Garden Ministries

Janet Weaver Smith and George Smith ©9-4-2015 gardenministries.org

The road toward complete dependence on God and trust in Him may include any or all of the harsh conditions Paul described in 1 Corinthians 4:11-12. For those of us who must have Christ fully formed within and who are relentlessly pressing toward the goal of winning the prize of our heavenward call, God is dealing with the last vestiges of unbelief and fear. Ironically, it is hardship that “tells on us.” When hardship hits, our response reveals how much we trust and hope in God and His goodness, or don’t.

When the storms of hardship begin to whip up around us, we cannot let them distract us from our fervent goal of completeness and union with Christ. All the more, hardship is the time to press in and fix our eyes on the Author of our faith—Christ Jesus—and let Him perfect us as we continue to believe Him. We can actually use these very hardships and shocking events to our advantage by letting them drive us deeper into Jesus.

When shocking events began to unfold, like Job, our first reaction should be to bow before the Lord in worship and thanksgiving, declaring that God is good, not because we are acting all fake and religious, but because we have learned along the way that when hardships occur, we actually want to turn to God and dive into His deep, not detach and turn away from Him in offense. In our season of preparation, God has changed our hearts to be like Jesus who always entrusted Himself to Father.

Thus, that which we “speak” about God’s word, we have come to intimately know as truth and so it will holds us when the storms blow. That is why God often speaks His word to us before the storm comes and then gives us time to believe it so that it works within us an intimate, knowing belief in who He is. When hardships come, this “knowing” place with God instantly activates and empowers us to take refuge in Him because we have learned to love and trust Him in all circumstances. And this is how we have come to know Him; we know, believe, and obey His living and active word.

Ephesians 6:13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.

Hebrews 10:23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.

True love and devotion for Jesus is and will be the only thing that holds us when we are opposed. No human compassion or love can hold us in what is coming in the earth. The revelation that we are about to begin seeing is how much God personally and intimately loves each one of us.

Jesus is going to begin to reveal to each individual the true Bridegroom heart—His intimate passionate longing for me as an individual… and who I am in what He has assigned me to be within His body. When we begin to get that revelation—the empowered knowing of how much Jesus loves individually us—we will be, by the Holy Spirit, empowered to respond back to Him with an equal love. But it will never be human love; it can only be divine love. God loves God. Jesus came and made the way for God to literally be put in us so that Father could love us and show it and have a relationship with us that reveals the truth of our Father’s love.

It is a great mystery in the Throne Room of Father; how it is all about Him, beginning to end, yet He has chosen to take it “being all about Him” and make it all about us. But in making it all about us, we are freed by the Spirit to give it back and make it all about Him. That’s intimacy. That is a truly interactive, intimate relationship. Because as much as I sit and long for Jesus, it’s such a pale shadow of His longing—His waiting for me to want Him the same way He wants me. We do not have the capacity in our own human physiology to generate that kind of love so He put His love in us by the Holy Spirit so that we can love God with the Love of God so that we can partake of God’s love for God in us.

Janet Weaver Smith © 8-11-2015 gardenministries.org

Revelation 10 Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven. He was robed in a cloud, with a rainbow above his head; his face was like the sun, and his legs were like fiery pillars. 2 He was holding a little scroll, which lay open in his hand. He planted his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land, 3 and he gave a loud shout like the roar of a lion. When he shouted, the voices of the seven thunders spoke. 4 And when the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write; but I heard a voice from heaven say, “Seal up what the seven thunders have said and do not write it down.” …

8 Then the voice that I had heard from heaven spoke to me once more: “Go, take the scroll that lies open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.” 9 So I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, “Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but ‘in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.'” 10 I took the little scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour. 11 Then I was told, “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages and kings.”

Ezekiel 3:1 And he said to me, “Son of man, eat what is before you, eat this scroll; then go and speak to the people of Israel.” 2 So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat.

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What is this scroll or open book? What are the 7 Thunders and why did they need to be “sealed up” and remain undisclosed until the end of the age? I propose that the 7 Thunders are bridal in nature and thus, their intimate nature, and what they impart are sealed up in this book until the bride is ready to receive them. I propose that this 7 Thunders revelation begins to happen when the Revelation 8:1 7th seal is opened. The Apostle John is a bride-type. As such, he is the one who took the now open book that was sealed, which means that both he and the end-time bride of Christ are ready to receive what the 7 Thunders are about to declare and impart. These impartations release the necessary changes for the bride to carry out her Romans 8:19 calling of manifest sonship and her 2-witnesses-empowered assignments in the earth. This ready bride can receive the release of the 7 Thunders because the Holy Spirit has made her ready for Jesus. Empowered by the impartations that the 7 Thunders release, as Jesus’ own agent of change, the Christ-filled bride can now release on earth in the prayer room what is ignited in heaven on the golden altar of incense and prayer.

Prior to this release, it is no surprise that many in the body of Christ have experienced an unprecedented and extraordinarily long, extremely hard, faith building, death-to-self, alive-to-Christ process. The groaning nature of a birthing bride has culminated to its peaking point. Those who have said “Yes!” to Jesus as His cleansing Word sanctifies them through and through, they are crying out in pain as He prepares them for birth and for that change when they become fully conformed into His likeness and ready to receive His fullness of love poured out. They are passing through the last layers of the veil of Satan’s religious spirit that has separated earth and heaven all this time. The jezebelic religious spirit is Satan’s attempt to counterfeit God’s Holy Spirit, holding to a form of “godliness” but denying the power of transformation that only the Holy Spirit can deliver. As the church repents of her double-minded tares and puts off the religious spirit within her in favor of believing and obeying the entirety of God’s Word, the bride emerges clean and pure, unstained by the world. The confrontation of the ages has come to an all-time-high head and the final squeeze before the push is upon us. Some people are even feeling spinning and nausea as they spiritually pass through this last layer of the veil.

This extreme process points toward an unprecedented event that is about to happen that will be epic in nature and of which the 7 Thunders will likely be released to a ready bride. To prophetically symbolize the process, both the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel and the New Testament Apostle John were both instructed to eat a scroll that contained the living, active Word of God which was sweet to the taste and for John, sweet but also bitter in his belly. John experienced the future Laodicean-age nausea from the eaten scroll (Revelation 3:16: lukewarm “Christians” who would not receive the love of God’s corrections and rebukes caused God to vomit them out). Both Ezekiel and John were commanded to release the prophetic unction they had eaten when the time was ripe. Ezekiel prophesied in his time and John has prophesied and will again prophesy “in his time.” Later in this article, I disclose how John’s “time” may have a 2,000 (plus or minus) year time span.

This sets a Biblical precedent for a prophetic and apostolic body to be asked to “eat the Word of God” and be ready to prophesy. For those who have “eaten” the Word of God and, like John, are asked to seek and eat the end-time bridal revelation of the Daniel 12 and the Revelation 10 scroll containing the yet-to-be-revealed 7 Thunders understanding, this is the time to enter through the Revelation 4:1 “open door” and access heaven’s unlocked mysteries—especially those of the 7 Thunders. All believers in Jesus Christ are invited to seek God in this way. This is the time to seek the Word of God and let it go into us and divide out our soulish, world-entrenched ways of living and bring us into the fullness of a Spirit-led life. It is a struggle but one that is promised a tremendous, historical outcome. The Cloud of Witnesses that have gone before us rejoice over this day and pray for us to enter into this bridal reality and finish our course so that they can finish theirs with us. The fullness of Hebrews 12 and Isaiah 26:2 is at hand. “Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter, the nation that keeps faith.”

One current minister who has been seeking the 7 Thunders revelation is Paul Keith Davis from WhiteDove Ministries. In a very vulnerable openness, he is boldly releasing his prophetic pursuit of this message so that what he gets, others can chew on and see how the Lord owns it (or not) in their own heart. This is an example of the prophetic body of Christ working their “parts and pieces” together in prayer and scriptural grounding to discover together what the whole message is for our times. Paul Keith Davis proposes that the 7 Thunders are likely to be what heaven is listening to as it falls silent for one half hour after the breaking of the 7th seal. (Paul Keith’s message: https://vod.whitedoveministries.org/the-seven-thunders-part-2-paul-keith-davis-august-4-2015/)

It is important not to prematurely conclusively judge something that may still be in the process of becoming a full revelation but is yet in its unfolding and partial stage of revelation. To prematurely stamp as “right or wrong” what may still be in the process of discovery, without letting the fruit of its end point come and reveal its wisdom (or not) is what 1 Thessalonians 5:20-22 warns us not to do; that is “to treat prophecy with contempt.” “Contempt” in Greek: exoutheneó means to: ignore, set to naught, despise.

1 Corinthians 13:10 but when completeness [teleios] comes, what is in part disappears [katargéō]. The “completeness” has not yet fully come, but when it does, what is “in part” will fall away. In the meantime, we are in a process of maturing and discovery that will culminate in a Christ-like fullness and a maturity that empowers us to let go of what is partial because we have been filled by the One who has makes us completely whole.

1 Corinthians 13:11 When I was a child [Greek: népios: unlearned, immature], I talked, thought, and reasoned like a child [immature]. When I became [Greek: ginomai] a man, I put the ways [Greek: katargéō] of childhood [immaturity] behind me.

So let us press on to discover the revelation of the 7 Thunders bridal mystery and not be afraid of the challenging process it may entail. Be warned though! Eager false accusers stand at-the-ready with insults and dis-accreditation of character for anyone who may attempt to pass through this open door by seeking the greater revelation of this now-open bride’s “book.” Self-centered people who say they are Christians but are afraid of experiencing the mystical supernatural of God will try to undermine, and even oppress those who believe that God is mystically supernatural in nature and that the revelation of His Word can still unfold into a greater understanding of God’s eternal purposes, i.e., the bridal paradigm.

But who made these unbelieving, I-know-better “believers” our judge? Shall we succumb to the fear-of-man and unbelief grounded in the pride of intellectualism and religion rather than align ourselves with our ever-unfolding and revealing, mystically profound and supernatural God? This is the time to aggressively pursue the revelation that completes our understanding of God so that the fullness of Christ’s love can be poured out into us. Romans 5:3-5: “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

All the more, let us seek to know the all-powerful, mighty Spirit of wisdom and revelation and find out more about the Ephesians 5:32 “profound mystery” behind the bridal paradigm of Christ and His church. What is it that has been sealed up and reserved for us who live at the end of ages? We must lay hold of it. We must not be way laid by name-calling insults. They are par for the course. We cannot be put off by our frustrations with our own personal incompleteness either. He who began a good work in us will complete it!

