“Yes, just as the second bird was saved by being dipped into the waters and blood of the first. So they were baptized, for the forgiveness of sins, to be cleansed. They were the spiritual lepers. In fact, hidden in the ancient Greek translation of the ordinance, when the priest dips the bird in the water, the word used is baptize. As it is written, ‘We are baptized, dipped, into His death.’ We all come as lepers, the unclean and the cursed. But the sacrifice for the cursed has been offered. ‘Thus we are no longer outcasts or unclean.’ For the unclean becomes clean, the cursed become blessed, and the leper is no more . . . in the miracle of the sacrifice by the running waters.”
The Mission: Immerse every part of your life in Him. Then walk in the power of freedom, cleansing, restoration, and the breaking of curses.
Leviticus 14:1–9; Matthew 8:1–3; Romans 6:3–4; 1 John 1:7
The Mystery of the Tzippurim
DAY 274
THE STATE OF THROUGHNESS
WE WERE SITTING in the same sandy plain where the teacher had previously drawn symbols and letters in the sand. He now drew two symbols. I remembered them from an earlier lesson.
“The Alpha and the Omega,” I said. “The symbols of God.”
“Yes,” said the teacher. “The Alpha is the first letter in the Greek alphabet. So God is the Alpha, the Beginning of all things and the Reason all things exist. And the Omega is the last letter. So God is the Omega, the End of all things and the Purpose for which all things exist.”
The teacher then drew a horizontal line connecting to the two symbols.
“And this,” he said, “is everything else . . . including you.”
“Me?”
“If God is the Beginning and the End, then what does that make you?”
“I guess it makes me not the Beginning and the End.”
“But it’s human nature not to know that. If you live from yourself, you’ve become your own Alpha. If you live as if you yourself are the reason and motive for everything you do, then you’ve made yourself your own Alpha. And if the reason for your living is yourself, then your living has no reason. The line becomes a circle . . . On the other hand,” he said, “if you live for yourself, to serve yourself, with yourself as your own goal and end, then you’ve become your own Omega . . . which is to have no real purpose . . . another circle.”
“I guess then most people live as their own Alphas and Omegas,” I said. “So how then should we live?”
“As this line. You live as that which is neither the Reason nor the Purpose, not the Beginning, nor the End . . . but the middle . . . Your life becomes the vessel for His purposes, the instrument for His end. You live for a Reason and a Purpose greater than yourself. And that’s when you find the Reason and Purpose for your existence. You make Him your Beginning and your End, the Reason and Purpose for everything you do. You do everything from Him and everything for and to Him. You become the vessel through which flow His love, His power, His purposes, His Spirit, His life, and His blessings. It is the state of throughness. Discover it, and your life will be filled with the blessings of the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.”
The Mission: Live today in the state of throughness. Make Him your Alpha, the reason for everything you do, and your Omega, the One for whom you live.
2 Corinthians 4:7; 2 Timothy 2:21; Revelation 1:8
The Omega Stone
DAY 275
LORD OF THE TWO VANISHING POINTS
WE WERE STANDING in what had to be the largest open expanse I had yet seen in that desert. It was late in the day. The western sky had grown orange with the setting of the sun.
“It’s as if you can almost see forever,” said the teacher. “Do you know how to say forever in Hebrew?”
“How?” I replied.
“L’olam,” he said. “It means forever and yet more. It means that,” he said, pointing to the sunset. “L’olam literally means to the vanishing point. God is forever. God is l’olam, to the vanishing point. So if God takes our sins on the cross, where does He take them to?”
“To the vanishing point,” I said.
“Yes, and so God took our sins to the vanishing point and vanished with them . . . l’olam, to forever away, an eternity away, and beyond.”
“Beyond forever?”
“It could be said. You see, God is not only to forever. God is from forever, in Hebrew, m’olam. So He not only takes our sins from here to eternity, but from eternity to eternity . . . the distance from forever and to forever.”
