The Feast of Tabernacles is a collection of teachings by Richard Mikelson.

 

These teachings explore spiritual depths of influential texts of scripture,  and of the human condition.

The Well Within

It is true that there will come forth a priesthood, a Spirit-anointed body of Christian believers, a company of kings and priests, who bring redemptive blessings of the King of God to ALL the families of the earth. The Old Testament wonderfully typified and foreshadowed this in the priesthood given to Aaron and his sons in the nation of Israel. Under the covenant law given to Moses, the “anointing” was the ceremony by which the priests were installed in their service.

They were anointed to their office with a peculiar ointment, called the “Holy Anointing Oil”, used only upon the priests and kings. It was unlawful for anyone else to have or to make this oil under penalty of being cut off or shunned (Exodus 30:25-33,38). This oil typifies the Holy Spirit anointing whereby the followers of Jesus become immersed and sealed in the spirit of sonship. A royal priesthood is spiritually sealed, Fathered by God. Only the consecrated ones, the priests and kings, were ever to be thus anointed. When Jesus read the prophecy of Isaiah in the synagogue in Nazareth, He read the portion which declares:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me…"   Luke 4:18

The anointing of God was upon Jesus, and that is what marked Him and set Him apart from all other speakers at that synagogue. Beloved, IT IS THE ANOINTING OF GOD’S SPIRIT that marks and identifies mature sons with an anointed word of truth. An anointing to communicate the mind of Christ is needed, for without it the messages in fellowship become repetitious and lack spiritual insight. Unfortunately, many church ministers’ “lamps” are without anointed oil.

Jesus was ANOINTED WITH THE SPIRIT OF GOD. His anointing is not a partial anointing, nor the EARNEST OF THE SPIRIT which Christians have had since the early Pentecostal outpouring:

"He Who from above is coming is over all. He who is of the earth is of the earth and of the earth is speaking; He Who is coming out of heaven is over all. What He has seen and hears, this He is testifying, and not one is getting His testimony. He who is getting His testimony sets his seal that God is true. For he Whom God commissions is speaking God's declarations, for God is not giving the spirit by measure."   John 3:31-34 concordant

God has poured out His Spirit on flesh in the Pentecostal levels of His house. The flesh thus far has used it for its own end, not completing the purpose God intended. The purpose of receiving the Holy Ghost is not to make us shout, dance, and feel good, nor to enable us to speak in tongues, heal a few sick folks, and get our prayers answered. That holy purpose was to baptize us, overpower us by the Holy Spirit in order to CHANGE us.

The Holy Spirit is sent as purification within our spirit to bring us into a oneness of spirit. An alignment of spiritual rule from within brings God’s life into our spirit to save our soul. Within our spirit we are changed from WEAKNESS TO STRENGTH. We grow from one glory to further glories by faith growing up into the Godhead, into His wisdom and His knowledge. We are connected to God in all things belonging to sons.

We are to be fulfilling the heartbeat of God's purpose in manifesting THE FULLNESS OF GOD’S ANOINTING in His called out people. He has chosen a people to dwell within, a company of Christian believers called to the third heaven — the third day, the third feast, the Feast of Tabernacles — in a fullness thus far known only by our glorious Forerunner and Head, Jesus Christ. It is promised that God's glory shall fill all our earthly members:

"Arise! Become resplendent! For your light has come, And the glory of Yahweh, it is radiant upon you. For behold, the darkness, it shall cover the earth, And murkiness the folkstems, Yet Yahweh shall be radiant upon you, And His glory, it shall be seen over you. And nations will go to your light, And kings to the brightness of your radiance."   Isaiah 60:1-3 concordant

“The works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works than these shall ye do.”   John 14:12

Kingdom saints shall no longer receive merely the forgiveness of sins in an in-part church portion, but get a FULL DELIVERANCE AND TRANSFORMATION into full sonship. This includes deliverance from sinful human limitations and freedom from death itself. We thank God for the earnest of the spirit, but now He would have us press on to receive THE FULLNESS OFFERED. I wonder how God could ever heal the many hurts of Christian brethren? How can he restore all the wasteful experiences of earthly mindedness? It is only when I get a glimpse, a taste, a touch of HIS POWERFUL LOVE and sense its GLORY that I realize every member of His body shall be like Him.