Fixed on the promises of God, we are to look upward, worship God, pray, and get together in fellowship with like-hearted people—regularly. For those pressing in for the fullness and the unveiling of knowing Christ and His hidden treasures, we are to both seek and give time for the ripened fruit to become clear before we make definitive conclusions about unfolding revelation that is not contradicting scripture. It is tragic when we shut the creative process down by swooping in with our editorial fear-hats on, slicing and dicing what has not yet been fully formed. It’s best to wait until the baby is born before we start cleaning it up from its bloody, beautiful birth!

Not all revelation has to be established as doctrine and taught in every basic Christianity classroom. Paul said that there were mysteries and concepts that were for the mature that would overwhelm baby Christians (Hebrews 5:11-12). An example of an “unfolding revelation” that I don’t need to form into a doctrinal teaching would be something like this: I personally believe that the Apostle John did not physically die but was transfigured into a pre-resurrection-body “fullness” that allows him to access both the physical and spiritual realm like Jesus had before he went to the cross. When Jesus’ physical life was threatened, and because His “time had not yet come,” Jesus could “disappear” into crowds. Thus, when necessary, Jesus manifested a “cloak of invisibility.” (Luke 4:30, John 8:50 and 10:39, Luke 24:31) I personally believe that the Apostle John is still alive and walks the earth while being fully clothed in his transfigured state and has a “cloak of invisibility” from which he can appear to one person and at the same time no one else around that person can see him. He can also translate to various places around the globe and traverse between heaven and earth as the fullness of the Holy Spirit empowers him.

This is a remarkable ability and will be characteristic of those who become fully matured and transfigured into Christ’s fullness. This is what the remnant overcomer bride can expect to happen to her when the fullness comes to her before she receives her final resurrected body form at Christ’s second coming. Jesus had 3 phases to his bodily changes. Phase 1: transfigured. Phase 2: resurrected from death with am 11 (or more) dimensional body that was able to pass through walls and yet eat physical food. Phase 3: ascended resurrection body and eternally crowned with all dominion, authority, and majesty.

Like Jesus before His ascension and like John as our bride-type, there will be Phase 1 and 2 overcomers walking the earth in their rewards, supernaturally infused with unique abilities. Abilities such as having their youthful vigor completely restored because they are able to eat from the Tree of Life and not die or be killed unless they are led by the Spirit to let themselves be martyred, or the ability to translate from place to place (as the Apostle Philip demonstrated) as the Spirit leads them, or the ability to employ a cloak of invisibility when needed, and best of all—the ability to discern and release the perfect will of Father God in the moment. And all of this will be experienced before they receive Phase 3 of their final resurrected body changes that happens at Christ’s “every eye will see Him” return. One of the benefits of being transfigured is that the tyranny of time that the spirit of this age subjects people to no longer affects that person. Time is no longer painful because the power of its limitations has broken off of the transfigured bride.

The married bride of Jesus lives above the power of time and no longer lives inside of it—subject to its limitations. Thus, the Apostle John who I believe has lived nearly 2,000 years does not experience long periods of time as painful because in his eternally transfigured state, the tyranny of time, aging, and the power of death do not affect him. This will happen to a transfigured, Phase 1 and 2 bride as well.

This same Apostle John, and those transfigured as he has been have yet to fulfill end-time assignments. Revelation 10 tells us that John is yet to prophesy what he heard the 7 Thunders say. When the seal that kept him quiet is opened, he will do just that—and so will the bride! The Revelation of the 7 Thunders will not in any way contradict scriptural truths but will unveil a bigger scope of bridal understanding. John does not act alone. He also represents a company of unshackled lovers of Jesus who will not rest until they are fully known by and who intimately know Jesus.

An example of how the mystery of a “Thunder” can be revealed, executed, and remain completely within the context of scriptural truth could look like this: I propose that one of these bridal thunders, and perhaps the first of the 7, is the declaration of truth that Jesus Christ is LORD of His bridal body and that as such, it is time for the release of the supernatural empowerment of God to fully transform the faithful wise virgin bride into Christ’s own image. Those who stayed faithful to Jesus as He completed His LORDSHIP process in them receive their overcomer reward(s). Perhaps the 7 Thunders are directly related to the 7 churches overcomer rewards.

For example, the church of Thyatira was commanded to repent of sinful compromise by tolerating “jezebel” who taught that sinning was ok. This false doctrine, prevalent in the religious system of today, has “fed” the dark veil of the religious spirit (the tares within us) and is fueled by fear, doubt, and unbelief. Overcomers are commanded to utterly repent of such beliefs and shed all compromise with sin by embracing the cross and the grace of God. From this baptism of repentance, a pure and spotless bride emerges with, in this case, the promise of authority to rule and reign in the intimate knowledge of the Morningstar Himself.

As with all Revelation church age promises, the inworking of the Holy Spirit in the overcomer completely supplants all other “loves” and “gods” in the bridal heart of Christ’s followers.With a fully circumcised heart, the bride of Jesus cries out in union with the Spirit, “COME!” Released by the Father, Jesus, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, impassioned for His bride, does indeed “COME!” and releases His marital benefits to His trusting, submissive bride as His fullness enters her sanctified faith and transforms her into His image. One with Jesus, the bride is now unveiled having become the very transfigured and transformed flesh and bone of His body on earth.

This royal exchange of the LORD Jesus’ bridal declaration of thunder serves as the final thrust that ousts the dragon from middle heaven having been completely purged from it by Michael and his angelic company of warriors. What goes up must push down! The completion of the Phase 1 and 2 bride supplants Satan and a loud voice in heaven says: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.” (Revelation 12:10)

To Fully Know and Be Known: The “Teleios” Completion and Church of the Open (Heart) Door – Janet Weaver Smith ©7-20-2015 gardenministries.org

1 Corinthians 13:12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

As long as I can remember, I have had a deep, and often painful longing to “fully know and be known” by those I love and cherish. When the deep-to-deep longing triggers within me toward a loved one, I feel pathetically inept in my effort to communicate how mushy-much I love them. This gift of love within me was supposed to be a relationship builder but instead seemed more awkward then welcome. Turns out, mushy, openhearted, gushing is not most people’s gig! Invading their ice palaces is not cool!

I have come to understand that though these longings often come as joyful explosions, they come from and belong to the Author of Love, Jesus, and are His to lead, guide, and direct. The longing to know and be known gets me in trouble if I direct them toward my own self-fulfillment. I get rejected or used or some of both. Once I learned that the people who’s deep-of-God has triggered my deep-of-God are not my Source for true and lasting “knowing” satisfaction, I came to peace with Whom and through Whom these deep heart longings must be processed. They come from God, they belong to God, and are how I come to fully know Him and become fully known by Him. If God is left out of this equation, it gets messy real quick.

Scripture validates such longings. The deep desire to know and be known is a part of a much bigger picture—a God picture. This is how God feels about the people He created to enjoy relationship with Him. Those “Sons of Korah” who wrote Psalm 42 for the Music Director describe this painful longing. The Psalmist tells us that God’s impassioned deep calls out to our deep and it isn’t a tiny little pipsqueak. No. God’s deep roars like a waterfall and sweeps over us with crashing waves.

Such powerful longings need leadership. Now, when relational longings trigger and spark within me, I understand that God is letting me into His rich treasure temple and dwelling place—the very heart of His people. I get to feel God’s deep desire for His beloved family. He shared this intimate place of His heart with me so that I would return it to Him in intercession and praise. I get to swim with Holy Spirit leading me through His vast ocean of love and if I keep the relationship simple and surrendered, my prayer love for God’s people enjoys successful outcomes. The Holy Spirit’s deep intercession is at work weaving the parts and pieces of His people together into peace-enriched wholeness and “Teleios” completeness.

There is coming a day when that work will emerge from its womb of hiddenness and become visible for all to see, encounter, and enjoy! And this completeness can happen before the second, visible coming of Jesus Christ to earth. Whatever Jesus modeled for us while He walked the earth is available to those who believe in Him and, at all cost, seek union with Him. He was transfigured into the fullness before He went to the cross and died. We too can experience that same fullness in Him before we die or before He visibly comes again.

1 Corinthians 13:10 but when completeness [teleios] comes, what is in part disappears [katargéō].

The Greek transliteration of “completeness” in 1 Corinthians 13:10 is “teleios” which biblehub.com tells us means: “perfect, (a) complete in all its parts, (b) full grown, of full age, (c) specially of the completeness of Christian character—mature (consummated) from going through the necessary stages to reach the end-goal, i.e. developed into a consummating completion by fulfilling the necessary process (spiritual journey) [This root (tel-) means “reaching the end (aim).” It is well-illustrated with the old pirate’s telescope, unfolding (extending out) one stage at a time to function at full-strength (capacity effectiveness).]”

As I was praying and worshipping the Lord on 7-14-15, I briefly saw a vision of a man holding a long, trumpet-looking, monocular telescope. I knew “the man” was angelic and wondered if his name was or meant “Teleios.” The “man’s” message was the “message of completion” and he was looking through the telescope for those who would recognize, welcome, and celebrate his message of becoming teleios—perfected and complete in Christ.

1 Corinthians 13:11 When I was a child [Greek: népios: unlearned, immature], I talked, thought, and reasoned like a child [immature]. When I became [Greek: ginomai] a man, I put the ways [Greek: katargéō] of childhood [immaturity] behind me.

Paul is saying that as we emerge into spiritual adulthood we will be compelled and empowered to leave our immaturity behind us. The Greek word katargéō means: to idle down, render something inert (“completely inoperative”); i.e. being of no effect (totally without force, completely brought down); done away with, cause to cease and therefore abolish; make invalid, abrogate (bring to nought); “to make idle or inactive.”

1 Corinthians 13:10 but when completeness [Gr. teleios] comes, what is in part disappears [Gr. katargéō]. In other words, when God’s completeness (perfected maturity) comes, I will deactivate and do away with the results of my brokenness. Once His completion comes, my frustrating “not-yet’s” will become clear and easily deactivated [Gr. katargéō].

The maturing process is an emerging process. Paul said, “I became a man.” The Greek for “became” is gínomai, which means: to emerge, become, transitioning from one point (realm, condition) to another. When we live by faith, we are living heaven-downward. Our Christ-centered identity is exercised and emerges into our earthly existence—not the other way around. Crucified with Christ means that we are seated with Him in heavenly places and living heaven-downward by faith in Him. (For more on “ginomai,” see my article “The Visible Invisible”)

Scripture tells us that completeness leads to putting away and deactivating weaknesses. The responsibility for empowering me to deactivate my crap is on God to release in His completion and is on me only in the sense of waiting, hoping, and believing that He can and will do it. That means that the full responsibility is on God to complete me with Himself and the only responsibility I have is to believe that He wants to complete me and that He will do what He has promised to do. Even the grace to wait patiently and believe this truth is on Him to release to me. My simple “Yes” to God is all I’ve got to give Him. “Yes!” is what God asks of me to become my All-in-all.

