Tag Archives: Joy

It’s time for a rest…

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And when we all had fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me and saying in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ –Acts 26:14

God’s been telling me to give up writing on this blog for a while and I’ve been resisting.  I’ve felt some sort of obligation like I need it or something.  But I don’t and in trying to keep writing posts I’m just kicking against the goads.  It hasn’t been working.  Every time I sit down to write I think I have something to say and then boom.. blockage.  And it’s not blockage from the enemy.  It’s lack of grace blockage.  It’s Jonah trying to escape from going to Nineveh blockage.  So without any further disobedience I’m giving the blog a rest to see what else the Lord has for me in this season.    I’ll be back at some point.  Maybe in a couple months or as little as a couple weeks?   Either way God is good all the time!  He loves you all the time!  And He is speaking all the time!

Much love to you all,

-Justin

“The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.”’

 

The Pursuit of Love

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ephesians 3:19

I am in a constant pursuit of God, and with knowing that God is love, I pursue love constantly.  I am not satisfied with having less when I know by reading scripture that there is more.  The pursuit itself makes life worth living because it’s not just a pursuit…  it involves a lot of finding as well.

As I discover new facets of His love I am overwhelmed and amazed by His glory—which is His goodness.   His love never fails me and He is always faithful.  I know that sometimes we can throw around those words in a cliché type of way…  But it’s truth.  He really has never ever failed me.  I can say this about Him because I have not only read it in scripture but I have experienced it for myself and I continue to experience it.   It is this revelation that compels me to dig deeper past the surface—which is theology and understanding of who God is through reading the scriptures—to a further realm of knowing Him and experiencing who He is in relationship.

I do however have to be careful that my pursuit itself is rooted and ground in love.  I’ve realized that in the past at times my pursuit was fueled by fear.  It was as if I tried to force Him into an encounter because I was so scared of my faith being tested.  I wanted evidence of His existence.  God did reveal Himself to me in time, although it was not so much in the ways I expected Him to.  He knows what’s best for our development.

Trust Him through this season.  Trust Him because He really is a good God.  Trust Him because His love will never fail you.   Pursue love.

For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,  that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,  may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.  –Ephesians 3:14-19

Redemption Destroys Shame!

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Isaiah 61:7

Instead of your shame you shall have double honor… -Isaiah 61:7

God is doing it again—He’s freeing many from bondage!

Redemption destroys shame and God is breaking the chains of shame at this very moment!  Hallelujah!

Believe what He says about you today.  Draw the line in the sand and step over it to never look back.

Be a believing believer … it’s your destiny.

Rest in Hope

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Numbers 6:26

My flesh also will rest in hope. –Psalm 16:9

The Lord says, “Rest in Me today and I will restore your hope.”

I think sometimes we forget the human side of Jesus…  I know I do.  I get caught up and amazed by His eternal glory and infinite power that I forget He was just as human as we are.  He’s been through human life.  He understands your every emotion and struggle and He loves you through all of it.  We need to understand this to have an accurate perception of God.  He’s not some angry god that is like a mean dad waiting for his kid to mess up so he can yell at him.  He’s our friend and a loving Father.  He’s on your side.   He’s in this with you, not against you.

God spoke to Moses telling him to bless the children of Israel by telling them, “the Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.” (Num 6:26)

How do we get peace from His countenance?  Well, the only way that is going to happen is when you have an accurate perception of His countenance—His expression towards you.  When He looks at you what He sees is love.  He sees a saint.  He sees family—His sons and daughters.  He is smiling at you because…

He’s proud of you.   

Believe this word today and rest in the hope of God.  It will change your life.

 

Secret Revelation

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Isaiah 60:20

He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
-Psalm 91:1

At the turn of the New Year the Lord gave me that verse and told me that 2013 would be a year of finding the secret place.

So what is “the secret place” talked about here?

For a long time I just thought of the secret place as our prayer closet because Jesus said shut your door, and pray to your Father who is in the secret place…  But I’ve come to realize that the secret place is so much more than just a prayer closet.

The secret place is our very personal divine relationship with God.   But here’s where we mess up a lot—my secret place is going to be different from your secret place and not everything that God tells me in my secret place is meant to be given to others…  That’s why it’s a secret.   He will often give us secret revelation.

So how do we know what’s secret and what’s for others?  We’ll the first thing to do is ask the Lord but one way to know it’s secret revelation is when the things He has shown you are inexpressible.   Paul when talking about his third heaven vision in 2 Corinthians chapter 12 said that he heard inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.  Paul had been given secret revelation.

Have you ever read over a verse that you know speaks to your spirit?  Where it jumps off the page at you and moves you in a certain way?  But then you read it again and realize you don’t even intellectually understand the verse completely?  Or maybe the verse is so simple like “Be still and know that I am God” but yet at the same time it’s so profound that you wouldn’t be able to explain how much it means to you to someone else?   It’s because the Lord has given you secret revelation and often times these things cannot be expressed.  They can’t be expressed because they are between you and the Lord and if you tried to explain it to someone else it probably wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense to them.

