Preparing the Bride of Christ For His Return By Janet Van Hierdan
A Tale of Two Brides is now available on Amazon.com:
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Another Coffee Break:
Aphiémi Healing, Part 17
February 14, 2014
Growing up in Eskimo villages in the arctic, snow storms were not unusual. If Sunday came along and we were in the middle of a blizzard, who cares! The only individuals who might stay home were the very aged and infirm. Brother, have things ever changed! After fairly light snowfall on Thursday and Friday a week ago here in the Yakima Valley which left us with an accumulation of perhaps four inches, we woke up Sunday morning with an overnight snowstorm that had dropped another seven inches on us.
With a fellowship of believers scattered across a distance of more than a hundred miles, highways and city streets clogged with thick snow, and warming temperatures that made things slick and treacherous for driving, we found it prudent to cancel our gathering last Sunday. (Several other pastors and church leaders let us know they had done the same thing.) Thinking back over the years, this has to be only the second time in memory we've ever canceled a Sunday gathering.
Guess that's part of the problems we have in our modern, civilized (?), technical age. In the arctic, folks just hitched up their dog teams (if they had any distance to travel), or they dressed up for the weather and headed out. Unless a person has chains or studded snow tires on their vehicles in this kind of weather, they consider it too risky to travel. [These are the kinds of times when I think back rather fondly to my dog-team days! :-)]
OK. Let's get on with today's discussion.
John 3:47-51: Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
Jesus’ statement was predicated on the fact that His flesh would be resurrected flesh. He knew that he was about to be killed, but He also knew that they couldn’t keep him dead. He was going to rise from the dead.
Jesus was getting ready to keep our appointment with death. Because life — zoe life — was in Him already, He could, with absolute authority say, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever.”
For those of us as believers, when we obey Jesus’ command to be water-baptized, we show to Satan and to all his minions that we likewise have transferred our citizenship from that of this world to Heaven — to the Kingdom of God.
But the Table of the Lord doesn’t leave our feast at simply eating of Jesus’ flesh. We must also drink His Cup. Why? Take a look at a couple of statements that David makes.
Psalm 16:5: The LORD is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot.
Psalm 23:5: Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Psalm 116:13: I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the LORD.
The Cup represents the very life-force of God Himself. It is the life-force of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit is the moving force, the energizer of that life-force in us.
The Cup is the cup of life itself. For Jesus to instruct us to drink His blood — or to drink His Cup — was to drink of the energizing force that filled Him after the Holy Spirit manifested on and in Him. (The Greek word, erchomai, is used in Matthew’s text, and it literally means to appear from within, to manifest, to accompany, to appear, to enter).
Thus, Jesus was both baptized in water AND in/with the Holy Spirit. It mattered not — in the final analysis — that Jesus was going to be crucified; death couldn’t hang onto Him. He had drank of the Cup of the Spirit.
When Jesus died on the Cross and blood and water issued from His side, there was no need for blood in His being any longer once He was raised from the dead. When He appeared to the disciples after His resurrection, He said to them, “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” (see Luke 24:39)
He didn’t refer to Himself as “flesh and blood.” The blood had been shed. The appointment with death had been kept by the shedding of His blood. Death was canceled. Now the Spirit of Life — everlasting — would make us free from the Law of Sin and Death.
Let me take another track with this for a minute to show you something.
There is are several rather fascinating scientific "white papers" which touch on the subject of blood. These "white papers" propose that blood is nothing more than congealed light. That's a rather bold concept and treatise, but for blood to be congealed light would mean that the light had slowed down rather dramatically. (That's a scientific discussion I don't want to get into today, but one that we may come back to some other time.)
Let me quote briefly from one discussion in the realm of quantum physics -- an area we've already touched on briefly as we talked about the aspect of faith.
"In [DeBroglie's] research, he observed that sub-atomic particles also displayed wave-like properties. Particles such as the electron and proton also had wavelengths. In other words, inside the atom – which earlier science described as absolute matter – there were non-material energy waves, contrary to materialist belief. Just like light, these minute particles inside the atom behaved like waves at times, and exhibited the properties of particles at others.
