LIGHTBORNE

The way we walk in what God is working out.

Throughout time, a stream of communication from God to man has been bridging the chasm between us.  It brings words to us, like seed from another realm sown into the soil of our souls, seeking a place to grow.  Like any seedling, these are vulnerable; and when one dies, the revelation that seed came to bring also dies.  

The unfolding of Your words gives light; it informs the simple.

Psalm 119:130

God’s word unfolds as light in us, borne to us from another realm. In our spirit we can feel the approach of what we can’t yet see:  dull warnings of an approaching storm, glimmers of an operation already underway, an imperative we’ve got to grasp.  From a materialist worldview, this is totally irrelevant. But in reality, where we live and move and have our being in both the seen and the unseen, the word of God is essential to navigate the unknown. 

Lightborne is a series of illustrations explaining the spiritual dynamics of walking in what God is working out.  Think of this as your cliff notes for Spirituality 101.

GOD

THE TRUE LIGHT

THE ETERNAL WORD 

In the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning…  In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.  The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.  John 1:1-5

THE WORD OF GOD COMES TO FIND US 

God does not discriminate.

The true Light who gives light to every man was coming into the world.  John 1:9

Sometimes, the word comes as God thinks His thoughts through our own.

Now when he [Moses] was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel… Acts 7:23

Sometimes God orchestrates an event to speak to us, but His speaking waits until we turn aside.  

Now Moses … came to Horeb, the mountain of God.  There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up.  So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”… And Moses said, “Here I am.”  Ex 3:1-4

We begin to walk in what God is working out

as we respond to His word coming to find us.

 GRACE

God’s impartation of something transcendent
from Himself to us

Out of the fullness of his grace he has blessed us all, giving us one blessing after another.  John 1:16

 I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace, given me through the working of His power.  Ephesians 3:7

And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.  2 Corinthians 9:8

THE PROMISE

God gives us promises to shine in our darkest nights

Look, I am with you, and I will watch over you wherever you go… For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”  Genesis 28:15

 Remember the word to Your servant, upon which You have caused me to hope.  Psalm 119:49

 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.  Hebrews 11:13

THE IMPLANTED WORD
QUICKENS THE SOUL TO BELIEVE

(Note the “brightening” of the figure to the left symbolizing “man”)

The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the affliction of My people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their oppressors, and I am aware of their sufferings. I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey Exodus 3:7-8 

The word came to Moses first, and then he brought it to the people

Then Moses and Aaron went and assembled all the elders of the Israelites, and Aaron relayed everything the LORD had said to Moses. And Moses performed the signs before the people, and they believed. And when they heard that the LORD had attended to the Israelites and had seen their affliction, they bowed down and worshiped.   Exodus 4:31

 WORSHIP

Worship is the means by which we receive from God and reflect back to Him the surreal joy and appreciation of Who He Is and what He has done (and is doing)  for us.

When we believe that the Lord is going to fulfill His word to us, our soul mirrors His intent, quickening to Him, magnifying and glorifying Him.

Worship sweeps us up into the purpose of what He is working out. 

… as soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.  Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord’s word to her will be fulfilled.” Then Mary said: “My soul magnifies the Lord …  Luke 1:44-46 

SIN, THE BARRIER, AND TRUTH

The green arrow falling short of the target
 is an illustration of sin 

There is a barrier in the unseen. God directed Moses to build the ancient tabernacle in the wilderness, with a veil that was to be hung to differentiate the most holy place, where God’s presence dwelt, from the rest of the structure. The barrier separates Holiness from unholiness, whose relationship is like that between matter and anti-matter. An anti-matter particle entering a universe made of matter will be instantaneously destroyed in a conflagration between the two; the unholy entering into the presence of the Holy will also be destroyed. 

The LORD descended to the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the summit. So Moses went up, and the LORD said to him, “Go down and warn the people not to break through to see the LORD, lest many of them perish.  Exodus 19:20,21

Holiness is a reality: pure, powerful, true, non-negotiable and dangerous to whatever is unholy and untrue. 

Unholiness senses this danger, so much so that if it comes anywhere near holiness, it experiences discomfort and a sense of threat. The barrier (in the illustration above) defines the demarcation between The Holy and the unholy, truth and not-truth. The same way two ends of a magnet are oppositely charged and repel each other, sin is oppositely charged from and repelled by Truth. This repulsion is what creates the separation, hiding the face of God, so that not even prayer can get through, if it is corrupted by sin.

