Delegated Authority

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  I am in need of His perspective, always, but today the presence of evil in the world seems suffocating and it's hard to see from my earthbound position.  The World Olympics are underway. Security issues everywhere are surfacing and we all seem so vulnerable in this life.

These times are nothing more than have been prophesied and promised by the One who ultimately controls all things.  So are we just victims of evil while our merciful God and Redeemer just looks on?

God's Word tells us that the Savior, Jesus Christ, came to destroy the devil's work,  I John 3:8.  And Jesus said that because He was going to the Father and going to send the Spirit, we would do greater things than He did while on earth, John 14:12-14.  We were given permission to ask with the promise of answers.

Today the Holy One calls me to our meeting with great news.  He points out to my finite mind a deep and profound truth:  In the Spirit realm every being acknowledges and yields to the pre-eminence of Christ Jesus, the Sovereign King of Kings.  Only in the earth realm does the kind of ignorance and blatant rebellion exist that resists the power of His authority.  And it is because of our ignorance in wielding the scepter of His delegated authority that we, as His servants, live in defeat.

The kingdom of Heaven as well as the kingdom of darkness operates under the structure of authority from least to greatest and all (both kingdom's beings) end up at the Throne of ou God and our King Jesus.

Holiness has a word for me today.  "Take up your authority as delegated to you by the King of all Creation and the darkness must yield.  Stand firm on the Living Word of God and the flaming arrows of the evil one will be extinguished by faith..and extinguished means "can cause you no harm".

I have just passed through the valley of the shadow of death and found I could look into that darkness and fear no evil.  The Lord is my Shepherd.

The Holy One speaks, "now that you know that you know, firsthand, how Jesus conquered death and rendered it impotent in light of eternity, you can better grasp the power and authority of the Heavenly realm."

I now see that the "death spirit" had no power over me.  Even as that physical death touched my life, and I sensed the dark foreboding power that was hoovering, it was unable to claim a victim.  I learned how to wield the scepter of my King against those dark demons set against me and found, to my great relief, that they had to retreat.  The Lord never left my side in those dark days and gave understanding to His promise that He would never leave me nor forsake me.

Today the Holy Spirit brings more light and revelation to the principles that govern Eternity.  Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.  That is the legacy of our King, and granted to those of who believe on His Name is the duty and privilege to bind evil to that truth.  At the name of Jesus, evil everywhere must bow and yield it's turf.  Wisdom accompanies Truth, and as we search for one we will find the other.

We are called to enforce Christ's Kingdom authority over the darkness we encounter .

Just to make sure that we keep a righteous mindset in the authority we wield, John 10 has been recorded to guide us, and protect us from pride and arrogance in the victories we will experience.  John 10:18,  Jesus replied, "I saw Satan fall like lightening from Heaven, I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy.  Nothing will harm you.  HOWEVER, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you but rejoice that your names are written in Heaven."

I do absolutely rejoice that my name is written in heaven, but I admit to delight in knowing that I have been given authority to overcome all the power of the enemy.  To God be all the Glory forever and ever, Amen.

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?

IT IS FINISHED! Jesus Lives!

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  It's been a long time since I had the ability to journal about our quiet but profound early morning meetings.  The battle has been raging and I had a sacred duty to perform and a position to maintain that took every ounce of strength I could find and then yield, to His ruling authority.

The last leg of the journey with my earthly husband was the hardest for reasons beyond just having to watch the cancer destroy his physical body.  The human created in the Glorious Image of our God is not wired to handle death.  The issues of such finality over an "eternal being" are just not ones we can process without the greatest conflict in our soul.

Physical death and the termination of life here on earth, as we know it, is where the rubber meets the road as a believer in the Life, Death and Resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus.   Past all the thoughts of right, wrong, good and bad, lies the core Truth about our Sovereign God:  God designed His beloved Creation to live eternally in blessed unity and peace with Himself.

