The ladder of Spiritual experience
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10 Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran.
11 So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep.
12 Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
13 And behold, the Lord stood above it and said: “I am the Lord God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants.
14 Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
15 Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.”
16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”
God speaks from where he is and not from where we are
There is disparity between where God is, and where Jacob is
Yes you have stone for a pillow but in you and your seed all the families of the earth will be blessed.
Yes you don’t possess anything right now except for the clothes that is on your body but you will spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the South.
Gedion
Judges 6:11-16
Gedion was treashing wheat in the winepress to hide it from the midianites
God comes and tells this man that “the Lord is with him, you mighty man of valor!”
Where God was he was a mighty man of Valor, a man chosen to defeat the midianiates as one man.
He can’t help talk about where he is, in one of the weakest clan of Israel, and that he is the least in his house.
The enemy want us to focus on where we are, and not where God wants to take us, where he is.
The goal is to get Jacob, hearing the call of God, to begin to climb the ladder of spiritual experience towards the high calling of God.
God has come and set up a ladder in our life, he is speaking from that ladder.
Just like Jacob inorder to experience the spiritual things of God, what God has for us, we have to climb up, he has to his head towards that calling and begin to climb up that ladder.
We have to get up from the dust
1 Awake, awake! Put on your strength, O Zion; Put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city! For the uncircumcised and the unclean Shall no longer come to you.
2 Shake yourself from the dust, arise; Sit down, O Jerusalem! Loose yourself from the bonds of your neck, O captive daughter of Zion!
Just like Gedion, When God comes to take us higher in him, we might have gone through all kinds of trial but we have to get up from the dust of what has been left of our encounter wih our enemy.
God is calling the church to a higher level of spiritual experience.
our strength is going to be higher
Our fruitfulness is going to be greater,
We are going to see great and mighty things that we were not able to see
The analogy of this ladder, representing the different levels of spiritual experience
18 But the path of the just is as the shining light, That shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
7 They go from strength to strength; Each one appears before God in Zion.
the spiritual experience that you have is always limited to the level that you are in
While you are in one level, God will show the next level so that you can hunger and thirst for it.
Finaly when the time come he will take you to another level and then repeat the same process.
We stagnate when we are satisified with the spiritual experience that we have.
We fall when we turn back to the the spiritual experience of the past
This is the reason Paul wrote in Colossians and philipians thus:-
1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.
2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.
12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead,
14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
The call is upward in christ Jesus.
The Goal is to uprehend what Christ Jesus Christ took hold of us.
As we thirst and seek out the deep things of God, the higher things of God, God will open it up.
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled.
We have been hungry and we have been thirsty and the Lord is opening the door fo us to another level, to higher spiritual experience.
We not gonna know God the way we know him it is going to be different,
He is taking us to another level of power
to another of glory
to another level of understanding and wisdom.
The limit of each level of spiritual experience
Limit to what you can see
Nathnael beleive Jesus was the Son of God, because he Jesus said he saw him under the fig tree
50 Jesus answered and said to him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.”
51 And He said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
There is a level in what we can see
Limit to what we can understand and comprehend
34 But they understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken.
Even if they wanted to they could not understand it, because of spiritual level they were in
45 And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.
Limit to what God reveals to us
12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
Limit to the power that God give you
8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
The power you receive will help you accomplish what God want you to do in the spiritual level that you are in.
You can not try to reach Judea with the power that God gave you to reach Jerusalem, you have to seek the power for Jerusalem.
God is taking us to another level.
He is going to reveal things to us, he was not willing to reveal before.
He is going to open our understanding and comprehension to greater things of his word,
He is going to show us things that we were not able to see before, even if we wanted to.
He is going to empower us to do things were were not able to do before.
The role of Angels
The angels ascended and descended upon it.
When God wants to take us to another level, he sends his Angel to take us to another level of spiritual ecxperience.
To increase our capacity to understand
22 And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, “O Daniel, I have now come forth to give you skill to understand.
Daniel was trying to understand and comprehend certain things of God, so when the time came, God sent his Angel to give understanding and skill.
To show us great and mighty things
1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants—things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John,
When God John to another level of spiritual experience, to enable him to see greater things, he sent his angels.
Jacob blesses Joseph sons
15 And he blessed Joseph, and said: “God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, The God who has fed me all my life long to this day,
16 The Angel who has redeemed me from all evil, Bless the lads; Let my name be named upon them, And the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; And let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.”
Jacob acknowledge the Angel that guided him through it.
We have to remeber we are not alone in this, they are angels rooting for us, supporting us, ministering to us.
1 Then he brought me back to the door of the temple; and there was water, flowing from under the threshold of the temple toward the east, for the front of the temple faced east; the water was flowing from under the right side of the temple, south of the altar.
2 He brought me out by way of the north gate, and led me around on the outside to the outer gateway that faces east; and there was water, running out on the right side.
3 And when the man went out to the east with the line in his hand, he measured one thousand cubits, and he brought me through the waters; the water came up to my ankles.
4 Again he measured one thousand and brought me through the waters; the water came up to my knees. Again he measured one thousand and brought me through; the water came up to my waist.
5 Again he measured one thousand, and it was a river that I could not cross; for the water was too deep, water in which one must swim, a river that could not be crossed.
You can see the sudden shift between each movement made by the angel.
Conclusion
God has sent his angel to take us to a deeped move of God, to deeper spiritual experience.
This church is not going to be the same from today on.
Let us arise from the dust, let us break of the yoke from our shoulder
Let us be full of faith and in expectation of what God is gonna do in our midst through us