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The Lord would say, "I'm a Painter. Sometimes I paint in broad strokes. And sometimes I paint the fine lines. Sometimes I paint within the frame of the canvas and other times I paint outside the frame altogether. I paint what I want and I truly want what I paint---and I am painting you, your life, your destiny, and the most subtle details of your beauty. I created you beautiful---and now I am coloring in the hues and tones which cause your joy to leap off the canvas. For you are much more than just another pretty picture. You are My masterpiece.
I am placing My signature on the threshold of My portrait---Thus, I have caused you to be priceless, exclusive, extravagant, and amazing. You are an amazement and a wonder to everyone around you. And why shouldn't you be? After all, I have painted all My glory within and throughout you. I am displaying you as My showpiece so just get used to the awe and wonder of those around you---for they are understandably enthralled by My masterpiece---which is YOU.
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Listen to Me. You don't have to always get 'it' right. The resonance of My love goes on and on. I love you more than all the mis-steps you can take. Ahead of every mis-step you take is the indelible footprint of My forgiveness, My grace, and My unrelenting plans which I have for you. You cannot revoke what I have once and for all redeemed.
Greater than your 'regrets' is My 'rejoice' as I look upon you. For you tend to gaze upon the place where you stumble---but My gaze is upon the place where My Son stood, and having done all to stand, He withstood, re-stood, and today and evermore He shall continue to stand tall---not for His sake, but for yours. So again, you won't always 'get it right', but FRET NOT, I have already GOT 'IT' RIGHT on your behalf. So learn to lean on Me---completely. Be still, & just know that I AM Lord. Everything you apply the Blood of Jesus to is redeemed. During a time of massive destruction, fueled by gross dishonor of My Lordship, I instructed for the blood of lambs to be smeared on the doorposts of the entrance of the homes.
The Blood that spilled on the day of My Son’s death did not soak into the ground to evaporate into nothingness. It did not lose its power then---and it holds its glory now. Call upon the Blood for every area of your life which has compromised My destiny for you and yours. As you do, call upon the One Whose Blood was shed. Jesus is alive and so is the power of His Blood. There are few things more unsettling than walking into a dark room and ‘feeling around’ for a light switch. Even more so, knowing the light switch is dangling on a string from the center of the ceiling and not quite knowing where it is. You feel, you probe, you wave your hand around, and finally you grasp the string---pull---& Voila! LIGHT!!!
Recently, I heard this statement resonate in my spirit: THE ENTRANCE OF YOUR WORD GIVES LIGHT. I quickly tracked it down to Psalm 119, verse 130. It goes like this: “The entrance of Your Word gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.” No matter how intelligent we consider ourselves to be, if we avoid the ENTRANCE of God’s Word into our lives, into our understanding---then there is a great ‘simplicity’ (or lack of learnedness) about us. We may as well be a people who are constantly waving our hands in the air in a dark room hoping to find the ‘pull chain’ which ignites the LIGHT. God has already provided ‘the light for us. Genesis 1, verses 1 through 5 tells us: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness.” Thus, there are three powerful ‘LIGHTS’ which God has provided for us: 1. THE ‘WRITTEN’ WORD (the Bible) 2. THE ‘REVEALED’ WORD (prophetic revelation) and 3. THE ‘LIVING WORD’---JESUS. So, in a world filled with so much darkness, God has graciously provided for us an abundance of ‘LIGHT’. All of us were created with a symbolic ‘pull chain’ within our soul which we need to grasp in order to activate the light of salvation---Jesus---into our lives. Once we talk to God, repent of our sins, and invite Jesus in to be our personal Lord and Savior, we shall become gloriously, eternally, and amazingly LIT UP FOR GOD! "It was THAT MARY WHO ANOINTED THE LORD..." (John 11:2) When we are spoken about, what is the defining trait which identifies us---wise, wordy, wishy-washy, wanderer, or WORSHIPPER?
