Six days later Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up on a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light. Matthew 17:1-2.
Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Hebrews 10:19-22.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
Walking with Me for days of Heaven upon the earth. Enoch walked with Me and he walked right into eternity with Me. The line between Heaven and earth is not so separated as those who are far out in the extremes of the continuum would have you believe. The Kingdom of Heaven is within you. But how do you walk with Me? My prophet Micah told you, “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD seek of you but to do justice, to love lovingkindness (chesed), and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8. Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well that I seek those who worship Me in Spirit and truth and here I tell you that I seek those who do justice, love My kind of love—which is called “chesed” in Hebrew and is hard to translate but Paul described it as mercy, great love, grace, and kindness. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” Ephesians 2:4-7; Titus 3:4-7; and who walk humbly with Me.
What does it mean to walk humbly with Me? It means you do not just go off and do whatever you decide without seeking My opinion and direction first by submitting to My Word on the subject if it is different than yours. “I have spread out My hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in the way which is not good, following their own thoughts.” Isaiah 65:2. It means you cast all your cares upon Me and let Me direct the way you go with no anxiety about anything but to bring Me everything in prayer and petition and be at peace knowing I am taking care of it and giving you direction. 1 Peter 5:6-7; Philippians 4:4-7. My prophet Amos tells you that two cannot walk together unless they are in agreement.
This should remind you of something that will open this up to you. Jesus is the High Priest of your confession, “Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession.” Hebrews 3:1, but unless you see the word in the Greek language in which that truth was originally written you miss what it means. The word translated “confession” or sometimes “profession” is “homologia” which means to say the same word (homou (same together)) word (logo (word) or lego (speak)), to be in perfect agreement, speaking the same thing. And Jesus told you Himself that He never spoke on His own initiative but ONLY said My Words, in fact, He is My Word made flesh. So to agree with Jesus is to have your words match up with Mine. And then Jesus, as your great High Priest, presents them to Me to perform. So, homologia means you agree (speak the same words) and that is walking humbly with Me.
But there is more about how to walk humbly with Me and do justice and love My kind of love. “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession (homologia). For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:14-16.
Jesus has passed through the heavens and I raised you up with Him and seated you in Him in Heaven, in the Holy of Holies. Ephesians 2:6. He ushers you into the Holy of Holies to present your confession before Me as you receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. It is the place of answers to which you have been given the title deed as a joint heir with Christ. Jeremiah 32:6-15.
Why do I tell you that you enter with confidence? Because you have a High Priest there that preceded you as your forerunner behind the veil, “This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” Hebrews 6:19-20, and ushers you in the place of grace for I have justified you in Him. “He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.” Romans 4:25. “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God.” Romans 5:1-2.
So this is the reason you can enter “He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.” Colossians 1:22.
Now, in Jesus, you can come to consult with Me and walk in agreement with Me. That is how you come with confidence to My throne and find just what to do in all your needs each day. That is how Jesus as the High Priest of your confession (homologia), presents you before Me at the throne of grace—He presents you as holy and blameless and beyond reproach. And indeed, that is the only way you can come into the presence of pure holiness and live. In Jesus I have qualified you, equipped you, and reconciled you. I have sanctified you to be there with Me.
And I have given you very explicit instructions of how you enter to get your answers and receive counsel before Me: “Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name.” Psalm 100:4. And there is more revelation here, “Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth. Serve the LORD with gladness; come before Him with joyful singing..” Psalm 100:2. Why such joy? “For the LORD is good. His lovingkindness (chesed) is everlasting and His faithfulness is to all generations.” Psalm 100:5. “Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.” James 1:16-17.
Walking humbly with Me means that you are serving Me with joy and a glad heart for the abundance of things. Deuteronomy 28:47-48. I have blessed you with every spiritual blessing in Heaven and given you everything you need for life and godliness. I have made you partakers of My divine nature and partakers of the heavenly calling to the royal priesthood. “To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood—and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father.” Revelation 1:5-6. Yes, He has qualified you to enter the holy of holies with Him as priests unto Me, holy and blames. In the Old Covenant the priests could not minister before Me unless they had made themselves ritually clean.
Jesus is the High Priest of your homologia, for He is the Way, the Truth, and the life and there is no other way to Me but through Jesus. John 14:6. Why? There is no other way you can come cleansed, sanctified, holy and blameless before Me and remain to minister in the Holy of Holies.
When you cast a care upon Me, you must stop thinking about it and worrying about it, especially when you are talking with Me. I only know you have cast your care when you no longer make it your affair. And by that I mean the problem is no longer your subject of your meditation instead of Me.
It is not just lip service but doing the Word you say and I say. Be willing to obey—which means you must discipline your thoughts and words, but primarily your thoughts first. What you are not thinking on you will not speak for the mouth speaks from the heart’s abundance.