"Contrary to expectations, the absolute matter in the atom could be detected at certain times, but disappeared at others. This major discovery showed that what we imagine to be the real world were in fact shadows. Matter had completely departed from the realm of physics and was headed in the direction of quantum mechanics."
To sum up these conclusions, when you get to the core makeup of everything, there is light! Science can demonstrate that all matter is nothing more than congealed light! Consider this: light isn’t like the light you see from the sun or a lamp, but waves of energy. At the subatomic level, everything is energy waves – light. Recent discoveries have revealed that cells communicate with one another via light called biophotons.
You see where I'm going with this, don't you? You'll remember that Della and I have talked about our physicist friend, Dr. Joseph O'Neil. This is the man who discovered that he could convert the makeup of blood into sound and thereby determine a person's medical history and likely life-span based on the music produced when scanning the blood.
Since sound and light are all part of the same energy spectrum, it takes no great rocket science to figure out that if sound can be derived from blood, light is there as well.
What's the point of all of this? Consider again what we read in Genesis 2:23: "And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."
Juxtapose that statement against Jesus' Word to the Disciples: “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.”
When you realize that we have no mention of blood at all in the Word prior to Adam and Eve eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and we first see blood as producing sound (Genesis 4:10) when Abel's blood "cries" out to the Lord, it provides us with the very unique perspective that Adam and Eve actually had light flowing in their veins prior to the introduction of sin and the contamination of their DNA.
If indeed blood is slowed-down and congealed light, it gives us a unique revelation of what Jesus did for us at the Cross, and why He gave us His Table as a picture of the restoration of our return to timeless existence in and through Him.
In Coffee Breaks published throughout past years, I've shared a tiny portion of my own set of experiences which took place back in 1996 when I transported in the realm of the Spirit outside of time, into eternity, and back and forth into various points in time going back to the Garden of Eden, into the future to see things during the thousand years of peace, and even seeing the "New Heavens and the New Earth" as John describes in Revelation when "time should be no more."
One of the things which became very clear to me was that until Adam and Eve sinned by eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, time -- at least in the way that we know it -- was not measured. There is pretty clear evidence in the Word for this. Consider what Peter had to say about it in his second general letter to the body of Christ (See II Peter 3:5-8):
"For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
"But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."
Get it? He says, "by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water."
When He spoke, creation was old and aged by hundreds of thousands and millions of years (according to the way that science likes to measure things), but the age and all of the "periods of time" that geologists like to assign to the earth occurred instantly when the Word came forth.
OK, now! Don't go throwing rocks at me! I didn't say that: Peter wrote that under the inspiration of Holy Spirit. God spoke the Word. Age existed at the moment He spoke. Let me tell you why I believe this without a shred of doubt.
When you see creative miracles unfold before your eyes, when you see eyes form in eye sockets where eyes have been removed, when you see four inches of bone grow in seconds to replace bone which has been surgically removed, when you see an arm grow which had never grown because of a birth defect, and it changes from the size of a baby's arm to the size needed for a full-grown woman in a matter of seconds -- you get the idea!
When you see the dead raised to life -- and even experience being raised from the dead yourself -- when you experience instant dematerialization, or a reconstruction of your molecular makeup (or whatever you want to call it) so that you pass through a solid object in a split second and are instantly changed back, when you are transported physically, along with a group of other people, hundreds of miles in less time than it takes to blink an eye -- when you begin to experience these kinds of events for yourself, you suddenly realize that the creative power in the Word of God exceeds anything our natural, physical world can even comprehend!
Watching creative miracles take place in front of your eyes that happen either in seconds or virtually instantly, you suddenly understand the concept of God speaking the Word, "Light BE!" and everything materializing out of what seems to be nothingness in a split second as though it was fully grown, fully matured, with time and age built into its very existence!
