"A man can receive nothing
[he can claim nothing, he can take unto himself nothing]
except as it has been granted to him from heaven.
[A man must be content to receive the gift which is given him
from heaven; there is no other source.]"
John 3:27 Amplified
 
John the Baptist said it because he knew it!

"A man can only receive what is given him from heaven."

John lived this. He didn't merely know it as a principle. The Baptist held this as his secret. John, the one Jesus Himself called the "greatest born of women."Luke 7:24

He feasted on every drop of heaven's bounty for him. He looked not to what God had withheld but became radiant in what was, for him. He was a witness to God's goodness. By receiving he proved that God was good. The testimony about God was true for John.

John was living in the other kingdom. His very limitations pushed him into that kingdom. John allowed God to be God. Because he was willing to be contained in an earthly body, in time, in position, in place, there were no limitations on him. He had it all. He didn't try to be God, to be great. He didn't try to be anything other than what God had assigned to him. He was willing to be satisfied and restricted. Because he was willing, he was content. And he brought heaven to earth because he lived in heaven. The only way he could live in heaven was to be satisfied with what he had on earth. Nobody who has their eye anchored and set on gain from this earth will be content with God.

Because John didn't box-in God but instead was himself boxed-in, his reality superseded that box. The Pharisees boxed in God, therefore were trapped into their confinement of Him.


John allowed God to be God hence he was unlimited. He was like a refined oil, reduced to the essence.

It's an irony. When you limit the Creator you as the creation are limited. When you restrict God you will BE restricted. We want to receive the expansion without the cost of the limitation.

If you looked humanly at John, he had nothing. He was never to have children, never to have a heritage. He had no vocation as priest like his father. He was a wild man out in the desert, considered a lunatic by the religious of the day.

God assigned to him a handicap. A limitation. God imprisoned John to Himself. He was willing to be imprisoned so he had all of God.

When the wind is contained in the flute, it can bring forth music. When the wind is confined and directed, it has purpose. Because it's harnessed, the wind can bring beauty and form, where otherwise it would be a floating nothing. If a person will be contained within the mind of the Creator, he can bring forth a symphony.
 

That's what I see about John, he was willing to be contained. Minimized. Restricted. Bound. Therefore he was not.

Because he was reduced, he soared. His life was symphony.
 

Copyright © 2001 John Enslow