Psalms 18:28 Remix

I love this verse... "For You light my lamp, The Lord my God illumines my darkness." (PS 18:28, in the New American Standard Version)

wow... or in other words,

"Jesus, You light my fire! You shine so bright that I'm filled with light, and now I can see my way clear!!!" wahoo! (PS 18:28 in the New American Lisa-Anne version! ;))

Glory-Filled Cloud of His Presence

Early this morning,
the Lord woke me up and said, "Look out the window."
I was barely awake, someplace in between waking and sleeping, and I saw something I didn't understand. The whole world outside my window was covered in a THICK, Bright, Amber-colored fog or cloud.
The sky was full of it, and the ground was covered... I could barely make out the trees close to the window. The cloud of thick fog was all lit up, orange-like, like fire from within.
I saw it, and I think I was "slain" or else conked out really fast! Later this morning when I was becoming awake, I was hearing something about, "…opening Heaven, the cloud of My presence pours thickly into the earth, lit up by the Glory of the Son of God…”
And I was thinking... is that what it looks like? The fog was moving over the face of the earth like it was alive and so beautiful.
I do think I "overloaded" when looking out the window... blew a fuse in the Spirit, because normally when I see something neat in the early hours, I'm running downstairs to get the camera!
I keep seeing flashes of a Spiritual storm coming... with flashes of multi-colored Light inside the cloud. The cloud is like a wall on the ground, advancing. It’s more white than gray, and seems clearly defined. I can’t wait to be a “storm chaser” and run into it! I know it’s not dangerous for those of us who are able to breathe the air in there, who are ready and waiting for that atmosphere!
And then last night I saw a show was coming on TV called, "Category 6" (tornadoes only go up to category 5!) and I nearly lost it!!
I was thinking, “YES! YES! Wait till the church hears about the category 7 that’s coming from Heaven to the earth!!!!!!!!”

This Little Light of Mine...

How many times have we sung the sweet childrens song, "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine..." ?
What a powerful call to supernatural, Jesus-style living! I loved the song as a child, and now that I've grown in understanding, I love it even more!

I've copied a verse here that really says more than what it seems on the surface. I've broken the verse down a little bit, using the Greek words and corresponding Hebrew ones to show the richer meaning of some of the words.
2 Cor. 4:6
For God, who said, "Light shall shine out of darkness" is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. (NAS)
4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (KJV)

(now the breakdown)
For God ("Theos"), who said, "Light ("phos", to shine or make manifest, especially by rays; to say or make One's thoughts known; to make clear and cause to appear and shed light) shall shine ("lampo" Lamp) out of darkness," is the One who has shone ("lampo")in our hearts to give the Light ("photismos", the act of enlightening, illumination, to shine, to bring to light, render evident; to cause something to exist and thus come to light and become clear to all; to enlighten spiritually, imbue with saving knowledge,instruct, to inform, teach, give understanding to) of the knowledge ("gnosis", a deeper, more advanced understanding) of the glory (splendor, brightness) of God in the face (to see and be seen in the presence of, to appear before and see the countenance of) of Christ. (NAS)

So in other words... the same Guy who said, "Let there be light" to such great effect back in Genesis has now made an even greater decree.

Back then, when He said, "Let there be light" the stars were created in all their beauty, lighting up the entire universe and our world. Thats a powerful phrase - when He uttered it, every star in the heavens sprang into existance and He calls them all by name. But now, He's gone and said it again. This time around, He decided to come and say "Let there be light!" from His seat on the throne of our hearts! That's right... We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God in all His beauty. We are told that the Morning Star will be shed abroad in our hearts... we'll be lit up with Light from within. God saw that the world was still a dark and desperate place, so He decided to create a new "host" of lights to light up the world. Us. We are His points of Light on this planet... the heavens come down to touch the earth. We are like a city set on a hill... at night!

With darkness all around, we are lit up with His presence all over this planet, casting His bright shadow everywhere we go. Many times, we close ourselves off, and block our spirits. We don't let people see the real us. (under a bushel, no?) We pull the windows shut and close the shutters, and very little light escapes from us, kind of like the blackout shelters during World War 2, where people learned to seal all the cracks and not show any light at night so they wouldn't become the target of the evil 3rd reich's bombs. A lot of us are also trying to hide from the bombs of our enemy, not realizing that we have a greater protection promised to us than any people in any war have ever been given!!

