I’ll read a revelation before we go into teaching.
“The man of God was walking in and out of a powerful hurricane. Some people saw it and thought they would be able to do the same. But it was dangerous for them. They knew the man of God was doing this not the first time, and it took him quite a while to learn to do it this way. They asked the man of God to teach them also to walk into the hurricane without fear and walk out of it with no damage. The man of God said that prior importance has the inner condition of each person and then physical, so that both the inner and outer would be connected, then they would be able to go through. Some of the brothers and sisters did what the man of God said, after which they were able to get in and out. But others wouldn’t, but remained watching from aside, even criticized”.
Yes, we can become those who stay aside, having not even noticed that, because we simply hear, but don’t practice things. Therefore, let us test ourselves, whether we truly enter in this Galgal.
How can you actually prove that you enter into Galgal? – A certain shift happens in church when there is a call. There was a call to get clothed in Isaiah 52, or an Angel brings a scroll with a Psalm – but how can you prove that it is true? What kind of miracle must happen for you to believe? You have to simply believe revelation and then get clothed in it, that is it. We agree about something and then we do it in obedience and thus open up an access to this Galgal.
Or you can simply hear things and let them go by, and nothing happens. And without you noticing it you remain aside, not inside. So let us examine ourselves whether we truly get clothed. These Duvdevan meetings that we began lead us to a deeper submerging into the Lord Himself and make us saturated. We contemplate the Word, it is a different approach to the Word, as if another sense opened up. There are five we can do with the Word: read, speak, remember, reflect and declare. But here opens up the sixth – to contemplate the Word, dissolve it, take pleasure in it as in delicacy. There’s no rush. We come not for information, but for experience. Experience, what you had with God, not what you heard of it is of value in His Kingdom. We say that you must know not about God, but know God; know not about the Word, but embrace the Word.
When we call His name, it’s not actually about the name. The name doesn’t come. It is Him who either comes or not. I don’t want the name, I want God. Therefore, take heed to what you pray. It is penetration in to what is sent from Him and what we encounter. His grace is sent, and we want to meet this grace, appreciate it and embrace it.
Today I want to speak on harmonies. We have already spoken not once about four harmonies: with oneself, with God, with the neighbor and with creation. Today I will touch a few more harmonies, which are included into the four, but they require a special research, so that we can discern them by our spirit and enter into them.
First harmony is a strange one – harmony with the time. Many can say of themselves that they are short of time and are always late. It is more serious when you are not simply late, but you have a mentality of one who is late. And gradually you become one who has been late for good. Such person has a feeling that time always wins him. What does the Scripture say? Ephesians 5:15-17:
“See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” – Days are evil, even on Shabbat, even on Christmas and Easter. “Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is”. – It is important for us to understand how these two concepts of the will of God and the time can work together.
I am not going to give you answers or recipes, but I am opening portals into spheres where we need to find harmony. Think about how you can find harmony with your time, time of your life. Some people die too early. They turn into old people way before they are 50 or even 40 – they become old people in their mentality. He does nothing with his intellect, nothing happens in his life, he simply drags his life, he is a boring person, there’s nothing to talk to him about, because inside him is a grey uninteresting life. Such person depends in circumstances, he feels merry when things around are merry, but not his inner world.
Today I want to pray that the Lord reveals to us our inner calendar, so that we can see God’s calendar in relation to us. It’s not about how long the Lord will give us to live – that would cause a fire of panic, temptation or hysterics inside some people. But God has a calendar for us. God ordained days on earth for us from eternity; He gave a certain amount of heartbeats, a certain measure of strength and health; He gave a certain type of body, all our physiology He made according to His will and switched on the counter, so that we can find harmony with this counter.
Some live in discordance with this counter, they ruin their “vehicle” – if you don’t observe the rules of using your body, it fails before time. The Scripture says, you can destroy your temple, the one who does it will be destroyed by God.
It is so wonderful that this counter is ticking. It turns out that “in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me” (Psalm 139:16) But this can also scare me. I want to make it to the day, when it is said “the end”. I don’t know when my “the end” will come, but it is there in God’s calendar. And I need to find harmony between this calendar and my life style, so that I can live in harmony with my time, not yours. It’s starts with your inside.
