The Talents and Ranks of the Warrior Bride of Christ 5: The Force of Honor

Malachi 4:1-6 MSG

^1-3 “Count on it: The day is coming, raging like a forest fire. All the arrogant people who do evil things will be burned up like stove wood, burned to a crisp, nothing left but scorched earth and ash— a black day. But for you, sunrise! The sun of righteousness will dawn on those who honor my name, healing radiating from its wings. You will be bursting with energy, like colts frisky and frolicking. And you’ll tromp on the wicked. They’ll be nothing but ashes under your feet on that Day.” God-of-the-Angel-Armies says so.

⁴ “Remember and keep the revelation I gave through my servant Moses, the revelation I commanded at Horeb for all Israel, all the rules and procedures for right living.

^5-6 “But also look ahead: I’m sending Elijah the prophet to clear the way for the Big Day of God—the decisive Judgment Day! He will convince parents to look after their children and children to look up to their parents. If they refuse, I’ll come and put the land under a curse.”

Many of you might have heard by now that God is closing the lines of communication between His children and others that have rejected Him and rejected those He has sent in His name. This scenario may also be seen among family members, friendships, job relationships, ministries, and so on, where God is removing those He will bless in this season from those that will experience the consequences of being dishonoring to Him and His people. The reason for this is because He is looking to those that have obeyed His command during the past seasons which says in Luke 10:27, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’” NKJV

You see, it is a big deal to God that we show honor to Him not only with our mouths and acts of obedience because of our relationship with Him. But also that from our hearts we include Him in every aspect of our lives daily, counting on Him to guide our every step because He is the sole object of our adoration and obedience. I have learned over the years in my walk with God that He is a jealous God who, after a while, rejects those who hate and reject Him. This is found in Exodus 20:5 which says, “You shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,” NKJV

This happens because He created us to worship Him alone and not the work of our hands, positions or titles, power, greed, or other people. Therefore, His jealousy will show when the wrong foundations are shaken because people have gone to worship His creation instead of Him who created it. Also, another aspect of His jealousy is demonstrated through the intimate times of communion and fellowship He wants to share with us. Those times are not to spend with Him on our own terms, but His. He guides us also during those times to show us what He wants to talk about, so we can pray those things and war with His promises as our weapons, believing that we will see them come to pass.

Moreover, the Lord contends with those who dishonor His chosen people, His true prophets, and apostles, who are sent ones to point the way to the people to where God wants to take them and prepare them so they can partake of the next moves of His Spirit. But many have rejected them, mocked them, opposed, and obstructed them, and in essence, have violated the spiritual principle of honoring God`s prophets and do them no harm (1 Chronicles 16:22, Psalm 105:15). To them, God has a response similar to what happened to the youth that mocked the prophet Elisha, if they do not repent and show behavior or fruit that demonstrates their repentance. Elisha was going about doing good and God was performing miracles through him on behalf of the people of the city, but some youth intercepted him and started to mock him as He was going up the mountain of the Lord. This is found in 2 Kings 2:23-24 NKJV.

^"23 Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up the road, some youths came from the city and mocked him, and said to him, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!”

²⁴ So he turned around and looked at them, and pronounced a curse on them in the name of the Lord. And two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths."

The New Testament version of this passage is found in Galatians 6:7-8 which in the Message Version says,

“^7-8 Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.”

In addition, 1 Samuel 2:29-30 reiterates what people reap when they reject God and the grace He has given them to change their ways because there comes a time when He says “Enough is enough” and those people will not be allowed to continue doing what they have been doing. It says,

“But now—God’s word, remember!—there is no way this can continue.

I honor those who honor me;
those who scorn me I demean.” MSG

For this reason, the Lord is sounding the alarm through His prophets who come under the anointing of Elijah to restore honor in God`s house to God and to His true prophets and apostles. Through them, God is inviting them to come to this place where there is a crying out for repentance and seeking the Lord`s face to be found with a pure heart and clean hands in this season, according to Psalm 24:1-6,

^1-2 God claims Earth and everything in it,
    God claims World and all who live on it.
He built it on Ocean foundations,
    laid it out on River girders.

^3-4 Who can climb Mount God?
    Who can scale the holy north-face?
Only the clean-handed,
    only the pure-hearted;
Men who won’t cheat,
    women who won’t seduce.

^5-6 God is at their side;
    with God’s help they make it.
This, Jacob, is what happens
    to God-seekers, God-questers. MSG

To God alone be all the glory. ▪

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The Talents and Ranks of the Warrior Bride of Christ 4: How to be Perfect

Matthew 19:20-21

“²⁰ The young man said to Him, “All these things I have kept from my youth. What do I still lack?”