Sorry! I'm getting off on a rabbit trail here. What I saw in the adventures experienced in those travels was that time was created specifically as an envelope or a container to hold death, sin, the curse and Satan. Here's how John (in Revelation 10:5-6) describes it:
"And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, And sware by him that liveth forever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer."
So what are we getting at here? Follow this sequence:
If (1) light was slowed in order to create this envelope we know as time, and (2) light was what Adam and Eve initially had flowing in their veins, and (3) sin/time caused such a slowdown in the flow of the light in their veins that it caused that light to congeal into what we now know as blood, then (4) we can easily conclude that the blood that Jesus shed for us -- both when he bore the stripes for our healing, as well as when he hung on the Cross -- was a demonstration of what we have in Him!
Did that come out right? Let's go through this one more time!
Jesus came into this world in the form of flesh and blood because he had to take on the form or the likeness of sinful flesh in order to begin the process of restoring us from time-space-based beings into eternity-based beings.
As time-space-based beings our ability to function from eternity was hampered and even prevented because the light and life of Father God which had once flowed in our beings had been retarded, slowed to the point of being congealed.
In order for the restoration to our former existence as light-based beings could happen we needed to be rid of the congealed light flowing in our veins. Blood sacrifices were established under the Law of Moses as an interim means of atonement for our sins -- and we all know that "atonement" is only a covering over, NOT an eradication of the sin, or forgiveness, or "remission" (aphiemi) and even the wiping out of the memory of our sins.
Jesus became the "once and for all time" sacrifice on our behalf, in the process suffering stripes and wounds to his physical body such that there was scarcely a square inch of his body that wasn't bleeding. Acting in His position as The Son of God (who Himself was legally free from the Law of Sin and Death), by taking our sins, our transgressions, our iniquities (or character traits that tended or bent towards sin), our sicknesses, our diseases, our infirmities, and everything about our flesh and blood-based frame that was death-oriented to the Cross, Jesus drained every vestige of blood -- that congealed light -- from His body and in the process made possible for us an end to our time-space-based existence.
When Jesus rose from the dead, there wasn't an ounce of blood flowing in His veins. The risen Lord had been returned to his Spirit-based existence with light being the very essence of His core makeup.
Are you beginning to get a better grasp now on the significance of the Cup at the Table of the Lord? Do you now begin to understand why Jesus said, "this do in remembrance of me"?
In the natural world, wine is often referred to as "spirits." By the same token, Jesus used wine in the Cup at His Table to signify the transition available to us from blood-based (congealed light) existence to Spirit-based existence. Let's wrap up today's discussion by again quoting Romans 8:2:
"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death."
Are we good? Excellent! See you next week.
If you are in need of healing please join our prayer conference calls on either Monday, Wednesday or Friday of each week at 7:00 PM Eastern. Once again, the number to call is (805) 399-1000. Then enter the access code: 124763#. Let us minister to your need for healing!
Blessings on you!
Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
Email Contact: Admin@RiverWorshipCenter.org
Our book, A Tale of Two Brides, published by Destiny Image, is now available on Amazon.com as an E-book: http://www.amazon.com/Tale-Two-Brides-Relationship-ebook/dp/B00BSV6HZC/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1363139096&sr=8-8&keywords=A+Tale+of+Two+Brides#_
All Coffee Break articles are copyright by Regner A. Capener, but authorization for reprinting, reposting, copying or re-use, in whole or in part, is granted –provided proper attribution and this notice are included intact. Older Coffee Break archives are available at http://www.RegnersMorningCoffee.com. Coffee Break articles are normally published weekly.
If you would like to have these articles arrive each morning in your email, please send a blank email to: Subscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.To remove yourself from the mailing list, please send a blank email to Unsubscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.
If you would like to have these articles arrive each morning in your email, please send a blank email to: Subscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.To remove yourself from the mailing list, please send a blank email to Unsubscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.
