What Is The Gospel? — The Store
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Installment #6 — The Appointed Time — The Harvest!
When I was writing these installments they were preceded by a very powerful dream that I had. The theme or repeating phrase in the dream was, “You have to do what you have to do to be what you have to be, for you were created to be a son of God, wielding all the power of the age to come!” There was much more to this dream, but in it I questioned the one who was explaining different aspects of the dream to me. I assume this person was God or at least one of his delegated representatives. I said to this person, “men have understood and taught this before. What makes this time any different?” The answer came back simply, “The Appointed Time of the Lord!”
This was not the first time that particular phrase has caught my attention. Once I had a vision of a valley surrounded by huge mountains. At one end the valley was closed by a gigantic dam that went all the way to the top of two of the highest mountains. They were like doorposts for this dam. Below in what was nearly a dry riverbed people played in little puddles of water that had been created by small little holes in the wall of this dam. As I looked closer I saw several of these holes had corresponding pools of water with people gathered around their particular puddle playing in the water.
They didn’t seem to be too aware of each other, but my attention was drawn to the small holes in the dam that had or were still feeding these little pools of water. Over each one was a name, like Azusa Street, Welsh Revival, or Pentecost, etc. At the very top of the vision over the dam there were the most ominous storm cloud, etcs thick with rain and full of lightening and thunder. I noticed a crack that was starting to open in the middle of the dam and the water level was already so high it could be seen from my lower vantage point. I knew that this was going to break and that no force could stop it. Then a sign appeared by this crack like the signs near the other little holes. It read, “The Appointed Time of the Lord!” (THE VISION)
As all these things ran through my mind God began to speak to me about his Gospel being the key to the fulfillment of these and other visions and dreams I have had over the last 33 years. Scriptures like, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God”, the special relationship revealed about Christ and the Church and the revelation about the metamorphosis that the born again go through by the renewal of their mind coupled with all of the references of Jesus’ metaphoric or not so metaphoric statements began to be woven together like some beautiful tapestry that was so intricate and yet so simple it compelled me to write these installments.
Imagine with me about this time when the creation’s groaning and travailing finally delivers it into the hands of these sons and daughters of God. Jesus was just one man, the progenitor, the prototype, and the pattern son for a whole new species of beings. No wonder he was able to make statements like he did when he said, “the works that I have been doing you shall do also and even greater works than these shall you do.” He wasn’t fantasizing, or daydreaming, but seeing the revelation that had burned in his Father’s heart, before there was ever time or eternity, coming to pass.
Did you ever wonder why, when from all outward appearances it looked like harvest time was still four months away, Jesus could say to his disciples that the fields were already white for harvest? He told them to pray to the Lord of the Harvest for more laborers and yet the Lord of the Harvest was standing right there beside them. I think that he wanted them to realize that he, not natural circumstances or appearances, determined the when and where of harvest time. Jesus is the Lord of the Harvest and he wants people to see from his perspective and ask for the resources we need to bring in the harvest.
I sometimes like to imagine what it was like to walk down those dusty roads with Jesus. Stopping by a well and seeing him heal a blind man and then telling a woman of questionable character everything about her or granting the request for the healing of a soldier’s child with such authority that from that very moment many miles away the child was made well. Or having to say the name Lazarus come forth so that every one that was dead would not rise to life. Who of us, at one time or another, hasn’t said, “If Jesus were only here things would be different?” Yet that is the whole point of his Master plan — to create us in his image! If we spent a little more time meditating on and declaring these revelations to each other and ourselves we might just begin to see revelation turned into reality. I used to think that revelation was the end of it, after all it is the last book in our Bible, but I have learned that, like knowledge, if revelation doesn’t become reality it can only puff you up and make you think you are something when you are not. Knowledge/revelation puffs up but love edifies. With such revelation our greatest concern should be how it can become a living reality in our lives.
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