Recipient of God's love

"To know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."  Ephesians 3:19

Nothing edifies the soul more then accepting and being recipient of God's love.

A submitted soul living and growing in the knowledge of God's love builds a house on a solid foundation.  This love that not only builds but restores a house and repairs a house.

The real heartfelt knowledge of God’s love establishes one's soul in Christ.  Promotes growth in ways the soul will probably never fully understand.    God’s love gives a wisdom that renews the chambers and hallways and rooms of our heart.  It grows and promotes affection for others.  It gives the warmth of grace where once only hardness fossilized the attitudes of the heart.  It bestows virtue by means of understanding the Lord of one’s life.  It waters with a blessedness that rust and moth and even time itself cannot touch.  God’s love preserves the soul as the petals of the heart seek and face the light of His love.

In short God loves helps us do all these things....
“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 1 Corinthians 13:7

The more we accept God's love, his Lordship and his authority as overseer of our life the more we can live in His love. 

His love emboldens an individual- not in himself/herself but in Christ Himself.

What is understood in the understandings of man as obligations of faith are carried out not in some kind of chore or rule but the freeing Spirit of God.  It as if the religious laws have disappeared because we accept God love that enables us to endure all things.       

God’s Spirit helps us live in the moment instead of our own thoughts of the moment.   Not by some human plan but God's plan.   Someone say that is crazy to relinquish control to God but I say if God knows what is best for me- then God's will be done.  Romans 8:28  says "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose."  

Besides who are we fooling by thinking we have control.  Do you really in the scope of things have control?  And what happens when you try to control?

Spirit and Truth- It is not us but Him....

In high school a couple of my friends and I went on an overnight hike up in the mountains.  We camped next to this lake and when we awoke and emerged from our tent the lake was still and it perfectly mirrored the majesty of mountain standing over it.  

I find some of the most powerful times we can have with the Lord are times were we have just quietly submitted ourselves to the Lord.  Where the waters of our soul have become still like that lake in the mountains.  Where the waters of our thoughts mirror God’s loving majesty standing over us.

“As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man.” Proverbs 27:19

We all have to ask ourselves everyday, where is our heart looking?

Example: I find when we have a powerful time of singing, worship and praise together... it is very organic. It is very genuine and very sincere.   It is often very spontaneous in how things are carried out, gifted and given -as souls are yielded to the Spirit of God.  And though things are spontaneous, they are somehow still orderly.  The time is not filled with disorder but harmony.   It reminds makes me of a tapestry or a patchwork quilt.  One might be singing with ordinary words, another words of angels, another utterances of praise, one words of prophecy, some dancing, some bowing, some with hands raised high, some hands spread out low as giving an offering and then you have the musicians and singers who are also playing and moving according to the Spirit.  All different yet we see each piece is sewed and threaded together in the Mastery of the Spirit of God.  Again this wasn't birthed out of some human plan but God's plan as we submitted ourselves to Him and mirror what we receive from His majesty.

When we strive for “some” affect.... because we had or someone else had previous success we resort to shallow “fleshly” thinking- where we are not submitted to God’s Spirit.

Success only comes when God works through the vessels and hearts of those vessels.

"And though they worshiped the LORD, they continued to follow the religious customs of the nations from which they came. And this is still going on among them today.  They follow their former practices instead of truly worshiping the LORD and obeying the laws, regulations, instructions and commands he gave the descendants of Jacob, whose name he changed to Israel." 2 Kings 17:33-34

How often do Christian denominations and churches follow "religious" practices they have passed down from generation to generation instead of truly worship the LORD?  They do it "this" way because that is the way they have always done it. 

"Religious" practices do nothing for the soul.  I do not mind people thinking about former days -especially if it stirs them up in the Lord but there are these days as well.  For the word of God mentions times when people no longer called on God and stirred themselves to take hold of Him. Note Isaiah 64:7 

Live in these days as well as you remember the faithfulness of the Lord, looking forward and anticipating what else He wants to do in our lives.  

"He" not us... (think about Psalm 23) 

How we forget and allow ourselves to be thought of less of by circumstances and actions of others when God has called us into his kingdom and for  “such a time as this.”

 As the body of Christ, the Apostle Paul says we shouldn't hold on to the past or live in the past.

I find no maturing and knew revelation of Christ can be built upon just living in the past and even more foolishly deciding that we have already apprehended all there is to know of God.  Paul says he's forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to those things that are ahead that he might walk deeper in the call that Jesus Christ apprehended him for.

You and I cannot walk deeper in the call/purpose/the love unless our revelation of Jesus Christ deepens in our heart not just our mind.   That we might know how wide, how long, how high, how deep his love really is....  For in Christ our Father has glorious unlimited resources for us to gain a greater confidence in him, to be encouraged, to grow and mature, and have a growing relationship with Him which is made possible by His Holy Spirit.

Remember what Paul wrote:  [For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death….” Philippians 3:10

It is not by might or power but by His Spirit! (Note Zechariah 4:6). Those lost in the world cannot receive from His Spirit because they aren't looking for Him and don't have Him living inside of them- for when we gave our lives to Christ He not only changed our heart but gave His Spirit to us as well so we might (by our choice) become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly. 

Jesus says, "I am the truth, the way and life, no one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6.   I have found this statement to be more then true.

No one can receive from God deeper building revelations of God unless they give their lives to God.

 1 Corinthians 2:9-12 says  "But as it is written: "Eye has not seen, more ear heard, nor have entered the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him. But God has reveal them to us through His Spirit.  For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.  For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him?  Even  so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.  Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God." 

God wants us to have a deeper growing revelation of Himself so that we might live in the fullness of life and power that comes from God.  I am reminded of all .... Ephesians 3:14-20

To think that the Creator of all the universe wants to share this with us is amazing yet so many ignore this fact. 

I read this morning- there is no such thing as chance. "For since the beginning of the world Men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, Nor has the eye seen any God besides You, Who acts for the one who waits for Him. You meet him who rejoices and does righteousness, Who remembers You in Your ways." Note: Isaiah 64:4-5

It is important to wait for Him.  To thank Him, to do right,  and remember in thought and deed the ways of God.  All very difficult and even impossible without the assistance of God in one's life.  

How often does God do the same thing the same way every time… even during our personal devotional time with Him?   For He makes all things new does he not?

Our devotional time may start with us submitting to Him but from then on out it is Him that is guiding and directing.  And sometimes this can be frustrating because just about the time we think we know how God works it seems He changes it on us.

 I have found God doesn’t like when we try to fit Him in a box in our mind.  I think He doesn’t want us to put Him in a box because He doesn’t want us to live in a box.   After all we are to live/abide in Him and His Love.   We are to discover nothing is impossible with God but with a box you are limited to the possibilities and you are limiting God as well.

God wants us to know that He works in many ways- not just in the ways we think He works in.   

Have you ever seen the wind caught in a box?  Me either.      

     

So trust Him…. Let God work and He will reveal more of Himself to us and as we mature in His wonderful loving revelation of Himself -we will manifest Him in ways we didn't think possible because He was allowed to have control.  We come open handed, no agenda, no presumption, submitted and seeking Him with anticipation.  All eyes and hearts on Him, who is our hope, strength and all and all.    

How I ponder these things in my heart and am thankful for them.