“And when He had said these things, as they were looking on, He was lifted up, and a cloud took Him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as He went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:9-11)
In the world of this day we want things to be up and not down. We compete to win, study hard to be first in class. The stock market must rise and not crash. We want to climb the ladder of success. The reality is that we want to live ascended lives. We want to break free from that which holds us down and rise above it all.
And that is right. Something within us knows that we are not earthbound but distant to rise. But the problem is that we have distorted what ascension and an ascended life means. We tend to forget or even deny that the ascension of Christ seats us next to God, and we rather attempt settle for self-ascension.
Such a distortion has invaded our doctrine and understanding of God. And in this distorted view God and holiness are up there somewhere whilst we are stuck down here. And we try to jump the highest, try the hardest, and get lived out in so many ways.
It involves comparison, and competition, and even judgement of some kind. We compare ourselves with others. We compete with each other believing that if we ascend others will descend. We are forever judging ourselves and others. We fill our lives with business hoping to ascend, and such a life of self-ascension keeps us searching for the next achievement, the next high.
Your attempts at self-ascension, fragment your world and yourself. It just distances you from God. It destroys relationships and intimacy. And ultimately you deny yourself the ascended life you are seeking, a life that is already yours in Christ.
Jesus’ ascension reshapes our disfigured understanding of an ascended life. his ascension is the corrective antidote to the fragmentation and separation of self-ascension. Jesus Christ is the only authentic and life-giving ascension. And through Him and in Him we now can too live ascended lives!
We need to grasp that Jesus’ ascension is not about His absence but His presence. To the unbeliever this is an empty world. To us as His own, it is not about His leaving but about ‘the fulness of His presence who fills all and all by the Holy Spirit. The world can not receive Him for they do not know Him.
It is not about a location but about a relationship! Surely the presence, and fullness, and relationship was on the minds of the two men sent by God when they said, “Why do you stand looking up to heaven?” It is as if they are saying to us to do not mis-figure or misunderstand this moment. Do not deny yourselves the gift that has been given to you!
The ascension of Christ completes His resurrection. The resurrection is victory over death. The ascension however lifts us up to heaven. Believers are seated with Him in heavenly places, at the right hand of the Father! We now partake in God’s glory and divinity.
The ascension is more about letting go than it is reaching and grasping. The question is not, ‘How do we ascend?’ That has already been accomplished. The question is, ‘What pulls us down?’ what do we need to let go of? Is it fear, anger, resentment? What is weighing you down?
The need to be right, or to be in control, to be on top of it, or self-righteousness, jealousy, pride, perfectionism, the need to proof yourself, to always be affirmed, addiction, and many others, are heavy burdens to carry. The gravity that pulls us down take many forms.
What is the gravity that denies you Jesus’ ascension? The gravity that keeps you down, is not around you, or in your circumstances. Gravity is within you. So, as you begin to look at your life and identify the places of gravity, do not despair. What ever holds you down also point the way to ascension.
The participation in Jesus’ ascension begins by not looking up but by looking within. Whatever stands between you and God, descend and ask God to remove it so you can grasp the ascension in the presence with Christ on high!
14 “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants[a] and entrusted to them his property. 15 To one he gave five talents,[b] to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. 17 So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. 18 But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money. 19 Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. 20 And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.[c] You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 22 And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here, I have made two talents more.’ 23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
GOD NEVER INTENDED FOR YOU TO STAY WHERE YOU ARE! YOU ARE TO BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY…
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.’ Genesis 1:28
King James Version
The Kingdom of Heaven is like a man… Here Jesus is using what you can understand to explain what you might not comprehend (the Kingdom of God)…He let’s us know this man is a very wealthy man and in a conversation with his servants, other versions translated as slave. But there is definitely a huge gap in between the slaves and the master in this conversation….It is a superior speaking to an inferior.
GOD CAME DOWN TO US, UNDERSERVING AND GIFTED US
So, we right now live in a democracy where it is possible for the lower class people to mix with the middle and even upper class….and we’ve done away with exclusionary and oppressive systems that would alienate people from opportunities to move through the ranks. But the context of this scripture us is not a South African democratic context. It is from an Eastern culture that embraced a cast system whereby the notion was whatever you were born into, that’s what you were supposed to be. A cast system teaches an ideology there is no responsibility on people or government to have to bring people up out of poverty or lack…because whoever you are is what you are and you must just deal with it!
