A Revelation from the LORD
Currently my church gals and I are going through the Living Proof Ministry's study on Revelation; Here and Now...There and Then. Part of the study is continually praying for a fresh revelation from the LORD. Well, I got one yesterday! I wanted to share with you how God has been leading me in my time with Him, how Satan has tried to distract me and how ultimately God's light has broken through, a new day is in its beginning. I am excited to see where this new day takes me.
As you may recall if you have been around the last couple months, God has brought to my attention Rahab, Boaz and Ruth. I am intrigued by their lives, choices they made, perceptions they may have had, what their lives were like and how God viewed them and brought their lives to a place of bringing Him glory. Can you imagine a prostitute and her family being the only people God saw fit to save of an entire people? Can you imagine what it was like for her son to grow up seeing his mom, a foreigner married to an Israelite father and how her life turned out, how she may have been treated, her own unique views on God? Can you imagine a mixed blood man, wealthy, but mixed seeking a wife. Can you imagine him being honored to have Ruth, a foreigner herself, choose him? The kind of man he was and the two women in his life? Was Rahab alive to sit down and have tea with Ruth? Did they share experiences? I hope someday to get all these answers.
What answer I have received here is that none of these three were what we would say is "The right stuff". God doesn't often go after those kind of people. He goes for the ones with rough edges, in need of him. Well, that's all of us and the only "Right stuff" was Jesus.
In this Revelation study it appears that John has it all together. I can tell you, I relate very little to John. While all the others ran away, John was there with Jesus' mom at the cross. He always seemed to have things grasped. Even in the end he seemed to have it together. I doubt he always did, but to me it has appeared that way.
I rarely have it all together and want so badly too. I relate more to Peter. The Peter who was the one that seemed to always miss the point, over zealous, over excited, the one Jesus said "Get behind me Satan" too. I relate to that. I often feel that way.
Lately I've felt like I am constantly letting God down. Like what I do isn't good enough. Satan had my head in quite a self doubt jumble. I find myself more often at that bonfire than I do at the foot of the cross.
I poured my heart out to the LORD about this yesterday morning. I want so badly to relate more to John, but its Peter that my heart resembles. I told God that even if I never receive a revelation like John, I don't want it to be because I'm incapable of receiving it.
Last night I opened up Oswald Chamber's My Utmost for His Highest. Here is the daily devotion that finally opened my eyes. It is no coincidence it was about Peter. God is just awesome like that.
He said to him the third time, "...do you love Me?" John 21:17
Have you ever felt the pain, inflicted by the Lord, at the very center of your being, deep down in the most sensitive area of your life? The devil never inflicts pain there, and neither can sin nor human emotions. Nothing can cut through to that part of our being but the Word of God. "Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, 'Do you love me?'" Yet he was awakened to the fact that at the center of his personal life he was devoted to Jesus. And then he began to see what Jesus' patient questioning meant. There was not the slightest bit of doubt left in Peter's mind; he could never be deceived again. And there was no need for an impassioned response; no need for immediate action or an emotional display. It was a revelation to him to realize how much he did love the Lord, and with amazement he simple said, "Lord, You know all things..." Peter began to see how very much he did love Jesus, and there was no need to say, "look at this or that as proof of my love." Peter was beginning to discover within himself just how much he really did love the Lord. He discovered that his eyes were so fixed on Jesus Christ that he saw no one else in heaven above or on the earth below. but he did not know it until the probing, hurting questions of the Lord were asked. The Lord's questions always reveal the true me to myself.
Oh, the wonder of the patient directness and skill of Jesus Christ with Peter! Our Lord never asks questions until the perfect time. Rarely, but probably once in each of our lives, He will back us into a corner where He will hurt us with his piercing questions. Then we will realize that we do love Him far more deeply than our words can ever say. ~ March 2
I have felt the pain of these questions the last couple months feeling so inadequate to properly show God that I really do love Him as if in asking me, He needed to know the answer. I've perceived all my Christian life that I must in actions prove that I love Jesus and that there is the possibility that in ceasing to show it with my actions, Jesus would cease to believe that I did.
Oh how in this new day as a new light begins to shine, I simply do at the very core of me, love Jesus. There isn't an action that could rightly convey it and no proof that needs to be presented. I love Jesus. Its that simply. Jesus let Peter know it and He let Peter know there on that shoreline as they walked that He knew it as well. He knew it when Peter was walking with Him, on the water with Him and when he was rejecting Him. He knew it even then. Now Peter knows. Now I am beginning to know.