“As far as the east is from the west,” I said.
“Yes, just as the scapegoat carried away the sins of the people on the holiest day of the year . . . It was from the west to the east, the plane of infinity . . . ”
“To the vanishing point.”
“How far,” he asked, “is the distance between God and us, between His holiness and our sinfulness?”
“It’s infinite,” I replied.
“And that’s why we could never save ourselves. That’s why it had to be God Himself . . . as He alone is from the vanishing point and to the vanishing point, m’olam l’olam, from forever and to forever. It’s the distance of God . . . and the distance of His love for you. And in the prayers of Israel He is called Melekh Ha Olam, the King of the Universe. But it also means King, the Sovereign of the Vanishing Point. As it is written, ‘From the rising of the sun, to the setting of the same, the name of the Lord is to be praised.’”
“From everlasting to everlasting, forever . . . and forever.”
The Mission: Ponder the length of God, the breadth of your salvation, and the love God has for you that spans from everlasting to everlasting.
Psalms 103:12; 113:3; Ephesians 3:18–19; 1 John 1:9
The Days of Eternity
DAY 276
THE PRICE OF THE PRICELESS
IMAGINE,” SAID THE teacher, “if there was a treasure hidden in that field. Imagine it was worth a hundred times the value of everything you owned. But the field was for sale. And the asking price was equal to everything you owned. So you sell everything you have and purchase the field. The treasure is now yours. How much did it cost you to buy the treasure?”
“Everything I had.”
“No,” said the teacher. “It didn’t cost you anything.”
“But I had to pay for it with everything I had.”
“For the field,” he said, “but not for the treasure. The treasure was beyond your ability to buy, even with all your possessions. It was, in effect, priceless. And yet it was free. What I just told you was the parable Messiah gave of a man who buys a field in order to gain the treasure hidden within it. What do you think the treasure represents?”
“Salvation? Eternal life? The blessings of God?”
“All correct,” he said. “You can never earn or warrant God’s blessings, or His salvation, or eternal life. A million years of perfect works couldn’t purchase it. It’s priceless. And yet it’s given freely, apart from any work, undeserved, and solely by the grace of God. That’s the treasure. But there’s another side to the story. Though the treasure is free, it causes the man to go out and do everything he can, use everything he has, let go of everything he can let go of, and give everything he can give in response to having found the treasure. Salvation is the treasure beyond price and yet given freely to all who freely receive it. But the treasure is so great, that if you truly receive it, if you realize what you have, it will lead you to do everything you can, to use everything you have, and to give everything you can give in response to having found it. If you’ve truly found this treasure, then it must lead you to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love others as yourself, to forgive as you have been forgiven, to give as you have been given to, to make your life a gift of love, and to do all this in joy in light of the treasure that has now come into your life. If you’ve found the treasure that is beyond price and freely given, then live a life that is of the utmost of value and the greatest of worth, and do so f
reely. This is the way you possess the priceless.”
The Mission: In view of the treasure freely given, pay the price of the priceless. Give all you have and are. Live all-out. Apprehend the field.
Matthew 13:44; Luke 18:22; Philippians 3:7–8; 2 Peter 1:4
The Heavenly Exchange
DAY 277
CAMPING IN HEAVEN
IT WAS SUKKOT, the Feast of Tabernacles. The students were sleeping outside in sukkahs—tabernacles of branches, wood, and fruit. I was one of them. During the night, the teacher paid me a visit. We sat and talked through the night in the light of the full moon that penetrated the branches.
“This is how it looked,” he said, “in Jerusalem, in the days of the Temple. The Holy City was filled with tabernacles inside of which the people of Israel lived for the seven days of the festival. They were to dwell as they did when they journeyed through the wilderness to the Promised Land, as a commemoration. Is there anything strange about that?”
“They were camping out in their homeland, living in the Promised Land as if they were still living in the wilderness.”
