No greater joy than to weep with Jesus

There's no greater joy, no greater reward, no greater gift I could ask for than to weep with Jesus, to weep from His overwhelming love. Oh to feel His heart, to touch Him. I am undone! Everything within me resounds with one cry for Him alone! He is so beautiful, so lovely, so wonderful to gaze upon! There is none like Jesus, not one! Oh how could anyone want anything else but this Man! He who is the fullness of God, the perfect express image of the Father. We must want Him, and Him alone. Nothing else can satisfy, nothing! Only His love, only Him, oh to be with Him! We were made for nothing less than the highest pleasure of knowing Him! He suffered death on a cross to take away our sin. He has brought us as near to Him as a child in the womb. And no longer does He call Himself Master, but our Maker is our Husband. Could He possibly declare a greater love and nearness towards us? What love can you find like this? None!
Recently the Lord has burdened my heart with His desire and love for the nations & I have interceded for them with many tears and few words. There is no greater joy than to weep with Jesus, to feel His desire for the people. He is the desire of the nations. There is nothing more I could want than to feel His heart, to carry it in me. Everything within me resounds with one cry, for His love, that He would come and make wrong things right. I had a dream awhile back and in the dream there was someone I know asking me what nation I wanted to go to take the gospel to, if I could choose anywhere, not needing to consider finances, where would I go. But in my heart I was consumed with such passion and love for Jesus my response wasn't "Well I want to go here and do this", but I answered with a cry and a burning heart, "You don't get it, I want Jesus! I just want Him, He's all I want." I can't remember my exact words but I remember waking up from the dream and being surprised at my heart's response and how in love with Jesus I was! After expressing my first desire to know and love Jesus, to be with Him, I was asked the same question again later in the dream. This time, I felt the strong desire in my heart to go to Cuba, and I answered, "I want to go the Caribbean!" Reflecting on this dream, I'm reminded how in bringing me to the House of Prayer, the Lord has been drawing me back to my first love, to let this desire be foremost in my life, to be strongest in my heart. The Holy Spirit is highlighting this in the body of Christ, to make the first commandment first again in our lives and to become the love-sick bride who longs for Jesus' coming. At the same time, the Lord seems to be raising up messengers and ones He is preparing to shoot as arrows into the nations. Ones who will carry the spirit of prayer and intercession, who will speak the whole counsel of God, ones who will be voices and not echoes, burning and shining lamps that will bring the lost, sick, broken, oppressed into encounter with the power of God and prepare them for the coming of the Lord. I know the Lord has me here for a strategic time in His plan for my life, but I've come to see that plan with a greater vision that doesn't just involve me, and doesn't just involve work. I'm a part of a much bigger plan, and I'm called to be a working lover, not a loving worker. I am called to know Him & be with Him, and then to make Him known to others. What will Jesus ask me on that day? Will He ask me how many people I saved? Or will He ask me if I loved well? Without love, I am nothing. The words from the song they sung today says it perfectly: "I just want love, I just want you, God, I just want love, knowing you. No greater treasure, this one can't be taken away, I just want the gold of knowing you."

Embracing weakness, & encountering the power of His love

April 15, 2011
Yesterday, the day following my fast day for this week, I felt the Lord’s presence in a fresh way and I was so thankful for this I said “Lord, what a gift fasting is! Thank you for this gift of being able to draw nearer to you, and it’s as simple as not eating!” I was surprised by how easy it was and how the Lord has come to me time after time, and even though I know I could do more, and fast more intensely (like with just water), but that He honors even my small sacrifices. Don’t get me wrong though, even sometimes the small sacrifices are difficult to make and I don’t always want to fast, but that’s when I know I should b/c I want more desire for Him, and when I depend on His grace He really does help me! Many times I’ve felt breakthrough during or after a fast and am able to connect with the Lord and feel Him at a deeper level than normal. I’ve experienced great freedom, and the only way I can describe it is like this feeling of having space inside for Him and being filled with His Spirit! I usually experience more joy and peace, and a renewed confidence in the Lord and a fresh delightful burden to pray for my family. Fasting is not to be a religious duty, it is truly a gift to us and an invitation to encounter our Beloved in the deep places of His heart as we give way to Him. It’s sets us up to fix our eyes on Him and seek Him with all that we have, as we even surrender our strength and declare He’s enough to satisfy us completely!

