Papa is pure light, there is no darkness in Him at all.  The descriptions of Him in the Word are wrapped in the brilliant light of Glory.  Even where He wrapped in dark clouds it is to shield the children of Israel from His full presence as it would be too much for their rebellion to withstand.

His glory is presented as blinding light and overwhelming power mixed with love beyond comprehension.

Darkness is almost always related to the attempt of men and angels to hide from His presence.  To avoid the brilliance of His glorious light.  However it is always a futile pursuit.  Attempting to build our own little kingdom separate from Him is futile. Though we might try to go to the ends of the earth to “get away”, there is nowhere in creation where Papa is not already present, in fact, He’s been there since before it even existed in this realm.

Light is energy at its purest form, scientific study has associated it with specific frequencies of energy much like sound or radio and everything is held to gather with frequencies.   It was all spoken into existence or according to scientists exploded in a Big Bang of pure energy.  Taken down to the components of the atomic building blocks of matter we see that very energy and see there’s no real explanation of why those particles move the way they do.  To men they seem “self animated”, but the Word says they are sustained by His breath the same way everything was created.

So dwelling in the light as He is in the light is as simple as abiding in His truth and resting in His presence.  Chase the light of His Glory, actively pursue His face, hold fast to the hand of salvation that Jesus extended to us all rescuing us from the darkness of our own foolish hearts.

“Celebrate with praises the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has shown us his extravagant mercy. For his fountain of mercy has given us a new life—we are reborn to experience a living, energetic hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

1 Peter 1:3 TPT

Celebration in almost every culture includes dancing.  When we get happy it tends to get into our feet.  When Papa overwhelms us with His goodness or displays His glory in ways we are not expecting, the joy that rises up in our hearts naturally causes us to jump, shout and dance in response.  Just think of how children react to surprise parties, gifts or great news.  Don’t we say that someone was jumping for joy, or dancing with delight?

The fountains are always a cause for rejoicing and are closely connected to the wells which represent the goodness of God.  The fountains of the Word are many, here we see the fountain of mercy.  In many verses we see the fountain of life. Others include the fountain of grace, the fountain of life, the fountain of hope, the fountain of pleasure, the fountain of forgiveness.  It is from His many fountains that blessings flow to us.

To me dancing in the fountains means rejoicing in the goodness and blessings of each particular fountain as I realize Papa has activated it in my life.  Does it always mean I’m doing the Holy Ghost two-step, well no but it probably should.  It’s like my Grandpa used to say “Let your face known you are happy and smile.  We should be demonstrating our joy and excitement about who Papa God is in our lives all the time!

So, yes, let’s dance in those fountains with all our might,  like David danced before the Lord with complete abandonment.   Dancing like nobody’s watching, but knowing Papa has His eye on us and is thoroughly enjoying our dance.

“Beloved friends, what should be our proper response to God’s marvelous mercies? To surrender yourselves to God to be his sacred, living sacrifices. And live in holiness, experiencing all that delights his heart. For this becomes your genuine expression of worship. Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you, but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think. This will empower you to discern God’s will as you live a beautiful life, satisfying and perfect in his eyes.”

Romans 12:1-2 TPT

Our life in Him, empowered by the Spirit, is our pleasing aroma poured out to Papa.   We are to be a peculiar people, different from the world around us, sold out to His holiness, bathed in His marvelous mercies. Our life, lived in His way is on the path of life and light. The command Jesus gave us to love one another and the Father above all else, leads us to call everyone to the path of light and life. Away from the lure of sin which looks like freedom but only brings the chains of death.   

Worship is that act of living for His glory by showing forth a grace filled life.   Walking in true freedom is not living in license doing whatever feels good in the natural.   True freedom comes when we live by the example of Jesus who was the perfect representation of the Father.   There is no burden in His footprints, just joy and the fulfillment of living in continuous worship as we walk out our journey.

Our journey has the same beginning, middle and end.  It’s who we worship every step of the way.  Jesus calls us home, to Papa God where we will dance and sing of His love forevermore.   

“God conceals the revelation of his word in the hiding place of his glory. But the honor of kings is revealed by how they thoroughly search out the deeper meaning of all that God says.”

Proverbs 25:2 TPT

Interesting thought or revelation here.  Is it in the Glory, that place of rapture and complete abandon, where Papa reveals the deep meanings of His word?  Not so much in ardent study, or fervent prayer but by remaining in His presence, dwelling in the shadow of the most high where the depths of his heart can be found.

