There is a Freshness This Morning
There is freshness in this morning. My mind thinks and is thinking on the Lord as it always is. I have the yearning to be with Him as I always do. I don't always feel Him. Times like now I can. Even when I feel Him just a little I want to remain with Him and be out of this world. When I feel Him, even just a little, my first thoughts are always how I have not lived well for Him. How many things I do to disappoint Him? I want to live as a righteous man, but my flesh takes me other ways. My flesh is too much for me. That I suppose is making excuse. The Lord said He would make a way for us and it is likely I just have not taken the way of wisdom many times or listened to the Lord much. I want so badly to follow what is the voice of God and the Holy Spirit. I want to please God... and maybe my selfishness is that I want to feel His presence more than I really want to please Him... but... is it not that we may feel His presence IF we please Him? I want to be with Jesus. My heart cries out to be with Him. It seems that so many people love this life so much. They call this a gift to have life. I do not love or even like this life. This life is the cursed life from the fall of Adam. What is there to love about a life that is so cursed with sin? I cannot love it as many seem to. It is full of anguish and the only time it is a blessing is when I can feel the Lord present, but even that is external from this life. When He comes His presence brings with Him that element of Heaven... which again... is not of this life. What is there to love about this life? It is full of pain, day in and day out. I do not love it. If ever I loved this life it would be because I have an abiding presence of God with me. I have done so much wrong in God's sight and wish with all my heart I had not been such a failure. I want to make amends and come back into my Father's house and NOT be distracted again from living in His presence. How can this be done? I wish I could know that God is watching me right now and taking into consideration my heart as I write. Have I wronged God? Yes. Have I done wrong to God's people? Yes. I wish God would take my confession here as sincere and heal me of myself. How shall I preach to any of the Glories of God when I remain in such grief? I still insist that God is a good God and is a loving God. And why He does not do things as we would have Him do is not proof that He is not loving. As the prophet said... "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him". I do not and I have not so honored God with a trusting and gracious spirit in times of affliction. I have been an angry son at some of the smallest things. How shall I endure persecution for His name if I am so offended at so many minor things? In the deepest of my heart I feel I love God very extremely and deeply, but many things cover over that love so that I do not walk in it as I wish I did. The pains of life and so many griefs cause me to react to life instead of walking in that deep love of God wherein I might affect LIFE.
Growing as a Christian for me has not been as many say they experience. Growing (if indeed I have been at all) has been an ever growing and expanding revelation of what I wretch I am. "In me there is no good thing". "Our righteousness is as filthy rags". It seems to me that so many Christians take these things so lightly. They say they understand that we are so despicable yet they do not have a heart that is torn up. I perceive they have never known a heart that can be so torn up. It IS NOT that we are "sort" of sinners. The real condition of our nature is despicable beyond words. I long to feel I belong in my Father's house. I have never felt welcome. I have always felt on the outside. I long to be with my brothers and to be counted as a brother, but I am and always have been a cast out from my family. I have never known the joy of being part of the family. I was told by a prophet when I was young that my life would be patterned after Joseph and that has undeniably come true. When shall deliverance come? All the patterns of Joseph's life that were bad have come upon me, but I have yet to see the deliverance of Joseph and to see that day when I may fall upon my brothers neck in weeping thankfulness. And what was the plan of God for Joseph? What did God use Joseph for? God raised up Joseph through hard times and affliction to give him a correct heart and spirit to rule others and still retain a correct heart in doing so. People who come into a position of ruler-ship who have not been through affliction are likely to become a tyrant more than anything. Who can have a compassionate heart who has not known grief and sorrow? Why was it required of the Lord to be a man of sorrow if it was not to prepare Him for His kingly position? Grief, Sorrow, Affliction... these are the heart shaping tools in the hands of God that create in us a heart that He desires us to have. We want a heart that is compassionate without having to know pain. How can we be compassionate for someone in pain if we have not known that pain?