There are seasons of slowing down and acceleration. God speaks through that. God returns us into the past or pushes us into the future and then brings us back into the present different. This is interesting – time has to find harmony with us and us with him.
In my life there are periods when I live with much tension and speed, getting tired after a long day, but happy because you move in the right way. You have enough strength and health, because grace is granting its smile to you.
But there are seasons when you have to slow down a little, take a fast and feel that there’s a certain emptiness inside you, which you have to fill, you have to find yourself in His presence, face to face and get charged again with the divine power of Life. Sometimes I feel a need in this, not that you quit doing all things, but slow down in time.
How to accelerate the time flow if you are behind the calendar? I won’t tell you. I asked a good question, and you have to find your speed to catch up with the calendar.
How to stop the time, when the Lord says to you, “Hold on, don’t rush, where are you running?” For instance, you get married ahead of time. That’s a serious problem. Perhaps, you should’ve done it five years later? Now you live with this and all that follows. This is serious
And one day man demonstrated that he can stop the time. He said, “Sun, stand still over Gibeon!” And he stopped the time for God’s work to be fulfilled in his life. And it was fulfilled, the enemies were defeated. He stopped the time and finished his work.
How can we speed up the time in our lives and how can we stop it? Wow, I like that! And how can I connect with the course of my time? And I say through contemplation, when you enter the flow. You are not rushing through things, doing them on the way, praying through in your secret room, happy in your conscience that you’ve been with the Lord today. “I’ve made it Lord! I am not guilty in anything, I haven’t sinned, I haven’t been late. But then I have sinned” etc. But when you connect with the Lord, it is a completely different approach to life, and you live with your calendar as long as the Lord ordained it for you. You live happily and peacefully. Who likes hysterics? Why then do you live in hysterics?
Thus, the portal is opened.
The next harmony is harmony of prayer life and ministry. It may sound religious, but nevertheless, we need to find harmony with prayer life, with our abiding in the secret room, with our abiding in the inner man. If we don’t keep that abiding, we will always be half-deaf, half-blind. But I don’t believe a man of God should live blindly. A man of God is a man with open eyes – he sees the eternity. He knows the will of God, he knows the will of God concerning himself, the individual will of God, good, acceptable and perfect. And we need to find harmony in our life of contemplation with our ministry. Perhaps, you’ve met people who dry out, wear out in ministry. They serve God, but feel it is not for their benefit any more. It means they are not in harmony, they dry out. Metal requires oil in work, otherwise it breaks. And this divine “grease” is our secret room, when we carry out our ministry not with complaint and doubt, but we fulfill it with delight, bliss, joy and gratitude.
How much gratitude do we have for what we do, how we live and serve? These are not any techniques, but it should come from within our spring, because we have harmony.
There’s a shift in prayer as we advance in the spiritual. I remember Clendennen once said “you have as much God as you have the Holy Spirit”, and this is true, because here we come to the point of God the Spirit, not God the Word. We read the Word and understand it, hear the voice, know the will. But there’s God the Spirit, who is the power of life indestructible. And this harmony is with God the Spirit, Whom we know by experience. And this is what gives reviving saturation, reviving strength to live and be glad about life, live with gratitude.
What is the quality of your prayer? What is the quality of prayer defined by? – By the answers, by the results. It doesn’t matter whether I pray loud or quiet, long or emotional. What is important is whether I got the answer to my prayer. Let us examine the quality of how we pray. Paul said, he prayed three times and he got the answer. It wasn’t what he asked for, but it was what God thinks of it, and it was a wonderful answer.
Sometimes we pray one way and get used to it, sometimes don’t even expect an answer, just do our duty – we get accustomed to this manner. It is the same as when one prays for healing and doesn’t believe, he is not surprised if the sick is not healed, he would be surprised if he was. But what was it then what you did?
This is praying with no result, low quality prayer. And the shift in prayer with spiritual advancement brings quality, when we pray for what God answers to. Christ says: “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, then whatever you ask shall be given to you”. And Christ can’t lie, He always speaks the truth.