So now, when I run into my insufferable “not-yet’s” (or someone else’s), I can turn to Him and lay these “not-yet’s” at His feet and say, “Come and complete me!” “Come and complete them!” I cannot change my own heart or anyone else’s, but God can. Praise the LORD! I will see some of my “not-yet’s” deactivated during the maturing, emerging process and the rest will be deactivated on the day of His full completion.

Thus, the famous 1 Corinthians 13 “Love Chapter” of the Bible is telling us a big secret! God stands at the door and knocks and initiates love by activating our deep longings for Him through the fire of the Holy Spirit sparking and triggering our deep, creative center. This is the time to become vulnerably open, honest, and “fully knowable” by God in our thoughts and desires. This is how we invite Him in. No excuses. No cover stories. Just, “Come on in Jesus. Know me (especially in the places where I am afraid of knowing You).”

We do this with the hope that one-day, His completeness will come and we will be empowered to gladly deactivate all former, immature thinking, reasoning, and speech. When His preparation for completeness process comes to the “teleios” end and the fullness is poured out upon our prepared heart, our face will be empowered to unashamedly and directly initiate toward His face and respond to Him in utter dependence and complete trust with no more separation, no more excuses, and no more holding back.

When Jesus knocks on our door and asks for more, we respond to His sweet, and sometimes painful initiation of love and open the door—even if we have to pry it open. The Church of the Open (Heart) Door means that as His body, we are opening the door to our hearts and letting God “know us” and complete us in our deep, core places. As we grow in our trust of Him, we will stop hiding from God in any area of our lives. Deep-to-deep, “fully known and knowing” means that like Adam and Eve in the garden before the fall, God has completed us and as such, we are able to gladly deactivate all shame, pretending, hiding, and hypocrisy. Nothing and no one holds our hearts but Him.

Sealed forever in His love, we are simply free to be utterly honest and transparent (i.e., “naked”) with our loving Creator God. Face-toward-face and deep-to-deep, we, the longing parts and pieces of His heart and dwelling place, have finally become heart knit and one with Him. Together, we are at rest in the One who is Love.

Janet Weaver Smith ©7-7-2015 gardenministries.org

Three words should describe the character and heart posture of those who follow Jesus and encounter opposition to their beliefs: Gentle. Steadfast. Immovable. Ephesians 4:2-3, 1 Corinthians 15:58.

There is a sizeable culture shift underway in America in relation to how the 66-books of the Bible are viewed and practiced as a legitimate source for moral guidance and truth. There are those who are rapidly distancing themselves from the literal nature of this holy book and there are those who are ready to stake their very lives upon the Biblical moral code and upon the God of creation who wrote the book through inspired humans. With the very fabric of our nations foundational ethics shaking, how do believers in Jesus Christ stand firm during this tumultuous time and how do we deal with the “fine sounding arguments” that disbelievers use to contradict and undermine the spiritual authority of the Bible? Colossians 2:2-4, 8

It is moral compromise to only partially believe a Biblical truth while also agreeing with a “fine sounding argument” that denies, undermines, or diminishes what the Bible clearly says about a matter. Suppose a parent writes a note to their childcare provider clearly defining what, when, and how to care for their children while they are gone. After the parent’s are gone, can you imagine the caregiver changing the plan without asking the parent’s because they decided that the parent’s did not actually literally mean what they said? In a healthy, thriving family environment, who has the final say for how the child is treated and raised and who is ultimately held responsible for how they raised the child: the parent’s or the childcare provider? The parent’s.

The Bible was given to humanity as a Tutor to lead us into an intimate relationship with God’s Word—Who is a Person named Jesus. When we reject this holy Tutor, we are rejecting it’s Author. But there is no neutral in making this distinction. By rejecting Jesus and undermining His Word, we are accepting another belief system. When we do not hold fast to the Word of Life, we open the door to a spirit of empty religion, which causes spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical instability because it is full of hypocrisy and delusional excuses because there is no real power to transform us into someone better—that is Christ Jesus. Empty Religion merely “holds to a form of godliness but denies the power” of God to change us to become like Him.
2 Timothy 3:5

Empty religion is like the “squeaky wheel gets the grease” cliché since the loudest, most dominating and controlling force demands all the power and attention and establishes the lists of “do’s and don’ts” that best support the ideology of the biggest squeakers. There is no neutral in power struggles. An outside-in, fear-based, control-and-domination rules-and-regulations legal system must fill the void whenever people’s own hearts and consciences cannot hold them to a moral center. When the law written on people’s heart’s becomes seared and jaded, all access to the fruits of the Holy Spirit has closed. Because there is no real love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control that rule the heart and create a safe human environment, laws are put into practice to replace what the Spirit-filled heart is supposed to supply. Galatians 5:16-26

As soldiers of Christ, we “follow the rules of engagement” and bend our knee in gentle submission, holding fast to God’s Word. In doing this, “we demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:5, 2 Timothy 2:5, Colossians 2:2-4,8, Proverbs 30:5,6, John 14:6, Galatians 4:3

Take for example the increasing number of “fine sounding arguments” concerning the church’s position on the issue of homosexuality. Christian churches must now decide whether or not the Bible is God’s literal word and whether or not they abide by it as their resource for God’s truth about this and other matters. For those of us who hold fast to the word of life and believe that the 66-books of the Bible are the Holy Spirit spoken, trustworthy words of God, we can refer to those scriptures that define human sexuality and abide by God’s commands concerning them. We don’t add to them, redefine them, or subtract from them. We respect that God says what He means and means what He says and because we love Him, we obey Him, knowing and trusting that our Creator’s commands are good for us. Proverbs 30:4-5

So what do the 66 books of God’s gracious word to His created humanity say about human sexual union?God revealed His created design for sexual union when He first created mankind as a “male-female” person named “Adam.” Genesis 2:22-24. By separating the female from out of the male, God solved Adam’s state of “aloneness” by giving him a counterpart; a woman, made in God’s image, who of her own free will, could rejoin herself and come together with her husband in love to conduct a unique, interdependent, collaborative, productive relationship.

The emotional-physical part of coming together in loving passion through sexual union even created new life and innately provided a new life with a holistic male-female, God-like family environment in which the child could grow. A light bulb needs a male-female connection for power to light it up. The original blueprint for human procreation requires a male-female contribution and God’s design made it so the “connecting parts” fit perfectly together as male and female. This design forever reveals God’s original “It is good” plan.

For a time, because the sinful fall of mankind introduced unfavorable human conditions, especially for women, as a form of protection and preservation, some men had multiple wives. Though not the ideal one-man-one-woman marriage, this “workaround” was preferred to the existing alternatives of prostitution, slavery, and homeless wanderings. By the time the Apostle Paul wrote his instructions for church overseers, culture had progressed enough for him to require overseers to return to the ideal setup and to “be the husband of one wife.” 1 Timothy 3:2

Ephesians 5 further elevates the symbolic value of marriage when Paul likens a godly marriage to represent a heavenly one: that is, Jesus Christ as the bridegroom and His devoted first-love followers as His bride. The marriage bed was to remain unadulterated and pure as it was learned that this form of intimacy directly represented Christ’s unadulterated love for His bride and her devoted love for Him. The Holy Spirit also led Paul to write extensively about the sinful consequences of rejecting God’s created design for marriage and human sexual union. Hebrews 13:4, 1 Timothy 1:9-11, 1 Corinthians 6:9, Romans 1: 25-27

And what is a Christian’s gentle, immovable response to Bible-demeaning “fine sounding arguments” about human sexuality? We are to follow Jesus’ example and discern the motive behind the conversation. Is this a discussion where the people involved are truly seeking a greater knowledge of the truth of who God is or is the motive to prove opposing views wrong using “fine sounding arguments” that cause division and striving. It’s all about motive and the overall objective behind the discussion. Discern but don’t condemn. This is how we remain gentle and immovable.

The motive behind what the Bible calls deceptive “fine sounding arguments” is usually to discredit its spiritual authority in order to justify what the Bible calls “sinful actions” so as to eliminate the need for repentance and turning to Jesus for forgiveness or to relate to Him from a position of surrender and reliance.

Some believe the 66-books of the Bible is God’s inerrant word. Some do not. And some hold a fuzzy line and believe parts and pieces of the Bible are God’s word, but not the whole. Most people go through a process in believing that God exists and that the 66 books of the Bible are His literal words to mankind. Once that has been decided, the relationship with God’s word begins and followers of Jesus Christ learn that the Bible contains clear personal guidance to help them grow in their realization of how profoundly God loves them.

Wherever a person is at in that process directly affects where his or her moral compass finds its “true north” and determines how they process and make moral decisions when presented with “fine sounding arguments.” These arguments get their “fine sounding” status because they often capitalize on the tender sides of human nature, such as compassion and justice, but create confusion and hypocrisy because what is “right and wrong” is subject to change. And because “right and wrong” is fuzzy so is its rhetoric.

Empty words are spoken because the speaker has no sound, anchored bearings from which they speak. Truth cannot be divided or split up into hypocrisy. It is whole and complete and imparts peace. All that does not come from truth will not resonate and hit a person’s moral tuning fork within them and thus, its empty words ultimately become subject to enforcement by intimidation rather than peaceful trust.

In stark contrast to morally floppy messengers, Jesus has never spoken an “empty” word? At all times, even while under great duress, Jesus, led by the Holy Spirit, either remained silent or only spoke and acted in total and complete, reverent submission to the Father. Just like Jesus, we are to guard the integrity of our words and are to follow the Holy Spirit as we speak or remain silent. Matthew 10:19-20, Hebrews 4:12-13, 2 Peter 1:20-21, 2 Peter 2:1-2 Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.

If we want people to trust the words of Jesus in us, then we must let Him teach us how and when to speak what He is saying. We must overcome the compulsion to “save” people in our own fearful and impatient striving to defend and prove ourselves “more right” in times of dispute. Instead, as we sink into complete gentleness and patience and restfully wait for the Holy Spirit to speak (or not) and simply follow Him. Ephesians 4:2

Referenced Scriptures (New International Version):

Colossians 2:2-4,8 My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments [Gr: pithanologia = persuasive speech.]. 8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world [i.e., worldly principles] rather than on Christ.

Ephesians 4:2-3 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

Galatians 5:16-26 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

2 Timothy 2:5 Similarly, anyone who competes as an athlete does not receive the victor’s crown except by competing according to the rules.

