A Puritan’s Prayer.
From Valley of Vision by Arthur Bennett

Romans 13:8 “Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law.”

The most important commodity in the Kingdom of heaven is love. The commodity is a sacrificial love, a servant love, a covenant love. The currency of heaven is love. There is a labor of love that far surpasses the labor of the dollar bill. Imagine a community that stopped and helped those broken on the side of the road not because of what they were going to get out of it, not because of what that person could do for them, but because of compassion and love. This is what Jesus modeled. This love is what was turning the world right side up in the early Church.

It was the Ekklesia, the city whose builder and maker is God. This love is what was crushing the government’s financial tyranny and massive taxation; this love is what was liberating the Jewish people. Jesus, the King of Kings, came to bring an entirely different economy on the earth that was far superior to the economy of Caesar.

There is slavery to mammon, materialism and the dollar bill. However, Jesus brought us true riches which are far superior to the dollar bill. These are spiritual riches and we have to have spiritual eyes to see them. Jesus said that if you seek first the Kingdom and all its righteousness, then all the material resources you need will be added unto you. This is an absolutely true statement, not a debatable hypothesis. Jesus said, “Don’t worry about tomorrow, for today has enough concerns of its own.” Many in today’s global economy cannot fathom an economy that would allow us to focus on the problems of today without worrying about tomorrow. Many are paralyzed by the fear of tomorrow, which leaves them utterly ineffective today.

Right now socialism/communism is on the rise again. This is a perversion of the Acts 2 community, and man’s attempt to once again fulfill God’s word apart from Christ. A communist was once asked, “Why has communism always failed?” and he answered, “Because we have always given out of our lack.” What a statement! However, it failed not because they lacked material wealth but because they lacked the spiritual riches of love, mercy, and compassion. The materialistic Marxist philosophies are defenseless and impotent to cure the disease of sin. Our nature must be changed and we must be born again into an entirely new way of thinking and living. Communism is powerless to change the heart. Christ and Christ alone has the monopoly of love, and the Church is the expression and administration of this love on earth.

What does this look like? The administration of love looks like the restoration of the family, the family of God. It looks like a family that is functional, a family that doesn’t function off of greed, manipulation, and control, but governs itself as a loving father would his obedient son, and a sacrificial bridegroom would govern a humble, loving bride. The family would be made out of mechanics, carpenters, electricians, prophets, healers, teachers, cooks and much more. All would function and serve out of passion, love and compassion for God, not greed and the love of money. Some may say I am a dreamer, but I am not the only one. There is a revolution happening:a revolution of love, a revolution of family, a revolution of Eden- a city whose builder and maker is God. You are invited and needed, not because of your abilities or your gifting, but you are invited because you are loved.

When the nations rage against God and attempt to cast His fetters, God is not moved even in the slightest. Instead He has a word for the rulers who dare to speak past His established plumbline of truth and righteousness. The sure and clear message of God, even in times of national moral crisis, is that God’s Son is seated high in majesty and power above ever other name that is named. Once our hearts are united in prayer with Jesus, and at the moment that He draws us into His secret place, everything becomes so expressly clear: “He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure: “ Psalm 2:4-5.

Just as in the time of Elijah we face a confrontation with a demonic force that exalts itself against God and against His anointed. Elijah was a prophet sent by God to bring down the strongholds of darkness that Jezebel had built all over Israel. The spirit of deception which Jezebel had sown in Israel brought the people out of communion with God and into covenant with false idols. Instead of worshipping God, the Israelites were led to believe that their salvation could come from another source. But Elijah knew God in the secret place. Elijah knew that God was the King and all other ideas or idols or false gods were deceiving the people into great sin. Elijah was so intimately acquainted with God’s voice that he didn’t doubt of God’s power to draw the hearts of the people back their God and King.

In California today there is a battle for identity – the very definition of marriage is under fire. We are facing a confrontation with the influence of ethical humanism which claims that man’s ideas and opinions are superior to God’s. But just as Elijah spoke to the people of Israel, there are prophets and intercessors throughout our state that are contending for the destiny of our state. Instead of trusting in and relying on the operations of the mind to survive, we are people of the Holy Spirit. God’s ways are far better and longer lasting and exceedingly more bountiful than any humanistic ideal that exalts itself against the Cross of Jesus. God’s eyes are set upon the treasure at hand: the hearts of the people of California. “How long will you falter between two opinions. If God is God, then worship Him!! Let the sacrificial altar of fasting and prayer be continually kept aflame along with the passionate fires of intercession in faith that God will answer from on high and baptize our state with justice, righteousness, truth, and mercy and turn our hearts back to God’s heart.