Jesus is ANOINTED above His fellows, so we are anointed of God to understand all these things are possible. We know that our Father will bring full restoration to pass with POWER and GLORY. God has determined to establish judgments of righteousness and justice for all, an order of life bringing peace to all the people who have ever lived on the earth.

There is only one anointed life in the whole universe that can be counted on:

He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life.”   I John 5:12

Again,

He that believes on the Son hath eternal life; but he that obeys not the Son shall not see life”.   John 3:36

We should simply see this: unless a man has the anointed life of God, he does not have life. Thus, according to God’s own definition, only His Life is Life. Apart from His quality of Life, other forms of created life cannot be counted as Life. The natural life of man is under the power of inherent death, as is inherent in all the forms of created life on earth. What man calls life is really a form of death working, but Adam did not start out under death’s scourge:

“In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”   Genesis 2:17

The natural world does not generate God’s lasting life. It cannot perpetuate God life. It only generates and perpetuates a temporary form of earthly life unto death of body and soul. A human baby is alive when it is born, only to live a while and then die. The life forms on the earth are created of temporal matter,  breathing, blood-circulating, temporarily existing in physical bodies that are mortal. God's life is not mortal. There is no death in Jesus!

God's life is without beginning or ending, existing by itself and ever unchangeable. The incredible sharing of that Life by the anointing of His Spirit brings a new level of life and understanding into our spirit. God anoints our quickened spirit to recognize His Life, to know the reality of His divine life. Thus He completely fulfills the scriptural promises of life within our inner spiritual man, forming a spiritual body within us.

It is not enough merely to acquire knowledge as Christian newborns, such as knowing church rules and spending our life in good works. We must experience further spiritual growth to have Christ formed WITHIN our inner spiritual man until we are mature. Those who are mature have a spiritual body that is alive with Christ, a spiritual person who never dies. This is one who grows up into the Godhead, one He calls UP HITHER to the throne realm in order to feast on the fat things He has prepared in the unseen. God is alive and He is giving our inner spiritual man HIS LIFE. This works within our spirit, causing us to grasp all that God is providing for His sons and daughters.

Jesus made a statement which no self-centered man could ever make. He said:

“For as the Father hath life in Himself; so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself.”  John 5:25-26

The LIFE of God, our Father, is and was in His son Jesus and He is the first born of many brethren. God’s life can be placed within us. It is not derived from any created source nor dependent upon any natural earthly sustenance. His inherent life is spiritual. God is a spirit. Jesus, while on earth, could say truthfully, “I AM the LIFE,” when no other man could truthfully say that.

Today, God’s quickening life is flowing to those whose inner spirit can see, hear and understand His Spirit. He quickens those individuals He teaches by spirit in their inner spiritual man. Holy Anointing Oil flows from Christ the Head to Christ the body. God is giving His followers a complete portion of His SELF-EXISTENT LIFE.

Just like the firstborn Son is alive, the members of the body of Christ now can say, “AS THE FIRST BORN SON HATH LIFE IN HIMSELF; so hath He given to the members of His body to HAVE LIFE IN THEMSELVES.” What other qualities should Christians receive except the spiritual self-existent life of God our Father? Paul, apprehended of God, declared:

"it is no longer I that live but Christ that lives in me! "   Galatians 2:20

This is the quality of life that all creation groans for:

“For even the whole creation waits expectantly and longs earnestly for God’s sons to be made known – waits for the revealing, the disclosing of their sonship. For… the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and corruption and gain an entrance into the glorious freedom of God’s children.”   Romans 8:19,21 concordant

This is not a manifestation after the orders of Pentecostal church nor that order which Jesus manifested while on earth. The glory of His earthly ministry is not the glory we anticipate. Neither is it how we know Him now, as He is no longer a baby in a manger. The whole creation is unknowingly in travail for HIS LIFE. His Life is the glory to which we are all called of God to apprehend. We know Him as the One who ascended into God’s glory after His sacrificial death, burial, and resurrection, as He prayed when His earthly mission was completed:

“And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.”   John 17:5

Paul wrote:

“Whenever Christ, our life, should be manifested, then you also shall be manifested together with Him in glory…”   Colossians 3:4 concordant

And Peter declared,

“Now the God of all grace, Who calls you into His eonian glory in Christ.”   I Peter 5:10 concordant

So many of the Lord’s dear children do not understand simple but sublime truths. These truths can unlock and open heaven within our spiritual mind and bring us closer to oneness with the SELF-EXISTENT LIFE of God. How many weak and weary saints are constantly running around from meeting to meeting, from revival to revival, from preacher to preacher, from group to group, SEEKING some kind of further blessing. Blessing seekers are yet babes in Christ.

