Moving Closer to the Lord

     

     At church during the praise time while we were singing the Lord showed me a staircase. He told me that as we press into our praise, in spirit and in truth that we advanced up the staircase and grew closer to Him. He told me that some people are satisfied to stand at the bottom of the stairs and sing praises the same way each week but never move higher. He said it takes passion to advance, passion and hunger for His nearness. It is not something that He will force us to do, but it is something that He will reward in His nearness to us.

 From here on, worshiping the Father will not be a matter of the right place but with the right heart. For God is a Spirit, and he longs to have sincere worshipers who worship and adore him in the realm of the Spirit and in truth.” John 4:23-24

Authority

     Recently we've had the opportunity to hear about 7 different ministers share and speak. We've noticed that not all of the ministers carried the same authority or the same style of ministering. 
    I'm really writing this for my own purpose that in the future when I look back I will remember this experience. 
    Each of the Ministers walked in their calling and spoke with true love of God, but we did notice that some had a higher level of authority and we believe that it was developed through prayer and time of walking out their calling. 
     The main thing we believe is that the more time spent in prayer and time alone with God, the greater the understanding of the power of God that is within them and ....for lack of a better word, 'authority" that they walked in.  

Many Paths

Yesterday at church the Lord shared with me and through me that there are many paths in life that people can walk.
     We need to be aware of the path we are choosing. There are paths of fear, paths deception, paths of self-indulgence, paths of addiction, but there is only one path of "Life".
     The Lord would have us choose the path of Life! He would have us avoid the paths that lead to burdens and sorrow as all of those other paths do. He cautions us to choose carefully.
     If we fear we may choose the wrong path by accident we can be assured that the Holy Spirit will warn us, with a still, small voice. He will tell us "your path is over here". We will need to listen to that voice and make changes when we hear it. The Lord won't force us to choose the path of Life, but He does long for that choice.
     The Lord also told me that we cannot expect to encounter a lot of people on the path of Life, that the path is narrow and the gate is small, but it is Life.

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it. Matthew 7:13-14

Understanding Light

I'm going to be gathering verses about "light" because God is light and I don't believe I fully understand what all is involved in this teaching! So this is my word study, if you have more teaching about light, please share with me!


John 3:19-21 “Now this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, but people loved the darkness rather than the light. Why? Because their actions were wicked. 20 For everyone who does evil things hates the light and avoids it, so that his actions won’t be exposed. 21 But everyone who does what is true comes to the light, so that all may see that his actions are accomplished through God.”

Philippians 2:15 For then you will be seen as innocent, faultless, and pure children of God, even though you live in the midst of a brutal and perverse culture. For you will appear among them as shining lights in the universe,

Psalm 31:5

Staying Clean

   This morning I was doing some scrubbing and cleaning and the Lord used that time to teach me about our spirits. When we come to Him under Jesus' blood we are forgiven, but we still have grunge on us that we need to confess and be forgiven for.
    Through the years I have gone through a lot of levels of repentance! The first thing I had to come to terms with was that I'm not free to say whatever comes to mind in every situation. I had to go to a lot of people and apologize before I got a grip on this one! I finally became so tired of apologizing that I learned to keep my mouth shut!
     Today however during the scrubbing time the Lord was teaching me that our spirits are not a "one and done" cleaning item. We need to carefully take care to keep them clean daily! Daily!
     In our lives, we do a lot of cleaning so we should be able to grab this concept. We wash our dishes after each use, we wash our clothing after wearing them. We vacuum, we dust, we mow lawns, we brush our teeth and our hair for example. When we look at these things it makes sense that we need to clean a lot of areas in our lives, so we need to be sure to not neglect cleaning our spirits too. That makes sense, doesn't it?
     Next question then is how do we clean our spirits? Prayer is good! Praying and asking the Holy Spirit to shine His light into our spirits and show us any area that needs attention is excellent!
     The Holy Spirit is the Teacher that Jesus told us would come to guide us, and He will guide us into cleaning our spirits or another word for it is sanctification. He is our Counselor, Comforter, and Corrector, so this is all in His job description! He will show us people we need to forgive, people that we need to ask to forgive us, habits we need to give up, wrong things we've said and done that we need to bring to the Lord and ask forgiveness for. Even after we've done this for a while, He'll dig further in our past and show us more that we will want to release and be cleansed from.
     We will want to stay in a close relationship with the Holy Spirit, asking Him, how have I done today? Is there any area that I have fallen short in and need cleaning in? And then be quick to respond, don't hesitate, maybe we do need to release hurt or offense first and then be sure to give forgiveness, but do it, don't hold back.

Psalm 28:6-7