Rapture 38

God holds the record for love

February 9, 2007

Joel Akin

Joel 3:14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD [is] near in the valley of decision.

In the day of choice or decision. It is a choice to read this but it is difficult to write. I struggle to find the core of this story. After all we are in the valley of decision. In a short time we'll be in another valley until we have reached the one place God wants us to be.

Choosing a path is like finding a road. It isn't easy to find what was. For example if we are part of a new story and the old one is buried then what do we do with that knowledge? Part of my life has been as a dreamer. I was given many dreams. I took them seriously and wrote many of them down. I followed the belief that they were critical to my life.

The result is that I was rewarded with understanding. Many people laugh and mock dreams or turn them into psycho-babble. And that means they are men who mock the leading of the Holy Spirit. For dreams are of God and don't let others tell you differently.

Every choice of life requires one to be still. Each step must be measured out and followed. First by leading and then by truth. Truth is part of the Holy Spirit and part of the leading of His heart.

He doesn't cast us aside nor does he give us to another. In a number of dreams I've been hit by someone called the law. They keep me low and prevent me from moving with joy. They are a spirit of sin. Sin is the spirit which takes the joy of God and turns it into a pain. Jesus saw the law and realized men would form a law and create a choice. And that choice was to put the law above him.

That meant if the law of God was there as a bean then it was there as a bean. In this case that means as a way of hitting someone over the head. Especially if they, the person who follows the precepts of law, thinks you are making a mistake. In my case I had become friends with Wisdom and with the Holy Spirit and yet the law saw fit to hit me and keep me in a pit.

How can that be possible? Only in the sin world. Sin is like the dark friend who passes you with a whip. He hits you and still refuses to let go of the law. The end or side of his heart is then brought to bear. And you are the cub who is whipped.

The day of the Lord is meant to be a day to remember. It isn't yet ready to come. It is part of that which we call the rapture. Most don't know that but it is. We are part of the story of things yet to come. We are in the day but not that day. What that means is we are in the final day before the day of the Lord. We will arrive at the day of the Lord perhaps in a few years when things really come together. Then they will get wild and we will see those things.

Now if that is of the Lord, and it is to the best of my knowledge, then why do I say the rapture is taking place?

The rapture is of two things. First is the spiritual. The spiritual is the equation of life that is broken by men. We who are alive are broken.

Broken means that we cannot understand what is happening. That means we feel some change but not much. Like a day by day by day change. We do get frustrated because we pray. And if we are the few who pray everyday then we expect changes to come.

When they don't we question our path and in that we question the valley we are in.

The valley of choice is to pray. The valley of decision is whether to pray or to keep seeking after the things of men. The valley of decision is to follow God or to follow the desire of men.

Lets say that God told one of his prophets to walk around naked for a year. They would not be permitted into the sanctuary of the Lord. Now God won't ask us because most wouldn't see much wisdom in it. Or we would join a nudist colony. That isn't what the prophet wanted to do. He wanted to walk with a right mind. And walking with God is obeying no matter what. It may not be his desire for us to walk naked but sometimes we are asked to walk in a different way. And that may be to walk away from faith of church.

That might not be easy because some would question our motives and question our life. It wouldn't be easy to prove that we were in Gods will. In fact some would say we could not forsake the assembly of ourselves without struggling in spiritual matters.

Lets say that when we were around others they gave us their concerns. Some would be the need of the church. Some would be for us to join them for a party. Some would be for us to see them at holidays. And it would go on and on.

And so there would be a desire for us to follow after the leading of men. And men would seek us to attend.

Now this sounds like foolishness but I'm speaking of the prophet who is often asked to do foolish acts.

Now these are tests and they are to bring us to men and men to the door and the door will take us to God. We can't ignore God and we can't ignore his word. We have Christ as an example and he was found in the synogogue preaching or teaching or just listening.

And that is in itself an answer. It is part of our faith and part of our name.

