Slide into the Comfort Zone

The other morning I awoke with a peculiar sentence bouncing through my mind:

“Comfort zone – it’s more than pizza and mac & cheese.”

I’d been told over and over to stretch out of my comfort zone, go beyond my comfort zone, don’t hang out in my comfort zone, but I felt the Lord gently nudging me to think differently about the comfort zone.

I started thinking about prophecy, where, in 1 Corinthians 14:3, it says that prophecy is for edification, exhortation and comfort. I recently heard John Paul Jackson say that these three parts of prophecy are speaking to three different parts of our being: edification speaks to the spirit of a person, exhortation to the body and comfort to the soul.

Our souls are made up of mind, will and emotion (I usually throw creativity in there, but let’s just have three for beautiful mathematics today). So here’s some comfort for our mind, will and emotions:

Psalm 71:21 You [the Lord] will increase my honor and comfort me once more.

Psalm 119:76 May your unfailing love be my comfort, according to your promise to your servant.

Isaiah 40:1 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

Isaiah 49:13 Shout for joy, you heavens; rejoice, you earth; burst into song, you mountains! For the LORD comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.

Isaiah 51:12 “I, even I, am he who comforts you.”

Zechariah 1:13 And the Lord answered gracious and comforting words to the angel who talked with me.

Matthew 5:4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4  Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.

1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words.

1 Thessalonians 5:11 Therefore comfort each other and edify one another just as you also are doing.

Okay, so here’s a few remarkable things that I’ve discovered in my study of “comfort”:

• That’s what the name Noah means! Go ahead and follow that bunny trail
• Yes, God comforts us, but we’re supposed to comfort each other, too.
• The return of the Lord is a comforting thought, even if there are times of extreme trouble beforehand.
• Comfort isn’t a bad thing, but something beautiful and biblical.

So slide into the comfort zone. Ask God your questions and allow Him to comfort you. Tell Him your sorrows and allow Him to comfort you. Express to Him the desires of your heart and allow Him to comfort you. Allow yourself to be comforted by a friend. Then go spread that comfort!

Today, The Elite of the Weak is FREE! Grab a copy, have a read, I hope it inspires you!

YA Supernatural Thriller

^{2 Corinthians 1: 3}Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, ⁴ who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.

Similarities Between Exodus and Revelation, Part 3

It’s been over a year since I wrote part 2, but ever since  I wrote part 2 I’ve been praying about how and when to write part 3. Then today, as I as reading Hosea 2, I saw it.

The parallels between Revelation 12 and Exodus 16-19 are strong, but I’d never seen them before. It took reading through Hosea 2 to see this.

Okay, let me unpack this. I hope I do it well!

Revelation 12:6 “The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.”

The Israelites were led into the wilderness, this woman fled into the wilderness, but God had prepared a place for her, and God was going before them. In both instances, His will was to provide for them.

In Exodus, God provided manna, quail, water that had been bitter turned sweet, water from springs, even water from a rock.

In Exodus 19:, God had this to say to the Israelites:

I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.

Revelation 12:14 has this peculiarly parallel verse:

The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness

But it’s not the same. In the first instance, God bears them on eagles’ wings and brings them to Himself. In the second instance the woman has the eagle’s wings.

Follow me for a second here, and if, after you’ve read through it, you disagree with me, I’d love to hear your point of view. But this is what I felt the Lord was showing me.

In Exodus, God was manifesting Himself to the Israelites with outward signs. If the woman in Revelation 12 is a picture of the Church, then in the last days God will be manifesting Himself through His people. Which is why she has the wings and can fly. It’s the Lord through her.

The Man-child (Jesus) is taken up to heaven, but she is not. She’s in the wilderness for 1,260 days, the amount of time discussed in other places as being the duration of the Great Tribulation.

Later this week we’ll be celebrating the Feast of the Tabernacles. There are 5 commanded feasts (plus one fast) the Israelites kept. There are three feast in the spring:

Pesach (Passover), Waving of the Sheaves (First Fruits), and Shavout (Pentecost, Feast of Weeks).

These feasts were fulfilled in Christ’s first coming. He was the Passover Lamb and the First Born of the dead (the First Fruit). Shavout was fulfilled in the coming of the Holy Spirit. It was originally meant to celebrate the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. Now we have the Law written in our hearts.

The other two feasts, the fall feasts, the Feast of Trumpets and the Feast of Tabernacles, are pictures of the end of the age, the End Times. God gave these feasts so we would practice and be prepared for when the time came. The Feast of Trumpets is about marshaling and preparing, being alert, awaiting the coming of the Bridegroom, and bringing food to the Lord (maybe so it can be distributed like the five loaves and 2 fish were?). We’re not told many specifics about the Feast of Trumpets, but we are told specifics about the Feast of Tabernacles. It was to remind us of how God protected people in the wilderness and provided for them every step of the way. For seven days, people were to dwell in booths. Temporary dwellings. This was to remind them of how the Israelites lived in tents or booths in the desert between slavery and the Promise Land.

I know that after we give our lives to the Lord we live as aliens on the earth, and this feast is a picture of that. But what if it’s also a picture of how life will be for the Church at the end of the age? What if we’re to be in the desert, in temporary dwellings, and the Feast of Tabernacles, or Feast of Booths, is rehearsal for that?

Heaven is paradise, not a desert. So why is the woman brought into the desert? What if we’re not raptured out of here beforehand but are presented before the world as witnesses of His glory? Protected by His glory. Faithful witnesses, just like Jesus was. Jesus, who “tabernacled among us” (John 1:14).

The literal translation of Psalm 84:1 is: “How lovely are your dwelling places,” or “How lovely are your tabernacles.” And the Psalm goes on:

5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.
⁶ As they pass through the Valley of Baka [desert region, literally 'valley of weeping'],
they make it a place of springs;
the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
⁷ They go from strength to strength,
till each appears before God in Zion.

(emphasis mine)

In this world we will have trouble, but take heart–Jesus has overcome the world! And He is coming back for us.

Many have very strong thoughts on this subject; I do like to hear them.

All I ask is you keep it friendly

Similarities between Exodus and Revelation, Part 1

As I promised in a different post, I’ll discuss the similarities between Exodus and Revelation.

Before I dive in, I want to bring up a verse from Hebrews. God’s word is alive and active. I’m not bringing up these similarities to say, ‘Hey, look how well I read.’ (Most of what you’ll read I learned from other teachers and studied myself to make sure it’s there.) Neither is this to say, ‘Look how the bible all ties together.’ Although that is really cool.

I believe God is showing something essential in the similarities between Exodus and Revelation, something that some of us, if not all of us, will need for our lives. And the lives of those around us.

One of the first similarities that pops out to most people is how one of the two witnesses in Revelation 11 bears a remarkable resemblance to Moses. He turns the water to blood and strikes the earth with plagues as often as he sees fit. We better hope this guy is like Moses if we’re alive when he is. Moses was reluctant to do anything unless the Lord instructed him to, and more often than not Moses swung to the mercy side of the pendulum.

Rev. 16, the chapter about the bowls of wrath, is another place where there are a number of similarities to the plagues on Egypt in Exodus 7-12. Here are a few:

• Sores on people’s skin.
• Water turns to blood.
• Darkness.
• Terrible storm with huge hail. In Revelation, the hail is 100lbs. each.

These are several examples for right now. But don’t take my word for it–go look it up and prove me right or wrong.

See part 2 here.

See part 3 here.