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GET READY FOR THE GLORY

January, 2000

Those "in the know" and those who were tracking potential Y2K glitches were relieved as 2000 rolled in peaceably without the tidal wave of destruction so many had anticipated. And so now what?

The great disaster that was supposed to trigger a global harvest in the midst of doom and gloom did not occur as prophesied by many. People who were being told around the world that Jesus would surely return as the clock struck 2000 quite as surely breathed in relief and spoke out with a new sense of humanity's potential to reign and rule apart from the Creator or any Savior. If Christians were ridiculed in the past, they will be ignored as meaningless in the days to come.

We now think: A human spirit can honor God apart from the Holy Spirit. The human spirit is being fed, gaining strength, being inspired and empowered by a counterfeit. If ever there is a time to desire and love truth at all costs, it is now. The "dead" are rising, covered with pride, cloaked with religion, strengthened by lies. Yet in an aura of religion, in promoting a counterfeit Christianity, even Christians will be deceived.

To this I say with the Word, Let the dead bury the dead. And, Why seek ye the living among the dead? Jesus Christ is the Resurrection and the Life. Choose life and celebrate Jesus Christ in 2000. Do not seek and do those things that oppose life, those things that are anti-life and which lead to death. Sin will be the major enemy of 2000, moreso than Satan and the demonic. Sin will be the greatest enemy because of the pride of man that welled up within as the old moved out, not with a bang, but a whimper.

If Jesus is the Life and you seek Jesus, are you not likewise choosing life and choosing to seek life? And resurrection? Paul said that true believers are the circumcision, i.e., children of the covenant, which worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. He had a resume of religion and zeal that puts most, if not all, to shame, but these he counted loss for Christ because he wanted to win Christ, "and be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." (Philippians 3.9-11)

Where was Paul when he said this? He is thought to have written this letter during his first Roman imprisonment around 60-62 A. D. Read Philippians and be amazed at Paul's joy and confidence in the all-sufficiency of Christ, who gives meaning to life and causes people to serve Him even to their death. (Philippians 1.20, 21)

From the depths of the darkness, from the depths of the worm of the earth, life springs forth. The Bride of Christ came forth from the side of Christ after He had died. Out came blood and water. Why? To show that Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life, Lord over death, hell, and the grave.

This is the Third Day, the Day of Dominion, the Day of the Holy Spirit, and He is moving the Church, the Bride of Christ into Resurrection power, preparing a Bride pure and holy to meet the Lord in the air.

Reach for the glory. Embrace resurrection unto life as your destiny.

Yes, it is a new age, but New Agers are exhorted to know that cosmic consciousness, the whole of humanity coming together in one spirit, building a spiritual Tower of Babel to reach for God, will still not be God, who alone is Creator. As the plot thickens and the kings of the earth conspire against the Lord and against His anointed, feeding and fueling pride and the human spirit, hear the truth of Titus 3.5-7:

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but
According to His mercy He saved us; by the washing of
Regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which He
Shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior;
That being justified by His grace, we should be made
Heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

All the best of the human spirit rising up in the strength of Leviathan, empowered and inspired by the Queen of Heaven, and deceived by Satan is yet falling short of the glory of God. The pride of man strutting earth in glee that Jesus did not come on January 1, 2000, will gain more moxy to mock. We do well to be reminded of 2 Timothy 3.1-5:

In the last days perilous times shall come. For men
Shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters,
Proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful,
Unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false
Accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that
Are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures
More than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but
Denying the power thereof. From such turn away.

Living a godly life should be our focus for 2000, knowing that "all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." (2 Timothy 3.12) Evil is on the rise, and I believe we will see the outright blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, open mocking and blatantly bold cries of victory that man has successfully killed his Creator and taken His place.

Nevertheless, this is the Day of the Holy Spirit and He is rejoicing in His own, to raise them from death to life, to overcome evil in their days. In your prayers, break down the barriers of traditions, of the old ways, of Pharisaism, of the counterfeits and trappings, the aura of religion. This is a dimension of the human spirit, a problem of pride, of thinking one needs not the Holy Spirit to be holy and acceptable before the Living God.

