Category: Wisdom Series

GOD’S WISDOM ~ “STAND FIRM”

My steadfast love I will keep for him forever, and my covenant will stand firm for him.  Psalm 89:28

Consider your feet.  Upon whose word are you standing?  In life, you will be asked many questions.

Who are you?  Why do you believe that?  What possible reason would cause you to think that?  Do you really believe you’re making a wise decision?

You can plant your feet on many kinds of turf.  Convenient answers.  Popular answers.  Evasive answers.  But none will be solid ground. These are the times you must dig your heels into the soil of my kingdom.  Feel the earth settle around your shoes.  Each time you give an answer that is Spirit founded, your way will be marked with a security that comes from walking in the light of My favor.  Your words may sound incredulous to others, even gain you great unpopularity, but you will know the peace of Jesus as He modeled solid theology and spoke truthful words all the way to the cross.

 

God’s Wisdom ~Lose Yourself In Me 

Those who try to gain their own life will lose it; but those who lose their life for my sake will gain it.  Matthew 10:39

Lose yourself in Me.  Do it until the edges of you become blurred in the essence of who I am.  When you can no longer tell what is your mind and what is My mind, your thought and My thoughts, your sympathies and My sympathies, your passions and My passions, then you are on the right track.  This is the kind of spiritual unity My Son talked about.

Remember that Jesus prayed, “Let them be one as we are one.”  Know that this is the culmination of your spiritual journey.  Most importantly, this is a preview of the consummation of our marriage.

How much am I on your mind?  You are always on Mine.

 

Come to me and I will answer you and show you unsearchable things that you do not know.  Jeremiah 33:3

You will never love others as I love them if you still limp from the wounds of your childhood.  I am reaching out to you at the exact age you internalized rejection. You extended your heart but were turned away.  When they refused you, they were not like Me.

When you reach out for Me, My arms are open to receive you.  Remember, I reached out first, long before you even know you had the need. You have not even begun to plunge into the depths of your Christ.  No matter how high you reach, I am higher still.  No matter how deeply you fall, you will never reach the bottom of My reservoir full of resources.  No matter how widely you extend your arms to encompass the breadth of Me, I am wider still.  How vast is my love.  Engage me where it feels unsafe.  Just as a secure child reaches out in the night to his parent, knowing that even in sleep he will be received.  This love, turned outward, changes the world.

“The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17

Why do you often declare yourself unworthy and unlovely?  I call you ‘beloved’ but you discount it.  Whatever I seem to say, you recant.  What would it mean for you to respond, “Oh, I am lovely to You, Lord.  I am Your masterpiece of grace.”

To reject My appraisal of you is to reject My truth.  To discount My Word is unbecoming.  This is not humility.  This is pride.  Humility begins when you say, “I believe.  Help my unbelief.”

I have made you worthy, and though it is a gift, it remains true nonetheless.  Own it.  Stand tall in it.  Rejoice about the spiritual life I’ve birthed in you.  Disbelief of anything I say must be put aside.  The life of faith is to abandon your own flawed perspective.

God’s Wisdom ~ Your Personal Blueprint

Thus says the Lord: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.  Jeremiah 6:16

Do not question whether or not I desire to build something with your life.  I do.  Feel no pressure to make your calling resemble the calling of another.  I am doing something utterly unique with you. I’m fashioning you into a masterpiece.

When your heart sinks because you fear you fall short of the grand design others may expect, know that you are losing sight of the person I am molding with you under my tutoring.  Don’t settle and adapt your design according to the whims of men.  Listen to my voice.  When you work with me, you will be energized, not drained.  Passionate, not resigned.  Joy and childlikeness are the signs of a path rightly discovered.

 

Nearer Than You Know 

He found them in a desert land, in an empty, howling wasteland. He surrounded them and watched over them; he guarded them as he would guard his own eyes. Like an eagle that rouses her chicks and hovers over her young, so he spread his wings to take them up and carried them safely on his pinions. Deuteronomy 32:10-11

I am hovering over you as a mother hovers over her young.  Seek me.  You need only close your eyes in prayer to discern my face.  The outline of my countenance is near you and the breath of my Spirit can be felt upon your cheek.  Do not look for me to be man-sized, for I fill the sky above you.  Enlarge your vision of me so that you will not miss my portrait, poised in the glories over your head.  If you saw the armies of heaven I’ve dispatched, you’d never be afraid of anything.

But, how often have you feared that I’ve forgotten you?  How frequently your anxiety robs you of peace in the night.  I am a hovering Father.  I know the promises that I have made.  I am true to every single one.  You are safely in the palms of my hand, inscribed there in eternal remembrance.

