Servias Ministries Blog

Song of Songs 8:6 Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame.  (NRSV)

Set me as a seal on thy heart, as a seal on thine arm, For strong as death is love, Sharp as Sheol is jealousy, Its burnings are burnings of fire, a flame of Jah! (YLT)

Recently, I had a dream where I was given a Scripture.  When I awoke, I wanted to recall that Scripture and I knew it was located in the Song of Songs.  That Scripture eluded my consciousness until now.  A seal is like a signet ring and I believe it refers to a “circumcised” heart of Love.  A seal upon the arm refers to the strength of Love, even unto death.  True Love has a fierce passion that is more certain than death.  This Love is likened unto a raging flame.  This is the focus of this writing- the baptism of Love.

Luke 3:16 John answered, saying to all, “I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Is it possible that we assumed John’s declaration of baptisms were two events when actually he was declaring three separate events?  Three separate baptisms at three separate times?  The water baptism is not the issue here, it is the separation of the baptism of Holy Spirit and the baptism of fire.  When I was 20 years old, I was baptized in the Holy Spirit.  It was a unique experience and I had virtually no understanding of its impact at the time.  I simply submitted myself to receive this baptism.  Was the old man burned up at the time?  Unfortunately, No!  Since then, I have operated in the various Gifts of the Spirit at certain times, but not in full measure by any means.  Our Heavenly Father’s grace and mercy have prevailed over my life, for sure.  Being pragmatic, I must say that I have yet to be fully baptized in fire for I must deal with my fleshly old man as everyone else does.  It is my innermost desire to be fully baptized in Love and I believe this is the baptism of fire that John declares in Luke 3:16.  I believe he was actually speaking of two separate events rather than the one in Acts 2:

1 When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

In the above Scripture, a flame of fire “sat upon” each of them, it was not a raging fire.  I am looking for that fire that entirely consumes that fleshly old man, the ego.  Circumcision is to remove the fleshly covering.  The first step upon entering the Promised Land was for the men to be circumcised:

Joshua 5:2 At that time the LORD said to Joshua, “Make flint knives for yourself, and circumcise the sons of Israel again the second time.”

Could the “second time” point to the second baptism of fire in John’s declaration?  Do you know anyone who has been baptized with fire as of today?  Could this dream indicate that the Baptism of Fire and Love is upon us?  Bring on the fire!

Each of us has a unique calling, one given by the Divine Intent of Our Heavenly Father.  When we walk in this calling, we are deemed vessels of honor.  Our calling should produce fruitfulness of Love, life, and growth.  As we pursue our calling, we will be tested with many distractions.  Those distractions come in many forms.  They may be generated by our own ego or they may come from external sources such as other people who are walking as vessels of dishonor.  It is up to each of us to identify those distractions and deal with them, ultimately removing them from influencing us.

In the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, the devil attempted to distract Him.  Three temptations were presented to challenge His calling.  Thankfully, the devil failed to tempt Jesus from fulfilling His calling.  This challenge was designed to derail the calling before it could come to full fruition and cause Jesus to question His entire existence.  The devil used Scripture in a twisted manner as part of his attempt to manipulate the path of Jesus.  Further, he attempted to stroke the ego, hoping to find a weakness to exploit.  A distraction will typically find your inherent weakness and exploit it until you succumb to the temptation of redirecting your focus.

Matthew 7:15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.  16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”

Jesus warned us of false prophets.  How do you know if they are false prophets?  Jesus tells us to look at their fruit, we are called to be fruit inspectors.  False prophecy causes us to become focused on some future event that never occurs.  In the meantime, we do nothing, we produce no fruit ourselves.  Our calling goes dormant.  If you are constantly awaiting some event to occur and your focus has been placed solely on that event, you will not mature in your calling.  You have simply deferred the maturing process.  I remember the booklet “88 Reasons for the Rapture to occur in 1988”.  It didn’t happen, it was false.

Matthew 9:3 And at once some of the scribes said within themselves, “This Man blasphemes!”

4 But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts?

Jesus, the epitome of Love, called a spade, a spade.  He did not condone or enable evil.  Love responds in a righteous manner and exposes evil when necessary.  A challenge to your calling is another form of distraction.  Men who are envious and walk according to their lusts will challenge your calling in an effort to justify their own actions.  They will rationalize their own thoughts by using some Scripture to attack you.  They will judge you, convict you, and sentence you based on their own self interests.  Jesus discerned their hearts.

Matthew 10:16 “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. 17 But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues.

One of the insidious methods of distracting a calling is to use man’s legal system in a corrupt manner.  In the U.S., lawsuits abound.  Men use the legal system to intimidate others into submission.  This is just another form of manipulation.  Doesn’t the false prophet manipulate those who have itching ears?  Men think the legal system is the best way to right a wrong.  However, Our Heavenly Father’s methods are more effective and HE knows the thoughts and intents of men.  In the end, HE will appropriately deal with them.

Vessels of Honor are vessels of Love.  We may have functioned as a vessel of dishonor in the past (or even the present), but there is hope.  The potter has authority over the vessel of clay.  HE doesn’t destroy the vessel but judges it, breaks it down, then remolds it into a new vessel, able to be productive and fulfill the purpose of the potter.  Don’t let distractions keep you from fulfilling your calling.  Once identified, it may be necessary to remove the distraction from your midst.  At any rate, you must not let anything compromise your fruitfulness.  Let us all fulfill our calling and be fruitful in every good work.

