This Morning’s Epiphany 9.23.2014

I had an epiphany this morning. It is such that I want to write it down and place it upon my blog so that I may go back and read it and remember it. When I graduated New Testament Christian Seminary, my class’ title was Ministers of Truth. I loved that title and wanted to live up to it. I’ve never forgotten how it made me feel when Pastor Davis pronounced this title upon us. The sheer aptness, the incomparable appropriateness of the title, was exactly the theme of my four years of study, of everything my teachers drove home to us. This is the truth and we are ministers of that truth!

Bible College did not make me a bible scholar. It only prepared me to become one. Something I am still working on becoming til this day. I definitely have a long way to go. In that journey I have focused on many things in the bible. Things I understood immediately (thought I understood anyway) and the things I read and did not understand but felt strongly about.

One of those things can be found in Revelation 3:17-18, “(17)… Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
(18) I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see…”

I never really understood this verse of scripture until today. I found myself to be in the case of verse 17, but wanting to be in the case of 18. The question arises, how does one buy gold tried in the fire; and that white raiment to clothe oneself in so that the shame of our nakedness isn’t showing? (Nothing is more embarrassing than a wardrobe malfunction in public) How do we obtain that eye salve to anoint our eyes so that we can see properly with our spiritual eyes?

I’ll tell you how and with what! The currency is our faith! The transaction is endurance!! We live our lives serving God, walking by faith. When things come our way to test that faith, we bare them, we endure them. We resist the devil and he is forced to flee from us. Every time the devil flees, every time our faith holds out, we earn that fire tired gold! Our garment remains white. Our eyesight has been anointed with that eye salve that causes us to see more clearly what is of God and what isn't. We are less concerned with the material world and more concerned with the spiritual! We can clearly see right from wrong and are able to make the choices that better affect us both spiritually and physically.

We all know how God makes a definite difference between the carnal man and the spiritual man. We know how God feels about carnality!

[Romans 8:7, “…Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be…”]

God hated Esau but loved Jacob!

[Malachi 1:2-3, (2) “…I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, (3) And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.]

What was wrong with Esau that caused God to hate him? I believe it was his carnal mindset! He only cared for the world in which he lived. He cared more about his life than his life as it pertains before God. He was in line to receive a blessing from his father, (his birthright) that would make him the physical and spiritual leader of his people, yet he sold it all to his brother for little more than a bowl of beans.

[Genesis 25:30-34, (30) “…And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom.

(31) And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.

(32) And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?

(33) And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.

(34) Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright.]

He despised his birthright. That which God would have given him, which was rightfully his, he despised it. What was the end result? He still became a mighty people, but God still laid waste to his habitation. His carnality caused God to hate him.

I don’t want God to hate me. I want God to love, adore, and treasure me! …and I want to live up to that, WHATEVER IT TAKES!!!
So I’ll humble myself. I’ll accept whatever humiliation comes my way…but at the end of the day, I will bow my head low to the ground and call Jesus Christ my Lord, my savior, my Master!


{Thank you Jesus and God the Father for it is through your mercy and grace that I am saved and by your grace that you allowed me to happen upon this epiphany this morning. Help me to give more attention to myself as it pertains to you and your will for my life and those around me!}