It seems like the battle that we are up against is the ever increasing pressure to conform to standards, definitions and values that are contrary to God, His Word and His Spirit.  The struggle robs our peace, our confidence, our focus and leaves us entangled in battles that is not ours to fight. We either get into the battle that is none-of-our-business like King Josiah did, or we fight the legitimate battles in the flesh, in the way that is not our business to be.

Return to Your First Love

We can never do God's work in our own strength and our own way. Moses missed going into the promised land because of doing this. We cannot get our heads, hearts and hands into that which we were not given by God to get into. It is so easy to get wrapped up in what is surrounding us, but it is not impossible to rise above it. Daniel did, Esther did.

How do we keep from getting baited into the net of mediocre pursuits that steal our time and energy and resources? We spend time with God. We pursue His presence. We return to our first love. We lay aside all ideas, teachings, affronts, offenses and high mindedness and share time and space with God.

I heard a preacher say that it takes TIME and TRUTH in God's presence to build an intimate relationship with Him. This is true. You cannot say that you love God and desire His will in and for your life if you never give of what we all have to give to Him. Where is God's time? When do you set aside a few minutes, an hour or two, a day, just to be with Him?

And then when you are finding those minutes, hours or day to be with Him, are you still your conceded self? Do you even know how to be honest with God? It always amaze me when I find myself trying to whitewash my thoughts and actions before God. He knows the truth. The question is whether or not we are brave enough to admit to it. It is only when I can in truth go to God about an issue that He intervenes. When I am self-deceived and hide behind the fig-leave of my own understanding, I may as well go fishing. The Psalmist write that God desires truth in the inward parts. 

O that all the pressure, all the filth, all the danger, hate, war and junk around us will squeeze us back to our first love. Maybe when we find in Him a friend so dear, maybe when we re-discover what a sweet, sweet presence He really is, maybe then will we rise above the murky, cesspool of circumstances, politics and evil that surrounds us.

The Question

The question is so simple yet so profound:

“Have you received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?”

 It can be put this way: “Have you received Jesus and surrendered your life to Him?”

Or this way: “Have you committed to serve Jesus Christ and Him only, turning your back on self, satan and sin?”

The question makes some folks uncomfortable because they do not know how to answer it.

A simple “no” maybe the truest answer but then there will be the next question: “Why not?” and that one is not always so easy to explain.

A simple “yes” may also solicit a follow up question like: “Tell me about it. Did it happen on a specific date and time?” And some may not want to answer this either since there was no date or time. They just stumbled into religion and church. They learned the language, the terminology and can do the social aspect of it with the best of church-folks. Yet, they never had a day or a time when they actually made a commitment to serve God through Jesus Christ. These are the folks that imagine that one can get married by moving in together and calling yourselves husband and wife though you never actually had a day when you said your “I do” ‘s.

Let’s get back to the “no” answer. The question “Why not?” can honestly be answered by saying one of the flowing:

“I like my life as it is and I think God is unnecessary”

Or “I am enjoying all the stuff that I do and bringing God and Jesus into it will just take all my fun away. God is a real party poop.”

Or “I really do not have time for God”

Or “I do not believe in a God”

Maybe there are a few more heated responses from people who reckon that God owes them something or that He is somehow to blame for some or all the awful things people bring upon themselves.

There are a third group of people who can honestly say:”I don’t know?” They just have never considered this or have gone to church all their lives and never really heard the full gospel.

None of these answers to THE QUESTION is wrong. It is an honest response, a true response. And in that is hope. There are so many lies surrounding us. The truth, just by itself is already some sort of victory.

The best response would be something like this:  “Yes. I received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I gave my life to Him. He is the dearest friend I have. I cannot imagine my life without Him. He holds my heart. I talk with Him day and night. His love, His kindness has helped me through many dark days and because I know, that I know, that I know that He loves me, this life makes sense to me. And yes, there was a day and a place when I made a commitment to serve God through Jesus Christ forever. There was a day when I said goodbye to satan, sin and self. And no, that does not mean that I never sinned after that or were selfish or pestered by satan. It does mean that I stopped pursuing them and instead pursue God through Jesus Christ by the power of His Spirit, to the best of my ability.”

