Looking to Jesus

The Lord bless you!

This morning I was thinking of Romans 4:18-21 where the Apostle Paul, speaking of Abraham, says that he (Abraham) "contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, 'So shall your descendants be.' And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah's womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised he was also able to perform."

What a commentary on how Abraham walked with God! He took into account the utter impossibility that he and Sarah could have children, but he obviously didn't make that his focus of attention. Knowing well that the fulfillment God's promise was impossible, he fixed his eyes on the One Who had promised and not on the limitations of the humans involved.

We know, of course, that Abraham didn't walk this out perfectly when we read the details of the story in the Old Testament; but it's obvious by how the Holy Spirit edits the story in Romans 4 that from God's perspective, Abraham walked in faith.

There are a couple of simple lessons I'd like to encourage you with in this story:
1) Our weaknesses and inability to make God's promises to us come to pass is not an obstacle to God; in fact, it's the way He has set things up! The more impossible it is, the more He loves it and the more glory He will get when He brings it about.
2) In God's eyes, faith isn't about feeling strong and capable but about where we fix our attention. Abraham knew his limitations and utter inability to have the promised son and yet chose to fix his eyes on God Who had promised him a son and gave Him glory in the face of the impossible.

God looks for those who, in the most impossible situations, will insist on looking to Jesus and giving glory to God no matter what their emotions and circumstances scream at them. This is faith and God cannot resist true faith.

So be encouraged; look to Jesus who is both the Author (the One who birthed faith in us) and the Finisher (the One Who will bring faith to maturity in us) of our faith, and don't pay attention to the enemy's accusations against you when your emotions may not line up with the choice of your heart of give glory to God. One of the most effective ways of doing this practically is to enter into aggressive worship; if you have the gifts of a prayer language (tongues), that is a powerful means of exalting the Lord.

I'll finish with a little ditty that Corrie Ten Boom used to say:

"Look around and be oppressed;
Look within and be depressed;
Look to Jesus and be at rest."

Grace and peace to you this week in the Lord Jesus!

God, My Exceedingly Great Reward

Because of technology difficulties last week, I wasn't able to send anything out. Next week I will be out of the country so may not get a message out then either.

But this week I'd like to briefly share on Genesis 15:1 where the Lord says to Abraham, "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward."

God tells Abraham this before He makes a covenant with him related to the impact his life will make. It's as though God wants to establish His priority in Abraham's life: I am your highest Reward; the impact of your life is secondary to ME.

This word to Abraham, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, has for years been a key word in my life, helping me stay focussed and steady. I believe we need a revelation from the Holy Spirit of God's priorities in order to stay steady and unoffended in the midst of the pressure of unfulfilled secondary rewards. If the fulfillment of the good things that God has promised to me (whether related to people or ministry in my life, etc.) is delayed (which is most often the case), it won't cause bitterness in my heart because I have my primary/first Reward now and always! If He really is my primary Reward, then I can wait without losing heart or becoming bitter when He delays His promises in other arenas of my life.

His words and promises to me related to my ministry impact and relationships are very important to Him but are secondary in importance to His being my First Love and my Great Reward.

So what does it mean to have God as my exceedingly great Reward? It will look differently in each person's life, but there's no getting around the reality that it requires time and effort and intentionality. There must be an increasing desire and determination to press into knowing Him intimately, or all the secondary rewards will easily take over first place in our attention.

I believe we can ask the Holy Spirit for revelation of and desire for God's priority, and we can insist, as all the great men and women of God have done, on knowing Him intimately through taking time for prayer and intercession and the study of His Word, through adoration and worship, through fasting and giving, and through obedience to whatever He gives us to do.

He is absolutely committed to bringing us into the First Love reality with Him and so we can ask for His leadership in getting there. There is no "one size fits all" so each of us must develop a close relationship with the Holy Spirit in order to know how to grow in this. He is very patient but determined; when He finds a hungry soul, He begins to overcome the barriers and obstacles in order to get us to this place of His being our Great Reward...perhaps part of how He gets us to this is by withholding the fulfillment of the secondary rewards?? He cares too much about our well-being (which is defined by His primary place in our life) to spoil us! How I love His ways even when they are painful!

