God Fulfills His Word

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  My early class is ready to begin and I cannot wait to grab my notebook and my pen to record another lesson from the Holy One.

Truth is like an intricate design, one strand leads to another and that leads to another and a beautiful mosaic is being revealed before my eyes.  I want to know truth, nothing but truth, and the Holy Spirit within guides me to my goal.

God's Word is true.  My belief in that fact is foundational to possessing the wisdom and blessings contained therein.  My verse and promise for 2014 comes out of Isaiah 55:8-13.  The Holy One takes me to these verses each day as a reminder and place to focus on the challenges I face and the reasons to be thankful day by day.

The Lord speaks His Truth to all of us.  Over all the generations,  His Word and His wisdom is available for any who would seek His face.  Life with the Lord is like being on an exciting scavenger hunt or on a profound archaeological expedition. There is so much to find and unearth as we journey with Jesus. He knows where all the priceless things in creation have been hidden for us to discover and longs for us to care enough to look for them. 

Relationship is where all the good things in life are shared and relationship with God is no different, except that God is so infinite in his being that we will never get past the mystery of Who He is.

Day by day, new facets of His Being are opened up to the enquiring heart where worship of Him is our only response.  Today the Holy One blows all my circuits with the truth about "prayer".

Knowing what I know about my Lord causes me to ask deep questions so I can try to understand His mysterious ways.  I wonder about so many things and when I wonder, I ask.  My questions don't always get immediate answers, but eventually my understanding grows and I guess we could call that a form of spiritual maturity.

While none of us ever arrives at the station called, "I-know-all-about-God", we are given measures of truth to be applied in understanding the One who is known as the "Great I AM", all along our earthly journey. 

Today the Holy One takes me back to His lesson on prayer.  His voice speaks into my thoughts, "God will fulfill His Word.  Pray the Word and you will see amazing answers".

Sometimes the most powerful lessons are the slowest ones to be learned. But since God operates on an eternal timetable, what is fast or slow to me must be dismissed as just part of the process and not a hard line analysis of my great wit and wisdom activated or God's plan and purpose derailed.

Praying God's word is a principle of intercession and seeing Divine intervention by  God's powerful Hand.  God's Word is His will.  We can say that, yet not read the Bible with the discipline and determination to actually figure it out.  Today the Holy One directs me back to that powerful truth.

Isaiah 55:11, "So is my word, (declares the Lord) it will not return to me empty but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it". 

When we pray according to the Word of God, He promises to fulfill it.  By way of an example, when His word exhorts me to pray for the peace and prosperity of the land of exile (and we do live here in the land of exile since Heaven is our home) because, "if it prospers you too will prosper", I am assured that God will fulfill His Word to me.  Jeremiah 29:7 

I can pray for my own peace and prosperity and not experience it because I am not praying for the peace and prosperity of the rest of the land.  I may miss the ultimate blessing because I pray once by His Word but then give up trusting in His timing.  Divine health and Divine healing is no different. 

Many have said that asking more than once for what we need or desire is an indication of faithlessness but the parable of the persistent widow tells me otherwise.  Also when Jesus says that we are to ask seek and knock the idea is to persevere and do not give up asking seeking and knocking, believing in the truth that God is about the business of fulfilling His own Word.

Anchoring to this basic principle that God will always fulfill His Word, I can see that His Glory and His renown will flow into the world as we declare that He and His Word are the source of all the good things we possess.   The truth is no secret and all can enjoy the inheritance of His Blessings.  But do even His own people grasp and operate in this amazing truth?

The fact that we pray is not the reason for His answers in and of itself.  The fact that we can petition the God of all Creation to fulfill His Word and His promises, is the reason for the answers that come.  THAT is the point and to the world the reason we can give God all the Glory.  He will fulfill His Word. 

As a believer in Jesus the One True God, and in the written Word He has given to us, I see how vital it is to pray His Word.  The testimony that comes when we point to His written promises fulfilled stands alone.  The Glory is His. 