Pride, learning to love, & unrelenting prayer b/c His love will win

So today is a fast day, and on most fast days I’m more aware of my sin, my weakness, the depravity of my heart. Sometimes it’s mostly a sweet time with the Lord as I lean into Him and depend on Him to sustain me, to meet with me, to speak to me. But usually there’s moments where the flesh rises up to distract me and lure me to thoughts of food and other things. So my fast day was the same day as the training for a job I just got with this company called Vector that sells Cutco products (kitchen cutlery), and during it I was having so many condescending, arrogant thoughts about the other people in the group because I could read so much better than them, because I’m older and have more experience, etc. I was shocked thinking to myself, “how can you experience the Lord so deeply and be seeking the Lord so many hours of the day, etc. and still have such evil thoughts? And you thought you were good?” “This must be so disgusting to the Lord” I thought, “when he sees me exalting myself above the ones He so cherishes and loves and values and believes in.” It’s often been the same way with my family. I can even have all these good thoughts about them, for instance today I thought of all these good things I wanted to say to my mom to encourage her and direct her toward faith in God (I felt bad b/c I hadn’t really responded to the bad news that her fiance Steven has cancer), but when I called her I wasn’t able to speak the good words to her. I’m hardly ever able to speak them. Instead, I usually get easily frustrated and angry inside and speak rudely to her. Why? I don’t understand why I can’t love her. Why I can’t see my family the way God does, why my heart is so void of His compassion and affections for them. I must be so puffed up with knowledge that in my pride I’m trying to convince them that they should love Him and live for Him. But most of the time it’s when I’m defending myself from their accusations, criticism, and skepticism. I’ve been offended because they say and think that they love God, yet live contrary to His word and cling to their own conceived ideas about Him. I think this is what keeps me from showing them love because everything having to do with my life in God and how I live out my faith always seems to be opposed with theirs and I don’t know how to respond rightly. I think that some of the unexpressed anger I feel against the obvious sin in their lives may be righteous, but I think what I need is to mature in spiritual warfare and in understanding that my fight is not against them, it’s not against flesh and blood, but it’s against the demons of darkness I should be burning with anger towards and tearing down with my words, not my family. And at the same time, as I continue to be faithful in prayer for them and contending for the release of God’s love and revelation to them, He is also growing me in love for them. And He has given me dreams to show me that I really do love them and that He sees my love for them, even though I’ve often failed at walking it out and getting victory over my flesh. What I don’t realize is that pride in me says that I love God and they don’t, that I’m doing it the right way and they aren’t. But the truth is my mom and sister believe they do love God, and therefore must be trying to love God the only way they know how, and although it’s not the way that God has chosen for them in His Son and what He desires for them, who am I to say that God is angry with them? After all, isn’t He slow to anger, and jealous for them in love? He greatly desires them and when I come into that revelation, then I find compassion for them. Pride is the root of many evils. I had no idea it is the cause of many of my issues, my frustration and anger, impatience, my accusations against God in not understanding who He is and His ways, and I’m sure many more that I’m not currently aware of. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Blessed are the meek in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Pride doesn’t let you die to yourself, and until I let me die, it’s really difficult to love well. But as often as I’ve come to the Lord with a broken and contrite heart over my failures in loving my family, He is faithful to breathe hope into my heart when I want to give up, and to remind me to put my faith in His love, and His ability to reach them despite my weaknesses, despite the way I think I’ve messed things up over and over again and pushed them away rather than nearer to Him, despite being perceived as a hypocrite, condescending Pharisee, as selfish or too "extreme", despite the unperceived change, despite it all. My effort to love may fail, but His love will never fail!