CAPENER MINISTRIES is a tax-exempt church ministry. Should you desire to participate and covenant with us as partners in this ministry, please contact us at either of the above email or physical addresses, or visit: http://www.RiverWorshipCenter.org.
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Another Coffee Break:
Aphiémi Healing, Part 16
February 6, 2014
Good Morning! We have lots to talk about today, so let's get right to it!
Romans 6:1-7 (NASB): What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. (See also the Amplified Version)
II Corinthians 5:21: For He hath made (poieo: appointed or committed) Him who knew no sin to be sin (hamartia: error, missing the mark, failing to receive the prize) for us, so that we might be made (ginomai: [re-]generated) the righteousness (dikaiosune: justification, made just, holy — like God): of God in Him.
Della received a download — a revelation —of this picture a couple years ago in one of our early-morning times of prayer and intercession. She saw that when Jesus kept our appointment with death, He made it as though it had never been. The way she received it was “just as if it had never been” — hence, “justification.”
See the picture? Our appointment with death ceased to exist. It was as though it never existed in the first place. The same is true of all the aspects of the curse that comes with death: sickness, disease, infirmity, weakness, poverty, need of any kind; it was made as though it had never existed. Jesus canceled it out so totally and completely that it was as if it had never been.
Have you ever noticed how Jesus only commanded the keeping of two statutes, customs or ordinances for us as believers? Both of them incorporate the end of death and the cancellation of our appointment with death.
The first of the two commands comes in the observance of the Table of the Lord.
I Corinthians 11:23-26 (NASB): For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.
The second of the two commandments came after Jesus was crucified and had risen from the dead. This second of the two commandments had the force of the Throne of God backing it in terms of its demonstrative authority and power. Both Matthew and Mark record this command:
Matthew 28:18-20: And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
Mark 16:15-16: And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth (pisteuo: exercises faith) and is baptized (baptizo: covered over, fully whelmed by water or fluid) shall be saved (sozo: saved, delivered, healed, protected, made to prosper, made whole and complete); but he that believeth not shall be damned (katakrino: judged, condemned and sentenced).
Ever wonder what baptism is all about? Have you ever considered why Jesus would make such a command in the first place? Then consider what He said when He was preaching to Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews and a Pharisee.
John 3:5-8: Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
Remember what happened when the centurion pierced Jesus’ side while He was hanging on the Cross? Water and blood came forth from Him. Jesus’ last words before He died were, “It is finished!”
And what was finished? Death. What was finished? A new birth was taking place: a bride was being birthed for the Lord Jesus Christ. But this birth was unlike any in history. In the realm of the flesh, a birth takes place in the midst of water and blood. Babies come forth out of the water or amniotic fluid that keeps them alive while they are still in the womb, and blood accompanies the birthing process.
Jesus, however, made it clear that this new birth was NOT of water — not in the normal sense — nor of blood, even though His blood was shed in the process. A supernatural transformation — a regeneration — was taking place. This new birth was taking place in that realm which has authority and power over the flesh and the soul: the spirit. A dimensional change was occurring.
Hence, Jesus said to Nicodemus, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.“
Because death only affects our flesh, because death has power over unredeemed flesh, a new kind of birth had to take place — one that had never before occurred in history.
Think back to when Adam was created. He wasn’t born in the normal sense of the word. He was formed, molded and created by the Hand of God, but not until God breathed into him the breath of His Spirit did Adam become a living, breathing, speaking being. Adam was born, or rather began his existence, of and by the Spirit of God. Adam’s very breath was the Spirit of God. He existed by the Spirit.
The Blessing operated in and through him by the Spirit. He ruled and had dominion over the earth (and all that was therein) by the Spirit. (See Psalm 115:16)
When Adam missed the mark (hamartia) — the prize of God’s high calling in him — and ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he ingested HIV: the human immunodeficiency virus, which was inherent in the fruit of that tree. As we all know, there is no cure for HIV. Death is the permanent result. And that death is genetically passed on to every generation which follows.
Let’s get back to the Table of the Lord.
