REV. LYNN’S BLOG

A friend of mine is spending some time in the desert. God has taken him out of a very successful area of ministry, and he is waiting for the Lord to reveal the next steps in his walk with Him. I sympathize with him – I’ve been there myself many times, and it is not a place that I enjoy at all.

“Wait” is one of those four-letter words that most of us really don’t want to hear. We want to be moving, to be seeing results. We want our answers now, if not yesterday.

Yet so often God’s answer to our prayers is “wait”. Our reaction, depending on our personality, may be to get mad with God or to get mad with ourselves. In the latter case, we sometimes question our faith (“Don’t I have enough?”) or our position with God (“Have I done something terrible and now God doesn’t want to know me?”)

Neither of these are necessarily true. As we read through the Bible, we find that many of God’s saints had to endure a time of waiting, for all sorts of reasons.

Abraham waited for the promise of a son. His waiting was not always patient, and he tried to help God out – and in doing so created a huge problem for the world – but ultimately, he held on to the promise. Why did he have to wait so long? Could it be that the very act of endurance increased his faith?

Joseph also waited for the promise. Unwise in his early sharing of God’s revelation, he endured years of set backs before coming into it. Yet those years were a growth time, as Joseph showed over and over again the naturalness of his leadership, rising to the top in whatever situation he found himself. Joseph at 17 could not have coped with the second rank of authority in Egypt, but by the time he was ready for the Prime-Ministership, Egypt was ready for him.

Moses waited forty long lonely years in the desert before he was able to fulfill his vision of liberating his Hebrew people from the tyranny of Egypt. God needed that long to get Moses own strength out of the way, so that Moses would learn to walk in God’s strength and authority.

Caleb waited for his inheritance. Imagine what it must have been like for Caleb. He had been ready to go in and take the promised land from the first time he saw it, but because of the people’s disobedience and lack of faith, they had to wander forty years in the wilderness before they could enter. Every time he looked across the Jordan river, Caleb must have thought to himself, “There’s my inheritance over there. If it weren’t for this lot, I’d be there now!” Yet he held on to the dream, and when the people finally entered Canaan, he did not hesitate to approach Joshua and claim his promise.

In fact, even God waited. The plan for man’s salvation was in place before ever man fell into sin, but God waited for the “fullness of time”, the time when all things would come together to make it the right time for the manifestation of the Son. Now He waits again, for the sin of man to reach its fullness, so that no one can ever accuse Him of being unjust in His judgment.

Waiting may be to build our faith, it may be to purify us, it may be to allow other people or the circumstances to come to the place where they need to be, it may be to bring us to a place where we are more interested in our personal relationship with the Lord than we are in whatever it is that we are seeking. Sometimes it may even be simply to give us a “breather” before we move on to a new and very busy stage of our lives.

Can we speed up the wait? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. If we are waiting for others to come into line, all we can do is pray that it will happen swiftly. Perhaps the best thing we can do is to concentrate on seeking God’s face, and allow Him to work it all out in His time.

Whatever way you cut it, that means waiting.

This blog is © copyright Lynn Fowler.

There is one God, and one mediator between God and people, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:51 Timothy 2:5
English: World English Bible - WEB
5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

)in Whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in bodily form (Colossians 2:9Colossians 2:9
English: World English Bible - WEB
9 For in him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily,

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)and Whom God the Father has exalted to the highest place, giving Him the Name which is above every name, that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11Philippians 2:9-11
English: World English Bible - WEB
9 Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave to him the name which is above every name; ¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth, ¹¹ and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

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Often we think of the forty years which Israel spent wandering in the wilderness as nothing but punishment for their sin of doubt and disobedience when they failed to cross the Jordan into the promised land, preferring to accept the negative reports of ten spies than the faith statements of the two. However, some very important things for the nation took place during those years, not the least of which was that they were forced to a place of total dependance upon God. Removed from any means by which they could provide for themselves, they had no choice but to look to God for everything they needed.

More than that, in their looking to God they had to be where He was. Day by day they had His visible presence with them in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, reminding them that His provision and His protection could never be had apart from His presence. If any of them was silly enough to go charging off on his own, venturing out without the visible presence of God, he would very quickly find himself also removed from all the blessing that God’s presence brought, and struggling to fend for himself. Likewise, if someone decided that he was comfortable where he was, and didn’t want to move when the cloud began to move, he also would soon find that God’s provision and protection were no longer with him. He could try as hard as he liked to take hold “by faith” of all that God was, and all that God wanted to be for him, but if he had removed himself from God’s presence it simply was not going to happen.

