The Church of old experienced many divine interventions but God was not pleased with them because they did not understand many things and they did not bother to ask questions.

Hebrews 12:1-2

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. 

No one can ever attain to the Calling of God without the High Priest and we are spending time considering him. How he authored the Faith is by dispensing the Grace to us. He could have gone back to God and taken his throne but he chose to take up the service of God to save us.

Hebrews 3:1

Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus; 

God has raised a seed whose intention is to bring his children to where he is. That faithfulness is commitment to the Course of God. He has finished what is needful to raise sons unto Glory. Jesus is faithful because he has opened up the way for the children to come to Glory. When God is seeing that prophetic thought in his heart, he sees it done in Christ. Moses received the pattern of what is needful to bring the children of Israel into the land and he was faithful in giving the pattern.

Matthew 3:17

And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. 

Preparing the sacrifice is of utmost importance to God. A whole person is a sacrifice; a sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God. If God receives your body, he will receive what you do with your body. It is not the blood that was shed that pleased God, but the life of the one who obeys. When you obey, you die, you shed blood. For this people to come into the place of exactness of what is in God’s heart, it has to be counted to them as faithfulness.

The land flows with milk and honey. If you enter the land and you do not eat a physical milk and honey, you have received the promise. The promise that he has promised us is not the land but Eternal Life. The reason for coming into the land is for the Promise. If they had finished the procedure, they would have ended up in Christ because Christ is the end of the Law. Two entered the land but none received the Promise. That could have been the beginning of the New Testament if they had received the promise because the Promise is Christ.

Jesus is the High Priest. Cleansing is meant to raise sons to Glory, a life higher than sin and death. If he is raising sons to Glory, it means he is raising sons above sin and death. He wants to raise men back to the realm of Glory, to Perfection. We could lose sight of perfection. Israel lost sight of the intention of God leading them out of Egypt. When the journey is long, it is likely you lose interest; and the journey of perfection is a long one. It is a long journey because of the nature of the soul and once we lose sight of that, we have departed from the Living God. Every movement of losing hold is a step away from God. Unbelief is evil because it can cost you the whole essence of following God. There is need to pay attention and check if you are still excited about pursuing perfection.

One of the evidence that we are losing sight is that we no longer love correction and training. Faith is the simplest way for those who want to follow God. Faith means that you cease from your labor.

Deceitfulness of sin is another  thing that can hinder us from making progress to the finishing. Sin is a liar. It is called the deceivableness of unrighteousness. Satan is a natural liar. It is not about what he say, it is about the voice; his voice is the voice of the liar. When he speaks lie, he speaks it naturally. Even when he speaks truth, it is to deceive; that can catch anybody. As the devil is a liar, so sin is a liar. Sin speaks. When you hear his voice, he has deceived you. Once it deceives you, it makes you resistant to truth. It is more difficult to receive truth where sin has deceived you. Deceit is something that can propound itself; it is not just a lie. Some tongues are deceitful. They will not speak lie straight. The hewer of religion is a deceitful spirit.

Matthew 23:29

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, 

If anything is handed down by the fore fathers, open it up, else you will follow Religion. It is vanity. If it is vain, then, it is an idol. If your fathers commit anything to you, open it and find out if it is truth for yourself so you do not labor in life for nothing.

Hebrews 9:14

How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? 

The water is the forerunner for the blood to have its full effect. The soul is made up of two parts; the heart and the mind. The mind is the inward part, while the heart is the inward man. The word is purely water here.

Ephesians 5:25-27

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. 

He needs the water to purify the Church to be presentable before himself. He must be able to present us without spot or wrinkle. It is difficult to remove spot; you will need to shed the blood to remove the spot. What Jesus has done is to provide the water that can wash the spot. The way the spot is on the leopard is the way leprosy can be on the skin of man. The final check for a leper who has been cleansed is that he puts on a new skin. He must come out to become a new born. A new nature must be birthed in the cleansing. 2 King 5:14, ‘Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. The new man is as clean as a new born.

John 13:1-11

Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him; Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God; He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself. After that he poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded. Then cometh he to Simon Peter: and Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all. For he knew who should betray him; therefore said he, Ye are not all clean. 

You must have a personal encounter that makes you enlist for the eternal inheritance. Judas was washed but he was not clean. Washing the disciples’ feet was a symbol of what Jesus has been doing for them all the while he was with them and what he will do after his death. There is washing and there is purging. He was washing all of them but Judas was not clean because of the deceitfulness of sin. It is not everybody that can be clean even though there is provision for washing. Jesus was preaching the Kingdom which he said was not of this world while the Jews were expecting an earthly kingdom. These are two hopes and the hope one has determines the means or the Faith. Faith is the means to hope while Hope determines the means. What is called unbelief is another faith which cannot move into the hope that God promised.

Adam kept creation in hope but he did not change the hope because it was not deception that made him fall. Judas knew what Jesus promised but he felt that there is something more they could get. We dine with the devil when we buy his hope. Jesus could not wash Judas because he maintained his fellowship with the devil. The devil kept speaking another hope until that hope took him over. When you hate the hope of God, you will end up betraying him and crucifying him.

1 John 3:3

And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. 

When sin lies to you, it hardens your heart. When it is teaching you, it does not teach you repentance. Nobody can forcefully cleanse you. Jesus was washing Judas but he was not purifying himself; he was deceiving himself. The first training is training you to be meek because without meekness, you cannot receive the engrafted word. James 1:21. Jesus must provide the washing that will cleanse the flesh; that is the first place of washing. If anyone who is lying or fornicating comes into your midst, they should not be able to continue living like that. 1 Corinthians 5:10; 6:10.  The reason people do not make progress in the spirit is because they did not finish the process of their washing in stages.

John 15:1

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. 

Fruit bearing is the sign of cleansing. If a branch is not bearing fruit, you cannot purge it. Once you see that you are finding it difficult to make progress, it means there is a process of washing that was missed. The Lord does not move us into the next ministry if we do not finish the process of washing. If you are not fruitful as a branch, he does not purge you. When purging is done, it is for the purpose of bearing more fruit. May we go through every process of cleansing the Lord mapped out for us in Jesus name. Amen!