Like a new day beginning to receive God's light, so am I. Its a journey and I am thankful to be walking it with Jesus. I'm thankful I can share it with you.
As you may recall if you have been around the last couple months, God has brought to my attention Rahab, Boaz and Ruth. I am intrigued by their lives, choices they made, perceptions they may have had, what their lives were like and how God viewed them and brought their lives to a place of bringing Him glory. Can you imagine a prostitute and her family being the only people God saw fit to save of an entire people? Can you imagine what it was like for her son to grow up seeing his mom, a foreigner married to an Israelite father and how her life turned out, how she may have been treated, her own unique views on God? Can you imagine a mixed blood man, wealthy, but mixed seeking a wife. Can you imagine him being honored to have Ruth, a foreigner herself, choose him? The kind of man he was and the two women in his life? Was Rahab alive to sit down and have tea with Ruth? Did they share experiences? I hope someday to get all these answers.
What answer I have received here is that none of these three were what we would say is "The right stuff". God doesn't often go after those kind of people. He goes for the ones with rough edges, in need of him. Well, that's all of us and the only "Right stuff" was Jesus.
In this Revelation study it appears that John has it all together. I can tell you, I relate very little to John. While all the others ran away, John was there with Jesus' mom at the cross. He always seemed to have things grasped. Even in the end he seemed to have it together. I doubt he always did, but to me it has appeared that way.
I rarely have it all together and want so badly too. I relate more to Peter. The Peter who was the one that seemed to always miss the point, over zealous, over excited, the one Jesus said "Get behind me Satan" too. I relate to that. I often feel that way.
Lately I've felt like I am constantly letting God down. Like what I do isn't good enough. Satan had my head in quite a self doubt jumble. I find myself more often at that bonfire than I do at the foot of the cross.
I poured my heart out to the LORD about this yesterday morning. I want so badly to relate more to John, but its Peter that my heart resembles. I told God that even if I never receive a revelation like John, I don't want it to be because I'm incapable of receiving it.
Last night I opened up Oswald Chamber's My Utmost for His Highest. Here is the daily devotion that finally opened my eyes. It is no coincidence it was about Peter. God is just awesome like that.
He said to him the third time, "...do you love Me?" John 21:17
Have you ever felt the pain, inflicted by the Lord, at the very center of your being, deep down in the most sensitive area of your life? The devil never inflicts pain there, and neither can sin nor human emotions. Nothing can cut through to that part of our being but the Word of God. "Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, 'Do you love me?'" Yet he was awakened to the fact that at the center of his personal life he was devoted to Jesus. And then he began to see what Jesus' patient questioning meant. There was not the slightest bit of doubt left in Peter's mind; he could never be deceived again. And there was no need for an impassioned response; no need for immediate action or an emotional display. It was a revelation to him to realize how much he did love the Lord, and with amazement he simple said, "Lord, You know all things..." Peter began to see how very much he did love Jesus, and there was no need to say, "look at this or that as proof of my love." Peter was beginning to discover within himself just how much he really did love the Lord. He discovered that his eyes were so fixed on Jesus Christ that he saw no one else in heaven above or on the earth below. but he did not know it until the probing, hurting questions of the Lord were asked. The Lord's questions always reveal the true me to myself.
Oh, the wonder of the patient directness and skill of Jesus Christ with Peter! Our Lord never asks questions until the perfect time. Rarely, but probably once in each of our lives, He will back us into a corner where He will hurt us with his piercing questions. Then we will realize that we do love Him far more deeply than our words can ever say. ~ March 2
I have felt the pain of these questions the last couple months feeling so inadequate to properly show God that I really do love Him as if in asking me, He needed to know the answer. I've perceived all my Christian life that I must in actions prove that I love Jesus and that there is the possibility that in ceasing to show it with my actions, Jesus would cease to believe that I did.
Oh how in this new day as a new light begins to shine, I simply do at the very core of me, love Jesus. There isn't an action that could rightly convey it and no proof that needs to be presented. I love Jesus. Its that simply. Jesus let Peter know it and He let Peter know there on that shoreline as they walked that He knew it as well. He knew it when Peter was walking with Him, on the water with Him and when he was rejecting Him. He knew it even then. Now Peter knows. Now I am beginning to know.
Like a new day beginning to receive God's light, so am I. Its a journey and I am thankful to be walking it with Jesus. I'm thankful I can share it with you.
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