Lord, we bow to Your leadership and say "Yes" once again to Your wise and kind ways. Holy Spirit, open our eyes to the Father's priority and awaken desire to align with His priority. Thank You for Your faithful work of love; thank You that You will bring us to this place of First Love and will also fulfill all Your promises related to the secondary rewards in our lives! We love you...

Breathe on me, Breath of God

I'm very grateful for the Spirit of God, the Breath of God, by which I live and breathe!

As the pressures of life increase with the end of the age, I'm "fighting for breath" so that my inner life is awake and alive and in touch with the living God. I want to live my day out of a place of deep inner quietness, not from a place of drivenness and fear.

The good news in this is that God in Christ is infinitely more zealous about this than I am. He will never grow weary nor discouraged in His zeal over having all of me, and it is this reality that gives me hope. If it were up to my zeal and energy, there would be no hope.

Over the years the Lord has taught me to fear taking action when there is inner turbulence going on in me. I keep learning this again and again as the Lord leads me into new arenas and levels of serving Him.

This week I was reading in John 16 and when I read verse 33, the Holy Spirit quickened it anew to me: em>>"These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

I was struck in a new way with the truth that only IN HIM do I have inner peace; by the same token, IN THE WORLD (dependence on anything but Jesus) I can count on being easily shaken in my soul. What the Lord has taught me over the years is that when I find my inner being in turbulence, I must pause and find out from the Spirit what is disturbing me. In doing this, He can pinpoint specifically what is causing the disturbance (in what way have I separated my heart and mind from the Vine?), and then I can deal with that specific issue.

And so I love the Holy Spirit and His beautiful and powerful ministry in my life - without Him I cannot remain in Christ; He is unbelievably faithful to get my attention. It then remains for me to respond appropriately to His touch.

Holy Spirit, come again and again and breathe on us Your life-giving Breath. We are "breath-less" without you and live suffocating lives unless You come in Your grace and power. Thank You for loving to do this for us. We love You! In Jesus' name, Amen.

Blessings on your week!

Simple Devotion to Jesus

I want to greet you and share one thought this week before we start another book next week (Seven Longings of the Human Heart by Mike Bickle).

A Scripture that is a lifelong light on my spiritual path is II Cor. 11:1-3 in which the Apostle Paul warns the Corinthian church about the tendency in us to subtly move off track from simple devotion to Jesus:

"...I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I betrothed you to Christ to present you as a pure bride to her one husband. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ."

As in the Garden of Eden, the enemy is ever on the lookout for ways to divert our attention away from simple devotion to Jesus. By diverting Eve's attention away from the Tree of Life (Jesus) onto the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he succeeded in leading mankind into unimaginable complexities that we were never meant to have to deal with apart from union with God. His intention was that humans would focus on knowing Him in intimacy, and through Him, we would discern all that we needed to know, and there would be a blessed simplicity about profound knowledge.

The way back to God's original design is only through the Cross, through the Christ of the cross, through simple and focused devotion to Him. May the Spirit of Jesus (Whose focus and desire is Jesus) come and empower His people to focus on "this one thing", the Lord of glory, the Lamb of God!

God bless you this week. We'll cover the Preface of our new book next week.

The Pursuit of God - Week #10

Chapter Ten – The Sacrament of Living

“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” I Cor. 10:31

This wonderful book ends on the high note of God’s estimation of the sacredness of all aspects of our humanity. No other religion gives such honor and dignity to humanity in its entirety. God most dramatically expresses His endorsement and approval and delight over His creation of a being that is spirit, soul, and body by becoming a human Himself in Christ Jesus. But on top of that, Jesus will be the God-Man forever with a physical (though glorified and immortal) body!

This reality alone should be evidence enough to us that God loves the blending of the unseen and the seen, the spiritual and the natural. We see His pleasure in His exclamation of approval over His creation of the first Adam; then we see this pleasure manifested in His coming in the flesh Himself and in Christ’s eternal identity as the God-Man.

