Entering the Kingdom

In what way will the children enter the kingdom?  I would imagine, naked.  Somehow, I believe that when we pass from this life and go to be with our Maker, that we will make our way to Him through a very narrow passageway – so narrow that there will not be room for any person, place or thing, so that these will be able to enter with us.  We will not enter with a parent or a sibling.  We will not enter with a friend.  Neither will we enter with any honors or merits or trophies of any type.  There will however be one thing that is going to be with us and upon us.  We will go through that most narrow way covered by the blood of Jesus.  Yes, washed spotless and without the slightest stain upon any of our members. 

In this moment we will not be minded of mother or father or brother or sister.  Neither will we be minded of the things we had achieved in our earthly journey.  Yes, naked will we appear before Him in that hour, no other thing being present with us but the blood.  It will be then that we will come to know His love in a way that we have never known it.  How great is our God!

 Should it now be any wonder to us why the Lord spoke these words: “If any man come to Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”  Not that the God of our salvation is telling us to literally hate our family members, along with ourselves.  But this is the point He makes.   It is that the love we have in our hearts for Him should be so utterly strong and unbelievably fantastic, that words will fail to tell of it; and that the love we would in turn have for earthly family and friends should appear as darkness and hate in comparison.   And so, when all is said and done, is not our very existence all about our God – Father, Son and Spirit?  How great is the Trinity of the Godhead!  How beyond us is the mystery of our God!

The Spirit of the Law

 There was a time before David had become the king of Israel, in which he was fleeing from the wrath of king Saul.  At some point David came across the house of God in Nob.  A few of his men had become near to starvation.  David begged the priest for some loaves of bread for the men, so that they would live and not die.  Long story short, David is told that the bread is for the priests alone.  However, he is convinced that his men should not perish.  The priest then feeds the starved and weary men with bread that lawfully they should have never partaken of.

It is centuries later that Jesus comes on the scene.  One day He is walking with his disciples through a field.  Being hungry, the men begin to pick some fruit from the field and eat of it.  Now some of the pharisees come along.  “Why do your disciples do what is unlawful on the Sabbath,” they ask.  The Lord’s reply is, “Did you not ever read of when David and his men were near to starvation?  And so, they ate of the showbread, a thing that was unlawful for them to do.  He then spoke twelve of the most powerful words ever.  Simply He said, “Man was not made for the law, but the law for man.”

I am convinced that in the church of Jesus Christ today, we turn the words of our Lord totally around.  I think that it is the great majority of believers who are convinced that our Great God in heaven holds the laws that He has given to men as being more important to Him than Man himself is.  Where it comes to this matter, nothing can be further from the truth.  Therefore, the born again man surely has become His most prized possession, who is no longer under law, but under grace – and in this great truth works the Spirit of the Law.

And so, it is the Spirit of the Law that supersedes the laws of Sinai.  Because of this Jesus commends David in his choice to feed the men with the holy bread, something that only the priests were entitled to.   Yes, it seems as though David was a man before his time – a New Testament thinker in an Old Testament world. 

And so believer, what if you were taking a stroll in the woods on a beautiful sunny Saturday morning.  Suddenly you come across a fairly large pond of water.  Out near the middle of the pond you see a young boy thrashing away with his arms and crying out for help.  You begin to remove your clothes, so that you can swim out to the boy in an attempt to save him from drowning.  Now suddenly you see a sign that reads:  No swimming – offenders will be prosecuted.  Do not cry out to that boy to give you his name and address, so that you can inform his parents that their son had drowned.  Instead, you need to dive in and swim out to the child.  You must break that law and hopefully save a life.  Remember, even as the Saviour said, “Man was not made for the law, but the law for Man.”   In this is found The Spirit of the Law – the Spirit of the Law at work in us to save lives and not see lives destroyed.  Even as it is written, “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives us life.”

