God has a word for us, “NO MORE BOXES!” God does not live in a box. He did at one time – but ever since He broke out of the Ark of the Covenant, He has never lived in a box again. Of course, you and I tend to live in boxes that are often fairly nice, although cramped. They're neat, but stuffy, old and stale. If God no longer lives in a box, then let's follow suit and let's live outside of the box too!

 

He wants to lift the lid over our head so that we can experience His voice in an on going basis. Let's breathe in God's refreshing Word and renew our hearts and souls so that we will walk in a new level of His Divine Creativity!

 

 

God wants us to hear His voice, discern it from other voices, and then, through the spirit of wisdom and revelation, correctly interpret and apply the word He has spoken to us. God has said that out of the “mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed” (see Matthew 18:16). For emphasis, we find this statement, or a variation, three times in Scripture: in Deuteronomy 19:15, in Matthew 18:16 and in 2 Corinthians 13:1.

 

Evidently, God does not want us to know only the historical Jesus, who came in human form and walked among men. He greatly yearns that we would also know the living, resurrected Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Father wants to enable us to hear, know and obey the risen Lord. But often we don't realize that He is speaking to us. No wonder we miss His cues. He is such a multifaceted Creator; endlessly creative in how He chooses to communicate.

 

 

Our Father's voice comes to us in such a great variety of ways that we need such moments of enlightenment. Otherwise, we tend to get locked into set patterns. It's so good of God to temporarily shut down one channel in order to open up another. He hasn't quit speaking; He is opening our hearts and minds to hear His voice in new ways. He does this so that we will continue to grow progressively in our relationship with Him. He doesn't want us to become locked in to the same patterns of hearing Him. God's goal is a real, live relationship with us.

 

To tell the truth, He likes messing with our radio dial! Sometimes He turns the volume louder and then back down, thus creating a greater dependency on Him. He loves to roll the dial to different stations to help us learn to appreciate the diversity within the Body of Christ. After we have logged a few more listening hours, we are a whole lot less frustrated with who controls the knobs. Eventually, we learn to love the wide variety of ways in which He speaks.

 

Here are a few scriptural examples, which portray the Out of the Box ways the Spirit uses to speak to people:

This list is not exhaustive, but it gives a bird's-eye view of some of the ways God has chosen to speak to (and through) His people. I have been surprised over the years at both how God speaks and what or whom He chooses to use! Sometimes the package is not one that I would prefer. But He is God – and that means He has the right to pick what He wants to say, how to say it and what or whom to use!

 

 

God is not limited in His attention-getting techniques! He wants to be heard, and He has plenty of approaches He can utilize.

 

Once the voice of God came to me in the middle of the night, but I didn't recognize it at first. The ringing of my telephone woke me up. I got up out of bed, went to our kitchen and picked up the phone, only to find there was no one on the other end – just a dial tone. I stumbled back into bed and fell back asleep, only to hear the phone ringing a second time. I rolled out of bed, groped in the dark and picked up the phone, only to find again that there was no voice on the other end.

 

Wearily, I walked back once more to my bedroom and crawled back into bed, only to be awakened a third time by hearing our telephone ringing. Determined to figure this thing out, I went to the kitchen, picked up the receiver and listened longer. I still didn't hear anything. But this time, a still, small voice in my heart whispered, Jeremiah 33:3.

 

I hung up the receiver, found a Bible and looked up the verse: “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” I was stunned by His invitation, and I spent the next couple of hours just sitting in the quietness of our living room in the presence of the Almighty, communing with Him and listening to His sweet, sweet voice.

 

Now, folks, that was a genuine God encounter, a personal and unusual way for Him to demonstrate how He takes the initiative to deepen our relationship with Him. He caused the sound of a telephone to awaken me from my sleep. He persisted until He got my full attention. He took me to His written Word. His Word was illuminated by the Holy Spirit and was used to draw me closer to His very bosom.

 

Yes, after He got my attention, I called upon the Lord, and He did show me great and mighty things that I did not previously know! And this activity has never stopped! God loves to Show Up and Show Off!

 

 

He wants us to hear His voice in all of its manifestations so that we can bear much fruit—fruit that will remain.

 

In our process of becoming, we must not forget that ultimately this is not about us. It is about our being transformed into the beautiful image of His glorious Son, Jesus. By the power of the voice of our personal Tutor, the Holy Spirit, you and I will be changed into the image of God's Son. According to Psalm 29, we will shout praises together as we are changed from glory to glory. Everything in His temple says, “Glory!”

