From My Vantage Point looking out my window.....Meri Ford August 13, 2015
"For we are not, as so many, peddling the word of God; but as of sincerity, but as from God, we speak in the sight of God in Christ" (2 Cor. 2:17).
Another translation puts it...”we speak in the presence of God......”
This jogged my attention this morning. And got me to thinking of the recent David Orton piece that discussed the difference between the prophet and the prophetic minister saying something like the latter share a word from God, and the prophet speaks the word of God.
As NT Christians indwelt with the presence of God, when we speak, we truly speak in God's presence whether we realize it or not. What an awesome awareness or reality! Lately as I have traveled I have not been praying for God to be with me, etc. Rather I have been thanking Him for being there and for the angels which are there ministering “to the heirs of salvation.” As I learn to live in the Presence I see things differently.
This whole sense of what is real as Christ lives in us and we live in Him is changing so many of the ways I see things. Healing is seen in a whole different perspective as is so many other aspects of “life in Christ.” If I live in Christ and he lives in me, where is healing? I am gaining a fresh insight into Sabbath Rest! Learning to live daily on earth knowing Christ who is not just my healer but my healing and my health lives in me and I live in Him, my focus begins to be to rest in Him, to trust Him to be all that He is in and through me.
Some call this kind of thinking “kingdom thinking”....and it does seem to line up to that kind of definition as one learns to walk out day by day what is the reality it in the Heavens and learn to rule and reign here on earth in and out of the reality of who Christ is in me and who I am in Christ.
Someone shared a dream some time back a in which the man saw a man standing before God begging him for His blessings. God seemed to be ignoring the beggar as he pleaded with God for what he was wanting God to do for him. Then in walked what appeared to be a soldier in full dress uniform and weapons. He was greeted by the Lord and give orders to take the beggar out and kill him. The man observing this asked God why he had the beggar killed and God replied. There are no beggars in my kingdom. All that I have is given you.
Learning to not just mentally assent to my status as a son of the King, but learning to actually rest in the King and allow his life and power, wisdom and counsel to flow through me is somewhat of a new part of my journey with the Lord.
I've been following the saga of little Justus' fight for life at Children's Hospital in Portland through Pray for Justus #TeamJustus.(Pray For Justus #TeamJustus) I have literally read posts of those who write saying they are begging God for healing for Justus! My heart cringes and I weep realizing so many of us don't know yet the generosity of our Father. My heart has broken in prayer groups when I hear the beggar's cry from those who are so wanting the blessings of God's love in some way that they don't have. Almost as sad was hearing others affirm those beggar prayers as their own! I won't say much more other than I am just learning to walk in the security of His love and don't often see much “flow” of His supernatural nature “out of my own life” into situations. Granted I don't always “see” what is happening when I speak/pray into situations and rarely have those holy shivers that some have indicating God's Spirit is mightily at work. But in increasing manner I am learning to “let” God as I focus on things that I trust He's brought into my awareness that He is working in. Letting God often means a conscious focus on resting in Him and releasing who He is into a given situation sometimes by words but often just by total resting in Himself...knowing HE IS there.
I sit in services in congregations and am learning just how wonderful it is to be together with those who name the name of Jesus. That half don't really believe that God is among us, so what? I can rejoice that HE IS among us, that he is there and I don't have to plead or do some religious mechanics or sing so many worship songs to get Holy Spirit to be present. Yes, I may have to do some heart work to quiet myself so as to become aware that HE is there and to allow Him to not just “be there” but be in me all He is and to be in the midst of His people all he is.” And my “prophetic” nature can easily see everything that isn't what I think it ought to be rather than it can see what “Is”....and HE IS!!! In my current “assignment” I have been sent to a place to rest in Him and allow Him to be in the congregation what He wants to be. My focus is just on Him. Yes, it means sometimes seeing things that are out of alignment, but He sees them too and He has said He is at work, so I can truly rest in Him knowing He's told me He's in charge and He is doing what He wants to do as I rest in Him!! And that is the labor that I am expected to do...to labor to rest in him, casting down every thought (and as a prophetic I really have lots and mostly critical ones...grin!) that exalts itself before the throne of God...before what God wants and is doing in that place!!!
Where does this fit with “ask and keep on asking, knock and keep on knocking and it will be opened unto you?” Somehow I think this has more to do with our seeking Himself than “getting him to answer our prayers.” At the same time, I see my God doing stuff because of the generosity of His heart and not because we are in any “right order”. Does that change the fact that He's at work to bring us into maturity as His sons in Christ Jesus? I am reminded here that in various stages of our journey with Christ as we are being conformed to His image, God deals with us in different ways. Things I did when first filled with Holy Spirit in 1970s He will not find acceptable today. And He didn't expect me to do things I know He is doing today back in the 1970s.
As I read the many prayers for little Justus, I remember we are all in different stages of this journey. And there are “mature three year olds” and mature teen agers and then there are mature adults. I don't expect a mature three year old to be a mature adult! He is still at three year old!! But mature adults no longer act like three year olds. When I became a man a put away childish things. I can be conformed to His image as a three year old as well as a 70 year old.....doesn't mean I am perfected or you wouldn't see me still hanging around earth's corridors.
So as God looks at his body he surely sees us in the “stages of growth” that we are in. And He knows just what measure of Christ each is given to be conformed/filled with. (Thanks Mario Liu for that article on Stages of Growth!)
At the same time, my heart longs for us to begin to come together in new ways as members of His body, learning to allow Him to be and do through us what only He can do. How often we want Him to do something “separate” from his body. And sometimes it seems that he does...or does he only work where someone has gone before and prayed...maybe a grandmother or great aunt, or maybe someone prayed in the spirit in China for something God wanted to do in little Justus' life in Portland Oregon?
Part of this means learning what it is God is doing and what he wants to accomplish in a given situation versus what our human hearts long to see done.
From my vantage point looking out my window..........
Meri Ford
August 13, 2015