What if persecution should soon come to the children of God – right here in America?  Now, what if I were hidden away in a house with a number of other believers?  Then, what if the enemy broke into the house and caught hold of me?  They asked me to give them the whereabouts of certain church leaders.  I will not give them the information they seek.  Instead I will mislead these men, or even straight-out lie to them.  Yes, I will break the law of Moses and Sinai if I have to.  Is this not what David did in order to save the lives of his comrades, so that they would not starve?  Now remember how when centuries later, when Jesus came on the scene, how he commended David for what he had done that day, though he had transgressed the law.  We need to always remember the words of the Son of God.  “Man was not made for the law, but the law for man.”  It is in this that we see the Spirit of the Law at work in us to save lives and not destroy it.

All blessing and honor and power and glory be unto the Lord our God!  He alone is Truth!  He alone is the One True God!  He is Father, Son and Spirit – the mystery of the Godhead!

 

 

Grandpa Pecoraro 1891 - 1971

When I was but three years old, he became my pal.

My grandpa Pecoraro, I got to know him well.

Side by side we would sit in his little grocery store.

He would always smile at me – he couldn’t love me more.

 

At noon we would head for the kitchen,

To have a little lunch.

With this went wine and walnuts.

I loved to watch him munch.

My grandpa Pecoraro, to me he was the best,

And as far as I could tell, I was his favorite guest.

 

But the years flew by and now was I looking after him.

I would drive him to his doctor, his eyes now growing dim.

Finally, there came the hour when grandpa was no more.

In his life upon the earth, his God had closed the door.

 

I look now to a New Day, and I will see him there,

Seated in his Saviour, kept forever in His care.

Now we will soar upon the winds, and death will be no more,

On the Day the stars will guide us through heaven’s opened doors.

 

J. Pecoraro

Paths and Seasons

 

Solomon was wise alright.  He knew and he understood about the paths and the seasons of the One True God; and due to just a single passage that he one day penned, many topics can be cleared up for we who believe in the scriptures.  The passage that I speak of begins with one of the most popular verses in all of the Bible.  Found in the book of Ecclesiastes it reads, “ To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.”

 Solomon starts out by telling us that there is a time for a man to be born.  However, we most certainly know that it doesn’t end there.  For just as the God of all the heavens and the earth appoints a time for a man to be born, He appoints also a day for that same man to return back to his Maker.  What we need to see in the writings of Solomon, in the third chapter of the book of Ecclesiastes, is that no one thing placed into existence by the spoken Word was ever meant to stand alone.  In other words, everything that has ever been ordained of God, was also designed to be a counterpart of something totally opposite of itself. 

 Think about it.  After he writes about there being a time for a man to be born, he then speaks of there being a time for that same man to die – one matter completely contrary to the other.  He continues on, telling us that there is a time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted.  In this passage of Ecclesiastes Solomon goes on to tell of twelve more like things; in each and every case there is the counterpart of the thing he starts out with.  What we are speaking of here, no doubt goes all the way back to the creation story.  Do these words sound familiar?  God said, “Let there be light.”  But it was not very long after that we read of the darkness.  “The light He then called Day.”  “The darkness He called Night.”

 We may not realize it, but the great numbers of angels in our Heavenly Father’s infinite universe are no doubt incalculable; they are not as the number of we humans who have lived our lives upon the earth.  Nevertheless, the God of all creation can number all their hosts in the blink of an eye – those who are of the night as well as those who are of the day – one group the counterpart of the other.

Well, we can go on and on concerning the matter of counterparts.  Solomon only brought to our attention a small few, just to illuminate to us the ways of our most Holy God.  But if David’s greatest and most outstanding son wished to, he could have no doubt written a book the size of a dictionary on the subject of counterparts.

 When we read the scriptures we ought not to just read them without seriously dwelling on the meaning of what we have just read.  After all, there is all sorts of treasure under that there ground, just like the early settlers of our country spoke of to one another.  But they sought after that which perishes.  We seek after the imperishable.  And depending on how much our hearts are set upon the discovery of all sorts of spiritual riches – to that same degree our God will open wide our eyes to the meaning of His Holy Word.  The conclusion will be that we will prosper before Him always.

