God showed me a vision of a woman dressed in black with a black veil over her head covering her face, in the vision she was holding a candle close to her heart and shuffling her feet down the wooden pews of a traditional looking church building, she shuffled up and down a sheet of drywall inside the church building (drywall is used for erecting room partitions).

In this vision God was speaking about the state of the false religious system, a state that He is not the author of, but rather Satan is the author of. She is holding close to her own heart the candle of tradition which God calls dim-sightedness. She is veiled in ignorance because of the absence of Christ’s knowledge. Though she is always constructing renewed efforts for faith, God is showing that every effort apart from covenant faith just creates more barriers to grace. This is the state of death that God is calling believers out of and we can see God’s challenge for change.

When God is setting a distinction regarding religious tradition, He is speaking about what has become customary to uphold in faith, but is not the true tradition of faith according to Christ which is in Spirit and in truth. To most believers it has become acceptable to measure faith to what they find agreeable in their own eyes, and there seems to be a denomination to cater to every taste. Some meet in church buildings some don’t; some tithe others don’t; some sing and dance others sing but prohibit dance; some water baptise others don’t; some believe in tongues others don’t. And all this confusion is as a result of faith being built on the foundation of what seems agreeable to self.

If faith is built on what is agreeable to self (the flesh) then believers will continue to be dressed in mourning instead of being dressed in the wedding gown of Christ’s righteousness. Being dressed in mourning has to do with being out of step with God’s season of renewal. Being dressed in Christ’s righteousness means faith is measured to Him as the standard that God approves of. To God faith is not about finding your own groove and where you fit. But to God faith is about building upon the foundation of Christ to return to God an answer of obedience that reflects Christ and not our own prejudice.

Grace is awakening believers with an urgency to know Him in His fullness (within Jesus’ covenant terms), and He is now also speaking to them about the need to abandon the candle of tradition and to embrace the original light which is Christ in the form of His restored covenant knowledge. We see that in the first century church, Apostle Paul brought some similar things out in 2 Corinthians 3:14&16:

2 Corinthians 3:14,16
14 But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.
16 Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.

The “vail” speaks of the veil of ignorance because of the absence of truth as the original foundation for faith; something God has now rectified through restoring His stewardship and all five callings to the church thus preparing a refuge for believers to now come into.

God has prepared a beautiful priesthood in Jesus Christ that contains the knowledge and the tools that equips faith to give expression to Christ. A living faith that grows in leaps and bounds because we embrace His covenant terms. In Christ God established boundaries for our faith to remain acceptable to Him and separate from the defilement of Satan’s false knowledge. Apostle Peter spoke of this royal priesthood also:

1 Peter 2:9-10
9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:
10 Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.

God has prepared a place in the covenant priesthood of Christ where we now have the benefit of His active involvement (His mercy) in our faith daily and where we effectively lay down the barriers of human aspiration, imagination and principles.

When we think about being faced with changes especially when it touches on where we live and what we do for a living or even who we think we are; change can be very challenging. This is because of the inclination to trust what is familiar, so naturally, the unknown details can stir up some trepidation. We are inclined to become comfortable with familiar things, and the strange thing is, even things of negative impact are embraced over and over based on the drive for comfort in familiarity and the fear of the unknown.

When it comes to our faith, God is making a distinction between our own record and the record of Jesus Christ so that we can know what He sanctified for our faith to draw from. The powers that make up the record of the flesh (self) are the moral code, the God-code, the signature, the knowledge of the world and the fruits of iniquity – these powers are the creature-comforts of the natural man that he is inclined to trust as his compass. Man is inclined to look inward for the familiar and hold fast to the dimness of that light, but God is calling us to a greater light in Christ.

A deception is taking place when the negative impact on faith is not examined but selectively pushed out of sight in favour of preserving comforts. It’s often said that absence makes the heart grow fonder; or that we tend to remember things more favourable as time passes. This is because of the habit of the mind to reason selectively about things to bring about a sense of closure. This speaks of the habit of the mind to reconcile conflicts and indifferences to a point that you now feel you can move on, so people keep within their tradition. God is shining the light of His truth on the comforts that tradition has provided to replace covenant faith, and He is exposing its incapacitating effects.

God teaches that the way that the flesh works for closure is not the same as the completion of our soul’s design worked through labouring with Christ. He is also showing believers the reason they sometimes feel trapped in a slow-moving faith when they settle for familiar traditions; why they sometimes feel like their prayers are hitting walls. God is showing that their faith is boxed in by man-made faith, the creature comforts presented in false knowledge that temporarily soothe the soul rather than change it.

When God talks about change He is not saying try something new to broaden your horizons, but to God change means covenant.

The true church having sight means she is able to distinguish between the system of light and the system of darkness. She’s able to distinguish between the pattern of the flesh and the pattern of Christ. Truth is what gives discernment. She is no longer suffering the nakedness of the vulnerability of fleshly traditions replacing Christ, because through embracing His covenant He is now her covering.

Jesus said in John chapter 9: 5 “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world”. There is a reason God associates the knowledge of Christ with light, and it is because it sets the contrast for choice. Satan is the enemy of faith, so he created a false faith system that appeals to the baser instincts of man with a myriad of nuances. Satan created a greyscale faith system wherein the nature of man is left to negotiate the distance between what is good and evil, what is God and not God; turning the experience with the grace of God over to the principle, aspiration and imagination of man for interpretation.

These are the real barriers to God because it builds faith in your own image. The principle is self-truth, the aspiration seeks its own reciprocation and the imagination projects for the resolve of circumstances. These are also the fibres that are woven into the covering of ignorance that the Spirit circumcises in our daily cycles of growth.

The variables are found in the flesh which we can trace throughout the themes of circumstances, social and political issues and relationships. In Satan’s system faith was taught to be about bringing peace and security by setting order to these things. This works a false peace and rest, whereas for God, faith is really all about Christ and God’s plan to create His image and likeness in our soul and to reward our faith with understanding from above.

It’s quite a paradox how the familiarity of the flesh promises stability while the flesh is actually the variables and God the only constant. So even though what the moral code decides to tolerate for the benefit of keeping your own ideals afloat, you soon learn the betrayal of the flesh as it did not reconcile your faith to the purging of the conscience, but only fanned on the coals of the fruits of iniquity.

This speaks of the misconceptions of the natural mind under the deception of Satan’s influence, to which truth is the remedy. Truth is what gives the revelation of grace stability so that nothing of our faith is left to the imagination.

God reveals Christ to draw the positive response of faith from the heart. The very reason God communicates through His grace is for the reciprocation of Christ to reward your faith. God rewards faith with more grace to enlarge your heart to house more of His virtues. In yielding the will to His voice we become active partakers of the joy of regeneration and renewing of the mind. God has in mind this meaningful exchange of Himself whereby your soul is healed, buffered and comforted by His peace as Christ completes the design of our soul. This is the path of Christ’s light – the way of covenant faith.

Follow this link to our God’s Church Restored series of articles, elaborating on how God is restoring His holy church through the restoration of His apostles, truth, covenant and priesthood: s8w.org/gods-church-restored/