Beholding the Truth about me
Beholding – See, observe, view, look at, watch, gaze at/upon, regard, contemplate, inspect… Meditate…
The purpose of beholding something is so that we may “see” clearly what is really there. It has to do with “seeing.”
We all have eyes…but do we all see the same? Do we see clearly…? Without glasses or lenses…can you see clearly?
Can you see the detail?
If you have ever gone for an eye test you’ll remember having to look at the eye chart without your glasses. Each row of letters gets smaller than the last until you can no longer make out the letters clearly. You can stare at the letter, you know that there’s some sort of blob there and maybe you can take a guess at what it is but you definitely cannot see it clearly.
You “know” that you’re staring at an eye chart. You “know” that you’re staring at a line of letters. You “know” where each letter is but for the life of you, you cannot read it because one thing is missing…clarity…the clarity that can only come when it all comes into focus. You need a specific lens to bring it into focus for you.
Focus – to adapt to the prevailing level of light and become able to see clearly.
Was the chart always there? Were the letters always there?
Focus changes everything! Suddenly, we can “see” what was always there. Focus reveals the definition. It reveals the details.
In Mark 4:12 Jesus had this to say when explaining the reason for speaking in parables: “so that seeing they may see and not perceive”. Seemingly then, it is possible to see spiritual truths and not see clearly or with the understanding that comes from ‘revelation’.
In the same way, we can “know the Word”, “know” the promises, “know” that we’ve been delivered, “know” that we are the beloved of God, “know” that the enemy is defeated but when our inheritance and the truth of who we are is challenged…what is our reaction? In that moment, as we focus on the current circumstance, what do we see? What detail, what definition immediately reveals itself?
How do I know what I really believe?
Our thought life and our imagination is the entrance or doorway to our heart. The image that is written on your imagination, the information that you believe about yourself and that has settled on your heart as a truth, will define what you will become and will define your reaction and response in any given situation.
Our reaction and response will reveal what we truly believe AND it reveals what we have settled for.
What is my true expectation?
Acts 3:2-10 The lame man who was laid daily at the Gate Beautiful had developed a system of surviving because he had accepted that things would not change. He had become comfortable in his dysfunction. He had no expectation of change. He never saw himself healed…BUT then the Name above all names, the Lord Jesus Christ, through the lives of Peter and John, stepped into his dead expectations and resurrected him to a whole new life!
What about us? What have we settled for that is contrary to the Word of God? What is our expectation… has our expectation died?
Do we truly, clearly “see” ourselves as the greatly beloved, heirs of the kingdom of God? Does the detail reveal that the defeated enemy, whose works have been destroyed, is challenging you to see if you really know who you are?
Whether you really know that you are one of the sons of God… The devil will challenge you to see where you are held captive in your belief system. How does he know when he has been successful? By your response…
Is God’s truth about you engraved upon your heart? Is it there, deeply ingrained, in the fabric of who you are?
Why is that important?
Proverbs 4:23 – Keep your heart with all diligence, (guard your heart, Patrol your heart – declare the promises regularly) for out of it spring the issues of life.
Therefore it is of absolute importance to us that we see who God is, what He thinks about us and who we really are in the kingdom of God.
We regard everyone, including ourselves, according to the information that we believe about them.
If we don’t see ourselves clearly, we won’t resist the devil when he comes to challenge us nor will we go forth in boldness to reveal Christ when He needs us to! Instead, we often help the enemy – we open the door and welcome in his lies…the enemy has fully developed an expectation in us and we don’t even try to resist!
Instead we will develop a system to embrace our dysfunction and live with it… not realizing that the defeated devil has stolen our expectation and neutralized our authority!
Denise is an actual princess – her father gave up his crown to marry the girl of his dreams and came to live in South Africa. His family disinherited him and consequently never even met their own grandchildren. We never treated her like royalty…to us she was just Denise our friend. She had no special position, she had no authority or privilege…she was just one of us.