But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.
Isaiah 59:2 

When Israel was brought to the foot of thundering Sinai, she was terrified by the unmasked Holiness of her God. She trembled at the threat of destruction if she so much as touched the mountain. And this… was her betrothal to her God!??  In the process of their betrothal, before their vows were made, the husband needed to reveal what was not safe about Him to His bride. And she rightly feared.

But even as He drove home how terribly unsafe His holiness was for her, He gave her His wedding gift: the shed blood that would keep her safe in even the most intimate contact with His holiness…

 Symbolic of that blood, Moses sprinkled the bride with the blood from a wilderness sacrifice. Reality dwells in symbol. With that symbolic blood, the High Priest was protected and could safely enter through the veil into the most holy place. This is all serving as a picture of the dynamics operating in unseen reality.  The shed blood brought remission of sin…. a deep mystery that cost God everything but made it possible for Him to have what He wanted more than anything else: an intimate relationship with His people.

 From a materialist worldview, nothing could be more irrelevant. From a scriptural worldview, nothing is more essential. From an anthropological point of view, the nearly universal ancient belief in the protective power of a blood sacrifice points to an underlying common denominator. From a contemporary point of view, the blasphemy, the mirror-like counterfeit of occult spirituality using blood rituals tells us more than most want to know.

 UNBELIEF

Unbelief keeps us from collaborating with God, in what He is doing

Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Let My people go, so that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness.’ ”  But Pharaoh replied, “Who is the LORD that I should obey His voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and I will not let Israel go.”    Exodus 5:1,2

Moses and Aaron brought the word of God to Pharaoh. (The gold sweep over the barrier to him on the left.) Pharaoh’s response illustrates unbelief: unwilling, unable and resistant to the word implanting itself in his soul. The wild thing is: Pharaoh’s unbelief didn’t keep him from walking in what God was working out. He played a major role in its fulfillment. God was calling his people out of slavery, to make them his own. But as He accomplished this, He wanted to paint a picture into history, a promise to shine in every dark night, when His people would ever find themselves under brutal tyranny. Pharaoh became the symbol of God’s promise to judge and defeat every tyranny opposing what He is doing.  Pharaoh began his reign afraid of the Israelites; he ended insane, driving his chariots and horses into the sea to his own destruction, obsessed by his unrelenting resistance to what God was working out. His blindness to the obvious became the madness that destroyed his nation.

Unbelief is willful blindness leading to madness.
The greatest danger of unbelief is its jeopardy to ourselves. 

When God is about to do a new thing,
Bringing us into a spiritual breakthrough,
our descent into some kind of crisis becomes part of the process.
But we will walk in what God is working out,
as we hear and believe,
mirroring His purpose, holding on to His promise,
trusting His guidance in what is at stake.

FAITH

Now faith is the assurance of what we hope for and the certainty of what we do not see.  Hebrews 11:1

Faith is not something we can work up in ourselves, it is kindled and quickened in us by God.

Faith gives us the ability to see what is unseen.

By faith Moses left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw Him who is invisible.  Hebrews 11:27

Faith becomes God’s power in us, as we believe His character and ability to perform what He has said.

By faith Sarah, even though she was barren and beyond the proper age, was enabled to conceive a child, because she considered Him faithful who had promised.  Hebrews 11:11

Faith fuels every spiritual breakthrough into what only God can do through us.

And what more shall I say? Time will not allow me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions,  quenched the raging fire, and escaped the edge of the sword; who gained strength from weakness, became mighty in battle, and put foreign armies to flight.  Hebrews 11: 32-34

 Faith is one of those all too familiar words whose dynamic reality eludes us.  At a time in my life when I was crashing and burning all too often, the movie, The Right Stuff, came along, serving as God’s word to me. 

In our early space program, as our pilots strove to break the sound barrier, they kept crashing and burning, because their aircraft could not handle the forces of flight at the speed of sound. Chuck Yaeger would be the first to break the sound barrier. The movie tells that story. In the scene that depicts his perseverance to keep his craft under control through the wild ride as he approached the sound barrier: his windshield cracked, he lost communication with the ground, and the rivets on his wings threatened to come apart. Yet the moment he broke through the sound barrier, the buffeting stilled.  Enveloped by a surreal serenity, Yaeger triumphantly wheeled his tiny but proven craft across the wide-open blue … possessing the new frontier of flight at the speed of sound. 

