Walking Through the Gate

“The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out” John 10:20-3.

This morning as I was thinking about the different things to which God has called me I find it interesting that I am where I never dreamed I would be. I had always thought that I would end up in some type of formal women’s ministries like my grandmother. In many ways I am as I counsel in areas of grief, parenting and various challenges. But as I prayed for God to lead me into His plans for my life He opened the gate for On Eagles Wings, a ministry dedicated to the rescue and restoration of young victims of sex trafficking. I never saw it coming as I roamed the spiritual mountainside looking for the gate to the ministry in which I believed I would serve. The Watchman had other plans.  As I was trying to climb over the fence of one ministry He motioned for me to come over to the gate entering On Eagles Wings Ministry. It was very clear that I was to walk through that gate and get involved with that organization. It has been a wonderful experience and I have learned much about faith from their founder. I am still bumbling around in that field for I am new to the cause and feel very undereducated. It seems that God always calls me to things of which I know the least.

Every one of us was created with a purpose…a ministry…a gate to enter and receive our own congregation. Whether your congregation is your family, your vocation or your blog followers God has called you to have a spiritual voice. The people with whom God has surrounded us have been chosen to be in our lives for us to encourage, impact and share our testimonies. Our spiritual pastures provide opportunities of teaching and seasons of learning. We must enter through the gate that God chooses for that is where our success will lie. The pasture may be empty while God is preparing us but we can be confident that He will lead the sheep in once He has developed us. We were created for service and have been called for purpose in the kingdom work of God.

As the Watchman motions you to come over to the gate of His choosing, keep your eyes focused on Him, move faithfully towards the gate and enter His calling. He will show you the way and the pasture will one day be filled with the sheep that look to you for spiritual impact.

God has a perfect plan for every one of us. Pray for guidance and expect direction.

Shouldering Stones

“…take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan…Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder…to serve as a sign among you…These stones are to be a memorial to the people…forever.  For the LORD your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over.” Joshua 4:2-23

The drying up of the Jordan River is one of the most well-known miracles that God performed.  It was such a visible miracle there was no denying it.  Can you imagine standing on the bank of a vast body of water knowing you had to cross?  Many of us are as we hang up that life changing phone call.  Many of us are as we realize we may never have children.  Many of us are as we say our goodbyes to our loved ones.  Suddenly, the water begins to churn and violently moves as a separation begins to form exposing the bottom of those waters.  You look to heaven and there is no doubting that God’s hand is in this activity.  You know that Someone larger than life is orchestrating your walk.  Although the water has been divided the walk is still muddy.  But you realize that you are going to have to walk…you must cross…there is no other path but through the muddy but dried up circumstances.

The Israelites had no choice but to walk…to cross…to trust and believe in the One who was instructed them.  Once they were on the other side…and there will be another side…God instructed the Israelites to pick up twelve stones.  The command was to carry it on their shoulders to memorialize their walk.  He didn’t bring them out of the dried up journey empty handed, but provided tangible stones to carry into their new land. 

Do you find yourself crossing over in territory that has been dried up financially, emotionally, or even spiritually?  Is the walk muddy with fear, insecurity or sadness?  We have a stone, a Cornerstone, who we can carry on our shoulders when things are dried up.  ‘…built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself, as the chief cornerstone’ Ephesians 2:20.  Not only will we emerge on the other side with Christ, but we will have visible rewards from our experience.  When we carry Christ with us when crossing over our difficult circumstances, He will provide us with the essential ‘stones’ from the riverbed.  We will recognize these stones throughout the remaining days on earth as spiritual markers, those moments intimately and sacredly shared between the Creator and the created…the Father and the child…the Deliverer and the delivered.

Walking in Prosperity

“The LORD was with Joseph and he prospered…” Genesis 39:2.

I decided to read up on the whole concept of prosperity since that seems to be the world’s motivation.  There is nothing greater in our society than the illusion of self-made success.  The Bible is clear that in the spiritual realm things either come to us from the evil kingdom or the spiritual kingdom…either from Satan or from God.  You can bet your bottom dollar that when we strive and toil to prosper ourselves and fund our own lives it does not come from God.  True biblical prosperity is always God-given, God-purposed and God-driven.  The definition of biblical prosperity is the blessed state of having the resource and ability to accomplish God’s will.  Nowhere in the biblical definition of prosperity is it about us other than how it is powered through intimacy with Him.  God always calls us into relationship first, and out of the overflow of that relationship come favor and prosperity. 