John 14:6 “I [Jesus] am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Galatians 4:3 So also, when we were underage, we were held in bondage under the elemental spiritual forces of the world [i.e. worldly principles held us in bondage].

Proverbs 30:4-5 Every word of God is tested; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. 6Do not add to His words Or He will reprove you, and you will be proved a liar.

Genesis 2:22-24 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

Hebrews 13:4 Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.

1 Timothy 1:9-11 We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, 10 for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality [Greek: arsenokoites = a male engaging in same-gender sexual activity], for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine 11 that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.

1 Corinthians 6:9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men.

Romans 1: 25-27 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.

Revelation 3:16 So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

Matthew 10:19-20 But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, 20 for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

2 Peter 1:20-21 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit

2 Peter 2:1-2 But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.

Hebrews 4:12-13 For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. 13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

1 Corinthians 2:13-14 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.

Ephesians 4:17-25 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility [Greek: mataiotés = emptiness, unreality, purposelessness, ineffectiveness, instability, frailty; false religion] of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed. 20 That, however, is not the way of life you learned 21 when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. 25 Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body.

Philippians 2:14 Do everything without grumbling or arguing, 15 so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky 16 as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain [Gr. kenos].

Janet Weaver Smith ©2015 – gardenministries.org

How we process life’s inevitable disappointments determines whether we are growing from them or shrinking. The bitter root of unforgiveness is sewn in the heart of a person who has processed their disappointments into a state of dis- or unbelief toward God.

Unforgiveness results in striving. Because we do not trust God’s forms of justice and His ability to work everything together for our good, we create our own “justice plan” through judgments and vows. We say something like, “thus-and-so was wrongfully done and I will NEVER do that! This-or-that is what I will do to counter that injustice.” And then we go our way thinking we have settled the matter.

Rather than come to center and trust God’s justice, because we mistrust God and broken people, we swing all the way over to the other ditch and form a self-reliant “who and what I am against” justice rather than a God-reliant, word-centered “who I am for” justice.

If we skip the first step of forgiveness, our judgment against perpetrators and subsequent vows to “never do that ourselves” are founded on our own strength which literally sets us in motion toward doing the very thing we vowed not to do, but usually in a different way than was done to us so we deceive ourselves into thinking we are upholding our vows.

Until we are willing to humble ourselves and forgive, we will “excuse” our hypocrisy of doing the same thing, or worse, that we vowed not to do. And until we can admit to our own hypocrisy and failure to bring true justice, we will keep striving to fulfill our judgmental vows by attempting to prove that we are right in our conclusions. Eventually, proving our “rightness” becomes equally or more important than the actual getting of justice.

Tribulations either drive us toward God or away from Him. Hardship is how Jesus learned and modeled obedient love. To become an overcoming bride for Jesus, we are to follow Him through life’s obstacle course in an ever-increasing, reliant trust.

God uses trouble and difficulties to create a deeper, more intimate relationship with Him. It is the fiery trials that prove our faith as genuine and what creates real relationship with God and others. We are less harsh when we learn to forgive and remember how He has forgiven us.

If we are finding it difficult to forgive someone, we can simply ask the Lord to remind us of the times and areas where we currently need or have needed forgiveness or where we are justifying our own bad behavior toward someone. This levels the playing field pretty quickly and helps us better value God’s mercy. Matthew 5:7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Forgiveness protects us from the pain of becoming judgmental, vindictive, and hypocritical. Forgiveness kills bitter roots and gives us clear vision to see the truth of God that sets us free.

For more on “Judgments – Vows and Bitter Roots” see:

Teachings

http://www.cornerstone.ag/pdf/PDFIsaiah61BandF/bitter.pdf

Everyone has their process in believing that God exists and that the 66 books of the Bible are His literal words to mankind and contain personal conduct guidance to help us grow in our love relationship with God.

Some believe the Bible is God’s word. Some do not. And some believe parts and pieces of the Bible, but not the whole. Wherever a person is at in that process directly affects where his or her moral compass finds its “true north.”

We can say from our experience where we are at in our process:

We believe that the 66-book Bible is the literal and true word of God. As believer’s in Jesus Christ, our personal relationship with His Holy Spirit helps us better understand what God is saying in His word and how we can become more like Him by listening to Him and obeying His word.

We have learned first-hand that we can trust the 66-book Bible to help us love God and love people more compassionately and fairly. We believe that it is God who directs our love relationship with Him and who lays down the moral and ethical ground rules, not the other way around.

We prefer the New American Standard (NAS) or the New International (NIV) versions of the Bible but also enjoy The Message and the New King James (NKJV) versions. In our more robust times of study, we especially enjoy looking into the original Old Testament Hebrew and New Testament Greek.

2 Timothy 3:15-17 from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

Philippians 2:15-16 so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life

Revelation 22:19 I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book; And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll.

Janet Weaver Smith – May 22, 2015 – September 28, 2016 ©gardenministries.org

Before the middle heaven veil is fully torn away and the millennial age of Christ’s rule on earth begins, the constraints of time and the fallen human nature directly affect what is visible and what is invisible to the human eye. (For more on this subject, see my article entitled, “The Visible Invisible.”)

Grounded in the Living Word and guided by the testimony of Jesus Christ through the Spirit of Prophecy (Hebrews 6:5, Revelation 19:21), a believer has living access to realms beyond their body’s physical ability to see and perceive. Our illumined heart-eyes can cross a prophetic bridge between heaven and earth and see outside of the constraints and limitations of this age into the not-yet-seen invisible realm of the Kingdom of God and the age to come. Peering through this lens, I write this article about the Spirit of Might and Power and the Coming(s) of Christ.

Samson was a sarcastic punster who loved wordplays and riddles and integrated them into his powerful exploits as the Spirit of the LORD came upon him in might. Judges 15:14-16 As [Samson] approached Lehi [Hebrew for “jawbone”]; the Philistines came toward him shouting. The Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon him [Samson]. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax, and the bindings dropped from his hands. 15 Finding a fresh jawbone [Hebrew – lehi] of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men. 16 Then Samson said, “With a donkey’s jawbone I have made donkeys of them. With a donkey’s jawbone I have killed a thousand men.”

The Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon Samson and empowered him to single-handedly slay 1,000 charging warriors. Because the Spirit of Might’s immense power, Samson probably did not even need the donkey’s jawbone as a weapon. It seems that Samson deliberately chose to yank out a donkey’s “fresh” jawbone to make a point and used the jawbone as an ironic, sarcastic “nod” to the place called Lehi (i.e., “Jawbone”) where he made “donkey’s” out of his enemies.

Paul prayed in Ephesians 1:17-23 that by the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, we would know God better and have the “eyes or our heart” illumined so that we could see three very important things:

1. The hope to which we are called.
2. The riches of the Everlasting Father’s glorious inheritance in his holy people.
3. Almighty God’s incomparably great power for “us who believe” which is the same as His mighty strength exerted when raising Christ from the dead and us who believe with Him.

How do we access these three promises and gain access to the Spirit of Might and Power?

• By never giving in to hopelessness, despair, or empty religion that does not require faith.
• By consuming and holding fast to the prophetically inspired Word of God—
especially His Word in the 66 books of the Bible.
• By asking Jesus to make us His ready bride and continuing to say “Yes!” to Him in our process of overcoming evil and trusting and relying wholeheartedly upon God.
• By letting perseverance finish its work so that we become mature and complete (James 1:4).
• By turning to Jesus and continually offering up great praise—no matter how we feel.
• By loving Jesus as our First Love and patiently waiting for Him to fulfill His Word. Love is Patient.

As Kingdom Priests who are being prepared to reign on the earth with Christ during The Millennium, we are called to continually offer up the spiritual sacrifice of Great Praise. This helps stave off hopelessness and despair and engages a BIG key toward opening the door to breakthrough! The Angel of Great Praise activates and opens doors for Great Change as God Himself comes and inhabits His chosen dwelling place in His beloved people (Psalm 22:3, Ephesians 2:22, 1 Peter 2:5, Revelation 5:10, Luke 2:13).

The Spirit of Might and Power is necessary for the government of God to function in the earth. Jesus is the head of His body and His governing bride will be in perfect union with Him.

Isaiah 9:6-7 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end.

Revelation 12:5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: In the following text, I submit to each believer in Jesus Christ what I believe are inspired possibilities. It is likely that I do not yet see the entire or complete picture and thus accept that, as the Spirit of Understanding and Wisdom hones it into completion, there may be some tweaks to this verbalization of what I have been seeing and perceiving.)

As we know, the Bible teaches us that the Son of God came to earth and took on human flesh in order to fulfill His Father’s will and offer Himself as a sinless, fully human sacrifice unto God on behalf of all sinful humanity, thus establishing His rightful place as the Savior of those who believe in Him and as the loving King of the universe for all eternity.

Through the work of the indwelling Holy Spirit within an asking-seeking-knocking believer in Jesus Christ, a process of preparation is underway. Prepared for what, or better said, for Whom? They are being prepared to receive Jesus in his “comings” or “arrivals.” Notice the use of a plural form of “coming” and “arrival?”

For Bible believers, we already know that the plural form of “coming” is accepted because Jesus has already come once and has also promised to come again. However, in His Last Day’s coming, could it be that it happens progressively and in stages? For example, after a series of some very intense happenings in the earth in what is termed, “The Day of the Lord,” Joel 2:28-30 prophesies that God will pour out His Spirit and as a result, believers who have received His Spirit will supernaturally experience and express the Presence of God like never before. I believe that we can call the Joel 2:28-30 outpouring of the Spirit of God one of a few waves of The Lord’s end-time coming(s). This wave, along with a preceding wave, results in preparing believers for His final full-on physical appearing, which is the final wave that changes everything forever. Thus, I believe the Lord’s Last Day’s coming is of a 3-fold nature.

I call the first wave Christ’s parousia coming. I see this “coming” as a wave that usually happens over time and comes to a hungry, seeking believer in Jesus. He comes in a deeply private, somewhat hidden work of the Holy Spirit. I see that this wave is that which prepares the believer to become what I call, “The Word Bride.” Though possibly severely tested in their faith, these “Word Bride” believers will not undermine, devalue, or deny the 66-books of the Bible as being God’s true Word. They are those who prove faithful to His Word and His promises by holding fast to them, even when directly challenged by fear, doubt, and unbelief.

