2/7/11

Let Hunger Lift You Higher and Closer to Him

Mathew 5:6
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

I confess to you that if there is a secret that I could leave with you in this book, it is this: Your hunger will take you to places in God that nothing else can. Hunger for Him can take you higher and move His presence closer to you that you ever dreamed. By God's design, He is moved and attracted by the hunger of the human heart (The God Catchers, p. 108).

We are too easily satisfied with stories of someone else's encounter with Him … If you are tired of merely hearing about the God encounters other people had, then start collecting and creating emptiness. The same hunger that drove them into His presence will transport you into His presence too. Is your stomach growling yet? Can you feel the hunger pangs starting to grow in strength and frequency?

Christians hide their hunger just as lepers hide their disfigured limbs. We also disguise our passion with paste-on faces and rigid limbs in fear that our peers will uncover our "dirty secret" and drown us in their self-righteous disapproval. What if the very things we consider demeaning to the Christian faith are actually the fuel of God's fire in our hearts? Release the hunger you are hiding behind your rags of outward righteousness. Remove every false disguise; peel away every layer of fake piety and openly display your passionate desperation for His presence. Focus your thoughts on Him and His holiness; let holy hunger pangs grip your soul and transport you where you've never been before. Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near!

Unlike man, God is more interested in your tears of repentance and cries of desperation than in the sharpness of your creases and the size of your offerings. He delights in mascara-stained faces and elaborate hairdos draped across tear-stained carpets. He rejoices over humbled kings of commerce and brokenhearted barons of business and enterprise. It is only the proud that He ignores.

What will you offer Him today?

 

2/8/11

Let Hunger Lift You Higher and Closer to Him

Psalm 22:3
But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.

Our churches have been guilty of false representation and false advertising long enough. We've claimed to be the bride of Christ while conducting our business and going our own way as if we were "separated" from Him. It is time to return the supernatural part of God's nature to God's house. If we dare to claim, "God is here!" then better be prepared to do what it takes to back up our claim. In The God Catchers, I said:

For too long the church has trumpeted to the nations, "He's here! He's here!" when there wasn't enough of Him there to make the church discernibly different from the world. Our claims were true in the sense that the omnipresent God was present in our churches, but that is no claim to fame. His omnipresence is everywhere, even in bars and nightclubs. It's His manifest presence that we must become hungry for, those undeniable moments when you know…He's here! (p. 109)

Are you hungry for more of Him than you have every experienced? Will you pay the price to stay in His presence? The world is waiting and hoping that we really will produce evidence of the Real Thing-call upon His name and offer Him your uninhibited, unshackled hunger for His presence. 

  2/9/11

In Times of Transitions

Hebrew 13:8
Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever.

Are you in a time of transition from where you have been, where you are and where the Lord wants to take you. Transition time has been and is very uncomfortable because we are unsure/lack clarity as to what we are to do. I am confident that if we keep on doing what we have been doing we will all together miss the next move of God.

 We need to be like - of the sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do. 1Chronicles 12:32

Isa 43:19 Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. It’s new – we haven’t really done things this way before. It is going to take our willingness and courage to abandon the way we have always done things. New means new…

 Great days are ahead…

 2/10/11

Not Yet “Due Time”

Job 23:10
But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.

God has said He will exalt you in due time, but remember, He is referring to His time and not yours!

Some of you are actually in a fiery furnace right now. You are in a special kind of spiritual testing. The pastor may not know it and others may not know it, but you have been praying and asking the Lord: "Why don't you get me out of this?"

In God's plan it is not yet "due time." When you have come through the fire, God will get you out and there will not be any smell of smoke on your garment and you will not have been harmed.

The only harm that can come will be from your insistence that God must get you out sooner than He plans.

The Lord has promised to exalt you in due time and He has always kept His promises to His people.

As children, we can always afford to wait. A saint of God does not have to be concerned about time when he is in the will of God. I Call It Heresy! pp. 116-117

"Lord, I pray this morning for anyone who is 'actually in a fiery furnace right now.' Give great grace to endure until the 'due time' when you bring release and exaltation.

 2/11/11

Going the wrong way?

2 Corinthians 5:17
“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.”

 There is a first step to “the ultimate turnaround,” and it is simply to turn around…

Did you know that U-turns are legal at every intersection of life?  When we make a wrong turn in life, we often condemn ourselves and beat ourselves up over it.  But in reality, a wrong turn is simply an opportunity to turn around! 

Four lepers found themselves at this place in the Bible.  Although they were separated from civilization due to their leprosy, they chose to enter civilization anyway.  As they cautiously entered the city, much to their surprise they found it deserted.

“First they ate and drank.  Then they grabbed silver, gold, and clothing, and went off and hid it.  They came back, entered another tent, and looted it, again hiding their plunder.” – 2 Kings 7:8

 The Bible says the lepers helped themselves to the free food and drinks, and then they helped themselves to the free silver, gold, and clothing.  They began to go from tent to tent gathering loot, taking a break only to hide everything from view.  A hoarding, hiding mentality is not the will of a sharing, caring God!

