What is God showing you?

Feb 6

John 14:1 'Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God...'

Can't read any further. A thought struck me I have never thought before. Jesus, who knew/knows what is getting ready to happen to Him and because of which whould have every reason to be troubled, would have every reason to entertain a little doubt, makes this statement to His disciples: 'Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God...'

Jesus' trust was not just good for the good times, but even in His darkest moment, His trust allowed Him to have peace.

In John 18, Jesus is questioned by the high priest Annas who in the process strikes Him on the face. He is then qestioned by Pilate and afterward is beaten and crucified. All the time, Peter is standing by a fire warming himself and denying that he even knows Him.

Jesus' when questioned by Pilate, makes this statement,'In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify of the truth.'

While the world strikes and even brutally beats against the truth He came to proclaim, too many of us are warming ourselves by the fire. We may not be denying Him but we are not speaking to defend His truth.

Lord, first help us to know Your truth, then help us find ways to proclaim it.

John 20:16 Jesus said to her, 'Mary'.

In all our seeking, can you think of anything that would be more comforting and assuring than to hear the voice of God as Mary did here? And in that situation, can you think of any other word that Jesus could have said that would have been more comforting to her?

Several hurried to the tomb. Two of the disciples looked around a little and left. But Mary lingered. By her lingering, she put herself in a position to hear.

Lord, You know the words we need to hear. For all who are seeking to hear them, speak them to us as we linger.

GOD is showing me how to live with a single
eye focused upon His glory and a heart united
with His purpose !

God has show me and still is that each day I must take up my cross and follow Him. That He is in control of all things. That He is here always.I must be continuously renouncing all things in my life that does not put God frist. To just live and practice in His presence.

Love makes burdens light.

"If your brother,... is sold to you, he shall serve you six years, and in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you...

But if he says to you, ‘I will not go out from you,’ because he loves you and your household, since he is well-off with you, then you shall take an awl, and put it through his ear into the door, and he shall be your slave forever. And to your female slave you shall do the same." Duet 15, Ex. 21

"Jesus then said to the Twelve, "Do you also want to leave?"
Simon Peter answered him, "Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." John 6

MC

wtninChrist wrote:
I must be continuously renouncing all things in my life that does not put God frist. To just live and practice in His presence.

Cool thuoght.

I notice you're from Muscle Shoals. I am originally from B'ham. Have been in Missouri for 30 years. In the olden days, when I was younger, and didn't mind the back roads, I used to drive the smaller 2 lane high ways when I would go home. They took me through Muscle Shoals. Have thought about trying it again just for something different.

All for now,

Mike

“So He told His disciples that a small boat should be kept ready for Him because of the multitude, lest they should crush Him. For He healed many, so that as many as had afflictions pressed about Him to touch Him.” Mark 3:9-10

Repeatedly in the gospels we read the accounts of Jesus being thronged or pressed by the crowds. He gained quite a reputation as a miracle worker and there were many in Israel that needed a miracle. Most places He went there were large crowds and all of them were trying to get near Him….because they needed something from Him.

Yes, we are very needy. And God knows we are very needy. He has promised to meet those needs and has told us we can come and ask. What a wonderful privilege. But our coming to Him is not restricted to presenting our needs.

I am learning to be wary in my life of this tendency to come to Jesus only when I have a need. He is so much infinitely more than the One who meets my needs, but sometimes I lose sight of this. The needs in my life, which often give me a new revelation of just how not in control I am, magnify my need for Him. But my need for Him is never less just because life isn’t spinning chaotically out of control.

Oh God, please help me remember this…..

Many will press against Him to get their needs met, but who will press against Him only to know Him? Whose need for His Presence is desperate enough that it drives them to pursue Him relentlessly and recklessly?

Lord, I want to be one of these.

BrokenOne wrote:

Many will press against Him to get their needs met, but who will press against Him only to know Him?

I am convinced that this is God's greatest desire. 'This is eternal life, that they may know You'.

There is a place that just being in His presence leaves nothing to be desired. To ask for anything seems fowl. No matter what rages around us, we can have peace knowing that it is not greater than He is. We cannot of our own selves muster it, it is His gift to us as we come to 'know Him'.