John the Baptist was blazing brightly in the desert of Israel during the time when Jesus stepped on the scene. This forerunner John was so completely abandoned to serving the Lord that Jesus came to him to receive the baptism so that all righteousness could be fulfilled. John’s eyes were gazing upon the Lord and out of this flowed the outpouring of the greatest servant besides Jesus – a burning man who went low and fasted and prayed in the wilderness so that many others would reap the benefits of his labors.

The calling of the intercessor is to follow the steps of our Lord and to bend low and become the servants of all – a man or woman who counts their lives as a grain of wheat that falls to earth and dies for the sake of the prodigal sons and daughters who are still a great way off to be brought home to their Father’s loving embrace. [Luke 15:20]. To serve one another in love is to fall on our knees in earnest expectation of God’s power and to cry out for mercy on the lost, to cry out for the blood of Jesus to cover the doorposts of our national guilt, and to call upon Jesus to anoint this generation of burning Nazirite lovers to walk in power and authority so that we will witness a mighty deliverance of those who are “bound by the strong man” of sexual immorality.

God has raised up leaders and anointed men and women throughout the state of California to carry the torch of intercession and lift their voices for justice and truth. As many are praying this very day for our state’s leaders and elected officials may we also not forget the hundreds if not thousands of pastors and leaders of the many congregations in our state – that our prayers would bring the power of God upon them – Oh that the cry for our church leaders would resound in Zion’s gates: Psalm 80:17 – Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand, the son of man you have raised up for yourself.

The cuts on the outside leave lasting wounds on the inside, this is the deep river, the influence that has been carved into our essence, into our humanity, and without God there would be no longer any hope whatsoever. The shards of humanistic evangelism (inflicted by the preachers of humanism, prophets of humanism, professors of humanistic philosophies…) create lasting impressions on our minds, our hearts, our souls, and mix like oil and water within us. Would that pure oil of holiness finally once and for all come apart from the bad water of humanism!

Then this is the highway of holiness, breaking the way open for Jesus to pour forth His gracious and sweet fragrance upon us, (Yet it is only when….) He bends low, even bowing to serve us, as the servant of all, He spills forth a washing of love and of the word over us. This is the divine paradox of faith, the holy mystery. The way that we love Him is how He loves us. Yet this cannot be altogether correct. If it were then where is the room for grace, mercy and abounding lovingkindess. Our weak love cannot compare to the way He loves us. Oh for the glory of heaven to bend low and come down.

1. The fragrance was kept for the day of Christ’s burial.
2. 1 Corinthians 13:12. Then, I shall know just as I also am known. It is “then” when we die, that we are fully known. Also then we will fully know.
3. The way into the full knowledge of God therefore the none other than burial.
4. Hosea 6 says to press on therefore.

The secret place is not the place of public praise and worship – here is just another expression of the secret place of praise and worship to God that we cultivate elsewhere. The secret place is not the corporate prayer meeting – here we meet in agreement sharing the belief that the Holy Spirit has given us answer in due season; but it is in the secret place of prayer where we apprehend the gift of belief and faith for covenant agreement. The secret place is not the house of prayer on Tuesday nights – the house of prayer is a force to be reckoned with because at this moment, each person brings their secret place into the open, and the measure of blessing and faith for prevailing prayer skyrockets as it were out of this world’s orbit and lays hold of the divine realm of heavenly expectation.

The secret place is the central meeting point of all time, space, and eternity – it is here that the past is discerned, where the present is confirmed, and where the future is set in motion by our very words – this is the place of encounter between man and God, between God and man, between this present evil age and the everlasting light of glory and power and overwhelming mercy and super-conquering lovingkindness; this is the tabernacle of God, the rest of Jesus Christ, the very countenance of the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit.

It is where man, in desperate weakness and dependency – even in the most feeble moment of his existence, he is there made ready to find the true meaning for his life. In the weak things of this world God will be seen in force, in power, in wisdom and in the mightiest strength. For it is Jesus who declares that, “My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). To say it another way, when the strength of man and the wisdom of man is lifted above the power and love of God, man’s self-importance and self-dependency hinders the righteousness of Christ to be manifest in our mortal frames: the strong arm of the flesh prospers nothing, it is only through the complete weakness of the former nature that the force of the Holy Spirit can “save us to the uttermost” (Hebrews 7:25).

This place of secret encounter with God is altogether foreign to our ways and our thoughts. So, we take care to embrace this Word, “Open my eyes that I may see wondrous things from your law, I am a stranger in the earth, do not hide your commandments from me” (Psalm 119:18-19), and we give thanks to Jesus Christ as we speak boldly this Word, “Blessed is the man whose strength is in you, whose heart is set on a pilgrimage” (Psalm 84:5). Oh for the song of the stranger upon this earth, this is none other than the pilgrim’s cry, the frontiersman who has placed all his hope in a place that is so separated from this world here below that he becomes consumed with the passion to be one with his God forever and ever on the eternal shores of heaven.