What is a Christian?

I am sure there are 365 definitions and about half of it contradictory.
But what does the Bible define it as? Acts 11:26 says that other people called the disciples of Jesus Christ: Christians. 

So, in its most basic, narrowest definition it means to be a disciple, follower, student, of Jesus Christ. Disciple is a disciplined learner, someone who accepts, propagate and live the teachings of the Master.
This is a bit narrow but so be it.
May we get back to this definition and for the rest; call yourselves believers or religious or spiritual or whatever term works for you.

Someone wrote an article about the great falling away that the Bible predicts for the end times. I may sound harsh but I wish they would fall away and get it done with. Really!! Would you rather have a big picking crate with apples of which about half is bruised, rotting and no good or a small basket with about 5 pounds of excellent, healthy, good apples?  

When Moses led Israel out of Egypt and through the wilderness, it was the mixed multitude who instigated the rebellion. It was the ones who was not truly Jews. They had no commitment. They were in it for the ride, for what is in it for them.

In the name of Jesus Christ people do all sorts of crazy, weird, criminal and wicked things. Then they pull a sheet over it and call it "Christian". Well, I for one am tired of it. If you call yourself a Christian, then live like a disciple of Jesus Christ. Live the Book. Stop with all this un-christian lifestyles and become a true disciple of Jesus Christ. 

Becoming a Christian means that there is a life exchange happening. You lay your life down for Jesus Christ and He lives in and through you. You do not belong to yourself anymore. Much like a traditional marriage where you, till death, swear allegiance to one another. You are one for better or worse. Your commitment, your covenant rules your life. You cannot just live for yourself anymore. You belong to another. This is what happens when one say: "I do" to Jesus. You become His and He becomes yours.

What He loves and focus on, also becomes your love and focus. How He thinks and behaves also becomes your thinking and behavior. His pleasure and desires becomes your pleasure and desires. You spend lots and lots of time, energy and money on Him and cannot adore Him enough. He fills your sleeping, eating and waking hours. He becomes most important to you, more important than any person, political view, hobby, entertainment, sport, tradition, country or whatever people idolize these days.

If this is too tall of an order for you, then go away. Go call yourself something else. And do not group yourself with those who are truly Christians.

Jesus Christ is the door. There is no other way to union with God. To wade through the debris and brambles, I need more light. More light, more understanding.

My job is to be a bridge, an evangelist, a reconciler of God and men(mankind). So in order to do this, I need to understand the Divine Intention - God in Christ reconciling the world (all of humanity) to Himself.

John 10:18 Authority comes from a commandment, an injunction. Authority is never unattached. It is always given for a purpose and that is connected to an order or job. This authority I received...to do this or that. Jesus said in Matthew 28:18-19: All authority in Heaven and Earth has been given to ME,.... going then, make disciples. His authority is also our authority to make disciples etc. In this we operate in His authority.

God and Time

In the beginning God spoke everything into existence. The first thing on earth He spoke into existence was Light.  This first day was NOT a day like our 24 hour day since the sun, moon and stars from where we get our day, month, year and seasons were only created on the fourth “day”. Since He created light and separated it from the darkness and called the light “day” and the darkness “night” it is safe to conclude that a “day” is a period of light that is bookended by darkness. It comes out of darkness and when light is no longer there it is night. Notice that darkness was there. It was never created. Light was created and separated from darkness and it was called “Day”.

Genesis 1:3 God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light".

Since our human perception of time is days, months, seasons and years, since we live in hours and have calibrated our lives as such, God deals with us in these constraints. He promised Abram a son in a year’s time. He speaks of three days until the resurrection. Yet we would be mistaken to squeeze God into our perception of time. He created time and for this reason as a start cannot be constrained by it. We cannot limit God by time.

