Living In the Secret Place

[Beulah5]

Last night i was with an unbelieving friend in her caravan talking about everything when suddenly the presence of the Lord filled the place like a mist.

Simultaneously we both began to cry and shake under the power of the Holy Spirit suddenly heaven opened up over the place and the presence of the Lord began to pour out like liquid honey-never ending.

All of a sudden the words COMFORT came flying into the place letter by letter and Jesus began to minister to some of the deep hurts and issues in our lives.

I came back home later and was drawn the whole of the night and this morning into the presence of the Lord.

As i wept i realised again that there is nothing like the presence of Jesus. To be immersed, consumed, totally enflamed and engulfed by His passionate love and to become a living flame that lives to burn for Him.

Looking back on my life as a child and a christian and my time in church i think of the times i wasted pursuing methods, books, theories instead of the presence.

Saints to be clothed and bathed in the presence is all we need. The presence convicts the sinner, it breaks every yoke in our lives, the gnawing pain that sits in our inside from all the emotional pain we carry and the stress of simply being in this world.

Last night Father opened up Isaiah 55: Isa 55:1 ¶ Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.


Isa 55:2 Wherefore do ye spend money for [that which is] not bread? and your labour for [that which] satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye [that which is] good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.


Isa 55:3 Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, [even] the sure mercies of David.


There is an invitation to come and drink and be totally immersed in the river of God's love that we will become that river that waters everything in its way and wherever we flow life is produced.

Who is willing to move from visitation to habitation? I dont know about you but i am desperate for Him, every cell of my body, my emotions my heart is in pursuit of the Holy Place and the more i drink the thirstier i get.

Come let us go on a journey of no return into the presence and abiding glory of King Jesus.

When even the sparrow has found a home, you've given me reason that i should hope, that i belong in your presence

[stillfocused]

Beulah that was so awesome !! Who want a habitation instead of a vistation ?? I do !! I will do anythng to get in his presence.. that is awesome !!

[Beulah5]

To God be the glory Sis!!!

stillfocused said:

Beulah that was so awesome !! Who want a habitation instead of a vistation ?? I do !! I will do anythng to get in his presence.. that is awesome !!

That desire is exactly what we will be exploring on this post.

[And Such Were Some Of You]

beulah5 said:

That desire is exactly what we will be exploring on this post.

Amen! Looking forward to it.

[Beulah5]

Abiding in the Vine is the key

Daily intimacy with God is the key tofruitfulness in every area of our lives. As we become more aware of His presence in us...so do other people.

As we become more affected by His presence in us...so do those around us. By taking time in the secret place with God, we start to walk by the Holy Spirit in everyday life.

We find that rather than striving to achieve thingsfor God, He is building His kingdom through us. "Not by might, not by power,but by His Spirit

Psalm 23: 1-3 'The LORD is myshepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.

Psalm 131:2 But I have stilled andquieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.

[krazeeboi]

In His presence is total and absolute freedom.

I know this was of the Lord, Sis. Beulah. I was listening to a song earlier entitled, "Set Me Free," and this word you spoke joined up with the word I encountered earlier--and after I typed the first sentence in this response, I immediately went up in tongues for a while.

[Beulah5]

krazeeboi said:

In His presence is total and absolute freedom.

BBL

[Beulah5]

Krazee you have no idea the can of worms that you have opened.

In His presence is there total freedom. God's intent is to inhabit us thoroughly and fully.

Jesus said that if we open the door to Him that He and the Father will come and MAKE THEIR HOME in us.

Jhn 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

Luk 10:22 All things are delivered to me of my Father: and no man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and [he] to whom the Son will reveal [him].


We see here that it does not end with Jesus-His purpose is to bring us into the Father.

Some of the hindrances to intimacy is that in His sight everything is uncovered. All the shame, all the pain and like Adam and Eve we are afraid of that.

In ministry there are various kinds of people: some people are very sensitive to the presence of God, some are sometimes and sometimes they are not and some have no sensitivity even though that is what they desire.

Why do some of us find it difficult to feel His presence or to be touched by Him.

I have personally found out that it is because of things that are planted in us that serve as blockages.

For me it was blocks of pains that just sat in my insides built up from rejection, shame and abuse.

