On Receiving

The womb

His work begins in the unseen. The work begins with a very specific yes and a marvelous cascade ensues of both yeses and nos. He's making something. After conception, the fertilized egg comes down from the site of fusion and confronts a wall of the uterus, muscle. Now, there is a visceral yes that needs to happen.

What is the question?

Already, there is one element of receiving that has taken place; that is, the structure and condition of a womb. It is a flexible holding place, strong and integrous, capable of hosting, enclosed, singular and simple in function, focused in desire and anticipatory.

The other element of receiving is acceptance; this officially qualifies the womb as a receptor. Apart from the tiny fertilized egg, the truly impressive component of implantation is the decision the womb makes— “yes, come in.” Hebrews 10:4 reveals,

“And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.”

Nothing good, nothing life-giving, not one promise of God comes forth apart from faith in His Son. He is the promised one; Jesus Christ is the promise (and every promise) of God and the perfect and therefore, eternal seed waiting to be revealed, acknowledged and believed in in the heart of every man. The reward of those who seek Him (for example, see the description of the structure and condition of the womb) is also the Lord Jesus Christ—just, yes.

Okay. Hold on.

Yes and thank You Father so much; all life is in Him! Like everything.

Truly and perfectly amazing. All the time and forever?! I don’t even know what to write right now, my heart is so glad and we just started.

Majesty.

Okay—so much peace. He has set the tone. Let’s keep going, but I pray that He fills this time with His presence and you share in the awe of His goodness and peace and stillness and love, the sweetest love. May you receive the hug He has been longing to give you, and may our hearts hear and learn from the Holy Spirit, in Jesus name, amen.

Please follow along, but listen to what God is ministering to you in your own heart and drink deeply! Keep your bible with you, because He is already here. (squeals with joy) This reminded much of a, “everyone got your seatbelts on?” kind of moment. But really, the Holy Spirit has already revealed to me that this will be a sweet time, if we just yield and let Him be our God! And He puts emphasis on “our” God.

Before we continue, please pray in your heart for a moment about this.

If you need help, you can pray: LORD, please help me to yield and just let You be my God. In Jesus name, so be it.

After you pray according to His will, know that your Father is about to do it and trust Him. His children are always at the posture of thanksgiving; He is so faithful that our faith-filled prayers are a promise of His. This verse is happening to you right now. See how perfect His love is!

“Whatever you ask in My name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”

John 14:13

Alright, so cozy. Let’s go, He is here.

With meekness

Implantation. The most external part of the wall of the womb makes the initial contact with the egg, but the acceptance comes at a cost for the mother. This is the question. The womb and the zygote appear foreign to one another, however this bond is not formed but revealed after the contact—the womb already belongs to egg. The wall of the womb, undergoes a radical change–completely denying itself. This is the power of Christ in us—so good.

The lining of the womb undergoes decidualization, a process where the cells of the decidua differentiate or become completely altered in structure and function for the sole purpose of hosting a growing child.¹ Think of a deciduous tree. We have a season, fall, aptly named because of the deciduous trees completely shedding their leaves. Clearly, this is something to behold. God is so good. Our Father is always looking at the fruit. And really, it is because He is one with and is perfectly attentive to the one true vine; Jesus.

Let’s list a few physical attributes of the fall season—the Holy Spirit is pointing something out.

Here’s what I came up with; write down what came to your mind and don’t think about it too much. The Holy Spirit, He is playful and friendly!

Cooler weather—He sends the wind to remove the former things…for the new.

The changing color of the leaves—the former things. Fading away…for the new.

Gourds—I don’t know yet, we’ll see!

gourds

“Seed.”

This is what I heard as the Holy Spirit led me to 1 Kings 4:39. In this passage, the prophet Elisha “purifies” a huge pot of stew that contained poisonous wild gourds. But so much more is happening—always. We’re gonna pay attention to the seed right now.

“One of them went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine and gathered from it his lap full of wild gourds, and came and cut them up into the pot of stew, not knowing what they were.”

1 Kings 4:39

So, here we are in the midst of a famine. In a time of scarcity where things are stripped back and there is seemingly incredible loss, you have gourds. You have some paqqu`ah. This is hebrew for wild cucumbers², from the root word peqa` which means “to burst” or “to split open” specifically to shed its seeds.³ There it is, just like He told us—seed. See how He goes before us!