Why did Jesus command us to eat and drink of Him — and do it often? The apostle Paul was very clear in his explanation.
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim (kataggelo: announce and demonstrate, promulgate) the Lord’s death until He comes.
Now you’re beginning to get the picture. Jesus’ most earnest desire is that we promulgate, that we announce to the world the fact that He kept our appointment with death. We no longer have to suffer death, disease, sickness, infirmity, poverty, etc. But there’s more.
It is important that we not only show the world our deliverance from death: we must also demonstrate to Satan, to principalities, to rulers of this world’s darkness, that we’ve been set free from the curse of death, that we’ve been freed from Satan’s dominion, that we’ve been restored the authority, the power and the dominion originally given to Adam in the Garden of Eden.
Water baptism does just that. This ordinance — this statute —has enormous spiritual significance. This isn’t for the world’s sake, even though it is part of an outward show, a demonstration of a spiritual regeneration that has taken place.
This is a “Hands Off!” declaration to Satan. This is the posting of a legal decree which clearly states we are no longer members of that class of human beings subject to the Law of Sin and Death. The old being which was subject to death and had the “knowledge virus” in our genes has been put to death.
The appointment with death has been kept. The person who then comes up out of the water is raised from the dead by the Spirit of God. This newly-born individual is born again — both of water AND of the Spirit!
Once again we have Paul’s description to the Romans: “all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death.“
Yessir! The appointment with death has been kept.
And again Paul says, “as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”
The “new us” is no longer subject to the Law of Sin and Death.
Romans 8:2: For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
The “new us” is free from death, sickness, disease, infirmity, weakness, poverty, need, etc. Now we’re free to demonstrate Jesus! Jesus established a pattern for all believers when He was baptized in the River Jordan by John and a remarkable thing took place. We need to look at this event in context.
Matthew 3:13-17: Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him. And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
Up to this time, Jesus had been an ordinary man. Yes, He was the Son of God, and Yes, He was destined to bring deliverance from the curse, but He had not yet been empowered to do so by the Father.
As far as the world was concerned, Jesus was just another man — a gifted man, One whose knowledge of the Scripture at age 12 had astounded the most learned among the priests, the Levites, the Pharisees, the Sadducees and scholars — but still seen as an ordinary man.
Nothing exhibited in His life thus far could be quantified as “divine” or “supernatural.” For His ministry to begin, something extraordinary had to take place. There had to be a transition from “ordinary” to “naturally supernatural and supernaturally natural.
Notice what happened when Jesus was baptized.
1. He transferred His citizenship to the Kingdom of Heaven.
2. The Holy Spirit appeared on the scene, settling as a dove on Jesus before all who witnessed this event.
3. All Heaven was put on notice that Jesus was now THE SON OF GOD.
4. The Father spoke out of Heaven and stated emphatically and unequivocally, “This is My Beloved Son!”
5. As the SON OF GOD, He was now vested with the authority and power of The Father.
6. The “man” Jesus had become the Messiah, the Christ, The “Anointed One.”
7. Baptism demonstrated before principalities and powers, before the rulers of the darkness of this world, before Satan himself that the “old Jesus” was dead.
8. A “New Man” had come forth out of the grave, resurrected by the power of God, transformed into a trans-dimensional Being with the ability to function both in this natural realm and in the realm of the Spirit.
Are you seeing it? God the Father vested Himself in and made clear to all that Jesus WAS His Son, His appointed and commissioned family member to bring redemption from the curse of death, and from the curse of the Law of Sin and Death.
The fact that Satan saw this event take place or was notified of it shook him and his kingdom to the core. What’s the first thing that Satan did when Jesus — after fasting for 40 days — was at his weakest, physically and emotionally?
Right. He questioned Jesus repeatedly as to His status as THE Son of God, attempting to trick Him into yielding to the desires of His flesh. Were Jesus to have yielded to even one of these temptations, He would have forfeited His Sonship status and condemned the human race to perpetuity in slavery and bondage to Satan and the curse.
