We generally consider hand-crafted items to be more valuable than mass produced, factory ones, don't we? We deem them more worthy of our hard earned money, and long after we're gone other's value them as antiques.  There's something about the personal touch that really blesses us - knowing another's hands touched what our hands are touching, as if some part of the creator's soul is reaching out and connecting with our soul through the item they created. 

 Personally,  I deeply love hand-crafted items made from wood, from bowls to rocking chairs and cutting boards! As well, i admire ceramic items like tea sets. Really,  anything crafted by hand touches me in a way machine produced items do not, knowing the time and careful attention, and skill involved in creating it. In Korea, there are some amazing craftsmen (and women), creating really beautiful things. 

Now consider this:  The Bible tells us each one of us is personally and lovingly hand-crafted by God. Our look, our voice, every atom of every molecule that makes us, well, us, was personally made by Him! We are not mass-produced in a huge baby factory, impersonally spitting out humans - no, rather, two people had to become intimate for you to be born - because God is trying to teach us something.  He wants us to know that his love for us desires intimacy with us. I mean, to personally hand- craft every molecule within us! And form us into who we are today? Wow! He tells us He is the Potter and we are the clay! We are, each one of us, wonderfully unique! From our fingerprints to our faces to our voices - no two are exactly alike out of billions! What a mighty God we serve!

 Our primary way of communicating with each other, as a species, is words. There are two ways we share words with each other-  we either speak them or we write them down. Both ways are commonly used by mankind throughout the world on a daily basis. The spoken word, however, is much more common worldwide than the written. Most people speak to one another on a daily basis, but write to each other far less often; though with the advent of the Internet, and social media,  writing to each other has vastly increased. Still, speaking words to each other remains the most popular,  the most used form of communication around the world.  In some parts of the world, even today, people have no choice - they are illiterate or have no access to printed words. Books, magazines or newspapers are unavailable to them, but they can speak and they can listen.

 So it makes no sense that God, who at various times and in various ways, spoke to our spiritual fathers - to His people Israel,  in the past, would choose not to speak to His people of the present  - His Church (though Israel is still His people today, also). Like all mankind, who are made in His likeness,  He both speaks and writes when He communicates with us. He wrote the Bible (Thank God) but I believe He is using me and many others to write down His thoughts and revelations to us today, too. He is also speaking to us today through the mouths of His apostles and prophets around the world and through anyone born of Him and filled with His Spirit. He will speak to you - spirit to spirit  - right now - if you'll listen. "He who has ears to hear" Jesus said. In other words,  are your spiritual ears open to what God has to say? Are you seeking His voice in your quiet time alone with Him? Or are you attuned only to man's voice - through the TV, radio or pulpit? You need, desperately need, to hear what He is saying to you today, not just read what He wrote to you in the distant past. 

The Bible can't warn you of imminent danger,  but the One who wrote the Bible (who inspired men to write it) can. The Bible cannot teach itself - it cannot explain to you what a particular verse means, from God's perspective  - not man's  - only God Himself can give you His perspective,  His understanding.  The Lord of The Word can teach the Word of the Lord correctly.  How does that particular verse you're reading apply to your life riggt now? What are you meant to glean from it today? This is one of the reasons Jesus insists we become immersed in, baptized in, the Holy Spirit for He is ordained by the Father to lead us and guide us into all truth.  He is our Instructor! Our teacher! As well as our "wonderful Counselor"!  If He is not dwelling within us - in our hearts, interpreting Scripture for us, we remain in darkness,  spiritual darkness,  inwardly.  Two results of spiritual darkness immediately come to mind: we cannot even begin to see the scriptures and understand them if we are in darkness for the eyes of our understanding remain blind. These are the blind eyes Jesus came to open by becoming the "Light of the world" (the Sun/Son), and two: those in darkness sleep a lot. "Christians" without a relationship with the Holy Spirit within are "asleep in the light" as Keith Green put it. They can only see the Word with their own, soulish understanding,  not God's.  They use their minds alone, their intellect, to interpret scripture,  which leads to all manner of false, heretical doctrines. Even truths - if not planted deeply within us, i.e. our hearts, by the Holy Spirit,  will not avail us much. We must allow the Holy Spirit to impregnate us with Truth - He must be allowed to plant His seed derp within us - that we may bear the fruit of His presence within us to full term. 

    If God is not speaking to you, neither should I. Put another way,  if you are not listening to God, don't come and listen to me. If my voice (or any man or woman's) is the only voice you're hearing, the only spiritual voice, if you aren't hearing God's voice, you need to desire and seek to hear Him for yourself.  Your pastor was never meant by God to be your sole source of revelation of God - He wants to reveal Himself to you personally  - He wants to be your primary source of wisdom,  revelation, and anointing  - your pastor or anyone else is secondary.  

   Above all other gifts, the gift of prophecy reigns supreme.  One reason is - you must be intimate with Him to hear His voice - close to Him, because He primarily speaks in a still, small voice - in other words, a whisper. Another important reason is, how can you recognize His voice in another's mouth if you've never heard His voice in your own? His words are Spirit and they are Life - by them we live and not die. They are our Manna from Heaven.  They are our daily bread without which we will die. The world is like unto a desert, void of life because His words are our only daily source of eternal life - and the world despises, rejects and crucifies His Word, therefore they abide in death. They curse Him therefore they are cursed. Everyone reaps what they sow. 