We are not so much to be searching in the written word as we are to be consumed with searching the depths of His heart.  Laying our head on His bosom like John, listening to the still small voice of Papas very being.  Holding fast to His presence refusing to allow distractions and thoughts from any other intrude on the sweet fellowship of His presence.

That’s the real battle, pushing out the raging storm of thoughts and noise which seeks to drown out the very voice of Papa.

But the key to accomplishing that formidable task is to press into Him and His Glory.  Stop trying to block out the noise and start listening to the quiet voice of His heart. Seek that sound as opposed to trying to stop the other.   Attempting to block out the noise tends to just keep our focus on the noise and not on His voice.  Being thorough in our searching is all about our single focus on Him and asking the questions which the Spirit brings to us.  It is in this conversation with Papa where we are honored with revelation from the very heart of Yahweh!

“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”     Jeremiah 29:13

We walk a path in life which leaves footprints in the sands of time, much like the story about walking on the beach with Jesus we are never alone in our journey.

We are always under His watchful eye, guiding us if we choose to listen, protecting us from disaster more often than we realize, but always allowing us to live our own will out as we see fit.

Along the way we make mistakes, trip up and even rebelliously run from Him, but we have the ability to wash those errors away, to cover those footprints up with His if we will only ask.

The paths we take may lead to pain and suffering for ourselves and our children but we always have the ability to go back to the tracks and wash them in the precious blood of Jesus

Doing so, as we ask for forgiveness and restoration of our rightful destiny, is the key to walking in freedom ourselves and breaking the chains we forged off our children.

It’s a simple thing to ask Jesus to wash it away, to cancel the debt, after all we are merely coming into agreement with His finished work of redemption and reconciliation which He settled on the Cross.

However it requires faith that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.    For it is only in His presence that we can see the justice and deliverance of His love cancel out our transgressions.

Enter His courtroom with praise, agree with the accuser that you left the path and followed his lies. Put them under the blood by asking Jesus To wash them away and declare the freedom you now have by faith.

Once Jesus has cast the lies into the sea of forgetfulness they are gone indeed, case settled, case dismissed.  Never let them resurface again.

Hallelujah!!

Psalms 27:14 TPT   “Here’s what I’ve learned through it all: Don’t give up; don’t be impatient; be entwined as one with the Lord. Be brave and courageous, and never lose hope. Yes, keep on waiting— for he will never disappoint you!”

We usually see this verse translated as Wait upon the Lord…..  which is entirely appropriate.  But the Hebrew qavah has richer meanings.  Here they are, “to tie together by twisting” or “to entwine” or “to wrap tightly”.

What a beautiful picture of our active work of waiting on the Lord.  It’s not throwing it to the man upstairs and leaving it with Him while we go about or life on earth..   It is an active pursuit of intimacy with Papa for the sake of becoming closer and closer to Him.   Not to pester Him about the answer, but we move closer to Him because we know that in Him are all the answers to all the questions and He will share them with us if we just get close, get quiet and listen.

The verse uses the word qavah twice, which emphasizes our need to continually entwine with Papa to be able to hear Him better and be strengthened in our faith, courage, hope, love and trust in Him.

Psalms 27:4 TPT   “Here’s the one thing I crave from Yahweh, the one thing I seek above all else: I want to live with him every moment in his house, beholding the marvelous beauty of Yahweh, filled with awe, delighting in his glory and grace. I want to contemplate in his temple.”

David sought with all his heart to be in the presence of Papa as much as humanly possible. He lived under as much of the New covenant as was possible before the cross.   He said it best here, “l want to live with Him every moment in his house”.

We are there now, by the grace of Yahweh, living continually in His presence because Holy Spirit has taken up residence in us.  We are that temple (house), the very indwelling expression of the trinity on this earth.

Yeshua came to show us the very essence of Papa through the power of the Holy Spirit who filled Him.  He laid out the pattern for all His brothers and sisters who would follow Him. Now, we are a multitude of little Christs “Christians” filling the whole earth with the Spirit of the living God.

Where He was able to turn the whole Roman Empire upside down with 12 disciples.  We as His brethren will indeed turn the whole world on its ear.  Our job is to stay connected to the voice of Holy Spirit and do the works of Yeshua, yes and even more as He said we would.

