Rapture

 

I feel led to re-post something I posted some time ago.

Rapture
Some time ago I had a dream in which I was looking at certain stars in the sky.  As i looked at them they appeared to grow in explosive glory, yet were not destroyed.  It was absolutely beautiful.  My husband was stood nearby and I asked him to look at the stars, but when he looked nothing happened, the stars remained normal.  then some other people came along who were unbelievers, and I asked them to look at the same stars.  Again nothing happened.  A short time after I had the dream I bought some new gold coloured curtains, and when I got them home and went to take them out of the packet I noticed they were called 'rapture', and I realized that the pattern on them was very much like the exploding stars that I had seen in my dream.  The word 'rapture' means 'to be carried to a state of extreme joy', and that was exactly the state I had been in, watching the stars in my dream.

Shortly after I went to the church that I was attending at the time, and the pastor was saying that he and the family had visited a waterfall in a local park.  Then a lady spoke of waterfalls of wine, the pastor following on speaking of how new wine could not be put into old wineskins but had to be put into new wineskins.  I noticed that the lady who spoke on 'waterfalls of wine' had a dress on with an almost identical pattern to my curtains, only the background colour was brown instead of gold. 
I felt that something was being pointed out to me here, that the gold background represented the Lord and the brown background represented the earth, and that the pattern on both the curtains and the dress represented the heavenly glory that Christians should bear, the Glory of the Lord, except that the brown dress represented something earthly, an old wineskin perhaps.
 

I told my son, who moved to the area recently, that the waterfalls were there, because he had said that when he moved down here, he wanted to visit many of the waterfalls in the area.  He said he knew of the waterfalls and that they were partially man made.  Again I felt that something was being pointed out to me, that the waterfalls were partially man made and the dress with the brown background colour could be speaking spiritually of man's interference with God's word and the Holy Spirit in some way and that if it was, then the Lord would reveal more to me if I prayed and waited.

Some time after, I was reading 2 Kings chapter 2 where the men of the city were telling Elisha that the situation of the city of Jericho was pleasant but the water was bad and the land was unfruitful.  Elisha asked for a new bowl and put salt in it.  Then he went to the spring and threw salt in it, and the word of the Lord came to him to say that the water was made wholesome and that neither death nor miscarriage would come from it.

After I had read this I was thinking about sharing my thoughts with the pastor at the church, and I reached for my UCB daily reading book.  When I opened to the reading for the day it was saying that we all have gaps and that the best way to handle the weaknesses was to work together and it was encouraging us to work more together and not to be like  Diotrephes who not only refused to welcome the brethren, but also stopped those who wanted to welcome them.

I was about to put up on my front room wall a print of two geese painted originally in watercolour.  I was reminded of a book I have called 'Why geese fly farther than eagles' The following is a paragraph from that book which reflects to me the way the body of Christ should function as stated in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 16 '....... joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and up builds itself in love.'

 

' When the head goose grabs the wind, air is displaced, which then rushes up to reclaim its space only to see the smiling face of the bird flying behind, whose wings just happen to be in the downward position - a very dangerous condition, which doesn't last for long, because the upward rush gives them a push, and they're right back up where they belong.  This goose then grabs the air again, causing another upward wind, which lifts the bird behind.  And so it goes on down the line.  So the head goose breaks the wind, and all the rest are carried by him, with very little effort, I've heard, on the part of any one bird.  When the head goose has had enough, he or she simply drops back and depends on another bird for strength when strength is what is lacked.

So that's how I found out how the goose can fly from up north to way down south and back again.  But she cannot do it alone, you see.  It's something that must be done in community.  These days it's a popular notion, and people swell with emotion and pride when they think of themselves on the eagle-side, solitary, self-sufficient, strong.  But we are what we are.  That's something we cannot choose.  Though many would wish to be seen as an eagle, I think God made most like the goose.'

Last Sunday the pastor of the church was saying to my friend and myself that if anyone has anything they want to share during the service they have to speak to the appointed convener about it and he will decide whether it should be shared or not.  A few Sundays ago it was preached in church that if people did not go to the doctors with certain sicknesses they would die.  I have been trusting in the Lord solely for a particular healing  and when I got home that day I sought the Lord regarding what had been spoken in church and I opened my Bible to read.  On the page in front of me was a verse in Psalm 118 that I had underlined some time ago.  It reads ' I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord.'  I asked the Lord if He was speaking this word to me, closed my Bible, and opened to exactly the same page, with the same underlined verse speaking to me.

 

I have to ask, ' If I had asked the Lord this question in church that morning and opened my Bible to this verse twice, would I have been allowed to share this with the church or would the convener have thought that it went against what was being preached and disallowed it, thereby denying this testimony which might have strengthened and encouraged somebody else ?.'

 

Surely there can only be one convener in the church, the Holy Spirit, and are we guilty of trying to interfere with His work by bringing in our own rules instead of following the guidelines of the scriptures when we come together. Daniel ch. 2 v.44 reads:- 'And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.'  

 

We must not be afrail of a little 'salt' in case it might offend.  As in the story of Elisha in Jericho, it may bring a blessing from the Lord and make the land more fruitful.  We may even, without realizing it, be denying ourselves of having the fullness of all that the Lord has for us by not allowing the body of Christ to function fully as it was intended to.

Why, in my dream, did not my husband or the unbelievers see the full glory of the stars in the heavens?  I could understand why the unbelievers did not see it, but my husband has been baptized and believes in Jesus.  Was he representing somebody who believes but can not see the full glory because he is guided largely by worldly wisdom and knowledge?  In order to be carried to that 'extreme state of joy'  Do we need to be concentrating more on getting rid of the old brown (earthly) wineskins and putting on our new gold (Christ like )ones?