Monday, February 16, 2015

Living In Light Of Eternity

We are blessed to share this post from another sister in the Lord...
The Holy One calls to me this morning.  Temporal life is about to change and with it the need to adapt is pressing down.  Temporal life as we know it never ends well.  As hard as we try to avoid it: from dust we came and to dust we will return.  Gen 3:19

Physical death is the end of temporal life no matter how we live it.  It has been that way since the very beginning with two exceptions that we are told about in the Word of God: Enoch and Elijah. These were the two exceptions and their lives are the model for those of us who believe in the rapture (sudden taking up) of the Body of Christ when the Lord returns for His own.

Not knowing the day or time of that epic event on our earth calendar, we will be wise to live out each day as if it could be today..  Both of these men lived in Old Testament times but since our God is a precedent setting and honoring Sovereign, we can be sure that their lives and translation out of this reality has significance to us today. 

If nothing else the thought of a sudden evacuation out of planet earth should have an impact on how we live our temporal lives in light of eternity.  For me this means to see the events here with eyes on the long range of Heavenly purpose.

Paul exhorts us over and over to get our temporal lives in a bag so we can focus on the much more of the Kingdom of Heaven and God's purpose in what He allows to transform us. 

2 Corinth 4:16-17, "Therefore we do not lose heart though we are outwardly wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what his seen but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal."

Make no mistake the Lord is preparing us for life post this earth.  There is a way to live out our days here in light of eternity and I, for one, want to live that way.  Since everything that makes up this realm materially will be turned into ash one day, the focus then must be on the only thing that will survive the burn and that is our relationships.  We will not enter into eternity with things but we will enter in with people.

As a believer in Christ Jesus who is God and Savior, my relationship with Him is the top priority.  Nurturing that relationship requires time and commitment.  Then comes the relationship with others in my life and maintaining the bond that connects us heart-to-heart is made easier with the eternal mindset since time and geography can interrupt the dearest ones in earth. 

Knowing we will be together for eternity makes the distance not seem so critical and for those I love who may not have grasped the truth about eternity, it makes the time we have together here vital for sharing the love of the Father with them.

Having lost my temporal husband of 31 years to the rigors of a wasting disease, I know the loss here.  The eternal perspective of reunion is a sweet blessing and also a lesson for the struggles we had in our earthly relationship.

The Holy One speaks to the eternal, "Aren't you excited to know that the next time you see him , it will be without the cloud of sin?"

My thoughts cascade like a waterfall down into a sweet pool of God's truth.  I now see that all of our relational problems did boil down to the sin nature that will not affect our eternal relationship.  As believers the temporal pressures of life can play havoc with our relationships even as we embrace the same Lord.  But with an eternal perspective things can look different here.

From an eternal perspective we can see how unfit we are in our flesh for our next and permanent destination point.  We cannot begin to grasp what the Lord has waiting for His people, but I believe that what we are going through here has a impact on what we will be doing there.  How we will rule and reign with Christ in His Kingdom of Heaven is being determined by how we submit to His rule within our hearts here on earth. 

Living out each situation in light of eternity, knowing that our choices and decisions and the management of those things is going to impact our future should be a challenge to find the way that pleases the One we will spend eternity with.  Seizing each opportunity and trusting the long range of God's Divine purpose makes for a very different lifestyle than just getting through each day.

If the temporal things we see and experience here on earth are all there is, discouragement can run high and our reactions stoop low. If the temporal life is all there is then throwing in the towel is a very viable options when the going gets tough. Temporal perspective makes no sense because it has no good end: all die and everything turns to dust.

However, in light of eternity all things make perfect sense:  God has a Kingdom, it is called Heaven. God has opened up His Kingdom to all who would care to enter in.  His Kingdom operates on principles of Holiness and Divine order and there is only one way in.  Jesus is the doorway to the Kingdom of Heaven.  One must believe in Him as the doorway or there can be no entrance.   All of us enter in on the same footing and that is faith in the life, death and then resurrection of Christ.

There is no place or room in Heaven for rebellion as Heaven is a peaceful place in a Divine structure and order not like the chaos of this earth.   Any who would come must leave their flesh baggage and all it's contention for self exaltation at the foot of the Cross. The Kingdom of Heaven is a paradise for those who, while unique and different in personality, are one in unity with each other and the Lord by the power of the Holy Spirit. The earth realm is where we must decide where we will spend eternity. 

The Lord is calling out to each one of us to get ready here for what He has waiting for us there.  I am so thankful for the Holy Spirit in my life.   Just when I get bogged down by the temporal He reminds me of the eternal.  I see things as I should: In light of eternity.  Now it all makes sense.

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?

Shared with permission, thespiritiscalling.blogspot.com

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Testimony from Masindi

Recently, at a conference in Masindi at Family Empowerment Ministries, Jill shared with the sisters a radical testimony of the powerful fruit of walking in simple trust in the Word. 