The Word Bride has come to intimately know and love the Person who is called The Word: Jesus Christ. Loving God by obeying His Word is how this lovesick bride is perfected and made complete in Christ’s parousia coming to her privately and personally revealing Himself to her and asking for Her response of faithfulness and love. In the end of this cycle, the perfected bride loves Christ even more than what He has promised her! (Matthew 24:3, 1 Thess. 2:19, 3:13, 4:15, 5:23, 2 Thess. 2:1, 8, James 5:7-8, 1 Peter 1:16, 2 Peter 3:4, 12, 1 John 2:28)

I call the 2nd wave Christ’s epipháneia coming. Titus 2:10-13 describes an epipháneia of His grace and then of His glory. “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people. 12 It trains us to renounce ungodly living and worldly passions so that we might live sensible, honest, and godly lives in the present age 13 as we wait for the blessed hope and glorious appearance of our great God and Savior, Jesus the Messiah. 14 He gave himself for us to set us free from every wrong and to cleanse us so that we could be his special people who are enthusiastic about doing good deeds. (1 Timothy 6:14, 2 Timothy 1:10, 2 Timothy 4:1, 8)

This epipháneia coming is Christ’s Spirit filling His faithful, steadfast Word Bride with more visible manifestations of Himself, for example, through the Spirit of Might and Power. Faithfulness in this 2nd wave means that the Word Bride continues to hold fast to His Word and furthermore, gives all glory to her husband, Jesus. Filled to the fullness of Christ, and in love with Him heart, soul, and body, the Spirit-filled Word-Bride doesn’t even think to take self-credit or glory for the vast displays of Christ’s wonder and majesty manifested by Christ in her, nor does she become offended with her God when the resulting persecutions come. Like her Husband Jesus suffered when He emerged in the earth, she too endures persecution as she emerges and takes her place alongside of Him. (Psalm 45:9)

I call the 3rd and final wave of His coming Christ’s Apokalupsis. This is the complete merger of the previous two waves into the 3rd and final wave in which the invisible totally emerges into the visible when the resurrected King of all kings: Jesus Christ is fully revealed in all of His glory and majesty and comes to earth to rule and reign. (Zechariah 2:10, Zechariah 14, Revelation 19:11-16)

It should be noted that on the enemy’s side, there will be a counterfeit 2 or 3-fold “coming” of Satan in the coming of the lawless one, the antichrist, the beast. 2 Thessalonians 2:8-9 Then the lawless one will be revealed (Greek: apokaluptó), whom the Lord will destroy with the breath of his [Christ’s] mouth, rendering him [lawless one] powerless by the manifestation [epipháneia] of his [Christ’s] coming [Christ’s parousia]. 9The coming [lawless one’s parousia] of the lawless one will be accompanied by the power of Satan. He will use every kind of power, including miraculous signs, lying wonders, 10and every type of evil to deceive those who are dying, those who refused to love the truth that would save them

In Matthew 24:3, when the disciples talked privately to Jesus about his coming, they used a Greek word, parousia. Yet when Paul describes Christ’s coming in 2 Thessalonians 2:8, he uses the Greek word epipháneia. Add to that, both Paul and the Apostle John use yet another Greek word to describe the coming of Christ: apokalupsis which means the opposite of being hidden—an unveiling and revelation of what was hidden. (For more on this, see my article entitled, ” Preparing for Christ’s 3-Fold Arrival and The Transfiguration of Spiritual Zion.”) (Author’s Note: There are other Greek words associated with Christ’s coming to also explore such as erchomai, phanaroo, and maranatha.)

Matthew 24:3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming [“coming” in Greek is Parousia meaning the coming of Your Presence] and of the end of the age?” I believe that Jesus will come by His Word (first wave: parousia) and by a mighty outpouring of His Spirit (second wave: epipháneia) to fully prepare and mature a bride and to physically return to and fully change (final wave: apokalupsis). During the first wave of His parousia, or what I call, “The Word of His Presence” coming, Jesus unites with His responsive and willing bride by washing her with the water of His Word until she is fully persuaded that she is loved and utterly trusts Jesus and gives Him her full “Yes.”

As Christ the Word comes [parousia] to the believer and transforms them by dividing between the old man nature embedded within the fallen soul and plants His truth deep within [his or] her spirit, she responds and sheds her old man nature in preference for Christ’s new man nature. Over time, if the believer doesn’t quit, he or she will be prepared to be filled with the Holy Spirit’s 2nd wave of coming to them [Christ’s epipháneia].

This coming is a new level of shining and illumination that fully manifests the true nature of the Godhead through her transformed heart, soul, and body. As His very own possession and body, Christ fully releases Himself unto her and fills her to His fullness by the powerful overshadowing of the Holy Spirit’s outpouring. (Joel 2:29)

This filling and indwelling is done by and through The Word Himself and is done through His Presence being imparted unto a faithful bride, who by the Holy Spirit, is crying, “Come!” The Word enters His lovesick bride, unites with her, and fills her with His fullness, thus completing her in His image, upon which, she receives His commissioning for governing headship as His eternal marriage partner.

Transformed and transfigured into His pure and spotless image, Jesus’ beautiful bride will operate in the Spirit of Might and Power and act in Christ’s governmental authority. Alongside of her Husband Jesus, the bride begins to rule and reign on earth, having gained divine marital rights and full access to His name(s) such as: “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.”

The “Parousia” coming of the Word Presence of God to Christ’s bride is a mysterious filling-and-completing that will happen to the bride before the final physical Apokalupsis coming of Christ. I believe that it is during the second epipháneia wave of Christ’s coming that the bride will receive her transfigured body. Just as the Pattern Son Jesus was transfigured and received fullness prior to His death and receiving His resurrection body, so will His bride be transfigured into His fullness prior to receiving her resurrection body at His final physical Apokalupsis coming.

As governmental agents representing Christ’s Kingdom in the earth, the crowns of reward with their overcomer titles will be given from Jesus to His empowered Bride who is fully enabled by the Spirit of Might and Power to rule and reign with her beloved husband Jesus. The transfigured bride will be in a state of ruling and reigning on earth before she makes her final transition into her resurrection body that serves as her functioning state during the millennial age. This final transition into a resurrected, eternal body like Christ’s happens at the 3rd wave or stage of Christ’s apokalupsis coming. The Lord Jesus Christ comes in waves spiritually to prepare those who say Yes to Him for His second physical coming. When we behold Him, we become like Him (1 John 3:2). Thus we are beholding Him spiritually and we are being changed from the inside out in our spiritual uniting with Jesus. When we see Him physically, our prepared spiritual state will be enabled and empowered to behold Him and as His Lovers, be physically changed to become like Him in His resurrected bodily state of glory.

Before the final resurrected body stage, the Shining, epipháneia Spirit-filled bride of Jesus Christ is spiritually and somewhat physically transformed, transfigured, and lives in an enabled “heaven-and-earth” reality until at the last trumpet when she receives her resurrected body at Christ’s second physical coming (1 Corinthians 15:50-57). Some are alive and changed. Some have laid their life down and are killed as the Two-Witnesses martyrs who are dead for 3 days and then resurrected. Some are already asleep and come from the Cloud of Witnesses.

At some point during this entire end-of-the-age governmental shift, middle heaven is directly impacted and war breaks out between Michael and his angels. I personally believe it may happen when a remnant company of overcoming saints break through the final barrier of resistance and become the fulfillment of Romans 8:19. These are those who are the Word Bride who is filled with the Spirit of Might and Power and who is also transfigured into His fullness. Full manifestation is used of the revealed sons of God that creation groans to have revealed in the earth! Romans 8:19 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing [Apokalupsis] of the sons of God.

These overcomers are the first fruits [after Jesus, Who is the original First Fruit] who become the manifested sons that all creation has been groaning for. When the church births these believing male and female “sons,” the veil of the demonically-infested religious spirit that has occupied the middle heaven will be torn and cause a complete displacement of evil from the middle heaven screw zone (for more on this, see my article “The Visible Invisible – ay 13, 2015” and my illustration “Middle Heaven Screw Zone.”)

When Satan’s occupation of middle heaven is over he has to change the way he conducts his “business.” When Satan is completely ousted from middle heaven and thrown down to the earth, he will become limited to being an earth-bound being with no earth-and-middle-heaven access. This displacement signals the short amount of time he has left (Revelation 12:7-17) and in his realization of this, Satan’s rage explodes. Now Satan conducts direct onslaughts to which the fully enabled, manifest sons of God in the earth will be given governing authority through the 7-fold Spirit of God and will directly combat and confront Satan’s work through the Sprit of Might and Power and the entirety of the 7-fold Spirit of God.

An open heaven happens when the veil is taken away. Heaven rejoices to receive God’s Kingdom replacements who now occupy middle heaven and are activated and sustained by an ever-praising and praying Priestly bride who occupies and governs both the middle heaven zone and wherever she walks about the earth as she is led by the Holy Spirit to finish His work in the earth. Because of this open-and-middle heaven occupation, the transformed, transfigured bride has “boots on the ground” and is walking upon the earth while at the same time is kept in her transfigured “heavenly” state from being vulnerable to the power of evil. Heaven-and-earth have become one in and through a sanctified bridal remnant company. This company of saints bears continual witness to Christ’s love and salvation throughout the earth and call people to repentance by turning to Jesus Christ for salvation and disciple those who say Yes to Jesus to be conformed into His image. They operate in the earth for a time as a “Two Witnesses” company, in the same ways the actual Revelation 11 Two Witnesses will operate in Jerusalem.

The faith-inspired “greater, good works” that the bride is prepared [parousia wave] in advance to do are now operating in full force and the [epipháneia wave] Spirit of Might and Power graciously endows this company of saints (John 14:12, Ephesians 2:10). Fully transformed, these sons of the Kingdom/bride of Jesus Christ are the Last Days Peacemakers and Peacekeepers who represent and enact Christ’s government on earth as they wait for Christ’s final second physical [apokalupsis wave] coming. They will operate in the Spirit of Might and Power and will generously manifest and especially produce the fruit of the Spirit called “Peace” in full keeping with the Word of Truth.

