The Psalm 23 Adventure, Part 51
August 4, 2017
Let’s finish where we left off last
week in talking about Jesus’ life as an example of the cup running over, and
then explore the covenant that comes with the cup as it relates to what Jesus
has done on our behalf and what He has made available to us.
We
don’t need to revisit all the events of Jesus’ life from the moment He was
anointed, but His cup was full to the brim, and He was ready for the events
that would unfold over the next three-and-a-half years. So, why do we have a cup running over after
the anointing instead of simply having our cup full?
Two
things need to be pointed out: the first being that while seated at the table
with the disciples, following the Last Supper, He says this:
John 14:12-14: Verily,
verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he
do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my
Father. And
whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified
in the Son. If
ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.
There’s
a dynamic to what Jesus says here that the body of Christ has been really slow
to comprehend. I’ve heard all of the
wishy-washy explanations that folks contrive.
The
most common one is, Well, that just means that we’re going to minister to
more people than Jesus did.
Or
how about this one? That means we’re going to do more miracles than Jesus
did.
Bahh,
Humbug! The Greek word translated,
greater, is meizon, which comes from, megas, and it literally
describes something of enormous magnitude — something which is virtually of
another dimension!
Our
friend and brother in the Lord, Felix Johnson, (who is slated to become
Nigeria’s next President) pastors a fellowship in Nigeria he considers to be
among the smaller fellowships there — and he has 50,000 people that he
ministers to, not counting the fellowship here in the U.S. He has a vision of what God has called and
anointed him for, and by any standard of measurement, it qualifies for meizon, or megas. It is a radical, earth-shaking vision. And God has promised to fulfill that vision.
At
the Last Supper, Jesus did something that was unparalleled in the past. He gave the disciples His cup and said,
I Corinthians 25:11b: This cup is the new
covenant in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance
of me.
That
may not seem like it has much to do with a cup running over experience — and
we’ll take a closer look at this next week — but I promise you that it was
absolutely enormous. The context in
which Jesus is offering His cup is one in which a new covenant is being birthed
and established. The old is passing
away. The Law of Sin and Death is being
eradicated and abolished. The Law of the
Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus is being established.
Jesus
is offering the disciples a cup for which there is no bottom! He has already shared a principle with them
that they well know by this time — the principle of giving.
Luke 6:38: Give, and it shall be
given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running
over, shall men give into your bosom.
Obviously,
that was shared on a different occasion, but Jesus was giving them a principle
that would apply with the cup. His cup
IS a cup running over! It is
bottomless! It is limitless! It is a cup of life, of opportunity, of
miracles, of provision, of healing and deliverance. It is a cup of destiny that we share with all
those who will partake. It is a cup that
offers a relationship with God that this world cannot comprehend.
Now,
let’s take things another direction as we talk about the concept of the
covenant that goes with this picture.
I
want to try to give you a real grasp of the concept of the cup that runs over,
and the promise — the covenant that we have — for this to happen. We brought up the Table of the Lord last week
in our discussion, and we’re going to refer to it again today.
John 6:53-58: Then Jesus said unto them,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and
drink his blood, ye have no life in you. 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. This is
that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and
are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live forever.
What
Jesus did by instructing us to eat and drink of Him was to reveal a process
that the world simply cannot get a hold of.
This is a spiritual picture and it is a spiritual reality. It defies human reasoning, and as a result
many believers fail to grasp the significance of what we have available with
Christ in us.
Many
of you may remember Jesse Duplantis’ experience when he went to Heaven and saw
Jesus merging into the father and then coming back out. In the realm of the Spirit, none of the laws
of physics apply. There is no time in
the Spirit, and there is no space. If
you’ll pardon the Sci-fi illustration, this is “interdimensional living.”
Jesus
tells us that if we eat and drink of Him, we are in Him and He is in us. The apostle Paul explained it like this:
II Corinthians 5:17-19: So then, if any person
is grafted into and immersed in the Anointed One (and His anointing), he is a
new fabrication -- a newly formed being; the previous life [the lifestyle and
the old characteristics thereof] has perished; you can see and perceive for
yourself that every part of one's being is an unprecedented substance -- a new
species.
And all that has happened and taken place has its origins in God,
Who did this purposefully to reconcile and restore our relationship with Him
through Jesus Christ, Who has given us that same ministry, namely, that God was
and is in Christ, restoring the world to that intimate relationship with
Himself, and not indicting the world for its sins and failures; He has
committed to us that Word (and the responsibility) of reconciliation and
restoration. (RAC Translation
& Amplification)
The
picture that Paul draws is that not only was Jesus in the Father, but that the
Father came to earth IN JESUS!