Certainly there is nothing wrong with being a babe, if you have been a babe for only a short time. But Christian babes should grow up fast because they CAN grow up FAST! We can always spot babes in Christ because their main focus is on themselves. Babies are loved because they are so innocent, weak, and helpless. Yet babies are often in a mess, often have need of a diaper change, have a pain somewhere, are hungry or thirsty, are too cold or too hot. In all these situations the one universally recognized fact about babies is that THEY CAN NEVER DO ANYTHING ABOUT THEIR PROBLEMS THEMSELVES. So they CRY OUT!

Babes are totally dependent upon what others can and must do for them. Someone else must always be meeting their needs. If a babe in Christ gets changed, someone else must change him. If a babe in Christ gets fed, someone must prepare the food and put it in his mouth. If a babe in Christ gets bathed, someone must do it for him. Babes in Christ cannot solve their problems from within, they must all be ministered to from without.

The churches argue over just what this need is for babes in Christ. Thus we see, in the “30 to 60 fold” realms of Christian ranks, believers have three basic characteristics: (1) babes in Christ have more problems than most older folk (2) the babe is dependent upon these other folk, for they are unable to do anything for themselves (3) when a babe has a need they let it be known until someone comes and meets their need.

This pictures what happens in church fellowships concerned with catering to birthing and raising born again believers. Yet these same church programs HOLD them in teachings that do not promote spiritual growth to maturity. Rather, churches are focused on producing and maintaining more tithing babes.

Jesus, as a Son of the Father, did not come to earth to receive blessings — to be changed, fed, or ministered to — for WITHIN HIM WAS HIS FATHER"S LIFE. He did not come to be ministered to but TO GIVE LIFE, because HE HAD LIFE IN HIMSELF, as the Father was spiritually within Him. In that spiritual relationship of Father and Son is contained every element of God’s promise of LIFE even for us. The same victory over death is promised us. All His righteousness and all the power that could ever be needed to raise and place us as overcoming sons is also available to us!

When a Son needs more power, he does not cry out to others for answers. His need is contained within his inner spiritual connection with our Father. Godly life force is not dependent upon anyone else, for it is GOD'S SELF-EXISTENT LIFE, a life derived of all-sufficient and unchanging Spirit. We Christians are challenged to grow up and know we are a three part being — body, soul, and spirit — and to know that our spirit is fathered of God.

Mature Christians have Christ formed within their inner spiritual man. Nothing brings greater joy to Jesus than having the members of His body grow up into the Head:

“…unto the end that we should all attain to the unity of the faith and of the realization of the son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature of the complement (fullness) of the Christ, that we may by no means still be minors, surging hither and thither and being carried about by every wind of teaching, by human caprice, by craftiness with a view to the systematizing of the deception.

Now, being true, in love we should be making all grow into Him, Who is the Head- Christ-out of Whom the entire body, being articulated together and united through every assimilation of the supply, in accord with the operation in measure of each one's part, is making for the growth of the body, for the upbuilding of itself in love.   Ephesians 4:13-16 concordant

We seek Him not for the outer blessings of healings, the offices of church authority, the temporal glory of religious pomp, but for the ANOINTING that illuminates our spiritual mind, giving us mighty revelation of the eternal realities of our Father. Our Father makes an abode within the spirit of His sons in the “100 fold” realm of the Feast of Tabernacles where He can feed and lead them by His anointed Spirit.

Jesus shared with the Samaritan woman one of the most profound and blessed truths of the ages. He said that He had water to give her. If she once drank this water, she could throw away her water pots because His water would become a mighty artesian well WITHIN HER, springing up into eonian life. Any time Christians have to go outside the WELL WITHIN to drink, they are going to be partaking of the passing order and will be thirsty again.