We spoke before that the center of our life activity should be moved in to prayer sphere. The focus, the axis, around which all things are spun in life must be in the spiritual realm, not physical one.
We don’t make fuss and then ask God to bless the matter, we seek God and then do the work. Who is capable of this? We need to build our lives with faith and hope on God, and this happens through us having our core in the spiritual man. This is a very important topic.
And we serve as much as we have gained the power of grace. The Lord called us to serve by grace, not by our strength, dry way. God’s grace is granted personally to each of us, it covers us like a cloud, but it also works within us, and as a result it works through us.
What the Lord reveals is also grace, and we live under grace and by grace, we live heading towards greater grace, new grace, renewed grace – this is all I need!
Next harmony is an interesting one – harmony with enemies. Today we can enter in it. This is not peace with enemies, but a certain concept when the enemy works for you. You know that the enemy works for God, the devil is God’s servant. He can’t do anything to God, because he is chained. God found a way to use this – it is called “turn evil into good”. This is a martial art of the spirit – to turn evil into good.
“]But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven… Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect”. (Matt. 5:44-45,48)
What is the Lord doing here? He teaches us things that will keep us from being destroyed by the enemy. How can we overcome the enemy? And Paul adds – “do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good”. This can be called harmony. To have such an approach that you don’t destroy your enemy out of fear, but you learn how to use his energy, when temptations bring us to greater holiness, when certain trials make us more experienced and spiritual and strong.
These words “love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you” mean don’t run away from the enemy, but go to meet him. Why did Christ teach not to have revenge? Because one should give place to God’s wrath, to deal with the reason on a deeper level. When we forgive, we begin a right path from our heart. Already we do not allow the darkness capture us, already we do not allow the darkness to overcome us, we step in to a safe territory. When we forgive the enemy, we get free from his evil charms, because evil charms work through unforgiveness. This mystical power of the enemy’s sorcery is in unforgiveness. When we are in unforgiveness, we are in the occult field, in witchcraft. We are charmed, because we don’t forgive.
When we forgive, we get free from his evil charms. When we bless – next stage – not only forgive, but bless – then we allow ourselves to overcome him with good.
When we do good to the enemies, give them eat and drink, then we allow God to deal with them, because then the coals come on them from God.
So we forgive, bless, do good and… love the enemy then we allow God to lift us up into His God-likeness. Four verbs on the path of harmony with the enemy.
What did the Lord do when we were enemies to him? He gained us for Himself. Therefore, we can gain our enemies. Because Christ did it all Himself.
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Fourth harmony – you’ll never guess, but we need it – harmony with inevitable processes
“Then He spoke to them a parable: “Look at the fig tree, and all the trees. When they are already budding, you see and know for yourselves that summer is now near. So you also, when you see these things (signs of the Apocalypse) happening, know that the kingdom of God is near. (Luke 21:29-31)
How should we behave amidst these processes, which we can’t influence? For example, wars happening on earth, and you as a small Christian can’t influence that. It is written, there will be wars and earthquakes… how can you influence for an earthquake not to happen? With all the economic wealth you can’t stop an earthquake. You can’t stop a meteorite heading towards the earth…
And the Lord gives us our stand: “Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.”(Luke 21:36) That is, you will overcome in these circumstances, even if it touches you.
“Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days – there, it shall happen, can’t escape it, and – Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Rev.2:10)
There was this word to Jeremiah: “And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive…” Daniel with his friends found a way not to get defiled amidst the Gentile sinful kingdom. And other prophets lived inside Gentile nations, but they kept harmony with God and people. We should not cause persecution on level ground, but should seek peace making – blessed are peace makers. The church is a peace maker, this is called wisdom. Abraham knew how to do it, wherever he went, in most dangerous places he always made peace, and made covenants all over. This isn’t a Jewish capability, this is a prophet, this a man of God-likeness, reverent one.
There are ways to activate the coming of a prophetic outcome. Daniel prayed and activated the Angelic realm for the Jeremiah prophecy to be fulfilled after 70 years had passed, that is he activated the prophetic outcome.
Today we can also influence and can find harmony with the inevitable processes. One thing is to have harmony and peace, and another is to discern and activate processes.
