Meditations from Nahum 1 and  Ephesians 1& 2: (The Message)

God is serious business. He won’t be trifled with.

He could dissolve the world around me with just a word—just as he calms storms with a word. Selah (pause and calmly think about that.)

Tornadoes and hurricanes are the wake of His passage,

Storm clouds are the dust He shakes off His feet.

He yells at the sea: it dries up.

All the rivers run dry.

The mountains and orchards shrivel.

Mountains quake and hills dissolve into mud flats.

Earth shakes in fear of God.

…….No one gets away from God.

and yet…God’s characteristic way of working is in quietness and through prayer, not in noise and size; forces that quietly split my heart, like a plant splitting the pavement.

God doesn’t lose His temper. He’s powerful but it’s a patient power. Still, no one gets by with anything. Sooner or later everyone pays. (Nahum 1)

It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then He picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah. Now God has us where He wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! (Eph. 2)

It was when Jesus calmed the storm, healed people and raised the dead that the disciples began to realize the unthinkable; that this was GOD with us. Jesus didn’t pray to God, as a prophet would, to ask Him to calm the storm , He said the word and did it Himself. The winds and waves obeyed Him instantly. Healing power didn’t just flow through Him; He was the healing power. It flowed from Him at just a touch. His power wasn’t something He possessed it was something He was. This man who loved the disciples and enjoyed them and embraced them with all of their faults, was God! This changed everything for them as they experienced the love of God in the person of Jesus. It changes everything for us too.

The humbling revelation is that God speaks and His voice is like thunder and yet He also whispers in our hearts. He has made a way to show us the depth of His love for us, in Jesus Christ, the man who was God. Your part, your choice, is to let Him love you and then to trust His love. That is our only way of participating in what God is doing—by learning to receive. He does everything else in and through us as we trust and obey.

Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with Him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that. (Eph 5)

Don’t take any of this for granted. Amazing and impossible as it seems, God lives on earth in and through His own dear children whom he loves. His Kingdom is here and it supersedes all the kingdoms of the world. Pavements are being split, hearts are being changed, and one day everything will be brought together and summed up in Him (Christ). Everything in deepest heaven and everything on planet earth. (Eph. 1) This is God’s long-range plan.

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Jeremiah 31:33-34 NLT

As I was reading these verses this week, it struck me; I love it that God is now within intimately writing on my heart and renewing my mind with understanding, but what about the second half of this promise? The Lord says that in the new covenant we will not need to tell our neighbors and relatives that they ‘should know the Lord’ because they will know him already. I don’t see this all around me, do you? I see people, even Christians, aching to know God deeply without realizing what the ache is. In fact my life’s focus through Visionwriters has actually become helping people realize that they can and should know God more deeply … to eliminate from their world the ache of a silent God…

So I asked the Lord about this, why do we see and enjoy the first half of this promise but not the second half? Why do we still need to tell others that they should know the Lord?

This turned out, of course, to be one of those faulty, illogical questions.

Father pointed out to me that this isn’t a promise; it’s a COVENANT. I haven’t done deep study on the meaning of covenant, but I know that covenant goes both ways. When we enter the new covenant, we exchange our very lives. We ‘die’ to the old life and are born again spiritually, in union with Christ. That’s what happens in the spiritual realm when we enter the new covenant, even though we don’t understand it all at the time.

These are facts.

Oswald Chambers says: “When a person is born again from above, the life of the Son of God IS born in him, and he can either starve or nourish that life.”

Whether we starve or nourish that life, doesn’t alter the fact that if we have entered this covenant, God is writing Himself on our hearts and minds and we do know Him. That was His side of the covenant, and He is keeping it. Believe this.

Our side of this new covenant is, not to sacrifice the life of an animal anymore as in the old covenant, or even to keep all the rules, but now we give Him our very lives. We surrender our old identity and let it go to receive and recognize our new life in union with His Life. No more external sacrifices and performance, now its internal surrender and obedience. No more trying to become perfect by our own human effort, now it’s admitting our weaknesses and receiving His Spirit. (see Gal 3:3)

This new covenant far exceeds the old. This new covenant changes your very identity so that ALL who enter it DO know Him deep within.