Abide in that secret place, His temple in your heart and out of your belly will flow rivers of living water.  Yes it says rivers, plural.

John 7:38 TPT  “Believe in me so that rivers of living water will burst out from within you, flowing from your innermost being, just like Scripture says?”

Romans 8 lines out some amazing things about who we are in Jesus. One of them is revealed in the three distinct groanings.  All of creation has been groaning under the consequences of the fall, desiring the manifestation of the sons of God in the earth.  Indeed we, the very sons of God, ourselves groan for the revealing of the fully manifested Sons of the Lord.  That would be us, fully redeemed, body soul and spirit.  Yes, even the very Spirit of the Lord Himself empowers our deepest groanings when we are at a total loss as to how to pray.

All of creation was subjected to grief pain and suffering when man (Adam) turned his dominion over the earth to the enemy. Ever since then creation has longed for the revealing of the Sons of God once again as they take their rightful dominion back and set the world right.  As the creation so do we groan in our hearts for that same revealing to be made manifest.  The most powerful part of the whole subject of groaning is that the Holy Spirit Himself actually initiates and empowers groanings through us as we come to the end of our own strength and literally run out of words to express our deepest longings for His will to be accomplished.

This  return to the creation as it was before the fall is not just some future thing which we will watch at the end of time when the trumpet blows and we are caught up.  However we have a part to play, indeed a critical part to play, in joining with creation and Holy Spirit to intercede for the full restoration of all things.

That’s the beauty here, it’s not just that the cosmos longs for deliverance or that we ourselves seek it, but that Holy Spirit Himself is the driving force within us to bring the restoration to fruition.  It’s not that we must just pine away for our full redemption, hoping and praying it comes someday.  We have the firm assurance that YHVH Himself is working to bring it forth through the mystery of His Spirit calling it into being through us, His children.

The messengers of God, angels, are sent forth to minister to the sons of God.  We are actually given authority to send them forth to accomplish His will in the earth.   It’s not just that they are sent out by the Lord of Hosts, which of course they are, but we can have a part in that as He leads us.

Prayer is not just about asking for goodies from Papa or crying out for help.  We are fully commissioned to send forth His army, to kick butt and take numbers so to speak, in the heavenlies.  This is of course wrapped up in His will, which He has laid out for us in His Word and revealed to us through revelations.

The best part of this all is that we are on the winning side, well technically our side already won, so when we send forth the angels to accomplish His will it’s not a question of if but when.  The angels on our side make special forces units from the earthly military look like little kids by comparison.

“Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?”

Hebrews 1:14 ESV

https://www.bible.com/59/heb.1.14.esv

What a quandary, is Papa God justice or mercy?  How can both attributes be so strongly outlined in the Word?

We were created in His image, we are very much like Him in our very design and makeup.  We have today many justice warriors who live from their seat of judgement seeing nothing but the injustice of the world.  I’m not belittling the horrible injustice that does exist in our world but we must dig to the sources of that injustice.  Additionally we must look at the proposed solutions to injustices to make sure we are perpetuating the never ending cycle of injustice.

On the other side many walk in their calling of mercy to the exclusion of any consequences for wrongdoing.  Where is the balance?  Our only hope for finding balance is in Papa.  He’s revealed His character and desires for us in the pages of scripture and ultimately in the perfect representation of Himself Yeshua.

Our job as believers in Messiah is to present Him to others by our example much the same way He lived out His Father’s life before men when He walked the earth.  Extending grace and mercy to those who are truly seeking after the truth of the Father while exposing the evil behind those who live for the enemy and promote his agenda.

The hardest part for men is to distinguish between the two sides.  We can either embrace the extravagant love of Papa or reject it for our own agendas.   Embracing His free gift of grace is easy, walking it out in this world? not so much.  Because His grace is wrapped up with His justice and His worldview.  They can indeed be balanced by looking to the end results of any given issue.  Does it end in life or death?  Papa is the father of life, the creator of all life, His desires for us are all good and filled with blessings.

Living for justice as the highest goal is an open door to death, condemnation, destruction all in the name of “setting things right”.  Everyone seeks both justice and grace because we know down deep that somehow they can coexist.  Deep down we all know that in some mystical way Papa balances those seeming contradictory forces in perfect harmony.

Our only hope to reach that kind of balance is in Yeshua, in getting to know Him better each day by spending time walking with Him daily, listening to His heart, hanging on His every word of truth.