“And what does the Promised Land ultimately represent? Heaven. And what does the wilderness represent? The journey to heaven . . . our days on earth. So if those in the Promised Land are living in tabernacles to remember how God kept them when they journeyed in the wilderness, will not we in heaven remember our days on earth and give thanks to God for His keeping us through our journeying there? You see, in the Feast of Tabernacles, the two realms, the Promised Land and the wilderness, come together. And that joining bears witness of a mystery: The realm of heaven and the realm of earth are joined. What you do in the earthly realm touches the realm of the heavenly. And what is done in the heavenly realm touches the earthly. While on earth, you are to store up treasures in heaven. And what you bind on earth is bound in heaven. When you pray, you are to pray that as it is in heaven, it will be on earth. And as you pray on earth, you are to enter the heavenly throne of God. Messiah is the joining of the heavenly and the earthly. So those who live in Messiah are to live in both realms, in the joining together of the two realms. You see, in the realm of salvation, heaven is not only there and then, but here and now. Learn the mystery of the Feast of Tabernacles and the secret of living in the realm of the heavenly even now. For if those in the Promised Land can dwell in the tabernacles of the wilderness, then we on the wilderness journey can dwell even now . . . in the tabernacles of heaven.”
The Mission: Learn the secret, while living in the earthly realm, to dwell in the heavenly realm. Live in the realm of heaven and earth as one.
Leviticus 23:40–43; Ephesians 2:6; Revelation 7:9
Camping in Heaven
DAY 278
THE SHEPHERD AND THE FISHERMEN
IT WAS IN a place like this,” said the teacher, “far into the wilderness, where an old shepherd was tending his flock by a mountain and a desert bush. He had no idea he would become the deliverer of an entire nation.”
“Moses,” I said.
“And then there were the fishermen casting their nets into the waters, having no idea they would one day become some of the most famous people who ever walked the earth . . . the disciples. There’s a pattern,” he said. “Moses, in his former life, was a shepherd who led his flock through the desert. God would then use him to shepherd a nation and lead the flock of Israel through that same wilderness. The disciples in their former lives were fishermen. God would use them to become messengers of Messiah . . . fishers of men. Their former lives corresponded with their redeemed lives.”
“So God takes the former life and redeems it to use for His purposes.”
“He does,” said the teacher. “But the mystery is deeper. God created and purposed them from the beginning to become what they would become. So it wasn’t that Moses became the shepherd of Israel because he was a shepherd of sheep. It was that Moses became a shepherd of sheep . . . because he was to become the shepherd of Israel. And it wasn’t that the disciples became fishers of men because they were fishermen. Rather, they became fishermen . . . because they were to one day become fishers of men. So it is for all of God’s children. And so it is for you. When you look back at your life, you will find hidden within it this mystery. You’ll find a Moses in the wilderness . . . a fisherman in a boat. Your life was a mystery waiting to be redeemed . . . a mystery in which was embedded the seeds of His purposes to be used for His glory. It wasn’t that He happened to discover your life and then decided to use it for His purposes. It was that you were what you were because God had purposed from the beginning what you would one day become. Your life was a shadow of that which it was made to become. So commit every part of your life, all that you have and all that you are, to the will and purposes of God. And your life will become that of a fisherman become an apostle, a shepherd become a deliverer . . . all that it was created and called and formed to become, all it was waiting to become . . . from the beginning.”
The Mission: Look back at your life. What is it that you were meant to do and be? Take steps today to all the more fulfill your calling.
Exodus 3:1–8; Jeremiah 1:5; Matthew 4:18–20; Galatians 1:15; 2 Timothy 1:9
The Heavenly Pattern I–IV
DAY 279
ALTAR OF THE HEAVENLIES
HE TOOK ME back into the chamber that housed the stone replica of the Temple.