Tozer addresses the common human problem of separating “the sacred and the secular…Our trouble springs from the fact that we who follow Christ inhabit at once two worlds, the spiritual and the natural…Merely to live among men requires of us years of hard toil and much care and attention to the things of this world. In sharp contrast…is our life in the Spirit…we possess heavenly status and enjoy intimate fellowship with Christ. This tends to divide our total life into two departments. We come to unconsciously recognize two sets of actions…”

The two sets of actions Tozer refers to are those actions which are more directly related to the unseen (which, without faith, have no meaning to them), and those actions which have to do with all the ordinary activities of life needed to exist on this material planet.

We commonly think of the actions tied to the visible realm as unspiritual and consequently feel uneasy about spending time with this. We know they are necessary for survival but see them as unspiritual.

“The Lord Jesus Christ Himself is our perfect example, and He knew no divided life. In the Presence of His Father He lived on earth without strain from babyhood to His death on the cross. God accepted the offering of His total life and made no distinction between act and act….”

Tozer emphasizes how this sacred-secular divide is most dramatically seen in the unbiblical hatred of the body seen in some ancient Christian writings and states that one true act of consecration of our entire being (Rom. 12:1-3; Rom. 6:13) makes all our subsequent acts (the exception being sin and the flesh) expressions of that consecration.

Then Tozer addresses the reality that while we may see this truth and embrace it theologically, there are mindsets deeply ingrained in us that will keep us bound to this sacred-secular divide in spite of our doctrinal beliefs, robbing us of the joy of being human in all its dimensions. He states that long-held habits (of thinking) do not die easily.

I find it fascinating how Tozer says that we get free from this sacred-secular dilemma. When read in context, his primary solution for this dilemma is through prayer! I believe this is true because we are born fallen in our thinking and so it’s not automatic for us to think like God. In His presence and through listening to Him, we begin to have the strongholds in our thinking broken so that we align with His thoughts.

Tozer suggests practical ways that the sacred-secular divide is erased:
• By meditation on this truth, by talking it over with God often in our prayers, by recalling it to our minds frequently as we move about among men…
• It will take intelligent thought and a great deal of reverent prayer to escape completely from the sacred-secular psychology…
• Keep reminding God in our times of private prayer that we mean every act for His glory; then supplement those times by a thousand thought-prayers as we go about the job of living.

I agree with Tozer and his conclusion that without prayer and waiting on God, we cannot come to the revelation that in God there is no dichotomy. To the natural mind this doesn’t make sense to say that it is through prayer that we know there is no divide, and yet I would venture to suggest that the men and women throughout Church history who most understood the sacrament of living were those who prayed the most. Because of their dedication to the God of the place and time of prayer (Matt. 6), they became people whose entire life was a prayer. They were men and women who fully accepted their humanity and its implications and who most enjoyed God and others in whatever setting they were in.

The chapter ends with some clarifying remarks so that the reader doesn’t misunderstand and carry his theme to the wrong extreme:
• (This) does not mean that everything we do is of equal importance with everything else we do or may do…Paul’s sewing of tents was not equal to his writing of an Epistle to the Romans but both were accepted of God and both were true acts of worship…
• (This) does not mean that every man is as useful as every other man. Gifts differ in the Body of Christ. A Billy Bray is not to be compared with a Luther or a Wesley…but the service of the less gifted brother is as pure as that of the more gifted and God accepts both with equal pleasure…It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it. The motive is everything…

There are seasons of our lives when certain duties ebb and flow, and it’s important to be in touch with this reality as well.

Above all, my admonition to the follower of Jesus in this technological age is to fight for that time in prayer (even if it’s just grabbing 15 minutes here and there through the day) so that the Spirit of God can begin to convince us of the sacrament of all living. As we practice His presence constantly (both in the secret place and in the public place), all of life will take on a charm because of His manifest Presence at all times.

I believe also that as we approach the end of the age, a corporate prayer life will be increasingly significant if we are to enter fully into what God’s mind and heart is for humanity and particularly for His Bride (all of us together). This increasing revelation will free our hearts to enjoy Him and one another in all that we do under His Lordship.