It is one thing to tell Me you cast the care on Me but it is another not to think on it anymore except to know I am working on it and it will turn out for your good. If I tell you to do something about it, you do, but with Me according to My direction. My eye is on you to direct you and protect you. Act accordingly.
Don’t always be looking for another place where you think you will be better. First, strive to be the best you can be where you are. There are places you should be but you can worship Me and witness anywhere you presently are. It is not always so much the place as walking in My grace for if you are doing that I can get you to the right place. Like I did with Ruth.
I can invade any place at any time—all creation is Mine—but I choose to give mankind dominion over the earth and I honor that and it will always be so. Daniel 7:27. But there are times when I pull back the veil and show you heavenly realities on earth. And that is what happened in the next miracle that you come to in the gospel according to Matthew, which is also in the gospel accounts of Mark and Luke, and later is spoken of by Peter in his second letter.
Yes, I am speaking of the transfiguration, when Heaven came down and visited the earth and the veil was pulled back so that the divinity of Christ shone through past the veil of His flesh. “Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” Hebrews 10:19-22.
In Matthew, Mark, and Luke the teaching preceding this miracle is Jesus telling the disciples of His coming death, “From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day.” Matthew 16:21 “And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” Mark 8:31. “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day.” Luke 9:22. He told them of the sufferings but then He gave them a glimpse of the glory.
So after this, Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up on a high mountain by themselves. Matthew 17:1; Mark 9:2; Luke 9:28. Luke adds that they went up to pray. And while He was praying, Luke 9:29, He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him. And Luke tells you what they were discussing, “And behold, two men were talking with Him; and they were Moses and Elijah, 31 who, appearing in glory, were speaking of His departure which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.” Luke 9:30-31.
Jesus had changed in appearance before their eyes as they spent time in prayer together. He became filled with light and emanated light. When John saw Heaven, as he records in the Book of Revelation, he talks of the light of glory which lights Heaven, that My glory fills it and the lamp is the Lamb. And I tell you that you will be like Him. Radiant. Pure. Holy. No spot, stain or wrinkle. For a moment the veil of His flesh was pulled back and they saw the glory that was to come of a resurrected body. And I call this “transfigured.”
The word translated “transfigured” is the Greek word “metamorphoó (μεταμορφόω)” which means to transform. Metamorphóō is the root of the English terms “metamorphosis” and “metamorphize.” It is from “metá,” change after being with, and “morphóō,” meaning changing form in keeping with inner reality. This word, other than the transfiguration of Jesus, is used two other times in the New Testament and they both apply to renewing your mind by My Word. “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed (metamorphoó) by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and delightful and perfect.” Romans 12:1-2.
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed (metamorphoó) into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:17-18. Remember when Moses spent time with Me receiving My Word? His face became radiant.
And behold I brought Moses and Elijah to that mountain as well. Moses and Elijah had lived at different time periods and both many years before Jesus, Moses lived about 660 years before Elijah, and Elijah lived about a thousand years before Jesus, and yet here they both are looking young and conversing with Jesus and each other and Peter, James and John are listening. As Jesus told the Pharisees, all are alive to Me. And if you recall Moses had pleaded with Me to let him go into the promised land and just see that one good mountain on the border of Lebanon. I did not tell him “No” but just told him to discuss it with Me no further. But I did give him his desire and about two thousand years later he was there with Me, Jesus, and Elijah. And a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day to Me. And if you remember, My Son told you that Moses wrote about Him.
Peter overwhelmed with the beauty and awesome sight he was beholding, said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, I will make three tabernacles here, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Matthew 17:4. He was comparing the experience to the Feast of Tabernacles when all the people would travel to Jerusalem and build sukkot (huts, tabernacles) around the temple, close to My presence, and celebrate and read My Word for eight days. A taste of Heaven on earth, united around Me. He felt that there.
While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, the glory of My presence as the Israelites had seen in the desert when redeemed from the slavery of Egypt, with which I filled that tabernacle constructed by Moses and the people when it was erected and later I filled the temple of Solomon when it was dedicated, and now My glory fills you, I have shone it in your heart who are temples of My Spirit. “For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 4:6.
And behold, My voice out of the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!” Matthew 17:5. And My direction to you is the same today, “Listen to Him.” When the disciples heard this, they fell face down to the ground and were terrified. And Jesus came to them and touched them and said, “Get up, and do not be afraid.” And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one except Jesus Himself alone. Matthew 17:6-8.And they kept silent, and reported to no one in those days any of the things which they had seen. Luke 9:36.
Peter never forgot this glimpse of glory and of the mysterious gathering from ages past of Moses, representing the Law, and Elijah, representing the prophets. Remember later Jesus told them, when I had raised Him from the dead, “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Luke 24:44. And Peter later wrote about the experience for your benefit, “For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory, “This is My beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased”—and we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.” 2 Peter 1:16-18.
I love you. Isn’t it time you got transformed (transfigured) too by the renewal of your mind by My Word?