A Generation That Will Shake the Earth

“After three days, they found Him in the temple complex sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all those who heard Him were astounded at His understanding and His answers. When His parents saw Him, they were astonished, and His mother said to Him, ‘Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.’ ‘Why were you searching for me?’ He asked them. ‘Didn’t you know that I had to be in My Father’s house?’ But they did not understand what He said to them. Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was obedient to them. His mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and with people.” Luke 2:46-52

Powerfully distinctive to Christianity is God’s relation to us a Father. Jesus lived in and understood this truth better than anyone. Everything He did and said He connected to His Father. The Father revealed His heart through His Son.

Through Jesus we have now received adoption. We are now sons and daughters of the Father.

I just know that the generation that will shake the earth is the generation that understands what it means to be Sons and Daughters of God. The generation that lives this reality—hearing and doing only what they have first heard and seen their Father do, is the generation that will shake the very foundations of this earth and usher in the 2nd coming of Jesus.

It is an understanding that goes so much further than mere head knowledge. This reality/revelation changes everything. It changes the way we pray, talk, preach, live, eat and die.

I once heard my brother Dean Davis pray that the Word of God would become flesh in Him. Meaning that the word of God would incarnate him, be perfectly executed through him. When in John 1:1 it says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” the Greek definition for Word (Logos) carries with it both Reason(or thought) and Word(the sound or sign). Logos = Word/Thought. Without giving it much thought we tend to often think of our thoughts and our words as separate realities but for the Greek philosopher they can’t be separated. Thought can’t develop without words and words can’t be articulated without thought. It is these two (or this one thing) that reveals who people are. From the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Thought expresses itself through words, actions etc, and also develops through these. So, our words/thoughts reveal who we are. And it was the Living Incarnate Word of God that revealed the Father. Jesus was and is the revelation of the Father. Should we not also be?

I have often heard my beloved friend Ryan Couch say that what you behold is what you become. As we behold Jesus, the Incarnate Word through the written Word of God we become more and more like Him. Christ becomes formed in us. “No one has ever seen God. The One and Only Son—the One who is at the Father’s side—He has revealed Him. John 1:18” Jesus is the Way (John 14:6) and the Father is the Destination. The Father is our Destiny. John 15 speaks of a double abiding, us abiding in Jesus and Jesus abiding in us and this abiding in Jesus happens when we abide in His words (John 15:7, Matt 7:24). As we abide in His words, in Him, Christ expresses Himself or lives His life through us. In this way the Word of God incarnates us—becomes flesh in us. When people see us they see Jesus and thus see the Father. The Sons always lead back to the Father.

What does it mean for the Word of God to become flesh?

When Jesus came down from heaven by taking on human flesh, He was God living amongst his people. But Jesus came not to testify of Himself, He came to testify of His Father (Father God). “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” It was perfect revelation, God the Son revealing God the Father as God the Holy Spirit Revealed the Son. Revelation, revelation, revelation, what a beautiful relationship!

In Jesus there was no separation between hearing the word and doing the word. There was no division of thought in him, no double-mindedness. He was the most excellent hearer and the most supreme doer. He was the Wise master builder (Thinking of Matt 7:24). It is my conviction that as the Word becomes flesh in us, the manifestation of Christ in us, through us, around us, that hearing and doing the Word join together in beautiful matrimony.

Consider this, in Matt 7:21 Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of My Father in heaven.” Just how do we discover the Will of the Father—I dare say through the Word of God. The two cannot be separated. The will of the Father is that we would be hearers and doers of His Word. “As He was saying these things, a woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “The womb that bore You and the one who nursed You are blessed!” He said, ‘Even more, those who hear the word of God and keep it are blessed!’ (Luke 11:27-28)”

Do you remember how when Jesus taught his disciples to pray in this way He taught them, “Our Father in heaven, Your name be honored as holy. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven….” First, he was teaching them to come to God as sons coming to their father. And second he teaches them to pray that His Kingdom come His will be done. The kingdom of God is central in the teachings of Jesus, but how does it come? It comes, manifests itself, when His will is done. Thus when His Word is done, His will is done, and When His will is done, His Kingdom will come, and when His Kingdom Comes, Christ will Come.

I repeat my first conviction, that the generation that comes to understand and live in the reality of God as Father and they as Sons and Daughters will be the generation that shakes the earth and prepares the way for the coming of the King. Let us learn from our Elder Brother how to see and hear the deeds and words of our Father in Heaven. This is our inheritance.