Yet if men seek out an answer to why we do not give a tithe what would our answer be?

To answer that we have to go into the law. And if the law is part of the story of this then we have to fight it.

So the law is part of the history of life and part of the choice we make in the valley of decision. It is part of the story of things to come and part of the law. And the law, like in the dream, is the part that pushes us.

Now I seek God in prayer but I don't like to be pushed. If I'm forced to pray I don't know it per se. I like to pray and I like to hear God speak.

Yet if the law is forcing me to pray there is a balance that goes unsettled. And that is I'm in prayer but the law is pushing. And that isn't fair either to God or to me.

So God takes the law and holds it as accountable. And if the law cannot bear the cost then it has to be paid by either men or by sin. And if that sounds strange think of God as being the cause of law but not the subject. We can't judge God. We could but we don't because He has proven to be a law that is unbroken. It is called love.

God holds the record for love and if we ever got to a place of love we would be in a realm unwritten. It would be called Love Law or La for being of the heart. W would be either of women or of wo. So think of La as being of time and time as being of things not yet seen.

Now we are in the law and of the law and by the law. Not because we chose it but because of sin. Sin rises up and calls us a sinner. They have to prove it and that means if we are righteous through Jesus Christ that Sin then has to prove we are a failure. It isn't about our own agreement but whether we can prove it. Think of us as agreeing we are a failure. But we can't prove we are a failure by our life. Why? Because we have to prove that Jesus made us a failure. And that is hard to prove in any court let alone the court of vain sin.

Vain sin is the spirit that strives with the Holy Spirit. It is the sin which Paul spoke of. It is the sin which so easily besets us and it is the sin which keeps us from enjoying life.

It is the desire which we are in but not of evil. So we are allowed to have desire but he who is sin reminds us with a hit that we are vile. And that is the problem because if I am vile God wants nothing to do with me yet I am in Gods plan. And if I am in Gods plan then I am in His time. And if I am in his time then I am in his way.

Let us imagine that sin is the spirit who brings sickness and disease. He brings pain and suffering. He brings evil and vile and even darkness. And so we are torn day by day by these things and also by evil. So if he who is sin does this to us then why doesn't God judge Sin? To answer that is to remind each of us that Jesus came to give us life. The law was unto death and thus we as Christians are meant to overcome the law. The law is of the spiritual but Sin is of the natural. If we overcome Sin in the spiritual then we overcome death. IF we can overcome Sin in the natural then we overcome all things. That is except God who supports us in this venture.

If we are of God we fight Sin. If we are of sin we fight God. And we fight sin with vile or bile or just super prayer.

There are no real answers to all problems except prayer. Prayer is the one thing which we forget because sin fights us to forget. We give up because we think one good day of prayer and fasting should give us the answer we need. Even a week won't do it. Nor a month. Maybe not even forty days. But a day by day by day by day by day for all time will do it. And that is why prayer is key and seperates the men from the children.

Children don't mind prayer if the parents introduce them to it. If children pray every day and some try then there are many blessings they carry. And if men pray everyday and many do then they need one thing. To release the law to God and let God be judge.

The real problem is that most think God gave the law for them to pass on. And they are right in the sense of the law being something to be taught. Where it goes astray is when the men give the law precedence. And precedence isn't of time but of people who want it. And precedence is the Adventist or the Lutheran or the person of unknown religions who give it proper time. They give the Bible real time and pray real things. They are not of evil but find it difficult to entrench their desire with others who see differently. And if they get into law of value they get into law which breaks. Why?

Think of value as the key to time. If I take the law and give it more value then it becomes the most valuable thing to me. Paul wrote of it and David saw it. The value of the law is above pearls or rubies. And it is. The value of the law is beyond anything that you can put on it as far as price.