The Lord told me recently that He is releasing a wave of secret revelation to those who are hungry and those who want it.  It’s the cry of His heart to be closer with His children and that’s what this is really about.  It’s about sharing feelings with the Lord and letting Him speak to us in new ways.   It’s about just sitting with Him in His presence and sharing a moment of silence.  It’s about listening more than speaking and it’s about putting away your shopping list of prayer requests and asking Him what He wants you to pray for.

He is saying, “I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places.” –Isaiah 45:3

Ask God what He wants to show you.  Ask Him to take you deeper into the secret place of His presence.

Arise, shine; for your light has come! And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. -Isaiah 60:1

Christ lives in me

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abide in the vine

I have been given revelation to why faith without works is dead and the letter kills but the Spirit gives life.  I have become less of a fan of words and more of a fan of experience.  I have become less interested in knowledge of Him and much more interested and dependent in knowing Him.  Anyone can say, “I love you” and anyone can say “God loves you” but unless you’ve experienced love yourself how can you know for sure?  Only fools say “We cannot experience God” or “We do not have the right to seek Holy Spirit experiences.”  What a dull religious box they live in.   May the power of the resurrection wreck your religion and leave you fervently abandoned to Jesus Christ.  Seek and you will find!

I have searched high and low and there is NOTHING else worth living for aside from Jesus.

For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. –Galatians 2:19-20

Thank you Lord for the journey, for the process of ups and downs in life, and for the completely undeserved privilege of knowing You.  You make me come alive.

Great is the LORD most worthy of all praise!

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I sat down to write a post today and kept getting interrupted by my heart singing the lyric to a song.  ”Great is the Lord most worthy of all praise!”

I really couldn’t think of anything worth writing except that one line.  God is so good and He is worthy of all our praise.  Join me today in worshiping Him.

Great is the Lord – by Daniel Bashta

Splendor and majesty
Strength and beauty be
Unto your name on ancient of days
You’re holy

We tremble before your throne
All hearts prepare you room
We come and adore
Ruined before your glory

Great is the Lord
Most worthy of all praise

We tremble before your throne
All hearts prepare you room
We come and adore
Ruined before your glory

Holy You are holy
Crowned with wonders
Majesty

In the morning
In the evening
At the end of all days
We will sing
We will shout
You are worthy of praise

Already Clean?

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Redding trees

His voice caught me off guard.  I wasn’t praying, I was just lying in bed this morning having just woken up.  It was a very soft, still voice that I could have easily missed… but I heard Him.  In an internal audible voice the Lord said, “Where are you drinking from?”

Of course I know the right answer to His question.  The right answer is to drink from Jesus Himself.  In John chapter 4 Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well, whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.  But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. But why was He asking me this?

It’s easy to know the right answer or say the right thing but a complete different thing to know that the right answer applies to your life.  Jesus wouldn’t have asked me that question unless I had been drinking from the wrong source.  And I had been.

It had really been a great week for me spiritually speaking.  I felt strong in the Lord and my faith the whole week!  I was keeping things simple and my focus steadfast on Him.  But the last two days I felt a spirit of doubt and unbelief poking at my thoughts.  I was trying my best not to agree with these thoughts but they kept coming.  As they kept coming I kept telling them no.  But it wore me out and I started getting stressed and worried about other external things.  I took my focus off of Jesus.

And then His question came, “Where are you drinking from?”

You see, one of the enemy’s most common attacks is to simply distract us.  He distracts us from the joy of Christ within us and draws our attention to burdensome external things.  As we lose our focus of Jesus and start drinking elsewhere we lose that close connection in our inner soul to the Spirit of God—the Spirit that gives you life.  As this happens we start unintentionally drawing off of other sources to give us life, but none of these sources satisfy.  And so, in this process once we realize we have lost connection with our Savior we decide we must do all that we can to quickly gain our connection back.  We start striving and working to gain back the connection through external activities.

But this thinking is wrong.  All we have to do is turn our focus back to Him.  God does the rest.  As long as we strive to work our way back to Him we remain distracted.

A little less than a year ago the Lord spoke a verse to me.  He said, you are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. (John 15:3) You know, at first… I didn’t believe Him.  I was in the middle of working to sanctify myself.  I was in the middle of a purification plan I had all worked out in my head and here Jesus was telling me I’m already clean.

This verse is right in the middle of Jesus telling the disciples about Him being the vine and how He wants His disciples to abide in the vine and bear fruit.  So why this verse right in the middle of all that? It’s because to abide in Jesus we have to believe what He says about us.  His word has to abide in us and this one statement I believe is possibly the hardest one for Christians to grasp.

You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.

Do you believe it?  It kinda messes up your sanctification plans doesn’t it?  What about that sin you’ve been struggling with? Nope, you’re already clean.   What about working really hard to be pure in heart so we will see God?  Guess what? You’re already clean!  I didn’t say it, Jesus did.  And He didn’t just say it.  He died for the right to be able to say it.

So believe it today and turn your focus back to the Lord.  He just wants to love on you today.  Any struggle you have with sin will be dealt with and cast off of you as He draws you closer to Him.   You see purification is not our job.  Our job is to keep our eyes on the Lord.  He does the rest.

