We have arrived at the fourth and final step in the discipline of receiving revelatory encounters with the 'Lover of our soul'! Our journey started with the 'acquisition' of intellectual understanding concerning those things freely given to us as His children - "exceeding great and precious promises", as Peter calls them (2Pt.1:4). But we discovered, that after acquiring such knowledge, one must 'assimilate' it, before any renewing of the mind can truly occur. At some point, during the assimilation process, it is the Holy Spirit's prerogative to 'appropriate' the disciple to a particular desire the Father has for him/her. In other words, "the word of faith" has come to that one (Rom.10:8,17).
A remarkable phenomenon that befalls many believers, as they are pursuing Christ, is the aborting of any one, or all of these steps before arriving at their destination. Consequently, they fail to enter into the Life this path would ultimately render! Let's unpack this last statement a little more: consider the probable outcome if Peter had not taken the time to commune with the Lord while at Simon the tanner's house (Acts10:9-16); he would not have experienced 'appropriation' (i.e., the vision of the sheet descending during a trance); accordingly, when the men sent by Cornelius arrived, Peter would have been less inclined to accept their invitation, since they were Gentiles, and he a Jew; if that would have taken place, he would have aborted God's desire of formally initiate the Gentiles into His redemptive plan! Granted, if the above scenario would have transpired, Father's desire would have been accomplished through some other vessel, but Peter, himself, would have forfeited the Life event of witnessing the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Cornelius' household.
'Application', then, is the obedience rendered by the believer who has been 'appropriated' by the Holy Spirit to some 'good work' foreordained by God (Eph.2:10). In James 2:14-26, the apostle presents the cogent argument that: 1) faith without works (obedience) is dead; 2) faith is only completed (made perfect) when its accompanied by works of obedience. Returning to Peter's appropriation at Simon's house, in order for his faith to be 'complete', he needed to 'go' to Cornelius' house, and 'proclaim' Christ to those assembled. Once a disciple 'applies' what has been 'appropriated', the results are then within God's purview. When this takes place, one has effectively ceased from his own works (those do's and don'ts that we contrive in an effort to please God - also referred to as 'dead works' in Heb.9:14), and entered into His rest (Heb.4:9-12).
Combining these steps, let's see how they look from the Holy Spirit's perspective as recorded in the Scriptures (Lk.1:26-38). This is the account of Mary, mother of Jesus, being encountered by the angel Gabriel concerning God's choice of her being the virgin who would bear the Messiah, as recorded in Isaiah 7:14.
1) Acquisition
Being of Hebrew descent, Mary, from an early age, would have been familiar with Isaiah's prophecy about the advent of Christ. In other words, she already had 'acquired' knowledge of this particular promise of God to His people. However, she could not have known who this 'virgin' was until Gabriel's declaration: "...listen! You will become pregnant and will give birth to a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus." (Lk.1:31 - Amplified Bible)
2) Assimilation
At this juncture, try putting yourself in Mary's shoes! What would you have done with such an announcement? Look back at verse 29 where we are afforded a glimpse into how she was processing all of this: "...she was greatly troubled and disturbed and confused at what he said and kept revolving in her mind what such a greeting might mean." [Amplified Bible] You will remember that one of the definitions for meditation is 'to roll over and over within the mind'. Being a Jewess, Mary would have been practicing meditation for the greater share of her young life. Consequently, when confronted with knowledge that was beyond her mind's natural ability to comprehend, she defaulted to the discipline of mediation in order to 'assimilate' these words being given to her.
3) Appropriation
"Then the angel said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you [like a shining cloud]; and so the holy (pure, sinless) Thing (Offspring) which shall be born of you will be called the Son of God." (Lk.1:35 - Amplified Bible) In order to fully appreciate why we are construing this verse as 'appropriation', let's put verse 37 under the microscope. An interlinear rendering of this verse, from The Majority Text, is as follows: "Every word (rhema) will not be impossible with God" (Emphasis Mine). The Amplified Bible correctly translates this verse as, "For with God nothing is ever impossible and no word from God shall be without power or impossible of fulfillment." Referring back to how 'appropriation' occurs, as the disciple meditates on that which has been 'acquired', it becomes the Holy Spirit's prerogative to 'lay bear that which was previously hidden to him/her, and to disclose Truth' into your inner man'. Or, stated another way, He 'breathes' a 'rhema' word into your spirit, effectively 'setting you apart' for some particular desire of the Father. In the passage under consideration, the Holy Spirit, through Gabriel, was speaking this rhema word, recorded in verse 35, into Mary's heart.
4) Application
For Mary, at this point in the process, the only requirement of obedience (application) to the 'word' spoken, was her consent, which she immediately gave: "Then Mary said, Behold, I am the handmaiden of the Lord; let it be done to me according to what you have said. And the angel left her." (Lk.1:38 - Amplified Bible) It is this writer's conviction that, upon consenting to the Lord's request, Mary, at that very moment, conceived Seed in her womb (Gal.3:16). Of course, the implication of applying this word would have far reaching ramifications that she could not possibly have realized at the time. However, as this Life event unfolds, we can observe, from heaven's perspective, Mary's settled acquiescence to the angel's request.
The reader should understand that the above chronicle was extraordinary in the sense of being a 'one time' event, and therefore must realize, one's own revelatory encounters with the King of kings, might seem somewhat mundane by comparison. This perspective, however, is strictly from the human point of view. From God's vantage point, every Life event, resulting from a revelatory encounter, is on the same plane of equality (1Pt.1:17).
The above four steps of discipline for receiving revelation, have but one objective: to recondition the disciple's being, so he/she is ever being enlarged within the spiritual arena, and less inclined within the soulish. The reason is simple - God is Spirit! Those seeking to know Him must do so with their spirit man.