If we continue reading on through verse 41, we see that the sons of the prophets had a realization that turned bitter rather quickly. And sweeter even more quickly. What do you do when you have received something deadly? Let us see how our Father purifies. How He is loving us, even right now. This will be fun.

First, what exactly happened in the pot?

The flour or qemach added to the pot was understood to be finely ground flour⁴, like the flour that the LORD accepted as a grain offering from His beloved people. One of the main attributes our Father commanded for these offerings was the quality of the flour. Highly refined. That is, no chaff or mixture of any kind—pure and pleasing to Him. In addition to the this, flour was a basic necessity for sustenance and God richly provided it for the nourishment of His people.

So we have here, sacrifice + purity + sustenance + rich provision.

We have here a picture of Christ, He who descended from Heaven to redeem and purify the world of sin. Our daily Bread, pure and holy, through whom the Father has lavished the riches of His grace upon us. Christ happened in the pot!

Elisha, added a blessing into a dead situation. He declared life, prosperity and abundance over the death in the pot. In the ESV translation, the title of this passage also uses the word purifies to describe Elisha’s interaction with the pot of deadly stew. This is the righteousness of God. The site of the death, or what is void and bitter, is the exact site of restoration and new life. And the vessel purified was the one whose contents were still warm, tender, simmering and in the excited state to receive. Here, the ingredients can still marry. Here, God can heal and make new.

“And there was no harm in the pot.” (verse 41)

When I say God can heal, I mean to highlight the love and righteousness of Jesus, our Savior. He is God; He can do anything and does not need anyone to tell Him what or how or when to act. Yet in His perfect love, the Lord does not override our will and choice to accept Him—for love does not insist on its own way. A hardened unbelieving heart will not receive the Word of God, therefore, He cannot enter in. It will be impossible to experience the Father even though He has been right there the entire time! Imagine, throwing some flour into a pot of frozen or even worse, lukewarm stew. It will just sit on top and never get in and transform. Now that would be foolish, right? But all glory be to God the Father who cannot do anything foolish; He is all wise and wastes nothing. We have to engage with Him in humility for it’s the only way to see Him rightly.

The conviction of the Holy Spirit, the spirit of truth and grace, then cries out from the depths of us— “Abba, there is death in the pot.” Lord I really need You. I say yes to You + thank You. Uh oh, the heat just turned on—anticipation.

“Then bring flour.” And there is no hesitation—please know this.

The flour has come, and we have to let Him cook; He is looking to heal the entire pot of stew. We have to let Him save and purify us. His holy name, JESUS, means Savior—this is who He is and He is not willing or able to interact with us any other way, beloved. And once the pot is purified, purification is only through the blood of Jesus Christ, others may eat of what is life-giving and glorify the Father. But we have to see that our yes is unto a new life; a pot in which there is no harm. We have to believe that the former man-made stew is something to lose, and that what we have in His living Word is worth far more than all we can even comprehend. It is perfect.

The structure and condition of the pot, of the womb, of the stripped branches of the autumn tree, of a meek heart—is the very ground for new life. Right there, in the loss. Where it is profoundly tender.

Oh child of God, do you know Who hears your cry? Rejoice!

“…until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest.”

Isaiah 32:15

the split

Did you notice the gourds were not removed? Peqa`(to burst or split open to shed seeds) was in the pot. At the site of the puncture—the moment the gourd forsakes its former structure—what was counted as death, is eclipsed by the abundant and immediate release of life and prosperity. There’s something about that opening, that incision or split that God has marked for the miraculous. That’s where He works! Behold, this is good. Behold, He is doing a new thing.

The penetration of the wall of the womb is exactly where a new human being is growing. More life.

The pruned branch is the branch that will yield even more fruit. Be fruitful and multiply.

Through His pierced body, the veil that separated us from our original perfect union with God was torn. Life as He created.

The tomb they laid our King in, holy is His name forever, is where the risen King emerged. Life and life more abundantly.

A surrendered heart, receiving the implanted Word (the sharpest sword) with meekness, is a new creation and filled with the Spirit of the Living God. Risen with Him.

“Truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself. But if it dies, it produces much fruit.”

John 12:24

We need this in the pot; it is the glory of God in a vessel of faith. He abolished death over you and brought life and immortality into the light. Oh death, where is your sting? Where!

the new growth

Looking forward.

What happened after the reception of the flour? Verse 42. Next thing we know, a man comes to offer unto God, the firstfruits of his harvest: barley and fresh grain or, karmel in hebrew.

Karmel means “fruitful field”⁵ from the root word kerem meaning, a garden or vineyard.⁶

After you plant, growth begins—faith in Jesus Christ is the same way. The heart of childlike faith is divinely fertile ground. The Lord tells us repeatedly that to the one who believes in His power (not believing and hoping in positivity…this is an inferior and destitute realm) nothing shall be impossible to him! God is so good. Thank you Father!

Two things the Holy Spirit wants us to see about our yes, our faith in Him: labor and steadfastness.

Labor. Take care. A vineyard is a place of fruitfulness, but not by idle hands. Even as God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the garden of Eden, they were not lying around doing nothing. This is not “paradise” as we have often thought, but the vineyard from Proverbs 24:30-34. Adam and Eve were one with God and therefore wise, making the best use of time from a place of rest and not striving.

If you know your faith is looking a little overgrown and abandoned, remember that Jesus has been there waiting to revive the vineyard with you, you precious child. Notice that your vineyard, your heart, cannot remain like that, but girl He already has a plan. You are so loved and He is not angry with you. Just go to Him and don’t make it about yourself; rather, repent and you can ask for example… “Lord, here’s my heart. What have you been waiting to do?” This is who He is, He is filled with truth and grace.

Wisdom is always fruitful; she is always working through the Vine + under the Father’s hand, who “doeth the work”. The wise pot is always on, steady steady and agreeable to what God is preparing on the inside! We have to keep the environment tender by being diligent to reject any evil presented to us + our own misunderstandings that keep us from receiving the fine flour, His Word. If the righteous shall live by faith, then the born-again woman shall live by this posture of true embrace—that is, continuous death-to-self which is fruitfulness.

Take care, hold on tight in love—what He is working in you is so so precious. Better said by the Lord,

“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is who bears much fruit.”

John 15:5

Steadfastness. The fruitful field. Keeping this posture of embrace looks like this: after implantation, the mother is in the process of preparing a more suitable place for the little one. Her body is loving the child, working and giving of her own arteries, tissue, nutrients and even growing a new organ to sustain the child—namely, the placenta.⁷ She is taking care; this is a place of work because this is a place of multiplication and life.

My friend, re-read all the (-ing) verbs in this paragraph above; faith without works is dead. And oh how love and intimacy with God will fuel this! In the same way it is no chore to keep up with a close friend.

Recall what happened as soon as God healed the pot. Abundance of new growth, karmel. And our Father multiplied the bread, even leaving leftovers in the midst of a famine (verse 43-44!) Glory be to God alone who only does wondrous works! Earlier, we noted the deeper root word here: kerem which means garden or vineyard, and even more specifically, to tend or cultivate.

The Holy Spirit is so thorough, and neat. See how.

One of the corresponding greek words to kerem, is chorion—a place or a field.⁸

So we have a vineyard to tend to in a field.

A chorion is also what we call the outermost membrane that encloses all fetal development in a mother’s womb.⁹ Everything. It is the place where she will to embrace and tend to the child (giving of her body, as Christ did for us). A place of rapid multiplication unto birth. The very place where she denied herself.

The Lamb of God, willingly laid down His life for us. And through His death and resurrection, we receive eternal life. On the day of Pentecost, the promised Holy Spirit was poured out upon about 120 souls in the upper room. The same prepared room the Lord Jesus chose to institute communion with His friends, before He was crucified. Now the disciples were there as one, praying and waiting with anticipation in that same enclosed room. Then He came. Everything has changed.

That same day, about 3,000 people were saved and the elected church of God multiplies to this minute. The human body is inspired by Christ, created through Christ and for Christ. The body of Christ, the children of God, is inspired by Christ, created through Christ and for Christ.

This is just one perspective given through the physical experience of a woman with child—how much more in all of creation!

Will you deny yourself?