The Reason for the Wilderness, Hope Deferred

“You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.”
(Deuteronomy 8:2)

That You, Lord, do not outright place us into the abundant place of blessing in our destiny right away is a thing of immeasurable good. You first bring us to the wilderness. There You bring us to the end of ourselves and to the fullness of You. You test and humble us, equip and grow us–lest we fall hard and become prey to the temptations of success and blessing.

It is because of Your great goodness and love that You do this. You know what is best for Your children whom You love. Your banner over us is love! Your leadership is perfect! Your ways are just, true and right.

You want us to live for You and by Your living words of life, being led by Your Spirit alone. To do so more and more, to be deep calling unto Your deep, takes time spent growing in relationship with You. It takes time spent seeking the depths of Your Presence in the Holy of Holies by which we have access through the blood of Christ. It takes growing in hearing Your voice and obeying You. It takes patience, trust and faith in You.

You are good, so good. Your love for us is so deep. Your leadership of our lives is wholly right and truly perfect, laden with Your perfect love for us as You say, “I only want the absolute best for you. Will you trust me, My child?”

God has the very best for you. In hardship or trials, trust Him. In the pain of hope deferred, trust Him. In times of fear or failure, trust Him.

He sees you! He loves you! He has the very best for you!

First and Foremost

“We must agree with God’s definition of success. Many agree with lies about what success is and thus, feel like a failure and live aimlessly. They focus mostly on externals (what they do and possess) instead of internals (who they are to be in their hearts)… Jesus corrected those who put their ministry before loving God.”
(Mike Bickle, The Song of Songs)

Revelation 2:3-5 says,
“you have…labored for My name’s sake…Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent.”

The first and greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Christ took the agony of death on the cross in order that we could have relationship with God. In John 17:3, Jesus prays: “…this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

It is only out of that overflow of being filled with Christ’s love, truth and character that we can truly minister to and serve others. If we don’t have intimacy with God and get filled to the fullness with Him, we end up serving and laboring out of our own strength and emptiness, which is of no value to ourselves or anyone else. If it isn’t of God–sowing to the Spirit of God instead of the flesh–lasting results won’t be reaped.

God’s love and truth are of the truest value, and we need to spend time in a growing, intimate relationship with Him in order to be able to give of the love and truth He pours into us.

Continual time in God’s presence grows us in knowing Him and His character, and as a result, we become more like Christ, reflecting His love and living out His ways in our every day lives. As we shine more and more with the glory of God, others’ lives too will be changed as they are drawn near to God! Let it be, Lord!

Compassion Friday

Meet Esther, a 16 year old girl in Ecuador who has been waiting over six months for a sponsor.

Is God calling you to sponsor Esther?

It’s easier than you think to make a difference for a child! With sponsorship you show a child  God’s love through monthly $38 donations ($32 until September), providing health care, education, Bible study and more, as well as writing letters to the child that can impact their life for Christ!

Learn more about sponsorship by clicking here.

Click here to sponsor Esther!

If she’s already been sponsored, search here for other children in need.
(I am not in any way affiliated with Compassion, except that I sponsor a child.)

You can also help by donating to the Global Food Crisis Fund.

No Longer Master

“And it shall be, in that day,” Says the LORD,
“That you will call Me ‘My Husband,’
And no longer call Me ‘My Master,’
For I will take from her mouth the names of the Baals,
And they shall be remembered by their name no more.”
(Hosea 2:16-17)

In these verses God says He will no longer be Master but Husband, and that He “will take from her mouth the names of the Baals.” In other words, He will do away with false religion and rituals that don’t flow out of an intimate relationship with God.

This brought to my mind that:

Master = religion, legalism; serving God out of obligation
Husband = relationship, intimacy; serving God because of love for Him

The Lord is our Husband, not our Master. We are His friends and His delight, not His slaves. We serve God out of love for Him, not because we have to. We’re called to be voluntary lovers of the God who saved us through the blood of His Son Jesus. We seek to serve Him not out of duty or to do “religious things,” but out of love for Him whose love for us is immeasurable and undeserved.

“You are My friends if you do what I command you. “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.”
(John 15:14-15)

Prayer: Lord, let all religion, legalism and traditions not done out of love for You be gone from our hearts and lives. Help us to serve You and Your people out of love for You, not obligation. Bring us into deeper relationship with You–an intimate friendship growing in pure and humble love for You. Give us divine revelation of Your love for us, and help us to love You and others with the love of You have for us. In the name of Jesus who gave His life for us. Amen!

I will betroth you to Me forever;
Yes, I will betroth you to Me
In righteousness and justice,
In lovingkindness and mercy;
I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness,
And you shall know the LORD.
(Hosea 2:19-20)

Filled Up With God

Here are some thoughts I wrote down from the sermon at church today. I hope these will spur you on as you seek to know God more and live for Him without hindrance.

“And don’t get drunk with wine, which [leads to] reckless actions,
but be filled with the Spirit:
speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs,
singing and making music to the Lord in your heart,
giving thanks always for everything to God the Father
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.”
(Ephesians 5:18-21)

“What is filling your life that is keeping you from the fullness of God?”
God, empty us of all that’s not of You, & fill us fully with You.

Worship is who we are. Are we giving that worship to God or to ourselves and other things?