Cool, cool words Danielle.

to me living in his presence is out of a desire He has given me to know Him more and more. By forming the habit continuously conversing with God now telling Him everything. I know He will meet my needs, He said He would. The goal of the heart is to think of nothing but God. It is all about Him is it not? I just get to be a part of it all.

wtninChrist,

I do believe there is no greater pleasure in life than knowing God. I have never found the words that adequately express the experience.

When satan tempted Adam & Eve, though he did tempt them to disobey God, from another perspective, he tempted them to think they could add to the pleasure they enjoyed with God. That has been his tactic ever since. We are tempted to think that God and something other than what He has permitted will enrich our lives.

I have found that as I have sought God first, I have been more content with the things He gives me to enjoy. Before, I would have to say that God was more in the mix of all I sought.

Your comment, 'out of a desire He has given me to know Him more and more', I have struggled with. How much of this has been a result of His drawing me and how much has been my decision to draw close?

The only difference has been an intense test. It came 3 years after a decision I made to seek God afresh. I have concluded that He was pleased with the pursuit and decided to accelerate it by submitting me to a test. It has had it's perfect work.

I can't say that I would wish it on anyone but I also know now, I would not trade it for anything.

Enjoyed your comments,

Mike

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Oh, how this thread has ministered to me as I have heard your voices speak of your sweet fellowship with the Lord. I lack the language to express all that the Lord is in my life. The Spirit brought to mind this passage of scripture:

"Knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you. For all things are for your sakes, that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." 2Cor4:14-18

Growing in His grace,

R2W

He is showing me to be more like basil.
see, i'm growing a basil plant in my room, and in order for the plant to grow, you have to not water it sometimes. reason being, if it needs water, it grows the roots to find the water. when the roots grow, the leaves grow. also, it reaches for the sunlight in whatever direction the sunlight is found. just the other day i came home to a new leaf on almost every stem!
soon, this little plant will be big enough to harvest.
God is so, so kind to show us His glory in nature. all creation really does sing forth His praise!

God showed me today that because Christ was sinless, he was not subject to the law of sin and death.

His Ressurrection was inevitable.

"I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." John 10:18

What Great Love! What confidence we can have in God to be faithful to His own!

Dan 11:32 And he will ruin by flattery those who do evil against the covenant. But the people who know their God will be strong and will work.

Joh 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

Knowing Our Father and our Lord Jesus more and more intimately must be our pursuit. I confess I am often side tracked, but the Helper, reminds me and brings me back.

We also know that it is by Faith in God's word that we can enter into all the promises that are in Christ. Yet we strive to have this Faith. We try to pray for it. But then I see that for me it is so easy to trust a person or believe him/her when I know the person intimately and know that he can be trusted. So I see that the strength of my Faith in the person depends not in me, but in the quality of that person and how much of that quality I know.

So we too can be counted in those great men of Faith, as we pursue and know our Lord more and more intimately.

Be not satisfied with knowing the right doctrine, but in knowing HIM personally.

We should be able to say, "I know God, I know My Father, I know Jesus, I know Him on whom I have believed." In reality and in truth not just as a conceptual ascertion of doctrine.

What I have realized is that, if that is not where we are, instead of make believe, we can go to God in simple honesty, confess the reality and ask for the reality of His presence in our daily life.
He will do it, because He said so, that He will give whatever we ask. Let us ask this of HIM.

1Jn 2:13 I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. [b]I write to you, little children, because you have known the Father[/b]

Yes let us grow in our intimacy with the Lord, just as a baby identifies its parents but as he grows up, the older sons and daughters know their parents more intimately. let us not be satisfied by the intial brush with our Lord, but a daily walk.

Vakugal wrote:
Be not satisfied with knowing the right doctrine, but in knowing HIM personally.

Good word! Jesus accused the Pharisees of thinking they could find eternal life by searching the scriptures. They missed it by a mile by searching the scriptures. In turn, they caused others to miss it as well.

God is showing me;
The rapture is near
The last days revival is about to begin
The true gospel has rarely been preached
The spiritual atmosphere is and will be more polluted by Phariseeism.
Leaders everywhere cannot seem to recognise the gifts and anointing on the brethren
The strategy of most Churches to ignore the prophetic has left the church anemic
Inacurate judgements have brought judgements to those that judge wrongly.
The fear of man will torpedo the prohetic faster than the devil himself.
Fear will destroy the channel of blessing that flows from heaven.

