IN DEBT to the Believer and the Unbeliever
"Both to Greeks and to barbarians
(to the cultured and the uncultured), both to the wise and to the foolish,
I have an obligation to discharge and a duty to perform and a debt to pay."
Romans 1:14 (Amp
)

27 November 2011

A Secret Place Dumpster


Yesterday I had the opportunity and blessing of being a part of a group from our church to join in the annual effort and outreach of a urban city church in their ministry of feeding the homeless which is something they have done for the last 23 years on the Saturday following Thanksgiving. This was quite an organized event that was made possible by the joining of many hands and hearts of other churches throughout the Body of Christ. It was an expression of the love and charity of Jesus to the needy and homeless. To be honest with you it was quite overwhelming to me to see such a massive need of poverty, lack and homelessness just within a small area in our own city. My heart was heavy but grateful at the same time, grateful for seeing the generous hands and heart of Jesus through His Body being extended to them.

During the orientation time for the workers and servers the leader and speaker prepared our hearts letting us be aware that many of these people that we were about to serve were so desperate for food that they would often dig in dumpsters to find food to eat. I was grieved by the picture of that, but the Holy Spirit pricked my heart as the speaker led us to Matt. 5:3 "Blessed is the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." and he reminded us that we, as a Church, should have this same spirit of desperation for God, a sense that we are poor in spirit and in desperate need of Him. The speaker challenged us by asking, "Are you desperate like they are? Are you poor in spirit and desperate for God and for His presence and the food and life of His Word?"

As a prophetic intercessor the Lord took hold of that word and began to show me His heart for His people and His Church. He showed me the darkness and desperation of the times and how He was using it to draw His Church to Himself, out of the clutches of the world and all its enticements and distractions and drawing our hearts and lives back to Himself. He began to show me my secret place, my prayer place, like it was a "secret place dumpster", a place that I was climbing into with a hungry and desperate heart for more of Him. It was a place that I could dig deep into His heart and into the deep things of God and feed upon His Word and promises and soak in His presence. I wanted to go back there. I was hungry and desperate for Him. And after the event of serving and ministering to these precious people I did. And in that secret place I began to meditate on this picture that the Lord had given me earlier, and as I meditated and leaned into His heart, I began to see thousands and thousands of people (almost like ants) coming out of the things of the world and climbing up into this "secret place dumpster", and as we joined our hearts together in desperation for Him, a spirit of repentance began to fall in there, and we began to pray, "Search me, O God, and know my heart and see if there be any hurtful and wicked way in me, and lead me in Your everlasting way." Then I began to see places in my heart that I had been blinded to before, remnants of the world and remnants of my old man that seemed to yet remain, things that did not glorify God and stood in the way of the full flow of His blessing and likeness in my life. I saw remnants of religion, of materialism, of idolatry, greed, pride and selfishness. I wanted it all gone, every bit of it. Some of this was of me and some of it was of the Body of Christ as a whole, for I was feeling the heart of God and the desperation of His longing Bride to be with Him in the pureness of her heart. 
But His love seemed to look past all of these things that had gotten my attention, and His love took hold of my heart and brought it close to His and into His divine embrace. And then His blood began to flow and wash over me and over everyone in that "secret place dumpster". Then His love and glory began to fill and illuminate that place and shine out of the top of it. His light and glory was shining forth into the darkness of the world from which we had come from. 

It was a beautiful experience. It was an experience of healing and redemption, an experience of His love covering a multitude of sins and His love never failing....never failing to heal, restore and redeem. I praise God for this experience and this picture that He used to encourage me in what He was doing during these desperate times. He let me see from His perspective as I touched His heart and stood in the gap for His Bride.

We are His Bride, and Jesus is drawing us out of the world and into His divine embrace, into His presence and power that we may be His life partner to glorify Him here on the earth. By His anointing we are called to lay hands on the sick and they will recover. We are called to preach the gospel and set at liberty them that are captive. His anointing to do this is received by grace alone through His presence. If you have not yet found or set aside a place for your "secret place", your personal prayer place, I encourage you to prioritize that and begin to seek God with all of your heart, to come into His divine embrace and know Him personally and intimately. Your life will never be the same, and He will use you for His glory and kingdom purpose, for He has brought you into the kingdom for such a time as this.

Ps. 91:1; Matt. 6:6

25 November 2011

The Divine Way


The Divine Way
Through Suffering to Glory


"In Christ's use of Scripture the most remarkable thing is this: He found Himself there; He saw there His own image and likeness. And He gave Himself to the fulfillment of what He found written there. It was this that encouraged Him under the bitterest sufferings, and strengthened Him for the most difficult work. Everywhere He saw traced by God's own hand the divine way: through suffering to glory. He had but one thought: to be what the Father had said He should be, to have His life correspond exactly to the image of what He should be as He found it in the Word of God." (Believer's Secret of Living Like Christ by Andrew Murray)

The Divine Way is through the cross, through the path of suffering to glory, through the path of sacrificial love, making sure the old man, the old nature, the old habits and ways are nailed to the cross and remain on the cross as you walk through your trials and the process of your sanctification. It's an opportunity for God to be glorified, for His glory to been seen and revealed through you as you walk and remain in the Spirit through them, and as you resist and refuse to let that old man come down from the cross, resisting and refusing to allow yourself to be angry, bitter or resentful, jealous, fearful, controlling or judgmental (as well as other carnal characteristics).  These are old ways and old habits of the old man that we must make sure remain nailed to the cross and dead.

The tests, trials and transition of suffering to glory, the divine way ordained of God into His glory, can be manifest in many ways: in our challenges through troubled relationships, through our financial challenges, through physical challenges in our body and health, and through challenges in our goals, dreams and life aspirations.