For us, the danger is not being exposed and letting our light shine... the real danger is in being tempted to hide our light. That's how it gets snuffed out, ya know? If you hide it under a bushel, it not only can't light the way for others, but all the air gets sucked out and the flame is in danger of dying. Instead, we're called to take the shutters off, open the window, and turn the flame on high. We can burn the oil in our lamps at full blast, because the more we burn, the more we have to burn.

We're not just supposed to go into all the world, making disciples of all nations... we're supposed to CARRY the Presence of GOD in these earthen vessels, and let Him SHINE out from within us. That's what will cause the Glory of God to thickly blanket the earth!

I have a torch, a lampstand, burning in me. "It's like fire, shut up in my bones," said an OT Prophet. It's a bright Light, a heavy glory that we never could have carried under the old covenant. We would have died under the weight of it, been consumed by the holiness of the Lord, just as if we'd tried to carry the sun in our hands. The MIRACLE of the gospel is that now, we ourselves, in our frail human tents, carry the Spirit of God, the Glory of God, the very Presence of God inside us. We couldn't carry the sun in our hands, but we can do an even greater thing... we carry the Son in our hearts. Trust me, it's a bigger deal! So instead of drawing the curtains across our hearts and faces and hiding His glory from the world, I dare us to rip the veils in two, to open the windows, to throw back the shutters, and let the Holy Spirit pour out of us like a River of Light into all the world. See, the world will be so surprised, because they understand the idea of opening the windows and curtains to let light from the outside into a dark room ... but it's stunning when they see what we can do. We pull back the curtains and throw open the windows to let the Light from within into the dark and dying world! His glory is like a thousand suns for those who shined upon!

Through the Holy Spirit, who is very God of very God, we are in two places at once. We stand here, looking out of our eyes into the world. But in the Spirit, we are also in the heavenly places in Christ, able to worship in the very Throne Room of God, beholding Him with the eyes of our heart. The longer we behold Him, the more like Him we become, from Glory to Glory, transformed into the image of the One we Love. (It's like a photograph, the longer you set the exposure, the more light is absorbed by the film!) It's not enough to just revel in His presence. If we truly want more of Him, we have to open our hearts and let the rivers of living water flow out of us! Spring up Oh, Well, within my soul!

The whole earth longs for us to reveal His glory to them. We are like the stars in His heaven... shining light wherever He sends us. And we know the light is not our own, but we are lit within by the God who IS Light, and as we look into the face of Christ, we will begin to shine forth the knowledge of the Glory of God into the world... and the world will be touched by the Light.
In the words of Bebo Norman,
"Oh great Light of the world
Fill up my soul
I'm half a man here
So come make me whole
Oh great light of the world
Come to impart
The light of your grace...to fill up my heart."

The Greatest Story Ever Told

I've learned a few things recently that I ought to at least try to communicate. New understanding, new depths of revelation. Our God is a God of Light. He IS Light. Jesus is the Light of the world. He was with God in the beginning. When God spoke, "Let there be Light" He was saying, "Let it be known that there is Light, I am speaking and illuminating My creation, that they might see, and turn from darkness to Light." Our day and night cycle is a metaphor for coming out of the domain of darkness into His glorious Kingdom of Light. The sun and all the stars are merely a metaphor, a story, written for us to begin to understand the power and nature of our God. The Kingdom of heaven is far more real than the earth and stars and moon and sun. In a sense, our whole exsistence is being lived out in a 3-D interactive storybook in God's hands. What seems so very real to us, if we had the Eternal Perspective, would be seen as a simple metaphor, a parable, a lovestory in a book. A "type" or shadow of the real thing. God being God, and the Author and Finisher of our faith, He created us... but unlike other authors, He brought the characters in His story to life! He made us "real" and gave us real choices, and when we chose to bring death on ourselves because we believed the lie the serpent told, He still loved us so much that He sent His precious Son right into the story to rescue us all. (Isn't it odd, how satan, who was thrown down from heaven for trying to exalt himself to the level of God, came and tempted God's creation with the very same folly he had committed? He told Eve that by eating the fruit they could become like God...and the enemy of our souls is still deceiving people with the same old lie. Mormons believe they will become God of their own universe. The deep thinkers in the New Age movement actively teach each person to say, "I am God... I am God... I am GOD!" Even more subtly, the enemy tries to get us to think the universe revolves around us and "it's all about me!")
As God unfolded His great love story, He did something nobody expected, except Jesus, who was in on it from the beginning. The Father wanted to save us from our folly and our impending death - He didn't want His precious characters to cease to exist when He closed the book on this universe. So He did something radical. He gave us "forever" life... transforming us from fragile butterflys to Everlasting Beings, capable of living in His presence and loving at a magnificent degree, able to carry the weight of His glory into the Storybook that is our collective Epic, and when our short story ends, we find that He has made us able to move from the written pages of His book into the reality of the home He has prepared for us in His presence. We are like His jewels, His bright points of light, coming up from death into newness of life, partaking of HIS nature and becoming His children - He delights in us and all our delight is in Him! God is an amazing Author! He wrote the ONLY story ever written. All other stories, be they good or bad, are merely pale shadows of some small word or phrase found in His Story! We all have a chapter to write by living, and we are all part of the greater tale, interwoven in ways we may never know!

