Volume 7 - Issue 1 - January 2003
 

IN 2003 THE FACE OF DESTINY
By Bishop Gary S. Brooks

2 Corinthians 4:6

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ

Romans 8:29

For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
 

Once again I am reminded, while writing this letter, of the present events on the world stage, of ongoing threats of terrorism and the possibility of war with Iraq in the near future. The pressing question of the day is, “What does our future look like?” The answer to that is, “Our future looks like Christ”. He is the Alpha and Omega; our Pattern in this life. He is the Beginning and the End; our Purpose in this life. He is the First and the Last; our Person in this life. Our destiny is in Him as the Pattern for our living this life on earth. Our destiny is in Him as the very Purpose for our lives now and forever. Our destiny is in Him as the Person of Christ in us and as us, for as He is so are we in this world.

As I have written before, at this time in history we will either be gripped by terrorism in our hearts or possess absolute confidence and trust in our Father, Who has the history of this world and its seasons under His own absolute jurisdiction, authority and control. In the year 37 AD, after the resurrection of Christ, the Apostles of Jesus asked Him this question in Acts 1:6-7, "Lord wilt, thou at this time (in history) restore again the kingdom to Israel? And He said unto them, It is not for you to know the times ("chronos"; times of history) or the seasons ("kairos"; appointed seasons), which the Father hath put in his own power" ("exousia"; jurisdiction, authority, right, control).

Jesus says that it is not for us to know! We cannot perceive, be aware of, nor understand the yet unfolded history and seasons of world events that the Father has purposed in Himself, and is keeping under his own jurisdiction, to be accomplished upon the earth and its inhabitants. We cannot know history until it becomes a historic past. Yet the Father knows and is in complete control of history past, present, and future, and its seasons upon the earth. So we can trust in our Father and be full of faith and confidence in Him. Men and women, boys and girls everywhere are needing an answer for the terror that has gripped their hearts. What is very sad to me is that the majority of their fears have been caused by terroristic false prophets and teachings of lies. What an opportunity that God has given us to reach out and make a difference in their lives today with the good news of the Kingdom of God. Let us be the Light in the midst of their darkness and fears. We have no need to know the yet unfolded history and seasons of world events for our trust is in our Father. But we are moved with compassion by a greater need in the harvest of the lost and of the hopeless, seeing them as sheep without a shepherd.

The Apostle John wrote in 1John 4:16-18, “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love". So, for the Body of Christ, our Father loves us, and His love casts out all of our fears. We then can have public confidence and boldness in our God in any day of divine judgment or justice on the earth, for we believe the love that God has to us and realize that we are not being punished or judged with the ungodly, and therefore we will not allow fear to torment us or be subject to the fear of death. For our lives and our individual destinies are secure in Him, as well as our corporate future as the Church on this earth. It all looks like Christ. In 2003, The Face of Destiny!

The Person of our destiny is Christ, “For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29). The scripture in Ephesians 1:4-5 says, “ According as he hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of his will”. These two references together tells us that it was the Father’s will from the beginning for us to be conformed to the image of Christ, and that our lives were chosen and predestined in Christ before the world was created. God has declared our end from the beginning. “For God, Who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

Let me paraphrase and amplify the first two verses of Genesis chapter

1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And when God created the heaven and the earth He created the earth without form (serving no purpose), and void (empty of meaning): and darkness (the dark: as withholding light, not receiving light, or not radiating light, and obscurity: as being veiled from meaning or clear expression) was upon the face (countenance, presence, and purpose) of the deep (to the depth of the mass of water).

2. And the Spirit of God moved (brooded: covered with His wings to incubate, to produce and to bring forth) upon of the face (countenance, presence, and purpose) of the waters (water, semen, water of life).

Verse 3 follows this with the eternal command of God in that He said, “Let there be light”. We may now paraphrase this verse as follows,  “Light be! Bring forth the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of My Son Jesus Christ”.

God had now given the heaven and the earth its face, its purpose, its meaning and its clearly defined expression, to bring forth the light of glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. By this God had once and forever given man his eternal face, his purpose, his meaning and his clearly defined expression, to bring forth the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. For God had made man in His image and had formed him from the earth, which is under command to bring forth His glory.

So the Face of our destiny looks like Christ. But many of our minds have been blinded to this truth because our hearts have been veiled in the darkness of error. Even though God has commanded the light to shine in our hearts, yet the veil shall not be removed from our hearts, and the light will not shine out of us, until our hearts turn to the Lord in conversion to the truth and in repentance from any other way, and find that the veil is done away in Christ. For the scripture says in 2 Corinthians 3:14-16 , “But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which veil is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away”.