GOD’S WISDOM ~ ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RED SEA

Give thanks to him who parted the Red Sea. His faithful love endures forever.  Psalm 136:13

I have allowed you to walk in dark places over much of your life.  It was your ‘Red Sea’.  There was no deliverance unless you turned to Me to cry out in faith.  The wind was howling and you tasted the salty air.  You heard the Egyptian’s chariots roar, bearing down on you.  You believe that your precarious position dictated your certain doom.

Ah, but then you turned to Me. What appeared to be impassable began to open up before you.  Never has your testimony been more powerful.  You speak with conviction and cause many who hear you to tremble with spiritual hunger.  No message is more powerful than this.  “I have seen the power of the Lord and He is glorious!”

 

GOD’S WISDOM ~ STAY CONNECTED!

God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin.  I Corinthians 1:30

Consider the glorious pathway upon which you walk.  You have been taken into the very center of my life, into the WORD itself.  So magnificent are my revelations that, often, your very flesh feels the strain of trying to recover from seeing my glory.  You wonder how can you see me – and still go about living in this world?  It’s not easy.  Now that you have tasted of the divine, the things of this earth will fail to satisfy.  You will have to lean on me for grace like never before.

You wonder why I was silent so much of the time, even in a crowd?  It was because I too lived disconnected, living in the spiritual realm with my Father.  Like you, I was often disconnected from the chatter, the arguments, the demands, the questions of those who pressed in on me on all sides.  I listened to them, but from a distance.  I only spoke when my Father told me it was time.  So, follow in my footsteps and learn to live holy-dissociated.  This is a  hard skill but worth it for the few disciples who long to conquer the higher principles of the kingdom.

So, what do you do when your discontent rises and your temper is short?  What do you do with your grief when you watch this broken world disintegrate?   Spend more time in prayer.  Now you know why I kept going to the garden or to a solitary place. Survival and focus depended on my connection with my Father.  Yours does, too, as you embark on a life so few tread.

Now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant to your servants, that with all boldness they may speak your Word, by stretching forth your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done by the same of the Holy Child Jesus.  And when they had prayed, the place was shaken, where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the Word of God with boldness.  Acts 4:29-31

God will bless our prayerful instincts.  He will bless any Spirit-led proclamations.

So let’s allow Him to heal our timidity.  We have a habit of walking into situations to watch, and to listen, only to go away and express our thoughts in private.  In these critical hours, this habit needs to be broken under the power of the Spirit, as uncomfortable as this change is.

God intends to bring shalom (wholeness) into our remaining places of fear so that our mouths will get engaged in public arenas.  The enemy is bold ~ and God’s children need to be bolder still. He asks us to consider how outspoken His apostles were.  They weren’t so afraid of being wrong, or offensive, that their tongue was withheld.  The salt had the chance to savor.  The church was born in violent times.

In these uncertain times, God has invited us to live in His circle of light.  We are the light of the city on a hill.  It is time to look up, then out, and allow that light to shine into every valley on all sides.  This is the hour for boldness.  Anemic words won’t break the back of the deception of the age but divine proclamations, even when whispered, will break up fallow ground, and then go on to accomplish God’s purposes.

Lord, start with me.  I bring my fear to your embrace of perfect love.  Amen

The woman said to Jesus, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when the One comes, He will declare all things to us.  John 4:25

Do you know that you can ask Me absolutely anything? There’s nothing too insignificant. And don’t you know that you are not a bother?   I don’t sigh in weariness when I see you coming. I already know the question you are going to ask and I’ve been waiting for you so eagerly to give you the answers. Don’t be surprised if you need to seek Me persistently. In seeking, you will gain far more insight about the answer than if I fed it to you in just a few lines. Everything that comes out of my mouth is full on many dimensions. Each truth could be explored for a lifetime. I want your understanding of Me to be comprehensive, not shallow.

I am the God of disclosure.  You have no idea how much I’d love to reveal to you but when you live your life on the advice of others, you will have wasted most of it. We have a personal relationship so ask me personal questions.

• When you are hurting from the stings of another, ask me what would cause someone do to that.
• When you erupt in anger toward the last person you want to hurt, ask me why you did that.
• When you can’t get over a loss and you continue to grieve without end, ask me why the tears won’t stop.
• When a so-called friend treats you like an enemy, ask me how it’s possible.
• When you have a dream that feels very spiritual, ask me what it means.
• When you encounter several things that seem more than coincidence, ask me if I’m trying to say something to you.
• When you read the Word and feel nothing, ask me to kiss your heart to life.
• When you are frustrated with yourself, even to the point of dislike, ask me to show you who you really are in Me.
• When you don’t understand why I answered the Pharisees like I did, just ask me.

Do you see the questions you’ve never asked?  Aren’t you interested in my answers?   Asking is praying.  Pray more.  Listen more.  I am close by, always listening for the sound of my name being spoken.