If we take claim to victory and answers because we offer up our own private prayers the world can get confused since they are not privy to our fine sounding words or even our desperate cries.  But point their eyes to the answers as God's Word fulfilled and the Glory and Honor due Him is spontaneously given.

Those of us who have trusted in Christ as our Savior and bridge back to the Garden and relationship with our Creator, are the only ones who can access His promises.

If we as His Body miss this great opportunity and privilege to pray His Word and receive His answers, all that is our inheritance here remains unclaimed.   More than answering our prayers, God is about fulfilling His Word.

Today is the day to pray:

Thy Kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth as it is in Heaven

God's Word is His will.  How about we simply ask him to fulfill it?

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?     

      

A Time For Women*

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  The last days of summer are winding down, fall is about to make its glorious appearance in the annual foliage change as the trees prepare to sleep through the winter.

Frustrations have been like gravel under my feet: sharp rocks, slippery rocks, small rocks, big rocks, all there to remind me to pay attention to my footing along the pathway of this life. 

Today the Holy One brings encouragement to me as a woman, and the great potential we each have to impact our world.  The "world" we find ourselves in is reeling from division and political upheaval  and with the corporate suffering that follows.

His voice is gentle but firm:  "Rise up Deborah".  His directive takes my thoughts to the Biblical account of a powerful woman by that name.

God's Word is alive for every generation to see themselves written, in symbolic terms, throughout the pages of this history of man's days upon the earth and in our relationship with our Creator.

The story of Deborah is written in Judges 4-5.  There is much to be gleaned from the life of this woman, so I set out to see what the Lord might want me to learn today.  Judges 5:7-9 seem to jump out at me today.  This is part of what scripture calls, 'The Song of Deborah".

"In the days of Jael the roads were abandoned,
Travelers took to winding paths. 
Village life in Israel ceased,
ceased until I, Deborah arose
Arose a mother in Israel.
When they chose other gods
war came to the city gates
And not a shield or a spear was seen among
forty thousand in Israel.
My heart is with Israel's Princes
with the willing volunteers
among the people
Praise the Lord".

This portion of scripture reveals a time in Israel's history where oppressive forces had gained power.  Cruel treatment by pagan authorities had a grip on the Children of Israel. A sense of despair and hopelessness covered the land.  Fear and terror filled the bitter cup they were forced to drink from.

They were a nation within a nation not unlike the Church today.  They had their own system of justice and rules that governed their private society.  They had their own life within the land of the Canaanites but were not living in the freedom the Lord God had for them.

Many reasons may have accounted for their circumstances but the one that jumps out in Deborah's Song in Judges 5:13-17 is the hesitation the different tribes had to join in the battle and take up the victory promised by God for His people.  Whether from lack of unity or basic cowardice, Deborah was called to rise up. 

Many battles were fought and won by the mighty warrior men of Israel, but here is a battle whose win is credited to a woman. I like that.

As I meditate on this portion of Scripture, I can see the problems outlined in her song.   Fear was so great that people stopped their travel plans.  When God's people stop going from here to there,  the gospel ceases to be shared.  When fear causes us to feel the threats and lock our doors, community ceases as well. 

Judges 5:8, "When they chose other gods, war came to the city streets". 

In our world of temporal offerings and the confusion that goes with all the materialistic benefits in the land,we somehow misunderstand what choosing other gods might look like today.  We don't have to burn incense to Baal to be guilty of choosing other gods. 

Choosing another god is about placing our trust, enjoying the benefits and living out an agenda that s not in the will of our God for His people.  It is not always so clear in our world today that we are trusting in the government as a god, enjoying the food stamps, and living by the imposed rules that further our participation in an agenda other than the one our God has called us to live out.  Such things can be seen by Holiness as our choosing "other gods".

Deborah's song goes on to say, "Not a shield or spear was seen among forty thousand in Israel".  The people were dis-armed or had so made peace with the surrounding nations that they had no weapons to use to fight against the cruel oppressor.

Deborah was a "Prophetess" of the Lord and to the people she was a "judge".  Her relationship to the God of Israel gave her a voice and place of honor among the people.  I can't help but wonder: was she interceding and just waiting for the Lord to give the command for them to fight for their freedom?

