Setting The Table

 

Setting the Table

 

 

 

"And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.

 

But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.

 

I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?" - Luke 12:47-49

 

 

 

I received a notification on one of the social media sites.  Someone had sent me a “meme” for lack of a better way to describe it.  I took a screen shot of it after almost deleting it:

 

Prayed For The Table

 

If you have trouble reading it, it says:

 

“To whom much is given, much is required.  You prayed for the table, now serve purpose at it”.

 

This stopped me in my tracks.  For me, I know what the “table” is that I prayed for.

 

A day later, this came to me:

 

God Will Win

“There’s a woman out there right now with no boyfriend, no husband, no helper..Just her and God, focused on attaining His promises for her life.”

 

On a personal level, God made some promises to me, and one of those promises was that a man I had prayed for was protected. And that answer to that prayer was made in such a loving way, I dare not ever forget it.  That “answer” taught me what the WORD is and what it represents.

 

Secondly, I did “ask for the table”, and I fully intend to “serve purpose” on it but am unsure of the timing: and the “how”.

 

There are others out there, really close, that have also “asked for the table”.  What does a table do?  What is its “purpose”?

 

Well, I first went to my ole’ buddy, “etymonline” and here is what I found:

 

"Middle English, from Old French table, tabel "board, square panel, plank; writing table; picture; food, fare" (11c.), and also a survival of late Old English tabele "flat and relatively thin surface of some hard material," especially "writing tablet (of slabs of wood, etc.,), gaming table," also "top of an altar, part of a pavement;" in late Old English "tablet intended for an inscription." - Source, Etymonline.com.

 

“top of an altar”: a place where you make or “serve” your “offering”.

 

A “table” also holds a “burden”.  Did you ask for a burden?  Someone elses maybe?

 

Serve purpose:

 

"To fit or satisfy one's requirements; to be useful for or fit to achieve one's aim, goal, or purpose." - Source, TheFreeDictionary.com

 

What is your purpose?  Why did God move you to “ask for the table”? I know the “why”.  It’s the “when” and the “how” that I’m a little fuzzy.  So if we look at this again in this context:

 

Scrn/Prayed4TheTable

 

“To whom much is given, much is required.  You prayed for the table, now serve purpose at it”.

 

I think my trouble, is that I repeatedly keep “asking for the table” when it was already given to me.

 

I can feel the wolves salivating on the edges of the dark.  I can hear them waiting, if you can hear such a thing.  They are waiting for a WORD.

 

From the Beginning

 

First the offering is made, out of love, out of charity, empathy and the desire to take another’s suffering to free them of it.  You “ask for the table”.

 

That “offering” is made not to the individual, but to God: because He is the only one that can give it to you. 

 

From that moment you “ask for the table”, your purging begins.  This may take days to months.  Paul was in travail and in prayer for three days: blind, no food, no water.

 

Yours may not have been exactly like that, but your tears are prayers.  You are repenting, you are confessing and your soul offers up every lie, every deception you committed; and every selfish act.

 

Then your “eyes are opened” and you are baptized in the Spirit. The first thing you want to do is go back to “the Book” and you see things in it you’ve never seen before: recognize things you’ve never been taught in church before.  Things that never made sense or seemed contradictory suddenly come to clarity – because that’s what the Holy Ghost does for the receiver, in His Name.

 

And one of the first verses in “The Book” that motivates you to “find” what it was that happened to you, is this one:

 

"For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.  For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." - Romans 10:12-13.

 

Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.  That is when I began seeking ‘his name’.

 

"His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.  And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God." - Revelation 19:12-13.

 

And so “His Name is called The Word of God”.  His Name is the Word: The “One Word” which “fulfills all the law” in Galatians 5:14.  And Jesus explained it better when he said “Greater love hath no man than this: that a man lay down his life for his friends” in John 15:13.

 

So the “Word” had to do with Love and that is what His Name represents. 

 

Paul gives more clarity to this in Proverbs 10:12: “Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins.”

 

Love covers all sins. And now this I must come to God about.  In the Gospel of Luke:

 

"Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little." - Luke 7:47.

 

Do you see what I am facing in the mirror right now? What we all face in that mirror within us?

 

 Paul gave several clues in the Bible, in his letters to the churches, concerning the “chosen” and what qualified them.  Romans 10:13 tells us that “whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved.”

 

How do you do that?  What IS the Name?  “That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow,” of things in heaven, earth and under the earth” in Philippians 2:10.

 

Then Paul says something curious:

 

"Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man's foundation:  But as it is written, To whom he was not spoken of, they shall see: and they that have not heard shall understand." - Romans 15:20-21.

 

“not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man’s foundation”.  He is talking about the future “name the name of Christ”:

 

"Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity." - 2 Timothy 2:19.

 

“And let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity”.

 

What NAME is he talking about?  Jesus’ name is all through the Gospels and the new Testament, but then, there is this:

 

"Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name." - Revelation 3:12.

 

“I will write upon him my new name”.  This said Jesus, to John, to put in the letter to the church of Philadelphia.

 

“My New Name” Jesus said.  Written upon he who overcomes.

 

Remember what David said in his praise to God:

 

"I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.  My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

 

Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them." - Psalm 139:14-16.

 

David also told us in Psalm 88:6-8 that he was “laid in the lowest pit” and  “made me an abomination unto them”. 

 

This is not a mystery to the elect.

 

When the chosen “call upon the Name of the Lord”, they are saved.  It is revealed to them through the Spirit.  And “every one that nameth the name of Christ” are them that depart from iniquity. They are changed.

 

Do you see evidence of the departing from iniquity from them that say they are Jews?

 

No.  No we do not.

 

 

 

Serving Purpose Upon the Table

 

Them that will “call upon the Name of the Lord” will understand that they called upon it in the Spirit, before God showed them in the “letter”.  Just as the daughter of Zion brought forth before she travailed; and before her pain came she was delivered of a man child (Isaiah 66:7-8).

 

Then, when she has travailed in pain to be delivered, she brings forth her “children”.

 

The table is set.  What is served upon it has to do with that man child: and the elect, the “remnant” of her seed.