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Psalm
23:1-3
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters. He restores
my soul;
He leads me in the paths of righteousness
For His name's sake.
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Process
& Pain
As we walk through life we experience things
we would rather not experience. Transitions can be
difficult. We learn things through process. At times
we don’t do things right or just get dealt a
blow. There are things that remind us of painful events.
Many times the way people deal with these places,
people or things is to avoid them, run from them and
hide from them. I do believe that there is a time
when we need to move on and move forward to find a
new , safe, a fresh surrounding and a place of new
beginnings (Isaiah 43:19) where we
can rediscover our life before God. We do forget those
things that are behind and press on. In this place
the Lord brings restoration of peace, joy and fresh
life in our hearts.
Peace
Within
There is a point where the Lord brings us into a new
day and things that could remind us of pain also can
become places of an even greater strength within.
It is the fullness of healing and restoration when
we can embrace painful experiences and then release
them to the Lord. Yet still in our weakness we are
allowing Him to come pour His oil upon us. In this
we are casting our cares upon Him. In turn the Lord,
His Kingdom and desires become our meditation. We
invite Him to come inside and do His deeper work,
clean out the debris from our closets - deep cleaning.
Here we rediscover an even deeper place of rest and
peace. Jesus took our pain on the cross so that we
could release it to Him... and receive His peace.
Isaiah
26:3-4
You will keep him in perfect
peace,
Whose mind is stayed on You,
Because he trusts in You.
Trust in the LORD forever,
For in YAH, the LORD, is everlasting strength.
Pain is never a pleasant thing. Who even likes to tallk
about it. All great men and women of God have experienced
some form of pain in their lives. God works all these
things for our good since we have set our love upon
Him. (Rom. 8:28, Psalm 5:11-12) There
is a place of surrender where we no longer strive in
our flesh to please God, but release all we are and
have to His purposes. It is in this place of surrender
that we find His faithfulness in our lives. We find
our peace with God. We come to realize that it thoughts
toward us are for good and that His plans are sure as
we continually yield to Him. And in the midst of everything
going on we receive the grace and revelation to know
that God is our God. We can trust in the Lord's restoration
and strength knowing that He is the One who is in control.
Psalm
73:28
But it is good for me to draw near to God;
I have put my trust in the Lord GOD,
That I may declare all Your works.
Shutting
the Door
The enemy tries to take advantage of pain that we
have experienced. He will remind us of our shortcomings
saying, “Who do you think you are?” But
the truth and response is that we are nothing apart
from Him. We can do nothing apart from Him. So we
can confidently say in response, "nothing apart
from Him..."
Psalm
16:2
O my soul, you have said to the LORD,
"You are my Lord, My goodness is nothing apart
from You."
The very thing that we feel disqualifies us is the very
thing that the Lord uses to qualifies us. (2
Cor. 12:9) The key that opens the door of destiny
and shuts the door on the enemy is when we recognize
our weakness, but even more recognize His perfect power
in it. We are simply vessels that His power flows through.
Our job is to simply yield to Him so that He may flow
through us. It is not about fixing ourselves. In this
life we are broken and fall short of His glory. (Rom.
3:23) Even if we got our clock ticking again
the time would still be wrong. God restores us to a
place of communion and sensitivity to His Spirit and
puts us in sync with His clock so that we can flow with
His perfect time. (Rom. 8:14, Gal. 5:18)
It is all about our connection with Him, abiding in
His love.
Spirit
of Encouragement
It is so important that we continually encourage one
another. Encouragement is strength. It is like life-support,
keeps life flowing. We are exhorted to encourage one
another daily. (Hebrews 3:13) The
battle is real for every one of us. I believe we really
need to understand that every one of us is in a fight
individually as well as corporately. The Body of Christ
needs to really get a hold of the spirit of encouragement.
Encouragement is unifying, uplifting and expresses
love and appreciation. If we fail to do this we will
accomplish very little in God’s Kingdom. Because
be default unity is not realized in the Body. The
devil hates unity in the Spirit. He knows that when
two or more come together in His Name that power and
authority is released in the earth being destructive
to his kingdom.
Matt
18:19-20
"Again I say to you that if two of you agree
on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will
be done for them by My Father in heaven. For where two
or three are gathered together in My name, I am there
in the midst of them."
It
is the simple things that have the most profound effect.
Simply encouraging one another let’s all of
us know that we are on the same team, fighting the
same battle to see His Kingdom established in the
earth. Encouragement is also healing. Especially when
released in the form of prophecy.(I Cor. 14:4)
It is amazingly encouraging because it is straight
from the heart of God through a brother or sister
in Christ being inspired under the unction of the
Holy Spirit. And we need the unction to function!
Get some unction and get some impartation then give
it away! The people of this world are full of painful
experiences. We are those who carry the heart of God
to bring life and healing to those caught and blinded
by the difficulties of life.
Love
is Action
To love is to do. It is easy for someone to say “I
love you brother”. But we need to put some action
to our words. Love is not words. Jesus never said,
“I love you”. He lived it. He
never had to say it. It was obvious. You
could see it...
John
11:35-37
Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, "See how He
loved him!"
Of
course it is not wrong to say it, but is much more
important to do things that express that love. Otherwise
it is superficial as best. So the substance must be
behind our words or our words have no weight. Jesus
is our example. So we must live love more that we
speak it. Love is the greatest of all. Jesus told
us, “love one another”. But He knew that
this was action, not mere words. With this kind of
love all the world will know that we are His disciples.
John
13:35
By this all will know that you are My disciples,
if you have love for one another."
In
saying all of this, we also need to learn to put our
expections upon God. God will never fail. He is the
one who changes things and the One who causes every
good and perfect thing to come into being. (James
1:17) We need to learn to lighten the load
of others and put our expections on the Lord because
He is the only one qualified and able to do exceeding,
abundantly above all we can ask or think. (Eph.
3:20)
I've heard it said somewhere that some of the
greatest words we could hear the Lord say about us
when we are with Him in eternity is that "he
or she loved well". Amen and AMEN!
In His Love,
John