He moves our heart, and we move His

At chapel service one week during the ministry time as I was receiving prayer, I got a word from the person praying over me was that I’m exhilarating to God and that He loves my intense worship, that He so delights in me. She said that I’m “extreme”, and that it’s an extreme stream He’s putting me in! This was encouraging and spoke to a wound in my heart where I had been discouraged from my mom calling my life of faith “extreme” in a negative way. But I have felt the Lord’s gracious, merciful heart, and how beautiful my weak love is to Him and how His heart is ravished over me! That I am dark, but lovely to Him. That I am His beloved, Hephzibah! (Isa.62:4)The Lord delights in me! I have felt this delight over and over in these recent years and have only begun to get a glimpse of God’s great pleasure in me. He doesn’t want us to live under the weight of shame and our perceived failure, striving for His approval and trying to attain it in our own strength, when we already have it, when it’s the revelation of His love in you that gives you the power to live free, to live holy. It’s the revelation of His faithfulness, His commitment to you, that causes you to be wholehearted and faithful to Him. Wow, God is awesome! He’s constantly speaking, and I’m just starting to learn to hear His voice.
(Song of Solomon 4:9)

Children, not beggars

In the midst of my financial struggle as I was beginning to wrestle with doubt and unbelief and in my pride accusing God and not trusting Him, He began to turn my heart back and encouraged me. He said I’m not a beggar and He doesn’t want me to come as a beggar, because I’m His child and He wants me to come asking with that confidence. This is still hard to grasp in the midst of the delays and unanswered prayer, and I still stumble in my trusting, but He told me His leadership in my life is good and that He loves the process. And when I get a glimpse afresh that His delay is not because He doesn't care, it's not because I haven't been able to earn it, it's not because He's not good and not really who He says He is, but because He is calling me to arise and wanting to take me to new places of faith in Him. (Song of Songs 2:10)

He calls us good, He really like us!

Another word I received lately is that God created everything and called it good, and He made me, and calls me good! And He made my frame and calls it good! Hephzibah! This is His declaration over me, He delights in me! He's not disappointed with me how I am, He doesn't despise His creation, He's a glad worker patient with our weakness. (Song of Solomon 4:1). He is continuing to break self-hatred off of me and when you hear Him say He really likes you and that He thinks you’re so beautiful just the way you are, how can you argue with Him! haha! You just know it’s true b/c whatever He speaks is true.

Nearness, flowing in His grace & brotherly love

Another thing the Lord spoke to me recently that I think is so awesome is that He has brought us as near to Himself as a child is in the womb of his/her mother. 1 Peter 1:3 says that according to His abundant mercy He has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead! I sensed the Lord speak this to my heart shortly after hearing a powerful testimony from a sister who had just suffered a miscarriage and was overflowing with gratitude and love for the Lord having encountered Him in a way she never had before and experienced His peace and a longing for His coming with a profoundly new intensity. I was moved to tears while hearing her speak b/c it was so real, and she was also in awe of being able to see her love for God, that it is real and was present in the midst of the shaking in her life, which is only a little trauma compared to what is to come upon the earth in the end. After hearing that word, I felt the Lord wanted me to share it, whereas I tend to usually keep to myself revelation I receive from the Lord and with the way my schedule is set up here & working part-time, I haven't really been able to build relationships and fellowship with people much outside of services. So I felt the Lord prompting me to go share what He had spoken to me with a girl beside me. I prayed a short prayer for her and she was grateful for the word. Later I went to pray for a lady that needed physical healing and near the middle of it she began crying b/c my words spoke specifically to a condition she’d struggled with (depression) and then I gave her the word about being begotten by the Father and this moved her to tears too b/c she had’nt been able to have more children and had recently adopted a young teenager who was very dear to her. She also prayed for me, and the whole thing was just so awesome, SO encouraging! It was so easy, b/c I just felt the Lord’s heart over her and prayed it, and it just flowed so easily! It’s so enjoyable when you really connect with the Lord when ministering to someone, rather than trying to muster something up to give them, you just feel the Lord giving it for you! This is just one example of many times I've seen the Lord use me in praying for and ministering to others in the body of Christ, and even at times when I feel like I have nothing to give. It's been amazing to see the beauty and experience the power of the body of Christ strengthening one another in prayer, which is such a reality here, where prayer and worship is foundation to everything. It's truly experiencing what the word says that is beautiful when the brethen dwell in harmony! It's such a delightful thing to watch brothers and sisters encouraging and praying for one another! We have great need for communion, we need each other more than we know. After all, Jesus prayed we would be one as He is one with the Father, what kind of relationship He has called us to have with each other as His bride!

