Living to die

 Luke 20:38 -
"For He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to Him"

     Thank you God for your mercy! I can not tell you how many times I have read Luke 20 and skipped right past this verse. It was always as if I were reading just to read and not to feed.  I feel so ashamed that I would quickly gobble down His word in the morning like I had more important things to do. I wanted to go out and play and run and live my life, but that would be impossible if I keep starving to death. If we could learn to die daily, really die everyday, then we could face life's problems unashamed and without fear for what have the dead to fear? And what did the Lord say? "Those who seek to find their lives will loose it, and those who loose their lives will find it". This road is narrow and we are asked to walk this path without using our natural eyes since they are blind eyes that are always seeing but never comprehending.

Luke 20:13 -
"Then the owner of the vineyard said, 'What shall I do? I will send my beloved son. Probably they will respect him when they see him"

v. 14 -
"But when the vinedressers saw him they reasoned among themselves, saying, 'This is the heir, come let us kill him that the inheritance may be ours"

  They had no understanding. These workers were given something so great yet could not understand that it has always been the will of the Owner of the vineyard to give back to them, to share the inheritance with them. The dead will always go after the dead, as Jesus said "Let the dead bury the dead", death wreaks of death, does the will of death and it starts with the pretension of living. We live after ourselves and live after the desires of our own hearts and soon that desire can not be satisfied through normal means. The wanted to kill the heir and take what was his without knowing that the owner would share the inheritance with them. It's a sad state of affairs we find ourselves in. Everyday in this nation (being America, but I am sure you can point to instances in your own) we deny the rightful heir. We have our own vain ambitions and our own pursuits and desires to look after, we are busy busy busy people. We have become a bunch of Marthas, running around doing busy work.

 Jesus does not want a Martha as a bride! As Mary sat at the feet of Jesus, listening, and hanging on His every word, what did the Lord say? "Mary has chosen that good part". Mary hung on His every word, because the very word Jesus was speaking was the word that is the bread of life. He is the manifest word isn't he? His very words are the substance of life, the words that expose the flesh for the state that it is truly in and reveal the spirit as the state that it is truly in. We see that not only are we poor and broken on the outside, but for so long we have neglected the inside and it has become a cluttered up mess! No wonder we are so often depressed or scared or angry! With all these soul ties and bitter memories that we are not letting go of, mistrust and fearfulness and control are all we are left to resort to. We have become murderers of the Spirit and we have nailed, repeatedly this same Jesus to the cross. We are backsliders and blasphemers who have all gotten great at making excuses for our actions.

Mary realized this, Martha stayed busy as a mode of diversion from the problems. How many times have you found yourself staying busy to keep yourself distracted from the problem? Why do we do this? Is it because we fear our inability to deal with the mess of our inner man? It's so much easier to simply pick up the clothes from off of your floor and fold them up neatly, make the bed, clean the bathroom. But where is our inner clutter going? It's filling up the inside of us to the point of bursting and everyday it is an major battle just to keep it all inside. We are proud of people who work three full time jobs while going to school and raising kids all while being single mothers, but we shun people who do none of those things yet live their lives fully to Christ. Being busy does not solve the problem. Vulnerability is not weakness it is strength if it is placed before the Lord Jesus. Mary made herself vulnerable before Jesus, that is why she was so established in her place at His feet. Even Mary who poured the fragrant oil over the feel of Jesus! The people in the room were ashamed of this action! They thought a "Holy man" would never allow such a thing! Indeed a holy man would not, but not a righteous man! Not the Son of man!

  When you allow yourself to be vulnerable  in such a way it opens you up, it exposes your inner self and love removes the veil faster than anything. The world deals with it only on the surface, "I keep myself busy so I don't go get high" or "I keep myself distracted to I don't have sex", it's all the same. The problem is still there and it will never go away. We might successfully run the race of abstinence but we will not experience abundance. It is only in submission that we see abundance. Don't you see the Father's motive here? "If they see my Son", so many of us have seen the Son, been at His feet, worshipped in His presence and sang the songs but have in many ways gone astray or failed to accomplish all that God planned for us to accomplish. Why? Why do we have to suffer so? And what is the accomplishment? We hear often that God has plans for us and we see pastors and evangelists and teachers and we consider that to be the plans God has for us and then we proceed to compare ourselves to others:

2 Corinthians 10:12 -
"But they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise."

And why are they not wise? When we compare ourselves to ourselves we are left with nothing but filthy rags that can not clean up the mess. With the best of intentions we take the rags of our own self righteousness and try to "clean up the streets" or "do good unto man" all the while  spreading our own personal issues all over the place. We can do nothing good in this place. We will never measure up to our "idols" because they seek worship that is unrealistic and false. We will never sing like that man, or dance like that woman. What did Jesus say about this generation?

Luke 7:32 -
"They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, “‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.’"

In Luke 7, Jesus is confronting the same issue from the pharisees. John the baptist and his baptism. Seeking to prove themselves right and justified over Jesus, they looked to themselves and backed each other up thinking "if we all confront Jesus with this same issue of Johns baptism, we can put Him in the corner", not realizing by way of their own actions and filthiness they painted themselves into the corner. Each time this issue came up , it was the same response. "They marveled at His answer", why did they marvel? Because not comparing themselves to Jesus, and only comparing themselves to each other they still found themselves lacking and unwise in this same issue. They would never know the truth until the Lord set them free. Same with us, we keep trying to find ways to circumvent the truth set forth by the Son of Man and pave our own way to our destiny, thinking that we are somehow in control of our ultimate destiny and that all go to the universe. This is foolish, we have not one good thing to compare ourselves to amongst ourselves, our righteousness is still as filthy rags before Him.

