They laid hands on the apostles and put them in a public jail. But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the gates of the prison, and taking them out he said, “Go, stand and speak to the people in the temple the whole message of this Life.” Acts 5:18-20.
Do not call to mind the former things, or ponder things of the past. Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the desert. Isaiah 43:18-19.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God says:
I willed and planned every person on earth to be. I formed each one in his or her mother’s womb, wove them, knit them, and framed them to be wonderfully made. And My plans for them outnumbered the stars of the sky and the sands of the sea. Eternal plans of shalom and not evil, to give each one a special future and a hope eternal, unfading, stored up in Heaven. I blessed you with every spiritual blessing in Christ in Heaven before the foundation of the world. It is yours to claim, to live and to enjoy richly.
But many have cut it short and short changed themselves. The devil stole their identity, their plan, and made it his own plan for evil and not shalom. He stole your identity, killed your vision, and destroyed your life on earth. You live bound in darkness as in the tomb like Lazarus. Four days he laid in the darkness of the tomb, his life gone and yet hovering, but then the Light of the world came to a people dwelling in darkness and a land of gloom. And He said, “Roll back the stone.” The stony heart, the stone of the commandments against you, He rolled it away and redeemed you from the curse of the law on the Cross. For cursed is anyone who hangs on the Cross. But I raised Him from the dead and raised you with Him! Resurrection power. The greatest show of power of all, it makes all other explosions as nothing. Nothing can pull a mangled, cursed body out of hell to the heights of Heaven except My resurrection power. And He spoke your name and called you out, like Lazarus. In Him, I have called you out of the darkness into My own marvelous light. But, just as when Lazarus came out of the darkness at the call of his name, he still could not see, the grave clothes bound him hand and foot and covered his eyes. The hindrances of the past were not removed, they still bound him. Dead works and a conscience not cleansed. But Jesus said, “Untie him and let him go free!” Shake yourself from the dust, rise up, O captive one, loose yourself from the chains around your neck! Isaiah 52:2. Jesus came to undo the works of the devil. He came to enlighten you with the light of life.
In Jesus I restore your righteousness by giving you My own righteousness as a gift to you. I have redeemed your soul from going to the pit, and your life shall see the light. I do this oftentimes with men, to bring back his soul from the pit, that he may be enlightened with the light of life. Job 33:28-30.
I call you by name to lead you out and lead you in, out of darkness, the deep darkness that veils the people of the world, into My own wonderful Light. It all goes back to My first words of creation: “Light be!”
My Word. Jesus. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. He is the true Light who came into the world, enlightening every person.
You had all gone astray like lost sheep, but I laid upon Jesus the guilt of you all, and then I told Him to go seek the lost and bring them home to My house of abundant blessing, light and joy. To the place where I dwell in awesome Light.
You had lost your way but Jesus is the way, the way back to Me and all you lost to the world, the flesh and the devil. He is the repairer of the breech. He rebuilt the ancient ruins that Adam’s sin made.
Another chance to live the great romance of a perfect life filled with days of heaven on earth in your true calling and gifts. That is what the Millennium is all about. To live the life you were meant to live but lost as you wandered in darkness. It will take each person a thousand years to live out all they lost in their lives in the fallen, cursed earth as it is today. All the evil they did, all the years they wasted, and all the unwise decisions they made.
All of you like sheep have gone astray, each of you turned to his own way, but I have caused the iniquity of ALL to fall on Him. Isaiah 53:6. I made Him who knew no sin be sin for you so that in Him you would become righteous with My own righteousness. 2 Corinthians 5:21. He redeemed you from the curse and gave you the BLESSING of Abraham and the Promise of the Spirit in faith. Galatians 3:13-14. You need a shepherd to bring you back to the sheepfold and I have given Him to you. For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls. 1 Peter 2:25.
Remember Jesus on the hillsides of Israel as crowds came to be healed and just to touch Him? He had compassion for the pressing lost crowds filled with disease and fear for He saw them as sheep without a shepherd.
What is the answer to all you have lost? To all the darkness in your life? As you look around at people’s lives you will see so much sin, darkness, and wrong choices. You will see a broken people filled with depression and anxiety. And I weep like Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus, like Jesus wept over Jerusalem because they missed My visit to them to free them from all that bound them. But they would not come. They preferred the darkness to the light though they were miserable in it. I never wanted your life to be like it has become. That is why I tell you that I hate sin. It kills, it ruins and destroys the beautiful world and life I gave you. And with Jesus and in Jesus I weep.