God's desire is to make His home with us. Some people feel that God is angry with them or has a vendetta against them which is why they struggle with intimacy.

The bible disarms that lie in saying:

Rom 5:5 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. ;D

It gets better:

Rom 8:32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

Beloved if you are reading this God is not angry with you. The penalty for your freedom has been paid by Christ Jesus who gladly offered Himself as the propitiation for your sins which is why:

Hbr 4:13 Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things [are] naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.


Hbr 4:14 ¶ Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast [our] profession.


Hbr 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as [we are, yet] without sin.


Hbr 4:16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.


The Lord is asking us in moving from visitation to habitation that we open the door to Him, yes it brings up pain, we relieve shame, and the tears are never ending simply because the Spirit of the Lord will pick up His candle and begin to search out our innermost beings and , Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, will def be be rooted up Matt 15:13. but oh the joy that is set before us-becoming fully formed sons and daughters of the Most High and appropriating our inheritance in Him is a far more exceeding glory than we can ever imagine.

Anyone willing?

[livinganewlife]

Thank You Jesus for this topic.....

I missed this entire thread.....

To be in the presence of the Lord is so beautiful and to know that the Lord is with me and that I may dwell with him in freedom is my heart's desire...

Testimony:

I was one of those who thought God was angry with me and was trying to teach me a lesson but now I see all He wanted was me to dwell with him....

The Lord is taking me on a journey all alone just so I can truly know him...at first it felt as if I was just being lonely or anti social but as the days come and go all I want to do is just get closer to him it is like I have this desire to be just close to the Lord......

To others it may seem as if I am going through but all I am really doing is just dwelling in his presence and I have so much peace...

Even in my uncertain situation the Lord has given me so much Peace and Deliverance....

It's as if I am being made "new" again!

God Bless You ALL!

[Beulah5]

When the Holy Spirit comes and overshadows our lives, our souls are quieted, our spirits are awakened, and new life is infused into our dry bones. The ways of man cannot accomplish any of this.

The seeds of faith that have been sown throughout history are coming to fruition at this point in history. Instead of just another movement of God, we are now able to experience “the Lord who is present”—Jehova Shamma! I

nstead of pursuing the gifts and movements of the Holy Spirit, we need to be pursuing a Person. The Holy Spirit has within Himself the infinite power of all of the previous moves of the Spirit, but he will only pour Himself out to those who have been molded into the character of Jesus.

We must embody the Spirit of Truth in order to be examples to those who are perishing. If we let the Lord work himself into us, we can simply embody the Holy Spirit and people’s lives will be changed. Paul Keith Davis

[Beulah5]

I still cannot move from Isaiah 55 which tells us: Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

The last few days the lord has been reiterating to me that the promise of being filled is conditional on our hungering and thirsting :

Mat 5:6 Blessed [are] they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

Jhn 6:35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

I dont know about you but i am realising that i must stay thirsty, i must stay desperate, i must guard against being satisfied, i must live each day wholly dependent on Christ and His ability in me regardless of how things may look good or together. He must be my all in all and my desperation.

Guarding my thirst means discarding busyness and things that give me a sense of a certain misleading level of satisfaction that can come from 'christian 'busyness' because fruitfulness only flows from intimacy.

It has began to dawn on me why God continues to slay me and take me through the furnace and trials it is so i can remain wholly dependent on Him

Now i understand why God allowed:

1Cr 4:11 Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwellingplace;
2Cr 11:27 In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.


His desire is that Christ will remain our all in all so that this will always remain: 2Cr 4:7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

He is the one who deserves and is worthy of all glory in this age and that which is to come -glorious Lord Jesus-thine be the glory now and ever more!!

[Beulah5]

The Ultimate Call of the Believer, Part 1



By



Nita Johnson



Dear Reader, this article is a transcription of a private teaching that Nita gave recently. So, please read through it as though you were listening to a message.

I would like to share with you about where we can go in God. I will share one aspect of it in this article, and other aspects in future articles. Through the next few articles, I will give you a good, clear picture of where the Lord is calling us. Then, I will begin to take you on a systematic journey of how we can get there. In addition, I will address some things that are an absolute requirement if you want to enter these deep places with God. You cannot have the things that I am going to share with you without certain investments on your part. The faster you are able to appropriate the things I share, the faster you will move along in your journey with the Lord. I hope to relate things to you in a clear and concise way, so you can run with the things I reveal and it will not take you as long as it has taken me to attain this place in God. Through this series of articles, my hope is that that the Lord, by His Spirit, will meet each one of you in a wonderful way.