“Lord, I would trust Thee completely; I would be altogether Thine; I would exalt Thee above all. I desire that I may feel no sense of possessing anything outside of Thee. I want constantly to be aware of Thy overshadowing Presence and to hear Thy speaking Voice. I long to live in restful sincerity of heart. I want to live so fully in the Spirit that all my thought may be sweet incense ascending to Thee and every act of my life may be an act of worship. Therefore I pray in the words of Thy great servant of old, ‘I beseech Thee so for to cleanse the intent of mine heart with the unspeakable gift of Thy grace, that I may perfectly love Thee and worthily praise Thee.’ And all this I confidently believe Thou wilt grant me through the merits of Jesus Christ Thy Son. Amen.”

The Lord bless you and may the light and smile of His face shine on you this week!

The Pursuit of God - Week #9

Chapter Nine – Meekness and Rest

“Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth.” Matthew 5:5

Tozer begins this chapter by pointing out that the virtues in the Beatitudes are the exact opposite of how fallen and sinful humanity lives and functions. Pride, pleasure-seeking, arrogance, cruelty, corrupt imaginings, retaliation, resentment, etc., characterize the world…”Of this kind of moral stuff civilized society is composed. The atmosphere is charged with it; we breathe it with every breath and drink it with our mother’s milk. Culture and education refine these things slightly but leave them basically untouched…”

Into this kind of world Jesus came and not only taught a radically different lifestyle but lived it perfectly. The Sermon on the Mount reveals the lifestyle of the Kingdom of God. In this teaching, “Jesus is not offering an opinion…He never guessed; He knew, and He knows. His words were not as Solomon’s were, the sum of sound wisdom or the results of keen observation…And His words were supported by deeds mightier than any performed on this earth by any other man. It is wisdom for us to listen.”

In Matthew 11:28-30 Jesus applies this simple word on meekness to our lives: “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

In this portion Jesus speaks of two contrasting realities: a burden and rest…
“The burden borne by mankind is a heavy and a crushing thing. The word Jesus used means a load carried or toil borne to the point of exhaustion. Rest is simply release from the burden. It is not something we do, it is what comes to us when we cease to do. His own meekness, that is the rest.”

Tozer says that there are three sources of such a burden:
• Pride
• Pretense
• Artificiality

1. Pride is a very heavy burden because it brings with it pain and stress over others’ opinions of oneself. “The heart’s fierce effort to protect itself from every slight, to shield its touchy honor from the bad opinion of friend and enemy, will never let the mind have rest. Continue this fight through the years and the burden will become intolerable. Yet the sons of earth are carrying this burden continually, challenging every word spoken against them, cringing under every criticism, smarting under each fancied slight, tossing sleepless if another is preferred before them…Jesus calls us to His rest, and meekness is His method.

“The meek man cares not at all who is greater than he, for he has long ago decided that the esteem of the world is not worth the effort…The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God’s estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be, but he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than angels. In himself, nothing; in God, everything…he rests perfectly content to allow God to place His own values…In the meantime he will have attained a place of soul rest…he will be happy to let God defend him…He has found the peace which meekness brings.”

I can speak from experience that the business of attempting to manage people’s opinions and expectations of me is very draining work; as the fear of the Lord has increased in me (through knowing His unchanging love and affection for me), the need for others’ approval has lost its hold on me, resulting in increasing inner rest.

2. Pretense - the common human desire to put the best foot forward and hide from the world our real inward poverty. “There is hardly a man or woman who dares to be just what he or she is without doctoring up the impression. The fear of being found out gnaws like rodents within their hearts.” Tozer goes on to say that this manifests in our fear that someone will show up who is smarter or richer or more talented than I am. It is the sin of envy and is the opposite of what we see in children and in the child-like. “Little children do not compare; they receive direct enjoyment from what they have without relating it to something else or someone else…”

3. Artificiality - the means by which we conceal our true inner condition; it is closely associated with pretense. Our culture has whole industries designed to help us know how to appear a certain way in order to conceal who we truly are. “Artificiality is one curse that will drop away the moment we kneel at Jesus’ feet and surrender ourselves to His meekness…Then what we are will be everything; what we appear will take its place far down the scale of interest for us. Apart from sin we have nothing of which to be ashamed.”

