Oct 8, 2013

Hearing from God

God speaks to us in spontaneous spiritual thoughts in our mind especially when we are being still and waiting to hear from Him!

This is how my Bible Study works. I open the Bible, pray and ask God to come talk to me through His Word and then I wait with my diary and my pen. As I read the Bible I wait for insights and then I am drawn to some words more than others and I begin to read, soon I am immersed in what I am reading and time is no matter anymore. There God speaks and I write!

How do you hear from God?

Sep 7, 2013

Long Haul and Stretching Exercises

The last few months have been times of amazing fellowship with my Living God and this week I am feeling dry as a bone. No wind, no warmth, no goosebumps but then are those the only ways God will make His Presence known to me? Did you ever feel this way?

Well, so today in the midst of one of these dull days, I asked God (almost engulfed in hopelessness of a seemingly unchanging powerless  physical surrounding) like so...

  "God would you please change my situation, you know I worry and I need stuff for surviving on this planet. You know I need  would like to know because I know I have read in Your letter to me that You do have plans for me, plans to prosper me and plans to give me a hope and a future. Also I have read that You have created me for such a time as this and I am being fashioned by Your hands to become a powerful weapon where You have desired to launch me. Therefore, knowing all this wonderful outline of what You have for me and being that it clearly involves me, it would be great if I could somehow know when and where abouts are these wonderful things going to happen? It would be really nice of You to let me know immediately what I must do and how everything is going to work out.    -Yours very patiently - KB"
 So then after a while I am intensely multitasking - doing the dishes, screaming at my kids "eat fast!" contemplating my next move for this terrific talented life of mine, making a list of things/stuff to google to market myself and possibly stumble upon a brilliant idea which will take over the world by storm and I am almost an overnight sensation etc.

Then I hear/feel a still small voice in my head say "Don't settle for Ishmael because Isaac is coming!".

"Yes Lord, that was a great sermon I heard on the internet about the glory days  ahead for Your church, Your bride whom You are restoring to her complete and radiant beauty. You are always awesome in all Your works Lord!" I respond in my heart.

"Well I do not mean to do that only for the Body of Christ, My Church, but every single individual that comprises My Bride, each one of you and it implies to you too!" He pressed on.

"Your thoughts toward me are beautiful Lord! I am so honored that You remembered me!" I respond in humility, which now comes gently into my heart, after my vehement display of tantrums within my soul subside.

"But I have never forgotten you, you have been on my mind since the inception of this earth, hope you will one day realize that my child." He reminded me.

That was that.

I carried on with my work pondering over the little heart-to-heart I had with my Father in Heaven.I remembered, for Abram it was a very very very intense and long haul until he got to see his promise come to pass. It was so very long and the odds of him ever becoming Abraham as God had promised him seemed so far fetched, that he probably decided he should do something about it himself. So he prepared for himself his Ishmael, to get to where God would have him be. It was almost the same thing right!

Or look at Joseph, God gave him an amazing dream, he was overjoyed to the point that he thought he was living his dream already, but he had to get into the long haul to get to see his dream come true also.

Then I thought to myself, well these guys in the Bible were all in it not just for being blessed by God but also being transformed in their inner beings to be able not only to receive but also be enabled to manage, this great and humongous blessing God had in store for them. This meant that their hearts, their soul, their spirit, their character all had to be stretched and molded to be able to handle this immense treasure of a life from God!

So take courage my heart and my friends, what you think is a slow process and ever such a drag on your life is actually a good thing. Would you imagine if we were expecting a baby and the baby comes out the very next day of conception? Oh the baby would not survive and neither would the mother! So the stretching is a good and gradual thing. I am so very grateful for that, because it means when I am stretched to be able to handle God's blessing coming my way, I will also be able to retain my blessing and it will not be short lived like the ones the world has to offer! Or the ones that I make by myself. Also when the people of God came out on the other side of this stretching exercise they were much fitter for the job and the blessing that covered them actually stretched way out beyond their lives  - for Abraham it stretched over ALL generations to come on this entire planet and for Joseph it stretched to the generations of Israel and especially his family, in their time of famine and trouble.

Now that is a great life! That which can be of such blessing so it keeps giving for generations to come. I'd like that, wouldn't you?

Jul 9, 2013

He Could Have....but...