May you all drink from His living water today in Jesus name!

 

 

 

 

The reality of Christ in me.

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whiskey town lake

I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. –Philippians 4:12

I’m learning some truth to this verse in this season of life.  I’m going through things that in past seasons would have exhausted me and brought me down, but God has strengthened my spirit through past trials so that I am able to stand in the reality of Christ in me.  Through this reality I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. (Phil 4:13)

This world is beautiful but at times it can seem that everywhere we go we run into darkness.  When this happens I turn inward—to Christ in me—and ask the Spirit not only to give me comfort but to release His light to those around me and change the atmosphere.

And so, I do my best to do all things without complaining and disputing, that I may become blameless and harmless, a child of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom I shine as a light in the world. (see Phil 2:14-15)

I choose not to slander, I choose not to gossip or join in the complaining.  I keep quiet amongst those who partake.  I ask the Lord for strength to be swift to hear and slow to speak.  And I ask for wisdom that I may only speak life instead of childish, defensive words rooted in insecurities.  Christ is my security.  I do not need the affirmation of those around me.  They look for affirmation of other unbelievers to affirm their own insecurities rooted in their guilt of choosing unbelief in a God that they are mad at.  We must be careful not to get mad at God because of misunderstandings.  We were not made to understand everything.  We were made to live and to love.

I’ve caught myself daydreaming here and there about being old and close to the end of my earthly life.  To some this may appear morbid but I’ve just lost my fear of death and I long for that day that I can go and be face to face with God.  But I know that it’s a long journey from where I’m at and that day.  For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you. (see Phil 1:23-24)

So I seek to know Him more in this world.  I seek to have His will done on earth as it is in heaven.  I seek to be conformed to the image of His Son. (see Rom 8:17) I seek to not only live for Him but to live with Him—to walk with Him.  I seek to live His will for my life.  To change the lives of youth and speak life into the lost and the seekers of meaning.

You all are partakers with me of grace. So be confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. (see Phil 1:6-7)

Live in the reality of His love.

Return to Rest

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snow

Return to your rest, O my soul, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. –Psalm 116:7

I started listening to the wrong voice again.  I started doubting and spiraling into negative thoughts.  I was angry, frustrated and confused.  “Why?” I asked, “Why?”  I was tired and needed sleep.  I was sick and I was weak.  In this state it’s easy to let introspection take over and give way to all sorts of demonic influence.  If the Devil can turn our thoughts inward so that we start blaming ourselves then we give him control and he has won.  But he hasn’t won because it’s not your fault.  Your shame and your past are not a part of you anymore.  Your depression is not a part of you anymore.  Your addictions are not a part of you anymore.  You are a new creation in Christ Jesus.

For the longest time I have been seeking a “balanced faith”.  I even started writing a book using the tag line, “Finding a balanced faith…”  But the Lord has showed me that this is wrong.  The definition of balance is an even distribution of weight enabling someone or something to remain upright and steady.  Sure, of course we want to be able to stand in our faith but it’s the even distribution of weight part that makes seeking a “balanced faith” completely wrong.  With trying to seek a balanced faith I have been playing a ”balancing act” between the world and my surrender to Christ.

Playing this balancing act makes us become the double-minded man spoken of in James 1:6-8.  Full surrender is the only way to peace.  If you’ve been asking for balance then you’ve been asking for the wrong thing.  Ask the Lord to give you the power to fully surrender yourself to Him.  Ask Him to give you the humility to surrender.  It’s what’s best for you.  Peace is waiting…  Peace is a person named Jesus.  But you cannot serve two masters. You’ve tasted His peace, now live in it.

But remember, words mean nothing unless there is power behind them.  The Bible means nothing unless the Spirit brings life to it.  It is not our doing, it’s Him.  He’s doing it now.  He’s pouring out His love to you.  We are designed for purpose and that is the longing inside you that guides you to the heart of God.  It is your destiny calling… He’s calling you home today so give in to Him.  There’s only one way to go and that’s up—from glory to glory.  The best is yet to come.

Join me in calling upon the Lord today and speak this Psalm to your soul.  Prophesy over yourself:

I love the Lord, because He has heard
My voice and my supplications.
Because He has inclined His ear to me,
Therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live.

The pains of death surrounded me,
And the pangs of Sheol laid hold of me;
I found trouble and sorrow.
Then I called upon the name of the Lord:
“O Lord, I implore You, deliver my soul!”

Gracious is the Lord, and righteous;
Yes, our God is merciful.
The Lord preserves the simple;
I was brought low, and He saved me.
Return to your rest, O my soul,
For the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

For You have delivered my soul from death,
My eyes from tears,
And my feet from falling.
I will walk before the Lord
In the land of the living.
I believed, therefore I spoke,
“I am greatly afflicted.”
I said in my haste,
“All men are liars.”

What shall I render to the Lord
For all His benefits toward me?
I will take up the cup of salvation,
And call upon the name of the Lord.

 Psalm 116:1-13