But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You ARE controlled by the Spirit IF you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.) Rom 8:9 NLT

If God lives in you, He does control you, if you have entered the new covenant, you do know God, by union.

So what remains to be done? Of course, it’s just something to SEE! We must believe and cultivate this. We have an uncultivated friendship with God. He is there, we are His children, we must embark on the learning curve. We remove the ‘veil’ by turning to see God at every opportunity, by paying attention to what He is saying within, through His word, to what He is writing on our hearts and minds. He will teach us who we are and Who He is and we will discover that He has absorbed us into His Life and we now flow as one.

For His Holy Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts and tells us that we are God’s children. (Rom 8:16)

So I don’t need to tell you to know Him if you are ‘born again’; you do know Him. Cultivate it: He is always speaking to you. Recognize Him. He says,

“I devise creative ways to reveal Myself to you and I rejoice when you are attentive.”

Offering

by Kelly Minter

Words that used to intimidate, setting standards I couldn’t meet, are becoming joyful promises of wellness!  Light is dawning in my heart and soul. True understanding is taking the place of reason…year-by-year, day-by-day, moment-by-moment.

How can this be? How does it happen?

Slowly, like the blooming of a flower from a seed. Little-by-little as we wait creatively and expectantly for it to unfold, attentive to the process. Sometimes via growth spurts and sometimes in the midst of seeming dormancy.

“And we have the prophetic word made firmer still. You will do well to pay close attention to it as to a lamp shining in a dismal (squalid and dark) place, until the day breaks through the gloom and the Morning Star rises (comes into being) in your hearts.” 2 Pet 1:19 Amp

It’s simple, through it all PAY CLOSE ATTENTION to His Word, LISTEN to Him…… and the Morning Star (Christ) will rise in your heart!

It will take time, and we must trust Him through the various seasons of growth, even those when it seems we wait in vain, because His promise is sure:

Those who have received the Holy Spirit progressively recognize, understand and become better acquainted with the gifts teachings and revelations so freely and lavishly bestowed on us by God. The Holy Spirit was given to us so that we might realize and comprehend and appreciate God’s gifts of divine favor and blessing! We have the mind of Christ and do hold the thoughts, feelings and purposes of His heart!

(my paraphrase from 1 Cor. 2:12-16 Amplified)

Understanding doesn’t happen all at once, nor in a few months or years, but progressively, becoming brighter and brighter like the dawn. It continues throughout a lifetime if we will continue to pay attention:

to His Word; our water

to Him; our nourishment

to seeking first His Kingdom; our focus

to every moment and every event our lives; our awareness.

We don’t have to make the Kingdom seed grow:

“Jesus also said, ‘The Kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, while he’s asleep or awake, the seed sprouts and grows, but he does not understand how it happens. The earth produces the crops on its own. First a leaf blade pushes through, then the heads of wheat are formed, and finally the grain ripens.’”     Mark 4:26

The farmer merely waters and weeds and pays attention, and the crops grow from the seeds that contain everything within them. The Kingdom of God is like that. God’s Seed is planted in our hearts. We nurture it by paying attention and watching it grow.

Thomas Merton writes:

Every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul—germs of spiritual vitality coming to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men are not prepared to receive them. For such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the good soil of freedom, spontaneity and love.

Father has bedded us down in freedom, spontaneity and love, He has lavished it upon us. Will you see it? If you keep paying attention, you will.  No hurry.

In my journal Father said:

“Attention is all that’s required, an awareness of each moment and of My Presence will help you to receive Life correctly—as a medium of growth and not as something to try and control and manipulate to suit you.”

We must receive life as a medium of growth where our heart’s cry is “Father, glorify Your name,” rather than “Father, save me.”

When this becomes the cry of your heart, barren platitudes will eventually come alive to you. Words that used to feel like law, will feel like grace. Obedience will flow from love. You will discover that you were made for this; for glorifying God, for housing the life of God within you, for resting in the endless joy of knowing Him.

