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Growing In God with Gary Hargrave


Jan 10, 2024

Web Description: The Scriptures tell us that the Lord will shake the heavens and the earth and that our God is a consuming fire. These are things that certainly sound frightening, but we get a different picture when we study what these Scriptures are actually saying. For believers the times of shaking are not to be lived in fear but to be lived in expectation as the Lord establishes His Kingdom. These will be days of preparation when God’s consuming fire burns away our limitations and brings deliverance for His people.

 

Show Notes: The Scriptures describe a great shaking that occurs in the end-time. Luke 21 records the terrifying events that Yeshuah (Jesus) prophesied will happen as the powers of the heavens are shaken. In Hebrews 12 we read that God will shake the heavens and the earth. But that is not the emphasis of these Scriptures. According to Luke 21, this time of shaking means that our redemption is drawing near. And Hebrews 12 is all about our preparation as God’s sons who will receive His unshakeable Kingdom.

 

The verses in Hebrews 12 speak specifically to our preparation as believers in our walk with the Lord. Whether we are in the end-time or not, we need to be prepared. We are to strengthen ourselves by the great cloud of witnesses who died in the faith and by the heavenly forces that surround us. We are to be growing. We are to let the Father discipline us for our good, knowing that He loves us. We are to follow Christ in whatever we would suffer just as He endured the suffering He went through for our salvation.

 

We want to be prepared to walk through these days so that we are not like those who are filled with fear and trembling at what is happening on the earth. Instead, we will straighten up and look into the heavens to observe God exerting His authority and establishing His Kingdom. These are days that we have waited for. Whatever may be a source of fear and trembling for others, for God's people these are days of deliverance and salvation. These are days when the fiery presence of God will burn away our cords and bondages, setting us free from everything that have held us back, and enabling us to walk in the time of fulfillment.

 

Key Verses:

 

       Mark 13:32. “Of that day or hour no one knows.”

       Hebrews 12:117. “God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?”

       John 8:36. “If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

       Hebrews 5:8. “He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.”

       Hebrews 12:1824. “You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God.”

       Hebrews 12:25-29. “I WILL SHAKE NOT ONLY THE EARTH, BUT ALSO THE HEAVEN.”

       Ephesians 6:1013. “… having done everything, to stand firm.”

       Luke 21:2528. “The powers of the heavens will be shaken.”

       1 Corinthians 15:25. “He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet.”

       Daniel 3:1325. “I see four men loosed and walking about in the midst of the fire without harm.”

 

Quotes:

 

       “We need to recognize that part of what we will go through and experience is the discipline of the Lord upon us.”

       “We are to be looking at Yeshua and what He did, what He lived through, what he suffered in going to the cross. He despised the shame of it, but He endured it. And we will endure that which we have to endure as God's sons in these days.”

       “It is truly a day of deliverance, a day of fulfillment. It's the day that our hearts have believed for, cried for, and waited for. And so we should go through them as days of fulfillment.”

 

Takeaways:

 

1.    The beginning of Hebrews 12 deals with us individually, how we walk, how we are related to those in the cloud of witnesses and the angelic forces that are strengthening us, and how we are always looking to Christ as our example. As Christ did, we may suffer persecution and other hardships. But we do that without losing heart and without fainting. We also recognize that we will go through times when the Father is disciplining us because he is making us grow and bringing us into a place of walking with Him as sons.

2.    We are facing the time when God will shake all the heavens because the heavenly forces impact the earth and in fact have authority in many phases over the earth. There are spiritual forces that must be broken for the Kingdom of God to manifest. We know that this will greatly affect the world we live in, but we are not to be fearful. We are to stand. We are to be prepared for these things.

3.    Our God is a consuming fire. For us, that is a place of safety in His presence and it is what burns away the cords that have held us in bondage. And while we are in that place of His fiery presence, there is always someone standing with us. Yeshua the Messiah comes and is with us in all that we go through.