In Mark 4:35-41 is the account of Jesus asleep in the boat while the storm rages and his disciples awake him asking, "Do you not care that we are perishing"? And then He arose and calmed the storm.

Had the disciples comprehended who Jesus really was, that He and the God of the universe were one, would they have been gripped with such fear of perishing? Could they have thought for one moment that the Son of God would sink with them to the depths of the sea to live no more? We, like the disciples, do not comprehend the power of this One in our boat, this Spirit who dwells within us. Who, but Chist, should we want in our boat in the greatest of life's storms? We need only to call Him, and He will answer.

A great consolation in these turbulent times.

The God Who comes near

And the Lord said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the land of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. Exodus 3:7-8

I have seen
I have heard
I know
I have come

One of the most captivating truths of Christianity is that we do not serve some far off, uninvolved God who is indifferent to us. Consider this gospel truth – “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” Eph 2:13

He created the entire universe and died on the cross for my sins.

He rules the whole world each moment and hears every word that I pray.

He is enthroned in heaven and yet He is with me daily.

His voice thunders from heaven and whispers to my heart.

In 10,000 different ways He displays His love to those who are His.

He sees
He hears
He knows
He has come

Cool back to back thoughts from BrokenOne and my good friend the professor. Have read both about 3 times.

We have been brought near because He loves us and because He loves us, who else would we want in our boat.

God is showing me that I need to keep the cross upfront and in full focus. So many have lost sight or never even received sight of the cross. If not for the cross, where would I be? We need to let it sink deep down into our spirit. Some say it's too gruesome or Jesus was at His weakest at that moment. I agree, it was horrible. But Jesus died for the world's sins on that cross and if He hadn't done that, where would we be??? Thank You, God for the cross and thank You, Jesus for enduring it! Please keep bringing to my remembrance the cross and my precious Savior that died there for me!
In Christ,
Wendy

Jeremiah 1:5
'Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart,
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.'

One could read the first line and just stop there. Think about that. Before we were even formed, He knew us.

[color=0000CC]All[/color] are known before they were formed.
[color=0000CC]Some[/color] are set apart even before they are born.
[color=0000CC]Fewer still[/color] are appointed to a specific and unique task.

Though all may not be set apart, all are known. And if known, have the distinct privelege of knowing the one who knows us.

Some though, in this knowing, have the sense they are set apart. Not knowing what they are set apart for, all one can do is speculate.

In that speculation, it is easy to be drawn to the examples of the few who have been appointed to a unique and specific task, and wonder.

Hebrews 11 speaks of the cloud of witnesses. Easy to focus on these witnesses and wonder if our story will end up similar to their story. But that is the key. It is their story. They 'persevered because they saw Him who was invisible'.

That is the inspiration from the cloud of witnesses. Because of their stories, let us also 'run with perseverence the race marked out for us'. For those who have the sense they have been set apart, the key to finding what you have been set apart for, comes as we see Him who is invisible.

God is refining my prayer life.

It begins with humility. I must humble myself, and then pray. He desires my prayers, but they must be from a heart humbled before Him. He is high and holy, I must be meek and lowly.

Through prayer, I enter the secret place. And the God of all creation, my Abba Father, is there, waiting for me.

In prayer, I seek the face of God. From my lowly position, I can look up and find the face of my Father, and the light of His countenance exposes my needs, which He already knows, and He shows me my own heart and any darkness there, and He burdens me with the needs of others, and He directs my paths, often showing me that I must turn from my wickedness, forsaking my sin as I confess it, and the blood of His Son Jesus washes over me, and I am clean again, and because I am clean, my prayers availeth much. Because of His mercy and grace, I can walk uprightly, and I can carry within my soul the glory of His radiance.

Matt6:6-13 2Chron7:14 James4:6-10 James5:16

Mark 16:3

Mary and Mary are heading towards Jesus in the tomb, early in the morning. They ask each other, "Who will roll away the stone for us?" but continue to walk.

God is telling me to seek him early in the morning. He's telling me that the stone in between God & I will be rolled away as long as I continue in that direction.

There only desire was to bless Jesus.

