Where’ve You Been

Growing up there were tell-tale signs that would give away what you had been doing. Your mother would ask, “Just where have you been?”  Maybe your pants were muddied.  Perhaps your face had chocolate on it, or the like.

Then having grown and married your spouse may have asked on occasion, “Where’ve you been?”  Perhaps you were running late for an appointment.  Yet another occasion for this query might be because you’ve come home with a certain smell about you.  Or maybe you had gotten an attitude that wasn’t typically yours; someone else had influenced you negatively and you carried it home with you.

Scripture teaches: “Do not be deceived: Evil company corrupts good habits.” (1Corinthians 15:33)  “He who walks with wise men shall be wise” (Proverbs 13:20a). Why? Because mankind was created to imitate. Ever notice how two close friends, or a married couple who had been together for awhile, act and talk alike? They pick up on each others mannerisms. But it doesn’t happen casually. These folk spend some quality time with each other. They know intimate details about each other that nobody else knows.

Moses was that way with Jehovah.  The Bible says: “So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (Exodus 33:11a).  When he returned with the Ten Commandments written in tablets, his face glowed with the glory of God: “Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him. So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone” (Exodus 34:29b-30a).

We, too, shine with the love of Jesus when we spend time with Him.  Ephesians 5:1-2a says: “Therefore be imitators of God [copy Him and follow His example], as well-beloved children [imitate their father]. And walk in love, [esteeming and delighting in one another] as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us” (AMP).

In the past few years I’ve been talking with the Lord a lot regarding the end-time move of God.  It’s promised that “The glory of this latter house shall be greater than that of the former” (Haggai 2:9a).  Joel even prophesied: “He will cause the rain to come down for you—the former rain, and the latter rain” (2:23b).  That’s Holy Ghost anointing, moves of God.  We could say it this way: the anointing of the Holy Ghost experienced by the first believers combined with the anointing intended for the end-time believers!  WOW!  Just think of what we can accomplish with that much Holy Ghost power!!

Recently, in our ‘talks’ the Lord has impressed on my heart the following passage: “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled.  And they realized that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).  God used Peter and John to work a miracle for a man who had been crippled for forty years.  The result was five thousand men came to the Lord that day!  Now that’s a move of God!!  The simple point was these men had been with Jesus—He got off on them!  Yes, His Presence and Power!  His attitude toward sickness, being crippled or lack of any kind for that matter.

We were originally intended to be carriers of the glory of God (His Presence and Person, all that He is and has), man was clothed with it before sin entered in.  The choice to be carnally controlled caused the glory to depart from man.  We became leaky vessels; “Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away” (Hebrews 2:1). The King James Version says: “lest at any time we should let them slip.”  Paul explains that Moses put a veil over his face so the children of Israel couldn’t see the glory fade (see 2 Corinthians. 3:13).  Even the early Apostles needed re-fillings of the Holy Spirit to continue in the work of the Lord.

Paul admonished the church at Ephesus to “be being filled with the Spirit” (original Greek of Eph. 5:18).  That’s a state of infillings of the Holy Spirit.  We do leak, the glory does fade and we need to get tanked-up with the Presence of God that we may walk as children of Light.

Paul also talked of being a fragrance of Christ (see 2Corin. 2:15).  Having been with Him one gives off a fragrance that’s sweet smelling to the Father (and to others).  The opposite would be the stench of the world, what one ‘gives-off’ spending too much time with the world (you can fill-in the blanks).  So the question at this point would be: Where have you been?  What ‘fragrance’ are you giving off?  Go ahead—wash in the water of the Word, under the Blood and go sweeten somebody’s life!!