Colossians 2:9-10 says, "For in Him the whole fullness of Deity (the Godhead) continues to dwell in bodily form [giving complete expression of the divine nature]. And you are in Him, made full and having come to fullness of life [in Christ you too are filled with the Godhead- Father, Son and Holy Spirit- and reach full spiritual stature]. And He is the Head of all rule and authority [of every angelic principality and power]."







Ultimate Call of the Believer







I want to share with you the concept of the "Ultimate Call of the Believer", which through Christ, is to experience the state of being filled with the Godhead bodily. Let me begin in about 1985, at which time I stayed in a cabin with my ministry traveling companion. I took some time off because of heart trouble by the doctor's instruction.

In my room was a huge picture window, about the size of a patio window, which overlooked the lake. One day I sat at this window in prayer, asking the Lord to heal my heart. He suddenly appeared to me. Immediately I noticed several different things about Him. First, I noticed His eyes. His eyes were not a deep sea blue but they were a most unusual color. (In fact, I have never truly seen the exact color of His eyes any place on earth except in Israel. They are the color of the mineral rich salt sea, also known as the Dead Sea. The color of that water is the color of the Lord's eyes.) His eyes emanated the very love that He is. They looked like eternal pools of liquid love. His eyes, so filled with love, looked liquid even though I knew that they were solid. Therefore, His eyes were the first thing that I noticed about Him.

The second thing I noticed about Him was His unbelievable compassion for those who are suffering. When He sees His children suffer, it is difficult for Him. The only way I can describe it is to think of a mother who is sitting beside the bed of her little five or six year old son who is very sick. The mother cannot leave the child's bed because he is so sick and her heart is gripped with compassion over his suffering. This was the same heart of compassion that was in the Lord. So, this incredible compassion was the second thing I noticed about Him.

The third thing I noticed was how complete He is. Not only is He the profusion of the Godhead but also, He is the completeness of all things. I knew as I sat there looking at Him that outside of Christ I needed nothing. He is complete not only with the totality of the Godhead but He is also the completeness of every living thing. If a person has the fullness of Christ, there is no sense of needing anything else in this world .


Of course, if you have a profession you fulfill your profession. If you are a parent, you do your parenting. It is not as though you become a recluse because you are complete in Christ, but you do not "need" those things to complete anything in you because He has now become your completion.

This understanding and illumination of just how complete Christ is was so incredible to me. As He was standing before me at the cabin that day, I knew I did not even have to ask for my healing. As His love poured through His whole being into me, I knew He was healing me. After our discourse was finished, I got up and went to bed at total peace with my healing.

Not only is He the completeness of all things, but He wants to give us all things through that completeness. Moreover, He wants to be all things in us. Paul says:



"And you are in Him, made full and having come to fullness of life [in Christ you too are filled with the Godhead- Father, Son and Holy Spirit- and reach full spiritual stature]."

Perfection

When the Lord brings the Christian to this full spiritual stature, what the Bible refers to as "Adult Sonship", then the things that I saw in Jesus that day are perfected in us. He came to me not magnifying His Godhead, although that was clearly evident, but He came to me magnifying His manhood. The manhood of Christ, the manhood of Christ completely filled with the Godhead. The Bible tells us that Jesus is the firstborn of many brethren. Everything that we see in Him -- the love, the compassion, the joy, the peace, the truth, the goodness, the kindness, the fullness of satisfaction, all of these are the essence of His completeness.



Ephesians 4: 12-13 says, "His intention was the perfecting and the full equipping of the saints (His consecrated people), [that they should do] the work of ministering toward building up Christ's body (the church), [That it might develop] until we all attain oneness in the faith and in the comprehension of the [full and accurate] knowledge of the Son of God, that [we might arrive] at really mature manhood (the completeness of personality which is nothing less than the standard height of Christ's own perfection), the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ and the completeness found in Him."






What this verse says may seem overwhelming and maybe even utterly impossible to you. Nevertheless, the truth is that the Bible tells us that He has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness to bring us into the perfections of Christ. God calls us to reach the height of Christ's own perfection, the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ and the completeness found in Him.