These lepers had made a wrong turn like we so often do.  They were hungry, cold, and exposed to the weather.  Their flesh got the better of them and they did the wrong thing.  Many of us are all too familiar with this!

But, as soon as the lepers hid their plunder, something incredible happened that still sends shivers up my spine thousands of years later.  One of them said, “We’re not doing right.”  Can you imagine how hard it must have been to stand up for the right thing?  Yet, a confession of “I’m guilty” always precedes a U-turn in life.  No matter how hard to it may be, to ever get out of a mess, you must do what you know is right!

Many times we find ourselves at the wrong place, doing the wrong thing, at the wrong time.  We must come to the realization that we need to make a U-turn as quickly as possible, because the first step to an ultimate comeback is simply to turn around…

2/12/11

A turn for the worse

2 Kings 5:25-27
But he went in, and stood before his master. And Elisha said unto him, Whence [comest thou], Gehazi? And he said, Thy servant went no whither. And he said unto him, Went not mine heart [with thee], when the man turned again from his chariot to meet thee? [Is it] a time to receive money, and to receive garments, and oliveyards, and vineyards, and sheep, and oxen, and menservants, and maidservants? The leprosy therefore of Naaman shall cleave unto thee, and unto thy seed for ever. And he went out from his presence a leper [as white] as snow.
 

Have you ever felt like giving up?  Has there been a time in your life when you felt hopeless?  Have you ever lost someone or something you love? If you have, don’t give up! Don’t lose hope. There is no problem too big for God to solve. If God can cleanse a leper, He can give you the strength to overcome any obstacle life may throw in your path!

 What can you do when life suddenly takes a tragic turn for the worst?  Sometimes life deals us circumstances that change our world. Oftentimes we make decisions that lead to negative circumstances, but other times, things are simply out of our control.

We can learn a valuable lesson through examining the life of Gehazi. Gehazi was smitten with leprosy over one mistake! Because of one decision, his life was left without hope! There was no cure for leprosy in Gehazi’s time. To be a leper meant total isolation from everyone and everything!  He was labeled unclean, and sentenced to a life of hopelessness. What could Gehazi have done to deserve such a ruthless sentence?  He took a reward that he hadn’t earned.  He took a reward from Naaman, when Elisha, God’s prophet, instructed him not to do so. Gehazi disobeyed God and God’s prophet and he took what wasn’t his in the first place! 

When we walk in deliberant disobedience to God, we put ourselves in a vulnerable place.  Anytime we take credit for something that we didn’t do, or lie to protect our integrity, we’re doing the same thing Gehazi did. God isn’t waiting for us to mess up to smite us, but God does desire for us to Life for Him!  God desires us to strive to be closer to Him each and every day, and if we strive for Him, we’ll stay far from the mistakes Gehazi made.

 Even if you are striving to be closer to God, and you’re doing your best to obey God, unfortunate things can still happen.  It rains on the just and the unjust.  It’s important to remember that God is merciful and He never leaves us or forsakes us, even in the difficult times! In hard times, it’s important to focus on overcoming your problems, and not allowing your problems to overcome you!

2/13/11

Take It Personally!

Psalm 27:4, in which David reveals the deepest desire of his heart
to “dwell in the house of the Lord”, all the days of his life and behold His beauty.

Often, when we wander off in the wrong direction in our pursuit of Him, God calls out to us to help us along. When my youngest daughter and I played “hidey-face,” I loved to hear the lyrical sounds of her “little girl giggle” just bubbling with excitement. I loved it so much that if she wandered off in the wrong direction and stopped giggling in her search, then I would call out and say; “Over here…closer…”
Then I would listen to her stop and be still while she tried to locate the source of Daddy's voice. I am convinced that God does the same thing.

"One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple."

2/14/11

What do you think?

Psalm 27:4, in which David reveals the deepest desire of his heart
 to “dwell in the house of the Lord”, all the days of his life and behold His beauty.

 At this point, you have probably read all the way through The God Catchers. (I hope you have had the opportunity to read The God Chasers as well.) Now I want you to read through a brief passage from page 8 of The God Catchers, in which I discuss the way my youngest daughter “captured” my heart. Then I want to ask your opinion about something:

She couldn't capture me physically, but she easily captured me emotionally. She couldn't move her legs fast enough to apprehend me, but her words easily captured my heart.

Some people take offense at my use of the term God Chaser, saying, and “You don't have to chase God.” I understand but I don't agree. You may call it whatever you want; it doesn't bother me. My youngest daughter didn't have to chase me to get me to be her daddy, but if she wanted more than just to live in the same house, if she wanted attention and affection, then she knew which “buttons” to push. You may be content just to be in God's house, but I want to be in His lap!

 I must confess that I am an incurable addict, a hopeless compulsive 
seeking an eternal fix for the unending longing within me—I long to see 
Him as He is in all of His glory.  What about you?