THE HIGH CALLING
THE HIGH CALLING
Sunday, February 5, 2017, the Year of Our Lord
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
As I have stood, preached, proclaimed and resisted the spirit of antichrist over our nation these past ten years; a new mandate is upon this season of my life. I find myself calling the saints to possess the Kingdom of God.
If the church will “arise” into our present window of opportunity to lay hold and make our own that for which Jesus Christ laid hold for us, we will possess a greater measure of the power of the Kingdom of God.
Those in the churches who have come into agreement with the spirit of the antichrist for the promotion of their own agendas and kingdoms must repent. There cannot be a presumption of covering this sin until it has been uncovered and repented. Those who cowered down and would not stand with Jesus through the battle cannot now proclaim victory until they repent.
When the Lord speaks and directs throughout the Holy Writ, it is usually preceded with “Arise!”
Satan puts on us apathy, laziness, sluggishness and idleness to prevent us from pressing forward to what we are called to do.
I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (Phil 3:14)
Jesus came from heaven to earth. He embraced and apprehended us. He was not intimidated by our sin. He condescended to the lowest human situation, where He could touch any person and bring us into Himself.
I didn’t choose Him, he chose me. Like you, I have been apprehended to be a partaker of the heavenly calling. (Heb. 3:1) We are chosen to understand and live the secrets and mysteries of the ascended life.
We have been “apprehended.” King Jesus patiently waits for a people to humble themselves and eagerly embrace Him with the same intensity and the same passion with which we have been embraced. Love is a life long lesson of learning how to love perfectly; but also to receive love. Jesus is the lover of our soul.
Paul said, this one thing I do, (Phil. 3:13); and then mentioned two things: forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before…
We cannot cleave to our destiny until we leave behind our past. We cannot embrace this new thing (Isa. 43:19) until we forsake our old paradigms and mindsets. Moses, the old order, is dead (Josh. 1:2). It is time for another Joshua generation to ARISE and possess the Kingdom.
The corporate Overcomer and partaker of the heavenly calling (Heb. 3:1) is revealed throughout the Holy Bible. The people of Zion are pictured by:
- The Joseph Company or Benjamin Company.
- The Moses-Aaron (King-Priest) ministry.
- David’s Mighty Men.
- The Elijah Ministry.
- The Saints of the Most High (Dan. 7: 18-27)
- The Shulamite
- Joel’s Army
- The Hundred-fold Company (Mt. 13:23)
- The Melchisedec Priesthood
- The Man-child Company
- The 144,000, the Firstfruits Company.
Prov. 15:24: The way of life is above to the wise that he may depart from hell beneath.
John 14:6: Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
The ascended life is the life of Jesus Christ. The purpose for Jesus’ incarnation was that they (we) might have life, and that they (we) might have it more abundantly. (John 10:10)
The ascended life, the abundant life, began when we were born again.
John 3: 5-7: Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at My saying, “’you must be born again.’”
Jesus is the One who ascended and gave gifts unto men. He ascended up far above all principalities and power, and might, and dominion.
To “ascend” is to “walk up” or “step up.” The ascended life, His life, is a lifestyle or way of life. Step forward so that you can step up! ARISE! In the Book of Acts, Christians were known as the people of the “way” (Acts 18: 25-26; 24:14).
The ascended life is a way of life, a lifestyle.
Job 28: 7-8: There is a path which no fowl knows, and which the vulture’s eye has not seen; the lion’s whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it.
Isa. 35: 8-9: “A highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who will walk in that Way; wicked fools will not go about on it. No lion will be there, nor will any ferocious beast get up on it; they will not be found there. But only the redeemed will walk there.
The way of life is the highway. This raised way, this public road, is the highway of the upright (Prov. 16:7). No lion (the devil as in 1 Pet. 5:8), no lion’s whelps (demons), knows or walks that path, that way. It is “far above” them. Interestingly, the word for Jacob’s ladder in Genesis 28:12 means staircase. It is taken from the same root word as highway. “This bottom of Jacob’s ladder is this end of Heaven; at the top, the other end of Heaven, is the throne of grace” (Kelly Varner -Mt. 24:31). Of this I can testify. I have been on the ladder that reached the throne of grace.
The way of life in the heavenlies is far above all else. (Eph. 1:21) We can live far above the devil and demons, far above the circumstances of life. The old preacher said, “This is so far above that the devil gets a nose-bleed trying to find it.”
We cannot fathom the weight of the world’s sin that Jesus bore on Calvary’s cross. Nor can we imagine the dimension of power that it would take to raise Him from the dead. The Holy Ghost demonstrates the power, the power of the resurrection life. It is by His Power that we are able to live the ascended life.
Ro. 6:3-5: Know you not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death?
Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.
When Jesus died, we died with Him. When he was buried, we were buried with Him. When He arose, we arose with Him. When He ascended, we ascended with Him!
Acts 17:28: For in Him we live, and move, and have our being…
Phil 1:21: For me to live is Christ…
For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory. Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life---even though invisible to spectators---is with Christ in God. He is your life. (Col. 3:3-4, The Message Bible).
When Christ (your real life,) shows up again on this earth, you’ll show up, too---the real you, the glorious you…
The Christian life is living the life of Another! We have died, and our life is hidden with Christ in God. When the enemy comes knocking, we send Christ to the door.
This is not the mode of the previous order striving to get the victory. This is not the future when we get to heaven. We who are joined with Jesus are “One spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17). This is not something we are trying to attain. It is Now!
John 10:10: “I am come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly.”
Abundant means beyond, superabundant, superior, excessive, over and above, more than is necessary, superior, extraordinary, surpassing, ---the high calling.
There are two kinds of people on this planet: Christ, the new man, and Adam, the old man---beauty and the beast!
John 8:23: Jesus said unto them, you are from beneath; I am from above; you are of this world; I am not of this world.
1 Co. 15: 47-49: The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. As we have born the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
So let us now put on and wear as a garment or a piece of armor the image of the heavenly.
The fruit of the spirit is from above. The works of the flesh are from beneath.
Righteousness, peace, and joy are from above.
Unrighteousness, war, and sorrow are from beneath. Sexual sins, evil habits, gluttony, drunkenness, gossip, jealousy, envy, strife, peer pressure, the love of money, power struggles, insecurity, any sense of insignificance or inferiority, unrighteous anger, law suits, political correctness, prejudice, retaliation, revenge, fear, timidity---all this is from beneath.
In Christ, we have been called to live above all the junk and stuff. We cannot focus on those lower realms. We cannot speak from beneath. We are to speak, preach and prophesy from the heavens the place of the ascended life, life more abundantly. We are to bring heaven to earth with our worship, our words and our actions.
Jesus Christ is not down there in the lower realms of whining, murmuring, complaining, or self-pity. When you throw a pity-party, Jesus won’t come.
We are not bound by earthly things. At the Last Supper, the Lord bestowed upon the apostles the Kingdom of God.
Luke 22: 28-29: You are those who have continued with Me in My trials. And I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as my Father bestowed upon Me.
When we have apprehended the Kingdom of God, we will walk in faith as a fact that our chains are gone. We have been set free from the earthly things which have kept us bound.
Sunday evening we were studying from a book written by C. R. Oliver, En Punto.
He quoted a prayer of the disciples after they had come under persecution at the temple: Lord, You are God, who made heaven and earth and the sea, and all this is in them. Who by the mouth of Your servant David have said, “Why did the nations rage, and the people plot vain things? The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ.”
The inclusion of David’s prophesy in Psalms 2: 1,2, was a vital part of that prayer which they quoted from memory. They stopped short, however, of including verse 3. They did not say, let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us.
They knew their power in the Kingdom and the bondages and cords of the enemy no longer had any power over them. The cords of the Kingdom of God were upon them, and their bond with the King was unbreakable! Their prayer was for boldness to apprehend what had been bestowed to them.
Now Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness we may speak Your word, by stretching our Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your Holy Servant, Jesus. (Acts 5: 29-30)
The Ascended One and those who live the ascended life in Him are above the cares of life. Stuff is not on top of us. We are on top of it.
Jesus knew that all religion pictured by the Pharisees of his day, was beneath.
The Message Bible gives a powerful rendering of this truth: John 8: 23-24:
Jesus said, “Your tied down to the mundane; I’m in touch with what is beyond your horizons. You live in terms of what you see and touch. I am living on other terms. I told you that you were missing God in all this. You’re at a dead end. If you won’t believe I am who I say I am, you’re at the dead end of sins. You’re missing God in your lives.”
John 3:6: That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
As Christians, we are essentially spirit, not human. I am not a human being trying to have a spiritual experience. I am a spirit being of which God Almighty is the Father overcoming my human weaknesses. We are eagle saints. We have never fit in the kosmos and never will.
Co. 3:1-3: Since then we have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. (Col. 3: 1-3, NIV)
The ascended life is revealed throughout both Testaments. Every major Old Testament type points to Jesus, the ascended One. He is the antitype, the fulfillment of every Old Testament shadow. Jesus is the Substance. He is the one-for-all Offering that consummates every Old Testament sacrifice, especially the Burnt Offering, less commonly known as the Ascending Offering.
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries Church
I entered into the labors of Kelly Varner, Secrets of the Ascended Life and C. R. Oliver, En Punto. Comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of those who I entered into their labors.