 Do you know why I believe that the church of Jesus Christ on earth is split into different mind – sets on some issues?  For the most part this is because we do not read what is right before our eyes – through hearts bursting to know truth.  Instead, we would just rather go along with whatever our denominations tell us. Sad.  Our Lord and Redeemer would have us to get a grip on our shovels and dig and dig until our eyes are opened.  Then one day we may even discover the riches of this jewel: “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven,”

 What I mean to say is this:  Some matters are not always going to be about what is right and what is wrong.  Instead, it may be a matter of a new season that has come our way, coming into our lives and capturing our hearts.

 Just to give an example, go to Philippians 3:10-11. There it reads, “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”  Let’s say that these two verses trigger a new season in our lives.  First, we will dwell on the suffering portion.  Now how about if all of we believers, who daily walk this planet earth, open wide our eyes for a bit.  This I say because many of us – believe it or not – are afraid to.  Many believe that as a Christian you should never have to go through sufferings; however, they say that you need to have faith for this to occur.  Beyond all doubt, it is these who need to implore their God to open up their eyes to truth – to open their eyes to Philippians 3:10-11, along with other such verses on this matter.

 When you think about it, Philippians 3:10-11 speaks of seasons.  What it is saying to us is that there is a time to experience the resurrection power of the Holy Spirit; yet also there is a time to come to know the beloved Saviour in his sufferings – one a counterpart of the other.  Our Father in heaven, you see, has designed for all of His sons and His daughters – His soldiers of the Kingdom – a balanced life in this world in which we now sojourn.  To know great joy and blessings, and the Light and Love of the Spirit, is a most glorious thing.  Yet if this was all we ever knew, then we would become as spoiled children, whose parents continually grant them all that their selfish hearts desire.  But to live in and experience all that the Spirit has to offer is no doubt something quite special.  However, to come to know the Christian life in this fullness, then a counterpart by the Spirit would be needed.  Yes, and that counterpart would be crucifixion with our Lord.  You can believe that Jesus meant what he said, when he spoke to us these words: “Take up your cross and follow Me.”

 Such words do not speak of Resurrection Life, do they?  In fact, the very opposite is true, since the Son of the Living God speaks to us of taking up a cross in the appointed season, thus coming to know Him – now not in resurrection, but in crucifixion.  Such is the warfare that the Spirit leads us into on planet earth, even as He led our Saviour into his testing by Satan in the wilderness.  But the Lord defeated him with the power of the Word.  In the same way does the Spirit lead us in the battle, that we may become the victors by the infallible Word, while kept every moment by the whole armor of God.  And even when we find ourselves crucified with Christ upon the cross, yes even then while we share in His sufferings, do we descend upon our cross as victors.

 Is there a time for crucifixion?  You can believe there is.  But if there is a time for crucifixion, then also is there a time for resurrection.  Crucifixion, you see, was never meant to stand alone, just as is true with a great multitude of matters.

Many are the seasons that our Heavenly Father will bring our way.  Yet, never did He mean for us to choose one, though make every effort to escape its counterpart when suddenly the time seems right for it.  It is He and no other who has formed for us our paths in a world that we but for a brief time sojourn.  Some paths will be beautifully filled with His Light, while others are darkened by storms in the Night.

 

There is going to come a Day however, when a single matter will stand alone.  Surely will there come a time when the Light will not have the Darkness following behind; when what has been built up will never be broken down; when what has been forever healed will never see death; when what has become to us gain will never become loss; when what we speak will never need to be silenced; when the great peace that we come to know will never be turned to war and hatred; and when the love that we become filled with will reign throughout a new universe – forever and ever.  All Glory be to the One and the Only God!

