LIFE IN THE SHADOWS

“He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” God has given us the ability to live under His wing - we must recognize that we exist within the safety of His love and grace, and not on our own.  When David penned Psalm 91the secret place under the shadow of the wings of the Almighty was a real place.  David would sit in the Holy of Holies beneath the wings of the cherubim covering the mercy seat of God, the torches’ flames casting shadows of these wings onto him. This is the place where God dwelt in those times.  Saints, we have favor with God: The Father has put us in the one place where we will always be safe, where we will always get our needs met, where our prayers will always be answered and where our hearts can rejoice - In Christ!  This is what Paul means when he says we are accepted “In The Beloved” (Eph. 1:6), Jesus is “The Beloved” (Matt. 3:17; 17:5) and we are “In Him”.  We cannot be In Christ, “In the secret place of the most High” and be unworthy or unwanted.  As we abide... dwell in this secret place of God’s intimacy the Lord becomes our refuge and fortress, and we trust Him.  This “picture” of divine intimacy and protection is the “reality” that God has provided for His children. We must learn to live in this place of rest in the Spirit, for our intimacy with God is our most intimidating weapon against the enemy.  Spiritual warfare is not just about taking authority over the enemy, it’s about discovering the sovereignty, supremacy and majesty of Jesus. It is not about who we are, rather where we are... In Christ... In The Beloved...

UNDER THE SHADOW OF YOUR WINGS
I WILL FIND MY REST

HOW WE VIEW GOD

God doesn’t need to be explained, He needs to be lauded.  He needs to be proclaimed and worshiped.  He needs people who really know Him and will shout out who He really is, and what He’s really like.  How we perceive our Father, how we think about Him, is the single most important aspect of our spiritual journey; what He is to us and who He wants to be for us.  Our image of God will drive every single part of our life and determine the quality of our “light” to the world.  We’re shaped, emotionally and spiritually, by the image of God we carry in our hearts and minds.  He loves us.  He enjoys us.  He is deeply personal with us, and wants us to be confident in Him and in His love for us.  Ask yourself this question: Do you believe God is mostly sad, mostly mad or mostly glad?  Glad is the correct answer, for our God is a happy God who delights in His children.  He never has delusions about us because He never had any illusions to begin with.  He knows we are dirt, remember He made us.  God says of Himself that He is merciful, gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth (Ex. 34:6).  God not only delights in us, He sings over us, thinks about us constantly, collects our tears in a bottle, holds us in His hand and lights our pathway through this world, just to name a few of the good things God does for us.  But more than all this it is His unsearchable, unfathomable love that should captivate us.  He loves us with a perfect love... an everlasting love... a relentless love... an unquenchable, insatiable, immeasurable, inexhaustible, irrepressible, irrational, unshakable, inescapable, unmovable, constantly constant unchanging love.  His love demonstrated on the cross should forever capture our hearts and make us totally His - love slaves of the most high El Shaddahi. 

THE GOD OF INEXHAUSTIBLE LOVE

DON’T FEAR THE WRECKING BALL

To be in Christ is to submit to the conforming pressure of God’s fingers as the Master Potter molds and shapes each of His children into a unique predetermined vessel of honor, perfected and fit for Kingdom use. Difficulties, what Paul called our momentary light afflictions, are the fingers of God preparing us for the glory of eternity with our Daddy. We are being made ready by the discipline of the present crucified life.

We don’t need “The God kind of faith”, scripture twisting that belittles God, for God neither has nor has need of faith – He is God don’t you know! What we need is simple loving faith that wants God Himself for Himself, trusting He knows best and will complete His perfecting work in us. Listen to the great faith of Job, the blameless one, see his life and hear his words: “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”

Faith is willing not to have what God is not willing to give, and it does not insist on an explanation. “It is enough to know His promise to give what is good, He knows so much more about “good” than we do” (Elisabeth Elliot). God rarely gives us toys, which “moth and rust destroy”, that pull our time, focus and energy away from Him. He gives us transformation so we can satisfy our earthly desires with His heavenly treasure. 

God is using His wrecking ball called life to destroy the pillars of our independence one by one until we have no choice but to depend on Him. There can be no faith worth its salt until we really believe in, trust in and depend upon Him, not in our chariots but in His faithfulness to never leave or forsake us. Beyond the power-points and song lyrics divine reality is beckoning us with every swing of the wrecking ball.

When “BAD” happens remember: Beyond the unanswerable why is an unfathomable God with an indisputable love, who has never left your side. He not only endured the agony of the cross but foreordained it. Surely when the veil in the temple was torn, somewhere in the great expanse of the Father’s heart a tearing occurred. Only God can bind immaterial wounds. Only God can heal wounds of the heart. Only God!

God is not an uncertain God. He is purposeful and very intentional, constantly confronting our complacency, weak faith, independence and misplaced love. The corrosion of the world and our old nature dims the radiant brilliance of our Lord’s indwelling life. God compels us with difficulties which compel us to Him. There is absolute certainty in His commitment to our transformation into “children of light.”

God loves us to much to leave us the way we are, and He paid too high a price to settle for our complacency. His mission: “You shall be perfect.” The Father’s wooing call is a two-edged sword that meets willingness with love surgery, paring the callus from hardened hearts. Our volition is the key to transformation and establishes its pace.  Constrained by His love, we are conformed by degrees into His inward likeness.

CONFORMED BY THE FINGERS OF GOD