Let me paint a picture here of two Christians... one has known hunger and the other has not. The one who has not known hunger when a hungry man comes to him and asks for food... this Christian confidently sits the man down in a "hot seat" of prayer invoking all the promises of God for an abundant life and to "prosper", (and maybe even speaking in tongues), etc. and then sends the man on His way telling him to hold onto those promises. When the hungry man comes to the other Believer who has known hunger, that one sits him down and says, "wait here" and goes to his cupboard and fills up boxes of food that he may send along with this man, but also "cooks him a meal BEFORE THAT MAN LEAVES HIS HOUSE. He will not only keep him in his house until he has fed him, but he will not let him leave until he has made provision for him so that he is not again hungry tomorrow. Now... how is the House of God... not like these two examples? We live in a world of hungry people and many of them are supposed to be of the house of God as well... but they too have become spiritually emaciated. As the children of God and called to His purposes should we not feed the hungry and should we not make sure those of our own house are fed foremost? Should we send those of our own brothers on their way with promises telling them to "believe for your food" when we will not take from our own supply to feed them? And if we do not even feed our brothers, how do we suppose we are called to feed those who are not yet of the house of God? They DO NOT come to our house for food, because they can see that we do not even feed our own. Which one of these two examples should we be? God help us. Was Joseph raised to know anguish and sorrow? Yes. For what reason? So that he may minister to those who would be hungry when famine came. He built up storehouses enough to supply through times of famine. But, most important is that his heart was molded in the right way so as to be able to minister to those hungry when the time came. He made storehouses so that he might supply that need when it came and so that he did not say to the hungry, "Be blessed in the name of the Lord and be blessed by God according to His riches in Glory".
The brothers of Joseph were of the same house, but when famine came they were in no position to feed any... they could not even feed themselves. Imagine... the brother so despised in the family and sold off into slavery ends up becoming the very deliverance from starvation that eventually came. I am not going to presume God has in store for me that I should be in any great position. My hearts cry is only to be, again, part of my own house... to be a brother to my brothers again and to be able to fellowship and be with them. I am only drawing analogies here about Joseph and can see the many types that existed in his life are seemingly types of things we see now. It is better to show love because as we do that we walk in the will of God. It is not enough to talk about it.
What more can be said? Is there food in God's house? Well, there IS food in His store houses, but you might wonder where he has set up those storehouses. God did not set up those store houses with all of Joseph's brothers or family... not where one may suspect... and "OH MY!"... this is another hard thing to think. How is it the storehouses were set up "IN EGYPT"? Now we are talking about people who may refuse to be fed simply because the storehouses are in Egypt. Many Christians will not go to where there is food these days, simply because where it is reported the food is. They simply say... I will not go to that place, I will starve rather.
Far too much to say and I am distracted by all of it from what I was doing here in the first place. I was seeking simply the presence of God as I was feeling it this morning. Often when I feel God like this I expect to sit down and write something totally different than what I do end up writing. I want to feel God and His presence. I need to feel that for as long as I can; even if it is only for a small portion of the day or the morning. I am concerned for the condition of the Body of Christ. To me it does not seem to be much in order wherever I go. Many parts of the Body won't have to do with other parts of the Body and though many say we are all One Body... it is still not put much into practice. Most still hang on to old forms and traditions or simply the only things they know because as yet, they don't know any different. How shall the Gospel of Jesus Christ come to appeal to the Nations? That really, to me, is a good question. I don't know that we have much that appeals to them at the moment. We need to keep in focus as well what is the primary message of the Gospel, which I do not think we have done either. We have falsely presented the Gospel to the world as though it is a fix to all their problems. The real Gospel is that Jesus did not die to fix our problems... He died to fix us. We accept Him and are given the Holy Spirit in the new birth... that DOES NOT mean our problems go away... in fact... they may increase instead. Jesus did not die to give us a good life here as we may think of it. He died so that we would not come under the judgment of God as we deserve. Do we preach that? I wonder who does many times. I see ministries constructed and formed in ways so as to try attract the public with enticements that cater, not to the issues of sin, but rather to issues that will draw in numbers rather than sinners seeking salvation. We can be ever engaged in putting on concerts, set up pot lucks and social events and by a conglomeration and an artistically placed series of ongoing events keep the church full of numbers... but... one wonders at times if these who sit in the pews now are really born again at all. They have never come to a real understanding of the reality of sin. They consider their sin a small thing... almost so small that they feel they have never had a need for conviction as they know the likes of "Bin Laden" or evil people of other countries surely need. AND, how will we become heirs to the benefits of God's house if we have not yet been born into God's house? I almost come to the point I don't want to stand before the unsaved nations of the world saying, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved... I find as though I want to turn to the very congregations who profess His name and say, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved". There is a lot more that is NOT God found in the Church than is of God.