Yet Jesus came to fulfill the law and that means to give the law its fight. How? By giving the law time and time was what the law needed. It would not submit and it wanted time to fight. It still fights in our age and we refuse to give it up. So in a way Christ doesn't have to come. We hold to the law as the value which is above price and that means him. He is the price that was paid for the value of the law. It was his skin which was pierced and his blood which was shed. No one else could fulfill the power which the law had.

Yet those of his day didn't understand and even today we don't care. We cling to the law and we cling to its value. And its value is the price of a savior. So if you chose Christ as the value then you chose him as the savior. If you cling to the law then you cannot cling to Christ. In other words think of those who saw Jesus and those who clung to him as ones who still held death. Jesus came out of the tomb and out of the grave and he was free of those things.

That means he came up and was filled with life. And life was contrary to the nature of death and things that were of death. Things like sin and sin came because of the law. At least our understanding of sin.

Now sin isn't just wrong it is also evil. And therein we get confused. And confused is the spirit God wanted to avoid. So He didn't tell us about Sin. Sin was the spirit of time and of evil and it wanted us to submit. Sin didn't care about God but only about us. He wanted us to serve him and we did. God sent the law to train us up in the way we should go.

Now men who were trained up in the right home learned faith. They may not have realized faith was there but it was. Men of faith are rare. Most follow the law. And then have to chose to follow after Christ. Those who follow Christ from youth are so rare they are within the realm of impossible to conceive. And yet in the US and a few other places are many who chose to follow Jesus.

So is that a problem? No. Not in real world situations. Only some reject the law but don't fight it. And that might be a difficulty to some of us in the future. Because fighting the law means we overcome it with prayer. And many who go by the name of Jesus do not really consider prayer important. Not as important as doing works. And works without prayer is like eating fast food. It is good but it doesn't help you in the waist. So those who eat fast food have to be retrained to eat fast food which is good. And that isn't easy.

Fast food is meant to be of divine leadership. And since we put men in place of Christ then we heed their advice over our own. So if we are told to trust God we do. If we are given specific guidance we submit first to authority. And that again is usually acceptable to God.

But where it gets difficult is when a man is alone in a world that submits to something even if it is death. And so if a man could overcome all things then he would go through hell and high water in order to overcome. And high water would be of time and not of flood like Noah. For which we can thank God for having one of those already.

Now lets assume that such a man was ready to step forward. He would have to be believable. But what if he didn't have a single way to prove his claim? After all a guy pulls a gun and shoots such a man. Or puts him on a cross. And thus you have a man who has come to fulfill things but again he isn't of Christ just a man who follows the lead of Paul.

Such a man might be government oriented and thus be under authority. And therein lies the conundrum. Because no matter how we face it such men are not possible. Paul overcame but he was subject to Caesar. And Peter the same. And others of his age to the Romans. And so it goes. Until now.

Why? Because I did overcome but I am still under power. And under power means that I still submit. Not to men per se, though I do, but to God.

Now God knows me and knows my heart. I have not overcome in the sense of time. Time is one thing I still fight. As is death. I still struggle with abilities that are manhandled by things called medicine and time. I use wisdom and knowledge to deal with things like weight. Not from fast food but a body being hurt by time.

And so I am still in prayer even after three plus years without ceasing. And that is the without ceasing we must learn and submit to. It gets easy if we get breakthroughs. If we struggle, as do I, then it becomes endurance. I have learned to deal with it by acceptance. And that is why I pray.

Yet it isn't Gods desire that I suffer. He wants me healed. And so I pray until I get a breakthrough. Last night I heard God for a short time but the law of time hits me with the law of sin. And that is of death. And so it brings pain and more.

So to overcome I pray and wait for God to show me what to do. I pray tonight so I might overcome. I pray with him that I might see and I pray with him that I might understand. And together God shows me what is to come so that I might prepare the way for things which are yet to come. And so if I am a preparer of the way then I must know the way or I will fall into the ditch. If I am to prepare the way then I must pray. And so I head off to pray that I might find a way to overcome.