May 9, 2014

Dale Petersen and his wife, Merlee, pastored a fellowship in Spokane for a number of years known as Springs of Living Water. Della and I first met them through mutual friends in late 1990 or early 1991. There was an instant bond that formed between us, and over the next decade or so we had a wonderful level of fellowship together. As we moved into the new millennium, Dale began to experience Alzheimer's, and by late 2002 it had virtually wiped out his recognition of friends and family, and at the same time he seemed to lose his voice.

By this time, Della and I were in McAllen, Texas where I was overseeing the construction of what would become one of the Telemundo network's premier stations. For at least three years, Merlee and other family members cared for him without his having any recognition of who they were. Meanwhile we were all praying over Dale and declaring his healing and recovery.

One morning in mid-2005, I received a call from Dale's brother. He said, "I have someone here who wants to talk with you." I heard him hand the phone over to someone so I said, "Good Morning!" Immediately, a very familiar voice answered clearly and responded, "Brother Regner, the Lord is preparing to do great things!"

A wave of emotion swept over me as I heard Dale's voice. "Brother!" I exclaimed. "How are you doing? Tell me what has happened!" Dale choked up and began speaking in tongues. His brother took the phone and explained that without any warning whatever that morning, Dale had gotten up, dressed himself and began speaking as clearly as he had ever spoken. Merlee (who was at that time a senior VP with Bank of America) was already at work, and was unaware of Dale's sudden recovery. Dale's brother told me that one of the first things Dale said to him was, "I need to speak to Regner." That precipitated the phone call. We were able to talk to each other again for a few minutes before they hung up to call Merlee with the good news.

The family was able to enjoy Dale for only a short time thereafter before his health faded and he slipped into eternity. It has always struck me that the first thing that took place when Dale regained his mind and speech was the importance of delivering that short prophetic word to me. I saw also that no matter how far gone a person is with Alzheimer's, complete healing and recovery is a piece of cake for the Lord, and we need to quit being intimidated by the disease and take the authority given to us in Christ Jesus.

This past week has been a week of continually unfolding revelation, and I would like to try and share some of it with you today. Let's begin with a scripture that is more and more being quoted as the body of Christ moves into this last great Harvest.

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."

 

Let's see if I can amplify this for you from the Greek text.

"Truly, of a surety, I declare to you, He who puts their full faith and credit in me, entrusting their entire well being to me, shall not only take care of my business, performing the same acts, deeds and [miraculous] works that I do, he shall enlarge upon them, working and accomplishing greater, stronger, more powerful [and magnificent] acts and deeds because (and by reason of) I leave to join with [and be seated with] my Father.

"And whatever [deed, act or work you have seen and heard of me] you desire, call for or require in My (onoma) authority, makeup, nature or essence, that will I perform and accomplish so that the Father will be rendered and esteemed glorious, being magnified in and through the fully matured and patterned Son.

"If and should you desire, call for and require anything in My (onoma) authority, makeup, nature or essence, I will perform and accomplish it completely."

There are many pictures revealed in Jesus' statement and I'll get to some of them shortly, but first I want to add some additional scriptures for foundation.

I John 5:14-15: "And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him."

Again, let's amplify this from the Greek:

"And this is the frank and outspoken public assurance we have and possess in Him, that should we desire, call for and require anything of, in accordance with, and in proportion to His expressed determination, desire and pleasure, He hears, understands and responds to us. And if we see and know with certainty that He hears, understands and responds to us, no matter what we desire, call for and require, we know absolutely that we have, hold and possess the thing we have desired and required of Him."

Now, consider something that Paul wrote to the Philippians. There are very few believers today who haven't accessed and quoted this scripture to themselves.

Philippians 4:19: "But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in Glory by Christ Jesus."

But look at the way this is expressed in the Greek text:

"But my God will of a certainty furnish, satisfy and execute (colloq. "cram to the max") all your business, your demands and your requirements out of, and in direct proportion to, His wealth, riches, money and abundant possessions in Glory, magnificence and praise by and through the anointing of the Anointed One, Jesus."

Is that a mouthful, or what?!

Brother! For centuries the body of Christ has been sold a bill of goods! Nowhere in anything we see, read or hear in the Word does it indicate that we come timidly before the Lord and ask quietly in a mousy voice, kinda, sorta hoping He might deign to pass out some morsel or crumb. We've been deceived into thinking that we somehow don't have the right and/or that we just aren't "deserving" of "His riches in Glory."

Take a look for a minute at two Greek words which occur in these texts: (1: aiteo) and (2: chreia). The first word, aiteo (pronounced: ah.he.tey.oh), mostly translated "ask" in our English translations, is not a timid word. J. H. Thayer, in his Greek-English Lexicon, describes aiteo as "a demand of something due."

This is a different word from the one we would normally use in the context of "asking" or making a hopeful "request" for a favor. That word is, punthanomai. That is NOT the  word that Jesus uses, and it is not the word Paul uses in his epistles in any reference to our relationship with God.

Then we come to the word, chreia. Rendered as "need" in our English translations, it has its roots in chraomai, which means "to employ, to furnish what is needed." Chreia, on the other hand, occurs within the context of business, to provide what which has been agreed to by contract or covenant; hence, "a demand note."

I have frequently used the illustration from Costco or Sam's Club where a person goes in to purchase something. The item is shown behind glass or in a security setting. The purchaser takes a slip of paper to the cashier with the item's identifying number and pays for it. Having been paid for, the cashier now calls to a warehouse employee who picks up the slip with the ID number and goes to retrieve it.