In the meantime, we who would be fully conformed to Christ’s image and be transformed and transfigured by Christ’s fullness are to hold fast to the Word of Life and be faithful in the little during the parousia wave of His preparation. Faithfulness in this wave prepares us to be entrusted with the next epipháneia wave of His outpoured Spirit of Might and Power. We remain faithful by embracing the cross, laying down our self-rights and, like the Apostle Paul, daily purpose to know Christ and Him crucified. (1 Corinthians 2:2)

If Jesus is our First Love to Whom we daily turn our hearts toward in worship, praise, adoration, and thanksgiving, then we can trust Him to speak to us and help us lay down the temporal and old man nature in exchange for the eternal, new man nature. This daily embrace of the cross-life involves Holy Spirit-led trials and is what permits His Word to become fully anchored within us so that we can be entrusted with the More of God—without being taken out by it. First Love the Word Himself is at the core of an empowered and enabled overcomer who purposes to forever hold fast to Jesus and never deny His name or His Word—even unto death. (Revelation 12:11)

The bride of Jesus Christ, the wife of the Lamb will forever say, “GOD HAS SPOKEN!” and will forever love the Word of God Who is now her eternal husband. In the faith, hope, and love that remain, she is forever one with God through the transformative Word, Jesus Christ and, as a mature son of Heaven Father, is fully indwelt by His Holy Spirit. Never again will fear, doubt, and unbelief tempt this bridal overcomer. Completed by Christ’s outpoured love, she is fully persuaded that God’s Word is true and never to be disobeyed. Her garden of intimacy with Christ is secure and forever impenetrable to the first lie that tempted Eve to disbelieve God’s Word, “Hath God said, ‘You must not…?'” (Genesis 3:1)

When it’s all said and done, Papa’s family is complete. His eternal purpose in creating humanity has, through Christ, reached its fulfillment. As Christ’s eternal witness and body, the wife of the Lamb bears testimony for all eternity of the goodness of God. As His established witness to the true character and nature of the triune Godhead, the eternal wife of Jesus Christ effectively represents God to the entire universe for all eternity. (Ephesians 1:3-14) This is why we must get to intimately KNOW Him—now.

Janet Weaver Smith ©5-13-2015 gardenministries.org

God is not fickle and does not lie or speak half-truths. When he speaks, he means what He says and it is always completely true. His mysteries and parables point people toward concrete realities that require a personal relationship with him to understand. This article is written to ignite faith to pursue the revelation of God’s truth like never before and to believe that what Jesus prophesied in John 14:12 will literally happen soon. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.

According to God’s word, the supernatural presence of the Holy Spirit will dramatically increase in the last days. God created humans to be his family and to dwell with them, not just visit them now and then. Ephesians 2 describes a Kingdom Age in which His Spirit joins the “citizens” of this Kingdom together in a living temple in which the triune God inhabits. Just at Jesus, The Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us; The Word of God is coming again to his people by His Spirit to fill and dwell within them as his faith-filled, bride-minded family. This “filling to the fullness” coming-of-the-Kingdom Age is part of an unfolding, progressive preparation for the final and dramatic unveiling of Jesus Christ at his Revelation 1:7 second coming.

William Branham released a prophetic insight that describes this Word-Bride relationship: “The revelation of the Seventh Seal brought Christ back to earth in Word Form to separate His Bride. She unites with the fullness of the Word, for the manifestation of the Sons of God and the translation. This Coming of Christ in the office of Son of Man is also called His ‘parousia’.” (William Branham: biblebelievers.org)

If God has spoken something, it exists as soon as it is spoken—whether the human eye can yet physically see it or not. Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hope connects us to God’s spoken word while faith builds our trust in His truthful character. All the while patience toward God purifies our motives as we wait for his fulfilled promises. Ultimately, our relationship with Jesus Christ becomes the pinnacle of our interest—far and above any fulfilled promises he has spoken to us. Our purified hearts are ready for the invisible to become visible.

The process of faith and patience that inherits God’s promises directly affects the spirit realm and forms a purified conduit for God’s spoken word to transition from its stored place in the invisible realm of the Kingdom of Heaven and come into its manifested and visible place in the earth. Our relationship to the Jesus as The Word of God plays a key role in this transition.

Saints of God, called to stand in great faith and hold fast to God’s word, are pressing in for the promised fullness of God like never before. God has positioned them as His answer to Luke 18:8 and one day very soon, in various places around the world, the veil that separates the invisible from the visible will be completely pierced through, removed, and replaced by a canopy of the light of God’s glory. When this happens, much of what is now invisible will become visible. Ephesians 5:13 But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light.

Isaiah 25:7 And on this mountain He will swallow up the covering which is over all peoples, even the veil which is stretched over all nations. The layered veil that keeps some things hidden is thinning and in many places throughout the earth is ready to burst.

The Bible describes the way in which the Kingdom of God emerges from an unseen, invisible-to-the-human-eye heavenly realm into our physically observable earthly realm and paints the picture as a dawning process. Take a look at the Greek word: ginomai. It occurs 671 times in the New Testament and means this: “to emerge, become, transitioning from one point (realm, condition) to another, and signifies a change of condition, state or place.” The following scriptures are a few examples of the use of this Greek word ginomai:

Matthew 5:44-45 But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. “May be” is ginomai and could be read as “…that you may emerge from one point, realm, or condition [i.e. heaven] to become in another realm [earth[ sons of your Father.”

Matthew 6:10 Your [Heavenly Father’s] kingdom come. Your will be done, [“be done” is ginomai – emerge and become from one point, realm, or condition to another] on earth as it is in heaven.

Even Satan used this “emerging” principle when he tried to tempt Jesus to do something that the Father was not asking him to do and to act apart from the word of Father by taking matters into His own hands and accessing heaven’s supernatural resources to make bread “emerge” from stones.
Matthew 4:3-4 And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread [“become” is ginomai – emerge and become from one point, realm, or condition to another].

Satan knew that Jesus had access to heavenly resources. The temptation was to get Jesus to turn to and act independently from the Father’s will or leading. Jesus simply replied, “It is written, man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.” In this statement, Jesus is saying that we cannot put the created before the Creator. Jesus knew that it is God’s word that sustains life and that physical bread is actually an earthly manifestation of a heavenly reality. God’s word is the real bread of life that comes down from heaven to earth and earthly bread was a representation of this reality.

The ginomai principle of emerging from one realm to another is also represented by how lightning works. When an electrified atmosphere is ready to be discharged of its energy, a “step leader” emerges from the cloud and grows downward. The earth plays an important part in this discharging process. Positive streamers arise from the surface of the earth from various objects such as trees or people or just about anything that is electrically responding and reaching out to the cloud.

Once a response is generated, these positives streamers do not continue to grow upward toward the clouds. They only have to grow so far and the downward step leaders make up for any difference. The streamers “job” is to simply wait patiently, staying engaged by stretching upward as the step leaders approach. Once the step leader and a streamer connect, the ionized air creates a conductive path into which massive electrical current flows between the earth and the cloud. This release discharges the cloud of its stored current and neutralizes it. This natural representation of power emerging from “heaven down to earth” beautifully describes how the lightnings of God’s glory come to earth. God requires engaged relationship to be actively waiting and believing before he supernaturally discharges his glory and emerges from heaven to earth.

Just like lightning requires a patient streamer from the earth to be sent up for the lightning strike to come down, so heaven responds in-force to patiently waiting, believers who continue to send up faith “streamers” by believing and standing firm on God’s word. When the conductive path is completed and the lightnings of God pierce the darkness, the Holy Spirit’s marvelous light comes rushing through the opened door and God’s supernatural presence becomes visible to the human eye. When the veil that covers the eyes of our inner soul is supernaturally lifted, the results of it will manifest on every dimension of our created existence: body, soul, and spirit. 1 Corinthians 2:9 inspires us to believe that we will see and hear with our physical eyes and ears things we have never seen or heard or even imagined before.

2 Corinthians 3:16-18 But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Once the next layer of the veil is pierced through and taken away, what exists in the not-yet-visible heavenly realm will become visible to the human eye. This breakthrough will produce the “greater works” that Jesus promised would come.

Right now, great hope is carrying intercessory lovers of God through the veil in faithful prayer (Hebrews 6:18-20). Declaring and decreeing the word of the Lord, their ever-increasing faith is activating heaven’s response to release the “substance of the things they have hoped for” (Hebrews 11:1), and soon, this bridal company of saints will emerge-and-become (i.e. ginomai) eyewitnesses and carriers of God’s supernatural power in the earth. Clothed in the fullness of Christ, these “righteous ones” will truly “shine like the stars” (Philippians 2:15, Daniel 12:3) and perform the greater works that Jesus spoke of.

Devout Christ-followers will be so “ginomai-cally” connected with the fullness of the Holy Spirit within them that they will literally “call things that are not as though they were.” (Romans 4:17) The tangible, visible substances that already exist in the heavenly realm will transition into, and visibly manifest in the earth.

In the meantime, we wait in great faith, hope, and love for God. Our faith-filled “streamers” are reaching up toward heaven’s downward angelic “step leaders” as a conductive path through the middle heaven is forming. Once complete, the lightnings of God will blast through and completely displace the veil of separation between heaven and earth. An open heaven will occur and the revelation of God dwelling with his people will manifest. The greater works of Jesus will be the new norm.

Until this fullness comes, a dawning of it is forming in the hearts of God’s people all around the world. Great faith to press in for the more of God has been aroused and the Morningstar himself is rising in the hearts of many. People who are letting “perseverance finish its work,” and who keep turning to God in faith-filled, first-love prayer are causing the veil to thin. (James 1:4)

God’s word assures us that the transforming process of relationship with God can eventually come to completion. Every time we choose to believe and obey God, we are maturing, the veil is thinning, and we are that much closer to fullness and the final breakthrough. Ephesians 4:13 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

God saved His best wine for last. The miraculous wonders of God and the display of His splendor will once again be made manifest in the earth as God performs His great shock-and-awe, end-of-the-age, grand finale’.

Finally, the long season of arduous waiting will be over and the time will come for God’s BIG promises to be fulfilled. The Isaiah 22:15-22 shift will occur, then the Haggai 2:9 “latter glory of this [God’s] house,” the John 14:12 “greater works,” the 2 Corinthians 2:9 “never yet imagined,” the Joel 2:28-29 “pouring out on all flesh,” will burst through the final layers of the veil and rush to earth, and the Habakkuk 2:14 earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD!”

Thankfully, God has purified and prepared a Bride for Jesus ahead of time. This company of saints has been thoroughly prepared in advance to faithfully steward this great outpouring. As His end-time, Spirit-filled laborers, this company of saints will bring in a great harvest for God. Furthermore, God promises in Isaiah 62:8 and Haggai 2:9 that this outpouring will not be lost, stolen, or compromised but will be fully kept for and enjoyed by the whole family of God, with God himself dwelling in their midst.

God is calling for his saints to fiercely contend for this breakthrough by holding fast to his word of life and by engaging in extravagant faith, hope, and radical obedience. This faithful, enduring response actively engages a heaven-downward assault upon the demonic strongholds of the middle heaven screw zone until heaven and earth meet, righteousness and peace kiss each other (Psalm 85), and an open heaven begins.