Veterans Day 2004

God Bless our Veterans, our Troops, and The United States of America!

"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." – John 15:13

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! ~~ Patrick Henry March 23, 1775

Many Blessings,
the daughter, grand daughter, and great-grand daughter of Disabled American Veterans who served in Vietnam, WW2, and WW1.

Verse of the Day, via Jessica

"Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom.”

Luke 12:32

Various and Sundry

Welcome back Blogger...
I've been MIA the last couple of weeks, but for a good reason. I had so much to process that I had to wait for some of it to "subside" so I could post coherently again. You might say that after a rather bounteous spiritual feast, I was overcome by the spiritual tryptophan and kicked back on the spiritual couch to watch spiritual football and recover (spiritually, that is!). It was definately a "thanks-giving" kind of meal!
The 202 class on Biblical intepretation of dreams and visions was beyond the pale. It was so good I don't even want to tell you how good it was. Suffice it to say I learned stuff I never knew I never knew! :) I know there's lots of stuff I don't know, but generally, I know I don't know it and have it catalogued to learn at some point in the future. It's a rare and wonderful thing to learn something you never knew you never knew! :) I'm very thankful for the teachers I've been given while living on this planet... wonderful, Godly men and women who've done so much more than pass on facts to me... they poured life and revelation and impartation into me. In the Bible, the spiritual gift of teacher (in Hebrew) is actually a word that means, "(one who) causes (others) to learn". Because of the loving kindess they've shown me over the years, I'd have to go even further and say they made me ABLE to learn! Isn't it wonderful when people walk according to their calling and according to the gifts of the Spirit that reside in them? Powerful stuff, folks. May we all learn to walk according to the upward call and by the Spirit.
We're so well-off... not only do we have wonderful, God-given teachers in our lives, but we also have the precious Holy Spirit, the ultimate Teacher who leads us into ALL truth! Jesus taught His disciples (and through the records of those days, He also taught us!). In the OT, we find a promise that all our children will be "taught of God". So it began, so it continues. We're all still teaching each other as well, encouraging and building each other up, sharing what we've been given from the vaults and store rooms of heaven!
All that to say, in essence, I'm grateful for how the Lord has provided such good teaching for us. I thankfully acknowledge that the Lord is good and faithful, and that I've been wonderfully "well-taught"! It's one of the many benefits of belonging to the Kingdom!
Here's my forecast...
In this next season, look for the Lord to restore the "signs and wonders" in the heavens... and a sense of awe to begin to pervade those who are Looking Up! Those who heed the call of heaven to "Come Up Here" will be given new revelation and bring back many of the secrets of the Kingdom to dispense on earth. Many will learn to walk under an open heaven in these days, causing the presence of God to come down and touch the earth. They will draw ever-wider circles around themselves as they go, and all who pass within their circumference will feel the effect of the Spirit of God coming into contact with them as believers grow up and grow strong in the Spirit. Many who have the "world-changer" calling will begin to walk into their destiny in the coming days, to the praise and glory of our Awesome GOD!
I also see increased warfare surrounding the church, with severe attacks coming from many directions. The good news is that the Lord has declared to His Bride, "You shall live, and not die!" and He will be faithful to deliver her from the hands of her enemy. In times of uncertainity, He will send good teachers to her, to give her refuge and direction. God is also releasing a large number of those with a supernatural gift of encouragement to the Bride, and to a lost and dying world. In this season God is also raising up special teachers for the children who will be able to impart to them the fullness of their destiny and inheritance. These teachers have been prepared by the Holy Spirit to receive these little ones in His name, to gather them in and breathe into them all that God has for them, so they can be released into the ministries to which they've been called.
Even so, Lord Jesus, quickly come! The Spirit and the Bride say Come!
(may God keep you in His tender care, 'till He brings us together again!)