Time is relative to this physical universe. It is one of the seven fundamental physical quantities in the International System of Units. Time is used to define other quantities — such as velocity — so defining time in terms of such quantities would result in circularity of definition. [Base Quantities are those quantities on the basics of which other quantities can be expressed. The seven base quantities of the International System of Quantities (ISQ) are: 1. Length, 2. Time, 3. Mass, 4. Temperature, 5. Amount of substance or number of moles. 6. Electric current and 7. Luminous intensity]

A year is the amount of time it takes the earth to circle the sun once. A month is the amount of time it takes for the moon to circle around the earth and a full 24 hour day is the amount of time it takes for the earth to rotate on its own axle. Earth time is for these reasons related to the Sun and Moon.

Earth is split up into a number of time zones. Most time zones are exactly one hour apart, and by convention compute their local time as an offset from UTC or GMT. Yet, God is in each and every zone, all at the same time. What does this mean? It means that I in America, my family in Afrika, my family in New Zealand, my brother in Istanbul, friends in Greece, Israel and Thailand can all pray at the same time to a God who is there. He is always there. And that brings us to the tapestry of the marriage between time and space. How God relates to space we will attempt to deal with later. Psalms 139

Time-keeping is coordinated at an international level. The basis for scientific time is a continuous count of seconds based on atomic clocks around the world, known as the International Atomic Time (TAI). Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is an older standard, adopted starting with British railways in 1847. Using telescopes instead of atomic clocks, GMT was calibrated to the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich in the UK.

Time has historically been closely related with space, the two together merging into space time in Einstein's special relativity and general relativity. According to these theories, the concept of time depends on the spatial reference frame of the observer and the human perception as well as the measurement by instruments such as clocks, are different for observers in relative motion.

In general, the Judeo-Christian concept, based on the Bible, is that time is linear, beginning with the act of creation by God. The general Christian view is that time will end with the end of the sun, moon and earth. Time appears to have a direction – the past lies behind, while the future lies ahead. For the most part the laws of physics do not specify an arrow of time, and allow any process to proceeds both forward and in reverse. The direction of the arrow of time is sometimes arbitrary. The Bible teaches that God is the same, yesterday, today and forever. (Heb 13:8) This can be easily understood if we view God as outside of and greater than time itself.

God is the eternal God. He is the great “I AM” existing in the eternal present. Since He is outside of time, He is in all time at the same time. He is yesterday, today and tomorrow all at the same time. The Bible says that a day is like a thousand years to God and a thousand years like a day. It speaks of time as appointed time, opportune time, time of life, time as a specific time, time as an occurrence, time as a beginning and end, and many more concepts. And in them all is God.  There is no time that God is not in. There is no place that He cannot be. Neither does time affect Him like it does us. God does not get old.

Understanding God as ever-present, ever in the now but also in the future and past gives an understanding of otherwise hard to understand theological concepts:

Such as predestination: If God is in the past, present and future all at the same time He can know the future before it happens and because of this have foreknowledge. Knowing that we will choose to believe in Him, He predestines us.

We can understand how the blood of Jesus shed more than 2000 years ago can still heal and safe and deliver because God in the eternal now, sees the crucifixion at the very moment He sees you and I.

We can understand how God can call those things which are not as though they are because He sees it already done. He can tell us the future since He is already there.

Simplistically explained, it is as a human viewing an ant’s progression and being able to see where it came from, where it is and where it is going all at once.

Time is relative to our being. God relates to time different than humans do. Remember how He stopped time for Moses and Israel and turned it back for Hezekiah. God is very much in control of time and outside of time.

The eternal day that lays ahead for us as believers, day since there will be no night, will initiate us into God’s concept of time. Then we will be as He is, complete in our transformation, into His image, one with Him.

Law vs. Grace

It seems like the “free grace” vs “works of law” war is as old as Christianity itself. Jude wrote about “ungodly persons who pervert the grace of God(v4) into lawlessness, wantonness, immorality”. Here in our own United States, in Boston a great battle was fought about this very issue. In Boston during the 1640‘s the feud heated up so much that the courts stepped in and banned some people from the colony. There seem to be a misconception of grace and its application as well as an ignorance of the law and its purpose.

The question that begs to be answered is: Does the grace of God erase all law - Moses, moral or otherwise? Or does it enable us to obey a higher law, a law of love, light and honor?