The secret place of meeting is the Holiest of Holies, the most Holy Place; this is the place where no man can enter on his own strength. Just the same as the priestly line of Aaron and his sons, and the following generations of fathers and sons in the order of Aaron. This family line God had chosen as the single unique family to come before God and wait there as the blood sacrifice makes atonement for their sins; even so, now Yeshua has inaugurated the most Holy Place by the righteous sacrifice of His pure and undefiled, innocent blood.

In this way, it is not by our good deeds or the works of our hands, it is not here that we are granted full and free access into the most Holy Place. The “new and living way” (Hebrews 10:20) of the priesthood that never ends, according to the order of Melchizedek; the righteousness of God manifest in the human frame, now and forever to live and to flourish, according to the power of an indestructible life of which we are now sharers through the blood of Yeshua. Secretly our hearts are united with Messiah, as we come into the perfect and holy: still, quiet, waiting and watching, and in ever-eager expectation of the coming glory, the appearing of Christ for salvation.

In secret, those priests of the ancient order (the Old Covenant) would enter in past the curtain that separated the world from the ark of the covenant and the mercy seat that sits above the ark. In secret there was one man appointed by God and called for this very purpose, would leave behind his friends, his family, and everything that was familiar to Him for the sake of appearing before the God who calls. The reason: to be a mediator between the human race (for this is the calling of Israel) and on the other side – eternal life.

In secret the Great High Priest would encounter the glory of God and become “transfigured” to the image of His Creator, and coming out of the inner courts of the temple a completely new man. A secret meeting with the Holy God, even if it is but once a year, is well capable of transforming a person to the point that the secret place is not just a step into the inner court and out of reality, but that the secret place becomes the only true reality in which he lives, and moves and exists. And so, in the place of secret encounter, life takes place and in fact life begins there. However, this life of secret encounter never will end, but the secret place is for the one who has gone in past the veil, the point of no return.

In this I mean to say that once a man goes inside the Holiest of Holies he can never exit unchanged, and in many cases he can never exit at all, but he is there forever. And so the secret place is not some momentary position, or even a heart posture, where in our own caprice we can come and go as we see fit; it is not somewhere to go one day and then not the next. We are created with the longing to be here with God, and our satisfaction comes to fullness as we come and enter into His presence in the place of encounter, unseen by anyone else except one man and the King of Kings. This place is holy and perfect; it is where God dwells, and He calls man to abide forever with Him in the secret place.

Scripture References:
Matthew 6:1-6
John 14:2-3
Hebrews 6:19-20

It’s as if He has opened my thinking today to an unseen, mysterious stumbling block. I cannot quite apprehend, although the evidence is unmistakable, this most pressing transformation of thought patterns; the unmasking of my fallen intellect can only be fully realized in subjection tothe perfect mind of Christ. Imagination devoid of Christ brings to light deceptive thought patterns to which I apply the term: inferior fascinations.

The seeking of pleasure in the realm of imagination is a hollow [Not sincere or faithful; false; deceitful; not sound; Having an empty space or cavity, natural or artificial, within a solid substance; not solid; excavated in the interior] and vain [Having no real substance, value, or importance; empty; void; worthless; unsatisfying. Destitute of forge or efficacy; effecting no purpose; fruitless; ineffectual; Proud of petty things, or of trifling attainments; having a high opinion of one's own accomplishments with slight reason; conceited; puffed up; inflated.] philosophy

But true pleasures, eternal delights (Psalm 16), are found in only one place. Empty treasures are the fascinations of the mind devoid of God. This is why Moses could say what he did: By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. (Hebrews 11:26). However, the man or woman who has nourished their minds unto wisdom as well as understanding in the knowledge of Christ purposefully unlocks the singular effects of His eternal delight: the knowing and loving God unto obedience and full transformation by meditation on His every Word.

The mission field to where I am called with all certainty is the mission field of the mind. In the mind we learn to love with all of our heart. Yet if our minds are controlled by Greece or Rome, or if they are ravished by Eastern Spirituality (unto humanism), then we have no secret, no treasure, no glory, nor any hope for love. Moreover we lose ourselves within the inner courts of empty religion, captive to humanism and motivated by pride, lust, and vain ambition. All is by necessity directed towards the self, and the human heart survives by clinging to the temporary and fading pleasures of the world. The human intellect and mind without Christ bring death; we are under the strong delusion, yea even the sway and the power of this age. Bound unto such a hopeless reality how can we possibly think to flourish?

Grace is all that matters. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many (Romans 5:15).