TIMES OF REFRESHING IN THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD

ACTS 3:1. Peter and John went to the Temple one afternoon to take part in the three o’clock
prayer service and as they approached the Temple a man was there, who had been lame
from birth, and who was carried every day to one of the temple gates called ‘the gate
Beautiful’, where he would beg for money from the people who entered the temple. When
he saw Peter and John about to enter the temple he asked them for some money Peter and
John looked intently at the man and told him to look back at them. He gave them his full
attention because he thought they were about to give him some money.

Then Peter said to him ‘Look, I don’t have any money, but there is something I do have that
I am going to give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and start walking.
Peter took the man by his right hand and began to lift him up, and straightaway the man’s
feet and ankle bones became firm and strong. He stood up and began to walk around then
he started leaping about. He entered the temple with Peter and John, still leaping about
and praising God.Everybody was staring at him as he walked around praising God. They
realized he was the lame beggar they had seen so often at The Beautiful Gate and they
were overwhelmingly surprised! They all rushed out to Solomon’s Hall, where he was
holding tightly to Peter and John! Everyone stood there awed by the wonderful thing that
had happened.
When Peter saw this he addressed the crowd, saying, ‘All you Israelites, what are you
staring at us like that for? As if it was something to do with our holiness or our power that
caused this man to walk. The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and of our forefathers
has done this to glorify his Son Jesus, whom you handed over to Pilate and rejected, even
when Pilate himself was determined to set him free. You have rejected the Holy and Just
One and pleaded for a murderer to be set free in his place. You have killed the Prince of
Life, whom God has raised from the dead. We are witnesses to the fact that he rose from
the dead and is still alive.

It is all about him and who he is and what he does, and faith in his name has made this
man, whom you all know and recognize, healed and strong. It is the faith that comes from
Jesus that has given this man perfect soundness before your very eyes. But it is clear to me
now that you and your spiritual leaders did all of those things in complete ignorance.
However, it is also clear that God had declared to you all about Christ and his suffering
through the prophets, and these prophesies have now been fulfilled. So now you need to
repent by accepting a totally new mindset, and change your whole way of life, and let your
sins be cancelled out.

Then you will know times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. And God will send
Jesus Christ back, as has been proclaimed. But he must stay in Heaven until in God’s time
everything is restored to the fulfillment of what has been prophesied through the prophets
since the beginning of time. Moses said, ‘The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet
like me from among your own people (Jesus). Listen carefully to everything he tells you.’
Then Moses said, ‘Anyone who will not listen to that Prophet (Jesus) will be completely cut
off from God’s people. Every prophet starting with Samuel, spoke about what is happening
today. You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers,
saying to Abraham, 'And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.' God,
having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to you people first, to bless you, in turning
every one of you away from your iniquities.’
The Bible says that the old Levitical priesthood of Israel could not fulfill the
completeness of what God’s will was for his people in the Earth (Hebrews 7:11). Jesus
has been given a special priesthood ministry from Heaven, called the ‘Priesthood of
Melchizedek’ which ushers us into his presence, drawing us into being bonded with him
and God the Father through the Holy Spirit. This priesthood ministry brings about the
completeness of what God’s will is for his people in the Earth. We are heading towards
that time of fulfillment through Jesus, determined by God’s Word from the beginning of
time, and the goal is; ‘until we all reach the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the
Son of God (not just dogma/doctrine but agreement on who Jesus is), to maturity, to the
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, (Ephesians 4:13) and only God knows that
measure and the number that will be gathered to him in this way, and when that will be
completed, but we can live with this hope in our hearts.
Hebrews 6:19 This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us
through the veil into God’s presence in the Holy Place. Jesus has already gone in there for
us. He has become our eternal High Priest in the order of Melchizedek.
When our spirit is awakened to this our souls can be healed (saved) and begin to
express the life of Jesus within us - not just the natural life of our own uninformed and
separated human spirit. Through Jesus our human spirit is now joined as one spirit with
the Spirit of The Lord (1Corinthians 6:20).
Those verses in the beginning of Acts chapter three brought the kingdom of heaven’s
activity right into the Jewish Temple – and the sign of a miracle healing through the
risen Jesus took place before the eyes of all the Jewish people in the temple. Peter took
this opportunity to preach to the Jews that their time of being the witness in the Earth to
the presence of God was over for this age, and that a new order of the ‘Kingdom age’ had
begun. This warning had the air of finality about it for Israel and would require from
them a change of mind and heart in their spirits that could bring them out of ignorance
and unbelief into hearing the truth about Jesus and having faith in him.

God was bringing everything from the past that had promised Jesus the Messiah into the
world to now belong to the present moment – and not only that moment in time but for
all time into the future, where all of our sins are cancelled out and where we can
experience ‘the times of refreshing (anapsyxis – the recovery of breath -literally ‘revival’),
from the presence of The Lord’. That Greek word anapsyxis is only used this one time ever
in the New Testament!! - another Hebrew word for revival is used three times in the Old
Testament. In its natural sense or application, it is the breathing again of the air of life
for our body to live – to be revived. (Our word Asphyxiate - to have our breath choked off
– is the opposite of anapsyxis and is from the same Greek word). Our natural human
body breathes for us automatically, without forceful huffing and puffing. As we rest in
his presence with faith that we are one with God in Spirit the Lord makes us aware of
the Holy Spirit breathing God’s life within us. This refreshing of anapsyxis is the new air
we breathe of God’s holy presence within us. This is our revival, at all times - the
conscious awareness of being present in our hearts and minds with the life of the Holy
Spirit within. Our faith becomes a conscious appreciation of every moment of our new
life in Christ.

As we sit and receive these times of refreshing in his presence, we can focus our hearts
and minds from a place of spiritual oneness with the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit
and come to know them as persons that we are part of as they are part of us, three
wonderful parts in fact. They live and breathe within us, reviving us with their life. Talk
to them at this time of presence and tell them how you feel. Ask each one of them to
reveal their nature to you of love and compassion for the burdens you carry in your soul.
Let them reassure you that they are accomplishing something for you supernaturally
with those burdens that is beyond your power to achieve. Jesus said ‘come to me all you
that are burdened and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you (be
bonded with me) and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find
rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’ (Jesus gives us grace for the
burden)