‘Just as Jesus called John to “come, follow Me,” so your calling as a Christian is to follow Jesus wherever He leads you.  Your job is simply an expression of God’s current activity in your life.  Your jobs have no eternal significance in and of themselves; they are vehicles of God’s eternal purposes when you are rightly relating to Him’ Experiencing God, p. 70.  When one job is complete it is because God's focus and activity in your life has shifted.  Joseph went from shepherd, to warden assistant, to supervisor, and then to administrator over everything.  God built these opportunities like bricks in a foundation out of the overflow of fellowship, purpose and future work for the kingdom.  For us to become prosperous we must become surrendered.  For us to gain the favor of God we must be motivated by our intimacy with God.  For us to grab hold of our future opportunities from God we must let go of the former ones.

Every bit of favor or blessings on our lives come from the Lord, who calls us…pursues us… adores us and invites us to join Him.  When we turn away from empty pursuits of prosperity, seek His heart and take His hand, we turn our backs on the world.  We follow Him in truth and righteousness for His name's sake and His glory.  We take on new compassion for things that break His heart, and give mercy in places we never have before.  Through our relationship and intimacy with God we live in a blessed state with the resources and abilities to accomplish God's will...true biblical prosperity.

 

'Misfortune pursues the sinner, but prosperity is the reward of the righteous.' Proverbs 13:21

 

Considering God

“Consider what God has done:  Who can straighten what he has made crooked?  When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider:  God has made the one as well as the other…Do not be in a hurry to leave the king’s presence…Whoever obeys his command will come to no harm, and the wise heart will know the proper time and procedure.  For there is a proper time and procedure for every matter, though a man’s misery weighs heavily upon him.” Eccl 6:9-8:6.

There are few people I know who will beam and speak of God’s blessings during tough times.  Most of these experiences are reserved when things are going well…financial success…obedient children… wonderful marriages…good health.  But these are not the things that spiritual growth is made of.  Spiritual growth comes in the tension of the crooked path…times when the bank account is empty…time when parents lay awake at night wondering where their child is…times when the prognosis is grim.  The one thing adversity has in common is the desire to get out from under it as quickly as possible.

‘Do not hurry to leave the king’s presence…’ It is true that God has more of our attention in the rough and rocky times.  When times are good our walk is easy and straight ahead, but when life is filled with challenges…those crooked paths…we look for detours.  The crooked paths are gifts from God for they are times when He raises His scepter, inviting us into the throne room.  The crooked paths are made to slow us down and linger in His presence.  They are only seasons while they feel like eternity.  They are filled with raw emotions that force us to ‘reach out and touch His hem.’ They are times when we are prone to focus on His past goodness and faithfulness to steady us in the present.  So when your straight path becomes crooked, acknowledge that He is in it…do not rush through it, but linger…tell your heart that the path is temporary and there is an end to every season.

Only God can straighten what has been made crooked.  Trust in Him, rest in His presence and consider what all God has done.

Our Master Tailor

“See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain” Hebrews 8:5. 

When I was a little girl we frequently visited my grandparents.  I can remember there was a room off of their garage that was filled with Grandmother’s sewing materials.  There were boxes of patterns, and open patterns which laid out in disjoined pieces on the countertop.  The patterns were made of very thin paper with markings along the edges where pins would be placed to secure that piece to the material.  She would hold a pattern up to my arm and pin it to the material if it was the right size.  This would continue with my chest, my back and my other arm until she was satisfied with the fit of each individual piece.  I would look at the different fabrics she had and would choose which material I wanted my clothing to be.  We would leave and the next time we returned I was always amazed at how those individual pieces of pattern turned into my beautiful garment.

We have a master Tailor who sees the finished garment of our lives.  He allows us to choose certain things according to our desires.  He is constantly working on different areas of our lives, pinning this circumstance to this area and cutting that circumstance in that area.  He has the master pattern of our lives and orchestrates the design that will produce the most beautiful spiritual garment if we will allow Him.  I remember as I would get fidgety Grandmother would lovingly look me in the eyes and gently encourage me to be still.  She would say that this fitting would not take long but the stillness was extremely important to get it right.  I think of those words as I consider being in a season where I must be still.  I must allow God to carefully work out the details of the pattern so that He can bring about the end result He has in mind.  Then one day when I least expect it, I’ll look up and the beautiful work will be finished.  He will slip my robe of righteousness around my shoulders as He walks with me on the streets of gold.