“Listen, listen to Me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.” Isaiah 55:2

]]> http://www.visionwriters.com/blogs/saras-blog/spiritual-growth/feed 2 http://www.visionwriters.com/blogs/saras-blog/resurrecton-defined-life http://www.visionwriters.com/blogs/saras-blog/resurrecton-defined-life#comments Sat, 03 Apr 2010 16:43:37 +0000 Sara http://www.visionwriters.com/?p=1486 Just a few Easter thoughts……

In the Bible I am reading there is a note which says that the seven questions in Romans 8:31-35 ‘bring the whole field of spiritual formation into sharp focus. This life is about God at work on an inconceivably vast scale, embracing all of creation, all of history.’ Here are the questions to ponder:

1. What then are we to say to these things?…..

2. If God is for us, who can be against us?

3. He who did not spare even His own Son but gave Him up on behalf of us all —is it possible that, having given us His Son, He would not give us everything else too?

4. So who will bring a charge against God’s chosen people? Certainly not God—He is the one who causes them to be considered righteous.

5. Who punishes them? Certainly not the Messiah, who died and —more than that—has been raised, is at the right hand of God and is actually pleading on our behalf!

6. Who will separate us from the love of God?

7. Will trouble? hardship? persecution? hunger? poverty? danger? war?

These are some things to think deeply about this Easter. What do you say about these things? If we live believing these things  that changes the foundation of our lives and we are now resurrection-defined, not defined by the secularism of this world. The whole world is ‘robust’ with God’s eternal love from which nothing can separate us. This is the resurrection world in which we live as followers of Jesus.

Jesus Christ is God’s will personified, God’s word embodied. That God would become a human, enter the world and be put to death by humans, and that this would be celebrated 2010 years later shows the world changing power of God’s will.

In my Journal Father said:

“My will is in effect, always and continually. My will for you is that you would know Me and that you be conformed into Christ-likeness because Christ is in union with you now—the strongest link there ever could be between God and man. We are linked now and this was my plan. First I created you and then I gave birth to you. In creation I put you together in your mother’s womb. In birth I went through agony for you, death and resurrection, bringing you with me into the New Life. This Easter weekend, you celebrate your new birth along with and as an integral part of My resurrection.”

Lets celebrate: laugh and sing and be delighted because God has called us His own!

Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Ps 37:4 NIV

Growing up, one of my biggest fears was that if I surrendered all to God then I would have to go off to Africa and be a missionary. I heard countless stories of folks to whom that happened and I really didn’t want to go to Africa.

I presumed that whatever was unpleasant would be my duty. But, as Oswald Chambers says; Is that anything like the spirit of our Lord? —”I delight to do Your will, O my God…” Ps 40:8

As I got a little older I heard it said that God places His desires in your heart, that you will find that if He has a place He wants you to go to or a task He wants you to do, then He will sneak that desire in there and you’ll want to do it. That made me feel a little better about things…

But I have found that following God often feels like He’s asking me to jump off a cliff without a parachute; that proverbial leap of faith. What if you’re afraid? What if you just don’t want to do what you know He is asking you to do? How can it be an adventure and a delight? Why does He have to keep stretching me?

I am discovering that the beauty of this courageous life in Christ is that it’s all about knowing Him and trusting Him and being with Him. Yes, He does ask you to leap into the unknown, He does ask you to take another step without knowing the whole pathway. But every time you do that in obedience to His leading, you will discover that He is waiting for you there. He is your parachute who protects you against a fall, but your parachute won’t open until it’s needed. He gives you the words He wants you to say or the direction you need for decisions, or the guidance for the next step…..or leap!

And so it turns out that He does give you the desires of your heart after all because the true desire of your heart is Him and if He is ahead on the pathway then you’ll want to follow and be with Him at all costs.

Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be. Matt 6:21 NLT

You don’t need excessive confidence first, just the simple willingness to take the next step towards Him. I will choose courage over fear because he has proven himself trustworthy over and over again. I would never know that if I hadn’t leapt off the cliff. The thrill of the adventure with God draws us on. But, more than anything just remaining in His presence is the desire of our hearts and it is because of this that we delight to do His will.