I recommend a wonderful series on meekness, The Sweet Aroma of Meekness, by Allen Hood from the International House of Prayer. (This recorded series can be downloaded from the IHOP website: www.ihop.org.) In it Allen says that the way to meekness is to look at Jesus, the meek One. In other words, we don’t become meek because we study about it nor because we grit our teeth and decide to act like we are meek; we become meek by beholding Meekness Himself (the principle of II Cor. 3:18 – becoming by beholding). Only Jesus lived and walked this reality in fullness. So once again, taking the time to worship Him, contemplating His beauty in meekness, is where we start and where we continue in this partnership with Him under His easy yoke and light burden. Christ in us is our only hope of living a life of inner rest.

The eternal ramifications of embracing meekness are staggering! It is the meek ones that will inherit the earth!! This momentary, light burden of meekness and self-forgetfulness will result in an eternal inheritance for those that embrace it. Along with the Meek One, we will enjoy rulership over the earth forever! Praise be to Him!

“Lord, make me childlike. Deliver me from the urge to compete with another for place or prestige or position. I would be simple and artless as a little child. Deliver me from pose and pretense. Forgive me for thinking of myself. Help me to forget myself and find my true peace in beholding Thee. That Thou mayest answer this prayer, I humble myself before Thee. Lay upon me Thy easy yoke of self-forgetfulness that through it I may find rest. Amen.”

God bless you the week with His manifest presence! Next week we will finish the book with chapter 10, The Sacrament of Living.

The Pursuit of God - Week #8

Chapter Eight – Restoring the Creator-creature Relation

“Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; let thy glory be above all the earth.” Psa. 57:5

The subject matter of this chapter is of immense importance to us if we are to move from immaturity to maturity in Christ. This is a reality that the great men and women of God understood clearly.

I think in my personal journey, this truth began to dawn on me when, as a young missionary the Holy Spirit whispered to me one day, “Nita, you are not God.” To the immature ear this appears to be such an obvious truth that it sounds ridiculous that God would say something like that to a sincere and lovesick servant of His (which I was). It was a great revelation to me and set me on the course to the never-ending unfolding of this truth throughout my life. The implications of this simple yet profound reality are impossible to measure, but one thing is for sure, the unfolding of this reality – that there is only One (and it’s not me) – has empowered me to embrace my humanity with joy and to continue learning and growing all my life. In other words, the revelation to my inner heart of this has helped to keep me from stagnating in God; I know I will never “arrive” in terms of learning and growing because I am not omniscient nor omnipotent, etc. I can rest in who I am because I am resting in Who He is! Praise the Lord!

I find that among God’s people (and this is even more pronounced when one is in leadership), there are constant and strong pressures to be God; if a person isn’t secure in his/her humanity and limitations, it’s tempting to yield to those pressures and attempt to be God to people.

In this chapter Tozer speaks of the Transcendent One, the only Creator of all, the I AM. He is the unchanging fixed center against which all else is measured.

“Much of our difficulty as seeking Christians stems from our unwillingness to take God as He is and adjust our lives accordingly. We insist upon trying to modify Him and bring Him nearer to our own image. The flesh whimpers against the rigor of God’s inexorable sentence and begs like Agag for a little mercy, a little indulgence of its carnal ways. It is no use. We can get a right start only by accepting God as He is and learning to love Him for what He is. As we go on to know Him better we shall find it a source of unspeakable joy that God is just what He is. Some of the most rapturous moments we know will be those we spend in reverent admiration of the Godhead…So let us begin with God.”

Tozer goes on to say that the pursuit of God embraces the labor that there is in bringing one’s total personality into conformity to His personality. Then he says a wonderful thing that I can testify is true:

“The moment we make up our minds that we are going on with this determination to exalt God over all we step out of the world’s parade. We shall find ourselves out of adjustment to the ways of the world…Our break with the world will be the direct outcome of our changed relation to God…Millions call themselves by His name…but a simple test will show how little He is really honored among them. Let the average man…be forced into making a choice between God and money, between God and men, between God and personal ambition, God and self, God and human love…and God will take second place every time.”