In the Garden of Eden stood two trees among the many.  The two trees represented the choice for man's "free will" to be fully exercised and his choice to be honored.  The choice was there:  the tree of life or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil;  The one whose fruit insured eternal life and the one whose fruit provided the death of the soul.  Man was warned and then left with the choice, and we are painfully aware of the rest of that part of the story.

But God......had a plan.....To redeem his Beloved and bring man back into the eternal relationship between the Creator and His Creation.   His plan was daring and unique: To become like His created in flesh form and then in a deep and personal way, give each one of us the ability and responsibility to personally choose a relationship  with our Creator God.

The choice was made by Adam and Eve that caused the fall of all, but the choice to be restored to our Creator God is given and made by each one of us personally and individually.  I cannot make that decision and choice for any one else nor can anyone else make that decision and choice for me.  In the final day, there will be no blame shifting or finger pointing to anyone else, not even the original pair in the garden.

Jesus came.  God in flesh form came to pay the price on every head since Adam and Eve.  Romans 3:23 and Romans 5:12.  The wages of sin is death, eternal separation from the Source of all life, and the death of the soul.

The choice and decision to come to God on His terms stands before each life.  God sent His Son, Jesus, and His Son, Jesus died for the sin that caused the original fall and led to the separation between the Creator and each one of us. 

The Cross was the place chosen by our God God,  to pour out all His wrath and judgment for and against the rebellion and disregard of the governing order of His Creation.  Jesus, the Son of God, the Chosen Sacrifice, went willingly to the Cross.  He was Crucified for you and for me.

As it so happened on that historic day in the history of man, Jesus was crucified between two thieves.
Two people both guilty of similar offenses, two people who, on that day faced, the same fate for their offenses. Two people who, in that eleventh hour of their temporal lives were presented with a sobering choice affecting their eternity.  Only in the person of the human does the devil have a vessel to use to challenge God's Rule. Only in the heart and mind of the creature God created in His own image is there an opportunity to deny, reject, or ignore His Sovereignty and love.

The account in scripture of that day presents two different people with the same fate and the same ability choose their eternal destination.  The one "thief "hurled insults and mocked and refused to grasp the significance of the drama he was a part of. 

But the other "thief" because of his reaction and hope that Jesus was who He claimed to be, became for us, the symbol of an 11th hour salvation experience.  This was recorded for all of us to see and understand  the  majestic Truth of God's abounding love and mercy for each and every one of us "sinners". 

Jesus is and always has been Savior, even in his darkest hour on Earth.  The thief hanging next to Him is a symbol of each one of us who cries out to be "remembered" as we face the cross over from this life to what lies beyond our sight and senses. 

Both men represent a reaction to the Holy One. Some reject but then some find their hope in His love.   It is the evidence of God's amazing love that Jesus takes the smallest surrender and gives back the greatest reward, which is the salvation of our souls.   "Today, you will be with Me in Paradise."

For my husband, as for each one of us, the price has been paid and all we have to do is accept the One who paid it.  Jesus said, "It is finished".  Eternal death has been overruled.  The way now stands open, back into relationship with our Creator God.  The choice is yours.  The question to be answered by each one of us is, "Where will you spend eternity?"

The Holy Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?

Not Alone***

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  Too much is happening too fast to even begin to try to control things.  Even if I could think past the moment I am in, I know it's best if I don't.

God doesn't just give grace, He IS grace.  Meaning there is no end, no limit, no point in the game where we will ever be without His Grace.  However, we cannot receive the fullness of His grace until the moment it is necessary.  To try to project myself into a future unknown is unwise.  To try to decide on a plan of evasive action before the situations unfold is a waste of brain power.

Taking one day at a time does require a deep trust in my Lord, but then He knows the end from the beginning and I don't.  The Holy One presses in with, "Remember what you already know." 

As the circumstances of life and death come into focus, faith gets challenged.  Faith in:  the One who inhabits eternity; faith in the one who came and laid down His life that we might live; faith in the One who conquered death and rose again;  Faith in that One is real or not, and this is where the rubber meets the road. All throughout my life, He has been faithful, and I trust Him to be the same today regardless of what I may have to face.