If she went to her father’s homeland, she would not have been recognized… BUT had he stayed and his wife been accepted everything would have been quite different. As their beloved princess everyone would have treated her with great respect. As an actual princess, we would never even have met her. Because of her birth right, she would have had a level of authority that set her above all others.
You and I are being challenged daily to see if we know our birth-rights and to cripple our level of authority! John 1:12.
Ephesians 5:1 – Therefore be imitators of God as dear children…
This statement, in itself, declares who we really are! We have the capacity to imitate God! We cannot imitate something we don’t believe in or someone that we do not clearly see… We have been called to identify our lives with the life of Christ.
It is in meditating on the Word that we begin to see clearly, as if it has all suddenly come into focus for us.
Today, we are going to spend time meditating on the Word so that we may “see” clearly who we are.
Where do you and I, who have believed, find ourselves? Is it not in the household of God? Can the curse possibly exist in God’s household? NO!!!
I am who God says I am.
You and I are chosen to be somebody of significance – the last days’ generation, designed specifically to reveal the Lord Jesus Christ.
God chose you to be a partaker of the divine nature (why?) to reveal Him!
It’s not about pride, it’s about grace!
2 Peter 1:2-4 – Grace and peace be multiplied to you (how?) in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, (how?) through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which (His glory and virtue) have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these (great and precious promises) you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
1 Peter 2:9 – But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people (why?) that you may proclaim the praises of Him, who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.
This might seem overwhelming but Our Lord Jesus is our example
Luke 4:18-19 – The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, (why?) because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
What did Jesus have? The anointing from the Holy Spirit!
John 14:10 – Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I speak I do not speak on my own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.
John 5:19 – Then Jesus answered and said to them. “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He (the Father) does, the Son also does in like manner.
Likewise, Peter, Stephen, Philip and Paul did what they did by the leading of the Holy Spirit and by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Acts 1:8 – Jesus tells the disciples, “But you shall RECEIVE power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Acts 3:6 – Then Peter said, “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.
What did Peter have? Power (the anointing of the Holy Spirit) to be a witness of the resurrected Christ!
John 14:16-17 – And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.
V26. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to remembrance all things that I have said to you.
What did the Father give us? The anointing of the Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians 2:12 – Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, (why?) that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
The work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
We have been chosen to be in a relationship with the Holy Spirit.
We have been chosen to be informed and taught by the Holy Spirit.
We have been chosen to be supernaturally transformed by the Holy Spirit.
We have been chosen to be empowered, supernaturally to reveal Christ.
Romans 8:14 – For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.
1 Peter 2:9 – But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people (why?) that you may proclaim the praises of Him, who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.
Why is any of this important?
Because we are the end time generation. We are the ones who carry the responsibility of representing the Lord Jesus Christ by being witnesses of Him just like the disciples were… yet even more so!
If you hear a teaching and feel as though it were unattainable in your condition, you have only heard half the message.
You missed the grace that is ALWAYS resident in the heart of God’s truth. Truth without grace is only half true. Remember this always; grace and truth are realized in Jesus Christ (John 1:17).
What God’s truth demands, His grace provides! Francis Frangipane.
There is a war for souls…you and I are the end-time church…designed, created, equipped,
Holy Spirit empowered to bring in the end-time harvest.
We must recognize the plan of the enemy to derail what God has planned…and take note…he can only do this by crippling our belief and our faith.
2 Corinthians 10:4-6 – For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ (not My will, but Your Will be done), and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.
In his book the Vision, Rick Joyner has this to say as he recounts what the Lord said to him during a prophetic encounter: “The last day church will not be greater than Paul’s generation, even if she does greater works.
All that is done, is done by My grace.
However, I will make more of My grace and power available to the last-day church, because she must accomplish more than the church in any age has yet accomplished!
Sons of the Most High God! Know who you are, know whose you are…Fight from a place of victory…not FOR victory!
Be strong in the Lord and the power of His might!