Fellowship, learning to trust, and revelation

03/23/11

There’s so much to write, I don’t even know where to start. God is amazing! His love is so real, His presence so near, His goodness so great. What a wonder it is to behold Him! What an honor to search Him out in His incomprehensibility, and to know Him in the intimacy of His affections. What a delight to feel His joy! What a gift to experience His revelation, to feel your heart transformed by the power of His Word. Oh the pleasure of being overwhelmed by the depths of His love. What confidence in knowing you are His. What words are enough to describe Him? The uncreated God became a man? What a mystery, yet what a close reality!

During my time here at IHOP since I returned in January, I’ve just been astounded by God’s presence in my life, how much I’m encountering Him, how much more confidence I’m walking in, the abundance of fellowship with Him, the abundance of joy, the revelation and power of His Word touching my heart, the near absence of loneliness, the intense delight of being with Him, the power of prayer that brings life to my soul. I have to admit the week I was at home a few weeks back I didn’t experience much of this and the little time I did spend talking to God and in prayer felt pretty dull, but I was still able to see the difference in my heart condition and the growth of my faith, the newfound confidence I feel in God, and the hopeful assurance of His sovereign work in my family’s lives. I believe part of why I struggle so much at home is b/c there is intense spiritual warfare I can't see with my physical eyes, and b/c it has been the place of most the deepest wounds & brokenness in my life and it is a long process of being healed and set free from the mindsets and strongholds that were created through these negative experiences. They also directly affect our relationship with God (see blog next blog called "The Father's discipline is out of love, not anger). Already as I was flying out of the Asheville airport, I immediately felt a difference and a freedom in my spirit again, and then back at IHOP in the prayer room the next few days I wept over my family and my inability to reach them and love them in the way I envision and desire to. But hope took hold of my heart in this encounter with His love as I put my faith in the ability of His love to reach them. These past two weeks I’ve depleted what was left in my checking account and have been pursuing jobs but none of them really working out, and I’ve been amazed by the lack of worry and stress overall that I’ve felt about my financial situation. It’s definitely been very difficult at moments where my soul becomes downcast and I'm tormented with constant anxious thoughts, or like today where I longing to feel free on the inside and I felt like I came right up against a wall and was fighting it and trying to fully submit myself to God and trust Him, but just couldn’t seem to fully let go (I realized later this wall was pride & a lack of thankfulness). But tonight in the prayer room I’ve been overwhelmed in feeling His heart for the nations and weeping with desire to reach them, to go to those little ones and embrace them with the love of Jesus. My heart burst open with this all of a sudden after looking at the summer mission trips on Adventures in Mission’s website. Then later I began weeping again feeling desire for Jesus and His love. Then I was asking Holy Spirit to show me and share His heart with me for my family to pray for them, and I had the revelation while praying for my sister to know Jesus, that Jesus is the Revelation of God! That He is the revelation of the Father, the revelation of mercy, of God’s kindness, compassion, the revelation of His justice, His desires, His joy, His ways, His thoughts, His law, His nature, His power, His beauty. Jesus is the revelation of the love of God! Wow! That’s amazing!