Grace, Grace!
I want to say to all worshipers who have dreamed the dream of the cloud of God's Presence filling the temple, "Take courage and position yourselves rightly, for your redemption draweth nigh!" Perhaps that's a strange way of saying it, but that's how I heard it. God is about to release the "GRACE, GRACE" without measure upon the earth! We've finally gotten to the point that we are convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that truer words were never spoken than those from the Voice of the Lord to Zechariah:
This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: 'Not by might not by power, but by My Spirit,' says the LORD of hosts. 'Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain! And he shall bring forth the capstone with shouts of "Grace, grace to it!'" Zechariah 4:6-7
After having pressed in and pressed on with what little we have in sheer faithfulness to God and a lovesick heart, we still have not experienced the desired result of His habitation in our midst. Trying not to despise "this day of small beginnings," as was referenced in that same chapter by Zechariah, and having done all we know to do...we stand. We stand before Him, resting and abiding in Him, posturing ourselves to receive from Him the infilling that is necessary to carry what He is about to pour out from Heaven. Even the very thought of it arouses the ache of hope that we will see it with our own eyes.
The process has all but killed us, so its purpose has most likely almost been accomplished. Empty vessels, void of ourselves and having come to the end of our own strength and our own ideas, we now know we must have the grace of His Presence not only in our midst, but within us. We ARE the temple, and His rebuilding of His Temple is much more personal than we ever imagined.
Things Not Seen
Over the last few years, my attention has been brought at every turn to the book of Zechariah, the emphasis being chapter 4--the source of the ceaseless flow and the shouts of "grace, grace." Zechariah's writings seem to relate to the admonition from the Lord to Habakkuk, as this theme of hope pervades in a two-fold manner. First of all, we have the hope deferred with the result of making our hearts sick, but then we have the hope as the result of faith. We seem to have to go through the lack of the first to get to the substance of the second.
"Then the Lord answered me and said: 'Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak and IT WILL NOT LIE. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, IT WILL NOT TARRY. Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him; but the just shall live by his faith.'" Habakkuk 2:2-4
In the midst of what seemed to be the silence of Heaven, something we can all relate to on some level, God encourages Habakkuk to continue, to continue and not grow weary in well doing. That renowned phrase, "the just shall live by his faith," uttered from His lips still echoes in the life of the Believer. We add to that the New Testament reference of hope as is related to faith:
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1
The operative words here being "things not seen." Both prophets refer to things promised from God that are being withheld out of His mercy and love toward us, as does the prophet Isaiah. He does not want to give us a thing too soon, lest it destroy us. God wants us to BE the Temple filled with His glory, with the manifestation of His Seven Spirits burning unto His abiding Presence WITHIN us--not just around us. I realize this next portion of Scripture is long, but there is not a word I dare leave out, as it so completely paints a picture of where we are as the Body of Christ.
"Therefore the LORD will wait, that He may be gracious to you; and therefore He will be exalted, that He may have mercy on you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for Him. For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will be very gracious to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears it, He will answer you. And though the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your teachers will not be moved into a corner anymore, but your eyes shall see your teachers.
"Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying 'This is the way, walk in it,' whenever you turn to the right hand or whenever you turn to the left. You will also defile the covering of your images of silver, and the ornament of your molded images of gold. You will throw them away as an unclean thing; you will say to them, 'Get away!'
"Then He will give the rain for your seed with which you sow the ground, and bread of the increase of the earth; it will be fat and plentiful. In that day your cattle will feed in large pastures. Likewise the oxen and the young donkeys that work the ground will eat cured fodder, which has been winnowed with the shovel and fan.
"There will be on every high mountain and on every high hill rivers and streams of waters, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. Moreover the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD binds up the bruise of His people and heals the stroke of their wound." Isaiah 30:18-26
"In Returning and Rest You Shall Be Saved"
This one portion of Scripture describes what is on the horizon as He fills us with His fullness, His Seven Spirits burning, that we might carry in our beings the fullness of God in the fullness of time. As worshipers and priests to our God, we need to be forerunners in this; in Scripture, God had a pattern of sending the musicians and singers out ahead of the rest of the group. There is a preparation that must take place in us that we might to be able to hold that position with grace--even His "Grace, grace!" In verse 15 of Isaiah 30, prior to what you just read, God gives His reason for waiting. I saved this until last, as I am undone when I ponder His limitless mercy toward us in this statement!
"For thus says the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel: 'In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength.' But you would not..." Isaiah 30:15
Therein lies the beauty of His ways, as He goes on in verse 18 to say, that because we couldn't, actually WOULDN'T, do what He admonishes us to do--for our own good, mind you--He waited so that He could be gracious to us. There's that "grace, grace" again! Does that not just explode within you?! We rebel, so He waits to pour out His fullness--He goes on to describe to us in verses 18-26--that it not destroy us. Hopefully we are now at the point that we can return to Him, face Him, draw near to Him and rest in Him.
I believe God wants to fill us with His Seven Spirits of wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and the fear of the Lord unto the indwelling of His Presence. He wants to equip us within for what is about to be poured out from Heaven. There have never been a people who walked in this--until now.
JoAnn McFatter
WhiteDove Ministries
Email: contact@joannmcfatter.com
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