Of The Rapture

Apostle Grace Lubega

Matthew 24:14 (KJV); And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

We are living in an era of radical apocalyptic speculation.

Christians sometimes apply unsound hermeneutics to world events in a bid to explain the end of the world.

To some, every new technological invention which they may not necessarily understand means that the end of the world is here.

If a global leader makes a statement that is contrary to their understanding of truth, to them, “the end of the world is near.”

But often times, some miss the ultimate prophesy that the scriptures reveal shall usher in the end of days.

Christ, in his great Olivet Discourse, a portion of which is our theme scripture said, “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”

The preaching of the gospel to the ends of the earth shall usher in the end.

So you may say, “The gospel has been here for a while and many have heard it. How come the end has not yet come?”

The answer to this is that there is a particular level of knowledge that must firstly settle in the church before it (the Church) is raptured.

This knowledge shall cause men who are terrestrial (physical) beings to be so utterly consumed by the Word of God until they start to have terrestrial-celestial experiences.

The Bible speaks of celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies and that they differ in glory (1 Corinthians 15:40).

God is not going to get terrestrial bodies and carry them off to heaven like some assume. No, flesh and blood CANNOT inherit the Kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 15:50).

God is coming for a church that knows Him so much that it will easily transition into eternity celestial. Hallelujah!

FURTHER STUDY: 1 Corinthians 15:40, 1 Corinthians 15:50

GOLDEN NUGGET:

God is coming for a church that knows Him so much that it will easily transition into eternity celestial.

PRAYER: Father, this day I pray, that you launch me into deeper things. I desire your Word more than necessary food. Let knowledge be my satisfaction and fullness. Cause me to hunger for the real things, God. Lord flood me with knowledge, flood me with your experiences, and flood me with the reality of spiritual things. I choose to fall deeper in love with you, that I will be hungrier for you today than I was yesterday because of the things I see in you. I see more. I hear more. I taste more. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Realm of Glass

Apostle Grace Lubega

2 Corinthians 3:18(KJV); But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Glory cannot be beheld through human lenses. As such, God has given to us an eternal lens, the realm of glass [the Word] which magnifies the reality of spiritual and divine things.

There are men who have studied the scriptures diligently and became atheists for it.

The issue was how they looked into that realm.

How does this lens work?

The Word is spirit and life (John 6:33).

So how do you read spirit? How do you look through the lines of the Bible and see spiritual substance?

Our theme scripture teaches that it is by the Spirit of the Lord.

Studying the Word through human lenses/eyes will cause you to erroneously attach a physical form to spiritual substance [in the mind that the physical gives reality to the spiritual] and thus ascribe limitation and weakness to what is essentially eternal and limitless in nature.

On the other hand, studying the Word by the eyes/lenses of THE SPIRIT will cause you to behold the spiritual reality of these things before your intellect reconciles them with the physical.

Take an example of how we behold the characters in the Bible.

The scriptures say, “wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know him no more” (2 Corinthians 5:16).

The Amplified rendering is, “From now on we estimate and regard no one from a [purely] human point of view.”

In other words, what is the spiritual identity of these men in the Bible?

When the prophets looked at Elijah, they only saw him as the master of Elisha because of how they looked into that realm of glass (2 Kings 2:3).

But Elisha, because he looked into the realm with a different lens saw him as the CHARIOT of Israel and its horsemen thereof (2 Kings 2:12).

So you must ask questions like; who is Paul in the spirit? What is the Spirit of Christ?

When Jesus asks his disciples, “who do you say I am?”(Matthew 16:15-17), He was testing their understanding of this reality.

Deeper than that, the Bible calls you a written epistle (2 Corinthians 3:2).

By this qualification, you are part of that realm of glass.

When it says you are read by all men, this is not a physical reading, it is spiritual!

As you behold in the glass, you understand your true spiritual identity, the glory upon your life and the crown on your head. Hallelujah!

FURTHER STUDY: 2 Corinthians 3:2, 2 Corinthians 5:16

GOLDEN NUGGET:
Glory cannot be beheld through human lenses. As such, God has given to us an eternal lens, the realm of glass [the Word] which magnifies the reality of spiritual and divine things.

PRAYER: God, today I thank you that you open my eyes and cause me to see these things. I see through the glass of the Word and behold the glory of God. I am translated in the name of Jesus. Father, like you killed a certain sight in Paul and gave him true eternal vision, do the same for me this day. Kill my flesh towards anything worldly and open my soul to eternal things. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Understanding The Time Dimension

Apostle Grace Lubega

Hebrews 13:8 (KJV); Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and for ever.