 

J. Pecoraro

 

 

The Peace And Rest of God

 I guess it has become known by just about everyone  who has ever studied the scriptures, that Jehovah God has never been at all careless – no, not in any of His ways.  Surely He was not careless in the creation of the universe.  In fact, it could be safely said that all that He brought into being – yes, all that was ever spoken into existence by Him, was Truth and Light and Power and Perfection.  More than this, His words could never be judged – no, not by men nor by angels.  Yet the most amazing thing that I find about our Heavenly Father is that one day He will call for the Everlasting Rest of all that has ever been chosen of Him.  These are all that have been touched by His Everlasting Light, whether they be His warring angels, Adam’s elected seed, and even what will one day be an entire new universe. (See Hebrews Chapt 1).

 

But what is it like to be touched of God through the Light that He is?  Mere words will never truly tell the experience.  Yet how does a believer come to such a place in the Triune God?  Just like anything else of great value, sacrifice on our part will be called for.  He looks for us to set apart ample time for Him daily, even though it would mean casting aside the things of this world.  But once established in that Most Holy Place with our God and Maker, we will come to know and understand things which have been hidden to us in the past..  They have been hidden to us only because we have hidden ourselves from Him. 

 

Have we accumulated the amount of faith in our God that we should have by this point in our journey?  If so, then happy are we.  However, believe it or not, it doesn’t stop at faith.  Faith is meant to take us somewhere else.  It is meant to take us to the places of Peace and Rest that the Son of God has had in mind for us.  It is why He has told us, “ Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you Rest.”  This Rest is one of the places that Faith takes us to.  But without faith, we could never enter into that most wondrous Rest that our Lord and Master, Jesus our Saviour, has called us to.

 

Now here is a very important matter for us to remember.  Jesus, the Son of the Living God, calls for us not only to enter His Rest.  For you see, it is none but He, himself, who is the very Rest that He beckons us to Enter.  Now every believer that is in Christ most assuredly has a dwelling place in Him.  Sad to say, the great majority of us do not find Rest there.  Instead we labor – and we labor hard.  Why do we seem to find it difficult to see the only natural Son of the Father as being to us Eternal Rest?  Remember, He does not merely desire to grant us rest.  Instead He longs for us to get up on our feet, head out to battle, and even in the midst of battle to make Him our Rest.

 

Are we all aware that  Rest and Peace always march up front, while leading their brothers on in the fight?  They are as twins of the Spirit, moving always together and side by side.  They walk before their brothers who they teach to do battle and cause to know  wisdom.  Also they instruct them in the arts of war, so that their arms can bend bows of bronze.

 

When in the midst of spirit warfare, who is the One who goes before us?  He is God the Son – and he knows the work that must be done in each and every soldier of the Most High.  He being our elder brother and chosen of the Father, we must never worry about perishing at the hands of our enemy.  Remember the words of the great apostle Paul to us.

 

“ He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, How shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?  Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect?  It is God who justifies.  Who is he who condemns?  It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is ever at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.  Who shall separate us  from the love of Christ?  Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  As it is written:  For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.  Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.  For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels or principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing , shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  We cannot lose!  We cannot lose!  And we cannot lose!  Great is our God!  And more Great is He than we will ever know.

 Do we see , and have we come to understand, that Peace and Rest is in our spirit man?  And do we see and have we come to understand that our spirit man is altogether alive in Christ, who in turn is altogether alive in us?  Who then is our victory and Who is our Peace?  Who is our Joy and Who is our Rest?  He is none but the One who the Father has given to rule and to reign forever and forever.  He is Jacob’s Ladder upon whom the angels ascend  and descend.  He is our High and Mighty Tower who breaks through with us into the heavens.  Lastly, He is our Peace and he is our Rest.  All these and more is the Son of God throughout ages Eternal.  All praise from all creatures Forever!

