Something made me think of my Grandmother the other day; she would often call and say, ‘I don’t know nothing….I just called to find out how you were doing’. She was a busy woman, probably too busy, but I was amazed that she could find the time to do the things she did. “I don’t know nothing” may not be good english, but it made me think about her and the love she had for me. It makes me lovingly think of others I care about and how I should find the time to reach them. The truth is, I don’t have much to offer and I really don’t know much… but, for the grace of God I am nothing and I have nothing. While in that momentary thought of, ‘what little I could offer anyone’, I found myself praying; God save my children, save my family, God save me, and Lord save others through my life…oh, how I need Your power.’ Your life is a powerful thing, a tool created really for only for one purpose and that’s to be used by the power of God to influence others for His cause. Your life is to become a living testimony made by what only the Holy Spirit can reflect upon you, so others could be saved. I love the place where Jesus says, ‘Come to Me all you who are weak and heavy laden, and I will give you rest….’ The word says, Jesus lives at the right hand of God (Mk16:19). Residing in power, He lives to make intercession for us’ (Heb7:25). He lives to call us to rest ourselves in His finished work and be connected to His life and power by the Holy Spirit whom He sent as our Helper and His agent of extra-ordinary benefits. He lives to bring you into a restful place to stop thinking there’s anything you could do for Him. He lives so you might realize it’s in only what He can do for you– to reflect His life by powerful changes in your character and demeanor. The Spirit of God moves in the place of prayer connecting us to the will and intention of His heart. While men search for the perfect; the perfect life, a perfect home, the perfect love, it can only be found in the perfect heart of God, known only by time in the presence of His own dear Son. E.M. Bounds one said, “Prayer is far reaching in its influence and worldwide in its effects. It affects all men, affects them everywhere, and affects them in all things. It touches man’s interest in time and eternity. It lays hold upon God and moves him to interfere in the affairs of earth. It moves the angels to minister to men in this life. It restrains and defeats the devil and his schemes to ruin man. Prayer goes everywhere and lays its hand upon everything.” It’s prayer that makes us behold Him who is perfect, so we should reflect His glory. The enemy would have you weak and giving up over the things you see, but Jesus would have you pray and He says, ‘come to Me!’
Tag: Father
The Field of Glory
God has a word for you today to persevere in the field He’s placed you in. He wants you to reach the people in it for His glory. Be assured today, you’re right where you should be as you yield your ambitions because of the Father’s love for the field. He would say to you, ‘know My love and you WILL produce My glory in this, your field!’ God has you right where He has you to be effective! Without His glory your crops will fail and there is no harvest. God desires to see the glory of His field in full bloom because it is His desire that you be fruitful and multiply. Jesus says, ‘lift your eyes on the fields white unto harvest’. My heart was reassured recently, that if I’d just live for Him and not resist, I’d get the love of His heart and He would allow me a window into what He sees and how His heart breaks because of how He loves. I looked up to see a child and thought of my own and my love for them and began to understand the Father’s love for others. The love of God and relationship with Him produces glory. It’s not so much what you do, but it’s who you become. My son can’t really do anything to be my son, he IS my son and everything he does is a reflection of me. Put into perspective, God says you are to be a reflection of Me, so where is your glory? You are like a mirror reflecting what you are looking at, so what are you looking at? God says, ‘know my love and behold the man Christ Jesus the son of my love, then you will be a reflection of My love for others.’ When you see Him, you’ll weep for your foolishness because it robbed you from people in danger with no one to sound the alarm…no one to show forth the glory. He lovingly says to you again and again, ‘I’m your glory, I am all you need and in my unfailing love, I will have you to be the bold light of the field.’ Our prayer today…‘God give us the beat of your loving heart and show us the field of glory!’
The Spirit That Makes Us Sons
Remember the word given to Saul? Namely this, that he would would be changed into another man and would be numbered among the prophets. There was however with Saul an uncertainty that left him timid and restrained from doing God’s will. With all of us, God seeks to do a new thing, but the timid of spirit can’t see it–its view is clouded by all the baggage. Get it! God says ‘you will be endued with mighty power and with the mind to receive what I would do on your behalf; you will be changed by a heart touched by my love and declare My word to men.’ The word says as much in 2 Timothy 1:7 when it says, ‘God has not given us a spirit of fear or timidity but one of power and love and sound judgement.’ Samuel declared of the Lord’s chosen, ‘see there is none like him in all the land’. The New Testament says we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood and yet we too easily miss His mighty acts because we all too often dwell with the timid and not the humble. Saul’s royal life was haunted by that timid spirit, and he never got rid of the baggage he was hiding behind. Timidity will keep you in “Yourself” while humility will take you beyond yourself to behold what God will do just because He said so. Humility will give you a front row seat to God’s glory, but timidity leaves you blocked off with a very realistic view of yourself and no faith to see beyond the strength of your own hand. I recently found myself frustrated and angry because I could not change a particular situation that I was facing. God revealed my frustration was borne of a timid spirit causing me a place of grief instead of seeing the way of victory. The timid never go past the frustration, but continue with a passive approach that leaves them disappointed and missing the full plan of God. He showed my need to dwell with the broken not the timid. In that moment of anxiety God revealed this: the timid fail to see His move because of many reasons all driven by fear, but the broken humbly take a seat of rest by a window of recovery to behold what God says and moreover what He would do. Saul became King, but failed to possess all God had intended because he was slave to his own thinking. It left him angry and disappointed not full–timid but not broken. And the end of his life was spent still trying to change the situation by His own methods missing God by a half a step. What about you…want to be angry for the way things are turning out? The timid spirit will keep you there–mad but unable to really do anything about it. That is why it is so frustrating because there is really nothing “you” can do there behind all that baggage hiding from God’s favor. God says, ‘why don’t you look to the word that I’ve given to you as sons?’ ‘I have not given you a spirit of fear and slavery, but I give a Spirit of love so your heart becomes mine. I give a Spirit of power–an unction moving your life from uncertainty to possess the things I have said on your behalf, because son, there is to be none like you, so that I might declare my life through yours. I have given you a Spirit of discipline to think with sound judgement so you can work my plan not your own with the unlimited ability of my resources to accomplish the word I will send before you. I offer you today sound judgment enabling you to think like sons not slaves. Today, which will you be?’ He further says, ‘kindle afresh the gift of God by the Spirit I have given to you, which is powerfully appointed to enable you to focus and to act as sons.’
A Father’s Prayer
“My prayer for you this morning is that above all else you will be given strength to be a man/woman who loves what is good and right and abhors being intoxicated with evil, so you might be such a man/woman who is able and fit–divinely empowered to make His glory known like a light shining in a dark place. I pray your faith increases in might and power and you receive the extra-ordinary Spirit of Christ to accomplish God’s will above your own and you live your life standing in the stream of victory knowing; “You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you”. I pray for a fresh approach to what you know by the power of the Holy Spirit which causes you to rise above yesterday and find His glory today…. praying this knowledge inspires a love that endures all things for His sake and for the sake of His call.
GraceLife 