We too need to learn to remain where the cloud is. Too often we want God’s “presents” without His “presence”. We forget that faith only works when it is pointed in the right direction. Faith in faith will get us nowhere, and often faith in people will not get us much further. That doesn’t me that we should not trust people, but people are not our source and never can be. Only God is our source (that’s part of what it means for Him to be God) and only faith in God is effective faith. Faith, however, is a very immediate thing. It is not good at travelling long distances. If we are far from God’s presence, faith simply doesn’t work. We can strive and struggle and twist ourselves into all kinds of shapes trying to believe and to take hold of God’s promises, but if we have removed ourselves from His presence, our faith has nothing to take hold of, and we find ourselves wondering what went wrong.

Our life with God is never static. It is always about moving, about growth, not about getting comfortable in one place (spiritually, and sometimes physically) and settling down. It is a “walk”, not a “sit”. (Yes, we are seated with Christ in heavenly places, but that is a different dimension.) Like the ancient Israelites, we need to learn to watch the cloud. We need to move when God moves, and to stand still when He stands still. We need to change our focus, so that the most important thing is not where we are, but where He is. When we focus on where we are, we start looking at our surroundings. Either they are very nice and we want to stay put – which becomes a problem when God wants to move – or they are anything but nice and we want to get out of there – which becomes a problem when God wants to stay put! When we focus on where He is, then that is where we want to be, regardless of what the circumstances surrounding us may be.

Are you finding that faith is a struggle and the blessing of God seems to have moved? Could it be that you have removed yourself from God’s presence? Have you perhaps run ahead, eager to get on with the next thing, when God wants to linger where you have been, maybe to deal with some issues in your life, maybe to build deeper relationships, maybe simply to wait for His timing? Stop, step back, get back into God’s presence. His timing will surely come, and when it does it will be perfect. More importantly, you will walk into His timing in His presence.

Others maybe have lingered behind when God was moving on. You have wanted to cling to what has been, to live in the old anointing. A friend of mine used to say, “God moves. Then man turns it into a movement, then he turns it into a monument, and finally he turns it into a mausoleum.” Yesterday’s anointing was wonderful – for yesterday. It was not made for tomorrow. That which is easy and comfortable may seem very nice, but it can lull us to sleep and desensitise us to both the presence of God and the danger of sin. If God has moved, then no matter how good yesterday was, you need to get up and leave it behind, and follow that cloud!

This blog is © copyright Lynn Fowler.

There is one God, and one mediator between God and people, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:51 Timothy 2:5
English: World English Bible - WEB
5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

)in Whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in bodily form (Colossians 2:9Colossians 2:9
English: World English Bible - WEB
9 For in him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily,

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)and Whom God the Father has exalted to the highest place, giving Him the Name which is above every name, that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11Philippians 2:9-11
English: World English Bible - WEB
9 Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave to him the name which is above every name; ¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth, ¹¹ and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

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When we talk about ordination in relation to the Royal Priesthood, it is important that we remember that we are not talking about “ministry” in the sense of an exclusive group within the Church, but of the whole Body of Christ. We are all “ordained” to be priests of God.

In the Old Testament the ordination ceremony consisted of four elements: washing, clothing, anointing and consecration.

First, the priestly candidates were to be brought to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and washed with water. (Exodus 29:4Exodus 29:4
English: World English Bible - WEB
4 You shall bring Aaron and his sons to the door of the tent of meeting, and shall wash them with water.

) This indicated to the whole congregation (and also reminded the priests themselves) that they, like everyone else, needed to be cleansed before they could approach the Throne of God. Unlike false religions, which elevated their priests as holy men, and sometimes even as semi-gods, God wanted it clearly understood that these were ordinary men, sinners in need of God’s mercy and forgiveness, and that they held their position not because of any merit of their own but because of God’s grace which had caused them to be born into the priestly line.

We also need to remember that God’s gracious choice of us does not make us better than those in the world. Like them, we needed – and continue to need – God’s forgiveness and mercy. When I was a child there was a saying which was applied regularly on seeing someone in worse circumstances than ourselves: “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” It is a truth we would do well to remember as we reach out even to those we consider the worst of sinners, lest we fall into the trap (of which unbelievers so often accuse us) of thinking ourselves better than those to whom we minister.