Could it be Jesus might be saying to us that the huge and massive distance and difference between the master and the slave is like the vast distance between God and man? That his thoughts are above our thoughts. His ways are above our ways. As high as the heaven is above the earth so is my thoughts above your thoughts and my ways above your ways.
I want you to understand that the slave owns nothing, and has nothing. Has no rights or privileges yet the master through a decision in his own mind, not a request from the slave but decision from the master has decided to gift the slave with something he could not gift himself with. This vulnerable position of the slaves, position of us on earth begins with the understanding that you have been gifted. If you don’t understand you have been gifted, you will spend your life walking away and walking past what only God has given you in your slave mindset and mentality.
My gift may not be your gift. It may not be shining in the limelight like yours. It might not be a singing voice or able to do something you’re able to do. But let me tell you something. I have something. Some indescribable thing God’s given me that’s so unique in the earth that you’ll never see it again. I have been gifted.
When I was growing up..My father taught me and my sisters that there is no difference between us and the boys we grew up with at the time… He exposed us to things that were known to be only done by boys and men, like driving tractors, fixing cars, etc. Later did I know it would shape my thinking and change my mindset the rest of my life!! If you have two hands, two eyes, two feet, the greatest of men have had. You start out with the same stuff. What you do with it is up to you. All the greatest of men have had. The same thing, they have subdued nations and taken down kingdoms because you have all that the greatest of men have had.
I didn’t know my father was depositing into my self-esteem the wealth that was necessary through which I might be able to expand and draw from it the rest of my life. He was invalidating my excuse for failure and opening my eyes to possibility. Because it was there. I have all that the greatest of men have had!. Two eyes. One nose, two ears, look at that. Look at this stuff. I have been gifted. Fearfully and wonderfully made.
The greatest mysteries of all mysteries in life is what is the treasure inside of me. What does it take for me to discover, what do I have to go through to dig down to find what God placed deep down inside of me? I’ve been gifted. If you don’t see it, you’re the wrong one. If you can’t appreciate it, you can’t have it. Rest assured!!
I can’t take credit for this gift. It’s been given to me. I don’t know why I can do what I do like I do when I do it. I just know I can do it. When you’ve been gifted, you just have something you can do that you were not trained to do. Maybe it’s the gift of understanding. When you read it, you understood it. Other people read it, they don’t understand it. You read it. It makes sense to you. Everybody in the room might be able to read but they can’t decipher it like you decipher it. You’ve been gifted. Or you wouldn’t have what you have and be where you are and know what you know. You have been gifted. You are fearfully and wonderfully made! YOU ARE THE HEAD AND NOT THE TAIL. YOU ARE A ROYAL PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, BORN FOR A TIME SUCH AS THIS. There are kind of stuff that you can do that cannot be explained. You have all sorts of talent in you that you don’t even know how you get to do it. GOD CAME DOWN AND JUST GIFTED.
WE ARE ALL GIFTED ACCORDING TO OUR INNATE ABILITIES
The Master gave unto them. To one he gave five. To the other he gave two talents. And to the third one he gave one. They all were gifted. Yeah, they all were gifted. Glory to God.
All the different people were gifted differently. God is not fair.. but He is just!! He gave them according to their ability. He considered what they can each handle… At the end of the day, they all had one thing in common….they all had an opportunity!!!
There is no question then all three the one with the five, the one with the two, the one with the one, all of them have been gifted. Gifted. But not equally. Not equally gifted. But gifted nonetheless.
Now, the problem comes as the apostle Paul clearly says we compare ourselves with ourselves and so doing it is not wise. Because if I become distracted by the discrepancies in the volumes of gifts between us, then jealousy is born. Rather than feeling gifted I compare myself with you and I can’t enjoy my two for being envious of your five. Because you cannot be jealous and creative at the same time. In order to be, in order to be truly successful I can’t be distracted with comparisons with other people.