 We have to know what authority the baptism comes from. Not your physical dunking under the water, but the word says to "be filled with the Holy Spirit", this is not just initial baptism, this is the everyday filling with the Holy Spirit that produces life within us. We will never live until we first die. The pharisees asked Jesus in Luke 20:3 Tell us by what authority do you do these things? Who gave you the authority (the right ) to do this?". The pharisees were still seeking to justify themselves as the rightful heirs of the vineyard and if they could not inherit the vineyard, then no one could inherit it. They were saying that they were the only ones appointed to delegate authority, thus usurping God's authority and taking their place as the rightful heirs, but the only thing that they would inherit was in this life the riches they sought after leading to death in the next for what they did not realize they would find. When Jesus pronounced woes on them, He was saying "Don't you get it! You are on a path straight to hell!". Which one of us would give our children garbage to eat if they asked for bread? These "holy men" not only deny the Kind of Glory, but the little children as well!

Who among you would allow some stranger, claiming to be in some sort of authority to grab your children if they were running to you and then throw them in jail without cause? Which of you would not be indignant if you knew your child was innocent, but the authority of this day put them in jail to feed them to the wolves? Which one of you would not fight with all of your might to see your children set free from the power of evil! Why do we allow our children to perish without knowledge? "My people perish for lack of knowledge, understanding" and everyday we submit ourselves to the authority of this world, forgetting where it comes from. Denying the Lord access to His people and suffering each other to come to Him. We take away the innocence of our youth by placing rules and regulations over them and then if they do not fall in line we medicate and punish them. We fear for our children yet we are not willing to submit our control over to the true Father of lights in whom there is no shadow cast by turning. We tell our children that we will do certain things for them if they behave and then do not follow through on our promises. The Father never does that! He does not demand we sit still in service, but loves to see us dance! He does not demand that we first pay penance for our sins, of which we already suffer, but asks that we come to Him! He does not keep Himself from us, we keep ourselves from Him.

John 4:23 -
" Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks."

Oh praise you Father! True worshippers can worship in spirit because they are already dead! The dead tell no tales of this life that they lived and the pain that they suffered they only know the true joy when the Father says "Dance with me!" they know no lies for they are innocent before Him and because of their innocence are truly alive in God! True worshippers are even now being brought forth as the finest of the vineyard! The owner has cast out the evil vinedressers from His vineyard and have appointed faithful shepherds who know the way of the Lord to shepherd His house of praise! Get ready all you who weep and mourn for you will soon rejoice!

Luke 20:35, 36 -
 "But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection."

Children of the resurrection, die daily. Die to your flesh, learn to praise God in spirit and truth! You will be called martyrs and victors and overcomers who are established in the way of life! You do not seek your own since the Lord was sent after His own. Those who have ears to hear, let them hear. We are not innocent until we can be exposed and vulnerable, when we pour out the best of what we have on the feet of Jesus. We hang on His every word as a starving man does when he receives a morsel of meat. If that seems lacking and dis interesting to you, then you might need to have your perspective altered, you are still seeing through the eyes of the flesh and not the eyes of your heart because Jesus said "He who is first will be last and he who is last will be first", it is not bread alone, but every WORD that proceeds from the mouth of God. Sometimes is just two words "well done", "be healed", "set free" that have the most impact and leave your heart thirsty and hungry for more. Life no longer satisfies, at least the life this world has to offer because you see through its lusts and hang on every word of Jesus as if His next word were more valuable than your next breath, and it is! He breathed the breath of life into you and His word is in you and you are innocent because of it.

Children of the resurrection, be reconciled to your Father! Die to yourself daily and truly you will be set free!

I see our world, and I see it growing ever darker. I see veins of gold scattered throughout the landscape, this gold sings before the darkness and quiets the storms on the horizon. The Lord asks "Do you believe there are lands that have been unseen by human eyes in this world?", and I said "no Lord, we have satellites and online maps that show us every distant land", the Lord said "See from my perspective", and I looked and I saw a land, bright and shining golden and its shape was like the axe head. It was the axe head that the servant lost in the water and it was made to float. This is the recovered treasure, the remnant that God promised when all was thought to be lost, it floated up to the surface and out of nowhere, where there was thought to be no hope! We thought we lost that kind of anointing, the work that needed to be done would not continue on until the axe head was recovered. But the Lord has said "I have come to seek and to save that which was lost". This country, no one has yet seen. This land no one has yet set a foot on. The Lord prepared the way by sending His servant and then His brothers and they became the battle axe, the weapon of the Lord to tear down kingdoms and shatter nations. They are seeking the heart, they are seeking this golden land, they will not quit they will not surrender because God has called them pioneers, He is leading them and they are driving ever forward, unstoppable unhindered by the world and unhinged by it's regulations. They shout in public, they scream in movie theatres, they cry at parties and weep and mourn for the lost. We are pioneers, we are dead to ourselves since we had not the strength to carry the axe.