It might be that the real problem is a general ignorance of the person and attributes of God. Understanding grace and law cannot happen aside from a true understanding of Theology – the study of God. Understanding the attributes of God helps us to comprehend His kingdom, His actions.

Understanding God’s relationship to time and space makes it easier to see prophecy, election, salvation, redemption and judgment. It is in the light of God’s eternity, His ever presence, that we can begin to fathom the effect of an event that happened almost 2000 years ago, in our timeline, on our existence.

Our real problem is not so much the comprehension of any doctrine but in our misconception of who and what God is.

A lack of the teaching and preaching of pure theology may account for this. During much of the first thirty nine books of the Bible we see these words: “That you may know…Me” by God. He acts over and over again to reveal Himself through His actions. And then Jesus says emphatically: “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.” We seem to worship, or proclaim to worship someone whom we do not really know.

The controversy is not really about law and grace but about a relationship to and with a being that exists in a realm unlike our own. We are battling about doctrines we only half grasp and miss the greater duty of knowing God. In our pursuit of God we may find that we have been wrestling about the wrapping paper while ignoring the gift. We possibly have been debating the violin while being deaf to the symphony or arguing about the heat while being blind to the fire.

As we read the Bible; let us ask ourselves these questions:

What does this portion tells me about God?

How does it apply to my life in the here and now?

Obey Afraid

Judges 6

For 7 years, Israel (the people of God) are suffering under the hand, the rule, the abuse of Midian (strife) and their compadre, their ally Amalek ( dwellers in the valley, those from below, Esau’s descendants, the brother who did NOT value his gifts and sold it for a pot of soup.) Israel (the People of God) hides in caves and strongholds in the mountains. They seem to be powerless and all they can do is, hide. They lost some of their identity, suffering from a national inferiority complex.

Whenever the People of God sow seed, Strife and Valley Dwellers attack and destroy the crop. This left no nourishment for the People of God, wasted the land and impoverished the People of God.

AND THEY CRIED TO THE LORD.  

There was nothing they could do about the situation. They had not one ounce of courage left. Their oppression was so severe that they could not resist or throw off this yoke of slavery. But they cried out to the Lord.

Then the word of the Lord came by a prophet who said to them: The Lord says: I brought you out of Egypt (a type of sin ) from the house of bondage. I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians (house of bondage) and out of the hand of all those who oppressed you and gave you their land, their inheritance. And I (the Lord) said to you: I am the Lord your God; Fear not the gods of the Amorites ( the sayers: the biggest tribe in Canaan and often used to mean all of Canaan) in whose land you dwell.  BUT YOU HAVE NOT OBEYED MY VOICE.

Disobedience always has consequences. We often disobey God, neglect His word and His covenant and then are at a loss for why we are receiving the reward of our behavior. This answers the “WHY?”

Now THE ANGEL OF THE LORD CAME. A visitation, a Divine revelation happens. This Angel of the Lord shows up 58 times in scripture. It is always the result of Divine Intervention.  The first time was in Genesis 16:7. Some believe that this is the Old Testament form of Jesus Christ (pre-incarnate Christ)

The Angel of the Lord shows up under a tree, terebinth or turpentine tree at Ophrah ( meaning: fawn) of Joash (given by the Lord) the Abiezrite (My Father is help).  Joash ( given by the Lord) has a son Gideon (Hewer, cutter, chopper) who was hiding in a winepress to beat out a little grain. A winepress was usually dug into the ground and this made a perfect hiding place. He had to provide for his family in secret so that Strife could not steal their bread.

The Angel of the Lord addresses him: “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of courage.” Courage seems to be high on the list of things that pleases God. Joshua 1:7 Gideon’s answer is to question and even doubt what was said: “If the Lord is with us, why is all this befallen us? Our Fathers told us about God’s mighty works.” And Gideon makes the conclusion that God has forsaken them and handed them over to Strife.

It seems like the Lord ignores Gideon’s response: “Go in this your might,  - maybe if we see ourselves as weak and wanting we are better tools, vehicles in the hand of God – you shall save the People of God from Strife and poverty. This is a call to a mission. This is the unction that comes and lies in your spirit, in your gut. This is what makes you go and do even though you are terrified.

HAVE I NOT SENT YOU?