Sufferings

From the least of these to the greatest, they can never be called Friend.  Sufferings go all the way back to the beginning, with the first progenitors of the human race.  It appears that while God spoke to us on that day, we did not listen.  Consequently, we were driven from Paradise.  It couldn’t have been very long afterward that the man and the woman became acquainted with sufferings.  But fortunately for us, our God is a God of great grace, not to mention plentiful mercies.  Through these He has made it so that we would learn from our sins and our evils and all of our wrongdoings.  He beckons us to come to Him still today – to be washed of Him; yes and to be forever changed.  And is there now any more need for Him to allow sufferings to come our way?  While we are still bound to this earth, there will always be a need for trials and testings to come into our lives; it is through them that we grow wise and we grow strong.

It is always a good idea to see what the scriptures have to say about its subject matters.  When it comes to the topic of suffering, there is no shortage of verses.  Philippians 3:10 says a powerful lot – and in only a single verse.  It reads, “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.”

Every believer most certainly should want to come to know the Son of God – and to know Him more and more with the passing of time.  Shame on us if this is not the case.  And believe it or not, to know Him in His sufferings will be to know Him more intimately than if we came to know Him in resurrection form only.  Why is this?  It is because when people suffer together, they then become more bound to one another.  It is the way of soldiers, who together fight side by side with their brothers, so that their freedom may not be taken from them.  In the years to come they remember one another – both the living and the slain.  What once bound them together will never be taken from them.

“That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;” And so, in the depths of our hearts, have we chosen to be crucified with Christ?  Have we chosen to die to our earthly man, so that we may cling to the nail pierced Son of God – He who has been lifted up from this world?  He bids us come – that we may die to self and embrace Him only.  And so, have we now broken free from ourselves and the ways of this world?  Have we found in Him a resting place – so wonderful a place so that our sufferings no longer grip us as they once did?

“That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.”  Do you know what the believer’s problem is with this verse?  They are attracted to the resurrection side of it, while hardly, if at all, to the crucifixion.  The bad news for the one whose thoughts are only on what the resurrection offers is this.  There is no way that such a one can live out resurrection life before spiritually hungry people, without first going by way of the cross.  Every time, and without fail, will trials and testings and troubles and heartaches precede the life that is from   above – the life that our God longs to shower upon us.  Even as our blessed Lord once told us, “I have come to give you Life, and that abundantly.”  We only must remember that the life that He spoke of to us, most assuredly needs to begin with death.  Always does crucifixion go before resurrection.

Hear Romans 8: 16-17.  “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.”  Listen to Paul in Galatians 2:20.  “ I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. . .”  I don’t know about you, but I somehow get the impression that not only didn’t Paul look for escapee from the crucified life, but instead felt honored to be called to our beloved Saviour’s cross. 

What does it read in Matthew 10 : 38?  And he who does not take up his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.”  In other words, Jesus is our Captain, and we are on His team.  He desires to know us.  How so?  He longs to know us in the fellowship of His sufferings.  It is then that He knocks on the door of our hearts.  He wants to be let in.  This is so that He may meet with us and give us hope and comfort, peace and rest, in the midst of our storm.

There are many in the church who will tell you that as believers, we should not have to suffer.  We simply need to walk in faith and break suffering’s stronghold.  No one had more faith than the apostle Paul.  Ironic, that he had suffered more than all.

J. Pecoraro

Beyond All Glory And Grandeur And Gain

Even when the matter is fully thought through, we can only come to the conclusion that our God cannot be described.  When we feel we have said it all, we are still found lacking.  Having exhausted ourselves in the matter, we simply throw in the towel.

We can tell one another that God is Love.  We can speak of how His mercies are new every morning.  We can proclaim from the rooftops of the amazing forgiveness in His Son.  However, what we do not realize is this.  We do not realize that we cannot  see these things as through His eyes.  Consider yourself blessed that you do not envision such matters as God himself envisions them, since as mere human beings we are not yet fit to behold as He beholds.  You can compare this matter to Moses being on the mountaintop with God.  He too thought that he could take in what he was by no means ready for.  And so he asked the King of all creation to please show him His glory.  This was not going to happen.  However, the Lord did allow for His goodness to pass before Moses; He also allowed for Moses to see the back side of Him.  Though for Moses to envision anything more, it would have cost him his life.

