Willows By Water Courses

Psalm 137: 1- 6

By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion.

 On the willows there we hung up our Harps.

 For there our captors required of us songs,

and our tormentors, mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How shall we sing the Lord's song IN A FOREIGN LAND?

If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill!

If I do not remember you, let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth.

  When your armor is your fragrance, you bear an impenetrable garment.  Scripture reference  Isaiah 61:3 To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the OIL of joy for mourning, the “garment of praise” for the spirit of heaviness. I was in Georgia,  USA, in 2012, when in a church service with my arms raised,    I experienced a vision of a woman   seeing branches rapidly springing up over her head and shoulders from a cluster of colorful fruit inset in her chest.       These living branches seemed to be rising up from a ‘bow’ shaped bough that was hanging low and slightly tilted.  As I pondered this experience, I began to understand more revelation of the vision placed before me!   In the vision, the (bough) was full of fruit and inset in her breast.   In seeing this fruit inset in her chest,  I was drawn to Song of Solomon  chapter 1 :13, 14. A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwist my breast. My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi. The portion of scripture that stood out to me was "a bundle of myrrh is my beloved that lies all night betwixt my breast."  Ephesians chapter 5 verse 1 says: “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.” As we hold close the fruit of love which denotes Jesus as our (“bundle of myrrh") , we BECOME imitators of God. In other words, what we feed on we become, and what we feed on feeds on us!  If we are imitators of God, as Paul is asking that we are, then we reveal God's love through our love for one another.  A bundle of Myrrh is reflective of the sacrificial love of God that dwells within each believer.   We are a dwelling place in which we live by the Spirit. We are being joined together, one to another, and raised into a holy temple in Christ.  The love for "THE BELOVED", or one another causes our fruits of LOVE ( Myrrh) to “rise up” as a fragrant pour, and our leaves to be a healing to one another!    Revelations 22:2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. Hallelujah!  Praise the Lord!         Our living aroma this cluster, comes from the bundle we hold close. It says in scripture: He raises us "AS ONE" in Christ together forming a house, a dwelling place in which God lives by his Spirit!   What is the cluster? It is the body of Christ!  Leviticus 16: 12-13 “Then he must take a censer full of burning coals from the altar before the LORD, and two handfuls of finely ground fragrant incense, and bring them inside the veil.  He is to put the incense on the fire before the LORD, and the cloud of incense will cover the mercy seat above the Testimony, so that he will not die." When the Body of Christ becomes that blend , we rise up as a fragrance! This is the incense that rises as a CLOUD!   If we are willing to be crushed together (when one hurts we all hurt) then we are truly a blending of HEARTS that bears a mantle, an armor, a GARMENT  that the enemy can not penetrate! This is what unity truly looks like!  In all we do, God has called us HIS "Fragrant PRAISE!"  This fragrance cannot be produced artificially, or by what you know how to do. It takes the agape love of God to produce this fragrance. Psalm 45 “All Your garments are scented with myrrh and aloes and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, by which they have made You glad.” Only in the crushing, and the blending of hearts, do we enter into the HOLY of HOLIES! It is only in the crushing that God mantles us with HIS armor!  When we are willing to be crushed TOGETHER , we are healed TOGETHER!  This blend... "myrrh, cinnamon, calamus, cassia" and olive oil…blended as one becomes a symbol of the LOVE we have for one another!  Ephesians 6:11-13   “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.  For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness in this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” The emphasis here is the “whole” armor, meaning when disunity, or when LOVE for one another is not operating , the body cannot rise up and fight against the enemy of our souls.  Zechariah 9:13 “I will bend Judah as I bend my bow and fill it with Ephraim. I will rouse your sons, Zion, against your sons, Greece, and make you like a warrior’s sword.”   The ARMOR of GOD produces a YIELDED AND SURRENDERED HEART full of SERVANTHOOD, or works in love!  It is  important to share our pain, our hurts,  with one another within the body.  It’s important we learn to reach out to those around us forging connections, and developing, holy clusters!! These “holy clusters” weave  hearts  “as ONE!” This is our fragrant garment of praise!  It’s  a uniquely woven blend of life!  Each  strand  is so   individually intertwined. It forms  an impenetrable armor! It renders  darkness, and ruling powers, and spiritual hosts of wickedness powerless.  This is the armor that mature believers wear, because they have learned that intimacy with the beloved keeps you faithful in the storm. These fragrant hearts are bendable, flexible, and lightweight, able to frolic in the river of God, recently washed and newly shorn. Psalm 3:5 “For His anger is but for a moment, but His favor is for a lifetime, or in His favor is life. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” As we partake of His Holy bread of communion we are being transformed into one Holy Loaf rising up “golden” as one!  You see… when we refuse to share our sufferings, we cannot partake in the rejoicing together!  1 Corinthians 12:26 “If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts rejoice with it". Colossians 3: 13,14 “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.  And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” I wrote this some years ago, while contemplating the table of showbread in Moses’s Tabernacle.  The Bread of His face We are his Lush loaf of life. We are being transformed  from “broken soul pieces” to “one loaf” then broken again, but this time broken for His pleasure. He consumes that broken bread of communion, of fellowship, that sweet loaf, an offering of love … a holy blend, an offering of our fragrance rising up… to Him!  Where we were once broken, we are  now bound up together, hearts interlocked  as one  colorful loaf of fragrant communion!  This divine communion transforms, transfigures us in our Innermost. This mystical eating, bountiful dining is the Bread of His Presence. As we partake of this connection,  we war in unity together! Dear Brethren, When  we break bread  together, consistently -communing with each other intimately, sharing our hurts, pain etc., this  is the bread we break! This bread forges a covering, a garment that the enemy cannot pierce!  That is why it says: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as you see the day approaching.  Hebrews 10:25 If we break bread together we stay together!  In this “intimacy” our praise rises as a braided loaf of life connecting in perfect harmony! Prophetic word from Herald Chamberlain early 2000. You are a very expensive perfume and your fragrance will catch the nostrils of so many. They will want to know why you smell this way. It will be the presence of the anointing that they see.   They will smell and want it, for it is more costly than the world can buy. The Lord will allow you to bring a fragrance that will truly be heavenly.