 

Let His voice thunder. Let the fire fall. Let His word be magnified. Let all creation echo His sound. Let His piercing voice continue to proceed. You and I do not live by bread alone but by the ever-proceeding Word of our Father. Yes, God No Longer Lives in a Box – So Why Do We? Get out of the Box – He is no longer there!

 

 

James W. Goll

 

With this message, we would like to talk about the forming of a new structure by the hand of God.

This structure is made up by new associations of saints who add up to a divine fellowship, so that the presence of God can be received and carried for this time in order to serve and minister to the people.

 

When God creates something new, it is connected with moist soil or clay among others, and His given biblical time cycle.

We can see this in the creation of Adam, the first human being, and also in the story of Jeremiah in the potter's house, as he was forming a pot from clay at the wheel (see Genesis 2:6-7 i.c.w. Jeremiah 18:1-6).

 

… 6 but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.

7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

 

1 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: 2 “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.”

3 So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel.

4 But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. 5 Then the word of the Lord came to me.

6 He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel.

 

 

It is always God's plan to weave into our spiritual being His presence as well as His high ways and thoughts of the “untouched land (note: the fog or dew rising from the ground; see Genesis 2:6) of our promise”, that we may identify with it.
These plans and ways of God are untouched, because He wants to use us to touch them first. God achieves this by mixing our earthly existence with His celestial plan, and then He plants us into our territory on earth, just as God with His own hand placed Adam into his field of Eden (see Genesis 2:5-8).

 

5 Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, 6 but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.

7 Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.

 

Love and the favor of God are the dew rising up from the untouched ground (note: it had not yet rained on earth) and these are woven into our lives by the hand of God. They shall encourage us to thank Him in our everyday life.

 

I call this touch of the LORD the outward touch by the being of the Heavenly Father. This touch prepares us for God's inward touch which enables us to rise up encouraged and in thankfulness to progress in joy and rejoicing here on earth (see Psalm 97:12 i.c.w. Philippians 4:4).

 

12 Rejoice in the LORD, you who are righteous, and praise his holy name.

 

4 Rejoice in the LORD always. I will say it again: Rejoice!

 

The outward touch of the father forms us, and His inward touch fills us through His breath which is the Holy Spirit.

When Jesus Christ got baptized by John the Baptist, He was surrounded by the presence of the Heavenly Father (note: by His voice) and was filled with the measure of presence of the Holy Spirit necessary for His public ministry. Here we can see, that a supernatural outward and inward touch took place (see Luke 3:21-23a i.c.w. Luke 4:1).

 

21 When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

23a Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry …

 

1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, …

 

This visitation by the Heavenly Father in the life of Jesus who is the last Adam, closely relates to the “installation” of the first Adam who was positioned by God in Eden (see 1 Corinthians 15:45).

 

45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being” (see Genesis 2:7); the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.

 

 

Positioning or installation by the hand of God only takes place after His outward and inward touch; only then we are able to serve effectively in God's kingdom. This positioning is always connected to elevation and stabilization which helps us to hear and know God on a higher level. Take for instance the prophet Ezekiel and John the seer who were touched by the hand of God and thus heard and saw new revelations from the Father on a higher level (see Ezekiel 3:12; Ezekiel 8:3a-b; Ezekiel 37:1 i.c.w. Revelation 4:2).

 

12 Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me a loud rumbling sound as the glory of the LORD rose from the place where it was standing.

 

3a-b He stretched out what looked like a hand and took me by the hair of my head. The Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven …

 

1 The hand of the LORD was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.

 

2 At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it.

 

 

Once again I would like to examine the subject of the dew which in the word of God is closely connected to the manna (also called the bread of heaven) and to Israel's rescue by the hand of Gideon (see Exodus 16:13-14; Numbers 11:7-9; Judges 6:36-40 i.c.w. John 6:31-35). This helps us understand just how God the Father interweaves us with our earthly territory in order to reveal His plans through us on earth.

 

13 That evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp.

14 When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor.

 

7 The manna was like coriander seed and looked like resin (note: resin, which looks like white pearls).

8 The people went around gathering it, and then ground it in a hand mill or crushed it in a mortar. They cooked it in a pot or made it into loaves. And it tasted like something made with olive oil.

9 When the dew settled on the camp at night, the manna also came down.

 

31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.

33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”

35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

 

36 Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised— 37 look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.”

38 And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew – a bowlful of water.

39 Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece, but this time make the fleece dry and let the ground be covered with dew.”

40 That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.

 

By the above mentioned scripture passages we can see the Heavenly Father providing us with His living word which is Jesus, and giving us the necessary direction and courage to bring salvation/deliverance to the people, so they can walk through the gate of the precious pearl, which is Jesus Christ (see John 10:9; Matthew 13:45-46 i.c.w. Revelation 21:12-14.21).