I guess you can say that we are a lot like Moses was.  Moses wasn’t able to view the glory of God, even as we believers today are not able to see to the depths that our God sees – both being a bit much for our makeup. Nevertheless, there is a very special and glorious Day coming, according to the first epistle and third chapter of the beloved disciple John.  Here John describes us as no longer being in a childlike state, which spiritually speaking is our state, as long as this present earth remains our home.  But in John’s passage, we see that every believer in the Holy Trinity of God – the Godhead – will one Day be caught up into the heavens – the great catching away – only to find themselves face to face with none other than the Son.

Can you imagine it?  And as if this were not enough, we are told that while we stand beholding Him, we will become changed into the very same kind of Being who has now sent our minds reeling.  I once read in a book by a popular Christian author, that the vision of Jesus will come with such power, that it will cause the believer to become just like the Christ who they now stand beholding with rapturous wonder.  All of this sounds so fantastic, you may say.  But what about now?  What about now is all up to us.  We need to learn how to make our journey exciting, while being God’s soldier upon this earth in these last days.  One of my favorite passages in scripture is, “And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised;” these were definitely some exciting happenings.  Do you know what was the greatest of all these things?  It was the veil of the temple being torn.  And guess what?  Today, this is still a Now Thing, though it occurred two thousand years ago.  So, what about Now?

Exactly what was the significance  of the rending of the veil?  Simply it was this.  Behind that veil was a room called the innermost sanctuary.  Once a year would Israel’s high priest enter in there.  His work would be merely ceremonial.  Upon completion of it he would exit the sanctuary.  But today every believer in the Triune God has become a priest.  In the book of Revelation, chapter 1: vs 6, we are called kings and priests; and believe it or not, today each one of us has our very own sanctuary.  You can say that wherever you have your personal time with God, this is your most holy place – and no more is there the veil.  To add, it is not to be a ceremonial experience; more still, we may remain there with Him as long as we desire – learning of Him, loving Him, speaking to Him, wondering over Him, etc.  In time we become filled with the knowledge of the Holy.  Yes, as the days and the weeks and the months and the years roll by, we become intimately locked into the only God who is Forever.  He has never begun and His end will never be.  Beyond this, His Domain spans Eternity.

Why is it that most believers spend such little time in their Holy of Holies?  That we should meet with the God of the universe in this place is one of the reasons that our beloved Saviour perished on the cross.  Upon the time of His death, I could just see those big carpenter hands reaching into the temple, while tearing the curtain from top to bottom for all who would believe.  Now true communion could be had between the faithful and the Father of their spirits.  For Jesus, our strong Anchor and Forerunner, has opened for us The Way.

Often the children of God substitute Bible reading, or other Christian books for that intimate time of communion with Him.  It is in no way the same thing.  Our God wants to meet with us, that He may hear from us, to sup with us in sweet communion.  He looks for his children to talk to Him – yes, even to the One that they cannot see: and in this they prove to Him a great faith.  To meet consistently with our God in the sweet solitude of the Holy of Holies is the greatest thing that could ever happen to any son or daughter of the Most High.  Upon departure will we come away with a wisdom we have never pondered; a new strength to bring down our enemy; the passion to venture deeper into the heart of the Father; and a love for Heaven’s Family that words will ever fail to capture.

Oh the great grace shown us on that dark, dark Day – the Day that the Son of God took upon Himself the consequences of all of the sin of man, from Adam down to our final act of rebellion upon His second advent to our world.  Now it is finished.  Now the Son of God reigns for a thousand years upon a new earth – a new world far beyond any utopia that any visionary has ever brought to mind.  And how difficult it is to take all of it in – that is when you consider that a thousand years will merely serve as a prelude to a universe made altogether New, and to which there will be no end.  All glory and honor be unto the only God – Forever and Ever!

J. Pecoraro