God is eternal. He is the same, yesterday, today and forever.

This means that your present experience to Him is as current to Him as your past and your future: your past is NOT past to Him and your future is NOT a future thing to Him.

Take this example; God is deliberate in His use of the word “WHEN” to reveal to us the mind of predestination: how He views events in the lives of men.

He says, “WHEN you pass through the waters, I will be with you” (Isaiah 43:2); “WHEN the enemy shall come in like a flood the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him” (Isaiah 59:19).

When He uses this language, it does not mean that somewhere in God’s future, you will go through waters, or the enemy will seek to attack you. He is already in that experience and in itself, it is past, present and futuristic to Him.

Time has the limitation [and weakness] of trapping human experiences in a restricted matrix and thus magnifying their consequences to the end that men easily take their eyes off God. Impossibility thrives in the arena of time limitations.

But God wants you to look behind the veil of time.

When you separate the time series of the earth [past, present and future] from the events of your life, that gap is filled by the ultimate experience of God Himself.

You will start to understand that it is Him in the waters, Him in the fire, Him raising a standard when the enemy comes in.

When you read the story of Job, the Bible talks about Job’s end as being the Lord’s (James 5:11).

But understand this: It is not God’s intention that we only look to the end of a matter as carrying the testimony of God but that in the past, present and future experience of any event GOD IS!

This is the mind that causes men never to set their eyes on circumstances because the wisdom of God that numbers days (Psalms 90:12) has taught them to look at life through the lens of eternity.

In any event of your life, you behold Christ, the author and finisher of your faith. (Hebrews 12:2). Hallelujah!

FURTHER STUDY: Psalms 90:12, Revelation 1:8

GOLDEN NUGGET:
When you separate the time series of the earth [past, present and future] from the events of your life, that gap is filled by the ultimate experience of God Himself. You will start to understand that it is Him in the waters, Him in the fire, Him raising a standard when the enemy comes in.

PRAYER: Father I thank you that today the eyes of my perception are cleansed and I behold this ultimate truth, that all things are infinite. This day God, may I draw from eternal wells, rivers and depths. Your Word says deep calls unto deep. May I dream and look at life past the limitations of time to deeper places in you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Greater Things Shall You See

Apostle Grace Lubega

John 1:47-50(KJV); Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile! Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee. Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel. Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? thou shalt see greater things than these.

Access to the spirit realm can either be by the light of God or the “light” of the devil (2 Corinthians 11:14).

Sadly, we are living in a dispensation where some Christians are too gullible to tell the difference between these lights.

Not everyone who sees in the spirit does so by the light of God.

Even on our pulpits today, there are men who see by a false light and so God calls upon us to have the wisdom to tell the difference.

Our theme scripture explains a vital aspect of the true light (John 1:9) by which we must see.

Christ, being God in flesh, had full access to the spirit world and there are many things he could see.

Regardless of this, there was a difference between what he saw and the importance he attached to some of the things he saw.

For example, when he saw Nathaniel under a fig tree, he told him as much.

But when this kind of vision excited Nathaniel and formed a basis for his faith in the Messiah, he, [Jesus] was quick to “undermine” the importance that Nathaniel had given it.

He asked, “You’ve become a believer simply because I say I saw you one day sitting under the fig tree?”(John 1:50 MSG).

The point here was that it was shallow for Nathaniel to attach his faith to the fact that Jesus had seen him under a tree.

Even a man operating under the false light can see some of these things.

BUT there are things a man operating by the false light cannot see, because they are too deep by virtue of the altar (Hebrews 13:10).

These very things are what the Christ calls “the greater things” we must see.

The language Jesus uses is not “more things” [that would mean similar things of the same category like he had just seen] but it is “greater things.”

Lust [carnal desire to simply see in the spirit with no sense of divine purpose] is non-existent in a man whose genuine desire is to see greater things.

In fact, it is no mistake that Christ here is addressing a man [Nathaniel] in whom he admits there is no guile because guile in itself is a form of inner deception that provokes lust [and not genuine desire] for spiritual vision.

So you must ask the question, “What are the greater things in God?”

In the greater light, men walk the unsearchable places in God (Jeremiah 33:3 NIV), men see the blue prints of divine purpose, men see God face to face (Exodus 33:11). Praise Him!

FURTHER STUDY: Matthew 6:23, 2 Corinthians 11:14

GOLDEN NUGGET:

In greater light, men walk the unsearchable places in God, men see the blue prints of divine purpose, men see God face to face.