Satan would have had the upper hand. Jesus could not yield. He must not! And He would not — not under any circumstances. His baptism had already demonstrated to Satan that the “man” Jesus — the natural man, Jesus — was dead. The risen Jesus was the Son of God.
This is exactly what happens with us. Now do you understand why Jesus said, "Except you eat my flesh and drink my blood, no have no life in you”? Now you can understand why water baptism plays such an important role in the life of every believer.
Gotta leave it there for today. I'm still not done with this.
If you are in need of healing please join our prayer conference calls on either Monday, Wednesday or Friday of each week at 7:00 PM Eastern. Once again, the number to call is (805) 399-1000. Then enter the access code: 124763#. Let us minister to your need for healing!
Blessings on you!
Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
Email Contact: Admin@RiverWorshipCenter.org
Our book, A Tale of Two Brides, published by Destiny Image, is now available on Amazon.com as an E-book: http://www.amazon.com/Tale-Two-Brides-Relationship-ebook/dp/B00BSV6HZC/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1363139096&sr=8-8&keywords=A+Tale+of+Two+Brides#_
All Coffee Break articles are copyright by Regner A. Capener, but authorization for reprinting, reposting, copying or re-use, in whole or in part, is granted –provided proper attribution and this notice are included intact. Older Coffee Break archives are available at http://www.RegnersMorningCoffee.com. Coffee Break articles are normally published weekly.
If you would like to have these articles arrive each morning in your email, please send a blank email to: Subscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.To remove yourself from the mailing list, please send a blank email to Unsubscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.
If you would like to have these articles arrive each morning in your email, please send a blank email to: Subscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.To remove yourself from the mailing list, please send a blank email to Unsubscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.
CAPENER MINISTRIES is a tax-exempt church ministry. Should you desire to participate and covenant with us as partners in this ministry, please contact us at either of the above email or physical addresses, or visit: http://www.RiverWorshipCenter.org.
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Another Coffee Break:
Aphiémi Healing, Part 15
January 31, 2014
Do you ever get sick and tired of being sick and tired? Do you ever become so frustrated with yourself over the fact that you KNOW what the Word of God promises, and yet you somehow always seem to miss it when you pray over situations in your life, or the lives of other folks? You know what it is, right?
There is that drawing inside your inner being -- a craving that goes so deep you have no words to express it -- for the manifestation of the fullness of the Lord Jesus Christ being developed in your character and makeup to the degree that when you speak His Word, it comes to pass instantly! This is that place you come to when you KNOW He has so developed His nature and personality within you that His Word becomes your Word, His heart's desire becomes your heart's desire, His yearnings become yours.
Well, folks! That's where we're headed! This is precisely what Holy Spirit is drawing us towards. Writing to the Ekklesia in Ephesus, Paul is describing the gifts of the five-fold ministries given to the body of Christ and he says that the objective is: "Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." Understand? That's what the cry is at the core of our beings!
I Thessalonians 5:9-11: For God hath not appointed us to wrath (orge: anger, indignation, vengeance), but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.
From the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, He made it clear that He came to bring life — not death. Death, after all, had contaminated human DNA because of Adam’s disobedience, and every single person (with the exceptions of Enoch and Elijah) had experienced the unnatural — the sub-natural — curse of death.
Incorporated into the creation of the human race through Adam and Eve was eternal life. We were never created to die: we were created in the likeness and image of God, imbued with His attributes. One of those most basic attributes was zoe life — eternal existence! To emphasize that fact, God placed within the Garden of Eden the Tree of Life.
His warning to Adam and Eve was to NOT eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, “for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
Eternal life was what we were created for — not some transitory period of life on earth, punctuated with sickness, infirmity, weakness, disease and —finally — dying!
The warning given to Adam and Eve was meant to preclude any possibility of death entering the human genome. When they did eat, they brought upon themselves and their seed after them the curse of death. With death, of course, came separation from God, separation from eternity, separation from fellowship, and separation from the blessing which God had declared and decreed at their creation.