Now Gideon steps up his questions to doubt and excuses: How can I do this?  This was the response of Moses, Joseph, Joshua, Mary, Ester, Debrah, Saul, David etc… It seems God always choose those who do not think they are something. It seems like it is always the ignorant and unlearned fishermen that are called. Gideon’s excuse: My clan is the poorest and I am the least in my house. Maybe that Is why he was outside hiding in the winepress, beating out grain, because he was expendable.

SURELY I WILL BE WITH YOU and you shall smite Strife.  God does not give us a mission and then turn to be a spectator. He is with us in the frey. He is ever present.

Gideon’s response: “ If I have found favor in Your sight… then show me that it is You who speaks to me. “ This is a big question. If we know and are sure that it is God speaking to us, we have no other excuses other than direct disobedience. When God speaks, what is our response?

Gideon makes an offering and it is consumed as a burnt sacrifice, A sweet savour unto God. This proves to Gideon that it is indeed the Angel of the Lord and He built an altar, a memorial to God naming it: Jehovah Shalom – The Lord our Peace (as opposed to the oppression of Midian/Strife) The application is obvious. There will always be some sacrifice, even if it is only time, food, money, opinion of people etc. Our God is the God of the answer. He is our peace instead of Strife. He is our freedom instead of bondage. He is our riches instead of poverty.

No encounter with God is without a command to go and “do”.

 The first order of duty was to pull down the idols and offer them to God. These idols were the gods of the Canaanites, the idols of the other nations around them, those who kept them in bondage and poverty.

Second, he had to build a place of worship to the Lord God in proper order. Here he had to make a burnt sacrifice. He had to restore the worship. He had to rectify the honor that was given to other gods.

Gideon obeyed afraid, but he did what he was told. He snuck out at night and completed his task. This caused the upheaval he expected. They came to kill him but his dad protected him. Yet a war broke out with their oppressors. We often want the small thing, the key thing to be the entire war. It does not work like that. Before the victory there is often an entire war. Yet, we should not shy away from this because God fight for and with us. Victory is a sure thing as long as we follow God.

THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD clothed Gideon with Himself and possessed him. This is of great importance if we will see the victory. We have to be clothed, filled and overflowed by the Spirit of God. There is no room for our own human ideas and emotions. We have to be Holy Spirit controlled.

Victory is a sure thing because God is in it. Victory is a sure thing when we obey. Obey afraid if you must, but just obey

Petition

During the first month of 2013 there was, as with prior years, a flurry of ministries who invited everyone to fast and pray for the first 21 days, to set the tone for the year and dedicate the year to the Lord. Our prayer group do a “Daniel’s – fast” and in the past I have participated in it. This year while praying about my participation; -- I can only fast if God is giving me the grace, -- I heard the Holy Spirit say “No”.  I still felt a desire to set aside extra time to pray… As I was reading through the story of Daniel the words: “he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God,” jumped off the page at me. The Holy Spirit whispered: “What is there that you feel strong enough about, that you will petition Me about it, three times a day for 21 days?” 

I had to sit back and ponder this. There are many concerns, many people’s pain that lies on my heart. It took me ten days to sift through it all and come up with a short list.

As I started doing this, my God-mother mentioned “Petitioning God” to me in relating how a mutual friend took time out to petition God concerning her children. This underlined the word I received. 

Petition is NOT a casual word. It is right up there or rather down, deep down, with words like “burden”, “supplication”, “mourning”, “groaning”. It is an intense, focused request. It is a legal term. A term that says, this far we have come and we cannot go any further without the intervention of someone or something outside of ourselves; of a higher authority. Petition belongs to those who have such intense, motivation about something that they will stand in the cold, rain, snow, scorching sun or what else to gather signatures to change something. It is an appeal to a Higher Authority.

Petition often concerns desperate situations. I can think of people in the United States that petition to save a species from extinction. That made me think of Queen Ester and her petition to safe her people; or Zachariah, the old priest, that cried out to God for many years concerning the barrenness of his wife, Elizabeth. It is the cry of a people or person that has come to realize that I/we need help. It is Hannah crying for a son. It is Jeremiah asking for his life. (Jer 42:9) It is also Daniel opening his window toward Jerusalem and petitioning the Lord of heaven and earth about the state of the nation of Israel.