This was a real conundrum for Philip.
He couldn’t figure things out.
Jesus was telling the disciples that He was getting ready to leave and
prepare a place for them in His Father’s house.
Philip said to Jesus (and I’m paraphrasing), “Lord, we’ll understand
things a whole lot better if you’ll show us the Father.
John 14:9-11: Jesus saith unto him, Have I
been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that
hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the
Father? Believest thou not
that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you
I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the
Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.
The
body of Christ still doesn’t grasp this.
We don’t really grasp it yet.
We have a concept and perhaps an image of it in our minds but lack the
revelation. If we can receive this
revelation and allow it to permeate our beings, it will radically change how we
think, how we live and how we function day-to-day. This is critical if we are going to
understand the concept of the cup running over.
I’ll come back to this momentarily.
This
is why and how Jesus could follow what He said to Philip with this:
John 14:12-14: Verily, verily, I say unto
you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater
works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And
whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be
glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.
Understand? The revelation of this is that whenever we
ask anything of the Father in the name of Jesus, we are asking the Father just
as if Jesus were doing it. If He is in
us, then Jesus is making the request.
This
is how the onoma of the Lord
works in us, through us, with us, around us.
His onoma is His character, His makeup, the very
essence of who He is! With His onoma comes
His authority, His power — AND — His relationship with the Father.
Pretty
simple isn’t it? We’ve so complicated
this that we’ve lost sight of who and what Jesus is in us. It isn’t just Him! It is the Father, as well. John describes it like this:
I John 2:24-29 (NASB): As for you, let that abide in
you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning
abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. This is the promise which He Himself made to
us: eternal life.
These things I have written to you concerning those who are
trying to deceive you. As for you, the anointing which you received from Him
abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His
anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just
as it has taught you, you abide in Him.
Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have
confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.
If
you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices
righteousness is born of Him.
This
is how we receive revelation. Jesus had
said that if He left He would send another “comforter” — the Paraklete — the
Holy Spirit.
Now,
put all that together and what do you have?
We live in Jesus Christ. We live
because of His sacrifice. We live because
we eat and drink of Him.
But
there’s more!
Because
we eat and drink of Jesus, we also eat and drink of the Father. Therefore, the Father is in us. Both Jesus AND the Father live in us.
Are
you seeing the cup that we have been drinking of? Are you seeing the cup that we drank of when
we sat at the Table He prepared for us in the midst of our enemies?
That
cup is filling by the day!
But
still there’s more!
Jesus
had said He was sending the Holy Spirit.
Here’s how He put it:
John 14:16-21: And I will pray the Father,
and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; Even
the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not,
neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be
in you.
I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a
little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye
shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and
ye in me, and I in you. He
that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he
that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will
manifest myself to him.
Jesus
was saying that despite the fact that He was departing from the earth in
physical form, He was still in us, and so was the Father. But more than that, He was sending the Holy
Spirit to be with us.
And
still there was more! Jesus promised
that He — the Holy Spirit — would also be in us! This is why He said to the disciples,
And, behold, I send the
promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye
be endued with power from on high.
The
“power from on high” was the Holy Spirit — the force that energized the life
and Word of Jesus Christ — and the Father — in us. When John began His Gospel, he wrote,
John 1:1-4: In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the
beginning with God. All
things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the
light of men.
We’re
just scratching the surface thus far.
Let’s leave it here and continue this next week.
For those of you
who’ve been participating in our Monday night Healing Prayer Conference Call,
we just want to let you know that beginning with the month of July and
continuing until the first Monday night in October, we will be taking a break
for the summer. We’ve found during the
past three years of doing this call that participation during the summer months
drops significantly because of folks taking their vacations, and being involved
in other activities. That said, we will
resume our prayer calls on Monday night, October 2nd.
At the same time, in
case you are missing out on real fellowship in an environment of Ekklesia, our
Sunday worship gatherings are available by conference call – usually at about
10:45AM Pacific. That conference number
is (712) 770-4160, and the access code is 308640#. We are now making these gatherings
available by Skype. If you wish to
participate by video on Skype, my Skype ID is regner.capener. If you miss the live voice call, you can dial
(712) 770-4169, enter the same access code and listen in
later. The video call, of course, is not
recorded – not yet, anyway.
Blessings
on you!
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
Temple, Texas 76504
Email Contact:
CapenerMinistries@protonmail.com
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