It is written by THE SPIRIT in Hebrews chapter 12:
1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
We are to look away from all that will distract us and focus our eyes on Jesus who is the Perfecter of our faith. If He is the Perfecter of our faith, where should our focus be if we seek to have great faith? If we are to be included as The Bride, shouldn’t our focus be on the Groom? When my wife and I were engaged, we both wanted to spend every waking minute with each other. Our love being so intense, caused us to have only one priority… be together. All other priorities were at best a distant second.
There is a great cloud of witnesses in the spirit realm who are urging us on to the perfecting of our faith. Several of us have had encounters with some of those witnesses and their presence is occurring more often.
Our Beloved Brother Alan shared the following:
We are ‘surrounded’ by a great Cloud of Witness(es). Rarely, I believe, do we understand a ‘Witness’ when we first receive it. I have studied, some times at length, the aspect of ‘cloud’ in scripture. In the Hebrew, there are several different words used that get translated as ‘cloud’. But all of these words can be understood to be ‘an answer received’ from on High. One of the Hebrew words literally means ‘answer’. The Greek word used in Heb. 12:1 is only used once in the New Testament, though it is used in the Septuagint several times translating the Old Testament Hebrew. There seem to be some parallels we can discern if we recognize that Our Father can, and does, speak to us through different venues. But he is always ‘answering us’ by revealing to us the Christ He is calling us to be. I would like to think that Father is revealing to me that there are many, many ways He communicates to us, and through us, and most times we are unaware of what He is doing.
In Gen. 9, Noah is being taught what he just went through in ‘the flood’, and all that the flood represents. The word translated as ‘bow’, which we assume is a rainbow, in Gen. 9:14 is also translated other places as referring to an archer’s bow. I believe a better understanding could be had if the bow is seen as an arch. Noah was told, in Gen. 9:13 that God would ‘set’ his bow in the cloud. The word for cloud here is ‘ah-nan’, and is from the same root that we get ‘ah-nah’; to answer. ‘ah-nan’ can be seen as ‘ah-nah’, in plural form. Several times, this word ‘ah-nah’, which we normally think of as ‘answer’, is translated as ‘afflict’, ‘deal harshly’, and in Gen. 34:2 is translated as ‘defiled her’. In other words, sometimes the answer we receive is a harsh or punishing response. However, God told Noah, in Genesis 9:13 – 16, that He would set His “…bow in the cloud”. The word bow can be considered synonymous with ‘covenant’. And the word ‘ah-nan’ is also synonymous with answer, though sometimes translated as cloud. From this I believe that if we substitute the understanding of ‘bow’ as also being ‘covenant’, and the word ‘ah-nan’ as being cloud or answer, God is revealing that His covenant is revealed in His answer. Does God respond to sincere inquiries with harshness and cruelty? I don’t think so. Jesus never responded with harshness or cruelty.
When we look unto to Jesus as we study Scripture, we are able to keep the proper perspective as we ponder the Divine Intent found in the various stories. Let our faith be perfected by looking unto Jesus as our foundation for understanding The Word.