Are You Willing?

I was told by a friend of mine of a brother that was attending a funeral and was standing at the casket of this one who had passed on and he was quietly praying and said, "Lord, can we raise this one up from the dead as you did? And the Spirit answered him, "Yes you can,are you willing to go where he is?" In other words, "Are you willing to go into death?"

That statement became a "selah moment" for me and has remained with me. Jesus was willing to come into this death realm, put on flesh and blood and be made like us in every way in order to lead captivity captive.

His obedience led him all the way to the cross. He destroyed death through death....talk about fighting fire with fire.....it was the fulfillment of the Law. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Its not an eye for an elbow, or a tooth for an ear....it is a corresponding or equal ransom that was paid. In other words, if you rob your neighbor of his oxen, you pay him back in oxen not donkeys.

"Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death as the result of sin, SO DEATH SPREAD TO ALL MEN, [no one being able to stop it or to escape its power] because all men sinned.

Yet death held sway from Adam to Moses [before the law], even over those who did not themselves transgress [a positive command] as Adam did." Rom 5

Praise God, Jesus was willing to go where the son don't shine and bring a people out. And if we want to put on the fullness of God and raise the dead...not just those who have laid their bodies down in death, but those dead in their consciousness, we will face the same question asked this brother standing at the man's casket; "Are you willing to go into death?"... Perhaps that will answer the question of why you have had to walk through some of the things that you have faced in this life and why you were positioned for a time among the religiously dead...or walked in the world among those dead in their trespasses and sins prior to being awakened. Or have experienced a dying out to your old man because of the life of the new man excelling within.

Out of death is born Life.

Samson offered a riddle to the Philistines:

"Samson said to them, I will now put forth a riddle to you; if you can tell me what it is, within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen undergarments and thirty changes of rainment. (30 is the number of maturity - you weren't made a High Priest until the age of 30, Joseph was 30 when he came to the throne, Jesus was 30 when he commenced his ministry. So this riddle is a parable about coming into maturity)

And they said to him, Put forth your riddle, that we may hear it.

And he said to them, Out of the eater came forth food, and out of the strong came forth sweetness. And they could not in three days solve the riddle."

Samson had the Spirit of the Lord come upon him before this telling of the riddle and he killed a lion with his bare hands that had come at him. He returned to this spot after a while and looked to see the body of this lion and a swarm of bees had made this lion's carcass its home. Samson scraped some of this honey out into his hands and went along eating and then gave some of it to his parents but did not tell them he had taken it from the body of a dead lion.

Samson confronted death which in this story is a fierce lion. He overcame it so where death once reigned, the sweetness of life now lives.

"If anyman thinks he knows anything when he knows nothing (by experience) he deceiveth himself."

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"Buy the truth and sell it not." This is not a cheap gospel, it will cost you. It will cost you everything that you are for everything that He is. Just getting a new revelation and running with it is not where its at.

We all love the new revelations and understandings that have been opened to us, but if you look back on your life, it is not when you are caught up in the heavens necessarily where you learned to walk in the spirit but it is when you have been in the low places and have had to hold on to the vision that was given you....like Joseph, "the word of the Lord tried him". That vision that you have, that word from the Lord that was given to you, that vision of seeing the glory of the Lord cover this earth as the waters cover the sea....that word will try you and burn in you as a fire. For every where you look in this world, wars and fighting and lack still abound, but "God is not a man that he could lie, neither the Son of Man that he should repent. Has he not spoken and shall he not do it."

"Therefore I counsel you to purchase from Me gold refined and tested by fire that you may be truly wealthy.."

"He who overcomes I will grant to eat of the fruit of the tree of life.."

"He who overcomes shall in no way be injured by the second death."

"He who overcomes I will give to eat of the manna that is hidden, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name..which no one knows or understands except the he who receives it."

"He who overcomes and who obeys My commands to the very end - doing the works that please Me- I will give him authority and power over the nations...and his power will be like that which I Myself have received from My Father. And I will give him the Morning Star."

"He who overcomes shall be clad in white garments."

"He who overcomes I shall make him a pillar in the sanctuary of My God.."

"He who overcomes I will grant him to sit beside Me on My throne.."

What that overcoming entails for each one of us, only we know. All of our assignments have been different.....some of our greatest weaknesses will prove to be the area of our greatest strengths for we will have learned that the arm of flesh could not produce this life, but only that which is born of our true being.

Praise God for his people mighty and strong in the power of His might, the likes of which has never been before and shall not be again. A fire devours before them and and a flame burns behind them. They run like mighty men like a mighty people set in battle array. The Lord utters his voice before them as they execute his word. For this day of the Lord is great and very terrible and who can endure it?