We don't know how the prophecy came to her, but we do know there came that day when she heard that directive and she summoned the fighting men from the different tribes of Israel to unify in the Lord's battle.  The men were lacking the courage to rise up and face the enemy for whatever the reason, but as Deborah exhorted them through the prophetic word of victory, their army reluctantly came together and took claim to the victory promised.

The hesitation by the men opened the way for victory to come by way of a woman.  God is no respecter of persons and gives strength and courage to women as well as to men. Deborah was not the woman who won the battle that day.  The victory went to another brave woman of lesser reputation.  Jael, was the humble tent dwelling wife of Heber.   Minding her family life, she was given and seized the opportunity to rid Israel of their cruel task master Sisera, the commander of the Canaanite King's mighty army. 

Jael, a tent dwelling woman, drove a tent peg through the temple of the enemy and ended his reign of terror over the Children of Israel.   Deborah's song gives credit where credit is due.  True victory came from the Hand of the Lord.  Poetically spoken, God's intervention is sung;  "From the Heavens, the Stars fought from their courses.  They fought against Sisera".  That is a powerful picture of God's Heavenly hosts, "stars" as they are called, fighting "from their courses".

Women have such an important role to play in the way of counsel and encouragement when men are at risk of losing their commitment to leadership or even their heart for the battles in life.  We, as wives and moms can often times see the liability of going with the flow better than men can. Interesting side note that back in the day, Eve was created as a "help-meet" for Adam and that description suggests a "military ally". Structure of authority and not weakness calls for her submission and there is a time and place for her strength to be engaged.

Deborah was a mother.  Deborah was a God honoring woman in Israel.  Deborah noticed that village life has ceased, that war had come to her gates and that they had been disarmed, with no way to protect themselves from the cruelty of the encroaching world around them.  But the hardest thing on her heart was the reluctance of the men to go into battle.  Deborah was crying out for deliverance and God heard her cry.

The end of her story gives me great hope for the end of ours.  Oppressive forces were nothing compared to the legions of warring angels that make up God's Heavenly Hosts.

There arose a mother in Israel.  How about here in our land?  Maybe the Lord is just waiting for more of us Deborah's to rise up. 

"Wake up, Wake up Deborah, Wake up, Wake up and break out in song".  Let's encourage our fighting men to take up their places on the battle field..... but keep our tent pegs handy just in case.

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?



                 



  

Ask Me For Anything

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  His companionship is so welcome at first light.  He is always present and does seem to watch over me when I sleep.  It doesn't matter what time on the earth clock I open my eyes, I sense His Presence and know He is with me.

While He speaks his Word to my mind and causes me to recall what has been written, His counsel will often come in the form of visual images that carry His point.  I have always said that for me to understand some of the deeper things, He needs to draw me a picture.  The fascinating truth is that He does. 

Lately I have been given an image of my Savior on the Cross.  The tortured body and wounded flesh in the past has caused me to recoil at that picture in my mind.  The Holy One has given me a new picture as I meditate on His words in Isaiah 53:5,  "But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him and by His wounds we are healed."  Just to be clear that word healed, means "to cure", "to repair thoroughly", and "to make whole".

I see a picture of the Lord's body of death with all the sickness and diseases that we carry around in our flesh bodies covering Him.  I see Him with all the toxic elements of this fallen earth hanging on His body broken and then slain for me.  In the death He suffered, He took upon His flesh all that is capable of killing me. 

My carnal mind starts to debate, "But something has to take out our flesh bodies and catapult us into eternity".  But then He answers my probing questions and lingering doubts, "Whoever told you that you can't just go to sleep here and wake up in eternity? Whoever said you have to succumb to a disease or accident and not just go to sleep one night and wake up in My presence?  

I cannot argue with that Truth.  Somewhere along the line I have resigned myself to that justification for sickness as the Lord's only way to take me out of my earthly tent. Jesus died so that I can live free, not just in the sweet by and by, but also in the difficult day to day. 

