Halfhearted Attempt At Wholehearted Devotion

Can God use this blog post to further His kingdom?  Yes.

Should I be concerned about publishing this particular post, since it contains what appear to be disjointed story fragments (not ready for publication)?  No.

Am I concerned...a little.  Wait, No!

The rough drafts of too many #parallelable posts are sitting on the backside of my blog...(wait, who's blog?)...that is, God's blog.  And it's time to unleash the inspiration, as it was shared and worry about piecing them together as the Spirit leads.

So, without further ado...

Scripture:

1 Chronicles 28:9-10New International Version (NIV)

9 “And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every desire and every thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever. 10 Consider now, for the Lord has chosen you to build a house as the sanctuary. Be strong and do the work.”

and

Psalm 139:16 

"Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in Your book all the days (of my life) were written before ever they took shape, when as yet there was none of them."

Showered by Grace

Joyce Meyer's devotion stated:

"Be determined to follow His lead all day, and you will enjoy every day of your life." 

In Brandt's devotion, which cited Hosea 5:15 - 6:6, he mentioned that:

"God allows us to stray from Him, hoping that we will return to Him. If it requires, He will allow us to suffer the consequences of our chosen sins."

In the shower, the Spirit instructed:

""You can turn Your back on God, but I am still there. God desires a whole heart, without lustful indulgences.""

Post shower: Holden had head butted MK as she was trying to give him a hug. (Lesson in itself)

While Wendi was telling Holden "we don't head butt" and MK was attempting to describe (to Wendi) what had happened in detail...I heard Sly and the Family Stone's "I want to thank you for letting me be myself, again (ignoring Sly's preferred spelling for simplicity's sake) " coming from the radio in the living room.  I don't think it was coincidence.

We cannot fully love God with personal gratification on our minds and in our hearts.

Question:

In fact, shortly after I asked God to show me the things in my heart that were keeping me from receiving His full glory, and He gave me the revelation in the shower, I was eager to get out of the shower to write down what I had heard so that I could share it later on the blog. Was this a "grab and run" attitude?

I was telling myself that I needed to write it down ASAP so that I would not forget it (and in order to tell it exactly as it was received).

But, how quick are we to depart from the place where we received God's glory, after we receive it?
That is not the loving relationship that God desires.

Answer:  

This "wham bam thank you ma'am" approach to serving God ends up being more about serving ourselves. And it is the answer I was seeking.

That is what is crowding my heart...the eagerness to write for God is at best crowding and at worst countering my ACTUAL effectiveness at serving Him.

Meanwhile, MK is struggling with yelling at Holden when he does things that she thinks are being overlooked by us (the parents) or that he is not hearing.

She was playing cars with him, while Wendi was in the living room with them. Holden did something(?), and MK began exclaiming with crescendo, "Holdie, HOldie, HOLdie, HOLDIe, HOLDIE!" In rapid succession.

Wendi has been trying to break her of the habit, and once again explained,"OK, when has standing there yelling at him ever gotten you anywhere?"

I'm sure there is a correlation in that.  Am I merely saying things out loud (on this blog) because I think there are things that we (myself included) are not hearing from God?  Or worse, am I saying them out loud in order to make sure God sees me trying to do the right thing?

Either way, it's the wrong motivation.

God wants us to draw near to Him, and stay there.  He doesn't want us head butting him as he reaches out to give us a hug.  He doesn't want us grabbing a blessing, and dashing off on our way to tell everyone about it. And come to think of it, He probably doesn't want me telling you what He wants and doesn't want.

Going Forward:

When will we learn that we cannot do anything to win God's favor?  His unconditional love is ever-present, and we need only to turn to Him in humility and gratitude.

Thanks be to God for this continuing revelation.

Amen

Captive Audience

Romans 15:4 (NIV) 

"4 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope."

Question:  

After reading the first six chapters of Isaiah, I noticed the Lord gave Isaiah prophetic visions of Judah and Jerusalem's dire need for repentance, as well as warnings against them if they didn't turn from their ways.  The Lord did this before he called Isaiah.  Yet, Isaiah enthusiastically responded.

You showed Isaiah many serious visions of a rebellious Judah and Jerusalem before you called him. My calling to simply reveal the wisdom you have shared with me in a blog, thankfully pales in comparison. Why is that?


Answer:

"People need teaching at all levels.

You are speaking to a captive audience.

They know their destinies because I have shown them their destiny.

They simply need encouragement to become mature so that they can fulfill their calling, and be able to receive even higher callings as they mature."

After hearing this, I re-read that day's devotion from Brandt, which contained this nugget:

"Our great God may not tap each of us on the shoulder and beckon us to specific tasks or arenas of service.  If we are attuned to Him, however; if we abide daily in His presence, we can overhear Him calling out:  "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?"  And we can be assured that He waits on us for our individual responses."  

                                                                             -Leslie F. Brandt from Meditations on a Loving God

Going Forward:

I intend to rely on the power of God's Word, and to simply relay His words.  Further, I will attempt to refrain from mere embellishment for the sake of filling out a post.

It's important for me to realize that I can neither add to nor detract from the message that He wants those who are seeking Him to hear.

With that said, I pray that the Holy Spirit will be diligent in the delivery of this seemingly simple, but strikingly poignant revelation.  And I thank God for entrusting me with this task. 

Empty Canvas In A Room Full Of Paint

Scripture:

Acts 17:24-28 (NIV)   

²⁴ “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. ²⁵ And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. ²⁶ From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. ²⁷ God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ²⁸ ‘For in him we live and move and have our being. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

Question:  In seeking to more fully live out God's will for our lives, we are often distracted by seemingly worthy endeavors that actually seem to fit with daily Christian living. For example, spending time learning more about God, instead of on things we think we should be doing.  How do we prioritize one worthy endeavor over another?

Answer:  We aren't serving man...we are serving the Lord.

When we seek to serve the Lord more fully, we should consider ourselves an empty canvas.  God is the master painter.  All of our talents and abilities are merely paints situated all around the room.  We don't have command of the paint, such that we can order it upon the canvas of our lives.  God is the painter.  He determines the picture of our lives.  And the talents and abilities He's blessed us with, are at his disposal...not ours.

At any given moment, we should not (because we don't have the authority to) prioritize those things that are not presently in line with God's will or that get in the way of what God would have us do in serving Him. We should not become too confident in our abilities or what we can provide for people. Instead, our confidence should lie in the fact that the Lord is allowing us to do these things. 

      

Charles Stanley said, "...if you walk ahead of God, you will walk out of his will".

God is the one orchestrating which paints get applied to the canvas.  He is the artist, we are His art.  We are simply the painting. 

When our time on earth is done, and we have been given the opportunity to fully serve our purpose, our lives should reflect God's artful creation...his design.  Others should be able to look at our lives, and recognize them as masterpieces of God's glory.

Going forward:  I'm going to attempt to forget about my abilities.  I will try to forget about my architectural abilities, my writing abilities, my gift of encouraging others, and everything else that I frequently take inventory of, in an attempt to determine how I might utilize them in serving God more fully.  Instead, I will be ready to use what God has blessed me with, in the exact moment that He places me in.  

We are what God causes us to become and no more.  In thinking we are more than what God causes us to become, we are not allowing God to bless us with life more fully through Him.

So, let's place our confidence in God, and not in what he has provided us.