But you have the answer. I gave you the good Great Shepherd that I raised from the darkness of sin and death to a new and radiant life by the blood of the eternal Covenant. And the answer is simple, become a follower of Jesus. It has pleased Me to give His little flock the Kingdom. Become a follower of the good and great Shepherd of My sheep. He is the Light of the world and no follower of His will ever walk in darkness, oh no, he will have the Light of Life. The Light that enlightens everyone who will come to Him.
He leads you out of the dark valley of death, the living death of a life of the curse. He will walk with you and in you and lead you right through that valley to the heights of the earth and heaven.
Start singing with David, “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside healing waters of peace. He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the dark valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup overflows. Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.” Psalm 23. Do you see the beautiful life of abundance, protection, and no stress? That is what I want for you.
And Jesus explains to you “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.” John 10:10-19. And then He added, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” John 10:27-30. I am one with Him, I am your Shepherd.
Lazarus came out. And so can you. You can come out of darkness into the marvelous Light and I will restore the years that were stolen away from you by the thief under the cover of darkness. Come. Roll back the stone, come out, renew your mind, let Me untie you! Shake off the chains. Jesus already drank your cup of wrath, you do not have to even put it to your lips. The Cross. It tells it all. Just as Moses lifted up the bronze serpent on the cross in the desert, so it will take out the poison in your life. When the water of Marah was bitter, I told Moses to take the wood of the tree there and throw it into the water and it became sweet. The Cross will set you free and make your bitter become sweet. Living water flows from the Cross. Blood and Water form the open heart of your Lord, the great and good Shepherd who gave His life for the sheep, for you individually and you corporately. He always goes after the one lost to bring him home.
I raised Jesus from the dead as your great High Priest and your great Good Shepherd. He intercedes for you before Me and I always hear Him.
Do you remember? He told the stressed and grieving Martha that her brother Lazarus would rise. He told her “Your brother will rise again.” John 22-23. That was His prayer, His declaration. And then when He faced the tomb, when they rolled away the stone,what did He say? “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me; but because of the people standing around I said it, so that they may believe that You sent Me.” When He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth.” The man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go free.” John 11:40-44.
You see the great High Priest interceding for you to raise you up out of the darkness into My marvelous Light. And then you see Him as the Good Shepherd calling you out of the tomb to a beautiful life. And you can run out of that grave that is holding you trapped in a life that is really no life at all. And He will lead you to your Promised Land, even in this world. For though it is fallen, it is still Mine.
Jesus came to raise you up from where you had fallen to a new life—to newness of life. A life that surpasses all you can ask or think. You can have newness of life. Like Lazarus, like Paul, like Moses, like Abraham, like Jacob, like Joseph, like David, like Enoch. I can untie you from your past no matter how ugly it was. You are forgiven, a new creation, washed clean in the Blood of the Lamb and purified by the Water of the washing of My Word. Yes, in His love for you, Jesus has released you from your sins by His blood and made you a kingdom of priests unto Me. A royal priesthood that can join in His prayer of intercession for all who are trapped in the dark.
Isn’t it time to come out and declare the Light? Like Me. “Light be.” And since I said it, it never stopped. It went out at 186,262 miles per second and it is still traveling and expanding the universe. Nothing can travel faster than light. In miles per hour, light speed is about 670,616,629 miles per hour. If you could travel at the speed of light, you could go around the earth 7.5 times in one second. Do you really want to put limits on what My glory can do in you? Time to untie your grave clothes and put on the garment of salvation, the robe of righteousness, and the armor of LIGHT.
I love you. The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Walk properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy, these will ruin your life and turn it into a hell on earth. I never wanted that for you. And you should not put up with it any longer. I have sent the great good Shepherd to lead you out of darkness into My own marvelous light of majesty, beauty, purity and awesome deeds of power. You are not sheep without a shepherd. You have an eternal one.
“These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason, they are before the throne of God; and they serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne will spread His tabernacle over them. They will hunger no longer, nor thirst anymore; nor will the sun beat down on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to springs of the water of life; and God will wipe every tear from their eyes.”Revelation 7:14-17.