Crossing a Threshold: Rediscovering Intimacy with Christ

Are we just repeating the same thing over and over each year at annual holiday events? Is God trying to do something new and we are telling God “No!” Because of tradition we must do the same thing over and over, which is only going to get the same results of celebration...because it is tradition?

Easter or Passover season in the spring of each year would be one of those holiday events we often repeat the same celebration each year. We acknowledge the cross, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Often, we also acknowledge the Passover season of the Torah and Moses with our Christian celebration. There is a place in our heart that longs for everyone to know the foundational message of this holiday, however, there is little presented afterwards of the resurrection life of Christ as us today because of these holidays.

Let’s be honest: holidays often feel like we’re caught in a spiritual version of Groundhog Day. The decorations go up, the same songs play, and we attend services where we already know the ending. Jesus rises, hallelujah! And then what?

Don’t get me wrong, I love the pageantry. Who doesn’t enjoy rainbow colors at Easter or a nativity scene at Christmas? But is it possible we’re so focused on tradition that we miss the transformation? Traditions can sometimes become the very thing that keeps us from transforming. “Are you open to stepping beyond tradition into deeper intimacy with Christ?”

Consider how we celebrate Easter or Passover. We remember the cross and celebrate the empty tomb—but then what? We celebrate that Jesus arose from the dead, but what about us? 

We rarely move beyond remembrance to embrace the resurrection life Jesus gave us at the ascension. Scripture tells us: “I have come that they may have life and have it to the full” (John 10:10). This isn’t just eternal life after death; it’s abundant, Spirit-filled life right now.

The resurrection was never meant to be the finish line, it’s the starting point of a transformed life. One beautiful way to reflect on this is through the 50-day journey from the resurrection to Pentecost, often called Counting the Omer.

In these 40 days, Jesus didn’t just show up to prove He was alive; He prepared His disciples for a deeper understanding of His identity and theirs, then gave them a visual of Him ascending into the clouds for them to ponder and meditate for ten days together. Pentecost marked the beginning of their Spirit-empowered mission, and the same Spirit is available to us today.

Our salvation is not based on counting the Omer, but a blessing of a relationship to get to know Jesus as the resurrection and not just the signs, wonders, and miracles while He was in human form before the cross. This 50-day journey is a “dating season” with Jesus as the WORD in letters, numbers, colors, frequencies, and symbols to unveil the mystic finished work of Jesus Christ, and what He accomplished as Christ in us. What does that mean to us today? 

Jesus said that He would not leave us as orphans, and He would come to us because the Spirit was in us that the world could not see with their natural sight (John 14:8-9). It is a pathway of growth and development to John’s words that are established in Scripture, “As He is, so am I today in this world” (1 John 4:17). So, who am I? You are not just saved with a ticket to heaven; but have also been called to live as a reflection of Christ’s love, power, and authority.

The reason I am saying we need to revisit this is because oftentimes we do not realize that there are several covenants that God has made with us in relationship with Him. He is not looking to keep us as children. He is looking forward to coming for His bride. As His bride, that event is a one-day occurrence. We may consider it to be a thousand-year event as one day, but it still should have an awareness of something for us beyond becoming a bride.

In that one day, or a thousand years, that one moment, of time becoming a bride also awakens us into Brideship. With our new name as a bride of Christ, we receive the nature, and the identity, of the Lamb of God – Christ. Besides the ceremony of the wedding, and the banqueting table of marriage to the Lamb, there is also the consummation of marriage. What does that look like being married to the Lamb of God – Christ as one in the Resurrection of Spirit, Father, and Son?

All of these are intimate covenant relationships with Jesus Christ as the Resurrection. All these relationships: Brideship ceremony, wedding feast, and marriage bed - are on a personal level first with Christ, and then Christ in each of us moving into a corporate level. As we move corporately, we join with the joints of the body of Christ, like in our arms and our legs and our hips, coming together as one body in Christ. This is a place in our heart that says there is only one Body, one Spirit, one Father, all in all (Ephesians 4). 

Wrapping our brain around that, is not a male and female gender issue, a race or culture issue, or a language issue. It is about Jesus Christ, Him crucified, and Him resurrected to bring the fullness of Christ all in all – the head and body as one new man – CHRIST (Jesus and the Bride, Colossians 3:11). For God is all in all, and nothing is impossible to and for God in what He has created (1 Corinthians 12:6).

God did not screw up the “In the Beginning,” nor was Jesus God’s plan B if Adam screwed up eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. God did not mess up on His creation of some of humanity, and then others He did an excellent job. No, He has a purpose and a plan for each person, a unique plan for only that individual for His creative purpose. So, as we encounter trials and tribulations trying to sort out where God is while we are enduring them, we must keep our foundation that God did not change His plan for today in each of our lives.

