FATHER OF LIGHTS
Father of Lights
Sunday, February 26, 2017, the Year of Our Lord
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
No changes in this lower world can cast a shadow on the unchanging Fount of Light. For with you is the fountain of life; and in your light shall we see light. (Psa. 36:9)
When we have been born from above and received the upward call, we adjust our world view in agreement with the Word of God and His view of the world. Our world view, our whole value system, and how we compute hinges upon our perspective. The higher we go, the further we can see.
Living by faith is not risky because it is based upon the truth of the Word of God. The evil reports we hear from the world system is truly our enemy. Our conversation is in Heaven. We are citizens of the commonwealth which is in heaven.
In Numbers 13:31-33, we have the story of the twelve men from each tribe of Israel who were sent by God to spy out the Promised Land. They came back with an evil report that the giants were too big and the adversaries too great.
However, Caleb was a man of another spirit, another perspective, another point of view of the same giants, walled cities, and all the “ites.” Because he fully, wholly followed the Lord, he saw the Promised Land from the Word spoken by God.
How we see our adversaries determines the strength of our enemy. The adversary’s level of attack will be on the basis of how you see yourself.
Because of Israel’s stubborn defiance of God’s direction to enter Canaan, and their defiance of Caleb’s admonition, they were left to wander in the wilderness (with 100 funerals a day for 40 years). Their generation (except for Caleb) would never “see” the land. The New Testament land found in the epistle to the Ephesians is the land of heavenly places, the ascended life, the Christ-life in the Light of His Kingdom.
Eph. 1:3: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
There is in the earth an end-time company of overcomers who have another spirit, another perspective. There is a generation who will not let anything get them down. These prevailers are up against insurmountable odds---the pressures of job and family, national anarchy, betrayal, lies, etc---yet are so resilient that nothing can stop them! Like Caleb of old they know in Whom they trust.
Isa. 26:3: You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you; because he trusts in you.
In John Chapter 3 is the story of Nicodemus coming to see Jesus at night to inquire who he was. He had a germ of faith to believe he was being used by God because of his miracles, but was not persuaded Jesus was the promised Messiah.
The Lord did not rebuke him, but gladly converses with him about the exalted mysteries of God.
3:3: Jesus answered and said to him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.
Nicodemus could not understand because he had not yet been born from above. That is if you have not undergone spiritual birth from God, but retain a carnal outlook, your knowledge of Christ is not spiritual, but material and human.
The birth which comes through Baptism enlightens the soul, and enables one to see the kingdom of God, which means to see and believe the Only-begotten Son. It is the supernatural ability to see the Kingdom of God (Promised Land) and recognize light from darkness.
3: 19-21: This is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than life, because their deeds were evil. For every one that does evil hates the light neither comes to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that does truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
Friday night I had another dream about a separation going on in the world. The dream was very simple and straight forward. I was writing a letter. I heard a voice from Heaven speak, then I wrote what was said, Those who are following wholly after the Lord and His righteousness will be separated from those who are lukewarm.
The Glorious Church has a single eye.
Matthew 6: 22-24: The light of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters; for then he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
Once we see with a new perspective, we are ready to be able ministers of the New Covenant to give away His life to others.
The new life, born from above, born again, is His life.
James 1:17: Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
(Father of lights = Phos –(Metaphor) God is light because light has the extremely delicate, subtle, pure, brilliant quality of truth and its knowledge, together with the spiritual purity associated with; that which is exposed to the view of all, openly, publicly; the power of understanding, moral and spiritual truth.)
Born again in Christ, we are both good and perfect. Like Jesus we are from above and not beneath (John 8:21).
Each of us is a gift from above, and each of us has been given gifts from above (that flow out of the gift which we are). What we do flows out of who we are in Christ.
Acts 17:28: For In Him we live, and move, and have our being…
Every good and perfect gift is from above…
John 3:27: John the Baptist answered his disciples concerning their complaint that the people were following Jesus, A man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven. John was sent to bear witness of the light, that all men through him might believe. Jesus Christ is the true light, which enlightens every man that comes into the world
John leads our mind upwards to that existence which is beyond every beginning, and says, “Even before He took flesh, he was the true light.” He gives light to all---but coerces no one to accept it.
When we are born again into the light of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, we are joint-heirs with the bounty of Jesus Christ. We share His Word and ministry of reconciliation. We are to bring Heaven to earth. The corporate Overcomer is seated with Christ in heavenly places and ministers from the realm of the New Jerusalem of Heaven from God.
Matthew 6:10: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights. In Hebrews 12:9, He is also called the Father of Spirits (pneuma).
John 6:33: For the bread of God is He which comes down from heaven and gives life unto the world.
Matt. 5:14: You are the light of the world…
Phil. 2:15-16: That you may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world.
1 Thess. 5: 8-9: You are the children (sons) of light, and the children of the day.
We are the lights that He is Father of…with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
The Lord is steady and constant, and can be trusted, relied upon. He is faithful. His Spirit---that person of Himself that underlies the gift which we are and the gifts which we have---empowers us to be like Him and to do the same.
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever. (Heb. 13:8)
God is alike incapable of change, and incapable of being changed by the action of others.
With God and His people, you can count on receiving the real deal, the substance and not the shadow, unchanged by the circumstances of life. We are heavenly or spiritual beings, partakers of the ascended life. We stay in the orbit of His will!
The marks of this overcoming life are constancy, faithfulness, and stability. The fire on the Levitical altar was never to go out. That fire originally came from heaven, from above. We are learning to flow in His abiding anointing every moment of every day.
We are learning the secrets of being born from above. With a new perspective, we have looked at our fears and His favor through the eyes of God.
Yes, those who continually give an evil report are enemies of Jesus Christ, His Kingdom, and His Kingdom Purposes. They are enemies of the Church and God’s people. Those who give fake news reports (evil reports) to the American people are enemies of the people.
John 1: 4-9: In Christ was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. This man (John the Baptist) came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe.
There is a new nature in us that has been sealed with the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
Those who cannot see through the eyes of God have yet to ascend. Like Nicodemus, America’s churches are filled with folks who may or may not be saved. They may or may not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God sent by the Father of Lights that we may be born again into the glorious light.
The new birth is not just a birth. It is a quickening as we pass from death unto life. It is a resurrection. It is a creation. Once we have been born from above, we are raised up with Him. We have arisen to walk in newness of life. This walk, this conversation, this citizenship is in the heavens.
Rom 13:12: The night is far spent, the day is at hand; let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.
2 Co. 4:6: For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries Church
I entered into the labors of Secrets of the Ascended Life by Kelly Varner, 1949-2009.
Comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of Rev. Varner.