The Word of my God is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. To "remember" is to hold fast to His Word no matter what the circumstances of life.  To stand firm in what I know and believe to be true.

Death is such an unnatural state for eternal creatures like us, humans.  We were created by an Eternal Creator, whose plan it was that we never die, and that we inhabit eternity with Him.  Death is an unacceptable state and we are not wired to deal with it.  Even so,  the fall happened, death entered paradise and we all reel in agony as we have to face that inevitable day of our flesh demise.

Facing human mortality happens every day.  Jesus came and walked among us to open our eyes to His ultimate victory over this tragic and unnatural state that was left as a legacy for every human since the fall.

No one is more moved by what the thought of death does to the human heart than Jesus.  When Jesus, the God of all Creation wrapped Himself in flesh and came to walk among His Creation, the reality of death was all around Him.

The Gospel accounts of His life reveal His reaction to death.  He over ruled it.  Not only did He heal and deliver people from those things that are the lead-in to death, but on various occasions, in significant symbolic gestures of signs and wonders that are His to perform, He called people back from death to life here on earth.

The veil between the temporal and the eternal is very thin for a believer.  As Paul said, "to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord."  And what a glorious place to imagine.  To exhale here and inhale in the very Presence of the One who called each and every life into existence is beyond our wildest imagination.

Our human life and the adventure it represents, is wild and crazy.  It is full of mountain top highs and deep valley lows.  The promise of our Savior is that regardless of what the adventure brings, Jesus will never leave us nor forsake us. (Hebrews 13:5).  Having come to earth in a flesh body, Jesus felt pain and temptation and even death.

The  mind blowing fact of His life is that He was raised from the dead and in possession of a new, imperishable body.  People saw Him.  People touched Him.  The grave could not hold Him.  His physical body was tortured beyond recognition, yet He was raised up Glorious, as will those of us who believe in who He is and what He did.

We who find our lives in the life of our Savior, will be given a new body, a Heavenly body that is imperishable.  I Corinthians 15:53, "For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality".  Fear of the unknown can overwhelm us as we face up to some of those once in a (human) lifetime experiences.

I am so thankful the Holy One calls me to pause and remember what I already know.  I am not alone.  He will never leave me nor forsake me.  (Heb 13:5).  This is the promise of my Savior, Jesus Christ.  He has spoken to the point that "Pitiful is the man who is saved but only trusts Me for the last moment upon exit from the earth realm.  I have so much more I desire to give him throughout all his days upon the earth."  Trusting the Lord in each situation we encounter over the course of our earthly life, makes trusting Him at translation that much easier.

This is a hard part of life's journey for me, but I am not alone.

The Spirit is calling. Can you hear Him?







  

Be Anxious For Nothing***

The Holy One calls to me this morning. He has been my comfort and peace while this life is spiraling out of control.  Where would I be today without my Savior and Lord?  What would I do were it not for the Holy Spirit maintaining my faculties?

The news came fast, hit hard, and left us with a totally different life and perspective.  Funny how everything In this life can change in an hour of "discovery".  We can observe for many years the outside of things and never really know what lies within.

This is why we must pay attention to what each trial and the heat it brings exposes, from deep within our heart.  Unholy attitudes, unaddressed, are to the soul like cancer is to the body: devastating, destructive, virile, and death producing.

As the heat gets turned way up, the Holy One awaits my cry.

I cannot get past the "anxiety", the fear of the unknown, the reality that life has forever changed.  I know full well that I, who am a control freak, have no control.  Not external and not even self-control for this anxiety seems to rule.  My heart is jumping out of my chest, my stomach is in knots.  I just want to run and hide but there is no place to go to get away from this emotional strain.

All around me are the "effects" of my old life and the things that have always brought me familiar comfort are now adding to the anxiety as I realize their value is worthless to me now.