Many believe in their FAITH. It is Faith in Faith... not faith in God. It is using the name of Jesus in prayer not as in His name, but more as the Magic Word that is uttered no differently than do sorcerers in their conjuring. There is faith in standing on promises. While that is good and appropriate in right context again... it is attempting to utilize the power of God... without God necessarily being in the equation.
The question always arises in me... what are my own motives? The heart is a deceitful thing. The propensity to start a church and surround ourselves with church goers who will sustain our life style and also give us some measure of authority over their lives is a great temptation is it not? We can set up a career that will keep us comfortable for the remainder of our lives. What do we do for the Kingdom of God in this? Not a lot, but we have done a great deal for the kingdom we have set up for ourselves. Is this not a temptation? Sure it is. I have often thought I could easily play this game. I have often thought to give up my pursuit of real truth and just give into the game. It was a very strong contributing factor as to why I left seminary. I became very disillusioned when I did a survey on both faculty and students asking them very basic questions of faith. To my surprise the majority of responses I got when asking the question, "Why did you choose to go into the ministry"... was NOT the one I had expected. I thought I would here all kinds of life changing stories of how God touched a persons' life and he/she felt they could do nothing better with their lives then to go into ministry. The responses I got were frightening to me. Examples of responses I got were along the lines of, "Well I thought about being a cop or a fireman, but decided that was too dangerous and opted to go into ministry instead as that seemed a good safe career. That is, in truth, just the opposite. If one is truly called by God it is more likely the enemy would try to kill him than any danger one would confront as a cop or fireman. As I asked questions like, "Do you believe Christ rose from the dead, born of a virgin, will return again in the flesh?" I got answers from both professors and students that they really did not believe these things. Now... many years have passed. I dropped out of seminary, but most of those stayed and became the ministers we now have in all those churches around us. How shall we feed the hungry of our own house... and how shall we preach the Gospel to a lost world now when the leaders that have risen up don't know or believe the very basics of any of this? My heart cries out for truth and that God will raise up vessels of truth who will speak the truth, because until the truth is spoken there will be no revival and there will be no tables set for any feasting what so ever. Don't ask me why I am writing all these things. I have no real idea. I am sitting here in my office typing this to a congregation that does not exist. I do not have a church and I have pulled out of all ministry these last two years. So... who am I talking to? I really have no idea. Will this writing find its way to anyone? Good question... maybe it won't. Maybe it will only serve to try clear my own mind out from confusion. I cannot express earnestly enough though, my desire for God's people to be fed and that the Gospel that is pure be preached to the world. What do we need to do this? We need a pure heart. We need to have again a heart that is brought to repentance and change. Where there is no conviction there is no repentance. Where there is no repentance there is no revival. Where there is no revival there is no change and things continue as they have. The house of God shall remain in the ways of the world, walking as the world does in the desires of the flesh. The only difference between the world and the church without God is that the Church without God uses the name of God and Christ to achieve the desires of the flesh. The world just goes after the desires of the flesh without excuse. Who is more honorable here then? It is those in the world, because they are not deceiving any about what they do and why they do it. The church goes after desires of the flesh and wraps it in the deceit that they do such things for the sake of the Kingdom of God. "We built this great and magnificent church to honor God before the world". (blah, blah, blah).
Much more can be said, but will it matter if there are none to listen? My heart is to get through all the trials that have come and reach a state where I can have unbreakable communion with God and to be able to stay in that state. As I remember the words of Kathryn Kullman in the services of hers I attended years ago... she use to constantly repeat the phrase... "Lord, take not thy Holy Spirit from me". I use to wonder why in the world she would keep saying such a thing. The Holy Spirit is never taken from us that I know of, but now I realize we so easily fall away from God and out of fellowship for many different reasons. We get discouraged by trials and lose that intimacy. We are drawn away by our own rebellion much of the time and away from God because of our own various tastes for the world. It is all distressing to me to see such a condition so plaguing God's people, but it is here and it is real and it is taking such a toll. May God make a way where there has been no way... that is my prayer. Use me Lord. Forgive me for what I have done to you and your people. Though I have wandered from your presence and followed after things according to my will and not yours, please receive me back into your house and cause me to live there the rest of my days.