When we’re truly filled to the fullness with God, we will live lives of worship to Him.

The song of each our hearts from God is the song of one redeemed, a song birthed and alive in the heart of one filled fully with God!

“You have to be in the desert to enjoy the water.” Read Psalm 63 – David knew the desert, and he knew God’s glory.

Being filled with God is being fully satisfied in Him and by Him alone. Only He satisfies, nothing and no one else can.

Only the fullness of God will do, not a little, not a bit here and there, only FULLNESS!

Our life passions should be God, His Kingdom, living like Christ, fully knowing Him and being filled wholly with His Spirit.

May we seek true satisfaction in the only One who truly satisfies. Ask Him to empty you of all that is not of Him, and fill you to overflowing with Him! I pray He will do just that for all of us and that we will continually grow in knowing Him intimately.

Compassion Friday

For the 4th week in a row, Thitiwoot from Thailand needs a sponsor. Is God leading you to sponsor this child? Read more about him below:

Thitiwoot is a 7 year old boy in Thailand and has been waiting over six months for a sponsor. Thailand was one of the areas devastated by the tsunami of December 2004.

Thitiwoot’s favorite activities are walking, soccer and hide-and-seek. He lives with his mother and 5 siblings, and helps by carrying water, gardening and cleaning. Is God calling you to sponsor Thitiwoot?

It’s easier than you think to make a difference for a child! With sponsorship you show a child  God’s love through monthly $38 donations ($32 until September), providing health care, education, Bible study and more, as well as writing letters to the child that can impact their life for Christ!

Learn more about sponsorship by clicking here.

 

Click here to sponsor Thitiwoot!

If he’s already been sponsored, search here for other children in need.
(I am not in any way affiliated with Compassion, except that I sponsor a child.)

You can also help by donating to the Global Food Crisis Fund.

He’s Singing His Love Over You

To all sons and daughters of God:

God loves you! He loves you beyond description! God’s love for you is infinite and unquenchable! He is never mad at you in any way. In fact, God DELIGHTS in you. He rejoices over you! God made you and His desire is to lavish you with His amazing love! He made you to LOVE you – that’s why He sent Jesus to take away our sins – He wanted to have a relationship with you.

God loves you no matter what you’ve ever done, been through or had happen to you. He’s not going to punish you for your past or even remind you of your mistakes. His Word says that He quiets you with His love, making no mention of your past sins.

Listen… Do you hear Him singing over you, speaking softly of His love for you?

God calls you wonderful – made wonderfully by Him.
God calls you valuable – of more worth than sparrows.
God calls you beloved – the apple of His eye.
God calls you His child – adopted into His family and Kingdom.

God calls you His! He loves you! 

GOD     LOVES     YOU !

The Lord your God is in the midst of you, a Mighty One, a Savior [Who saves]! He will rejoice over you with joy; He will rest [in silent satisfaction] and in His love He will be silent and make no mention [of past sins, or even recall them]; He will exult over you with singing.
(Zephaniah 3:17 Amplified)

Compassion Friday!

STILL for the third week in a row, Thitiwoot from Thailand needs a sponsor. Is God leading you to sponsor this child? Read more about him below:

Thitiwoot is a 7 year old boy in Thailand and has been waiting over six months for a sponsor. Thailand was one of the areas devastated by the tsunami of December 2004.

Thitiwoot’s favorite activities are walking, soccer and hide-and-seek. He lives with his mother and 5 siblings, and helps by carrying water, gardening and cleaning. Is God calling you to sponsor Thitiwoot?

It’s easier than you think to make a difference for a child! With sponsorship you show a child  God’s love through monthly $38 donations ($32 until September), providing health care, education, Bible study and more, as well as writing letters to the child that can impact their life for Christ!

Learn more about sponsorship by clicking here.

Click here to sponsor Thitiwoot!

If he’s already been sponsored, search here for other children in need.
(I am not in any way affiliated with Compassion, except that I sponsor a child.)

You can also help by donating to the Global Food Crisis Fund.

I Shall Taste and See

You are so near,
Yet never near enough.

Oh for the day to come
When my eyes fully see,
And my senses fully know
The goodness of You, my God.

Still the hope remains
That just as David prayed,
I shall taste and see Your goodness
In the land of the living.

So good You are,
Endless and matchless always.

Whom have I in heaven but You?
And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You.
My flesh and my heart fail;
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
(Psalm 73:25-26)

Compassion Friday

Thitiwoot from Thailand is still in need of a sponsor this week. Read more about him below:

Thitiwoot is a 7 year old boy in Thailand and has been waiting over six months for a sponsor. Thailand was one of the areas devastated by the tsunami of December 2004.

Thitiwoot’s favorite activities are walking, soccer and hide-and-seek. He lives with his mother and 5 siblings, and helps by carrying water, gardening and cleaning. Is God calling you to sponsor Thitiwoot?

It’s easier than you think to make a difference for a child! With sponsorship you show a child  God’s love through monthly $38 donations ($32 until September), providing health care, education, Bible study and more, as well as writing letters to the child that can impact their life for Christ!

Learn more about sponsorship by clicking here.

Click here to sponsor Thitiwoot!

If he’s already been sponsored, search here for other children in need.
(I am not in any way affiliated with Compassion, except that I sponsor a child.)

You can also help by donating to the Global Food Crisis Fund.