And so I cry out to the One who is always there.  The One who will never leave me nor forsake me.  But my cry is one of shame.  After all these years of knowing Him and truth and dependency, why the anxiety?

The devil say, "If your faith was real you wouldn't feel this anxiety".  Oh the liar, what a low blow.  He brings death and then accuses us of handling it poorly.

Then my Holy Counselor speaks:  "Remember Gethsemane".  Two words that begin to part the dark suffocating clouds of insanity and anxiety.  "Jesus, too, was anxious. He was so anxious, He sweat blood.  He knows!  He knows!"

Just realizing that my beloved Savior, who suffered and died for all of us was anxious as he faced death brings relief to my shame.

The Holy One takes me back to God's Word.  I Peter 4:12, "Dear friends, do not be surprised, at the painful trial you are suffering as though something strange were happening to you, but rejoice that you participate in sufferings of Christ so that you may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed". 

There is no human explanation for the Presence of the Holy Spirit and His powerful influence over our lives.  In two words spoken to my heart and mind, He destroyed the grip of the ancient deceiver. The anxiety left.  The rule of Holiness was restored.  I know I can face each new day not in my own strength but in His.

So what does that mean, "be anxious for nothing"?  Phi 4:12 begins, "Rejoice in the Lord always, I say it again rejoice", just like I Peter 4.  Then comes, "Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your requests to God."

Truly the only place I can find thanksgiving is in the knowledge that I know I cannot function apart from the Holy Spirit.  I am not thankful that I cannot function, but I am thankful that I know I cannot function without Him manifesting His life in, to, and through me at this moment or season of crisis.  "and THEN the peace that transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus".   A Holy, Heaven peace comes.  Like a Heavenly Peace I.V. hooked to my Spiritual vein.

Faith is real.  Faith is not a Pollyanna denial of earth's reality.  Faith grabs hold of a superior reality:  A loving Heavenly Father, A fierce and powerful Savior, who hates and conquered death and an indescribable indwelling Guardian of my heart and mind who radiates His comfort and peace into every cell of my being.

Anxiety and fear are not to be denied, but they can and are to be overcome.

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?

Lighten Your Load

The Holy One calls me this morning.  I admit that life with the Holy One can be difficult as surrender does not come easy to the "Scotts-Irish" genealogy.  I am a flaming redhead at my roots.  While time has turned what can be seen into shades of gray, the hot tempered woman in my heart still throws a blow and speaks angry word at times.

Life with difficult people and outrageous situations that shriek "foul" present a myriad of opportunities to see the Holy One working in my life. In and of myself, I simply cannot forgive what  has been done by and through people under the influence of darkness.  I confess my weakness and the Holy One forgives me. 

It doesn't seem right that I must seek His forgiveness for just reacting to things done to me.  But then, the ways of Holiness are not like my ways.  I am running through all the excuses I have to hold things against others, but none seem good enough, when in His Presence.

So I began the very familiar task of unloading my backpack before Him.  Unforgiveness is a heavy load to carry.  It is truly back breaking and weighs me down on my journey with Jesus.

Matt 11:28, "Come to Me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls.  For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."  These words of my Savior float through my thinking.

Yes Lord, I am here and I do want to walk out lighter than when I came into Your Presence this morning. I start to unload all the things that my unforgiveness has picked up along the road since yesterday.  Some are familiar boulders that I must have overlooked when I last unloaded my satchel.
No wait, they are new offenses by the same people.  They look like the others long since forgiven, but these are new to me today.

As I get to what I think is the end and see the backpack no longer bulging with the load, The Holy One speaks, "It's good you have put down those big issues that others have committed against you, but do you see those little rocks in the corner over there?  These are the issues of omission.  Things you expected that people did not do. You have been wounded by your own expectations when people failed you.  You must forgive those things as well."

I know what the Holy One speaks is true.  Most of my life is interaction with the Body of Christ, with others who claim Jesus as their Savior.  We share life with people we think are on the same page as us.  Then one day a crisis occurs where all our expectations of what others can or should do gets dashed.