You, however,  MUST seek the Lord of the Word, the WORD made flesh, to hear what He is saying to you today. Today, IF YOU WILL HEAR HIS VOICE, HARDEN NOT YOUR HEART  (Heb:3:15)  - how does He speak to us today? By His Spirit (wherefore, as the Holy Spirit saith) Heb:3: - Do not remain a generation of believers with whom He is grieved. Among other things  - the Logos (written word) deals with our flesh - it is used by God to crucify our flesh - putting to death the affections and lusts thereof.  But once we have fallen to the ground (the flesh of Christ) and died (to self), the Rhema ( spoken word) comes to us and resurrects us - just as Jesus ressurected Lazarus with a spoken word,  so are we raised - His Spirit speaks to ours - "Come FORTH" out of that fleshly, carnal grave your soul was bound to - for I will fashion you into a new man - after My image and likeness,  saith The Lord.  

Your soul is eternal  - you need words spoken to you by the One who inhabits Eternity,  no other words will do. Here is Truth - one without the other will fail miserably.  Just as Jesus and the Holy Spirit needed one another when our Christ walked the earth - so do we need both the logos word (Jesus), and the rhema word (Holy Spirit). Jesus was constantly listening to what His Father was saying to Him  - He testified He only spoke what He heard His Father saying.  He could hear what His Father was saying to Him because He was full of His Father's Spirit  - He was modeling for us how we must also walk this earth. Once the disciples received Jesus  - He in turn gave them the Holy Spirit to receive- which they did - when He breathed on them in the upper room. The Holy Spirit needs our flesh to inhabit in order to do His work, which is to fulfill the Father's will on earth as it is done in Heaven.  First He used Jesus,  now us, Jesus's body incarnate.  And likewise,  without our spirit's,  our flesh will die so too when the Spirit departs our bodies, we die spiritually.  "Spirit" actually means "air" or "breath", so, just as our physical bodies cannot continue to exist without our human spirit, so must our souls have the Holy Spirit  - without whom we will die the everlasting death WE MUST welcome the Holy Spirit! No choice at all! And we need both the death of the Word (logos) and the life of the Word Himself  - Jesus, who speaks to us daily, if we'll lusten. Again, i say, this is the "daily bread" which we are to ask our Father for, daily - The Word, (Jesus), spoken to us by His Spirit. We do not need to ask Him for His written word daily, for we have it available to us, always. No, man does not live on bread alone but by every Word that proceeds (not proceeded) out of the mouth of God. Rhema is just as vital as Logos, in fact, we cannot correctly understand the Logos without the Rhema. The Holy Spirit reveals and teaches the logos to us. 

The Holy Spirit is the one who introduces us to Jesus and He teaches us how to be just like Him - full of His fruit as well as His gifts. Trying to understand the Logos without the Rhema brings death - with no life to ressurect us. We end up in a spiritual grave called "religion" - endless services with no life in them at all, hearing sermon after sermon but never arriving at the Truth: for the truth is a person and the Holy Spirit is the only One who can reveal Him to us, not just once, but daily. In this sense, the Holy Spirit is our midwife,  aiding and guiding us as we are born (again). He is also like the eunuchs of old, who prepared Esther to become the bride of the King (though He is not a eunuch,  of course, because He impregnated Mary with the seed that became Chr, and He does that for us too). He is like a eunuch because He is pure - He does not touch the bride of Christ in a selfish way, with selfish motives, hidden desires and agendas, as Satan does. Many pastors are following Satan's example,  not the Holy Spirit's  - they are using the Bride for their own gain or pleasure. We MUST lay self will, self pleasure,  down on the Cross  - picking up our death there daily - and follow Christ daily as dead men - before we can be trusted to attend to His bride - we must become like spiritual eunuchs - having no personal attachments to the Bride - no selfish or unclean agendas. We must only dare to touch the Bride as the Holy Spirit does, with clean hands and pure hearts.  Selah.

The 4th Watch

 

Will you heed the warnings?

Will you heed the signs?

Do you know the seasons?

Do you know the times?

The path you are walking 

do you know where it leads?

So many are walking 

the path that deceives. 

Oh, He will come like a thief in the night

out of darkness bringing what's hidden to light

Will you be waiting,  watching and hoping?

Are you gonna take   the 4th Watch?

It is time to be sober.

Keep your eye on the signs.

Some men will follow

some will fall behind.

There'll be two women working

oh out in a field

one will be taken

one refused to yield

Tell me, are you a soldier, 

who will not run from the sword?

Will you lay down your one life?

Will you speak the Word of the Lord?

Oh He will come as a thief in the night 

out of darkness,  bringing what's hidden to light

Will you be waiting,  watching and praying?

Who's gonna take? Who's gonna take the 4th Watch?

From the heartland of Europe 

to Moscow's Red Square 

From the shores of Asia

across America's land

There'll be a shout heard around the world 

from which no soul can escape 

Open the eyes of your heart

before it's too late!

Oh your soul is more precious than life

It's worth the very blood of Christ  -

Many will wake up, many will continue to sleep,

So I ask you again  - the 4TH WATCH WILL YOU KEEP?

Oh all that can be shaken

will be shaken, broken and shattered -

Will you be found praying 

or endlessly straying?

Will you be found faithful?

Faithful to the end?

Does His Spirit within you abide?

Or will you be found in compromise 

  believing the enemy's lies?

Oh we are in the last moments of time

Very soon - the curtain will fall on mankind 

Where will you be, when His eternal light shines?

Will you be caught

keeping the 4th Watch?

Or ignoring the signs?

  Jesus was that black man

 you refused to let in the door.

 Jesus was that beggar

 you decided to ignore.

 Jesus was that woman you passed

 sleeping outside on the street.

 Jesus was every drug addict 

 you hoped you wouldn't meet,

 And if you've refused to meet Him now

 in this present life, day by day,

 He'll refuse to meet you then

 on the Judgement Day.

 If you gave Him no kindness now,

 if you did not let Him in your home -

 He'll show you no kindness then

 when you're standing before His Throne

 When you cry out for Mercy 

 too late you'll learn this truth -

Depart from Me, He'll say

For you I never knew