It is our second day in the beautiful and rugged mountains of the Mount Hood National Forest where Gary and I are celebrating our anniversary.
The view of these mountains is magnificent. We are staying in a cabin that is about 50 feet from the river. There are two Rivers called the Sandy and Salmon that come together here. We can hear both rivers rushing by from all rooms of this cabin.
Wow, what a Master Artist our Lord is. He makes no idle strokes in His creation. His every move reveals His Glory and the excellence of His Majesty. I am in complete awe of His ingenuity.
In the upper level of this cabin it over looks the Salmon River and in the distance I can see the Sandy River as it meets with the Salmon. The windows are open and I can hear the roar of the rivers as they collide. As I watch these two rivers come together my thoughts go to the verse in Genesis 1:6-8 “Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament and it was so. Then God called the firmament heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day.”
The above verse symbolically represents the separation of the heavenly and earthly. There are a people who have allowed their God to sanctify them as a holy people (1 Pet.1:16). Though the waters roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with its swelling – there is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God, the Holy Place of the tabernacle of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved (Ps. 46:3-5).
We have been in preparation for the return of Christ. This is why so many people are looking for His return in the natural. They look at the conditions of the world and cry out and look for His return to be soon. Christ is returning there is no doubt, but first and foremost He is returning in and through a people who have prepared themselves.
As nations rage and kingdoms are moved, His kingdom is about to be exalted among all other nations. You see we will not go out as cowards looking for a way out of this world, but we come into the world with and in the fruition and power of our King Jesus. The second day of natural creation was a day of separation. We see this spiritual significance throughout the word of God.
This division is Divine and for those who have allowed themselves to be separated from the influence of the earthly they have and are entering into the third day with spiritual receptivity that clearly understands they were created for God’s good pleasure and not their own. They were not bought without a price (1 Cor.6:20; Eph.1:9-,10).
The first day was without form and void. Just as God’s spirit hovered over the face of the deep and over the face of the waters on the first day of natural creation, so the Holy Spirit has hovered over the Church. There was and is a “deep” within us that is capable of responding to an eternal desire that is within our Creator. Spiritually speaking the creation of the Church began the day Christ resurrected from the dead.
The first day God said, “Let there be light, and there was light”. And God saw that the light was good, and divided light from darkness.” This is the spoken word of life for the sinner, and ever since that glorious day of His resurrection we have moved forward into the second day, and now the third. Gary and I are not 100% sold on all third day theology, but we do agree that we have moved into the third day. There is great understanding if we can grasp the revelation here because it explains why Christ has not returned yet, and why He is not returning the way so many think He is returning.
“And He said to them, Go and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils and I do cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.”
As explained by Apostle Peter, a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as a day (2 Pet.3:8,9). Peter was speaking prophetically of the Church age (two thousand years). The third-day however is the Millennial Day and it is here that the Body of Christ (which is exactly that – His body) will be perfected. This perfection that Christ spoke of is that of His body and His head coming together as one. For two thousand years Christ has looked for a place to rest His head.
“Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has no where to lay His head”. (Luke 9:58)
As we are entering in to the third day since the resurrection of Christ and about to see the birthing of the seventh day (millennial / the seventh day since creation) we shall have a deeper revelation of His “rest”. Just as people are looking for Christ’s return because they feel His return is very near, they are also sensing a need to enter into His “rest”. Again, there is a misunderstanding as they attempt to make this “rest” a place in the natural. Many have recently chosen to gather together for worship on Saturday because they are sensing the need to enter into the “Sabbath” place. This is not a natural place, but a spiritual place. This rest is called the “abiding” (John 15).
“For with stammering lips and another tongue He will speak to this people, to whom He said, this is the rest with which you may cause the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing. Yet they would not hear”. (Is.28:11-12)
There is a spiritual rest that God has commanded us to enter into (1 Cor.14:21; Hebrews 4). This place of rest is the abiding in Christ wherein we are no longer working our way to heaven as we are already there in Christ seated in the heavenly places (Eph.2:1-10). We have moved from an outside God mindedness, to an inside God mindedness (Gal.2:20; Col.1:27).
In Christ we can “rest” in Him as we move, live and have our being in the enveloping presence (parousia) of our Lord Jesus Christ. The “parousia” (life in the presence of God) is what we are to depend upon to “catch us up”. This being “caught up” is living in the heavenly places with Christ.
I would like to reiterate that there is a literal return of Christ. However, firstly He is coming bodily for the appearance and presence of Himself in His Body. He is coming to be glorified in and through His saints (2 Thess.1:7-10). He has come to His people. He is come in His people. And He iscoming through His people. To, In, and Through. We have and continue to move from outworking to inworking. From glory to Glory. From ever learning about Him to experientially living in and through Him (John 15).
As I am writing and looking out at the two rivers coming together I see prophetically Genesis 1:9 coming into fruition. “Then God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place… and the gathering together He called seas. And God saw that it was good…”
The waters (two rivers) are symbolic of the nations of the earth; restlessness, under-currents, cross currents as the nations rage and are moved. As the waters come together (symbolic of eternal life through Christ), there is resurrection life (on the 3 day he was raised up from the dead), the manifestation of Christ in and through His people. But just as the two rivers come together there is a raging sound, turbulence, and a powerful force that creates such violent pressure that anything that is feeble will be destroyed.
Just as the two rivers that I described to you (Salmon and Sandy River) come together, one is overpowered by the other river so it is with the Body of Christ. The Sandy River overtakes the Salmon River. It’s no longer the Salmon River; it is now the Sandy River. As the Body of Christ manifests itself in the world she shall overtake the world by the powerful presence of her Lord. No longer is it the earthly, but the heavenly in the world. Death is now at the brink of being swallowed up by the life of Christ as we are awakening to this reality (1 Cor.15:51-55).
“To you it has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables… He who has an ear (spiritual receptivity), let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes (complacency, doubt,unbelief, false comfort, negative thinking, etc) I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.” (Mark 4:11; Rev.2:7)
Glorious things ahead for the Body of Christ. Incredible insight and knowledge given with the experience to follow. There are a people who have and are allowing God to break through their fallow mindset. We are in the age where satan is raging as he has never raged before.
God has and is raising up an army who will not break rank. They don’t push each other. Everyone marches in their own column (Joel 2:7). They don’t look at others and wonder why they are not doing what they are doing because that is what God is doing and if others are not doing what they are doing then surely others are missing God – Ugh! Dear saints, if we were all the hands and feet of the body how in the world would we eat without a mouth to give strength and nourishment to the body? If we were all eyeballs how would we walk to what we are seeing (1 Cor.12:12-31)?
Dear ones, this is the most important time in your and my life. This is the time to press through humiliation, to press through false accusations and criticism, to press through defeat, to press through pain and allow God to reveal Himself in a manner that is quite un-familiar to most Christians. We are not being taken out of this world. We are living in this world with a heavenly mindset that overcomes the earthly. O’ Glory to God! - We have been given the mind of Christ! (1 Cor.2:16).
- Traci Carson (Written 2008)