Now Is The Time

Another glorious day into The Great Awakening, Beloved Family!

How about Sunday’s Koinonia together and all the dead bodies in the RUGGED pool? What a Divinely glorious day! As I sit here composing this to you, I have the mental images of the tear streaked faces washed clean in the waters of baptism… I can see the damaged, scarred, and misdirected hearts being drowned in the life and love of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit Who immersed those precious hearts into Himself. I see relationships restored, bodies healed, trauma washed away, strength embraced, love experienced, new lives birthed, and old failures drowned… and I only have a perspective through my imperfect understanding… imagine what God saw!

Noah’s flood is an example of how waters can overwhelm evil. I understand that this is not a perfect illustration, but there are some powerful parallels that we can draw from.

Genesis 6:5-14 (emphasis mine)

5And GOD saw that the wickedness of man [was] great in the earth, and [that] every imagination of the thoughts of his heart [was] only evil continually. 

6And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. 

7And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

8But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.

9These [are] the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man [and] perfect in his generations, [and] Noah walked with God. 

10And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

11The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. 

12And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.

13And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. 

14Make thee an ark…

• The flood was divine in origin, but was accompanied with a physical, natural effect. Just as the changes in a person’s life are divine in origin and bear out natural, physical fruit.
• The evil of the world seemed insurmountable, the darkness seemed eternal, the sin was saturating even the very dirt… but the waters were too much for the evil. God always wins…
• It took the enemy over 1,500 years, working diligently through Adams failure, to get control of mankind in the pre-flood days. It took one (rather large) rainstorm to wash away all the work of that enemy. No matter how long you, others, or the enemy has been working to destroy you, God can fix it all in one shower of His grace and love.
• Noah was called a, “preacher of righteousness,” and spent, at a minimum, 90 years (and possibly as much as 120 years) trying to get the people of his day to respond to his God ordained message… with zero converts. Sometimes, everyone will disagree with your message, even to the point of becoming an enemy… keep speaking the message of Heaven… truth will ALWAYS prevail and those that embrace the truth will see a washed earth.
• This first place that the word, “grace,” is ever used in scripture was with Noah. I believe through this message of the, “Finished Work of the Cross,” and declaring THE Great Awakening (Jubilee), we have, “found grace,” just like Noah did… and mankind will be blessed from our humility to that treasure.
• God sees the wickedness, pain, and misery of the world and has a plan. That plan is for a person of God, intimate with Him, operating by grace, submitted to His plans to build a place of refuge, and peace in the midst of THE great storm. This is the remnant church, of which we are a part, Beloved.
• Jesus has created an Ark that stands in the water and the door is open to all who will come, through His resurrection. We, Beloved, are the Ark in Northwestern Illinois and our doors and hearts need to be open to all who are seeking escape from the filth of this broken earth.
• No matter how big the enemy (there were supernatural giants in the land)… no matter how wicked the entire environment (every thought and every imagination of every man was evil continuously)… no matter how massive the majority (Noah had 8 plus God, the enemy had between three and ten billion people at that time)… God’s waters change the odds every time… EVERY TIME for ALL of His people!

There are many ways and forms of baptism, the word just means to literally submerge, immerse, and completely saturate. This can be done through the New Birth, which is a person being baptized into the life that was ordained for man to have through the very breath of God Himself. This can be a person wanting to completely change their life and wanting to line up with the blessings and promises of God by being baptized into the Body of Christ, which is the Church, but more specifically and actionable, the local church. I would LOVE to see this happen to you all at Beloved! It can also be where one desires their soul (thinking, will, and emotions… together combined to form personality) to be completely saturated with the nature and power of God. This is called the, “baptism of Holy Spirit.” Outside of being born again from above, this is the second most important and transformative experience any believer could ever have.

The first experience… death. Death to an old man filled with the nature, character, and persuasion of, “missing the mark,” on what life was created to be. Thank God for Jesus! He showed us THE only way of life… He is the only way, the only truth, and the only life mankind can truly live. Jesus did not come to help us… to make us feel better… to cuddle with us in our problems… to whisper sweet nothings to us in our loneliness… to encourage our insecurities and fear by coddling our brokenness… NO!! He came to kill us! Yet, because of the GREAT love of God, the endless mercy, the amazing grace, and the perfect selflessness of Jesus, He took OUR death on His cross so ALL of that old terrible, wretched, broken, and sinful man could be destroyed.

Romans 6:4-7
Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also [in the likeness] of [his] resurrection: knowing this, that our old man is crucified with [him], that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin.

Now, it is time for us all to embrace our new freedom in Christ! Whatever we have died away either through the baptism of water, the baptism of new birth, the baptism of Holy Spirit, or any other immersion that we have humbly submitted to, let the freedom of that death live loud and powerfully in you this day!

I love you, and I believe that new and fresh life is bursting from you today!
Steve