Death brought a certain judgment. With that judgment came the processes of death. Every single disease known to man begins with the death of one of more cells in the human body. The judgment of death is sickness, disease and infirmity. The judgment of death is the result of choosing some answer to one of life’s problems, or the choosing of some avenue of provision outside of God’s Word.
The judgment of death is the byproduct of making ourselves equal to, or superior to God. The judgment of death, however, is not the end of the matter. The apostle Paul put it like this:
Hebrews 9:27-28: And as it is appointed unto men once (hapax: one time) to die, but after this the judgment (krisis: tribunal of justice — either for or against): So Christ was once (hapax: once and for all time) offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.
Some of you will remember my sharing of being transported in the Spirit to the crucifixion and seeing all the sins of the world, past, present and future gathered together like one huge cloud — a hurricane or gigantic tornado, if you will — and centered upon the Cross as Jesus took those sins upon Himself.
Sin has that same effect upon the world today. It brings the equivalent of a hurricane catastrophe with destruction, disease and death. Once Adam disobeyed God’s Word and ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he had sinned. In so doing the genesis of death commenced. Thus Paul makes the point that Jesus fulfilled the necessity for our death, keeping our appointment for us.
The appointment of death for the human race became ingrained into the very substance and nature of our existence with Adam’s sin. Death was the destiny of every living being on the planet. And, with death came every disease, sickness and infirmity.
Under the Law, provision was made for healing from sickness and disease. Under the Law, atonement* for sin was taken care of by the shedding of the blood of lambs, bulls and goats and offering up burnt offerings. Under the Law, atonement for sin existed, but not remission** or erasure. The blood of animals was simply a prophetic forerunner of One whose death would forever erase the sins and finish off the death sentence for all who accepted His death.
[*The word, Atonement, is a translation of the Hebrew word: kaphar. This word means: to cover over, to pacify, to extend mercy, to reconcile or placate. It differs radically from the picture of remission as you will see in the following paragraph. **Remission is a translation from the Greek word: aphesis. As we have already noted, this word is taken from its root: aphiemi; and it means to send away, to erase, to wipe out so completely as to forget it ever existed. A corollary Scripture is found in Psalm 103:12: “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us.”]
As the Word so clearly demonstrates, Jesus didn’t just cover over our sin, He eradicated it to such a degree that it was buried in the sea, away from even the memory of the Father. (See Micah 7:19) Three times in the Word (see Acts 3:19) we are told that our sins were blotted out. The Greek word occurring here is exaleipho. It means to wipe out, to obliterate from memory.
That means that Jesus kept our appointment with death. He removed the necessity of our keeping the appointment and in the process eliminated:
(1) the curse of death,
(2) the disease, sickness and infirmity that comes with it,
(3) and the curse of having to work for a living.
We describe this last one as “poverty.” You’ll recall what God told Adam:
Genesis 3:17-19: And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in [painful toil and] sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
In simple terms, we define the word, "Blessing," as an empowerment to prosper. The word, "curse," is the inverse of the blessing. It literally means the removal of the empowerment we have in God to prosper, to bless and to be blessed. Minus the empowerment to prosper, we are left to our own devices. A curse is nothing more and nothing less than the removal of any empowerment to prosper.
That’s the curse that Jesus eradicated by keeping our appointment with death. The apostle Paul, being a lawyer by training and schooled in the Law of Moses, described our deliverance from the curse in legal and judicial terms:
Romans 8:1-2: There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, (**who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.) For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. (
Are you seeing it? Are you beginning to grasp just how powerful Jesus’ act was on our behalf? Take another look at what Paul wrote in his epistle to the Hebrews:
Hebrews 9:27-28: And as it is appointed unto men once (hapax: one time) to die, but after this the judgment (krisis: tribunal of justice — either for or against): So Christ was once (hapax: once and for all time) offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.
