ALWAYS REMEMBER JESUS – Love the Mountain, Embrace the Valley

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. Psalm 23:4-5

 He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will. Mat 26:39

In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” 1 Corinthians 11:25

*all scriptures are from the NKJV unless indicated otherwise

Introduction

Wisdom is a Virgin, but virginity without Wisdom is foolishness. Wisdom is profitable to direct, but Wisdom, like the wind, doesn’t have discernible directions. She moves wherever She is meant to go by the workings of God. Mountaintops and valleys low are all extension of the same thing, for to go to the next mountain, one must pass through the next valley. The topside of the valley is the mountain and the lower side of the mountain is the valley. Both are extremes of each other and both are good. The mountain is good and the valley is good, but wisdom is profitable to direct in both.

Remember Him.

The remembrance of Jesus in the midst of the valley creates a communion of trust. The journey of life and the walk of faith are from glory to glory, but glory has its cost and so does every other thing man may choose to chase. Along the path of the walk of faith, things happen that create pains and aloneness, both from people and even spiritually. In our walk of faith, we do have mountaintop days and valley low days. A mountaintop day is like we are overboard with the presence of God and on valley low days it’s like God is nowhere to be found. It can be very painful and sometimes you feel like you’re dead and forgotten. Yes it feels like death. The presence of God gives life and His “absence” brings death. Many missed their path because they succumbed to the lies of the devil that they have missed God in their valley season. The valley is good; it’s one of the ways God exposes the thoughts of our hearts. For it is in this valley time that the words of Christ “…do this in remembrance of me” kick in. The table of the last supper of the Lord is not a table for bread and wine. No it’s not, even though those were used to symbolize it. The table of the Lord’s Supper is the table of death through submission of self-will in order for the will of God to prevail. The cup of His covenant is the cup of death. And that’s why the Lord, in the hours of His trial leading to his death, asked “can this cup pass over me? And also … Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given Me?” John 18:11

Meaning that after every mountaintop experience in which it looks and feels as if God is so mightily around, then comes the valley low time where it feels He is not, even though we know He is always around. For it is written “…through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me” (KJV). The life of a believer or a faith walker with the Lord is full of many twists and turns, ups and downs, highs and lows, but with a promise from the Lord that “…I will be with you even till the end of the age”. Good for those who try to make others believe that their walk of faith with the Lord is all smooth and juicy, it just may be so, but I doubt if it is really so. For if it were so, our forerunner, the Lord Jesus would not have gotten to the point of rejection and the feeling of being forsaken, in order to test His Sonship and trust in God the Father. For he learnt obedience through the things He suffered and has called us to pick up our cross and walk the same path… a path which brings pain, frustration, rejection, persecution, before the glory shows up.

Psalm 23, written by David, if understood for what it is, is truly the script for the one who is on the journey of faith with the Lord. It is skillfully crafted to show the various stops a believer passes through on the journey to eternal oneness with God. I particularly love the reality of this line:

 “…You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over.…”

Scripture declares that the last enemy of man and of Christ is death.  Meaning the table in the valley that the Lord prepares for the believer is the same as the table where the cup of His covenant is served. It is where each faith walker is tested to see what is in their hearts when it feels like God has disappeared and when they are being prepared for the next mountaintop experience. It is the table of death, the cup of proclaiming His death till He comes and a place where our lives are given a kick for that which must come next. It is a valley point whose end is the mountaintop. For we are the mountain of the Lord’s house on which men will be taught to know Him, for we are mount Zion which comes down from heaven to the new earth.

Learn the ways of the valley, remember Him

Mountain and valley experiences will not stop till the Lord comes. For when He comes, He will split the mount of Olives (our lives) into two (Zechariah 14:4) and the duality found in us will be separated and we will be whole as was the plan from the beginning. So, dear believer and faith walker, do not be overly troubled when you find yourself in the valley of the shadow of death. It is still just a shadow and the shadow is created by the light of the One who said, “I Am with you.” It is this place Jesus Himself got to when He said “Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour” John 12:27. Jesus got to this point in His journey, He was clearly weary and almost giving up, but He did something. He remembered His Father and the purpose for which He was sent. ‘Do this in remembrance of Me’ will be one major help every believer will have in this age of fear, pain, persecution. So as you walk within the valley of the shadow of death and as you embrace the reality of the table of death, set in the presence of the enemy, who is death, with weariness gnawing at your soul, do all to remember Christ and the purpose for which you were sent to the valley. It is the only way out of the valley of the shadow of death unto the mountain of life.