MJones wrote:
John 20:16 Jesus said to her, 'Mary'.

In all our seeking, can you think of anything that would be more comforting and assuring than to hear the voice of God as Mary did here? And in that situation, can you think of any other word that Jesus could have said that would have been more comforting to her?

Several hurried to the tomb. Two of the disciples looked around a little and left. But Mary lingered. By her lingering, she put herself in a position to hear.

Lord, You know the words we need to hear. For all who are seeking to hear them, speak them to us as we linger.

I found this very moving. How often do we speak our Lord's Name? Jesus...

But to hear Him speak our name... how humbling, how precious... and we need this reassurance at times, the reassurance that He knows us, knows us by name, we are very special to Him... and in a time when it appeared He was gone from us and that we had lost Him (as Mary must have felt)... He was working that mighty victory of the Cross on our behalf, that mighty victory of His love.

"Mary..."

I find myself reading often these days 1 Jn. 4:17-18 with a great desire to come into this... what he calls being "made perfect in love."

I understand it reads more accurately in the original, "Herein is love with us made perfect..."

So it is our Lord revealing His love to us, it is His love being with us, and growing in us, and coming to fulness in us-- that makes us confident in the day of judgment, and not tormented by fear or guilt... in the midst of all the troubles that are starting to break... "because as He is so are we in this world."

"As HE is..." Jesus could sleep in the boat in the midst of the storm. He had such a confidence of His Father's love for Him, He abode in His Father's love.

The disciples were anxious and filled with fear because they had not yet come to know that great love. They were sure they were about to perish.

I believe our Lord greatly desires to bring us into this fulness of His love... as we go to Him and confess our fears.

What is the problem when fears grip us? Simply that His love has not yet come to fulness in us. "He that feareth is not made perfect in love."

I know that I for one am not there yet, for I have fears. But... Ps. 34:4.

...Teach us, dear Jesus, to abide in Your love.

AD

ADisciple wrote:
I found this very moving.

SI at its best when we share encouragement we have received, that then becomes encouragement to others. I have to admit it was pretty cool the morning I read it. Glad to know the Lord has used it again.

Jeremiah 6

Though I still cannot claim as Jeremiah does, that we are on the brink of judgment, I do believe I can claim that God has fired a warning shot across our bow. At the very least there is opportunity to hear what God might be saying. ‘To whom can I speak and give warning? Who will listen to me?’

As Jeremiah’s message was to God’s people of whom it was said, ‘As a well pours out its water, so she pours out her wickedness’, and that they are not ‘ashamed of their loathsome conduct’, I can’t bring myself to say this is the state of His church today as much as it is the state of the ungodly in our nation.

I believe there is room to connect the economic disaster that is crippling our nation with the words from Jeremiah that describe how things will be ‘when I stretch out my hand against those who live in the land’. And again, ‘I am bringing disaster on this people, the fruit of their schemes, because they have not listened to my words and have rejected my law.’

So as much as this may be His call and warning to an ungodly nation and world, the church is not off the hook. It is an opportunity for all and especially the church to ‘Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is and walk in it’. There we ‘will find rest for our souls’.

It concerns me that so many are trying to carry on with life as normal; so few seem to be getting the message. ‘The bellows blow fiercely to burn away the lead with fire, but the refining goes on in vain’. I fear we are not heeding His warning.

Why do our efforts to win others so often fall on death ears? I seek God for myself. I seek God for others. I have, what seems like, God given opportunities to talk with people, but for the most part, I do not see change.

The Lord has been showing me lately that unless they are drawn... unless the Father enables them, they will not come.

We do not pray like we used to. There is no greater battle to engage in, yet I cannot say I have got down in the trenches for others, as some who are in battle have to do at times, but I am being stirred to do so. I believe that is what's missing.

We do not pray like we used to.

A friend of mine went to a women’s conference at a church in the next town this weekend. She called me on the way back describing all the various gimmicks that were employed to draw people: break dancing; secular music at the “after party”; lipstick kisses on the ladies room mirrors………

The reasoning seems to be that the end justifies the means. But all that would be unnecessary to draw people in if we would just pray. I mean really pray. I think you’re right that prayer is what’s missing. It takes too long and it’s too hard. Much easier to draw a lipstick kiss on a mirror.