Ephesians 1:4-6

My house church just finished a study for the children on Praise. It actually had some really good things for us adults as well. So last night we had decided to do a quick study on the Armor of God until we decided what to do next. The study last night really had a lot of good discussion with the adults and with the kids (I'll share some in the upcoming days!). We are finally starting to figure out how to do our "adult" time as a church while involving the kids as well. It is amazing how much everyone, adults & children, are growing closer to the Lord.

We decided we are now going to go through all of Ephesians - one chapter a week. We will all read it and come with our notes/thoughts to discuss. One adult each week will go through the chapter as well to look for discussion items to involve the children. I'm so excited!

Last night I started reading through Epehsians 1 and verses 4 - 6 really jumped out at me. I wanted to share that with you today.

4For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
(Ephesians 1:4-6, NIV)

I'm going through a study right now on the Song of Solomon and I'm starting to finally get in my heart how the Lord really feels about me, how much He really loves me. This may be why this verse jumped out to me. We all remember the verse about the Lord knowing us when we were in our mother's womb (Psalm 71:6), but the verse in Ephesians tells us that the Lord not only has loved us since we were conceived, but even before the world was created!

Think about this and personalize it to you. The Lord loved me and wanted me to be holy and blameless in His sight even before He created the world! He wanted me to be a child of His even before He made the earth and all that is in it! What an amazing love.

Then it says he took pleasure in planning this. Even before He created the world He loved me, thought of me and made a plan to redeem me because of His love for me and He took pleasure in doing all of this. I am NOT a burden to the Lord - He takes pleasure in me just the way I am now. Not in how I will be after His process with me is finished (that is what He is enjoying planning for me). He took/takes pleasure in me when I was/am at my lowest!

For me that is a huge revelation. I think without realizing it I had a always seen myself as a burden to God. When I read this last night it finally hit me - God was telling me that when He does things for me He is not doing it because He feels He is obligated to do so because that is what His Word says, but because He really enjoys it and wants to do it for me!

I looked these verses up on Biblegatway in various translations. I love the way it is worded in The Message:

3-6 How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He's the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before he laid down earth's foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son.

(Ephesians 1:3-6, The Message)

I love how this says we were the focus of his love and that He wants us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving. When you personalize this and realize this is how the Lord feels about you, regardless of where you are at right now - that is beyond what we can imagine! Just know the Lord really does Love you more than you could ever imagine and there is nothing you have to do to earn it. He is pursuing you and lavishes His amazing love on you. Doesn't that just make you want to love and serve Him so much more!

19We love Him because He first loved us.

(1 John 4:19, NKJV)

Eyes of our Heart

God gave me something recently that keeps coming to mind periodically as I go through my day. It is a great encouragement to me and I wanted to share it with all of you, in case it could be the same for you.

God gave me this while I was reading the second chapter in The Final Quest. In his vision, Rick Joyner has been standing in the Garden of the Lord, he has ate from the Tree of Life and has been worshiping God. Then he is being told he needs to leave the garden to go out and bring the Good News of Jesus to others. He is saddened to leave the garden, but an angel named Wisdom tells him that this place and the presence of Jesus lives in his heart.

Then Wisdom released me and started to walk toward the gate. I followed with ambivalence. I remembered the exhilaration of the battle and the climb up the mountain, and it was compelling, but there was no comparison to the presence of the Lord and the worship I had just experienced. Leaving this would be the greatest sacrifice I had ever made. Then I remembered how it was all inside of me and was amazed that I could forget this so quickly. It was like there was a great battle raging within me, between what I saw with my physical eyes and what I saw with my heart.

(The Final Quest, by Rick Joyner)

After reading this the Lord gave me a vision of me walking down a wide asphalt road. On each side of the road I could see bright lights flashing and hear loud music and laughter. So many distractions beckoning me to leave the wide dark road I walking down. It reminded me a lot of Las Vegas. It was so hard to concentrate on the road ahead which was so cold and dark when I could see so many things on each side of me that looked so fun. But then I heard the Lord's quiet voice speak to me, telling me to stop looking at the world through my physical eyes. He told me to close my eyes and look at the world the way He saw it, to see it through the eyes of my heart.

So I shut my eyes and immediately all the distractions on each side of me when quiet and dark. I still has a sense of them being there, but they were dark and fuzzy, they held no pleasure for me. I realized all of a sudden that the reality I thought I knew was not the true reality. It was a fake that was all made up on the outside but on the inside was hollow and empty.

Then I noticed in front of me there were what looked like stepping stones in the middle of the road. These began to glow with an inner light. They were beautiful. I noticed though that they were not very large, just big enough for me to put a foot on. The Lord whispered to me that the path was really much more narrow than I had originally thought and that the only way to stay on the path was to follow Him - to see "reality" through the eyes of my heart, not with my physical eyes.

Now when I start to get tempted by the things of this world or start to feel overwhelmed by the things of this world, this vision comes to mind. That is not to say that I don't sometimes let the distractions of this world sway me. I'm human just like everyone else and I fall. (And it has only been about a week since He gave me this and already I have fallen, more than once!) But eventually I do hear God's whisper and He draws me back onto the path. He wants to guide us back to the path and guide us down it, but we have to give Him permission. He will stay by us waiting for us to ask Him to take us back, but He won't just pick us up and bodily drag us there. He will pick us up and set us back on the path if we ask Him to though.

Song of Solomon Study

As many of you may know from my previous posts - I've been on a journey recently to better understand God's love for me. The Word says we love Him because He first loved us. I know how much He loves me in my head. But at times that is all it is, just head knowledge.