God is with every true believer to prevail. It is not a time to fear, but a time to sanctify Jesus as Lord of the Church. Cry out that God break the neck of Leviathan and that He might bring forth water from the rock.

There is a river of death flowing now, but the river of life will prevail as we raise the standard. The Banner of Gods love will protect true believers, for our God is Jehovah Nissi, Ishi, Jehovah Gibbor, and will yet exult over His people with joy.

What does the Holy Spirit desire this year? It is that He may move in the midst of His people bringing His glory, His joy, His power, His Presence to comfort, to heal, to raise up from the graves. The fast He would require is Isaiah 58, to go to the oppressed, the weak, the orphaned and maintain justice. This is His Day, the Day of Dominion, not domination. Then Gods people will surely arise and shine.

Every true believer can get ready for the glory in 2000 by taking heed to the following admonitions:

  1. Reach for the glory. (Ephesians 1.15-23)
  2. Desire true oneness. Enter into Jesus’ prayer of John 17.
  3. Identify with Jesus Christ in His life, in His obedience, in His death, in His resurrection, in His ascension into glory. (Philippians 2)
  4. Let the Holy Spirit slay the enmity and sanctify you with the truth, with the Word, with the Blood of Christ, and separate you from all that is unclean, evil, tormenting, devouring, defiling, satanic, and opposing His Life in you. (Ephesians 2.15, 16; James 4.4; 1 Thessalonians 5.23)
  5. Set your heart to overcome sin, self, and Satan in your life in Jesus’ Name, in the power of the Holy Spirit, and as God is your strength. (Revelation 12.11, 12)
  6. Remember the Lord your God. (Psalm 5.11; 32.11; 43.4; 97.12; Zephaniah 3.17)

Mary J. Craig

We are children of light, the children of the day, not of night or of darkness (1 Thessalonians 5.5). Watch and be sober.

For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord,
And ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.
For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,
Has shined in our hearts, to give the light
Of the knowledge of the glory of God
In the face of Jesus Christ.
2 Corinthians 4.5, 6

TELL MY PEOPLE...

I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt. Out of Egypt I brought My Son. Hear Me now in this if I will not do something marvelous in your eyes, for I am the Almighty, the Fear of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the Father of spirits, the Faithful Amen.

I am come into the world that the world might have life and light and know the true God. For this reason I left My first estate—heaven—and took on the nature of a man that I might redeem for Myself a people.

Tell My people that I am aware of the disasters, the tumult, the warring in the heavenlies, the tug of war between good and evil, truth and lie. I will overcome because I have overcome.

Now you must overcome in My Name, in My power, and in My strength. As you take up the sword, as you stand righteous before the Father in My righteousness, as you seek peace and purity in your lives, you will see. Your eyes will be opened.

I am the Almighty who comes to warn you, for do I withhold what I am about to do from My servants? There will be a wave of My glory in the midst of great darkness. Against the night I will shine brighter than the solstice moon. You will see My glory and Me as you look to Me and not to the darkness. Turn your eyes to the light of My Love and you will see My glory—but if you focus on the darkness—the deep darkness covering the earth—you will not see My glory….

Free of fear of death, fear of evil, you walk in the victory of resurrection. It comes as you trust, as you know that I am good and in Me is no darkness at all.

Now hear the story of the sponge. The sponge is dry until it absorbs moisture from the outside. But then it is filled and dripping wet. So also you are to be a sponge, soaking up the oil of the anointing. Then when you are squeezed, that oil will pour out onto others, giving life to them in the midst of pressure. As you are pressed as Paul, so life works in others.

I am pressing the earth. Some will crumble. Some will burst. Some will be crushed. Some will explode.

But those that give their life to Me will rejoice to be poured out as an offering to My Father just as I rejoiced to offer up My life in the crucible of the cross.

Pressed by fear,
by doubt,
by pain,
I wonder.

What was it like
that first night
for the One in whom there is no darkness,
no shadow of turning,
the Father of Lights?

What was it like
to be bound in a baby,
far from the glory of unrestricted Love?
No one can know the price that He paid
to come for you,
to come for me.

No one can know but the One
who wrapped Himself in humanity
to free His own

from fear,
from doubt,
from pain.

Mary J. Craig

© 2000 Mary Craig Ministries, Inc.

mary@marycraig.org

 

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