“Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” Revelation 19:10.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
You who partake of the body and blood of My Son have love, life, and hope, for you are partaking of the divine nature. You should be living these each moment of every day and every night.
Love is primary for that is who I AM and who you are for I am the source of your creation, your being, and your life. You are made in My image and according to My likeness, so stepping out of love in your thoughts, actions, and/or words is a guarantee that you will have an unhappy life because it is not the way you were formed. This happened to Adam. Stepping out of love into lies caused his life to become painful toil. It is hard to kick against the goad. A life where no love is given and no love is received is a barren, useless life that produces no fruit.
But of what does love consist? What is its source? For love is real, tangible, and is the strongest force. You cannot see love, although My Son was love incarnate, but you can feel it, experience it, and know it. Everyone is looking for love. In Me, you have found it.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 1 John 4:7-11.
Love is of Me and everyone who loves as I love is born of Me and knows Me. This is being born again from above, then love becomes your nature for you become a partaker of My divine nature. Jesus likens it to a branch on a vine. My servant Paul likens it to the members of one body, being the body of Christ, who is love incarnate, with the members maturing to be like the head of the body, being nurtured by Christ as members of His body and washed in the water of His Word. And I speak of pouring My love into your heart by the gift of My Spirit.
Basically love is knowing and believing in My love for you, and having experienced My care, love, and goodness, you return your love for Me.
How great is Your goodness, which You have stored up for those who fear You, which You have wrought for those who take refuge in You, before the sons of men! Psalm 31:19.
O taste and see that the LORD is good; how blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him! Psalm 34:8.
When you know My love for you in a personal and intimate way, though love is so high, deep, wide, and long it is hard to fathom its full extent while you are still in the flesh, loving Me in return is a spontaneous response. Love responds to love. You respond to My love, and I respond to your love. And how do I know you love Me? You keep My commands. You are not only a hearer but a doer of My Word. Imitate Me as My dear children and walk in love.
Life. Jesus came to give you abundant, overflowing life. In Him you have eternal life. Death and life, however, are in the power (hand) of your tongue. You eat the fruit of your lips, and so do those with whom you speak. Watch your words and save your life.
He who guards his mouth and his tongue, guards his soul from troubles. Proverbs 21:23.
I send My Word to heal you and deliver you. My Words are LIFE to those who find them and health to all their flesh. There is great joy in keeping My commands for they direct your life on the upward path to glory.
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your seed, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days. Deuteronomy 30:19-20.
The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the judgments of the LORD are true; they are righteous altogether. They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them Your servant is warned; in keeping them there is great reward. Psalm 19:7-11.
Hope. Hope is confident expectation of good. If people lose hope, they have no reason to press forward and live. But that should never describe you who are in Christ. Jesus is your hope for in Him you have redemption, the forgiveness of your sins by His blood, and in Him you have eternal life—a future and a hope. In Him you are not only reconciled to Me, but you are a joint heir with Him to all I have and all I am. In Him, it has pleased Me to give you the Kingdom. It is yours now and forever. In Him, you are with Me always and everything I have is yours, which includes healing, provision, prosperity, joy, favor, and all good things given and every perfect gift.
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13.
Hope is knowing you have an eternal future of goodness, love, and abundant life. And where do you find hope when you are losing hope? In My Word. The promises to you in My Covenant Names, indeed all My magnificent Covenant promises to you. You were at one time separate from Christ, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without Me in the world. Ephesians 2:12-13. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. You are now given hope. Like Rahab with her red cord in the window, despite a coming devastating attack, she knew she was saved and blessed, her and her whole household, because she had put her trust in Me and asked to join in My Covenant with My people. And the word for hope in Hebrew is “tikvah” which literally means “cord.” I have drawn you with cords of love that connect to your anchor behind the veil before My throne of grace in the Holy of Holies in Heaven by the new and living way in the blood of My Son. You are joined to Me in hope. And hope does not disappoint.
You see here that love, life, and hope are all inseparably linked to how you treat My Word in your life. This is serious and is a matter of life and death, of salvation and condemnation. Choose life and salvation by obeying My Word, for then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. And it all starts with receiving Jesus as Lord, but this comes by faith, and faith in Jesus comes by hearing My Word about Christ, and faith becomes fully persuaded by knowing the love I have for you.
And that is what I was doing, and Peter was trying to bring the people to understand this, on that Sunday when Pentecost was fulfilled. And that is what I am still doing, and you are witnessing to in the world as the body of Christ, the church in all its splendor.
What attracted and opened the hearts of so many of the crowd gathered that Pentecost Sunday was the coming of My Spirit upon the disciples and the interpretation of tongues. My Spirit opened the way to witnessing. And that is always the case for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Revelation 19:10.
But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning. John 15:26-27.
So Peter, taking his stand with the eleven backing him up, raised his voice and declared to them: “Men of Judea and all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give heed to my words. For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only the third hour of the day; but this is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel.” Acts 2:14-16.
I do nothing unless I reveal My secret counsel to My servants the prophets. Amos 3:7. They speak it into the earth and My Spirit performs it at the appointed time. “Put your trust in Me and you will be established. Put your trust in My prophets and succeed. 2 Chronicles 20:20.
“And it shall be in the last days,’ God says, ‘That I will pour forth of My Spirit on all mankind; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on My bondslaves, both men and women, I will in those days pour forth of My Spirit and they shall prophesy. And I will grant wonders in the sky above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the great and glorious day of the Lord shall come. And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Acts 2:17-21.