God has strategically arranged for the battle lines to be drawn and is gathering His enemies like sheaves to the threshing floor. Micah 4:11-13 Satan’s attempts to prevent this breakthrough will backfire and be used against him, resulting in the very thing he is trying to stop. God’s magnificent wisdom always trumps the enemy. Just like Satan’s attempt to crucify the Lord of glory backfired big time, so the attempt to crucify Christ’s bride will backfire. 1 Corinthians 2:8 none of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Matthew 24:35 [Jesus said] Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. We have much to look forward to in the days to come as the Word himself, comes in his promised fullness!

Janet Weaver Smith ©2-24-2015 gardenministries.org

James 5:7-9 Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. 8 You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. 9 Don’t grumble (groan) against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged (condemned). The Judge is standing at the door!

The season of discipline and reproof can feel deeply grievous and the burden of it all so heavy. Instead of growing deeper in patience and more joyful by casting the impossible burden upon the Lord to carry, we may be tempted to hold on to all of the responsibility for change and inadvertently start blaming others as part, or all of the cause of our misery. The enemy capitalizes on this season of hardship and sews seeds of division and unforgiveness as he plays upon our grieving, sometimes embittered souls, and tries to tempt us to hopelessly blame ourselves, blame others, and especially break faith with and blame God as the problem, thus keeping us from the breakthrough.

Breakthrough always means a greater level of humility (i.e., complete dependence upon God for our all), which always involves some level of personal brokenness and an “end of rope” admission. It is at this point of our admission that we are at the Door of breakthrough.

We may be stuck because, rather than sinking into greater patience and humility, our inward groaning is bleeding out sideways against others through resentment or comparison. We want relief but we are not ready yet to admit our own need for greater trust, personal repentance, and God’s infinite mercy. If we have judged ourselves without the conviction of the Holy Spirit, then we are prone to judging others as well without His leading. We will judge that which we have first judged in ourselves and deemed as less than or as superior. And we will relate to others based on these self-imposed, hard-line judgments, comparing ourselves to and competing with them based on our desires for an improved life.

But how can a person feel less than themselves and superior to themselves? That is the ironic epitome of self-centeredness! Who’s to say that our judgments of self are right or wrong? We must have an outside, all-knowing, trusted source for this and the Holy Spirit who loves us is that Source! The judging and condemning of self by self is in-and-of-itself impossible. We must rely upon an outside, objective measure by which we can effectively hold ourselves accountable.

That is what God’s Spirit and God’s Word does for us. He gives us a living Truth plumb line that we can depend on and align with day-by-day from moment to moment. There is no 1-2-3 formula rulebook to follow. There is simply ongoing, alive, spontaneous, family fellowship with God who is our loving Father, faithful Bridegroom-King and sweet Holy Spirit. John 4:24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.

Whatever God does or says, we can trust Him as being good in all of it. It is His to lead and guide and ours to follow and depend upon. We are always listening, obeying, and rejoicing! If we have asked Him to speak and have opened our heart to hear what He has to say, even if it may be difficult to hear, we can trust that He will tell us what we need to hear to grow closer to Him.

Revelation 3:19-21 Message to the Church in Laodicea 19 ‘Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent. 20 ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me. 21 ‘He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.

James 5:10-11 Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.

Hebrews 5:1-2 1 Every high priest is selected from among the people and is appointed to represent the people in matters related to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness.

Weakness creates need. Knowing, embracing, and not excusing our weakness is an ongoing point of contention for all believers in Christ. God uses these very struggles to birth and build in us Christ-like gentleness and compassion. This compassion makes room for His mercy to ever be drawn upon and poured out.

Mercy triumphs over judgment. God’s mercy is extended to us so that we can rise to a new standard of moral excellence. His mercy compels us to become like Him and repent from the sins of legalistic judgments or immoral acting out. As we sincerely ask the Lord to show us any (or all) of our past, present, and future needs for His mercy and forgiveness and purpose to not defend or prove ourselves with a list of hypocritical excuses, our entitlement bubble is popped and we quickly drop any rocks of resentment, hard-line opinions, criticism, and accusation that we may have been tempted to throw at others or at ourselves.

John 8:7,9 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there…11 “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Song of Solomon 8:5 Who is this coming up from the wilderness leaning on her beloved? The Bride emerges from her season of discipline in the wilderness, in love with and completely dependent upon Her Bridegroom—Jesus. She has learned to lean.

Janet Weaver Smith – January 27, 2015 ©gardenministries.org

During the night of January 24th and into the morning of January 25th, 2015, as I slept, the Holy Spirit began teaching me what the first woman and man were like before and after they fell and were separated from God. The effects of the fall and the curse were mapped out like I had never seen or understood them before. I will start this article by setting the stage from Scripture.

Genesis 1:27, God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Both male and female were made in the image of God and the consecutive first-then-second order of their physical formation and naming established Adam as Eve’s loving leader. The Apostle Paul references the man’s leadership role in 1 Timothy 2:13.

Genesis 2:22, The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. 25And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Before Eve and Adam fell into disobedience, the leadership role of the man with the woman was dramatically different than after the fall. Before they fell, Adam and Eve were both fully anchored in a first-love submission to God’s divine leadership. The woman and her deep heart’s affections were perfectly grounded and centered in her Creator’s heart. This God-first anchored relationship provided a complete balance of power between the three of them—God, the man, and the woman. Both Adam and Eve directly “reported” to God, fully submitted to Him first.

Enter the cunning serpent, enraged that humans had come into his stomping ground to take his claimed stake upon the earth. After who knows how long, the serpent finally convinced the woman that just as he had separated from God and believed himself to be a god, so could she. When the woman disobeyed God by redirecting her longings and affection toward earth’s resources (Genesis 3:6) in direct defiance of God’s leadership and command, she came out from under her place of reverent submission to God. The woman’s deep heart longings and affections lost their perfect anchor point in God because she allowed the god of the stomach to redirect her desire and trust earthward.

Now separated from God’s anchoring leadership, all that was left for woman was man’s leadership role in her life—a created reality that she could not “uncreate” or undo. As a result of her disobedience and willful separation from God’s leadership, God told the woman that the man, in his created leadership role would now have power over her and over all of her powerful heart’s longings and affections. Separated from oneness with God, stuck with only the man’s created leadership role, and no longer stabilized by God’s anchoring leadership, the woman’s deep heart affection, nurture, and longings now became subject to the man to do with as he pleased. Furthermore, hatred and hostility (“enmity” in Hebrew = hatred) between the woman and Satan (the serpent) was added to the mix. Thus, Satan especially hates women and never hesitates to use willing men to act out much of his focused hatred of women.

Genesis 3:14-19, The LORD God said to the serpent, … I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel. 16To the woman He said, 
“I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you will bring forth children; yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” 17Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18“Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you will eat the plants of the field; 19By the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Desire: Hebrew = teshuqah, from shuwq in the original sense of stretching out after; a longing.
Rule: Hebrew = mashal: to rule, have dominion, reign.

Then the man put his wife ahead of God and listened to his wife’s voice above God’s and fell. His desires were also redirected earthward. Pride and shame quickly took hold and both the man and the woman immediately started blame-shifting, hiding, and when confronted by God, refused to take personal responsibility for their disobedience. The beginning of male domination and female subjugation was at hand. The man’s earthbound powerful longings to be fruitful in the land, both in his work and in human reproduction, overpowered his ability to love his woman in true submission to God. His drive for work and sex influenced him to put woman down into a subjected state of servitude to his wants and wishes. Human culture shifted when women lost their place as “direct reports” to God.

After the fall, the physically and emotionally vulnerable woman was subjected to a servitude-type lifestyle when the physically superior male rose to power in a cursed land now requiring his strenuous physical strength and dominion to work for food and survival. Burdened by the toilsome burden of “making a living” and overwhelmed with the impossible task of managing the woman’s redirected emotional longings that were meant for God to satisfy, man emotionally detached and began relating to woman less as his own precious flesh-and-bone and more as his servant to help with all the hard work, satisfy his sex drive, and fulfill the need for procreation and family care giving.

Ruth 2:8,9, and 22 reveal how common, and even socially expected, the mistreatment of women by men was. “So Boaz said to Ruth, “My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me. 9 Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the women. I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled. 22Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, ‘It will be good for you, my daughter, to go with the women who work for him, because in someone else’s field you might be harmed.'”

From ancient time until today, women have been subjected to a male-dominated society with few exceptions along the way. Though some civilizations have sought to bring women back up to par with men, there has always been disparity. Why is that? What part belongs to the women to restore and what part belongs to men?

An excerpt from an online City Journal article proposes a key reason why modern women rarely hold elite business positions (hint: it’s because of the kids).

“Children exert a stronger visceral pull on women than on men. That’s irrefutably true during pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding, but does the pull loosen entirely just because a child has started solid food? It’s doubtful. Nor do women necessarily find that it goes away if their husbands are “equal partners.” As Princeton author of ” Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” Anne-Marie Slaughter observes, somewhat apologetically, most women don’t ‘feel as comfortable as men do about being away from their children.’” (http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_4_alpha-female.html) (By Kay S. Hymowitz)

The female brain is hard-wired to survive and does so mainly by creatively adapting to her environment. So how did female creativity adapt to being in a perpetual state of emotional frustration, stretching out after and longing for fulfillment from someone who cannot possibly fulfill what she longs for but yet has dominion over her and doesn’t hesitate to exercise it? Simple answer: through compliance and resentful manipulation.

In her book, “The Female Brain,” Neuropsychiatrist Dr. Louann Brizendine describes the female’s propensity to fear conflict (resulting in compliance).

“Studies indicate that girls are motivated—on a molecular and a neurological level—to ease and even prevent social conflict. Maintaining the relationship at all costs is the female brain’s goal.”

Dr. Brizendine goes on to describe how the female brain is hard-wired to process and express emotions whereas the male brain has much more brain space devoted to his sex drive.

“The principal hub of both emotion and memory formation—the hippocampus—is also larger in the female brain, as is the brain circuitry for language and observing emotions in others. This means that women are, on average, better at expressing emotions and remembering the details of emotional events. Men, by contrast, have two and a half times the brain space devoted to sexual drive as well as larger brain centers for action and aggression. Sexual thoughts float through a man’s brain many times each day on average, and through a woman’s only once a day. Perhaps three to four times on her hottest days.”

Additionally, Dr. Brizendine describes the female mother’s adaptive abilities (and men’s if they want to).

