2015

The most profound thing I learned this year.

Simple: how NOT TO BE the Holy Spirit in another persons life.

Cost: long suffering / patience

Prize: long suffering / patience... (OK, Character)


How to be the person whom knows the consequences of anothers actions, and also know that the only way the other will truly know what they are doing is wrong is by shutting up, and waiting on God to speak it to them... maybe even praying as you watch the whole messy mess unfold.

It takes trust.  Not just in God, but in the other persons relationship with God.  It takes wait.  It takes the grace understood and given by God.  G-R-A-C-E, grace.  The same grace Jesus had as he walked this earth.  His amazing grace we have access to.

It takes looking back at others whom have allowed me the same courtesy to do so for fellow brothers and sisters.  Wrote a thank you card, thanking those whom choose not to correct me, but waiting on conviction from a shared father to discipline and correct.  Convict and forgive.

Then with ease in my spirit it spreads to the corporate body, to those outside the body, then to mankind.  Applied to efforts of Salvation.  Human efforts failed as God beckons all of His own to Himself.

God speaks.  He convicts.  He corrects.  He disciplines those He loves.  Trust that He does this.  Trust that your brothers and sisters will hear this.  Stop taking His job and making it become an earthly temporary thing.  Let it be true conviction, true repentance, let it last an eternity... for Him, for His glory.  For His kingdom come.  Get out the way.  THE WAY.

A friend of mine told me she read a book awhile ago that suggested asking God for a word at the beginning of a new year... to watch how that word is brought to life, and weaves its way in and through your life that year.  Growth, Healing, learning.

I'm not a fan of new years resolutions, but the word thing was something that resonated with me. One year it was "wait", then next is was "grace".  And as I have been moving closer in time toward the year 2016, as I look both inward and outward... Public, private, ministry, world, corporate and family, I have been given my word.

I hesitate to write it for fear of a horrible accountability following. But will for fear of a greater conviction not being followed through on...

LOVE.

L-O-V-E, Love.

Have struggled.  Have struggled greatly.  I have always known how to love. Usually, in the Lord I do what it looks like to love.  But rarely to never do I FEEL love.  Leading up to this "love" year I have often wondered what it might be like to know what it feels like to be loved, what it feels like to love. I know truth isn't based in our feelings, but in fact.  I have cleared that hurdle (when wanting to) for many years.  I can do things that show love, especially when love isn't felt...  But oh, to love when love is to be felt.  This is a struggle.

I think, maybe, maybe this may be that year.  Feeling Love toward God and feeling His love back.  Feeling love toward others and feeling their love back.  Knowing God shields us, protects us.  Knowing love is not blind.

God is love.  All that love is.  Including the feeling.  Maybe the feel with come this year with the choice.  Dare i ask for Him to change my heart?  To feel the love I have chosen for so many years?

wait

Matthew 4:6 is just one example of being tempted to "use Satan's means to accomplish Gods ends" Jesus combated this with Gods word and was of course successful because He is perfect.

How often are we willing to not wait and settle for second best when God just wants us to wait a little longer? It sounds harsh to say that Doing it our way is Satan's way, but Our way is not Gods way, which in the world of right and wrong, black and white it only is wrong.

Genesis 21: 1-3 "Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him."

"Their long wait intensified their enjoyment of this child"..(Jesus Calling)

BUT: in vs. 9-11 "But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, and she said to Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac." The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son."

God still gave Sarah what He had promised, but because of Her going ahead of God, an entire nation was born in conflict with the Nation of Israel forever...

wait. quietly, obediently. Do not go ahead, then have to have others and yourself suffer the consequences of not being able to wait. Yes, you will get pieces of what you asked for, but in the wait you will be able to enjoy the full intended thing that God had planned from the beginning. Do not take over. wait. quietly, in faith, obediently.

Personally I have to let something go coming up soon that I thought I knew was of God. But for the risk of allowing Satan to be part of something that God has intended for good, I will wait. Please join me today and wait. For the sake of the kingdom, for others, for the Glory of God. wait, quit, still, obey, wait.

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1)

The "Weaker" Brother...

You don't understand what it means to not do something for protection of the weaker brother until you are him. Or in my case until you are Her.

Many an argument have crossed my path about drinking, smoking, use of diet drinks, oils, etc.  If it has come and gone through a community of believers, I have watched it pass.  I can only speak from personal experience and from the scriptures to this one, so please forgive me if you tend to be a person with a minor in OCD and a major in Addiction and this has not been your experience...

Are you someone that, once something works for you, you want the whole earth to share in your new found thing?  Do you talk it, eat it, drink it, sleep it and then do it all again the next day with a thankful and most gracious heart?  You are probably an Apostal, which is good.  The thing that is bad may be your efforts are being used in a temporary thing when they could be better used furthering the kingdom of God.  You are probably an Apostal... racing in the mind, distracted by shiny things, and the next best craze as I too have often been.  You are the weaker brother, brother.  I know because I too am she.  Sucked in by lesser things, by temporary things, by things that never quite fix, but feel better for a bit.  Beware the next best craze...

You who do the next best craze, and introduce it to the weaker brother.  What are you doing?  Please don't show me things that I can get addicted to, go running to, snuggle in to, huddle with, wake up wanting, needing buying and regretting.  I know, your relationship with that thing is different than mine, but I cant just do things a little. I need to be all in.  Keep your craze to yourself.  Do you know who I am ?  How can you tell a weaker brother.  You know I am she because I have shared, but what about her or him?  How do we stop this insanity before it begins?

From a weaker brother vantage point, might I suggest asking a few questions?  Will doing this edify the the weaker brother? Will it glorify the Lord?  (reverse that order) Is God the center? Can I live without this?  Could this be addictive?  Yes it may be permissible but is it beneficial?  My issue with addiction is my issue with addiction.  I get that, but I would never want to cause a weaker brother to stumble...

SOLUTION...

Let God be it all.  Drink Him in, let him regulate your food, heal your body, give you peace.  Is he not good enough alone?  Not drunk down with a fill of something man made?  a fill of the temporal?  You submit to one another as God sees fit, as servants of Jesus.  I will handle my addiction if you are true to not watering down all the Lord is to us.  HE IS OUR ALL.  Live it.

Advent

Advent: How does one prepare for the coming of a Savior?  Not just any savior, but the savior, Christ Jesus. As times become more weary, and nations fall... as we are active or dead in our response the fact that He will come is upon us.

How do we prepare for the coming of the one true Savior, Ruler, Creator of the universe?  

Receive

"For God so loved the world that He gave..." As Jesus was given as a gift, so we should receive all that He is, and all that comes with knowing and being in Him.  Suffering, adoption, bearing with one another, carrying of our own crosses, and putting it all where it belongs, back on Him.  God so loves the world that he gives.  Receive.

Repent

"Against you and only you have I sinned..."  "Turn your face away from evil, cling to what is good..."  Recently I was met with a need for heavy repentance.  It was heart wrenching, and beautifully redeeming at the same time.  As God convicts, you will always be shown a better way, His better way.  He loves those he disciplines.  "Search me and know me, see if there is any wicked way in me"

Rejoice

In all things.  Not just when you feel it.  When you know and believe that all He has ever done will be forever redeemed and He will receive the glory, there is nothing you cannot rejoice over.  Faith does not shift in the sands of time.  It grounds itself deeply in the truth of an all knowing never changing God.  

How are you preparing?  Active and living Gods word is written on our hearts and in our minds. Choose this day whom you will serve and live in the fullest of all God has to offer.