Luke 6:37  “Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”

Do you want to be judged and condemned?  Jesus was rather emphatic about His position, which is also the position of Our Heavenly Father.  As I have said before: We judge ourselves by our intent, but everyone else by their actions.  Our egos easily forgive ourselves of hurtful actions toward others but then “go for the throat” when others respond to our actions in a less than forgiving manner.  This is an indication that we simply don’t want to change.  Our ego wants everyone else to change and conform to us, thus feeding the ego and making it even stronger and more unmanageable.

We must die to self, that is the bottom line.  It means we must not respond to behavior that promotes the ego.  We must not acknowledge and perpetuate lawless behavior.  When we attempt to make the other person do our bidding, we will generally fail.  Why?  Even though we can modify their behavior, we do nothing to change their heart, and the heart is where the problem lies.  We should ask Our Heavenly Father to minister life to all involved.  Until we are perfected by Love, we must assume that our heart needs further development as well as the other.  During the process of maturing, we must keep Luke 6:37 before us at all times lest we fall into the same ditch as we perceive the other person to be in.

Surrogate: One that takes the place of another; a substitute.  The President or Prime Minister gets power from the people.  He or she is a surrogate.  The people hand over power and authority to others who are then to act on their behalf.  In a two party system in the U.S., roughly half of the people will not be happy with the results, in theory.  Actually, if the system has been compromised by greed, most of the people will not be happy.  Those with extreme wealth can subtly move a nation toward their beneficial interests.  How is this done?  By methodically funding critical aspects of the election process while influencing non-elected officials, consultants, and firms to carry out their agendas.

What the average citizen does not realize, is that laws and “orders” are being passed that establish additional “surrogate” power, thus removing all ownership, power, and authority of individuals within that country.  There are many example around the globe of this very fact.  Greece, Italy, Cyprus are all examples where a crisis has negatively impacted the individual liberties.

In this U.S., the following Executive Order was signed 18 months ago and effectively allows the government to take everything an individual or company owns:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/03/16/executive-order-national-defense-resources-preparedness

Who wrote this?  The president did not stay up late one night and create this order.  Whoever wrote this document filled it with the intent to manipulate power and authority away from the owner of the resource (anything), all under the umbrella of “national defense”.  Who decides when to claim the existence of an action justifying taking someone’s private property?  This is a global issue, not just one confined to a single country.

When you give surrogate power to someone else, you want the receiver to be righteous and lawful.  This is why in the end, only Our Heavenly Father satisfies those requirements.  Every one of us submits to some type of authority.  We all serve someone or something.  Doesn’t it make sense to serve the One Who is defined by Love?  When this occurs, men can take your possessions but they cannot take your essence.  When you are no longer defined by your possessions, then if they are confiscated, you won’t be moved by the act.  As you simplify and focus on Love, your source becomes Our Heavenly Father Who will guide and protect you from the suspect motivations of men and political systems.  Executive Orders such as the one referenced above would indicate that someone thinks that something is coming down the pike that necessitates the existence of that order.  Read it and see if it effectively says, “We can take anything, anytime, for any purpose.”  Whoever actually constructed the document provided sufficient flexibility to the signer… and it is now “history”.  I wonder who specifically wrote it?  Our Heavenly Father knows and it is all part of HIS Divine Intent to bring for the Kingdom when people come to the end of themselves.  At that time, we will see the fullness of Love.

John 14:31 But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, so I do. Arise, let us go from here.

Another version NASB says: 31 but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here.

Jesus was indicating a “rest” work where He only did what Our Heavenly Father commanded.  Isn’t that much better than doing things on our own hoping Our Heavenly Father would bless our acts?  Jesus made the best use of time and resources.  Unfortunately, I burned up a lot of resources over the years when I could have simply waited to get the Word from Our Heavenly Father, but it’s all part of the maturing process.

Jesus continued in John 15 instructing us that Love and Joy Perfected:

9 “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. 10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. 12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. 17 These things I command you, that you love one another.

Here we see the flow: 

Commandment from Our Heavenly Father to Jesus (Vertical relationship)

Commandment from Jesus to us  (Horizontal relationship)

Love one another to the point of laying down your life [or selfish motives] (Horizontal relationship)

Consider this: “all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you”.  If you want to know the Divine Intent of Our Heavenly Father, read the words of Jesus.  As I continue to say, it’s all about Love.  As we start viewing life through the eyes of Agape Love, we can truly Love our enemies as well as see the necessity of the vessels of dishonor.  The resistance, the challenges, the adversities all have their place in our maturing process.  As Jesus said, Arise to a higher level and let us go from the revelation of the rest work to the fullness of sonship.  Let your joy be full and go minister some Love to somebody today.

Technology continues to challenge Love.  Complexity is an alternative to Love.  Love simply serves mankind.  Technology creates more complexity and ultimately controls man.  Why?  Trillions of lines of source code (software) instructs the hardware on what to do.  At some point, there is so many instructions, you cannot easily maintain control.  Immature programmers will place their own “ego” into their source code rather than conform to a standardized, supportable process or hierarchy of structure.  When they leave the project, the next person cannot easily support what the previous person did, and of course, there are millions of projects.  Selfish motives are then hidden or embedded in the code.  It is a house of cards waiting to crash.  Information Technology is not the solution to the world’s problems, Love is.  Love can change the “Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation” by righteous means.  Who else could we rely on to oversee a change to a country’s belief system?

The following video is a sample of using the body’s electrical system to promote a social agenda:

Who should be in control, men or Our Heavenly Father?