Walking in His perfect love.
I loved this part of the devotional that I have been doing through the bible app dealing with the way the enemy tries to tempt and lure us away from God’s goodness! The lover of our soul!
The word says in 1 Cor. 2:9 -“That no eye has seen or ear heard what God has prepared for those who love and serve Him!”
So all the enemy has to do is get us distracted and not focused on the king of kings! The glory and the lifter of our heads. We desperately need God! We desperately need to walk in his ways and desire Him! Everything else in this world is empty compared to his banqueting table.Luke 14:15-24 New International Version (NIV)
The Parable of the Great Banquet
15″ When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, “Blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.”
16 Jesus replied: “A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. 17 At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’
18 “But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’
19 “Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’
20 “Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’
21 “The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’
22 “‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’
23 “Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full. 24 I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’”
When I am filled up with Him! There is no room for the enemy to distract! However if I am distracted, wounded, offended, defiled by others who are hurt, abused- this opens the door for Holy Spirit to leak out. I need the power of the Holy Spirit to take over my life and be a living sacrifice for Him! I need to daily forgive those who have abused and defiled me with their wounds, and repent where I may have done that to them. I need to ask the Holy Spirit to soften my heart to allow Jesus to live in me daily!
Revelation 12:11
New International Version
“They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives ”
They loved God more then even their very lives and were willing to be living sacrifices for him. Meaning that they were willing to lay there lives down not out of hate for themselves but out of love for God! God truly loves them. Pure holy devotion to Him, letting go of the lusts of the flesh and choosing HIM! Just like Christ was willing to give himself up as the Lamb of God, literally a living sacrifice martyred for Christ! Not out of an ungodly scared fear, but a holy, pure love!
Romans 12:1-2 English Standard Version (ESV)
A Living Sacrifice
“12 I appeal to you therefore, brothers,[a] by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.[b] 2 Do not be conformed to this world,[c] but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
I remember when I was at bible school, around 22 years old, having a dream and in the dream I was volunteering at the Salvation Army, the leader asked who is willing to give your all for Christ? Right then I raised my hand and said I am! He said ok tomorrow you will die for him! I said wait, I’m not ready, I haven’t gotten married yet etc. I believe the Lord was showing me in a dream at that time that I was not ready to get married in the natural because he was still teaching me how to be married to Him (Jesus) in the spiritual and I wasn’t willing to give my whole heart to him because of fear and idolatry of marriage. God showed me in that dream that the Lord was after my whole heart! All selfish motives although they seemed good and right, God was asking me to die to them so in his timing He could and would give me those hearts desires. But first I had to surrender them so they were not an idol. An Idol is ANYTHING we place before Daddy God.
Holy Spirit help me to stay connected to you the vine so when the enemy comes to try to pull me away, I can cry out to Daddy God and rebuke the devil, just like Jesus did.
Matthew 4:1-11 New King James Version (NKJV)
Satan Tempts Jesus
“4 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. 3 Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”
4 But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ ”
5 Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written:
‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’
and,
‘In their hands they shall bear you up,
Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’ ”
7 Jesus said to him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not [a]tempt the Lord your God.’ ”
8 Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.”
10 Then Jesus said to him, [b]“Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ”
11 Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.”
This is the answer to give when the devil tempts us. We go into God and find the lover of our soul waiting for us! Ready to fight on our behalf every battle! We choose his thoughts, his words, resist the devil and he has to flee in Jesus name!
James 4:7 ►
New International Version
“Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
12/15/18.
I like the statement from the devotional that I am doing “Finding God in hard times.” from the bible app, that says, “I can unlearn the habit of leaving him out of things.” Sometimes in my own life, I have taken his tangible presence for granted. I get so busy doing things for Him, I forget to stop, pause and just be with Him! I realized later I was looking for man’s approval instead of truly being connected to the body of Christ with his perfect love flowing through me. I learned later that this perfect love only happens when ” I” stop trying to connect with God, surrender, bend my will to his. I read this once in the book “Calvary road,” a bent “I” looks like the letter “C”, stands for “C”hrist. It is no longer “I” that lives but as I bend my will, surrender to him, “C”hrist lives in me!” Galatians 2:20 This surrender can only be done through the Holy Spirit! How do “I” surrender and let Christ just live through me? I am still unlearning ALL the things that “I” tried to do and remember feeling left out, not quite good enough, jealous, competitive, insecure and stressed! This was everything “I” was doing in my flesh, even good things in the anointing but “I” needed to surrender and bend my will to just rest and allow “Christ through his Holy Spirit just live through me. The word says His yoke is easy and His burden is light! When I am light, I am full of joy, peace, full of Him- his Holy Spirit! Matthew 11:28-30 New International Version (NIV)
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
“A yoke is a wooden beam normally used between a pair of oxen or other animals to enable them to pull together on a load when working in pairs, as oxen usually do; some yokes are fitted to individual animals. … A pair of oxen may be called a yoke of oxen, and yoke is also a verb, as in “to yoke a pair of oxen. I just wanted to look up the definition of what a yoke actually looks like and what is it? When oxen are yoked to each other to work together they naturally have to bend their necks to pull the load. I think it is interesting how Christ used this illustration in the bible to show that when we take his yoke on us- we have to bend our neck- which in the bible the neck represents bending toward him. More than once in the Old Testament the people of Israel before Christ, were stiff necked, they couldn’t see God in their situations of being in the desert . When one has s stiff neck in the natural it is hard to move let alone bow, bend it! We need the neck of the Holy Spirit that says bend me! Just like the revivalist of Wales prayed until the WHOLE nation was literally in revival!
Below is a brief excerpt on Evan Robert’s life and what he experienced as he allowed the Holy Spirit to bend Him! I long for his Holy Spirit to bend me to in complete surrender!
Lord, bend us.
April 21, 2018 by Carolyn Moore
“In 1903, Evan Roberts was 25 years old. He was a Christian, coal miner, and student who began to pray for God to fill him with the Holy Spirit. In the midst of this season of prayer, Roberts found himself at an evangelistic event where a man named Seth Joshua was preaching. Roberts heard Joshua pray, “Lord, bend us,” and at the sound of those words the Holy Spirit grabbed him.
That’s what you need, the Spirit said.
Roberts wrote: “I felt a living power pervading my bosom. It took my breath away and my legs trembled exceedingly. This living power became stronger and stronger as each one prayed, until I felt it would tear me apart. My whole bosom was a turmoil and if I had not prayed it would have burst … I fell on my knees with my arms over the seat in front of me. My face was bathed in perspiration, and the tears flowed in streams. I cried out, ‘Bend me, bend me!!’ It was God’s commending love which bent me … what a wave of peace flooded my bosom … I was filled with compassion for those who must bend at the judgement, and I wept. Following that, the salvation of the human soul was solemnly impressed on me. I felt ablaze with the desire to go through the length and breadth of Wales to tell of the savior.”
After that experience, Evan would wake up at one in the morning and pray for hours, invaded by an intense love of God and a deep desire to see others come to Christ. He began to pray together with a few others: “Bend us, Lord.”
A few weeks later, after seeing a vision of God touching Wales, he predicted a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit. He began preach across Wales and within about nine months, over 100,000 people had come to Christ. Five years later, reports say 80,000 of those people were still in church. The effect on the culture of the country was profound. Bars emptied out. People used the money to buy clothes and food for their families, pay back debts and give to the church. People became kinder; there was a wave of forgiveness.”