 

9 I (note: Jesus Christ) am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture.

 

45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls.

46 When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.

 

... 12 It (note: the city; the woman, bride of the lamb) had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. 13 There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west.

14 The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. ...

21 The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass.

 

 

Jesus Christ is the compassionate high priest who, as the precious pearl, displays the gates of the tribes and His basic apostolic understanding on His chest, so that we may have access to His heart and will be able to understand Him rightly (see Hebrew 4:14-15).

 

14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.

15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet he did not sin.

 

 

The LORD used the reshaping process of the moist vessel of clay on the potter's wheel at the time where Jeremiah was down in the potter's house (see Jeremiah 18:1-6h) to show me that He is positioning saints in the center of His biblical time cycle: They become aware of the time cycle of the Heavenly Father and understand how important it is. This is also closely connected to walking in the center of God's will.

 

This creates a new clay vessel which points to an association of saints initiated by God, and that leads to a fellowship which stays in God's fire and emerges victorious (see Song of Songs 3:6-7; Song of Songs 8:5 i.c.w. Matthew 3:11).

 

6 Who is this coming up from the wilderness like a column of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and incense made from all the spices of the merchant?

7 Look! It is Solomon’s carriage, escorted by sixty warriors, the noblest of Israel, …

 

5 Who is this coming up from the wilderness leaning on her beloved?

 

11 “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

 

 

Clay needs to be moist to be formed.

The vessel properly formed from clay, needs to pass through great heat so it can be used as a vessel for service.

This fact clearly shows that we as people of God need the Holy Spirit and fire to serve truthfully i.e. with persistence before the eyes of the Heavenly Father in the world.

 

 

The Holy Spirit helps us to renew our mind and spirit to stay flexible and do the will of God for this time (see Romans 12:2 i.c.w. Ephesians 4:23-24).

 

2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.

 

… 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

 

The fire of God, however, develops stability in our inner man, as it contains the testing of heart and kidneys: It puts us to the acid test/it puts us through our paces, so to speak (see Psalm 26:2 i.c.w. Jeremiah 20:12a).

 

2 Test me, LORD, and try me, examine my heart and my mind; …

 

Jeremiah 20:12a:
12a Lord Almighty, you who examine the righteous and probe the heart and mind, …

 

The Hebrew word for “heart” is “lēb” and I find it no coincidence that the last Hebrew letter in Deuteronomy is a “Lamed- (L)“, and the first Hebrew letter in Genesis is a “Beth- (B)“: Together they form the Hebrew word “lēb“, which points to the highest commandment of God (see Matthew 22:37-38).

 

37 Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ (see Deuteronomy 6:5).

38 This is the first and greatest commandment.

 

The spiritual functions of the heart are:

1. Knowledge (see Proverbs 18:15)
2. Recognition (see Isaiah 33:18)
3. Memory/Remembrance (see Deuteronomy 4:9).

=> The heart is the organ of understanding (see Proverbs 2:2; Isaiah 6:10) and wisdom (see Exodus 31:6; Proverbs 2:10).
From the heart come emotions like pain (see Psalm 38:9), grief (see Nehemiah 2:2), joy (see Isaiah 24:7), fear (see Psalm 55:5), despair (see Lamentations 1:20), courage (see Psalm 40:13), valor (see 2 Samuel 17:10), pride (see 2 Chronicles 26:16), malice (see Jeremiah 4:14), rejection, disdain (see Exodus 8:28; Deuteronomy 15:7; 1 Chronicles 15:29) as well as trust and affection (see Deuteronomy 6:5; Judges 9:3; 2 Samuel 15:6). The kidneys are seen as the seat of the inside and most secret/subconscious drives of man, as well as the seat of the conscience. <= (note: part excerpt from the Elberfelder study bible on the Hebrew word “lēb-heart“ and on the Hebrew word “kiljāh-kidney“; language key no.: 3899, 3701)

 

These word explanations quite clearly show that the fire of God contributes to stabilizing or securing the new revelations/values given by the Holy Spirit, such as knowledge, understanding, wisdom etc., as well as pure motives. When tested in the fire of God, all negative properties i.e. motives will burn.

 

This creates supernatural boldness to answer the call of God, just as the prophet Isaiah did, when his lips got touched with a glowing coal from God's altar (see Isaiah 6:5-8).

 

5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.

7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

 

Amen and Amen.

 

In His Wisdom,

 

Daniel Glimm