“A woman’s innate brain wiring, like that of other mammals, responds to basic cues—the growing of a fetus in her womb; her baby’s birth; its suckling, touch, and smell; and frequent skin-to-skin closeness with her child. Even fathers, adoptive parents, and women who have never been pregnant can respond maternally after close, daily contact with an infant. These physical cues from the infant forge new neurochemical pathways in the brain that create and reinforce maternal brain circuits aided by chemical imprinting and huge increases of oxytocin. These changes result in a motivated, highly attentive, and aggressively protective brain that forces the new mother to alter her responses and priorities in life. She is relating to this person in a way she has never related to anyone else in her life. The stakes are life and death.”

Down through the ages, women (especially the strong ones) have explored different tactics to gain a sense of personal power within their male-dominated, sex-driven surroundings. All successful and unsuccessful tactics seem linked to a few common denominators: a woman’s innate ability to create beauty in herself and her surroundings and her intellectual prowess in intuitively knowing how to navigate, and sometimes manipulate, the realm of deep emotion and sexuality. Better then men, women have learned how to swim the waters of the heart’s deep emotions. And better then women, men have learned how to avoid all such waters and stay “all up in their head,” seemingly high above such troubling, unknowable waters—or so men think.

Men cannot “think themselves above” the powerful emotions connected to their sex drive. The female brain instinctively knows this and thus, has adapted herself to supply or withdraw what is needed so that she can be supplied with what she needs. And male emotions are vulnerable to their female providers for release and completion. The male drive to conquer and dominate the world around them is partially dependent on some level of female participation, be it only in servitude, sex, and procreation. For thousands of years, women have complied with these set parameters and created adaptive workarounds such as managing and controlling men and their projected needs through feigned submission, seductive compliance, and romantic disinterest. Women also “manage” their relationships with other women through competitive usurping, jealous power plays, and insincere, agenda-driven befriending.

Aging men and women, who’s sex drive has diminished, simply shift to the ingrained routine that was established during their years of fortitude and passion. Older folks simply settle into the comfort of ritual and routine established in earlier years of engaging in the power struggle and compliance cycles. The strong willed sort might keep the spats going just for sport because fighting makes them feel alive but what are they fighting for? Freedom. Nope. Just to feel the energy of the power struggle one more day.

In all of these ungodly scenarios, whenever human beings put their trust in a system over and above the person of Jesus Christ, that person(s) is subject to fear, control, and manipulation, whether they admit it or not. If our heartfelt trust is not firmly placed in God, we are willingly and actively participating in the system of domination-and-subjugation. There is no middle ground. Real trust is only available through real faith and actions that prove that we believe God, who regularly asks those seeking fullness with Him to break faith with their lesser systems. We cannot serve two masters. We will serve one or the other.

History proves that there is no “neutral” in the great tug-of-war power struggle between men and women. Fallen human male and female beings are regularly doing one or the other. They are either controlling and manipulating others or they are being controlled and manipulated by others. Most likely, they will be engaged in both—much of which they are completely unaware of because it has become so ingrained.

Even well-intentioned women and men, who do not desire to control and manipulate others, but do not put God first in their hearts by choosing to submit to His anchoring Love and Lordship, will be subject to the affects of the fall and will perpetually swing back and forth, trapped in an ancient power struggle with no way out except through God. Look at history and try to refute this fact. Then compare this with the lives of the few who truly put God first and those who may look like they do, but do not and the fruit of their walk with God proves it. Look at Biblical, or historical, or modern day life examples. What do we see? Very few, but they are there and have actually attained God-centered balance. Those few are proof that it’s a truth and by God, it’s possible! The masses are proof that without God, it is impossible to regain the balance of power between men and women.

When God is restored to His rightful place in a man’s heart, if he is married or desires to be married, a revelation of great importance begins to unfold. His female wife can be literally viewed and treated as though she has come from within him and is really his own flesh-and-bone. With his beautiful lady “from” his side and at his side, he no longer needs the strong parental bonds to hold his heart or care for his body. Re-anchored in God with Christ as her first Love, the man’s wife and counterpart now supply what is her part of his peace.

If the man does not desire to marry, this place is filled entirely by the grace of God Himself, rather than through a female (and vice versa). As a redeemed believer in Jesus Christ, the woman is no longer subject to what the fall did to her powerful emotions of desire. She no longer tries to pull from her man what is God’s to supply, but rather freely shares what comes out from her deep connection to and communion with God, who she has become restored to as a “direct report.” Such a blessed man need not ruin his relationship by dominating his woman’s God-breathed beauty and love. To keep the well flowing, such a man would seek to nurture and care deeply for this special part of him in her.

When God is restored to His rightful place in a woman’s heart, she can fully love and serve God as she was created to do and thus love and serve her husband with great dignity and honor just as her husband can love and serve her with equal dignity and honor. Such a woman can also serve others in a corporate leadership role and rule because her relationship with God has been redeemed and the power His Spirit is being made manifest through her in godly wisdom and prophecy (For example: Sarah, Ester, and the Prophetesses Miriam, Deborah, Huldah, Anna, and the Acts 2:17 end-time overcomers). Trust is one of the biggest tools on godly men and women’s tool belt. Trusting God first is the only way a couple will be capable of trusting each other.

There are many Biblical examples of the role of women being subject to male domination. For example, the uproar Queen Vashti created when the Persian King Ahasuerus summoned her to his party to show off her beauty to his men-folk and she said “No!” Outraged and incensed, the men at the party acted quickly. Female subjugation is a big deal and must be maintained at all costs. They influenced the king to take quick action to ensure that women throughout the land did not “get any big ideas” from Queen Vashti and think that they too could say “No!” to their man. God used Queen Vashti’s act of “insubordination” and the men’s subsequent attempt to quickly regain all control of women to usher into the picture beautiful, godly Ester.

In the first place, Ester won the heart of the king and was chosen as Vashti’s replacement because she first loved God and His beauty shone upon her, setting her above all the other beautiful women presented. Ester is a stellar example of godly female leadership. Hot Ester honored God above all else and through her love for God and for her husband, Ester acted valiantly on behalf of her country and her king. Her leadership took great courage, involved intense beauty, and included life-threatening, shrewd decisions. Queen Ester showed the world the price of loving God with her whole heart and how beautifully such anchored love befits her role alongside of her husband, the king.

Ester 1:10-12, 17-22, On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, Abagtha, Zethar and Carkas, the seven eunuchs who served in the presence of King Ahasuerus, 11to bring Queen Vashti before the king with her royal crown in order to display her beauty to the people and the princes, for she was beautiful. 12But Queen Vashti refused to come at the king’s command delivered by the eunuchs. Then the king became very angry and his wrath burned within him. … 17 “For the queen’s conduct will become known to all the women causing them to despise [look with contempt] on their husbands by saying, ‘King Ahasuerus commanded Queen Vashti to be brought in to his presence, but she did not come.’ 18“This day the ladies of Persia and Media who have heard of the queen’s conduct will speak in the same way to all the king’s princes, and there will be plenty of contempt and anger. “When the king’s edict which he will make is heard throughout all his kingdom, great as it is, then all women will give honor to their husbands, great and small. 21This word pleased the king and the princes, and the king did as Memucan proposed. 22So he sent letters to all the king’s provinces, to each province according to its script and to every people according to their language, that every man should be the master in his own house and the one who speaks in the language of his own people.”

And then there’s Ruth. The beautiful short story of Ruth allegorically reveals the lovely process of God restoring an end-time Bride for Jesus. Once Ruth committed her life to God and Naomi and dramatically walked it out, Ruth’s social status quickly rose: Starting as a foreigner (Ruth 2:10), she next describes herself as a maidservant (Ruth 2:13), and then as a handmaid (Ruth 3:9). By the end of the story, Boaz, her future husband, refers to her as a wife (Ruth 4:10), then Ruth is inducted into the royal line of Israel as an ancestress of King David (Ruth 4:17) and ultimately, and finally added to the bloodline of Jesus Himself.

Thus, Biblical accounts of female subjugation and female triumph abound. When woman first separated herself from being a “direct report,” to God as her first-love, survival demanded that she switch how she used and controlled her deep emotions and longings to get what she needed or wanted. Woman adapted to her male-dominated society by using her emotions and longings for good or for ill, to soothe and caress the soul of another human being and/or shoot a bitter arrow straight through the heart.

Females who want to capitalize on a man’s need for a woman’s deep emotion, especially as a boy from his Mother, will misuse their power to comfort through manipulation of the man’s emotions to get something from them that is wanted. Men who do not want to be manipulated like that simply reject the woman and get someone else who won’t do that to them, thus manipulating their own circumstances to gain their vision for success. The power struggle to get what one wants and needs just flips back and forth between men and women, depending on who’s taking what from whom.

The Apostle Paul’s instructions to believing couples for a restored male-female, husband-wife relationship are a cultural slap-in-the-face to 6,000+ years of otherwise. Who ever heard of “laying down your life for a woman?” This was a completely new and even preposterous statement. As we read Ephesians 5, we see the stark contrast from how men used to view and treat women to how believing Christian men, re-anchored and balanced in a God-first love, are to view and treat women—especially their wife. Paul even went so far as to say that “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Women are to be subject “as to the Lord.” That verse tells us that women are to first be restored to reverent submission to God’s leadership as His “direct reports” before women are even capable of true submission to their husband’s leadership. Men must also be restored to reverent submission to God to be capable of loving their wives in the way Paul instructs them to love. A secure-in-God man can love his wife like God does. A secure-in-God woman can trust such a man and easily respond to his leadership with heartfelt submission.

Ephesians 5:1-2, 22-33, Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; 2and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. 22Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. 24But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. 25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, 26so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. 28So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; 29for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourish and cherish it, just as Christ also does the church, 30because we are members of His body. 31FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH. 32This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. 33Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.

Women must walk in radical obedience to God just like men if they want the fullness of Christ. And brothers in Christ must refuse to use the power that the fall gave men over women. Neither of them can hide behind their spouse, children, careers, or religion. The expression of true faith is not what you say you believe but what you actually do outwardly toward others and inwardly toward God. Faith without applied obedience is not faith.

The end-time Romans 8:19 Manifest Son’s of God includes both men and women, as does the Bride of Christ. They are the same end-time group of people who come into the fullness of Christ. In order for the entire Bride/Manifest Son’s of God to become mature, the women must be delivered from viewing themselves through the old lens of subjugation and the men must refuse to resort to any form of subjugation. Today’s women have head knowledge that they are not lesser then men yet still, many women keep employing the old workarounds and tactics for survival because they don’t yet believe who God says they are in Him. They don’t yet believe it because they are not doing the work of repenting from the old ways and becoming restored to their first-Love, Jesus. Repentance means that women return whole-heartedly to God in radical obedience and quit viewing men as more spiritual. We can stop the god of the stomach from controlling our emotions and keeping us bound to the past.

Philippians 3:18-21. For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. 20But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.