The Issue of Time - David Mitts

"Then He said to me, "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost."  Rev 21:6

Click here to listen to "The Issue of Time"

This is the voice of the Holy Spirit. Yeshua is speaking of the reality of the kingdom that transcends the boundaries of time and space. This is what He means, I think, by the alpha and the omega. Alpha is the beginning boundary, a reference to Genesis. Omega is the end of time which is a return to Genesis. This is the place of the spring of the water of life, a picture of the living flow of His Word into our heart, the home of our spirit.

We have a tendency to think of time as linear. In our lives, we live in the dash between birth and death dates. Yet time is truly circular. It circles from day to night. It circles from spring summer fall and winter then back to spring.  You can start anywhere and end up back where you started.  Old is forever new. In Hebrew, the word for new is Chadash and it the word root for Chodesh, the word for month.  Each month is a renewal of the cycle of the month. Paralleling a woman’s menstrual cycle, each month is the opportunity to birth a new creation.  Birth occurs when the time is right, ovulation and the impregnation of the seed.  All it takes for new life to be birthed is an instant of time where potential seed from both the mother and the father meet.

In the same way, the “new testament” is actually the new covenant, Brit Hadasha. Covenant is the moment when a pledge of oneness occurs in time. Words are exchanged and hearts are united.  A new creation reality emerges that we call marriage.  The same can be said for our union with God when we receive His Seed into the womb of our heart where our seed is waiting to unite with His.  What is our seed? It is the spoken words of the heart that says Yes!

This is the “new” covenant. Like the month, however, it is not “new” like it never existed.  When does its existence begin?  Before time in the womb of heaven.

Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; Before you were born, I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.  Jer 1:5

When we receive the Lord, we consummate a marriage of our spirit with His that was ordained before our birth.  In that sense the “new” birth is really a renewed birth like a new moon is really a renewed moon. 

Why is that important?  Because if the covenant is a renewed one, then it would make sense to be in a constant state of renewal, knowing that there are cycles of life that vary in time, like the cycles of nature.

The alpha and omega would be the point of renewal. When is that?  It’s not a when but a Who! Renewal is the state of falling in love.  Every time we fall in love again with Him, we are renewed in His love experience.  He calls this drinking from the spring of eternal life. 

His life is the life of the Spirit which we drink from.

"He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water."  Joh 7:38

His voice is the source of this “river” of living water.

"The voice of the LORD is over the waters; The God of glory thunders; The LORD is over many waters."  Psa 29:3

Let’s return now, to our source text for these chapters:

"For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."  Heb 4:12

The verse talks about divisions. There is power in distinctions. Distinctions bring honor.  We actually call the recognition publicly of achievement, a distinction or an honor. The term, “with distinction” is spoken to mean that person is separated unto excellence.  The inner conversation of our heart is one that through listening to the conversation of God’s heart, brings distinction or honor to the thoughts and intentions of our heart.

For example, the Lord may open our eyes to the struggle another person is having that we have just been reacting to the symptoms of the struggle.  Our response to the symptoms is to want them to go away.  Yet the Lord honors the symptom by hearing it as a cry of something deeper that is needing help in the heart.  His voice brings distinctions into being by speaking them in the reactions of our heart. He calmly nudges us and reminds us that there is more to the story than what we are reacting to. The Apostle Paul describes this process of discernment beyond the symptoms in 2Corinthians 4:17-18.

"For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."  2Co 4:17-18

The Apostle Paul calls the symptoms, the light afflictions. God speaks and opens our perspective.  When we can transcend the temporary perspective that pain tends to draw us into, then we can begin to see the eternal weight of glory that is beyond the reality of comparison, the knowledge of good and evil.  When we react to the symptoms in ourselves or in another, we fall into the trap of becoming a judge. In order to see with the eyes of truth, we have to look deeper beyond what is seen, the symptom, to the unseen, the true cry of where eternity dwells. The term, “an eternal weight of glory” is a description of our personal growth in the truth. We literally become more of the truth as we learn to see beyond the symptoms of life and our compassion transforms our heart.

This is why it is important to think of time in terms of cycles and seasons.  We cannot get upset, or rather it won’t do us any good to get upset if we or the person we are reacting to are in the season winter and they or us are not being productive.  This could be a season of life where the goal is rest and quiet.

"For thus the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, has said, "In repentance and rest you will be saved, In quietness and trust is your strength." But you were not willing,"  Isa 30:15

In this verse, we see the role of quietness and trust, the rebuilding of strength.  In our linear time culture, we don’t make any distinctions about needing recovery time.  What happens in the quiet?  We hear Him, as we shared last chapter!  Our growth requires first a season of rest to rebuild in the quiet times. 

This is the unseen realm, the place of the voice of God in our inner man. 

Ok. So, let’s look at some important distinctions to engage with the excellence that is our inheritance, also known as the eternal weight of glory.

Spirit and soul.  This is the place of discernment of His voice and our chatter.  His voice reveals His love and our voice can be fixated with our fears and self-protection.  Our soul is obsessed with what the seen realm reveals.  When we “see” something then we feel comfortable with our understanding of what we see.

The spirit is the realm of the eternal. We tend to think of the eternal as that which never ends.  This is the idea that we are on collision with the end of time.  Yet a circle is eternal.  A wedding ring is the sign of the eternal covenant.  So, when Yeshua said that He was the alpha and omega, He may have been speaking of the eternity of the covenant.

Our soul is time linked to linearity.  We operate in the illusion of cause and effect, sowing and reaping.  I say it is an illusion, not because it isn’t real or powerful but because the illusion distracts us from the eternal.

We can lose hope in the soul realm. Our soul is addicted to time, linear time. It sees struggles and problems in terms of how long they have been present. The soul, our own mind, our own feelings, is bothered by anything related to time, aging etc.

Our spirit is eternal. It knows that there are seasons and cycles, alphas and omegas. Old is forever new for our spirit. We may truly live physically in the dash between birth and death, but our spirit knows in that span we can live in eternity.

Marrow and joints.  The marrow is where the real action happens.  It is the place where the blood is made.  All of our immune systems rely on the marrow working correctly.  Red blood cells, white blood cells, plasma all come from the marrow.  The marrow is where the life happens.  Life is in the blood.  The joints are where we exercise our choices.  We move through our joints.  The joints are the joining points where we either join with Him or with other voices including our own stubborn will. 

The marrow is the origins of our life. It is by blood we are saved.

"In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace"  Eph 1:7

The marrow is the spring where the blood originates. The blood carries the life. The life is the word, the conversation that originates in God. It is the programming, the operating system that runs our life. It is by the word that the marrow is separated from our actions, our joints, where we exercise our decisions.

Thoughts and intentions.  Thoughts are the walls of our faith house.  Intentions are the living foundations, our motivators.  This is the place of “not my will but yours be done”. 

Activation:  Sanctifying our motivations.  When we accept a covenant with the Lord our heart is no longer our own, solely.  It is also His place to speak His will into.  We can trust that His voice for us is safe.  He is both the author and the perfecter of our inner conversation. You can trust that HE IS FOR YOU!

Ask Him this week to continue to purify the intentions of your heart to align with His goodness for you.  Dare to dive deeper with Him. Go swim in the River of Living Water!