I confess, I haven't realized that unforgiveness toward those who have failed to act, can be as heavy a burden as unforgiveness toward those who have acted in despitefully wicked ways against me and those I love.

Today is a day to go back through my backpack of burdens to see the smaller things that need to be unloaded and forgiven.  Now I know that even the small things can add a lot of weight on the journey.

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?

Soaking in God's Peace*

The Spirit calls me today.  Last week is a blur of recollections.  Much happened fast and the demand was just to react and sort things out later.  I am thankful to know that  the Holy One was and is in control.  It's at these times of crisis when we see the work of the Holy One in our lives.

Getting past the place where all our best plans go out the window and we are so personally out of control is hard.  But then to find that we are not so unhinged that we fall apart and become useless to the Lord and the world around us, that is the fruit of the Holy Spirit's Presence. 

I am so thankful for all the days of sitting with the Lord, soaking in His Peace. For when the days of crisis hit, that "peace" tells me I will be OK and He will bring me through whatever touches "our" life together.

This morning the Holy One draws me in to ponder the words of Jesus in His teaching on prayer for His disciples and for me.  The Word of God is our plumb line.  It is the standard we must always return to and align our thinking with. 

It is the work of darkness that keeps us in chaos.  The evil one  has a motive behind every untoward circumstance he provides.  Life with the Holy One is the only thing that can break up the chaos and still the confusion.

The Holy One takes me to Luke 11, to remind me about the extravagant promise in the power of prayer.  In this passage, Jesus had finished praying and upon request of one of the Disciples, He began to lay out a lesson on prayer.

From the mouth of our Savior God we receive the vital words that should drive us to seek God in prayer.  He starts by assuring us that the Sovereign God of all creation can be addressed as our "Father".  His name is Holy and He has a kingdom.

The verses in Chapter 11:9-13 give us the assurance of answers and not just any answers, but good answers.  The kind of answers a loving father provides for his child. 

The Lord said for us to "Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you, for everyone who asks receives, he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, the door will be open."  Then the lesson turns personal.  "Which one of YOU, fathers, if YOUR son asks for a fish would give him a snake instead?" 

Jesus' words come away from the theoretical.  He didn't say, "what father", which might cause us to humanly question what some "other" father might do for some "other" child, not ours.  Jesus brought the message down to one of the deepest personal relationships we have here on earth and nailed the point.  What would we personally do if our personal beloved child asked for something?

He goes on to say that even with an 'evil" nature, we still know how to give good gifts to our children.  So how much more will our loving Heavenly Father who knows no evil give more of what we, His Beloved child, needs?

And then, there is the clincher!  What we need, is the Holy Spirit and He is exactly the "much more" our Heavenly Father will give to those who ask.  This is an amazing truth provided by the Creator to meet the needs of the created.  He will give us His Holy Spirit.

In Provb 4:5-5, we are exhorted to ask for wisdom.  Wisdom is what we need in each and every situation we face on earth.  Wisdom would guide all our choices, decisions and write our  "how to" succeed plan for this earth realm.  Wisdom guides, protects, defends and preserves.
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The Holy Spirit is wisdom.  With Him we have all we need all the time.  No exceptions.  When Jesus walked the earth, He brought the Kingdom of Heaven to this earth.  The Holy Spirit is the unifier between the Savior and the saved.  He is the One who will bring the life of Jesus to bear and manifest to and through our lives. All that we will ever need comes through the life of the Holy Spirit up to and including our ultimate resurrection.  Soaking in His presence will draw up His fruit: Love, Joy Peace, Patience, Goodness, Kindness, Gentleness, Faithfulness and Self-control

Peace is needed today.  Peace is available today.   I John 3:1, "Oh, how great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God"

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?

It is Finished

This is a late post of an earlier conference with Holiness.  As life happens fast and furious, sometimes I get pulled away and side tracked from posting, but His words are important to me and so I share them today, even through late.  This was our conference on Resurrection morning:

The Holy One calls me this morning.  The dark of the night is giving way to the morning of a new day.  It's the day we celebrate as the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  History tells us the tomb is empty.   Eye witnesses tell us He lives.  My heart tells me that all of that is true.