In fact, the book of Ephesians in Chapter 1:18 says:






"By having the eyes of your heart flooded with light, so that you can know and understand the hope to which He has called you, and how rich is His glorious inheritance in the saints
(His set-apart ones)."






It is God's will for our heart to explode with light so that the eyes of our heart are open to understand the call to this glorious position of the adult sonship.

It is not enough to hear this truth taught. We need to experience an inundation of our heart by the light of God until our heart reaches saturation level with His light so the "eyes of our heart" are forced open to understand and comprehend the fullness of our calling. What is the fullness of our calling? It is adult sonship in Christ. It is the completeness of the personality of Christ, which is love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, kindness and includes the full stature in which He walks. As perfect Man, the stature in which He walked before us here on earth, was that of a man fully developed in God. The life of the Godhead, the life of the Son, the life of the Father, the life of the Holy Spirit, fully saturated His inner most being.

Let me share another vision with you. While on a plane, I was reading something that John G. Lake wrote about "Jesus, the Man". As I was reading, it dawned on me that 95% of my focus had been on "Jesus, the Son of God", not "Jesus the Son of Man". I felt like I was treading new territory because I had spent all of my focus developing myself in the revelation of Jesus, the Son of God. As I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes, I saw a vision of Jesus, the Son of Man. In this vision, I saw Jesus conceived in the womb of Mary. I saw the manhood of Christ conceived in her womb. As the Holy Spirit planted the seed in the womb of Mary, I saw a beam of glory shoot down from Heaven and clothe it with God. This glory surged deep into every part of the fetus. I saw it go through the head, the shoulders, the heart, the soul and through the legs and then it surrounded Him. The glory of God then penetrated into the inner most part of the fetus and exploded with light. The Lord then said to me, "What I have just shown you is Jesus, the Son of Man, the Son of God".

Anyone who knows anything about theology knows that Jesus was all man and He was all God. For twenty-five years, I prayed and ask the Lord what that truly meant. The Lord answered my question that day. After God had totally surrounded and filled the innermost cavity of the fetus, you could not tell Christ the Son of Man, from Christ the Son of God. You could not tell where one began and where the other stopped. Then suddenly in the vision, the fetus became the adult Jesus, the Son of God the son of man, standing in front of me. I saw His manhood utterly clothed with His Godhood. He was utterly complete as perfect man and, of course, He was utterly complete as the Son of God. It was the most amazing experience I had ever had and I sat there in the airplane seat with tears flowing down my cheeks because I knew only God could have done what I saw in the vision.

In these last days there is going to come forth a company of people that the Spirit of God perfects, whose eyes of their heart are open to the wisdom and the revelation of God and the understanding of their calling. Their hearts flooded with light and grace in response to this calling. They will understand the completion of Christ, the perfection of Christ as well as the mature stature and the fullness of the Christ. They will not only understand this with their minds but they will understand with their heart, soul, and spirit. This will become not only their understanding, but also, the living reality within them. These truths will be the life upon which their soul will feed and nurture. Clothed in the fullness of this understanding, they will walk in newness of life. This company of adult sons that God is going to bring forth will be comparatively large.

The Lord took me up before His throne one day back in the early 1990's. While I was before Him He flooded me with light and bathed me with waterfalls of liquid light. One of the things He said to me during that experience was that He has waited throughout all of eternity for the moment wherein He would bring forth a commonwealth of people who are willing to forsake the world and everything in it to have all things in God. It would be a company of people that He could inhabit the way He inhabited His Son. He said He has waited all eternity for this hour. He is looking into the heart of every man to see whom He can fill with Himself. In this experience, He said to me, "Nita, you have never known yearnings until you have known the yearnings of the heart of your God". After which, He touched my heart with just a little teardrop of His own yearnings and I was filled with the glory of God. My friend Bonnie and I were on a walk talking about the Lord when this happened. Saturated with the longings and yearnings of God I was totally lost and had no idea where I was. Bonnie said that the glory of God came down and covered my body so profusely that she could hardly stand up next to me. God has waited through all eternity for this moment to give every one reading this article the capacity to walk in the fullness of the stature of Christ so that He can bring forth an entire company of such people.



