Leaving On A Journey

Many of God’s people are just now leaving on a journey that God has been preparing them for all of their lives. It is a spiritual journey that is manifested into the natural realm. It is first experienced in the spiritual and is worked out in the natural. Though the destination is not completely clear, enough is known about it to call us forward to seek to fully experience the promised destination of a greater new life. There is no turning back allowed on this journey.

Luke 9:62: But Jesus said to him, "No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God."

Not everyone who is going will make the journey at the same time. However, individuals should be led by the Spirit to gather in groups to make the final preparation and leave on the journey together. It would be very hard if not impossible to complete this journey alone. However, much of the individual’s initial preparation may be made with only the Lord as companionship and fellowship.

This is a journey from religion and religious systems to spiritual kingdom relationship – a journey from doing to being – from formality to reality – from part-time Christianity to full time oneness with God – from giving ten percent to being one hundred percent consumed in God – from living by the Spirit part time to walking in the Spirit every moment – from a life of saying we believe to experiencing the reality of God. This is a journey into a fresh new lifestyle that is empowered by an intimate love relationship with God and works out of us to impact and change the world around us.

I am reminded of the early settlers of America who left their native lands and established a new life in the eastern parts of the nation. Afterward, hearty pioneers set out in small groups of covered wagons to settle in the west. My own great, great grandfather came from Ireland to America and headed west up the old Oregon Trail and settled in the then wild-west country of Frankfort, Kansas. Our spiritual journey into the new land of kingdom of God living as pioneers and settlers can be compared to the pioneers and settlers of western America.

Everything that is not useful for the journey must be sold. The familiar home and all its furnishings will be left. The neighborhood and the friends that were treasured since youth who are not going on the journey are left behind. The places of treasured memories where couples fell in love and were married and where the children were baptized must be left behind. Even the memories will fade as a whole new reality is experienced on the journey. Many things that seemed so very vital and foundational to past life cannot make the journey and are left behind as a new landscape and new priorities come into being in the new life of transition to the new world.

One group after another will start the journey and then another and another until many are on the trail making their way toward the promise of a new life with God. There are many unknowns about the journey, but they do know that it can be very difficult at times with many perils.

The folks that are remaining in the old land often seek desperately to dissuade people from leaving on the journey. With sincere and loving concern, they warn of potential peril in traveling through wilderness areas toward a largely unknown destination. They sincerely believe that everything needed is there in the old land and even though corruption has invaded the people and threatens to bring them all into seasons of lack and loss of freedom, they still say it is better than leaving the known for the wilderness travels toward a promise only seen in the spiritual realm by spiritual eyes.

Yet the Spirit draws, and those who will follow God hear clearly the call to the new land - the spiritual city of life beyond all they have known before – life as it was intended to be from the beginning – a life completely free from sin and any of its results – a life in the presence of God as He walks among the people and fills their lives with the light of His glory. He will wipe away every tear caused by the sometimes painful experiences of leaving the past and the perilous wilderness journey.

A Spiritual Journey with Real Dangers and Unprecedented Rewards

The earliest travelers on this journey paid a great price and many did not make it through. They did blaze a trail as far as they made it, so that subsequent travelers can follow it to assist them in their journey. As more travelers travel the trail it is more clearly marked and improved. Each group may add some logs in a bog or discover a better river crossing. Some have left devastating monuments beside the trail of their burned-out, wrecked vehicles and shallow graves of those who were attacked and overcome by the enemy along the way.

Since the earliest pioneers there has been an increase of called-out ones selling out and journeying down the faint but increasingly marked trail. Only in the past few decades has there been a dramatic increase in those setting out on the potentially perilous journey. The call of God is reaching many more people including young people who desperately hunger for the promise of abiding in the presence of God in a holy place among holy people. The tragic weight of sin and its awful penalties have become an unbearable burden to these who are selling all, and with God-given strength and determination are leaving the past to make the journey. These are road builders who will prepare the way for the multitudes to come after them.

The trail will be made into a Highway for the masses who will make the journey behind them. Those leaving now are sent to prepare the way for the people of God to move from the past church-age mixtures into the pure and holy kingdom of God, New Jerusalem lifestyle. The road builders must have their personal valleys exalted and their mountains and hills made low within their own lives. They must have their crooked places made straight and their rough places made smooth. The highway is built as multitudes follow and become a straightened, smooth, and level highway of holiness for God.

Some of us are hearing the call, the voice crying in the wilderness.

Isa 40:3-5: The voice of one crying in the wilderness: "Prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth; The glory of the LORD shall be revealed, And all flesh shall see it together; For the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

Leadership for the Journey

A new and different leadership is being formed for the transition. The new Leaders have traveled the trail and know the terrain. They are prepared, gifted, and sent to help lead the holy kingdom highway building.

The new leaders walk among the group and not above it. All are on the journey together. The new leaders have been further along the trail and experienced more brokenness, cleansing them from all the mixtures of the past.

Gifted apostles and prophets are sent by God for transitional leadership. These humble leaders have been emptied of self and the resurrection life of Jesus imparted into them by the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead. Christ Jesus has unhindered free reign to flow into and through them. The supernatural works flowing through them are only surpassed by the presence of the wisdom of God that formed all creation and the love of God that overcomes evil in its presence.

Isa 35:8-10: A highway shall be there, and a road, and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for others. Whoever walks the road, though a fool, shall not go astray. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast go up on it; it shall not be found there. But the redeemed shall walk there, and the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

The End of the Journey

For each of us and collectively all of us, the end of the journey is fully becoming the Bride of Christ pictured as the New Jerusalem of God and ruling and reigning with Him in a renewed world transformed by His love, wisdom, and power.

Rev 21:9-10: Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came to me and talked with me, saying, "Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb's wife." And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem,

Rev 21:2-5: Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. "And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away." Then He who sat on the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." And He said to me, "Write, for these words are true and faithful."

On a broader, worldwide scale beyond the journey of the highway of holiness people, the transition of the world will be catastrophic and cataclysmic as the pride and loftiness of man and all that lifts itself against God will be dissolved by fire and the land resettled by the holy, pure Bride of Christ people ruling and reigning with Christ. And of His kingdom there shall be no end.

Mat 13:41-43: "The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

Isa 9:7: Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

Keep on pursuing love. It never fails
and His kingdom never ends.



June 11, 2009, Ron McGatlin
www.openheaven.com
basileia@earthlink.net



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