We all have had an appointment with death, but Jesus kept the appointment on our behalf. So long as we accept Jesus’ death and resurrection; so long as we acknowledge Him for who and what He is, and so long as we walk according to His Spirit, a different judgment is rendered on our behalf.
The judgment after death for those who refuse and rebel against the Lordship of Jesus Christ is destruction and eternal damnation. So long as people refuse the Lordship of Christ in their lives, the judgment of death continues in their mortal beings, bringing with that judgment, disease, sickness, infirmity, disease, weakness, continual need and poverty.
On the other hand, the judgment that follows for us who accept and acknowledge Jesus’ death in our place and His subsequent resurrection, confessing Him with their mouths and walking according to His Spirit is eternal life, health, wholeness, strength, energy, vitality, blessing and a life of abundance.
The judgment that follows those who have made Jesus Christ their Lord is that if they die physical deaths they will be resurrected by the Lord. Paul addressed this issue when writing to the Ekklesia in Thessalonica.
I Thessalonians 4:13-18: But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
Most of you have heard me share my own personal experience with the Lord that took place when I was seven years of age. I awoke one morning to see Jesus standing at the foot of my bed. He began to unfold for me many things including His plan and purpose for my life.
One of the things that He said was that I would be alive and see His return. He told me that I would “not see death as men know death.” There has always been the expectation in me from that point that I would simply walk into the thousand-year reign with the Lord Jesus Christ.
There have certainly been many efforts of Satan to rob me of that promise and to prevent that Word from being fulfilled. While working with David Wilkerson in the San Francisco Bay Teen Challenge outreach during a period of time when I was in Bible College, I was driving in the Santa Cruz mountains headed for a meeting where we expected to minister to a fair number of young people whom we had talked to on the streets of San Jose, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz.
Coming around a curve in the highway I hit a patch of soft gravel that road workers had left. My car twitched sideways and I reacted to correct the slide. It became very apparent that my corrective effort wasn’t going to be enough and we were going off the road. I hollered, “JESUS” at the top of my voice. In that same instant the Holy Spirit spoke audibly in me and said, “Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
The car hit a rain gutter on the side of the road, propelled into the air and sailed 120 feet into trees, dropping 90 feet on its nose. When it was over, the young lady who was riding with me and I were both in the back next to the tailgate (we were in a station wagon) still attached to the front seat. Except for some glass in my hair, I hadn’t even suffered any bruises.
That was only one of many times when Satan made a serious effort to kill me. The Word of the Lord has held true to me for the almost 65 years that have passed since Jesus made that promise. That promise was the confirmation of what Paul wrote in Romans 8:2 when he said, “The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the Law of Sin and Death.”
We are free from the Law of Sin and Death! The Table of the Lord has been given to us to remind us of that fact and to give us the opportunity to eat the Bread of Life continually.
Let me amplify Paul’s statement a bit. The Law of Sin and Death incorporates our susceptibility and vulnerability to disease, sickness, infirmity, weakness and poverty. The Law of Sin and Death is that — without the Life that is in Christ Jesus — we have an empowerment to fail. There is an absolute lack of the Blessing of the Lord. Reminding us of the principal purpose and design of this “ordinance” we know as the Table of the Lord is Paul’s statement to the Ekklesia in Corinth:
I Corinthians 11:23-29: For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till he come.
Are you seeing it? We are showing — putting on display and reminding ourselves — that Jesus kept our appointment with death. We no longer need to fret with death. We are no longer subject to the curse of death and all that it brings in the form of disease, sickness, infirmity, weakness, shortened life spans, etc.
Think for a moment about what David wrote in the 91st Psalm.
Psalm 91:9-16: Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.
Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation.
Jesus said it quite unequivocally.
John 6:54-57: Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.
You see it, don’t you? The Zoë life that is Christ Jesus becomes our life as we eat and drink of the Lord Jesus Christ! This is no ritual; this is no commonplace practice: this is the infusing of Christ in us!
Well, I've gone long again today, and only scratched the surface of this. We'll continue this again next week.
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Blessings on you!
Regner
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
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