 I wept as I recognized what God was showing me. My crashing and burning was indicating something in me causing me to veer and turn away, instead of plowing straight ahead, able to withstand the rigors of the truth.    

Faith is the tiny but proven craft
that can withstand the force of flying at the speed of truth.
Faith bears us, keeps us and fuels us through the rigorous test
of holding on, and not letting go, believing what God has said.

That moment Yaeger broke through the sound barrier was a picture of BELIEF, believing what God has said.  I was crashing and burning, because “what I believed” was not the truth.  And when things got tough, I took a lesser path.  My lesser path was not walking in what God was working out…

WE ARE SAVED BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.  Ephesians 2:8-10

HEARING IS ESSENTIAL TO OUR HAVING FAITH

So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.  Romans 10:17

Does God lavish His Spirit on you and work miracles among you because you practice the law, or because you hear and believe?  Galatians 3:5

NOT LISTENING

Moses relayed this message to the Israelites, but on account of their broken spirit and cruel bondage, they did not listen to him.  Exodus 6:1,6-9

Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word.   John 8:43

Our ability to collaborate with God, as He brings us to the next spiritual breakthrough, depends on our ability to hear Him, to understand what He is saying to us.

 THE PROVING GROUND

Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh… That same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters … and their foremen:  “You shall no longer supply the people with straw for making bricks. They must go and gather their own straw.  But require of them the same quota of bricks as before; do not reduce it. …  Make the work harder on the men so they will be occupied and pay no attention to these lies.”  …So Moses returned to the LORD and asked, “Lord, why have You brought trouble upon this people? Is this why You sent me?  Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has brought trouble on this people, and You have not delivered Your people in any way.”  Exodus 5:6-9, 22,23 

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial that has come upon you, as though something strange were happening to you.  I Peter 4:12 

Now faith is the assurance of what we hope for and the certainty of what we do not see.  Hebrews 11:1

The proving ground is like an aeronautical testing program. Its goal is to produce aircraft capable of breaking into the new frontier. 

The proving ground will reveal the stress points where the craft can’t handle the greater stress at new levels of performance. Our faith–what we believe about God–goes through testing to reveal the stress points where we are still unable to handle the stress of believing God in circumstances that defy what He has said.  

When Moses found himself in the proving ground, the hidden flaws in his view of God were exposed. Under greater stress, he lost his confidence in God’s ability or willingness to do what He had said, and Moses went into a nosedive. (green arrow in the illustration above)  

The proving ground is a refining process specifically designed to identify the fault lines in what we believe until we no longer doubt God’s goodness or His ability to do what He has said.

OBEDIENCE

Walking in what God is working out is a spiritual journey. When we are in that way, we resonate with and are empowered by faith, enabled to make breakthrough after breakthrough.

When we are walking in what God is working out, our unswerving aim and internal guidance system are locked-on by obedience. Obedience is our inward alignment with the truth, keeping His word.

By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, without knowing where he was going.  Hebrews 11:8 

And through your offspring all nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.  Genesis 22:18

WHAT IS GOD WORKING OUT?

The redemption of the cosmos? Bringing His people to a new breakthrough?

Another Red Sea passage, with Pharaoh and his chariots drowned in the sea?

To dwell with those who are mourning and hurting, fulfilling all His promises?  To mend a broken world?

He is working out all of these. But all of these pale in comparison to what He wants but cannot give Himself, without our collaboration.

God wants us to belong to Him. He wants the truth of who He is to be known and valued by His creation: the slanders dealt with, the attacks on His reputation silenced, our indifference toward Him shattered by the revelation of who He is. He wants us to know and be rooted in His love for us, as He takes us unto Himself.

Throughout the narrative of Scripture, there is the consistent description of a people who will be led through a long arduous perilous journey proving them to belong to God, born of the word that sought them, born of the light that lit them in darkness… children who will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father … who loved not their life unto death…. who implicitly obey Him out of love and confidence in Him… in whom His goodness is revealed… who beholding Him become like Him.

Throughout the ages each of them will be known as Lightborne.