Colossians 2:2-3 says, "...that mystic secret of God [which is] Christ (the Anointed One). In Him all the treasures of [divine] wisdom (comprehensive insight into the ways and purposes of God) and [all the riches of spiritual] knowledge and enlightenment are stored up and lie hidden."



If this is true, it tells us that Jesus the Son of God is purposely designated by the Father to bear the wisdom of God to mankind. It says "all" of the treasures of divine wisdom. That is incomprehensible to me. How can the finite mind comprehend the "all" in this verse? All the wisdom of the Father is stored up in Christ the Son. What is the purpose? To be revealed to His church by way of the Spirit of Truth.

God wants us to have His wisdom and understanding of the purpose to which He calls us. He does not want us to have mere head knowledge, but He wants our hearts to be enlightened to the point that we are walking in the light of Christ as Christ is in the Light. The Bible teaches us that to walk in the Light as Christ is in the Light means that there is no longer darkness within. The sinful nature is crucified, our souls and spirits are filled with light, and we are, albeit invisibly, clothed with the light of God, the light that is God.

This comes from the indwelling of Christ releasing the wisdom of God to us, in us and through us. This is the hope of every human being. This is the hope of every Christian who wants to go deep in God, that we can receive the Light and walk in the Light as Christ is in the Light. Our hope is that the Son would indwell us with the fullness of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost dwelling bodily within us. Further, as He indwells us, that He would release the wisdom of God so we know the plans and purposes of God and can live in the experiential life of the fullness of the Kingdom, in this life.
Until God began to reveal this reality to me, I saw this the way most see it. I was taught that we live in this life as a Christian, do our best to live for Jesus and then, in the life to come, we have the fullness of all things. However, the Bible does not teach that. God calls us to understand, appropriate, and walk in the establishment of the fullness of God in this life. God calls us, He picks us out to enter into the fullness of God in this life.






1 Corinthians 1:30, "But it is from Him that you have your life in Christ Jesus, Whom God made our Wisdom from God, [revealed to us a knowledge of the divine plan of salvation previously hidden, manifesting itself as] our Righteousness [thus making us upright and putting us in right standing with God], and our Consecration [making us pure and holy], and our Redemption [providing our ransom from eternal penalty for sin]."



God has designed for us through Christ to experience the fullness of that wisdom that He allots to man, that we might understand the plans and purposes of God and the hope to which He called us. He has designed for us through Christ to know this fullness of His righteousness because without His righteousness none of this can happen. Without His righteousness there is no hope of us ever attaining the depths of God.

His righteousness is what keeps us connected to Him and connected to His grace so we can attain these things. Further, once we attain these things we can know the fullness of, and being clothed experientially with His righteousness. This is not only something that we look forward to in faith knowing that when we get to heaven the righteousness will be ours experientially. On the contrary, we can have it in this life.

At this present time, the church walks in His imputed righteousness but in the fullness of sonship the believer walks in His imparted righteousness and His redemption.

Wisdom, righteousness, consecration, and redemption, Paul lists them in order of appropriation. We start with the wisdom, the second thing is the appropriating of His righteousness, and the third thing is the consecration or sanctification to which His righteousness brings us.

The fourth thing is redemption. The church, for maybe all or most of the church age, has felt that redemption is something to happen on the other side of the grave when in truth God never intended it as such. His intention was for every believer to attain redemption, the fullness of eternal life, this side of heaven so that we could walk in the glory of God in this life.

[Jasmine]

Apr 8, 2008 22:38:39 GMT -5 krazeeboi said:

In His presence is total and absolute freedom.

I know this was of the Lord, Sis. Beulah. I was listening to a song earlier entitled, "Set Me Free," and this word you spoke joined up with the word I encountered earlier--and after I typed the first sentence in this response, I immediately went up in tongues for a while.

Amen, that blessed my soul. In his presence there is total and absolute freedom, and that is a place I have longed for. Total and absolute FREEDOM.

JESUS!!!

[krazeeboi]

The Father's purpose is to see us totally molded into the image of Christ. He will not stop until He sees the perfect reflection of Christ in us.

[Beulah5]

Praise the Lord!! Krazee the process of how we get moulded is why i started this topic -would u care to share some more?

Why is the abiding the presence of the Lord not a reality for so many of us...still searching x