Creativity and mindset change begins when I invest, develop and bring to fruition what I do have within my power to do rather than to become distracted by the inconsistencies between me and you and what I don’t have. If I don’t understand that, I may waste years of my life thinking that the goal of my life is to catch up with you never realizing that I am not to be compared with you at all. What I’m supposed to be is excellent on my level.
He gave them five. Same men had the same status. Had the same master. And they had something else. They had something else. He gave them talents all the men talents but they were not the same talents. Five. Two and one. One other thing he gave each of them it’s not written in the text, but implied in the text and if you overlook it, you’ll miss the power of the text. He gave them an opportunity. There is nothing in the world as wonderful as to have been given an opportunity.
The man with the 5 talents immediately saw the opportunity. BUT THE BROTHER WITH ONE WAS PARALYSED BY FEAR… THIS IS A DANGEROUS PLACE TO BE IN. YOU NEED TO BURY THAT FEAR SO THAT YOUR TALENT AND GIFT CAN SHINE and FLOURISH.
God is not expecting you to do something with what He has not given you but He expects you to work with what you have been gifted and work at your level and not at the level of someone else’s gift and talent. You need to work this thing that He gave you….
Doing things differently requires thinking differently, renewing your mind and having the courage to challenge even the established ways of thinking and doing.
It’s really about your inner spirit, your capacity to absorb, handle, and manage situations. It’s not a head thing. You can have degree enough to do it but not have heart enough to do it. Do you have the capacity of heart to love on that level, to live on that level, to think on that level, to be on that level? Is your heart or the narrowness thereof some clue that you are over your head, beyond your boundaries, and out of your parameters?
I am telling you, it is not about your talent. It is not about who you know and don’t know. It is not about who likes you and who doesn’t like you. It is about your capacity. It is about your heart. Out of the heart flows the issues of life.
That’s why I come to church. That’s why I serve the Lord. Because the God that I serve is the only one who can create in me the heart I need for the opportunities that I have so I can function in the capacity that I need to function in. I keep moving according to the grace of God upon my life.
“I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those. I press toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God”. And when you see me arrive to the end of my journey, understand it wasn’t because I knew the right people. It wasn’t because I had all the right degrees. It wasn’t because I went to all the right parties. It was a matter of my heart that made my opportunities. All the big-hearted people give God a praise!” (Phillipians 3:12-13)
I want us to pray for unborn dreams… that small voice in you that keeps pushing you to wake up every morning regardless of your situation… that voice that yearns for more… God want to take you into another dimension… That’s why you are not settled in your spirit when you are in the midst of mediocrity. Your background is saying something different to what God has placed in the inside of you. You don’t have to end where you started! Do not stop where you are stuck… Trust GOD to change your situation around… May God resurrect your life. Your zeal, passion, talent, gift.. may it be resurrected in Jesus mighty name.
You have been a believer for some time or even longer, but then suddenly some crisis erupts in your life and you decide: Now I am really going to trust God. Lord, increase my faith! All of us have times when we feel our faith is small, but we should never be content with little faith. Our faith needs to grow.
Love involved a cross for Jesus, and love will involve a cross for us too. If you want to grow in love, you have to lay down your life on the altar of God for love always involves a Sacrifice.
“ I appeal to you therefore brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship”
When you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and are born again, you are born of God. It means that something of the life of God, who is love, come to be present in you by the power of the Holy Spirit.
By nature we are completely hopeless and that is the inside story of life. We were sinners from birth, children of wrath, unable to change our position.
“But God,being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved”
You may want to become a better person. You may feel that there is stuff in your life that you need to deal with. But towering over all this is a bigger problem of altogether different proportions, a problem which most people are not even aware of – like the rest we are children of wrath.
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, …. carrying out the desires of the body, and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind”
The teaching of Ephesians chapter 2 verse 3 is what the heart wants. The heart wants what it wants and all of us have to make a choice of how we live. And that choice will derive from what you believe about the state of your own heart.
“All of us lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts”
Men and women are made in the Image of God. That is what gives us value and dignity and worth. But we have to accept that sin is in our nature. We are born in the likeness of Adam and therefor sinners by nature and by practice and we live in a dark world.
The greatest need of the church today is a fresh outpouring of faith and hope and love. God is love and has no need of hope. To Him all things are certain, whether past, present, or to come.
The Christian Campus 