You know, the more I am reading and studying about the Tabernacle I am discovering what an AWESOME and BIG our God our Creator is. So much so that I cannot shed this thought off my head; we know we(man) messed up real bad, God could have wiped us all with a mere thought on His mind and started anew (He makes all things new) but He is a God -A God Who IS LOVE.

The book of 1John says God is Love, this means He is not full of love, He Himself is love. There is never a time or a moment when His love diminishes because God never increases nor decreases He is constant, unchanging- As thou hast been thou forever wilt be, Great is Thy faithfulness O God our Father!-

In His immense LOVE God decided let me not wipe man from the face of this earth for all the sin and evil they will do (He knows the end from the beginning), I know full well what they will do and how intensely evil they will become but I am going to give them a chance to KNOW ME!

How beautiful is His thoughts toward us. He has plans to prosper us and not to harm us plans to give us a hope and a future.

Lets come back to God and find out for ourselves how wonderful He is- Draw near to Him and He will draw near to you for He has loved you with an everlasting LOVE!

Jul 4, 2013

God is A Spiritual Being

SPIRITUAL BEING 
  • John 4:24 God is a Spirit (a spiritual Being) and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth (reality). 

I have learned that we are made up of three components - Body, Soul and Spirit. However Man is essentially (primarily) a spiritual being even though we have a Body and Soul(Mind) because we were also made in the image and likeness of God. Genesis 1:27

Body-Our physical self, subject to physical, visible hurt, pain, bruise, damage.
Soul - Our mind - where emotions are generated, good and bad, ability to feel, can move us to do the right or wrong actions.
Spirit-Our spirit-I believe this is where eternity is planted in our being as Ecclesiastes 3:11   says
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He also has planted eternity in men’s hearts and minds [a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages which nothing under the sun but God alone can satisfy], yet so that men cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. This is what can connect with God our Creator. Most of us have ourselves completely confused between soul and spirit. We've mixed them up. We do soulish stuff and think we're being spiritual. One way to distinguish them is this - Spiritual actions need supernatural empowerment and are everlasting! Only God alone can satisfy our Spiritual needs. 

At any given point in life we are driven by one of the above driving forces.
Body-What should I eat? What should I wear? etc.
Soul-What do I feel like doing? Tasks that satisfy our feelings!
Spirit-Direction that comes from God and only comes when we have fellowship with our Creator!

What has been driving you lately?

Jul 1, 2013

Knowing God

These few days I have in my heart to find out about this God for whom my ancestors(great grandfather's parents I guess) gave up their idols. I have felt His feelings towards me being of love, kindness, gentleness and forgiving. I want to know Him as to who is He.
After an intense show of power and might from God on behalf of the Israelites, do you know what Moses asked God for? In Exodus 33:18  "...Moses said, I beseech You, show me Your glory." Glory when used as a noun means- something that is a source of honor, fame, or admiration.
Being with the Lord through so much, Moses still wanted to know God's glory and he was granted a glimpse of it. He did not ask amiss for he had seen God's actions, all that God can do, but he wanted to know the Person doing those things, the source, the origin. Too many times we are content with God's actions in our life, healing, protection, deliverance, guidance, salvation, love...etc. and we never stop to ask Who are You God? Its like we have a best friend only because he or she has money, fame, power, giving us gifts, talented but we never really try and find out the heart of our friend, in that case what kind of a friend are we? So let me get on this adventure to find out from His Word Who God is!

God's Composition

  • LIGHT  
    • 1 John 1:5 And this is the message [the message of promise] which we have heard from Him and now are reporting to you: God is Light, and there is no darkness in Him at all [no, not in any way].
  • SPIRITUAL BEING 
    • John 4:24 God is a Spirit (a spiritual Being) and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth (reality). 
     