Let us rethink some of these things. God desires for us to have a relationship closer with Him in intimacy and oneness releasing His name, nature, and authority into the earth. At same time, we come against strongholds causing us to feel hopeless, stuck, spiraling, and depressed. These strongholds we encounter we often try to figure out a way of attack or going around with logic and reason. We tend to blame others, or say to ourselves, “if only this or that” would be the change we need to move forward in our relationship with Christ. Unfortunately, anything we do with reasoning, logic, or our own method that might make a change with strongholds are temporary solutions, and the enemy of God loves to play that war.

It is necessary for us to ignore those temporary solutions by making a total shift change to forgive and bless. It is in the death of our self-preservation found in our ego that we become resurrected in Christ. If in the dying portion of our self-effort we try to figure out who we are, we are going to keep on playing that same game over and over and over. 

Jesus is saying, "Who do you say I am?" Once, we acknowledge who Jesus is after the Resurrection, we then have a space in our heart to hear Him say to us, “As I am, so are you today in this world,” because who I AM, so are you!

You see, when we start pulling back the layers of when we say, "Well, who am I?" And somebody says, "Hey, tell me about yourself. Who are you?" We often respond with a variety of identities like wife, husband, mother, father, daughter, son, etc. We might add the titles and descriptions of our occupations, names of our children or siblings, what school we went to, or even where we have lived. 

For example: I have three amazing children, a wife of 40+ years, I have several degrees of formal education from several different universities, and an entrepreneur of several companies. But when I pull those things away, who is the real me if none of those things were mentioned?  When we go to a funeral and the obituary is giving off who this person was that just died, what are the things that are usually shared about them? Usually there is a list of being a father, mother, brother, sister, daughter, or son. But if that person did not have any of those extra connections, no titles, no job positions, no children, no spouse, relationship with their parents, siblings, or family connections of any kind, who is that person?

This is you who God desires to have a relationship with...the unique person of who you are. God said you are beautifully and perfectly made and that He knew you, intimacy before you were conceived in your mother's womb (Psalm 139, Jeremiah 1:5). That relationship is when we are born again from when He created us in the beginning of Eternity. God desires that relationship of oneness in Christ to be manifested in the earth in and through us as brides of Christ to wife. 

Until we get into that relationship with Him pulling everything, we have identified ourselves with a side to where we ourselves can say, I am light, I am life and I am love, and that there is no darkness, we have work to do. Can we keep saying that?

So, how do we get to that? We must expect that darkness and life challenges are going to hit us. Trials and tribulations are going to try to stop us from obtaining this intimacy with Christ. However, amid those, it is our opportunity for patience to have her perfect work by us counting it all joy. It is our door opening into the unseen realm of glory and say to our beloved husband, Jesus Christ, "Even though I may be walking through the valley of the shadow of death, I know that you're there with me. I know that you are my comforter. I know that you have never left me or forsaken me. Even though this flesh may die, I am alive because it is not about my flesh, it is about my spirit being in oneness with my beloved husband. Bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh.”

Apostle Paul talked about the armor of God in the book of Ephesians in the Scriptures. In Ephesians chapter six, he tells us to put on armor. Growing up I was taught this armor was a Roman soldier’s attire he wore. That is the way it was presented. Later, as I grew closer into my intimacy with Christ, I found out, no, it is a priestly garment. It is not a Roman soldier's garment. So, I revisited it as a priestly anointing in recognition of putting on that armor. Reading Paul’s words in Ephesian 6:12, “I do not fight with flesh and blood, but I fight with powers and principalities in heavenly places,” caused me to ask the question, where are these heavenly places?

If we go with the religious concept that Christianity teaches, we think that heavenly places is when we die and cross over to an unseen realm just as our loved ones have done. But Paul is talking about while we are on the earth AND ALIVE in our natural body. We are fighting in heavenly places with powers and principalities that have rights. These are strongholds. So, if we use a lot of our Christian concept of binding and loosening, we may be doing something that is causing a hindrance instead of helping to bring our relationship of oneness of Christ into manifestation in the earth.

We are in a season where there is so much mental health. We have so many doctors, so many medical issues that were not a part of our mental health in the past. We have insurance that allows for payments for mental health situations because of the common crisis around the world. We also have the capability of talking about it. You do not have to hide it. And yet we have such a crisis of suicides, of younger people that are dealing with the identity of who they are. Are they even loved? Crisis' that we do not really know as a church other than just binding and loosening and saying that is right or wrong, but what is God really saying?