Amazingly I have discovered when I obey, that He has been preparing me for the task a long time in advance. He doesn’t throw us in so deep that we drown; He teaches us how to swim first. He has certain tasks that He has, and is preparing us for and because He prepares us for them they do turn out to be delightful. They fulfill us in ways we never expected. Whatever God calls you to do, He will give you the power and the courage to carry out. Who would have thought?

And once you’ve experienced that thrill, you will be truly delighted.

And so it’s true what He said at the beginning, but it’s the first part of the verse that the second part flows from and that’s the only part that we really need to focus on:

Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Ps 37:4 NIV

Visionwriting /journalizing is my passion, and the tool that God has used in my life to constantly woo me deeper and deeper into this love relationship with Him.  For me it’s like a golden key that unlocks doors to hearing and knowing God. I hope that as you look around our website you will find encouragement and hope and get involved in one of our courses.

I must admit that I had an initial resistance to having a blog . After all, laying your heart out there with no idea who is reading it or even if anyone is reading it? So, this week, I took my attitude to the Lord and asked Him to clarify my mind and to show me what my aims and motives are, you know, the ones He has placed within me that are sometimes difficult for me to identify. Boy, did he come through, so much so that I now can’t wait to blog!

So, He decided to take me back to my very first journal, the weekend I attended Jaque’s retreat in Hawaii 18 years ago. Aha, right there he nailed me with this revelation: ”Sara, the reason that you are discontented is that you are not bearing fruit in your life.”

Jesus told us in John 17 that fruit bearing comes from abiding in Him, (listening to Him, staying with Him, paying attention to Him, trusting and obeying Him, and looking for Him everywhere and in everything).

He further explained to me that the fruit that we bear IS Him. From 18 years of abiding through journalizing, the fruit that I desire, see, taste and enjoy and can hold out to you is: GOD.  Sharing what I see of Him with you in this format of blogging, keeping a web-log of God-sightings and God-tastings, oh yes all that I have to share is Him. What delicious, refreshing fruit!

Jesus said, “Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth…here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world.”

Matthew 5: 13,14 The Message

If I can add a little salt and light to your world by sharing what God is teaching me, I hope that it will help you to wonder and exclaim over the God flavors and colors that are all around you. Sometimes it’s hard to taste and see that the Lord is good, but we can point Him out to each other; just sprinkle a little salt and all the flavors are enhanced. Shine a little light and the darkness flees. Oh did you taste that? Did you see God there?

While seeking clarification and reassurance over this blogging endeavor, I went back to read those verses again.  I heard God speak clearly to me as I continued to read:

Sara, “God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.”

OK, God, we’re going public! I can’t argue with that.

May He shine through me to you, even in my struggles. And what an incredible promise he has given, that by opening up with others, we prompt them to open up with God. More amazing fruit!

I hope you’ll come back and visit often and join me as I pursue God in the midst of the realities of my life.

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So often we get close to the flame but are too afraid of catching on fire. But it is that very fire that is the power and glory of God shining and living through us. We were made for this. That’s casme.

He tells me stubbornness is an unintelligent barrier that must be blown up with the dynamite of obedience…..ouch.

Another thought about being a container; we are a cup or container for the Lord but we also need to drink the contents of the cup!  When we drink it requires taking the contents into our entire digestive system and distributing it throughout muscles, bones, cells, nerves etc. We take something that is not us into our lives so that it becomes us and enters into our living.  Same as a washcloth in the bathtub. Christ in us as us…

I also see much from an analogy of a flowing stream. We often talk about going with the flow of God. When we are navigating rapids we need to be in the flow of the deep water path, between the rocks that will be in the way. We have to tap into God, our inner source in order to be calm and tuned in and go with the flow, otherwise we panic and stick our oars in when we shouldn’t- taking us out of the flow and throwing the whole thing off balance. So, making our way through rapids is more intuitive than planned. God in us sticks the oars in when needed as long as we are completely tuned to him and letting him live through us. (I discovered it works once when I was in a regular kayak but I was in the ocean and I had to avoid hitting folks in the head who were playing in the waves! Instinct took over and I was amazed afterward at how I automatically steered that thing correctly…and didn’t even capsize.) I would love to live that way all the time and I believe that is what God is offering us.