Meri's Paintings

My husband's 40 Ford...painted in July 2013...on fiberboard mounted on green canvas...hangs in his shop

The very first painting I did...first acrylic and really first painting....hangs in Caldwell Idaho at my friends Niel and Diane's

The last painting I finished August 17 of my friend Joyce's barn out of Chehalis Washington. Hangs in her kitchen nicely framed.

Horsethief Reservoir  in Idaho up out of Cascade where I went fishing with my friend Niel and Diane over Labor Day 2012.

another view of the panseys

another view of the 40

Sunflowers I painted...this was the 3rd one I did...not an original as the sunflowers were in a painting book...but this is my rendition.

 

Sunflowers before they were finished.  The finished painting hangs at our friends Mike and Nancy's

Tuesday. ..Montana Response

This is a report from my trip to Montana this past week...

I want thank each of you who prayed and believed God as I traveled to Montana to a conference with the women from the  Dayspring Congregation in Sheridan Montana.  There were about 20 of us women that attended a retreat up in the mountains an hour or so out of Sheridan.  I think I mentioned that I really had no idea why I was going and when I went I really had no idea what Dayspring was, what the retreat was about,  Sue Funk who has been on my lists for a long time was the one who invited me to this conference. Now that women has vision of the love of God in a very special way and all but two of the women there were "her children"   and both of us were there because she "called"....invited.   She's a precious spiritual mother and has taught those in her care well. 

I left last Tuesday and returned this morning..Tuesday August 27th...16 hour bus ride each way. And it was a blessed bus ride and I thank the ones who prayed and those who spoke into this trip in special ways. 

If I were to summarize what the Lord said during this conference it would be the following as it relates to His body in general.  This group of women were mature women, grounded in the word and having walked with the Lord through many trials individually and corporately. Yet He made it clear that he wanted to "knit them together in Love."  During the three days together among these women there was NO cliques, I heard no back biting, no negative talking about any of the ladies and the ladies seem to be free to relate to one another.  Even though these ladies had lived in relationship with each other for years, this conference was inviting them to be spiritually knit together as the Spirit was moving and working in and through them.  This is a  practical outworking of the love of God deposited in them in Christ Jesus.

A second thing that was being said in this conference was that having experiences with God and from God isn't all God wants for his children.  He isn't satisfied and hopes we aren't satisfied with times in the Presence, times of refreshing. He is wanting us to live in His Presence...to be the refreshing, to be the River or Stream that makes glad the city of God and which flows even to the nations and waters the 12 trees that are healing year around.  He kept bringing forth words of  who He is...I AM....and if He is I AM and He is in the Father as the Father is in Him, and I am in Him as He is in the Father and He is in me as the Father is in him....then...I can walk daily by faith that the I AM is in and with me and All that He is 24/7.   Learning to walk in Him as He is in me, is the work that God is training his mature saints to walk in at this hour.  We carry Him wherever we go.  

 Andrew Murray wrote in ABIDE IN CHRIST, something that has come fresh to me.  WE ALWAYS ABIDE IN HIM.   Scripture says if anyone doesn't abide in him he is cast off.   We aren't cast off and we wont be, because we abide in Christ and Christ abides in me...............period..done..completed. Now...mature saints of God...so to speak...it is a matter of whether we BY FAITH will believe that that abiding was established  when Jesus went to be with the Father...did I not tell you there were many "abiding places, dwelling places, tabernacles"....that where I am you can be also..................IN CHRIST, Christ in me, the Father in me and I in the Father even as Jesus is in the Father...............secured once for all in the resurrection life. Either we will walk in what IS and Him who is I AM....or we deny the truth.  What is isn't seen but it is the reality of what is.  So when I abide, I by faith am trusting in the abiding place...where I AM...as it is in Heaven and proclaiming and walking in what IS in the heavenlies.  Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven.

A third thing that I learned once again is how faithful God is to perform His Word.  Over these three days I watched God raise up His word that He had given me by revelation (and written down) through his body...a piece here and a piece there and I had the privilege of tying those things God spoke through various ones in what HE had already spoken to me. When God said to do something, I watched as He performed what He said even when some in leadership didn't honor His word....those who had ears to hear did and obeyed the Word.  Learning for me, how He who speaks is able to perform..and does perform and we might even say has performed His work to completion. We just have the blessed privilege to walk it out!

This day and move that God is pouring out REQUIRES that we trust Him to bring forth that which He has said He has done and which the Word says..IT IS FINISHED.  The finished work of God is brought forth into this earthly realm as we are willing to step forth in faith believing He is who He says He is and did and accomplished what He said He did!!  How easy to twist that and say...I trust God to do what He says He will do.................but it is Finished..........we are called to walk in the completed work of Christ...who came to destroy the works of the devil.

It is time we begin to see that the Lord has stirred up his faith in us to believe what HE ACCOMPLISHED at the cross and what was done while Jesus sat down at the right hand of the father!! This isn't name it and claim it...it is speaking what is unseen as if it is seen...not saying what is seen isn't!! I truly believe that as we move into this time of God's revelation of Kingdom living, He is sending forth new expressions of teaching that will set people free in a way and give them foundation to walk on all at the same time IF we are willing to disciple people and trust the Holy Spirit to teach those that we disciple.  

In closing, I was sooooooooooooo thankful to come home to my little home here..(40' fifth wheel) and the flowers and safety that this little place has and its quietness....and the company of my precious husband.  When we got back Sunday morning from the retreat we got in the last 1/2 hour of the sermon of Dayspring congregation. At the end of it the wife of the retired pastor leaned over two pews to meet the kiss of her husband who was leaning over his pew to meet her. Oh how I longed for my husband's hug and kiss at that moment!   So our Father longs for us to enjoy His embrace....on an ongoing basis. I never doubted my husband's love and care for me while I was gone and I rested it in, but oh...how nice was his hug when I got off that bus after 17 hours of travelling.