Crossing thresholds to become the bride of Christ who prepares herself (Revelation 21) requires a radical shift that deals with spiritual and emotional strongholds. Strongholds can be fallen cherubim's that have rights of keeping you from the fullness of walking in your identity. They may be fallen angels, but they did not lose their identity and nature that goes with that identity. Strongholds act as gatekeepers rooted in fear, identity struggles, or cultural norms. They create spiritual, emotional, and mental barriers that create a whisper lie devaluing the full potential of life we were created to be in Christ today. 

With the feast days of the Lord, we have Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. Passover is a blood covenant. Pentecost is about identity, and Tabernacles...is about intimacy in oneness with God created for our timeline seasons to grow in Christ. Many of the church today are waiting for tabernacles for the Lord's return, or when the Lord desires to tabernacle in the future. If you know the Holy Spirit is with you and in you, the tabernacling of Jesus Christ and the Father are also with you every single moment, every single day because the three are one, and the one is omnipresent. Where you are, they are there too.

If we do not understand that though, we are looking for someday for the Lord's return. And Jesus Christ is saying, "But I'm here." With the tabernacle in us is awakened to our spirit man the truth is unveiled that today we are one in Christ. It is a threshold crossing over. You see, with the tabernacles is when you know that you are married to the lamb of God and He has lifted you up and He is calling you beloved and you are calling him husband. And He is carrying you over the threshold. Talk about being swept off your feet consumed in LOVE.

Then we move into the salt covenant. The salt covenant is the consummation. However, we first must get to that threshold. Much of the body of Christ is still stuck in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but they are not counting the Omer of one day with the Lord as the resurrection, to be joined together in the Pentecostal moment of one voice of the Holy Spirit. And in that one voice, understanding that now we are married to the lamb. And in that marriage, there is this oneness that He is carrying you, sweeping you off your feet.

He said His yolk was easy. He is carrying us into that. What is stopping us? What stops us from getting that threshold carried through the door? And who has the right to stop us at the threshold? This is where we get into strongholds. This is where we get where Jesus says, "Satan, get behind me." This is where you rebuke the devil, and he will flee. But you do not even know what or who the devil is. You do not know what that looks like. The devil roams around believers like a roaring lion. He knows the Scriptures. He also recognizes the anointing of the Holy Spirit...when present and when He is not present.

Some key factors of the tactic of the enemy of God are not if they profess to be a Christian receiving Jesus as their Lord and Savior, or if they can quote Scripture. Most of western Christianity are great sharing a gospel of being a sinner and saying a sinner’s prayer to get a ticket to heaven but teach extraordinarily little on raising the children of God to take authority as sons and daughters of the Most High God to rule and reign on the earth today. If we look at what God is doing on a global level, because the earth belongs to the Lord and the fullness thereof, we can ask the question what is God saying around the world? Are we eating left-over food each week when we assemble as the body of Christ? Teachings from the past? Or are we unveiling what our Heavenly Father desires us to know today for His Kingdom on the earth to rule and reign?

Many of the signs and wonders and miracles shared today are simply repeated from what has been manifested over centuries. It happened a hundred or more years ago. Today we live in an age of information where at our fingertips we can search for ministers and pastors that are hearing things in other countries, countries that we normally do not identify with because that is not our country. Since they are surrounded by other dominate strongholds than what we find in the USA, they have different armor strategies along with different unveilings of the Kingdom of God in the earth.

One of my fun places I enjoy listening to what God is saying and doing is from believers in Australia. He says a lot of beautiful relationship intimacy with Him that are not common in Western Christianity. On a global time zone, that is the first area, when we have December 31st, the first New Year's Eve of the earth crossing over into a new era. They get to shoot fireworks off first, and because of technology, we get to watch it even though we still must wait twelve hours in America. They have already celebrated 12 hours of a new day, a new exciting moment. The same thing applies for what God is doing as a new creation in Christ. And the old man is gone. What is He really, really saying?

When Moses crossed the Red Sea, and he is the first one to cross it and put his feet on new soil that was not the Egyptian soil, what a moment only for him...the first one. There are still 3 million people (about the population of Arkansas) coming behind him that are living in fear and darkness and anxiety, and they can hear the chariots behind them of their enemy. But Moses had already crossed over giving Moses an eagle's view of being able to look back and see the enemy of ALL the people of God, and see the water split, and see the people coming across and none were lost. Moses was able to know the exact moment and time of oneness for the waters to come together demolish and drown out all the enemy in one moment. Moses saw the bigger picture while everyone else was in panic mode.

The people at the tail end of crossing the Red Sea did not know what was going on. They were trying to escape from their enemy in fear. But there is a moment in time for every one of us to hear from the Lord, see the mountain before us, and say, "Not on my watch." Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is already established in the heavens. And it is the heavens that we are war faring. What does that warfare look like? 

Do strongholds hold you from being sweep off your feet as the bride of Christ being carried over by Jesus into the mansion, He has prepared for you in your heart to tabernacle with Him today?