Daniel mourned for his people. The 9^th chapter records one of his prayers and the reason behind it and the first few verses of chapter 10 says that he was in mourning. When I read these chapters, I see a man with a burden for a people who do not deserve any mercy, yet he asked for it. He ask forgiveness, like Nehemiah does, for the sins of his people. (Dan9:17-19) “So now, our God, listen to the prayer of Your servant and to his supplications, and for Your sake, O Lord, let Your face shine on Your desolate sanctuary. O my God, incline Your ear and hear! Open Your eyes and see our desolations and the city which is called by Your name; for we are not presenting our supplications before You on account of any merits of our own, but on account of Your great compassion. O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and take action! For Your own sake, O my God, do not delay, because Your city and Your people are called by Your name.”

Can you feel his angst, his cry, his desperation? “If You, O Lord, do not help us, we have no other place to go!!”

Now I can re-iterate the Holy Spirit’s question: “What is there that you feel strong enough about, that you will petition Me about it, three times a day for 21 days?” 

                                    ______________________________________

Luke 1:13 But the angel said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your petition has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will give him the name John;

Luke 2:37 (Anna) and then as a widow to the age of eighty-four . She never left the temple, serving night andday with fastings and prayers.

 Ephesians 6:18 With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints,

Translated as prayer Romans 10:1 Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved., (Paul’s petition)

Heb 5:7 who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear; (speaking of Jesus)

James 5:17  Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months.;

1 John 5:15… And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.

                                               ___________________________________

Petition:

Dictionary Definition: pe·ti·tion[ pə tísh'n ]   

1.     demand for action with signatures: a written request signed by many people demanding a specific action from an authority or government

2.     appeal or request to higher authority: an appeal or request to a higher authority or being

3.     something requested: something requested or appealed for

4.     Petition can also be the title of a legal pleading that initiates a legal case.

 HEBR: sheh a la. =request, thing asked for, demand

a) request, petition

b) thing asked for

1 Sam 1; 1 Kings 2; Esther 5 and 7; Jer (32) 37, 42; Daniel 6;

GRK:  Deesis 1) need, indigence, want, privation, penury

2) a seeking, asking, entreating, entreaty to God or to man

The Inheritance of Daughters.

During the allotting of the land, dividing of the inheritance, that Moses had to do in the Promised Land; there arose a unique quandary. There was a man, from the tribe of Manasseh, named Zelophahad who had five daughters and no sons. He died in the wilderness. These five came to Moses about their father’s inheritance. They wanted to keep their Father’s name for posterity and did not want to lose his inheritance. Moses took the matter to the Lord. ( Numbers 27)

The girls received their father’s inheritance and that posed another problem: When they get married, their inheritance would go to their husband’s family and so the inheritance will be lost to the house of their father, his tribe and family. It was then decided that when a daughter has an inheritance that she can marry whomever she wants but only in her father’s tribe, in order to keep the inheritance where it belongs. (Numbers 36)

I found in the story of Zelophahad’s daughters an answer and a warning to the quandary of women called of God with an anointing, a gift to serve the Father in the Kingdom. It is a quandary because it is out of the norm. It is usually a male who receive the call to preach, to work in the kingdom, blazing trails and establish the Kingdom of God on the earth. The ladies are usually in a supportive role. Just as in the times of Moses the men were the ones who inherited and the women were part of his family, and secondary to the inheritance.

Yet, God does call females with a Holy calling to do what traditionally has been done by males. And yes there has been, traditionally, an outcry by some who loves the letter of the law but not the author of it, against this. Still God does call women, young ladies into the ministry.   It is to those whom He has called that these 5 girls speak as an example. To those who have heard Him say: Listen, O daughter, give attention and incline your ear: Forget your people and your father's house; Then the King will desire your beauty. Because He is your Lord, bow down to Him.(Ps 45)  It is to her who have an ought in her heart, who knows that God has gripped her soul that this is of importance.