Now we have this treasure in our earthen vessels, but we must be a doer of this word and not a hearer only. Otherwise we are lying to ourselves and deceiving the very life of Christ in us, and not remembering what manner of man we really are. We must look into the image in the mirror of the Word, into the Face of our destiny (the Face of Jesus Christ), and be bold enough to say to the image “I am He and He is me!”. Look at these corresponding scriptures. James 1:21-25, “Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed”. 2 Corinthians 3:18 - 2 Corinthians 4:5, “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not; But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake”.

We must be certain of this fact, that change is a fact of life both in the natural and in the Spirit. There will always be change in our lives and ministries. We will be continually and progressively changed into the image of Christ from one level of His glory to another level of glory… until we all grow up into Him in all things, that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

This also I have received of the Lord that we are to be prepared for sudden and usually unpredictable conditions, changes, and series of changes in our lives and ministries, as we go forward and upward into the joy of our destiny set before us, revealed in the Face of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The personification of destiny is the Church, which is the fullness of Christ in a bodily form. For Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 1:22-23, “And hath put all things under his feet, and gave Him to be the head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all". But the Place of our destiny is His Kingdom, for it is written in Colossians 1:13 that we are to give thanks unto our Father, “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:”.

However, the church is not the finality of our destiny, the Kingdom of God is. For the church is the avenue that brings us to the Kingdom of God and the channel that brings the Kingdom of God to the world. Our Lord Jesus had said to Nicodemus in John 3:3-7 that “Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God” and, “Except a man be born of water (his natural birth) and of the Spirit, he cannot not enter the Kingdom of God”.

We must all realize that we were born again into the Kingdom of God. This is the place of our destiny. The word “translated” in the above reference in Colossians 1:13 shows that we have been “transferred and exchanged” into the Kingdom of the Son already. We were in the Kingdom of Darkness, now we are in the Kingdom of Light. We were at one time darkness but now we are light in the Lord. We used to be under the power of Satan but now we are under the authority of God in His Kingdom. You know, Satan is not concerned about someone that gets saved, he worries about if that someone believes the word of the Kingdom after he gets converted. For a man or woman of the Kingdom will aggressively and progressively destroy the works of the Kingdom of Darkness. That is why it was said by the Lord in Matthew 13:19, “When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side”.

So what is the Kingdom of God? It is the place of the royal rule and reign of the King, our Lord Jesus Christ. He is not the soon coming King, He already is King and we are already His subjected servants. The Kingdom is the place of His throne. It is the place of His government and peace. It is the place of the divine and due order of the Spirit. It is the Apostolic and High Priestly order of our heavenly Melchisedec, which is our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the place of His established judgment and justice that is for and not against His people. For Isaiah said concerning the Son of God, “Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon His kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this” (Isaiah 9:7).

Where is the Kingdom of God? The Kingdom of God is on the inside of you and among you. Here are the Master's words recorded in Luke 17:20-21, “And when He was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, He answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you”. How? Because Christ in in us and His Presence is among us!

The Kingdom of God is to be fully revealed and fully established on earth. For again the Master said in Matthew 6:10, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in (on, over, upon) earth, as it is in heaven”. So then, the Kingdom of God must be preached in all the world, be seen, entered, be manifested in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, be in demonstrated in Spirit and in power, inherited by the saints, must have destroyed and subdued unto Christ every enemy (including death) beneath the feet of the church, and then shall the Kingdom have reached its end (its ultimate goal and prophetic purpose on earth), and then be surrendered to the Father by His Son Jesus Christ at His return coming to the earth.

“But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at His coming. Then cometh the end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign, till He hath put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For He hath put all things under his feet. But when He saith all things are put under Him, it is manifest that He is excepted, which did put all things under Him. And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:23-28).

When is the Kingdom? Psalms 145:13, “Thy Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom…”, Daniel 4:34, “His Kingdom is from generation to generation…”, Daniel 7:14, “His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed:”, Revelation 11:15, “…The Kingdoms of this world are become the Kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever”, and Revelation 12:10, “Now is come salvation, and strength, and the Kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ…”.

So are we to be a “Kingdom now” church? No. We are Kingdom always and the Kingdom generation. The Kingdom of God is everlasting, yesterday, today and forever. If the Kingdom is not for today, then neither can salvation, strength, and the power of Christ be for today. Then now we have believed in vain, are still in our sins, and are men most miserable. Then we might as well eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. If the Kingdom of God is not for today, then we would have to physically die to come into our destiny in Christ and nullify the word of God. Thanks be unto God for the truth of His Kingdom.

In 2003 the Face of destiny!