The Second Day: Containment
Gen 1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which [were] under the firmament from the waters which [were] above the firmament: and it was so. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
In the second day, God made that which could not be contained in the FIRST day to be contained in the second day. In the first day, there was light and in the second day a firmament to set a boundary for light. It is the analogy of a wine skin. Every vintage of what God is doing in your life must come to containment in order to be preserved and propagated beyond its initial glory.
[Mar 2:22 KJV] 22 And no man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles.
Many people hesitate right here. They don’t want what one writer called the “harness of the Lord”. In the writing by Bill Britton, there were two colts in the meadow. They loved their freedom, kicking up their heels and enjoying the sunshine. Then one day the Master came and introduced them to the harness. One colt rebelled, jumped fence and fled. The other submitted, and because the remaining colt submitted, he was allowed to step into his destiny of pulling the King’s Carriage!
Are You Willing?
Are you willing to live the life of divine constraint and boundaries set by the Father, and not by you or others? Are you willing to look at the liberty that others have and hear the Father say clearly to you, “others may, but you cannot”? You see – God made light and then created a firmament for light to be contained in – a jurisdiction if you will, for it to be manifest and operate within. Paul absolutely understood this. He knew that he had a certain spiritual firmament and jurisdiction within which to operate, and if he stepped out of that jurisdiction, he was powerless and in trouble. Have you ever felt powerless and in trouble?
[1Co 9:2 KJV] 2 If I be not an apostle unto others, yet doubtless I am to you: for the seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord.
[2Co 10:13-14 KJV] 13 But we will not boast of things without [our] measure, but according to the measure of the rule which God hath distributed to us, a measure to reach even unto you. 14 For we stretch not ourselves beyond [our measure], as though we reached not unto you: for we are come as far as to you also in [preaching] the gospel of Christ:
The firmament of the heavens was the measure of the environment within, which light was to manifest and operate according to God’s purpose. You are light in the Lord, and in God according to the pattern, you have a firmament or jurisdiction in which to fulfill your purpose to be that light to everything and everyone within that boundary and parameter. Jesus warned us not to put our light under a bushel – in other words, not setting for ourselves an arbitrary boundary by telling God what you will and won’t do.
[Mat 5:15 KJV] 15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
Rather, we are to say, as Jesus did at Gethsemane – “not my will but thine be done”. Then you can fully populate the jurisdiction and measure that God has given you authority over. In this yieldedness, Jesus found the ultimate reward at the right hand of God. We are told then that we are seated with Christ in heavenly places. You might complain, “well it doesn’t feel like it” – but only because you must first go to your Gethsemane, where you relinquish your boundaries for HIS, and allow God to take you further than your self-interest will allow you to go in fulfilling HIS purposes in your life (with your time, energy, resources and money) and not your independent ideas based on a darkened understanding.
God Divided in the Second Day:
In the second day, we see that God took that which was uncontained and created containment. Up to that time, nothing had been contained before, EVER. Likewise, in the second day, God divided the waters above the firmament from the waters that were under the firmament. In other words, God introduced division. Nothing had ever been divided before. When you look at what He actually did, He surrounded or encapsulated the visible creation with a canopy of water covering an inward body of water. Water above and water beneath. This was the earth as God originally intended it. What was the water above? What God caused to come down when He brought the flood. Not only did the flood come, but there was a visible corona of water orbiting the earth that many believed contributed to the longevity of man by shielding him from the harmful rays of the cosmos. Either way, the point is, that taking the macro-perspective and looking at our own lives – water represents SPIRIT. God wants us to experience a DIVISION in our beings and our lives by which the SPIRIT ABOVE is over-arching all that is taking place, and the SPIRIT beneath is coming up as the mist of God’s favor, causing all to be fruitful and full of life.
Most people are unwilling to accept division. We preach against it. If division comes, we think that is a bad thing. We have a Babel mentality – we want everyone to speak the same language. Jesus said He didn’t come to bring every one together, but to bring a sword.
[Mat 10:34 KJV] 34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
Face the fact that in your life there are times that you are going to obey God, when momma and daddy might not like it. It may be a deal breaker for them. That doesn’t mean that you are necessarily out of God’s will. It may mean that you are walking out the second day of the creative process God is bringing about in your life, where your dependency is fully upon Him and not any other resource.
Calling:
[Gen 1:8 KJV] 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
Finally, in the second day, we see something else that God does. He calls. Many are called but few are chosen. Why? Because they cannot endure the day of the Lord. There are seven days in God’s process and many people, most people never get off second base. They cannot endure division. They think if everyone isn’t getting along, then they need to turn back and do something else. They think if momma doesn’t approve or the pastor doesn’t approve, then somehow they must have missed God. Not necessarily. Likewise, those who miss their calling don’t like to be contained. They want to have it all. Matthew 6:33 does promise this – but it is on God’s terms and not ours.
[Mat 6:33 KJV] 33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
Most fail right here. They want what they want and they want it on their terms. Oh, they don’t put it that way. They complain as victims, as sweet rebels – “I just don’t understand…” and they turn away from the high calling with heavy hearts, full of self-pity, because God has refused to bow to the tyranny of their intellect, demanding that He act in a manner that makes sense to them.
If you are going to have the “and God called” moment over your life, you must be willing to accept separation, containment and division. You must be willing to accept containment and constraint upon you that is not imposed upon others. You must be willing to cooperate with the process of God’s seven days that may not always make sense to you, because God wants to get you out of the sense realm and the mental realm, into the realm of His mind and His limitlessness.