Many years ago I had a dream that was significant and prophetic. I can’t remember all the details but the main story line was that I was with a Christian church congregation; I think I was somehow facilitating a vote that the congregation was going to make and the vote had to do with choosing either the Lord Jesus or some other desirable thing (not something evil in itself). The tragic end of the dream was that the vote was overwhelmingly against Jesus. These were true Christian believers. The dream was a picture of Calvary, and seen in the context of this chapter, it is what we do to Jesus when we refuse to embrace “the labor of bringing our total personality into conformity to His”; when we insist on bringing His personality into conformity to ours; when we want to be God rather than be the creature; when we worship ourselves through introspection rather than looking away from ourselves to worship the One and only Creator.

“Let the seeking man reach a place where life and lips join to say continually, ‘Be thou exalted,’ and a thousand minor problems will be solved at once. His Christian life ceases to be the complicated thing it had been before and becomes the very essence of simplicity. By the exercise of his will he has set his course, and on that course he will stay as if guided by an automatic pilot. If blown off course for a moment by some adverse wind he will surely return again as by a secret bent of the soul. The hidden motions of the Spirit are working in his favor, and ‘the stars in their courses’ fight for him. He has met his life problem at its center, and everything else must follow along…he finds his right place of high honor as one made in the image of his Creator…
Nothing will or can restore order till our hearts make the great decision: God shall be exalted above.”

Tozer contrasts Biblical persons (sons of Eli in contrast to Abraham, David, Jacob, etc), pointing out that what mattered to God was not perfection but “holy intention.” This reality about God and His interaction with humans is absolutely imperative to have revelation on or the believer lives his life cringing before Him and others, seeking after perfectionism (which is of the devil) or giving up entirely:

“See how God winked at weaknesses and overlooked failures as He poured upon His servants grace and blessing untold…The man of God set his heart to exalt God above all; God accepted this intention as fact and acted accordingly.”

Tozer finishes the chapter with a truth that we must grasp internally if we are ever to embrace reminder that we “must always keep in mind that God also hath desire, and His desire is toward the sons of men, and more particularly toward those sons of men who will make the once-for-all decision to exalt Him over all. Such as these are precious to God above all treasures of earth or sea. In them God finds a theater where He can display his exceeding kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. With them God can walk unhindered, toward them he can act like the God He is.”

If you have a moment right now, I would recommend that you pause and reflect on God’s desire toward you personally at this moment and ask the Holy Spirit to help you practice doing this often so that the truth begins to penetrate your deep inner being…)

A final warning is given by Tozer that he fears that he may “convince the mind before God can win the heart. For this God-above-all position is one not easy to take. The mind may approve it while not having the consent of the will to put it into effect…God wants us all, and He will not rest till He gets us all…”

“O God, be Thou exalted over my possessions. Nothing of earth’s treasures shall seem dear unto me if only Thou art glorified in my life. Be Thou exalted over my friendships. I am determined that Thou shalt be above all, though I must stand deserted and alone in the midst of the earth. Be Thou exalted above my comforts. Though it mean the loss of bodily comforts and the carrying of heavy crosses I shall keep my vow made this day before Thee. Be Thou exalted over my reputation. Make me ambitious to please Thee even if as a result I must sink into obscurity and my name be forgotten as a dream. Rise, O Lord, into Thy proper place of honor, above my ambitions, above my likes and dislikes, above my family, my health and even my life itself. Let me decrease that Thou mayest increase, let me sink that Thou mayest rise above. Ride forth upon me as Thou didst ride into Jerusalem mounted upon the humble little beast, a colt, the foal of an ass, and let me hear the children cry to Thee, ‘Hosanna in the highest.’”

May the Spirit of grace and peace rest on you this week. Next week we will cover chapter 9: “Meekness and Rest.”

Just a reminder that after this book we will be reading “Seven Longings of the Human Heart” by Mike Bickle, available at amazon.com or the Forerunner Bookstore at ihop.org.