Secondly, the priests were clothed in the priestly garments. This spoke both of their “setting apart” for the priesthood, and the fact that they were clothed with an authority which was not their own. Exodus 28:40Exodus 28:40
English: World English Bible - WEB
40 “You shall make coats for Aaron’s sons, and you shall make sashes for them and headbands shall you make for them, for glory and for beauty.

says that the garments were “to give them dignity and honour.” Even though they were ordinary men, they were called to an extraordinary function, and were given the authority for that function. They were to be respected, not because of who they were in themselves, but because of the office in which they stood.

Although we, too, are ordinary people, we have also been called to a high office. As priests unto our God we are His ambassadors (2 Cor 5:202 Cor 5:20
English: World English Bible - WEB
20 We are therefore ambassadors on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating by us. We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

), and as such we have an authority which is not our own, but is a part of the office to which we are called. We are called to walk in humility, but not to be “doormats”. We need to stand tall in the dignity and honour with which God has clothed us, and not be afraid to walk in that authority.

Next, the priest was anointed by pouring oil on his head. (Exodus 29:7Exodus 29:7
English: World English Bible - WEB
7 Then you shall take the anointing oil, and pour it on his head, and anoint him.

) The oil spoke of God’s favour and blessing (Ps 23:5Ps 23:5
English: World English Bible - WEB
5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup runs over.

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). Since oil is used for lubrication, it also spoke of God’s enabling, equipping the priest for his service; and since oil was also used for burning, it spoke of God’s empowering.

We also need God’s favour and blessing, His enabling and equipping, and His empowering. We receive it in our “personal Pentecost”, when the Holy Spirit comes upon us in power not to bring us into the Kingdom of God, but to release us as God’s priests, as His witnesses. When we consider that even Jesus, who was God in the flesh, did not begin His earthly ministry until He had received that power outpouring from the Spirit at His baptism, how much more do we need it! The Baptism in the Holy Spirit was never meant to be just a nice spiritual experience – it is meant to equip us for all that God has called us to be.

Finally, the priests were consecrated. One ram was used to consecrate the altar and the sacred objects. Then the priests laid their hands on the second ram, identifying with it ( Exodus 29:19Exodus 29:19
English: World English Bible - WEB
19 “You shall take the other ram; and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on the head of the ram.

), after which it was slaughtered. No-one could possibly mistake the significance that this consecration was a consecration unto death! The moment the future priest laid his hands on that ram, he became a dead man. His life was no longer his own. Self no longer had any place. Then, just to emphasise it even further, the first place the blood was daubed was on his right ear. This was a reminder of the law which allowed a slave who was due for release to bind himself permanently to his master. If the slave indicated that he did not want to leave his master, the master was to take him before the judges, stand him beside a doorpost and pierce his earlobe with an awl (Exodus 21:6Exodus 21:6
English: World English Bible - WEB
6 then his master shall bring him to God, and shall bring him to the door or to the door-post, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him for ever.

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), after which the slave was bound to his master for life. Thus the priest was bound to the Lord for a lifetime of service. The blood was then daubed on the thumb of his right hand and the big toe of his right foot, indicating that the priest no longer had right of control over what he did in service for the Lord, or where he went.

Our sacrificial Lamb was slain for us at Calvary. We were happy to identify with Him in His death on our behalf, bearing away our sins. But have we really come to understand that identifying with Him means identifying with His death? That we, like the priests of old, have been consecrated unto death? That death to self is not an optional extra of our Christian walk, but the very heart and essence of it? That we no longer have rights over our lives, or to choose our form or place of service?

When we came to Jesus, we were ordained into the Royal Priesthood, and priests have to be every bit as dead as the sacrifice they offer.

This blog is © copyright Lynn Fowler.

There is one God, and one mediator between God and people, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:51 Timothy 2:5
English: World English Bible - WEB
5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

)in Whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in bodily form (Colossians 2:9Colossians 2:9
English: World English Bible - WEB
9 For in him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily,

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)and Whom God the Father has exalted to the highest place, giving Him the Name which is above every name, that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11Philippians 2:9-11
English: World English Bible - WEB
9 Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave to him the name which is above every name; ¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth, ¹¹ and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

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