I want to get it in my heart. I want to truly understand that He loves me no matter what I have or have not done. That does not give me an excuse for not reading my Bible, not praying, etc. However, I have trouble truly understanding that His love for me is not dependent on these things. Therefore, I live with shame and condemnation a lot.

Last week I started a study at RHOP on the Song of Solomon and I am so excited (and a bit scared!) about this. Last week while listening to the woman leading this study I started to "get it". I started to feel it in my heart, but without realizing it I would start to throw up a wall. It is a habit and it was causing a struggle in me through the whole lesson. Part of me wants to have the heart knowledge of how my Lord feels towards me, but part of me feels the need to protect myself. I know it is crazy but old habits and ways of thinking are hard to break.

I believe it is no mistake that the woman leading this had to postpone it from November to now. Right now this study and this understanding of how much the Lord loves me and cherishes me means more than ever before. God's timing is perfect.

So, if any of this is pulling at something in your heart. If you think this is something the Lord is also wanting to reveal to you, please join me. RHOP is making the handouts and the lessons available online. You can listen to the podcasts using iTunes (which is free - iTunes).

RHOP Podcasts (and handouts)

Song of Songs - Session 1
Bridal Paradigm Introduction Handout
Song of Songs Overview Notes
Discovering God's Heart - Session 1 Notes

I also have the RHOP podcast feed on my sidebar so you can see when the new sessions are posted.

Prayer for President Bush in Israel

Please keep President Bush in your prayers over the next few days as he visits Israel and then other locations in the Middle East. There have been threats made against our leader and we need to cover him in prayer.

Below is an email I received from Joni Ames today regarding this:

******

Dear Friends,

Let's all release extra prayer for the safety of President & Mrs. Bush while they are in the Middle East this week. There have been severe threats made on their lives, per all of the news media sources. It would also be good to break the power of word curses spoken about them - even the "prophecies" some have made that there would be assassination attempts. We do not want to come into agreement with such a thing. Rather, in prayer, cancel and take authority over that thing.

During the next few days, President & Mrs. Bush will travel to Israel, the West Bank, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt from January 9-16, 2008.

Below is his detailed itinerary as specified by National Security Advisor, Stephen Hadley:

January 9 - 10 Tel Aviv and the West Bank, Meeting with Israeli President Peres and Prime Minister Olmert, Meeting with Palestinian President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad

January 11 Meeting with Tony Blair

January 12 Visit with U.S. Troops at Camp Arifjan, Meeting with Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus

January 13 Visit with U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet, Meeting with President Khalifa in the United Arab Emirates, followed by a speech he will give in Abu Dhabi

January 14 Meeting with ruler of Dubai, Meeting with King Abdullah of Saudia Arabia

January 15 Meetings in Riyadh

January 16 Meeting with President Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt

Then, of course, pray for safe travel home.

Blessings,
Joni Ames

Huckabee's answer re: Evolution

I have to say the more I see of this candidate the more I like him. This is a click where Mike Huckabee responds to a question that is asked of him regarding whether or not he believes in evolution. I thought he did a great job of answering the question. What do you think?



If you are interested in learning more about this Mike Huckabee visit his site. It has alot of good information regarding where he stands on issues.

Where are we in the Army?

I've started reading a book called The Final Quest by Rick Joyner. The first chapter is called The Hordes of Hell are Marching. In it Rick describes a dream/vision God gave him about the army of the Enemy. The first part of the chapter he describes the army of the Enemy and the rest of the chapter he describes the army of the Lord and the beginning of the fight between these two armies.

What is interesting is how Christians figure into the army of the enemy. Demons such as Rejection, Bitterness, Lust, etc are actually riding into battle on Christians and these Christians do not even realize it. Then behind the main army he describes little demons called Fear that are guarding prisoners. These prisoners are Christians who are marching along dejected and above them are flying vultures who are Depression who vomit on the prisoners. The really sad thing is these prisoners still have their weapons with them and could kill the little demons and vultures guarding them, but they actually think these things are messengers of God and believe they are marching in the army of the Lord, not the enemy.

Then he runs to the army of the Lord and sees Christians, many of whom do not have all their armor on, or in some cases have no armor at all. Many are wounded and are not bothering to cover their wounds with armor to protect them. Behind this army are more Christians who are frolicking and have no idea what is going on. When someone says something about the impending war they laugh and say the Lord would never let anything like that happen and they ignore the reality of what is happening around them.

Then the enemy attacks and their arrows of Accusation, Gossip, Slander & Faultfinding rain down on the army of the Lord. The vultures of depression come in and start taking away the wounded to become prisoners in the army of the enemy.

Later in the chapter he describes the army of the Lord going to the Mountain of the Lord and climbing levels while fighting the enemy. The angels of Faith, Hope & Love encourage them and they grow stronger. He talks of the weapons of the Lord to be found on the different levels and about putting their swords (the Word of God) into the ground and tying themselves to it in order to anchor themselves while they shoot arrows down on the enemy.

I found this whole chapter so very interesting and it spoke to me quite a bit. I could see that the things he was describing are happening in our world. We just don't see it because we are so distracted by this world, we forget there is a spiritual world that is very active. It influences our lives whether we recognize it exists or not.

I also found myself throughout the chapter wondering which part of the army I was? Am I part of the army of the enemy being ridden by demons? Am I one of the prisoners being dragged down by depression, thinking that I'm marching with the Lord? Am I one of the individuals in the army of the Lord that is not fully armored and is already wounded and not trying to protect myself or allowing God to heal me?

This is just the first chapter of this short book. I'm going to read this first chapter again prior to continuing on. I've also started praying that the Lord will reveal to me where I am in these two armies. I'm praying He'll open my eyes to where I am and what I need to do in order to ensure I am part of the Lord's army and climbing His Mountain.