Cities of Refuge | Part 9, Volume 2

When Jesus said, “It is finished” in John 19:30 KJV, He meant He had completed the battle of Armageddon that the first Adam created in Genesis 3. The Valley of Jezreel is a beautiful, fertile place described as a “promised land filled with milk and honey, “which the children of God left Egypt and traveled for forty years to find. Spiritually, we each have an opportunity to come to this valley, but it will be a battle of fighting the “kings of death” led by fear, offense, insecurities, rejection, and pride…the battles our ancestors had to deal with. Each time the Holy Spirit whispers in a still small voice within us of how beautiful and loved we are by God, and nothing can separate us from His love, there will be a voice from our past, our culture, our customs, and traditions that will try to get us to question that voice.

This is the experience Elijah had while running from Jezebel, recorded in 1 Kings 19. Elijah had beaten all her prophets by God honoring his decree to call down fire from heaven. He was in a place of spiritual superpower faith, yet afterward, Jezebel still had an intimidating spirit over him, causing fear to come upon his spirit. He was so exhausted from trying to run from her that when he came to a place in his spirit near the Valley of Jezreel, he just wanted to lie down and die. How many believers in Christ do you hear who can’t wait to die and go to heaven because of the issues of this world? Ever been in a place of total peace and harmony, only to run into someone by accident who made the hairs on your neck stand up?

This is our daily battle, balancing our identity in Jesus Christ, the lover of our soul, our PEACE, and our rest in eternity's presence, while being challenged by the voices of the world around us that seek to influence us to shift to our past or future in time. This is the battle we each go through daily: knowing we are married to the Lamb of God while in our natural bodies, yet, as we rule and reign with Him on earth, we battle against the spiritual kings who live in humanity, governing mountains of religion, politics, economics, education, families, healthcare, and entertainment (Revelation 16). Mystery Babylon must be recognized and destroyed. This is our own battle between what God is saying to us and what mankind says God said.

Jesus had to go to Samaria before the cross. It wasn’t the safest road to take, but this wasn’t about His safety. It was about meeting a woman who had already had five husbands and was presently living with a sixth man.  Five is the number of ‘grace,’ which is connected to love. She did not receive what she longed for in a husband, so she settled for living with number six for survival. “Jesus left Judea and departed again to Galilee.  He needed to go through Samaria. So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour” (John 4:3-6 NKJV).

Jesus had to go to the well where she was drawing water, not only for her personal awakening but also to lay a foundation for the body of Christ, the church, before the cross. This was Jacob’s well, which he gave to Joseph, located in the land of Shechem, the territory of his son Ephraim. Jacob knew the history of that land and the wrongs done to his daughter, Dinah. 

Dinah went out to visit the daughters of the land. She was a virgin, raped by the prince known as Shechem. After Dinah was raped, the King and Jacob reached a marriage agreement to preserve the families’ honor. Her brothers were not satisfied with the agreement between the fathers, so they took revenge against Prince Shechem and his men while the princes were healing from circumcision as part of the wedding agreement (Genesis 34).

Which mountain should I worship was her question to Jesus. Ask yourself from the paragraph above what areas of life in this world consume your attention?  What water are you drinking, and where is your water coming from? Is it “LIVING WATER?” She was suddenly transformed into a new creation because her heart and soul were being loved in a way she had never known before. We have a history of thousands of years in which Dinah, the daughter of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, did not receive a land inheritance, unlike her brothers. But through the bones of her brother Joseph, taken back to this place by Moses and the children of Israel when they left Egypt, the bloodline in the bones was established in the land. When Jesus goes to the well, He tells the woman that He is the Messiah, and that the waters He gives to her will become fountains of water springing up within her as eternal life (John 4:14).

She leaves her buckets and returns to the city, telling the men there, who wouldn’t have anything to do with her, that she had met the Messiah and that He knew everything about her (John 4:28-30). In an instant, she meets a man who becomes the lover of her soul in spirit and truth. There is no cross or resurrection forerunner event at this time. She becomes the first evangelist, establishing land rights promised by God to Abraham and given to a woman through the water of the WORD. Her name was Phebe, meaning light bearer. 

Jesus said, “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house” (Matthew 5:14-15 NKJV). 

“Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures” (James 1:16-18 NKJV).

God is God of ALL, but He is also the Father of LIGHTS, not sinners. He is Light, Life, and Love. He created all humanity in His image after His Kind. Whether we believe it or not does not change the finished work that He did before the foundations of the world. What matters is whether we believe we are who He says we are, or what other voices in the land say. Selah.