“That,” he said, pointing to his right, “is the brazen altar, the altar on which the sacrifices were offered up and by which the people were reconciled to God. On the Day of Atonement, after the sacrifice was complete, the high priest would take the blood and enter through those two golden doors into the holy place. He would then go beyond the veil into the holy of holies where he would sprinkle the blood on the ark of the covenant in between the wings of the golden cherubim. Everything begins with the altar. What does it foretell, the altar of sacrifice?”
“The offering of the final sacrifice,” I said, “the sacrifice of Messiah.”
“On what altar?” he asked.
“On the altar of the cross.”
“Yes,” he said. “The cross is the ultimate and cosmic altar of the ultimate and cosmic sacrifice, the Lamb of God. But the altar of sacrifice was only one part of the Temple. What about the rest?”
“What do you mean?”
“People see the cross as if it was the end of salvation. But the altar of sacrifice was never the end, but the beginning. It is the altar of sacrifice that gives access, the ability to enter through the Temple doors, to walk beyond the veil, and to stand in the holy of holies. The altar begins the journey. So then, the cosmic altar must give you cosmic access . . . that you might begin a cosmic journey. The altar of Messiah’s sacrifice gives you access to go where you never could go before, to open doors you never before could open, to enter into that which you never before could enter, and to walk a path you never before could walk. This cosmic altar gives you the power to enter the realm of the holy and, in the Spirit, to stand in the heavenly places, in the holy of holies, in the actual dwelling place of God. Learn the mystery and the magnitude of this altar and enter beyond the veil . . . For if the altar of sacrifice opened the way that one might dwell in the holy place, then the altar of Messiah’s sacrifice has opened the way for you to dwell in the heavenlies . . . and the realms of glory.”
The Mission: Bring your life totally inside the cross. It is a doorway. Use its access to go where you never could before.
Exodus 40:6; Leviticus 16:12–14; Hebrews 4:14–16; 10:19–23
The Lamb Mysteries I–VI
DAY 280
THE MYSTERY OF AUTUMN
HE LED ME into the Chamber of Vessels and to a room within it that had several platforms built into its walls. It was almost identical to the room he had taken me to months earlier when he shared of the spring holy days. But its contents were different. On one of the platforms was a shofar, the ram’s horn; on another, a brass laver for washing; on another, fruit; and on another, three larg
e scrolls.
“Tell me the theme,” said the teacher, “that binds all these things together.”
“The autumn holy days,” I said.
“Very good. Do you remember what I shared with you about the cycles of the biblical calendar?”
“That the sacred Hebrew year has two cycles or clusters of holy days, the spring cycle and the autumn cycle. And in each cycle, the holidays are joined together not only in their timing but in their themes.”
“And what is the theme of the spring cycle?” he asked.
“The beginning, salvation, freedom, rebirth, new life, Passover, the Lamb.”
“And now we move to the autumn cycle and to the mystery it holds. In the natural realm, as the spring is about beginning, the autumn is about ending. So it is in the biblical year. As the spring cycle opens the sacred year, the autumn closes it. So the autumn holy days are all about the ending, and closing up that which began in the spring.”
“And what are their themes?” I asked.
“The end,” he said, “the end of the harvest, the return, the sounding of the trumpets, the regathering, the repentance, man and God face-to-face, the judgment, the redemption, the kingdom of God, and all things returning to Him . . . the closing.”
“If the spring cycle speaks of the beginning and Messiah’s first coming, then the autumn cycle would speak of His second coming . . . and the end.”
“Yes. And what will the end of the age be? It will see the end of the harvest, the regathering and return of His people, the trumpets of His coming, man and God face-to-face, the judgment, the kingdom of God, and all things returning to Him. The spring cycle reminds us that Messiah is the Lamb. But the autumn cycle reminds us that He is also the Lion, the King, the Almighty, and the Lord of all. Remember that. And live your life accordingly . . . just as we now live between the Lion and the Lamb.”
The Book of Mysteries Page 40