Mary probably lingered too long at the feet of the Guest of Honor while the food on the stove needed stirring and the table needed to be set. Her sister Martha could only administrate so much. As a result, dinner was probably later than Martha had planned and perhaps colder than it should have been. However, THAT MARY---that worshipper---was too overwhelmed with gratitude. Her brother Lazarus, who had lay in a tomb stinking and rotting away for four days, was now alive and well, and sitting AMAZED across the table from the One who called him back to life. Mary tracked down the most expensive perfume she could find from her collection, drenched Jesus' feet with it, and wiped the perfume on with her own hair. The aroma and very atmosphere of the room was filled with the extravagance of her action. Judas criticized it, everyone else was bewildered---however, Jesus absolutely loved it! When people remember this grateful servant of God, she is most appropriately referred to as 'THAT MARY WHO ANOINTED THE LORD WITH FRAGRANT OIL AND WIPED HIS FEET WITH HER HAIR.' What will people remember about us? “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring IT to pass.” (Psalms 37:4-5)
Recently, as I re-read this favorite Scripture passage, the word 'IT' leaped out. The word 'desires' is plural, so 'IT' didn't seem to connect. Although my assumption cannot be theologically confirmed, yet I strongly sense that God is referring to DESTINY. As we persist in DELIGHTING OURSELVES IN GOD---even through life's 'less-than-delightful' events, as we COMMIT to God---even when the circumstances suggest to 'bail out', as we TRUST God---even amidst atmospheres of betrayal, as we DWELL with God---even during moments of panic that yell out 'evacuate'---then, I believe that God will be pleased to bring 'IT', the full glorious measure of our DESTINY IN HIM, come to pass. (December 6, 2015)
Recently, I sensed a whisper of the Spirit of the Lord indicating, "You are entering into the CRIMSON SEASON". With that, I quickly connected it to the Christmas season, but soon sensed the Lord was indicating something much deeper. Traditionally, the colors Red and Green are associated with Christmas. However, what I heard in my spirit was "the CRIMSON Season". 'Crimson' is a DEEPER SHADE OF RED. What distinguishes plain RED from CRIMSON is the insertion of the color PURPLE. 'Purple' is associated with ROYALTY. PURPLE deepens the quality of basic RED. So, here is the over-arching thought: 'RED', as it refers to our humanity, represents the 'bloodstream' of life. 'CRIMSON', as it is symbolic of ROYALTY, represents the Royal Blood of Jesus mingled into the spiritual 'bloodstream' of humanity. Our HUMAN bloodstream is in a lifetime process of evolving, aging, and eventually disintegrating---thus ending our human existence. Our SPIRITUAL bloodstream is in a lifetime process of evolving, perfecting, and eventually graduating unto a PERFECT ETERNAL EXISTENCE WITH GOD. The great news is that we do not have to wait until heaven to enjoy the FRUIT of our CRIMSON BLOODSTREAM. 1 John 4:17 tells us ‘…as He is, so also WE ARE in THIS WORLD." Here then, is the deal: As heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, God desires that we STEP INTO THE EVER-EVOLVING, NEVER-ENDING SEASON OF THE REGAL, CRIMSON BLOODSTREAM which is gloriously ours through Jesus Christ our Lord. (October 16, 2015)
In Luke 24:30, we find two discouraged followers of Jesus, who had walked away from the crucifixion of their Savior deeply disillusioned because it seemed to them that all their hopes laid buried in a tomb. Have you ever thought to yourself---“Well, I THOUGHT that was God…I guess I was mistaken”---only because that thing which you were believing for did not pan out the way you had hoped. However, just as The Lord did for the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, Jesus will catch up to you at your place of disappointment---begin to sovereignly remind you of His promises and His plans for you---and dine with you, if you will invite Him---as He begins to freshly bless your places of nourishment and refreshment. "Now it came to pass, as He {Jesus} sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight. And they said to one another, ‘Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road {to Emmaus}, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?’” {Luke 24:30-32} God will re-ignite a ‘fire in your belly’ as the Holy Spirit begins to burn fresh anointing, new inspiration, divine wisdom, and amazing strategy for the days ahead. (October 3, 2015)
I recently saw a trailer to a new movie about Steve Jobs---the man whose vision for innovation in communication technology and a deep ‘fire in his belly’ to envision the future drove him to keep asking the relentless question: WHAT IF? It was that incredible sense of adventure in Steve Jobs which changed the landscape of the way we ‘communicate’. It made me think---“WHAT IF we began to dare to believe God for the most excellent things to happen in our lives, so that the ‘theatre of our imagination’ would take a whole new turn for the amazing?” John 11:39-40/ “Martha, the sister of {Lazarus} who was dead, said to {Jesus}, ‘Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.‘ Jesus said to her---‘Didn’t I say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?’” In other words---‘WHAT IF YOU DARED TO BELIEVE ME?’ We know what happened to Lazarus. Even with all the crowds of sobbing people, including his sisters, Mary and Martha, Lazarus was still lying dead, surrounded by the stench of death. HOWEVER, one Man had a “God-notion”. WHAT IF the dead man doesn’t have to stay dead but have brand new, God-breathed life? We are ALL ‘Lazarus’! Without God breathing salvation into our lives, we are merely ‘dead men and women walking’. However, WHAT IF we are willing to let someone in our lives ‘roll the stone away’ from our hardened hearts and instruct us into breathing the BREATH OF LIFE by inviting Jesus into our hearts? If Steve Jobs could inspire the world into communicating in a whole new, dynamic way---HOW MUCH MORE CAN WE COMMUNICATE WITH HEAVEN ITSELF by conversing with God Almighty on a daily basis. There are no weak or dropped satellite signals to worry about, no internet viruses, no unwelcomed robocalls--- “NO WEAPON formed against you {can ever} prosper…” (Isaiah 54:17) WHAT IF we said to Jesus---WHATEVER You want for my life, Lord, COUNT ME IN!---? WHAT AMAZING THINGS GOD WILL INTRODUCE UNTO US! WHAT AMAZING THINGS GOD WILL DO THROUGH US. GOD WILL TRANSFORM OUR ‘WHAT IF’S' INTO ONE CONSISTENT ‘WHY NOT?’!!! |
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