a memory

isaiah 18:4

For here’s what God told me: “I’m not going to say anything, but simply look on from where I live, Quiet as warmth that comes from the sun, silent as dew during harvest.”

this reminds me of a worship gathering i was at a few weeks ago.  maybe it was a couple months.  anyway, i was on my face and there was this sense of impending doom.  there had been at last four or five really intense worship experiences prior to that one, and i couldn’t have put these words to it at the time, but these definitely describe my feeling at that moment.  it was as if HE was asking me if the emotions were gone, if it wasn’t intense, if everything felt a little forced, if i couldn’t feel HIM, would i still worship him? if HE was quiet as warmth, would i still follow HIM?  if HE was silent as dew, would i still give my life to bring glory to a GOD that isn’t saying anything, just looking on?  the answer is yes.  i would still have no other reason to live.

my heart today

isaiah 12:1-2

And you will say in that day, “I thank you, God. You were angry but your anger wasn’t forever. You withdrew your anger and moved in and comforted me. Yes, indeed—God is my salvation. I trust, I won’t be afraid. God—yes God!—is my strength and song, best of all, my salvation!”

i trust, i won’t be afraid. GOD – yes GOD! – is my strength and song, best of all, my salvation!  write that on my heart today.  let me bask in YOUR strength.  let me sing YOUR song, and let me trust in YOUR salvation, rather than trying to work for some religious goal.  i don’t care about feeling good about myself.  i trust YOU.  i won’t be afraid.

i am a tool.

isaiah 10:15

Does an ax take over from the one who swings it? Does a saw act more important than the sawyer? As if a shovel did its shoveling by using a ditch digger! As if a hammer used the carpenter to pound nails!

i am a tool.  don’t let me forget it.  i am a tool.  i bring nothing to YOU that YOU haven’t given me.  i am YOURS to use, and i don’t get to give YOU input on whether or not i am comfortable with the way YOU use me.  and it’s ok.  because i trust YOU, and if there is anything that i feel like i know better than YOU, i surrender it.  i am YOURS.  i am YOUR tool.

my wholeness

isaiah 9:6-7

For a child has been born—for us!  the gift of a son—for us! He’ll take over the running of the world. His names will be: Amazing Counselor, Strong God, Eternal Father, Prince of Wholeness. His ruling authority will grow, and there’ll be no limits to the wholeness he brings.

i always thought that there weren’t gradations of wholeness.  like either it is whole, or it isn’t.  like there is a limit.  like once something seems whole, that is it.  but YOU aren’t contained by my thoughts.  my imagination can’t contain what YOU are capable of.  for YOU there are no limits to wholeness.  and YOU bring it.

i need it.  i need wholeness.  i guess it makes sense because at times i feel whole, but YOU have more for me.  bring it.  bring it on.

my recovery

revelation 2:2-7

“I see what you’ve done, your hard, hard work, your refusal to quit. I know you can’t stomach evil, that you weed out apostolic pretenders. I know your persistence, your courage in my cause, that you never wear out. But you walked away from your first love—why? What’s going on with you, anyway? Do you have any idea how far you’ve fallen? A Lucifer fall! Turn back! Recover your dear early love. No time to waste, for I’m well on my way to removing your light from the golden circle. You do have this to your credit: You hate the Nicolaitan business. I hate it, too. Are your ears awake? Listen. Listen to the Wind Words, the Spirit blowing through the churches. I’m about to call each conqueror to dinner. I’m spreading a banquet of Tree-of-Life fruit, a supper plucked from God’s orchard.”

i am letting these questions roll around in my head today: why? what’s going on with you, anyway? do you have any idea how far you’ve fallen? are your ears awake?

i need recovery. i feel like i need to love the church. the church has a husband, and HIS name is JESUS.  the church doesn’t need a lover.  JESUS wants me to love HIM, and i have a tendency to love the church instead. the church is never going to speak to me. are my ears awake to the sounds the church is making, or the WIND WORDS? are my ears awake?

my hypocrisies

isaiah 7:13

It’s bad enough that you make people tired with your pious, timid hypocrisies, but now you’re making God tired.

pious means sincere but unlikely to be fulfilled.  timid means showing a lack of courage or confidence.  i wonder how many people i have made tired with these hypocrisies.  how often i say things that are sincere, but everyone thinks to themselves, ‘it’s never going to happen.’  how often i approach a situation and know in the back of my mind (and in the front of everyone else’s minds) that i am lacking courage and confidence.  how exhausting is that?  how much more does GOD have for me?  how often is HE saying ‘you said you’d trust ME, and I said I was strong in your weaknesses, but you back down before you ever make a move.’  be with me today.  change my heart and my attitude.  search my heart and point out to me my pious, timid hypocricies, and give me the strength i need to be done with them, to trust YOU and YOUR word.