Please be encouraged this morning that we have a Father who has the pattern for each of us.  He fits each piece perfectly together, running His perfect threads throughout our life.  We must stand still in certain seasons and other seasons He tells us to go play while He does the work.  We can be confident that as we are living out our lives, He is putting together our eternity.

Star Gazing

“Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever." -Daniel 12:3

Daniel was only a teenager when his world was turned upside down.  One day he was enjoying praising and freely worshipping God, interrupted by a day of captivity enmeshed in a pagan world.  He had many of the same temptations that each of us face daily, but did not succumb to any of them.  These are critical spiritual principles which can help us maneuver through this pagan world that we face.  He refused to defile himself with the royal food…the food of the world.  He refused to take on the mentality of the pagan way…stayed focused on God.  He stayed surrounded by friends who also loved and lived for God…did not make friendships of the world. Most importantly, Daniel did not bow down to the world’s systems.  What an incredible legacy that still shines brightly like the stars in the sky.

When I get to the end of my life I would love to believe that my legacy will leave a lasting and shining impact on the world. I have been blessed with family members whose lives shone in such a wise and righteous way.  They provided the example of leading a righteous life centered in Christ, the Brightness of Heaven Himself.  The Bible teaches that those who lead flesh lives are considered fools in the eyes of God, but those who walk in the ways of the Lord are wise.  The lives of my family members who have gone before me twinkle and shine whenever I think of them.  The impact of their hands in Kingdom work still bears fruit today.  The sky, in its vastness, has room for all of our legacies to twinkle and shine, lighting the way for others.  In order for our legacy to shine bright after we depart this temporal world, we must follow the principles of Daniel and those champion Christians whom have gone before us.  In the spirit of gratitude for all of those ‘stars’ who have left a legacy for me I share one of the sweetest poems ever penned.  Thank you to all of those people whose spiritual walk on earth still shines the way for this little girl.

     Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
     How I wonder what you are.
     Up above the world so high,
     Like a diamond in the sky.

     As your bright and tiny spark,
     Lights the traveler in the dark.
     Though I know not what you are,
     Twinkle, twinkle, little star

     Then the traveler in the dark,
     Thanks you for your tiny spark,
     He could not see which way to go,
     If you did not twinkle so.

Never to Be the Same

“During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them…When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified.  ‘It’s a ghost,’ they said, and cried out in fear… ‘Lord, if it’s you,’ Peter replied…Then Peter…came towards Jesus…But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’” Matthew 14:25-30

The disciples had just experienced the feeding of 5,000 and the miraculous way in which Jesus had dealt with the crowds.  Desiring private prayer time, Jesus commanded the disciples to get in their boat and go on ahead to the other side.  As the storm grew in intensity the disciples worked harder and harder at the oars to gain control over their circumstances.  Scripture doesn’t say that they were fearful of the storm for they had battled many as fishermen.  They became terrified when they saw an apparition on the water.  Peter, the only one who recognized Jesus, walked out his baby faith and joined Jesus on the water.  With only momentary success, he took His eyes off Jesus and began to sink.  As Peter continued to follow the teachings and miracles of Jesus he continued to grow in his faith.  He would be tested many times and would experience things that would change his heart forever.   After the death and resurrection of Jesus his faith was forever changed.  Imprisoned and bound for execution, Peter experienced another apparition. ‘Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared…Peter followed him…but thought he was seeing a vision.  Then Peter…said ‘Now I know without a doubt that the Lord sent his angel and rescued me’ Acts 12:7-11.  When we see Peter’s faith at the beginning of his walk with Jesus compared to his faith after the departure of Jesus there is no comparison.  Peter would never be the same after getting to know the Savior …and neither should we.

Once we are in love with Christ and have experienced His power we should expect miraculous sightings and His messengers to attend to us.  We should never be the same after being rescued from the storm and carried by Jesus back into the boat.  We cannot respond to grown up sufferings with baby faith.  God places our circumstances in relation to our level of faith to grow us into spiritually mature Christians.  When God originally pursues us He doesn’t see us as people with little faith in a boat…He sees us as His people with the potential to be full of courage and boldness walking out His message.  He treats us as the people He knows we can become instead of the people we think we are. ‘When Jesus met Peter, He saw beyond what Peter was like at that moment to what he could become by the transforming work of the Spirit of God… Christ loves you and is determined to make you reach your full potential as a Spirit-filled child of God’ Experiencing God, p. 48.  Without the fierce storms and the paralyzing circumstances of life we could never become the people God intended.  It is through our battles and God’s victories that we become all that God intended us to be in Christ.

‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me’ Phil 4:13