That slip of paper with the ID number has become "a demand note." The item being requested has been paid for. The employee is given a demand to retrieve it and deliver it to the customer.

I can use the same illustration in check-writing. I need to purchase something or pay for a service which has already been rendered, or has been requested. The vendor or supplier takes my check to the bank and "demands" that money be transferred from my account to his. My check is his authorization to demand those funds.

By now it should be clear where this discussion is going. Jesus has already paid the price. We've already seen that His body suffered 39 stripes with an equivalent of 351 lashes tipped with lead to gouge out pieces of His flesh. All that He did to pay IN ADVANCE for every sickness, every disease, every infirmity, every demonic affliction of our body. To add to that, He suffered a crown of extremely long thorns shoved into His scalp and His skull, penetrating His brain. In so doing, He took all of our mental and emotional torment upon Himself, paying for it so that we would not have to endure that torment ourselves.

Then He finished things off by going to the Cross, being crucified, having whatever blood remained in His body drained to the ground, and having expired, had a spear thrust into His side at the same place where the bone was taken from Adam to form Eve. Out poured blood and water, and with it the curse of pain associated with child-birth was taken.

Jesus then went to Hell for three days and three nights, dumping off all of the sin of mankind, all of the sicknesses, diseases, infirmities and demonic torment and leaving them where they belonged -- with Satan.

Lastly, He took the keys of Hell and Death as Father raised Him from the dead, restoring Him to His rightful place as King of Kings and Lord of Lords! Was anything left undone? Was there some price He didn't pay that made all that He went through insufficient for us? Are we still supposed to be subject to Satan?

NOPE! NOPE! And DOUBLE NOPE!!!

You see, in all that He did, Jesus established a new Covenant on our behalf: a divine contract in which He fulfilled both sides -- His and ours! All we need do is accept and acknowledge that every price necessary has been paid for whatever we need or require. This Covenant that Jesus established puts each and every one of us who place in Him our faith, confidence and absolute trust -- IN HIM!!

Get it? We are now IN HIM! We have shifted places, and we have shifted dimensions (and I'll talk more about that next week). Here's how Paul describes it in his letter to the  Ephesians:

Ephesians 1:18-23 (NASB): "I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all."

Ephesians 2:4-7 (NASB): "But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus."

Do you see where we are going with this?

We've been seated IN CHRIST and with Him in the Heavenlies. That's our legal position! Jesus paid the necessary price so that we would once again have the same access that Adam and Eve had. They were multi-dimensional beings. They had the ability to move back and forth between time and eternity. They were able to see what Father God  desired that they duplicate here on earth.

Sin severed that ability. Adam and Eve once had everything that Heaven offered. In the Garden they lacked for nothing. That's the way things were designed from the beginning. Sin caused the light in their veins to congeal into blood. (Now don't look at me like that! Bear with me!) It took a blood sacrifice under the Law to atone for (archaic English word meaning: to cover over, or to hide) sin, since every human being born into Adam's lineage once they had sinned had the DNA of sin in them. Hiding the sin wasn't enough, however. It had to be eradicated and eliminated from existence as though it had never been.

Jesus was the only one whose DNA came from Heaven, and yet because He was born into the human race, He qualified to become the once and for all sacrifice that would eliminate the curse and restore the interdimensional access we were designed for. Once He rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven, He was able to stand before the Universal Court and to testify that Satan's hold was eliminated, and that those people who would accept the fact that His blood sacrifice DID pay the necessary once and for all time cost necessary for restoration could have that interdimensional access once their testimony agreed with His.

(I'm sort of getting ahead of myself here and laying some groundwork for the next Coffee Break.)

The point I'm trying to make is that Jesus went to the cashier and paid every price for everything that we could possibly and conceivably have need or desire for. Let's go back to John 14:13 again.

"And whatever [deed, act or work you have seen and heard of me] you desire, call for or require in My (onoma) authority, makeup, nature or essence, that will I perform and accomplish so that the Father will be rendered and esteemed glorious, being magnified in and through the fully matured and patterned Son.

You understand, I'm sure, that we don't get to make requirements or demands on the storehouses in Heaven that we haven't heard or seen in Jesus. We don't get to make up stuff! Neither are we "demanding" that Father give us what we are requiring! We are seated with Jesus, and we are seated in Him! Therefore, our requests, our requirements, our demands, our declarations and decrees are coming and being accomplished because they are coming in, through, and out of Christ Jesus.

Just as Jesus never did anything He didn't see Father do, neither do we. Just as Jesus never spoke anything He didn't first hear from Father, neither do we! Understand?

Our demands are NOT on Father! Our demands and requirements are NOT on Jesus! They are on Satan!!!!! Anything that we have need of once we are in Christ, any area of healing, deliverance or provision we have need of is taken back from Satan. He has been, and IS the liar, the thief, the murderer, the tormentor, the jailer. We were designed to be rich in every way! Satan -- in the form of the spirit of Mammon -- continually and consistently, steals, withholds, deceives and blocks every effort for God's people to have their covenanted wealth. God's people are supposed to be the healthiest people on earth -- not those who live after Satan's agenda. God's people are supposed to be the wealthiest people on earth -- not those who steal, kill, destroy and deceive in order to get as much money as they can.

We have a covenant in Christ Jesus, folks! Everything we could possibly have need of spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally and materially has been paid for. It's all available IN CHRIST! All we have to do is surrender the demand note so that it can be retrieved for us and transferred into our possession.

I've really only scratched the surface of this. Let's stop for now and pick this up again next week.

Again, if you are in need of healing -- especially if you have some terminal disease or prognosis of a very short time to live from the doctors -- 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!