A sister from the refugee camp where she lived got radically saved. When she went home her husband was furious. She prayed and God led her to practice  1 Peter 3:1-6. 

One day her husband threatened her, "If you go to hear a Bible study again I will beat you!" The day came for her women's study and she prepared her house and left to listen.

When she returned she found her husband true to his threat, he beat her smugly believing that would be the end of the matter. The following week to his surprise, she went again and resolved herself that it was worth even another beating. In exasperation, this husband plotted an even more aggressive threat. He was sure this one would stop her forever from going to learn about Jesus Christ....

"I have decided to take a beautiful young women from this village as my wife," he jeered, "and you must not only wash the bedroom and prepare clean new linens for us, I will collect her from her father's home and bring her to you. You will bathe, perfume, and make her look beautiful for me. Then I expect you to present her in all that glory to me!" 

She bowed her head in agreement...no doubt pleading in prayer for strength as you or I would have to do....

The wedding day came, and he watched her every move, expecting at any moment she would confront him in some way, but nothing happened. Quietly, yet lovingly, she fulfilled his every command without so much as a cross word. When he saw the room prepared more beautifully than she ever had, the warm water with its aromatic perfume, and her perfect peace as he marched in the bride to be, he stopped dead in his tracks. 

First he ordered the girl to be taken home, then he fell to his knees before his wife and said, "What must I do to be saved by this Jesus!" Today they live together for the glory of God.

Jill challenged the women to live drenched in His supernatural love. "Never consider that you are hidden away in this remote little village...so was she, but as I have shared this story and others I know have repeated it, it's been celebrated all over the world!" Jill exhorted them as they exploded in applause to the Lord.

We never know the great things God can do as we surrender and obey...one of my favorite pastors said that when we learn to a link your impotence to His omnipotence, the most ordinary and mundane becomes a living picture of the miraculous. This world we live in has lost it's hope in a love like that....maybe God has chosen you for such a time as this...Those precious sisters part of Family Empowerment Ministries were willing to believe God could do exceedingly abundantly more in them...can you do the same?

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Grace is...

 Grace is an inflated raft that can submerge to the floor of a sea to save you.

 Grace is the silver thread that stitches up the shreds of mangled souls.

 Grace is the eye that finds us where it refuses, there, to leave us.

 Grace calls the waitress to the table and sits her down to wash her feet.

 Grace sees underneath the manhole on a street of self-destruction.

 Grace is the air to draw a breath in the belly of a whale.

 Grace is the courage to stand in the shamed wake of a frightful falling.

 Grace is the only fire hot enough to burn down a living hell.

 Grace waits with healing in His wings when we’re too mad to pray.

 Grace is the gravity that pulls us from depravity.

 Grace races us to the Throne when we make haste to repent 
          And always outruns us.

 Grace treats us like we already are what we fear we’ll never become.

 Grace is the doorpost dripping red when the angel of death grips the knob.

 Grace is the stamp that says Ransomed on a life that screams Ruined.

 Grace sets a table before me in the presence of my enemy 
          Even when my enemy is me.

 Grace is the cloak that covers the naked and the palm that drops the rock.

 Grace is divine power burgeoning in the absence of all strength.

 Grace proves God true and every self-made man a liar for the sake of his own soul.

 Grace is the power to do what we cannot do for the Name of Christ 
         To go where it has not been.

Grace is a room of a thousand mirrors, all reflecting the face of Christ.

Grace is…
The eye popping
Knee dropping

Earth quaking
Pride breaking

Dark stabbing
Heart grabbing

Friend mending
Mind bending

Lame walking
Mute taking

Slave freeing
Devil fleeing

Death tolling
Stone rolling

Veil tearing
Glory flaring

Chin lifting
Sin sifting

Dirt bleaching
World reaching

Past covering
Spirit hovering

Child defending
Happy ending

Heaven glancing
Feet dancing…

Power of the Cross.


Jesus Christ, Grace Incarnate.

Copyright 2013 Beth Moore

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

To Reach Those He So Desperately Loves

 
“Let my hands perform His bidding,
 Let my feet run in His ways;
 Let mine eyes see Jesus only;
 Let my lips speak forth His praise.
 All for Jesus! 
 All my being’s ransomed pow’rs;
 All my thoughts and words 
 And doings,
 All my days and all my hours.”

Time is so short! We need to give the little we have to Jesus!  Please take a moment and listen for what the Spirit is saying in this 7 minute podcast by Leonard Ravenhill. 

Wes & Vicky Bentley


Thursday, September 12, 2013



TRUE prayer is only another name for the love of God. Its excellence does not consist in the multitude of our words; for our Father knoweth what things we have need of before we ask Him. The true prayer is that of the heart, and the heart prays only for what it desires. To pray, then is to desire — but to desire what God would have us desire. He, who asks what he does not from the bottom of his heart desire, is mistaken in thinking that he prays. Oswald Chambers

May every breath we take be saturated with prayer to the Glory of His Grace!