I think of that provision for His people while the nation is struggling with out of control health "care" costs.  His promise of Divine healing claimed and experienced diffuses all the fear of having no insurance or worrying about having to pay big bucks for health care.  While the enemy of our souls has most of the nation focusing on the disease, we possess the cure as our inheritance. 

The only thing that can fail is if our inheritance remains unclaimed.  God's Word and His promises speak to our life here and not just post death into eternity.  Jesus Life brought hope for the infirmed as well as relief for the sinner.

And before He left planet earth, He spoke to His followers (us):

John 14:11-14, "Believe me when I say I am in the Father and the Father is in Me, or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.  I tell you the truth, Anyone who has faith in Me will do what I have been doing.  He will do even greater things that these because I am going to the Father and I will do whatever you ask in My Name, so that the Son will bring Glory to the Father, you may ask Me for anything in My Name and I will do it."

We see what Jesus did in Matt 8;16, "When evening came, many who were demon possessed were brought to Him and He drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick".

The Holy one grips my heart and mind with the magnitude of that promise.  I am on a serious learning curve in this new season of my life with the Lord.  While the enemy is alive and well on planet earth, Jesus made it clear that the devil's power is no match for the power and authority of the Creator and His Son, who brought the knowledge of God's love to the world of men.

It is humbling to think that, while all the wonderful promises of the Creator of the universe stand ready to be claimed, humanity suffers in resigned defeat for faithless failure to take God at His word.

In the natural arena of life, if we were told that the wealthiest man in the word left us with an inheritance and we said, "No thanks", without even attempting to take claim to what he left for us, we would be considered foolish indeed.  Yet that is what so many do with the promises of our God.

I understand that the promises are personal and corporate.  James 5:14-16, gives a prescription for healing.  The Lord, in his Word exhorts any who are sick to seek out the elders, who should pray and anoint them with oil in the Name of the Lord.  "The prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up."

There doesn't seem to be any qualifier to that promise,  and it is clear that it's not the "prayer" that will raise him up but the Lord.  We seem to get hung up on finding an excuse for our lack of patience in waiting upon the Lord to raise us up.  Scripture doesn't tell us that it will be in an instant or in a week, but only that it will happen.

The lag time between petition and answer is where we fall victim to faithlessness, and were the Lord takes us from mental faith to heart faith.  Mental faith "knows" the Lord CAN do anything, but heart faith sees it as done.

Taking claim to God's promises is a vigorous discipline. Many of us give up in the first mile of the race, when things don't look so good for the home team.   

Not too long ago, in regards to an extended and bitter trial, the Lord spoke to me and said, "Don't believe Satan's lies or even your own eyes, believe only in My Word".  God's Word is His Will. 

If Jesus had left one person in sickness, we could think that God's will is for some to be left sick, but that is not the case or what is written in the Word.  God's Word says Jesus healed ALL the sick who were brought to Him.  Jesus came as the Word of God in a flesh form and modeled God's Will.  Jesus reversed the curse of the fall and re-instated man's dominion on and over the earth.  Jesus came to show us and remind us of our outrageous inheritance.

His words of encouragement hit my heart and mind like a tazer.  The shock has a perfect result and puts me back into the place of visions of "Heaven's reality";  "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven", where the anticipation of good things that I can ask for and expect to receive from my Lord begins to grow; where faith rises up like the sun.

Jesus said, "You may ask Me for anything in My Name and I will do it".

The Holy Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him? Today I plan to take Him at His Word.

    
      

God's Benevolent Hand Of Blessing

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  The dawn of a new day is like a promise from Our Creator.  I cherish His promises and there is one I am drawn often in the morning when my conscious mind comes out of slumber.

It stands as an outrageous promise for all that the human mind can fathom from the Hand of Sovereignty. Isaiah 55:8-11 NIV:

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord.  As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that It yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is My word that goes forth from My mouth:  It will not return to me empty but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."