Most Christians are not trained in church fellowship to focus on that well that is within their spirit. They are taught to submit to church authority set in pastors, bishops, and popes, etc. But God’s life is placed within mature Christians. Our Father’s promise of Life is appearing within our spirit continually, as a well of water within us. It is the only source that satisfies our thirst, making us become one with the Father's Spirit from within. So Jesus told the Samaritan woman:

"Everyone who is drinking of this (natural) water will be thirsting again, yet whoever may be drinking of the water which I shall be giving him, shall under no circumstances be thirsting for the eon, but the water which I shall be giving him will become in him a spring of water, welling up into life eonian."   John 4:14 concordant

No more following “water pot” ministries across the country, no more “buckets” of knowledge dredged up by digging deeper into the Greek, no more drawing from literal understandings of God’s Word, no more searching back and forth looking for answers, no more thirst, no more effort, no more sweating it out anxiously. All that has been replaced by Christ ruling within our inner spiritual person, THE WELL God has fathered within us!

He has quickened our spirit, made it alive, taught us His word, and measured our Christian growth to qualify us for the place of a son. The key is opening our lives to Jesus Christ until He comes by Spirit to quicken our spiritual connection to God, the Father of our spirit:

Christ in you the hope of glory.”   Colossians 1:27

Christian maturity is in the third heaven, the third Day, the third feast where full sonship overcomes death to perfection. There is granted the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. All of this and more is given and found in that blessed finding whereby we know by experience that we indeed HAVE ENTERED THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD’S DAY WITHIN OUR BEING.

Our well within has sprung up with God’s kingdom truths, a spring of God Life within us that flows out to change man’s soulish thinking, ESPECIALLY OUR OWN. It liberates us from every yoke that has ruled over our own spiritual being. It brings the KING’S RULE into focus within our temple until we have inner unity with His abiding Spirit!

Beloved, this is not the time to be drinking waters from the broken cisterns of Babylon, that woman “called” His church. We cannot enter this DAY on the church’s claims of righteous pursuits or by speaking in religious terminology. The church systems dominated by man’s interpretation of scripture are marked with the understandings of MYSTERY BABYLON.

This is the hour to turn from all that, as ONLY A WORKING WELL WITHIN can fully teach us the victory of CHRIST BEING THE CONQUEROR WITHIN EACH OF US. We are letting HIM be formed by Spirit to then SPRING FORTH to VICTORY from within us.

This is what His Spirit has taught us. We have learned to drink and be satisfied with the water which He supplies DEEP within our spirit. It is this coming of Christ within each of us which we see as the only HOPE for real change. Yet God must reveal it to each of us. There comes a time when we need to cease wandering from city to city to find water, expecting to find Him in meeting with others. Now we need to exercise drawing the substance of God out of the well within, to worship God with the waters which spring up ever so quietly within to satisfy our soul’s thirst for truth.

Know that as you yield to obey His directions FROM WITHIN YOUR SPIRIT, He shall spring up and flow out to refresh, liberate, and sustain YOU DISTINCTLY, giving The sense of understanding Him. God will certainly be stripping away any and all of the old props upon which we have trusted. He is taking away all those little faucets we used to visit for our refreshing drinks. He who so graciously provided all the oasis of refreshing along our pilgrimage now desires that we come directly to HIM.

We are to draw water from Him, to the end of finding HIM within our well, a wonderful and bountiful supply of God's LIFE evermore welling up unto age lasting LIFE:

"Now on the last, the great day of the festival Jesus stood and cries, saying, ‘If anyone should be thirsting, let him come to Me and drink. He who is believing in Me, according as the scripture said, out of his bowel (inner spirit) shall gush rivers of living water.’ Now this He said concerning the spirit which those believing in Him were about to get. For not as yet was holy spirit given, for Jesus is not as yet glorified."   John 7:37-39 concordant

He is glorified now and has dug a deep well within you by quickening your spirit. He will supply the water of His Word and Spirit in that well that you are. “BEHOLD, the tabernacle of God is with men”, BEHOLD GOD’S LIFE WITHIN YOUR SPIRIT. This oneness of Spirit happens because God is OUR FATHER. He rests inside the firstborn Son and now allows us access to that same reality.

DO NOT LET ANYTHING HINDER YOUR GROWTH INTO CHRISTIAN MATURITY! Look within your spirit for God. He is your Father. Draw from that well Christ dug out within you. You will have a part in Kingdom ministry that is destined to rule even the nations of this world with a rod of iron. No matter when that time comes, you will be prepared and devoted to the most satisfying aspect of Christian reward possible.

The Times of the Gentiles

The Wilderness