  • LOVE  
    • 1 John 4:8 He who does not love has not become acquainted with God [does not and never did know Him], for God is love. 
    • 1 John 4:16 And we know (understand, recognize, are conscious of, by observation and by experience) and believe (adhere to and put faith in and rely on) the love God cherishes for us. God is love, and he who dwells and continues in love dwells and continues in God, and God dwells and continues in him.
God's Nature 
  •  MERCIFUL 
    • Deuteronomy 4:31For the Lord your God is a merciful God; He will not fail you or destroy you or forget the covenant of your fathers, which He swore to them. 
    • 2 Chronicles 30:9 For if you return to the Lord, your brethren and your children shall find compassion with their captors and return to this land. For the Lord your God is gracious and merciful, and He will not turn away His face from you if you return to Him. 
    • Psalm 116:5 Gracious is the Lord, and [rigidly] righteous; yes, our God is merciful. 
  • MIGHTY
    • Deuteronomy 10:17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, the terrible God, Who is not partial and takes no bribe. 
    • Job 36:5 Behold! God is mighty, and yet despises no one nor regards anything as trivial; He is mighty in power of understanding and heart.
  • FAITHFUL
    • 1 Corinthians 1:9 God is faithful (reliable, trustworthy, and therefore ever true to His promise, and He can be depended on); by Him you were called into companionship and participation with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. 
    • 1 Corinthians 10:13 For no temptation (no trial regarded as enticing to sin), [no matter how it comes or where it leads] has overtaken you and laid hold on you that is not common to man [that is, no temptation or trial has come to you that is beyond human resistance and that is not adjusted and adapted and belonging to human experience, and such as man can bear]. But God is faithful [to His Word and to His compassionate nature], and He [can be trusted] not to let you be tempted and tried and assayed beyond your ability and strength of resistance and power to endure, but with the temptation He will [always] also provide the way out (the means of escape to a landing place), that you may be capable and strong and powerful to bear up under it patiently. 
    • 2 Corinthians 1:18 As surely as God is trustworthy and faithful and means what He says, our speech and message to you have not been Yes [that might mean] No.
  • AGELESS
    • Job 36:26 Behold, God is great, and we know Him not! The number of His years is unsearchable. 
  •  HOLY
    • Psalm 99:9
      Extol the Lord our God and worship at His holy hill, for the Lord our God is holy!
       
God's actions toward us
  • OUR REFUGE 
    •   Psalm 62:8 Trust in, lean on, rely on, and have confidence in Him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts before Him. God is a refuge for us (a fortress and a high tower). Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]! 
    • Psalm 73:26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the Rock and firm Strength of my heart and my Portion forever. 
    • Deuteronomy 33:27 The eternal God is your refuge and dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms; He drove the enemy before you and thrust them out, saying, Destroy! 
    • Psalm 46:1 [ Psalm 46 ] [ To the Chief Musician. [A Psalm] of the sons of Korah, set to treble voices. A song. ] God is our Refuge and Strength [mighty and impenetrable to temptation], a very present and well-proved help in trouble.
  • DEFENSE 
    • Psalm 59:17 Unto You, O my Strength, I will sing praises; for God is my Defense, my Fortress, and High Tower, the God Who shows me mercy and steadfast love.  
    • Habakkuk 3:19 The Lord God is my Strength, my personal bravery, and my invincible army; He makes my feet like hinds’ feet and will make me to walk [not to stand still in terror, but to walk] and make [spiritual] progress upon my high places [of trouble, suffering, or responsibility]! [ For the Chief Musician; with my stringed instruments. ]
    • Psalm 59:9 O my Strength, I will watch and give heed to You and sing praises; for God is my Defense (my Protector and High Tower). 
    •  2 Samuel 22:33 God is my strong Fortress; He guides the blameless in His way and sets him free.
    • Psalm 84:11 For the Lord God is a Sun and Shield; the Lord bestows [present] grace and favor and [future] glory (honor, splendor, and heavenly bliss)! No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly. 
  • FIGHTER/WARRIOR 
    • Deuteronomy 20:4 For the Lord your God is He Who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to save you.
  • HELPER 
    • Joshua 1:9 Have not I commanded you? Be strong, vigorous, and very courageous. Be not afraid, neither be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. 
    • Psalm 54:4 Behold, God is my helper and ally; the Lord is my upholder and is with them who uphold my life.
  •  RIGHTEOUS JUDGE 
    • Psalm 7:11 God is a righteous Judge, yes, a God Who is indignant every day. 
    • Psalm 75:7 But God is the Judge! He puts down one and lifts up another.
  •  GOD of any manmade gods AND KING of kings 
    • Psalm 47:7 For God is the King of all the earth; sing praises in a skillful psalm and with understanding. 
    • Psalm 74:12 Yet God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth.


Do you know God? or What about God do you know and what intrigues you about Him?




 
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