In troubled relationships we are challenged in our emotions to walk in love and forgiveness and to refuse to take the bait of Satan by taking up an offense when a person says or does something cruel or hurtful to you. We are challenged to keep that old man on the cross and to walk in the supernatural love and forgiveness of the living and resurrected Christ in us. 
In financial trials we are challenged to give and sow as the Spirit leads us to into the house of God and into the lives of the poor and the needy, keeping the old man and his fear of lack and not having enough upon the cross. We are challenged not to focus on ourselves and our needs, but to sow first out of our need into the lives of others by faith and with an expectation of divine provision from our true Source and Provider to meet our own personal needs. 
In our physical challenges of our body and health, we are challenged to stand on the Word of truth "by His stripes we are healed", standing on the victory and divine health that Jesus purchased for us by His blood and His death on the cross. We are challenged to resist yielding to, embracing and focusing on the symptoms of our body and physical ailments by making sure that those physical symptoms remain nailed to the cross while we embrace, confess and believe the truth of our healing and what has been purchased for us already. 
And in our dreams, goals and life aspirations, we are challenged to surrender them all to the will and divine purpose of God, to submit them and align them with God's Word and heart. We are challenged to keep this old man, our old driven and controlling nature upon the cross as our new regenerated man, the man made alive in Christ, is led by the Holy Spirit taking the steps that have been prepared for us already by the Father Himself. The sacrifice and surrender of our failures submitted to God always turns into something more glorious and beautiful, something that glorifies Him and advances the Kingdom of God in a greater way.

The divine way of suffering to glory was ultimately given to us through our example in Christ Jesus. As new creations crucified with Christ we are called to follow His example, to walk and live in the sacrificial love of Christ, and to make sure our old man and old nature remains on the cross so that we may live out a life empowered by Him through His Holy Spirit and glorify the Father.


Thank You, Jesus, for all that You did, for all that You purchased for us at the cross and for giving us an example to follow as well as the power within us by Your Holy Spirit to follow it. Help us to walk out our life's journey with You bringing You glory as we keep our old man and old nature nailed to the cross and as we walk, confess and live out the truths of who we are in Christ. May we come forth as gold, seeing the fruit of our walk with You here on earth as we disarm and break the powers of darkness through lives surrendered to Your service and empowered by Your Spirit. Amen and Amen

15 November 2011

A Broad Place of Abundance


"For my determined purpose is that I may know Him.
Philippians 3:10  Amp.


As I read and meditated on this one sentence in Philippians, I stood in this place of my present circumstances, and my eyes became focused on Jesus. My eyes and my countenance were lifted up to gaze upon the One that I was determined to know intimately and personally. 
Here I was, His daughter, His beloved, His life in me and my life in Him, a vessel that He had placed big dreams in, Kingdom visions and desires in her heart, a vessel given and yielded to be used for His glory. Then all of the sudden I saw His Spirit speeding towards me, reaching through time and space, and He grabbed me and fast forwarded me into the future, into a broad place. It was my Redeemer. It was His Holy Spirit, the Helper, that had apprehended me, that had taken me and redeemed me out of my present circumstances, and had brought me out into a broad place, a place of abundance, a place of great wealth, a place where my barns were full and my vats were overflowing with new wine and oil. I was standing in a place where my bank accounts and investments were full and overflowing, and my spirit and my mind were overflowing with new anointing and revelations. He had brought me into a broad place of abundance, a place where I was giving hundreds of thousands of dollars away, even millions, buying homes for people, paying off other people's debts and being His vessel of blessing. 
Then I saw that I was standing in a garden that was in full bloom. It stretched for miles and miles. It had grown from all the seeds that I had sown in the past, that had been watered by prayer and by His Spirit, and were now in full bloom. I was in a place of great blessing, flourishing in His garden, a garden that had been planted in faith and expectation of the blessing to follow. They were seeds that had been planted during the time of famine and lack and now had bloomed into the full fruit of their origin. He showed me that this garden stretched for miles and stretched across the oceans to other continents, into Africa and other countries that the seed had been scattered and sown into. It was a broad place, a huge garden, flourishing and abounding with much fruit and color. 
Then He showed me a large fountain in the garden and He said that I was that fountain, flowing forth with His knowledge, wisdom and life, flowing forth with His revelation and life giving Spirit. He showed me that I had tapped into the underground spring of water that flowed forth from His heart, and that as I stayed connected to His heart through fellowship and prayer that this spring of water would flow forth continually and water the garden and continue to give it life. He showed me that this broad place and flourishing garden is where He wanted me to live and to speak from throughout my days, that this was my life in Him as He had designed it for me. He showed me that this place was not of my imagination, but it was His image and His plan for me as I lived in the Spirit and walked with Him into it. 
Jesus is my Redeemer and He has redeemed me out of my present circumstances into His future and plan for my life, and He has revealed it to me by His Spirit. "For I know the plans that I have for you, plans for good and not for destruction, plans to give you a future and a hope...And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart."

Lord, thank You for this picture and image of Your heart and plan. Thank You that You have good plans for us and that as we seek You with all of our heart, we will find You and You will reveal them to us by Your Spirit. Thank You that our life is in You, it is in the Spirit, and that we are not governed and ruled by our natural circumstances but we are governed and ruled by what Your Word says. Our life is in You, our future is in You, and our hope is in You. You are all we need to live victoriously here on earth. You have made us more than conquerors. You have made us victorious in Christ Jesus who IS our life and source. Amen and amen

Ps. 66:12; Prov. 3:9,10; Jn 7:37-38; Jer.29:11-13; Rom. 8:37