World picture today is full of inevitable processes: wars, economic and ecological crises, where the world searched for solution, but can’t cope with the situation. And we are in these processes.
But there also processes that we can influence or stop. In any case we have to find our place in these processes.
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Fifth harmony is harmony with judgments. Judgments are happening, the fire from heaven is being poured, but we find harmony with this, and coals don’t fall on our head. This is one of the approaches.
“They sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying: “Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, O King of the saints! Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. For all nations shall come and worship before You, For Your judgments have been manifested.”(Rev.15:3-4)
The judgments are happening, hidden. There’s a hidden court trial, which actually happens, but witnesses are not allowed in. But there’s a revealed manifested judgment, when the Master wants all to know, that it be maximum unveiled. And the he praises the Lord, King of the saints, that His judgments are revealed and manifested.
There are positions of interacting with judgments. First is to stand between judgments and mercy, like Aaron who stood with the censer when God’s wrath was coming against Israel. Moses shouted to him that the plague had begun, and he was to grab the censer, run to the congregation and make atonement. So Aaron ran and stood between the dead and the living; so the plague was stopped.
So one position is to be an intercessor and stop judgments – Lord, have mercy!
But there are judgments, which cannot be stopped. The Lord said: “Cursed is he who keeps back My sward from blood” (Jer.48:10) We need to discern here and maturity of the church will help us do it.
Next position is to participate in judgments. This means interacting with judgments and harmony in them, when you interact and realized you are on the side of the Judge. This is solid food and the maturity of the church, which has to understand thing. I remember a testimony from the times of famine, when brothers and sisters in church made a decision to give their portions of sugar to children. One man said he wouldn’t do it as he was still young himself. He fell right there and was eaten by worms instantly, as it is written about Herod. And no one prayed for him, because they participated in the judgments, because it was a horrible crime in regard to what the Lord had in that situation, when the congregation was to be one whole thing in order to survive. Manner of the young man would be counted as normal in peaceful time, was a total crime in the situation of famine. There’s difference how the Lord acts in different times, and the conscience of the church has to have understanding of how it moves. We call it the conscience of the church.
And one more position in regard to judgments is to become yourself God’s judgment. That’s even more solid food, this is dry meat – become the judgment of God. And the church shall judge the world, she shall be the judgment. It is written: “Do you not know that we shall judge angels?” (1Cor. 6:3)
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Sixth harmony is harmony with Israel.
“Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands—that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near.” (Eph.2: 11-17)
Each of us has to find and obtain it in our hearts, and grow the tree of love to Israel, so that it comes from within. I give some advice. First you need to love the God of the fathers, love the God of Israel. You also start praying for Israel – it’s hard to love Israel if you don’t prayer for her. Visit Israel, bless Israel, study the word about Israel, serve Israel, and surely get cleansed of the spirit of Haman, fight with it, and have no part of it in you.
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The last harmony is with the world of creation. Christ reconciled on the cross all things both which are in heaven and on earth:
“because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1: 19-20)
They have no excuse in their unbelief, because, as Kant said, there are three witnesses of God: creation, the Word and human conscience – three bells that ring for any person.
And they world is beautiful in divine creation. We may say that the world is cursed, the ship is sinking, what’s the point in cleaning the deck? The earth shall burn anyway. But you may also see it very differently – the world is beautiful, creation is beautiful! This bird keeps singing while I speak, it seems we are one with it, as we have one Father the Creator. And if we have one Good Shepherd, why should my life harm hers? Why should I destroy the creation for the sake of my benefit?
The world is beautiful! And the earth is alive – you plant a seed into a small jar with soil and it grows green. I can’t comprehend where it draws the energy to grow a plant, which is actually bigger than the soil! If you remove the soil, the plant dies. The earth is alive! And all creation is alive! And we’ve got to love life, love the earth, love creation and preserve it, not destroy it.
And the world is not dangerous, dangerous is love to the spirit of this world, which entered at the falling into sin. But the world of creation is beautiful. Let us give redemption power to it through us making places for God and expand His Kingdom.
We’ve gone through the seven harmonies. Great is the Lord’s beauty and glory!