Remember that to bring that day when I poured forth My Spirit on all mankind, John the Baptist and Jesus preached to repent and to return to Me and I would restore the Kingdom to earth. Repent, return and restore, then you enter the place of no limits. And those three words are just one word in Hebrew that means all three in that one word, “Shuv.”
And with those three words in mind, let us, on our journey of remembrance, revisit this prophecy of Joel, and not just what Peter recited but the verses preceding it and you will find the same process—repent, return and receive restoration and new growth.
The day of the LORD is indeed great and very awesome, and who can endure it? “Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “Return to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, weeping and mourning; and rend your heart and not your garments.” Now return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness and relenting of evil. Joel 2:11-13.
Here again you see the word “Shuv, here to repent and return. And so it continues:
Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children and the nursing infants. Let the bridegroom come out of his room and the bride out of her bridal chamber. Let the priests, the Lord’s ministers, weep between the porch and the altar. Joel 2:16-17.
And then restoration comes as the early and the latter rain is poured down:
So rejoice, O sons of Zion, and be glad in the LORD your God; for He has given you the early rain for your vindication. And He has poured down for you the rain, the early and latter rain as before. The threshing floors will be full of grain, and the vats will overflow with the new wine and oil. Then I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the creeping locust, the stripping locust and the gnawing locust, My great army which I sent among you. You will have plenty to eat and be satisfied and praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wondrously with you; then My people will never be put to shame. Thus you will know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the LORD your God, and there is no other; and My people will never be put to shame. Joel 2:23-27.
And the very next words in the book of Joel after these lines are the lines quoted by Peter:
And it shall be in the last days,’ God says, ‘That I will pour forth of My Spirit on all mankind; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on My bondslaves, both men and women, I will in those days pour forth of My Spirit and they shall prophesy. Joel 2:28-29.
But Peter did not stop there. He had merely laid the groundwork on which he would state his case for Jesus as Messiah and Lord. He began in the Spirit and will finish in the Spirit. For it is the Spirit who testifies.
“Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know— this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power. Acts 2:22-24.
He has now stated his case. I sent forth the proof that Jesus is your Messiah and Lord by the miracles and wonders and signs that I performed through Him. He fulfilled the things that attested to the Messiah in the Old Testament and I had raised Him from the dead. Peter now turned to Scripture to verify the next statement. This time he turned to David, the sweet psalmist of Israel and a prophet. All the evidence you need to establish the truth that Jesus is the Messiah you will find in the Old Testament verified in the New. “Therefore every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a head of a household, who brings out of his treasure things new and old.” Matthew 13:52.
For David says of Him, ‘I saw the Lord always in my presence; for He is at my right hand, so that I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue exulted; moreover my flesh also will live in hope; because You will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor Your Holy One to undergo decay. You have made known to me the ways of life; You will make me full of gladness with Your presence.’ Acts 2:25-28.
I did not abandon His soul to hell, I raised Him up the firstborn from the dead. He died ONCE for ALL. What He did was remove the sins and shine eternal life in. And that is when the celebration began. The great homecoming. Repent, return and restore, it is all still there that you think you lost. Like the prodigal son. It was all still there for him. If you repent and return you will find it is all still there for you. Your gifts and your calling are irrevocable.
And now Peter would finish stating his case and let each man decide for himself the verdict that was obvious. He was feeding the sheep with My Word about Jesus and he, like My Son on the Road to Emmaus, was setting hearts on fire. Three thousand of them.
“Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. And so, because he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to seat one of his descendants on his throne, he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that He was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh suffer decay.
I kept My promise to David just as I have kept every promise I ever made. And I kept them all in Jesus, in Him all My promises to you are “yes.” He is My Amen to you of all My promises, so you can say Amen too.
This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses. Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear. For it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says: ‘The LORD said to my Lord, sit at My right hand, until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.”’ Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified.” Acts 2:29-36.
Peter was confident. He had seen the risen Jesus and had watched Him ascend into Heaven. And Jesus had promised that once He returned to Me, He would pour down the gift of the Holy Spirit, My promise to you through My prophets Joel, Ezekiel, and Isaiah, to mention just a few. And My Spirit did not descend quietly! He came with a great blast of supernatural wind and tongues of fire.
Now when the crowds listening to Peter heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?” Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.”
Repent, return, and restore and from there, there are no limits to what Love can do for it is there, in Jesus, that you receive My gift of the Holy Spirit as promised. Clothed with power from on High. What a glorious way to live. And you can.
And with many other words Peter solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation!” So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls.
And they did not just leave and stay as they were. No. The truth set them free and they fell in love with My Word and it manifested in love for one another. The body of Christ was born on earth that day, Spirit filled and washed in the water of the Word.
And what did they do with their new found faith in Jesus and their born again, awakened spirits? They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. They were partaking of the body and blood of My Son every day. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising Me and having favor with all the people. And I was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved. My call is for all, but My eye is on you!
I love you. What are you doing with your days? Are you devoting yourself to anointed teaching and to fellowship with Me and other believers? Are you taking communion with awe and reverence? Are you enjoying Me? Are you remembering? And remember, when you give to the poor, especially those of the household of faith, you are lending to Me and I will repay you with interest, a hundredfold.