Embrace the cup of death

The Lord’s cup is not some wine of drunkenness or bread of a full belly, but the embrace of death to self and the works of darkness. Without death there is no life and without life, death is meaningless. For the end point of death is life and death will be forever forgotten in the life of God. For a grain of corn must first be put in the earth to die and when it dies, it grows again but with multiplication. 

God’s will for you today is to die. To die the second death. Die to this world and this world becomes dead to you. The will of God for you to be granted the title as one who overcame is that you endure death in all aspects of life. For the life of this present world IS DEAD. It is a life found in the fall of Adam, in the life of Adam, in the life of carnality. This death is what makes you an Overcomer, who have come to the place of the life in Christ, having gone through the death to self, which is the second death.  When there is nothing left in you to die! When all that is death in you is DEAD.

Your entire gamut of trials and testing in this world is to make you die.  For it is the will of God to remove from you all aspects of the life of this world which is death itself and it’s the spirit of death. To love and live in this world is to love and live in that which is under a curse and is DEAD. Why love that which is dead, when that which is dead must be removed from you by the spirit of burning? God will not spare this death from you, but will bring it on to you in greater and greater measures prior to the appearing of Christ in you. When Christ appears, DEATH WILL BE NO MORE.  For this was what God came to do in the cool of the day with Adam. To make him die by beholding the face of God. For it is written, no man (fallen man) can see God and live. Adam’s fallen state was the perfect material needed for death, a death which would have created life in that same instance. For it is written, as we behold Him face to face, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory. So beholding God in the garden was the express way to life, but Adam hid himself behind a tree, a thing men still do to date.

No one who is born in Adam is exempt from the second death. No one who is called out of the races of mankind, out of every nation and every period in history, who God calls as Overcomers, are exempt from second death. The only ones hurt by the second death are all those who loved this world! The Overcomer in this world learns day by day to hate this world and their life in it. They learn to deny themselves, take up their crosses and die to this present evil world.

Get this straight dear reader. Everyone will take part in the second death. But they that overcome will not be harmed by it. For they have already despised their life in this world and have no love for the world or the systems of the world. They have died to it even while they live in bodies of flesh and blood, they know that their life is of another order and to that order they do come. And they are rightly so called, The Overcomers.  Each one who endures now the tribulations of the hour comes to learn in truth of the power of their risen Lord. For Jesus, stands alone as Savior of the world. Then each Overcomer who comes to Jesus in turn becomes “savior” who judges the rest of mankind and delivers them also to the processing found only in the second death.

Embrace the Cross

For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6 (Emphasis mine)

Jesus carried His cross on His shoulder and this is very significantly connected to the government upon His shoulder. The cross is an anti-type of the rod of iron with which the Lord and His sons who overcame will rule the earth with justice and righteousness, having conquered the cross of the tree of the knowledge of right and wrong, they rule by truth which is the Tree of Life. This is the reality of Afrika that many Afrikans don’t know about. I will share this at a later time. The government begins with the conquering of the cross, which is the tree of right and wrong, an anti-type of the rod of Iron. It is only He who has conquered the cross by dying to self through the embrace of truth, is worthy of the rod of iron. Here is a promise from the Lord to those who will conquer the cross of their affliction for truth.

“And he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations—²⁷ ‘He shall rule them with a rod of iron;
They shall be dashed to pieces like the potter’s vessels’—as I also have received from My Father; ²⁸ and I will give him the morning star. Rev 2:26-28

In conclusion, to you my brothers I write: do not be weary in well doing, for in due season you shall reap, if you faint not. The harvest or the reward of the believer is the ever abiding face, presence and image of God that we will be changed into. This was what Jesus remembered in God each time He came to a stop in His journey of faith. For it is written of Him thus: “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. Hebrews 12:2 (Emphasis mine).

The joy of the believer will be complete at the face of God.

Remain blessed. From your brother.