PRAYER: My great God I thank you for spiritual vision. By this word, my eyes are opened to see greater things in you. Even as I behold in the spirit, I see the things that align me to divine purpose, that launch me deeper in the knowledge of you and that defines the true substance of eternal life. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Christian World View

Apostle Grace Lubega

Hebrews 11:3(AMP); By faith we understand that the worlds [during the successive ages] were framed (fashioned, put in order, and equipped for their intended purpose) by the word of God, so that what we see was not made out of things which are visible.

Christianity is not merely a set of beliefs, it is also a world view. Sadly, it is one of the weaknesses of the Christendom in failing to acknowledge it as such.

Christianity has for a long time existed in an ethos whose world view has been predominantly shaped by the men of this world.

A mythological world view caused men to create gods in their own image. As such, we see Greek and Roman gods having very human temperaments and therefore prone to human weaknesses.

Even today, major world religions have strong mythological foundations.

The natural philosophers shaped human thought by their concern with the natural world and its processes.

Modern thought today is often influenced by humanism and a form of science that seeks to eliminate the existence of God.

But, our theme scripture reveals that the worlds, including the physical world in which we live was framed by the Word of God.

This means that the Word must inform our view of the world and thus we as Christians must be in a position to shape contemporary thought.

Consider these two examples; The forces that influence the economics of this world base their predictions on market factors, human behavioral patterns and various political players. But how does Jesus asking Peter to get money out of the mouth of a fish fit in this setting? (Matthew 17:27).

The world view on health and medicine. This is founded on the views of Hippocrates whose medical tradition sought to find natural explanations for sickness and health.

This definitely differs from the Christian thought that sickness is spiritual and consequently demonic (Acts 10:38).

When the Bible in our theme scripture says that what is seen/visible was created by what is unseen/invisible, it means that the reality of the spiritual world shows us the spiritual form of everything that is physical.

God has not called us to acquire a world view through the set institutions, systems and ideas of this world.

We owe an accountability to the Word to influence men’s view of the world through it. Hallelujah!

FURTHER STUDY: John 17:16, 1 Corinthians 3:21-22

GOLDEN NUGGET:
God has not called us to acquire a world view through the set institutions, systems and ideas of this world. We owe an accountability to the Word to influence men’s view of the world through it.

PRAYER: Father I thank you for the gift of your Word. It shaped the world and created everything that I see. I choose to see the world through your Word, to pattern my thinking according to its dictates, to align my ideas and vision to its precepts and to influence my world through its commands. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Responsibility In The Covenant: Willingness

Apostle Grace Lubega

Colossians 2:6 (KJV); As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him.

The first responsibility we have as believers towards the new covenant is the responsibility of faith.

The second responsibility is the willingness to walk in it.

The faith that receives is the same faith by which you walk in the covenant.

In our theme scripture, Paul asks us to walk in Christ in the same manner in which we received Him.

What did you do to receive Jesus? You simply believed.

This is the same way in which you ought to walk this new life in Christ.

It is not a place of works, exerting great effort and personal ability.

The willingness to walk in the covenant is the understanding that it is God who works and wills in you according to His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13).

The New Testament is a life of God IN a man winning souls, God IN a man changing nations, God IN a man building a ministry, God IN a man healing and God IN a man delivering.

You did not receive the life of salvation by what you did, you didn’t deserve it. In the same way, you receive New Testament truths not by what you do but by how much you truly believe (Galatians 3:14).
Hallelujah!

FURTHER STUDY: Philippians 2:13, Galatians 2:16

GOLDEN NUGGET:
You did not receive the life of salvation by what you did, you didn’t deserve it. In the same way, you receive New Testament truths not by what you do but by how much you truly believe.

PRAYER: Father, I thank you for your Word. Thank you for the promises you have laid out for me to freely walk in. I yield to your work in me to manifest these truths. It is not by power nor by might but by your Spirit. Your grace labours in me to cause me to live the victorious and higher life in Christ. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Of Wider Nets And Bigger Ships

Apostle Grace Lubega

Luke 5:4-7(KJV); Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net. And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake. And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink.

The Word that the Lord may send to an individual is sometimes bigger than the capacity of that man’s “net” or “ship” ( his ability to contain it).

In Peter’s case, Jesus’ instruction was greater and weightier than Peter’s net and ship and as such, the scriptures record that it broke and the ship began to sink.

This is why preparation in and for ministry is twofold.

The primary place of preparation is being available for the Word. The secondary place of preparation is to be able to contain the Word.

All Jesus said was, “Launch into the deep.” It is Peter who determined the size of his net and his ship.