Your calling is a Holy calling and you are separate from your sisters who have not been such apprehended. You have an inheritance from the Father which will be lost if you do not claim it. You have a position in God’s Kingdom to fulfill, and a place on His wall to build and defend. You cannot go the normal, traditional way. You may want to have it both, but it cannot be. You cannot have the traditional house, picket fence and Golden Retriever. You have the call of God inside of you. THAT is your inheritance.

It is your duty to protect it. It is your responsibility to protect it. You cannot marry someone who does not share the same calling and anointing with which you have been gripped.  Well, you can but you will suffer loss. You will forever be in a position of having to choose your husband or God. You will either loose the marriage or your call: Both extremely painful.

The call of God is without repentance… meaning it is never withdrawn. It is not a job offer that you can refuse. It is not a scholarship that you can let go. It is not a marriage proposal that you can deny. It is a Divine claim upon your existence that changes the very fiber of your being. It is the seal of God upon your soul that has a cry of its own. It is the “burden” that the prophets of old spoke about. It is the fire that was in Jeremiah’s bones. And you and I are just nor big and strong enough to kill it. It will never leave you. It will be in your dreams, in your spirit until you heed the call and fulfill it. It is a Divine Inheritance that cannot ever be returned.

When we marry a man outside of our tribe, not necessary an unbeliever, someone who does not share a call of God similar to our own, we are un-equally yoked. That yoke will become a prison sentence that chafes and scar and be like a continues torture. The opposites will forever pull you apart into two directions and your life, your inheritance, will be lost. That which you were given, the gift of God will be lost, and the Kingdom of God will suffer.

If you find yourself as part of the called ones, when you know that an apprehension has happened in your life, listen carefully to the voice of the Holy Spirit. The decisions may bring many tears in this life, but the inheritance has a reward that will outshine it all.

The God who sees.

Genesis16:13 A slave girl runs away from her mistress into the desert right into the Angel of the Lord. She fled abuse into a revelation she never expected nor sought. She came face to face with Him who sees and hears everything. He tells her to name her son: Ishmael; meaning:”The Lord hears”. She has a revelation of the God from whom nothing is hidden. And even more, a God who when He sees and hears are not apathetic or aloof. No! This is a God who is intrinsically involved with His people.

In Exodus the LORD said, "I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings.” We do not serve a God who is far off. We do not serve a God who is un-aware of what is going on in our lives. God sees every affliction. He hears every prayer. He is not like others gods who cannot change anything. Our God hears our prayers and the Bible says if we know that He hears us then we can be assured that He will act on our behalf. For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His. The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous and His ears are open to their cry.

This should give us great cause for rejoicing even if our circumstances are not too bright. We can lift up our voices in faith because El Roi – “the God who sees us” – is not unaware of us and all that is included in our world. We have hope, we have a future because God sees and He hears. We can take a page from Hagar’s book and go back to our mistress and serve with a heart of hope knowing that God is also a righteous God who will bring the scales up even. We know that in His hand is justice and deliverance.

So, when we sigh under the heavy load. When we wake up in the morning and we feel like running from the day, we can take courage because our God sees and hears. We can whisper the prayer, we can cry out to Him. He hears, He sees and He will act on behalf of those who trust in Him. God will soon crush even satan under our feet because He sees and hears even the deepest crevices of every human heart.

Have faith! Have hope!



Pro 5:21

For the ways of a man are before the eyes of the LORD, And He watches all his paths.

2Ch 16:9a

"For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.

Job 31:4

"Does He not see my ways And number all my steps?

Job 34:21

"For His eyes are upon the ways of a man, And He sees all his steps.

Psa 34:15

The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous And His ears are open to their cry.

Pro 15:3

The eyes of the LORD are in every place, Watching the evil and the good.

Hbr 4:13

And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.

1Pe 3:12

"FOR THE EYES OF THE LORD ARE TOWARD THE RIGHTEOUS, AND HIS EARS ATTEND TO THEIR PRAYER, BUT THE FACE OF THE LORD IS AGAINST THOSE WHO DO EVIL."

1Cr 4:5

Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men's hearts; and then each man's praise will come to him from God.

1Sa 16:7

But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."