my facedown

isaiah 2:6-9

God, you’ve walked out on your family Jacob because their world is full of hokey religion, Philistine witchcraft, and pagan hocus-pocus, a world rolling in wealth, stuffed with things, no end to its machines and gadgets, and gods – gods of all sorts and sizes.  These people make their own gods and worship what they make.  A degenerate race, facedown in the gutter.  Don’t bother with them! They’re not worth forgiving!

how often have i thought of my own religion as hokey? i live in and love the world of wealth that i occupy.  i love things.  there is no end to our machines and gadgets.  how do i live here and not idolize things?  how do i get over the wealth that we are rolling in?   how do i stop worshiping the things i have made?  do i actually feel like i am a degenerate race, that i am facedown in the gutter?

YOU. the only answer can be YOU.  i believe that YOU have moved into the neighborhood.  that YOU have invaded my life.  that YOUR kingdom is here.  that YOU have not left me to my own hands, my own works, my own demise.  YOU have saved me, YOU are saving me, and YOU are alive in me.  YOUR spirit lives in me and there is nothing, nothing, nothing, no thing that matters in comparison to that.

give me focus today.  open up my eyes to the things unseen.

“i will see GOD wring glory from my life some where, some way, some how.”  -Steven Furtick

my incapability

isaiah 2:3-4

They’ll say, “Come, let’s climb God’s Mountain, go to the House of the God of Jacob. He’ll show us the way he works so we can live the way we’re made.” Zion’s the source of the revelation. God’s Message comes from Jerusalem. He’ll settle things fairly between nations. He’ll make things right between many peoples. They’ll turn their swords into shovels, their spears into hoes. No more will nation fight nation; they won’t play war anymore. Come, family of Jacob, let’s live in the light of God.

i want to know the way YOU work so i can live the way i’m made.  i can’t imagine a time when the nations feel like everything is settled between them and been made right.  in other words, i can’t imagine, i don’t have the capacity to imagine how capable you are of doing the things that seem like they can’t be done.  in my life, where i have played war, where i have decided that i have a right to anger or justice, i am sorry.  i want to live in YOUR light, the light of YOU my GOD.

my worship charades and my next prayer-performance

isaiah 1:13-15

Quit your worship charades. I can’t stand your trivial religious games: Monthly conferences, weekly Sabbaths, special meetings— meetings, meetings, meetings—I can’t stand one more! Meetings for this, meetings for that. I hate them! You’ve worn me out! I’m sick of your religion, religion, religion, while you go right on sinning. When you put on your next prayer-performance, I’ll be looking the other way. No matter how long or loud or often you pray, I’ll not be listening. And do you know why? Because you’ve been tearing people to pieces, and your hands are bloody.

this goes right back to what i was looking at in matthew yesterday.  i am so busy trying to atone for what Jesus did on the cross with my religious activity.  i focus on what i should have done, or should be doing, or what i didn’t do, or what i did do that i shouldn’t have, and i ignore what HE did.  Jesus set everything straight on the cross.  HE atoned for everything that i will ever do that doesn’t align with HIM, and i can’t re-atone for the atonement.  that doesn’t even make sense.

beyond that, these works will never save me, but faith without works is dead.  i heard a pastor say that there is no such thing as backsliding.  if the HOLY SPIRIT tells you not to do something, and you do it, regardless of whether you are repeating some sin that you’ve already confessed, you are willfully sinning.  this passage in isaiah shows how that affects the way GOD sees us.  there have been times in my life where i would pray and it didn’t matter how long or loud or often i would pray, it seemed like HE wasn’t listening.  friends would tell me that HE will answer in HIS timing, when they should have said, “dude, stop sinning.  stop acting as if GOD can’t see what you do when no one is looking.  give up the act and maybe HE will listen.”

my house

Matthew 7:24-27

“These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock.  Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock.  “But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don’t work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach.  When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards.”

it doesn’t have to be like the second one.  work these words into me.  these words that Jesus speaks, let them define what i am doing, who i am becoming, how i am living.  let me base what i believe on HIS words, and not apply HIS words to what i believe.  where there is no foundation, today, let me have the courage to tear down the house and make room for a foundation.  i bring nothing to the table.  nothing that YOU haven’t already given me.  let me remember that all day.