The size of your ship and net is the depth of your revelation and the extent of your faith.

If God says, “you are the head and not the tail,” (Deuteronomy 28:13), one person will think of excelling in class, another launches deeper and sees himself as the president of a nation while another goes past the boundaries of a nation and sees the world.

How about our father Abraham? The Lord told him, “Lift up your eyes, for as far as your eyes can see, I have given unto you.” (Genesis 13:15 NLT). When the Word came, Abraham launched deep enough to see not just Canaan but the whole world. As such, he became the father of all nations.

Someone else may receive the same word and only think of inheriting a few acres of land while another will see the earth.

So the choice is up to you. He sends His Word—choose a bigger ship, carry a wider net. Believe big. Hallelujah!

FURTHER STUDY: Ephesians 3:20, 1 Corinthians 3:21-22

GOLDEN NUGGET:

The size of your ship and net is the depth of your revelation and the extent of your faith. He sends His Word—choose a bigger ship, carry a wider net. Believe big.

PRAYER: Father, I thank you for this wisdom and knowledge. Thank you for the possibilities you have set before me and for the greatness of your Word in my spirit. Lord I believe that with you, nothing is impossible. For as far as my eyes can see have you given unto me. My vision is enlarged, my faith is increased, my possibilities are limitless and my aspirations are great. I choose to believe you greatly because you are a great God, to dream big and follow the path of greatness because it is the course you daily point me to. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Responsibility In The Covenant: Faith

Apostle Grace Lubega

Hebrews 8:6 (AMP); But as it now is, He [Christ] has acquired a [priestly] ministry which is as much superior and more excellent [than the old] as the covenant (the agreement) of which He is the Mediator (the Arbiter, Agent) is superior and more excellent, [because] it is enacted and rests upon more important (sublimer, higher, and nobler) promises.

The New Testament is not merely the second part of the Bible. It is the covenant into which we were translated by the atoning work of Christ at Calvary.

In Hebrews 8:6, it is described as “the better covenant” which was established upon “better promises.”

This new covenant comes with responsibility. The first responsibility is faith towards the covenant. Do you truly believe that God has drawn you into a more excellent and advantageous covenant?

Sadly, some Christians would rather reject new covenant truths and cling to Old Testament truths because they are not ESTABLISHED in present truth.

They may know what the New Testament says about them but they are not, like the Apostle Peter says, established in this truth (2 Peter 1:12).

Because they are not established, they are tossed about by every wind of doctrine. (Ephesians 4:14).

For example, such a one believes that he lives under the dictates of generational curses because “God visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.” (Exodus 20:5).

They ignore the fact that “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

A man who does not have faith toward the covenant pleads with God not to “cast him away from his presence and not to take his Holy Spirit from him.” (Psalms 51:11).

But we who have embraced new covenant truths know that “He will never leave us nor forsake us” (Hebrews 13:5) and that we have been sealed with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30).

Embrace present truth and be established therein because it shapes the realities of the life we received in Christ. Hallelujah!

FURTHER STUDY: Ephesians 4:14, 2 Peter 1:12

GOLDEN NUGGET:
Embrace present truth and be established therein because it shapes the realities of the life we received in Christ.

PRAYER: Father, I thank you for the new covenant. I thank you for its truth and realities. I am a new creature in Christ, the Old is passed, the new is come and all things are of God. I behold these truths daily, and they form the reality of my life. As I behold, I see their manifestation in my life. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Christ Our Covering

Apostle Grace Lubega

Genesis 3:7 (KJV); And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

When God clothed Adam and Eve after the fall of man, it was not merely physical nakedness that He sought to cover.

He sought to clothe a spiritual state, and not just the physical lack of clothes.

The devil had opened their eyes to a different kind of nakedness—that they were gods of self.

This state of man required the shedding of blood and He – God had to kill an animal to clothe them (Genesis 3:21).

In the New Testament, Jesus became our covering. The Bible says in Galatians 3:27, “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”

His covering reveals that you are glorious, powerful and wise in him. You are not ‘naked’. Hallelujah!

FURTHER STUDY: Galatians 3:26-28, Romans 13:14

GOLDEN NUGGET:
In the New Testament, Jesus became our covering. His covering reveals that we are glorious, powerful and wise in him. We are not ‘naked’.

PRAYER: Father, I thank you for your Word. Today, I understand that you are my covering, for as many as are in Christ, we have put on Christ. He is my garment, my adornment, and my beauty. My eyes are closed to every form of weakness and open to the immeasurable treasures in the inside of me. In Jesus’ name. Amen.