For years I have tracked on the day my Savior was crucified.  In my mind, through the Scriptures, I have placed myself at the Last Supper, in the Garden of Gethsemane, at the trial, and along side of Him as He bore the weight of the Cross, to the place of His crucifixion.  For the 6 hours on that horrific day when the suffering Messiah surrendered His life and His Glory, I have year after year tracked Him, knowing it is my sin and guilt for which He, the sinless One, hung on that Cross.

The graphics of the film, "The Passion" gave an even greater vision of His suffering and instilled in me and even greater sense of guilt and shame for what He suffered.

Today, the Holy One calls me to focus on the Resurrection past the Cross into the place of "New Life".  As I ponder the past "Easters", for all the celebrations, with all the new outfits, and songs sung about a victory over death, my mind remained focused on the Cross.  I haven't been able to shake the guilt for a life that made His suffering necessary.

The Holy One speaks through time and repeats what my Savior said so long ago:

"IT IS FINISHED".  John 19:30.

Then the conversation turns personal.  "Stop living with the guilt of what Jesus was sent to die for."  The Holy One continues to press in and on the message of the Cross. He gently lifts me out  of my own thoughts to gain a new perspective.  "The death that Jesus died was necessary and nothing about your life could or would have changed what had to be done."

His point is well taken.  The agony of the Cross relates back to each one of us and the sin we have inside.  However, and this is the point to be made for Grace and not to relieve any personal accountability, we were born with a "sin nature" and that means it was not our choice.

Our flesh birth carries a death sentence and we on our own simply cannot live up to God's Holy standard necessary to be in right relationship with Him.  All our attempts are futile in and of our best "works" at being good enough.  We need to grasp and understand the mystery and majesty of God's plan.

Jesus came to die for more than that argument we had yesterday, or the indiscretion of 30 years ago.  Jesus came to die for more than the sin of our national leaders or our neighbors that impact our lives and our best intentions.

Jesus had to die to take away the sin of this world of people born after the fall.  Jesus died to give us a chance for a new nature, a new birth as it were.  All of us were born in sin that happened at the original fall.  We cannot undo that original rebellion.  We in our "flesh" have no hope of living a life without violating God's Holiness.

It is this "sin nature" that Jesus came to die to save us from.  Without a Savior, we will stand forever guilty with no way to get free from a corrupted nature.  Without a new birth we will live forever in an old death.

The message to me today is: "move past the guilt of the Cross as if you were ever capable of sparing Christ the suffering.  If you live in guilt for what He paid to free you from, then He suffered and died in vain.  Embrace the Salvation He provided and move on into resurrected life.  Live for Christ now and stop agonizing over the "if only I hadn't done that".

Nothing but the Cross can change our birthright and take us out of the Kingdom of darkness and death and bring us victoriously into the Kingdom of Light and Life.

The reality is, however, that while Jesus came, lived and died to atone for the sin nature that drives all flesh failures we have and do commit against our God, there comes a day when we must make the decision personally give up the old and take on the new.

This is the true message of Passover and our celebration of the Resurrection some call "Easter".  The dead of Winter is giving way to the new life of Spring.  The death of the Savior crucified for the sin of the world, gives way to the Resurrection of His new life within.

The important truth is that not all can experience this New Life.  Only those who willingly pass through the Cross of Jesus and leave their sin nature nailed there with Him can claim His new Life.  Only those who say, "Yes" to Jesus as their  Savior can claim the New Birth He promised as their Lord.  A fresh start, new beginning, born again, resurrection life requires a willing surrender.

I know that The Holy One has a message for all who are reading this post. 

But for me, the Holy One speaks to my heart of hearts, "It is finished, now walk in your freedom".  I rejoice with thanksgiving for what He has spoken to me today.

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?