May the word of the Lord be increased to you and in you to running over.

Meri

Thursday Musings August 29, 2013

The following quotation was on my Facebook this morning  and it stirred up something that I have been  seeing in many of God's precious people.

And Moses said unto Jehovah, Oh, Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant; for I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue. Exodus 4.10.

Knowing one's own uselessness alone is still useless. The important thing is to know the power of God. And this is true resurrection. God had wanted Moses to know that it was He who had made man's mouth. God tried to encourage Moses. "Oh, Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send" (Ex. 4.13). Moses again excused himself. When God heard this, He was angry with Moses. And why? Because even though it is of great importance and highly acceptable to God that we are brought to the place of no self-confidence and no self-reliance, nevertheless, if we stay there and refuse to go forward by trusting in God, we will greatly displease Him.

How we need to be careful lest we swing from one extreme to the other. God takes us through death in order to raise us up. Death is not the end, resurrection is the goal. We will be of no use if we remain in death and not come into resurrection.~Watchman Nee

Recently I heard someone say, I am nothing. Then they went on to say it was all God.  This is not what the scriptures say. Yes, it says we are clay/earthen vessels that the EXCELLENCY might be of God and not of ourselves.   Apart from Him, I have no purpose except destruction, to be used for purposes that do not bring glory to God.  BUT WE ARE NOT NOTHING!  

Another way we use words to express this error of our thinking is to say, " That wasn't me, that was God."   It was your mouth, your hands, your vocal chords, it was your body it came out of.   There are things I do not do. I don't heal people. God does and sometimes He choses to use that precious combination of Him and me which is unlike any other combination of human being and Him in the universe. That is our uniqueness and it is to be valued not diminished.

We are precious in the sight of the Lord. We have been bought and paid for by the blood of God's own beloved Son, Jesus Christ that we might be restored to fellowship/relationship with our Father and with the rest of His precious children.  Not only am I precious in the sight of the Lord but so are the rest of his human creations. So precious He has invited us to allow Him to share our lives with us by joining our spirits with His Spirit that we might...notice that word...we...might be filled up with His very nature, character, the very essence of Himself.

Fear of screwing up.....oh my friends, in Christ there is no condemnation. Guilt and shame have been eliminated by the fulfilling of the law. What you do and who you are no longer are defined by how well you performed, how you act, how you feel, how you think.  Instead, your identity and worth and value are not defined by the Body and Blood of Jesus shed for you and the Resurrection Life of God Himself available for you to live in and out of. That is our worth and value.  The only "fear" is the awesome reverence and awareness of the Life that is in Him and the awareness that apart from Him there is no life.

When I was preparing to go to Montana I had an increased awareness of the "fear of the Lord."  Two people ( including a prayer group)  prayed warrior angels over me as I travelled and a covering of protection also.  My awareness that how essential it was for me to have that protection of the Lord reminded me how awesome is that love for me least outside of it, apart from His total provision there is death and destruction.  I didn't "fear" death and destruction. I had the "holy reverence" for Himself and the hiding place that is in Him knowing it is Life and that that is what my heart desires not death and destruction.  That holy reverence, as some call fear, is a respect and awe for the preciousness of Life that is only in Him......knowing apart from him, is only death and destruction.

I am just learning these things afresh in this hour and seeing as never before how many of us have been stuck in our lack of worth and value, our "nothingness", our uselessness.   Years ago I was in a meeting and a guy kept preaching on "sin consciousness."  I may have mentioned this before. I didn't get it.  I am gaining insight into what it means today and the total uselessness of focusing on what I can't do, what I have done and failed at, how I haven't kept the law, the consequences of my failures, etc. My hopelessness and helplessness profit me nothing to focus on. They all come out of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The awareness of my limitation as a human being, my failures only press me down, UNLESS I see who He is, the Light of the World, the one who paid the price for all my shortcomings so that I might have HIS LIFE in me and His life becomes my life and restores my identity which was lost in Adam.  We are children of the Father, sons of the Kingdom, joint heirs with Christ.  We have a new identity in Christ Jesus.

I was blessed to share with sisters this past weekend, many of whom have a history of marriage not so different from my own, though most have a few less divorces. Even those who have remained married in very difficult situations are struggling with "WHO THEY ARE."  The truth of what has been spoken here in the paragraphs above has begun to penetrate the darkness of the life of those women that they might be raised up to know who they are in Christ in their marriages.  Like me,  though I loved the Lord, I didn't know who I was. I didn't lose my identity, I never had one and sought my identity through "service" to man, to congregations, to pastors, to my children.  Today's society uses that word which has been so misused rather dislike it, that word  "co-dependency."   I was fused to those I served, my identity being drawn from them, from my parents, from my children and today He is filling me up with my identity in Him and who He is in me. I am learning to live in that identity and relate to those precious ones in my life out of that identity.   Funny thing, when I begin to walk out who Christ is in me and who I am in Christ, I see those people in my life that I related to so very differently.   I learn new words, am still learning how to fill my mouth with words of graciousness towards people who may not be so gracious towards me and those whose behaviors in the past facilitated my lack of worth and value out of their own empty hearts.

Time to go to the laundromat....just another place in my circumstances to live out my life as a precious called and chosen daughter of the King among others who may or may not know how valued they are or know what their worth is to the King of Kings unless I live it before them!

Meri