This great promise begins with the truth of our humanity: that we are  incapable of completely comprehending the will and ways and thoughts of our Creator God.  Then the words speak of the natural to reveal the spiritual.  In the cycle of our provision, rain and snow come down from heaven to water the earth for the purpose of providing what mankind needs:  seed for the sower and bread for the eater. 

The verses given, reveal the cycle of God's benevolent provision whereby He draws us into the comparison. "So is My Word that goes out from My mouth".  God's Word is the provision we need just like the rain is what the earth needs to flourish, and both relate to our needs being met. 

The Word of God is empowered by God Himself.  John 1:1 says, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning".  The "Word" we read on to find out is Jesus, the Son of God, born of a woman so humanity could see and get to know God in a flesh form. 

Jesus wrapped Himself in flesh for our benefit, and walked the earth among His Creation like He walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the morning back in the Garden of Eden.  With Jesus, came the visual that humanity needed to recognize and feel the ultimate love of the Creator for His beloved creation called "man".

Jesus, the Word, was sent forth from Heaven like the rain and snow to accomplish God's set purpose.  In the person of Christ Jesus, that set purpose was the restoration of relationship between God and man.  His death on the Cross paid the price required in order to be restored to fellowship with the One True Creator God after the fall of man.

Jesus is the seed for the sower and the bread for the eater. He is the manna in the spiritual wilderness; the provision of what (Who) we need in order to thrive and be satisfied even in our life journey here on earth, that will one day morph into an unbelievable eternity.

"But wait there's more", I hear the voice of the Holy One say. "My Word is My will and My promises are for you today".  The love of the Creator is concerned about all the details of my temporal life today and not just for my future eternity.

The life and power of Jesus did not end 2000 years ago.  He is alive and present today in the Person of the Holy Spirit and works His powerful authority in and through the people who are called by His Name.

Looking back to His earth life, I see the goodness Jesus brought to every life that was opened to Him.  He said He didn't come to judge the world.  He said He came to show us the love of the Father.  He came to be a visual model for life under the Divine benediction of healing, provision, rescue, and restoration.  He came to answer the deepest questions of humanity about God, since the relationship with the Creator was lost:

What is the Creator like?
Who is He really?   
What can I know about Him?
Does He care about me?
Am I a part of a bigger plan?
Will He help me when I need help?
When I die, what then?

All the deep questions about life and our existence and our future eternity were answered through the life, death and resurrection of the Son of God, as written in the Word of God, and as provided by His indwelling Holy Spirit of Truth. 

Then, as if our assurance of eternal life to be spent with the Source of all life is not enough to satisfy us, the Holy one also speaks to the grumpy side of our humanity:

We say, "Well, that's wonderful for a future day in time and I am thankful for my fire insurance, but I have bills to pay and a family to feed and a temporal life that gets harder by the day."

Thoughts of the sweet by and by can get spoiled by the bitter day to day.  But is this the life we must resign ourselves to live?

Not according to God's plan. 

Life on this planet in a flesh body, demands provision.   Needs are a reality of this life.  But, since the Word of God is alive and active and provisionally like the rain and snow, God's word contains promises of His provision if we will but look for them.

Isaiah 55:12, "You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace".

God through Christ, cancelled every curse and is able and willing to fulfill every promise.  It is therefore a tragedy how many of those who are saved are estranged from the very life of blessing that our salvation guarantees and that the Word of our Savior promises can be ours.

Ignorance is not bliss.  Ignorance robs us of what can be ours, due to our failure to take claim to that which is promised in the Word. An unclaimed inheritance is no inheritance.

The Holy One has made His point to me today:  His Word, (all of it) will not return to Him without accomplishing the purpose for which He sent it.   For me, all His promises are "yes, and amen".  I take claim to all the goodness and mercy that is mine and modelled by Jesus, when He came to show us the Father.

My eternity is with the Author of life.  My temporal is with the Creator of the Heavens, the earth and everything in them.  Every good and perfect gift is mine to claim and experience under His benevolent hand of blessing.
 
Today I will read His Word with delight and thanksgiving to see what awesome things He is sending my way.

The Holy Spirit is calling.  Can you hear him?