21Jesus said to him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”

A person that has reached the spiritual status of perfection required for this end times is one that has come to the understanding that as children of the Most High God, we are also stewards of everything God has entrusted to us, be it the people placed under our care, our businesses or ministries, our finances, and everything else that God has decided to give to us to multiply for His Kingdom. But in reference to the Scripture above, God is talking about perfection that comes through selling. This means that God gave us the ability to acquire some things that were placed in our possession for us to grow, but in the end, we were doing that so others could have the benefit of it.

There are examples of this in the Bible. You may have read the examples I am about to mention in some of my other blog posts, but they are the best to illustrate this understanding that comes to us by the grace of God and for which the end time Church needs to wake up. The essential reason for this is that God wants to remove poverty from the Church, but it takes all of us to partake of this. God gave to some stewardship of more and to some stewardship of less, but regardless of the amount or the ability to obtain wealth, it is not for our hoarding. It is to advance His Kingdom and one of the main ways to do it is by helping others in the Church to be relieved from poverty and lack.   

Acts 2:44-45 says, “⁴⁴ Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, ⁴⁵ and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need.”

Acts 4:32-37 “³² Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. ³³ And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all. ³⁴ Nor was there anyone among them who lacked; for all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, ³⁵ and laid them at the apostles’ feet; and they distributed to each as anyone had need.

³⁶ And Joses, who was also named Barnabas by the apostles (which is translated Son of Encouragement), a Levite of the country of Cyprus, ³⁷ having land, sold it, and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet.”

This is necessary during this Jubilee year because everything that is rightfully ours as children of the Most High God will now make its way back to us. I am referring to the great grace God bestowed upon the early Church which caused them to realize that nothing was for them to use by themselves, but to share with others. In this way, we will also be demonstrating the perfect love of God to our brothers and sisters as it is described in 1 Corinthians 13:10 which says,

“But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.”

In this context, we were doing things partially, but did not have a full understanding of the ways of the Kingdom of God needed for us to operate in these end-times, and this move of the Holy Spirit in this hour brings a form of sharing that is part of the glory of God`s latter house that will be greater than the glory of the former. God also promised that in His Church there will be peace (Haggai 2:9). This peace is the Shalom that encompasses all the abundant life Jesus died on the Cross to give to us and for which the Church is to have an active operation to do away with poverty among her members.

In this manner, God is doing war against the Antichrist spirit of Mammon that has stood in the way of the healing His people have been crying out for. That is why Jesus Himself went to the temple with a whip to drive out the money changers. Matthew 21:12-14 explains,

“¹² Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. ¹³ And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’”

¹⁴ Then the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them.”

Another thing that has been affected by the presence of the Antichrist spirit that has occupied God`s house is that the true kind of prayer that God is calling us to do corporately has been lacking in zeal and in some churches it is non-existent, making the Church ineffective to remove hindrances and the demonic that has oppressed her people. The end time Church is an apostolic Church that not only prays for the lost and the fallen but also engages in warfare by praying against the enemy and his obstructions against God`s people, prays for the advancement of the Church, as well as everything that is necessary to proclaim the Gospel of the Kingdom. The early Church also demonstrated this.

Acts 2:34-35 says,

“³⁴ “For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself:

‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at My right hand (of authority and power),
³⁵ Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.”’”(Emphasis mine).

Acts 4:23-30 also says,

“²³ And being let go, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. ²⁴ So when they heard that, they raised their voice to God with one accord and said: “Lord, You are God, who made heaven and earth and the sea, and all that is in them, ²⁵ who by the mouth of Your servant David have said:

‘Why did the nations rage,
And the people plot vain things?
²⁶ The kings of the earth took their stand,
And the rulers were gathered together
Against the Lord and against His Christ.’

²⁷ “For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together ²⁸ to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done. ²⁹ Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, ³⁰ by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus.””

That is why the apostle Paul earnestly desired that we become perfected in Christ as a Church (because Christ was both a Priest who died to save the lost and a King who confronted Satan and took the keys of the Kingdom back from him and also set the captives free) as it is explained in Ephesians 4:13-16.

“¹³ till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; ¹⁴ that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, ¹⁵ but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.”

Colossians 1:28 also states, “Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.”

For this reason, the Lord God admonishes us in Romans 12:2, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” To God alone be all the glory ▪

All Scriptures are from the New King James Versión  NKJV

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