Word with an open heart. But there is also that uncharted thing that happens when God intervenes with something that is untouched with human hands. We have the remnants of many of the new things of God still with us today but they have been handled so much by men, who have put them into a box with their own labels, that they are not easily recognized.
Many new things have been merely old things taken out of one of the boxes, brushed off, polished up and given a new name. There isn't anything wrong with that because it really is a new thing to many who are new in the faith. But I'm longing for one of those untouched new things and I'm beginning to realize that they only exist in the heavenly realm and I'm sorry to say that too many people of God find it an inconvience to make the trip.
Moses longed for a new thing but he had to climb a mountain for it. No one would go with him, not even Aaron. Moses went and God gave him the new thing, but when he brought it back men began to analyse it.
"Now listen folks, this is what God really meant."
Joseph longed for the new thing he saw in his visions, but the journey to the Heavenly realm, for him, involved a trip down into a pit. One thing we must understand is that the Heavenly realm has no up or down. You reach it by abandoning yourself to God.
John leaned upon the breast of Jesus and longed to be close to Him. The scriptures speak of John as the disciple that Jesus loved. Ah, there's the secret! LOVE! The desire for a trip into the Heavenly realm must come through love. Not just love that is depicted by the word love but the activity of love that is generated in the Heavenlies itself. I'm sure Jesus loved the rest of the disciples but there was a love-flow that John was able to tap into. Now there's a great word, love-flow. I first heard that word in a message given by Erskine Holt.
Erskine spoke of the fact that the Love of God is not just a revelation but a manifestation. He told us of many experiences that showed how the Love of God is poured forth when people will give themselves over to that manifestation. But the thing that moved me most was when he spoke of the love-flow between the Father and the Son in the heavenlies. He told us how it is possible to be caught up into that flow and experience the Love of God in a new way. I began to realize that within that love-flow rests a multitude of riches available to all who will dive in.
But back to John. When John was on the Isle of Patmos, he came to be, by the Spirit, in the Day of the Lord. By this time there was a really earth shaking, brand-new, up-to-date new thing in the Heavenlies, i.e. the Resurrected Lord Jesus Christ! John was not quick to run and lean on His breast, but fell as dead at His feet. John had witnessed many new things taking place from an earthly prospective but when you view some things from the pure atmosphere of the Heavenlies, they look different. Moses didn't even get a full-on view but he came back shining so bright he had to wear a veil.
Now there's another thing. Time, space, eternity and things like that view different from the Heavenlies so I'm sure some of the saints of the Old Testament saw things just as John did. I'm not so sure I can figure that all out with my understanding but then that's one of the reasons to want an experience in the Heavenlies. Also, it's the only place the love-flow is pure
In the natural realm there are many love experiences inhabited by God, such as the love between a man and his wife, parents and children, friends and even the love for God's creation; and though we glean much pleasure and satisfaction from these loves, they can never compare with the experience of immersion into that flow between the Father and the Son.
There are secrets nourished in the depths of music that are beyond our natural understanding and the music that pours forth from this love-flow is not just a song, but is as much an experience as it is sound. A sound that is so vast it contains happenings that cannot be explained by mere vocabulary.
Love came down to cleanse the world
of all that hate had tainted
of that which was once pure.
It came as music to an ear long deaf
suddenly opened to receive sound.
It flowed into the labyrinth of hearing
and made it's way into the heart of man.
Love came to immerse man in an ocean
of music that passes all understanding,
wraps the soul and spirit in love
and presents man to the God as a brother,
equal to Love in all ways,
Prepared to receive an inheritance
no longer Loves alone,
but spread out in harmony
giving the music a basis for
a symphony to be played among the stars
that the universe may hear
the overtones of Loves song.
There is music that has been written to lift man to God. Handal's music still generates excitement as we are lifted up in our spirits listening to the majestic strains of The Messiah and Israel in Egypt. The great hymns of the Church speak to us as the emotions and feelings of men are presented in song. We have been through sunday school choruses. Scripture songs and testimony songs set to beautiful melodies. But these are merely shadows of the music that abides in the love-flow between the Father and the Son.
Take a note from a majestic song, entwine it with the splash of cool water spilling over glistening stones, weave it with the first cry of a newborn baby, place it in the midst of an act of compassion toward one in need and perhaps you will hear the beginning of one of the chords of this heavenly music. Too long we have let the din and noise of the layer of distraction the enemy has spread over the world keep us from hearing Love's Song. Love will not compete for your attention, but waits patiently for you to turn away from your activity and sup with Him.
"But you don't know how busy I am."
"I just can't let my work go. I have to earn a living."
"I have to get my housework done."
These are enemies to your time alone with God, but "He prepares a table before you in the midst of your enemies." (Psalm 23:5). If you let Him, He will sing His song in your heart even when you are busy.
C.S. Lewis suggests, in The Chronicles of Narnia, that the Lord sang the worlds into being. I do not have a problem with that, in fact, I believe that the love-flow between the Father and His Son is filled with such harmony that it automatically produces life whenever it pours forth. I also believe that when we abandon ourselves to this music it will create, through us, the purposes of God.
Music is a container, created by God, into which He pours the essence of His attributes and gives forth, to His creation, His Love, His Compassion, His Joy and Yes, even His Anger, His Jealousy and His Awesomeness.
Satan has no ability to create. His only recourse is to take something God has created and use it for his own purposes. So it is with music. Satan sees how well music conveys the attributes of God and being, in the beginning, that anointed cherub with the pipes (Ezekiel 28:13,14), he is very aware of how to use music to package his own attributes, tie them up with a ribbon and present them on the airwaves. He sends forth his perversion, his hate, his bitterness. But, because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we are not ignorant of his devises.
The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty, he will save,
he will rejoice over thee with joy, he will rest in his love, he will
joy over thee with singing.
Zephaniah 3:17
God will bring the music of the Heavenlies into our very midst with His own voice. He will rejoice, He will joy, He will SING and, wonder of wonders, we can join in with Him, for when we abandon ourselves to fellowship with Him we move into a relationship that transcends the things of this world and lifts us up into Heavenly Places in Christ.
Jackie~
