Mountains and valleys —these describe daily experiences for many who have come to put their faith in Jesus Christ and have received the free gift of eternal life.
They seek the Lord Jesus. They experience what appears to be victory over a certain obstacle, only to fall again into another valley, lower and deeper than the one they came out of. Although some may give up, many keep trying, trying and failing, but they never quit.
How many of us have experienced this pattern in our lives and have continued on the same course with very few lasting results except for feeling discouraged, reluctantly giving in to defeat, or apathetically defaulting to the status quo?
Only the resurrection power of Christ can wake us up, transform our lives, and redeem us once again from all unwanted weights or entanglements. Instead of climbing another mountain in preparation for Christ’s return, we need the mountains leveled and valleys lifted up as had to happen when Jesus appeared the first time, but how does that happen?
Only one mountain, according to the prophet Daniel, will be left standing, the mountain that destroys all other kingdoms or mountains. The question is, how do any of us attain that mountain of victory? And how can leveling mountains and climbing the mountain of God both be what God wants? How can that be?
Are we still determined to rely on our own understanding when it has never produced any good in us whatsoever? Isn’t it by faith we received Christ? So why would knowing and growing forward in Him be any different? We have to approach God by faith.
The New Testament records that Jesus led Peter, James, and John up the mount of transfiguration. In the Old Testament, we discover that only those with clean hands can ascend the mountain of the Lord. The invitation to go up the mountain comes from Jesus and He meets our deepest need to be made clean.
Is There Anyone Who Does Good?
The need for clean hands is not literal. It represents being clean before the Lord. An angel took a burning coal from the altar of God and touched Isaiah’s lips to make him clean. Prepared, he could then speak amid the divine counsel to fulfill God’s purpose with his life. When the apostle John fell down as dead when He saw Jesus in glory, Jesus touched His shoulder with His right hand and spoke the word John needed to hear to overcome.
Therefore, John under the anointing wrote the letters to the seven lamp stands, the seven churches, through which God’s people achieve victory and Christ can bring the Church of all ages to maturity.
The presence of Jesus must transform both the determination that prompts us to rely on our own strength and the desolation that so easily steals our hope. May our faith, which is purer than gold, be fired into holy resolve not to live apathetic lives but to obey the voice of Christ no matter what the cost.
We must be laid bare before our inadequacies as Isaiah, John, Peter, and James were. Our deficiencies expose our great need for God’s word and merciful touch before we can ascend the mountain of God, where we need not only visit temporarily but live forever in God's tabernacling presence.
Change of Real Estate
It is possible that victory requires our adopting a whole new paradigm, to ascend a whole new mountain, or to say it another way, to decide to no longer bark up the the same old tree.
Just as barking up the wrong tree means being altogether focused in the wrong direction, all we know and can know from earth’s perspective is the wrong tree, what the Bible describes as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The answer to our great need is Jesus. God’s divine wisdom and plan has provided renewed access to the tree of life, though it cannot be found by earthly means. Finding it must be granted. The Bible, in fact, in describing how the rebellious one was cast out of the mountain of God also reveals the location of the Garden of Eden as upon the mountain (Ezekiel 28).
Jesus said those who gain the victory will be granted to eat from the tree of life in the paradise, garden, or orchard of God. They will also walk with Jesus in white. Jesus Himself is the tree of life. He is the Torah, known as the tree of life to the Jews, but if the tree of life is not on earth, then how can we eat of its fruit and live forever? Adam’s sin left us with a dilemma.
Like the ark of the covenant in Solomon’s temple, the Torah takes up no physical space. God’s word comes to life in us and through us as we hear what our loving and kind Lord and Savior Jesus Christ says in us, and we humbly obey Him, though we do not fully understand.
Jesus died on the cross for our sins to deliver us from the pattern of standing up and failing, getting up and landing on our face again and again. As the psalmist said, the Lord has lifted us up out of the miry clay and set our feet upon the rock. The Kingdom of God is pictured as a place where each person sits under his or her own fig tree in peace and prosperity, fellowship and anointing, and not as an unending series of successes and failures.
Since the tree of life is hidden, we need to be shown the way to it. God Himself needs to breathe into us and make us stand according to His word of life, so we can get back to Eden. Please join me in offering this prayer: God in heaven, may you breathe life into your people across the earth and stand them to their feet in Jesus name.
The martyrs showed us the way to stand before the throne of God in victory. They love their lives not unto death. Humbly acknowledging sin and our need for Christ in light of God’s holiness opens the way to the tree of life, granting us access to the oil that never runs out so we can shine continuously as lamps in the holy temple of God.
This Section of the Park Now Open
The way to the garden of Eden, blocked by angels since the rebellion of Adam, has been opened once again to all who put their faith in Christ. God enlists His angels to minister to us for we are predestined for salvation, for those He has called those He has also predestined.
The head of the four rivers of Genesis is no longer hidden. The waters of life flowing out of Eden lead the way back in. The river of life flows from the throne of God, and Jesus, as He called out to all those at the last day of the feast of tabernacles in Jerusalem, He calls out to all those who are thirsty today to come to Him. Drink freely from the waters of life He alone gives. He who drinks the water the Lord provides will never thirst again. He who overcomes serves God in His holy temple, tabernacled over by God, protected from the scorching heat of the sun.
We do well to obey the author of Hebrews who said if we hear God's voice today, whatever we do, we must not ignore it, as Israel did in the wilderness and experienced God’s displeasure for forty years and could not enter into the promised land because of disobedience/unbelief.
What accompanies those who hear and believe, however, is not disobedience but all the blessings associated with salvation. To those who believe, all the blessed promises in the Torah, the whole New Testament, and all the promises of God to all seven churches in Revelation chapters 2-3 are yes and amen.
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