Divine Perspective

(A word about the month of August: I'm going to continue sending out random thoughts through the summer and then in September, we'll start the book We Would See Jesus by Roy Hession.)

Psalm 73:17 "...I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned..."

If ever God's people needed perspective and discernment, it is today. And the need for this will increase as the pressures of the end of the age increase. I find this true in my own life, and it is underscored by hearing from many others as they struggle to flourish in the midst of the increasing chaos, anger, and pressures of this age.

There is no other place to get divine, heavenly perspective apart from the real presence of the Lord.

Psalm 73 is about eternal perspective; the psalmist openly makes his complaint in the first part of this writing and admits his anger and pain over what he observes in this life, which is that those who don't care about God seem to have life easier than those who are intent on walking in the ways of the Lord.

Although the Scriptures leave no doubt about the reality of suffering in this life for God's people, there's something in us that wants to have it all now - the fulfillment of everything now. I think the Church in America is particularly conditioned in this way because of our worldview that seeks for "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" now in this land; because we don't have an eternal perspective on fulfillment in the next age, we are surprised and offended with God when things don't go well in this age.

The New Testament saints lived for another age. (II Cor. 4:16-18) They studied and believed all that Jesus taught about a future and a hope beyond the present and arranged their lives around that reality. This empowered them to rejoice in difficulties. In the average American church our sermons and programs are mostly given to working at and ensuring that we have a good marriage, a good family, a good job, a good ministry in this life, with no vision for the countless years we have ahead of us and what God has for us to be and do forever.

Obviously, our focus in the Church on improving things in this life has not produced strong families and ministries but rather broken homes and self-absorbed ministries. C.S.Lewis once said (in response to the idea that to be heavenly minded is to be of no earthly good), that it's actually the reverse. He said that it's for lack of focus on eternity that we live such miserable lives now and contribute so little to this age.

And so the psalmist found his way into the presence and heart of God and there he gained eternal perspective. The "sanctuary" of God speaks of God's manifest presence; there we, like the psalmist and all children of God in all ages, touch reality; first of all, we encounter the reality of the one real God, transcendent and sovereign in His leadership of human history. Then we touch the reality of what matters above all else in this life: intimacy with this transcendent One - "Whom have I in heaven and there is none on earth that I desire besides You...for me it is good to be near God."

In that place of intimate communion and union with the sovereign King and Lover of my soul, I gain perspective on all that is happening around me. There I "discern" what's real and what the final outcome will be; to keep perspective I must have a lifestyle of continual seeking His presence and hearing His viewpoint.

As I have shared before and will continue to share, I believe the worldwide prayer movement is clearing the way for the Bride to desire and cry out for the return of the Bridegroom and is one of the key means by which the Holy Spirit is breaking open the heavens so that His people can experience more of His manifest presence, and in that place, we gain eternal perspective.

Spirit of God, awaken hunger within us to be with You, close to You, to experience Your real presence and to live seeking You so that we may be a people living for another age, empowered to know in You what is really happening around us; save us from being subtly sucked into the mind of this age and from evaluating what's real through worldly eyes so that we can rejoice in suffering and bear witness in our joy of a transcendent life in God through Christ Jesus.

God is with you!

No Created Thing Can Separate Us

I've been taking some vacation days lately and enjoying not having to be somewhere at a certain time (at least not as often as when I'm fully engaged in the calling of God on my life); this has been a good time for me to experience in a new way the unconditional love of the Lord for me in the sense that I can step back and, in the midst of not doing "ministry", I can bask in His affections for me as a beloved daughter of His and further break off lingering and lurking deceptions that my significance to Him comes from all that I'm involved in.

In a recent Daniel fast, one of my prayers (taken from Daniel's life) during and since that fast is that I would continue to receive revelation from the Holy Spirit about my status as God's "beloved" (Daniel 9:23). I know that I must have continual revelation and understanding of this all of my life. I will never outgrow my need to hear my Father's words of affirmation and affection, no matter how much I mature in Him.

So with this in mind, I want to close this posting with part of an email that just came to me from a dear friend who is simple in his love and devotion to God. It touches, at least in part, this theme of the unrelenting and unconditional love of God and is especially significant to me because of who wrote it.

"Why Jesus came to earth: To get fame, from you. You are his most precious treasure, he wants you as his best friend, his biggest fan. So may you know today, that nothing can seperate us from the very love of God, as scripture so elegantly puts it. It is because, God is so good and wants all the glory and the fun that comes with that for your happiness and for His. He doesn't want you living life alone and unknown, but known by the king, as Esther was, chosen for the king to be his queen. This message is that God wants us, whether any one else does or not, He does; He wants our autograph, to put it in his lamb's book of life. He knows us by name, knew us in our mothers womb, knows the hairs on our head. He thinks we are cool, in another words. For those that call upon his name and choose him, know him, and hear his voice, and he is so glad to call his very own, be one of the chosen. Be a friend of Jesus and famous for being a fan, full of the glory that comes by being in his presence. Amen."

Here at the Bethany House of Prayer we continually ask the Holy Spirit to reveal afresh and to a greater measure the love and affection of God for each of us and for all of His children. God bless you this week with His nearness!

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!