Inspired Word September 12, 2007

INSPIRED WORD

September 12, 2007

SCRIPTURE

Psalm 24: 7 – 10: Lift up your heads, O you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O you gates; lift them up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is He, this King of glory? The Lord Almighty – He is the King of glory.

SCRIPTURE

‘Be glorified in the earth, be glorified in this temple.' Many times we think of the temple as this church building, but it is also us. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. It says in Isaiah 61:10: “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God.” So as we go through tonight, let's remember that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit and our whole being needs to exult in God.

SHARING

I have had this song running through my head and have been singing it to myself all day long. Along with the Scriptures that have been spoken here tonight, I feel that this song fits in here. I learned this song when I was a little girl, and the words go like this: “Let Your glory fill this house, let Your praises fill our mouths. Let us offer up to You a sacrifice of praise, for You alone are holy, You alone are worthy, You deserve the glory. Jesus, You are Lord!”

SCRIPTURE

Psalm 145: 3 – 21: Great is the Lord and worthy of high praise; God's grandeur is beyond understanding. One generation praises Your deeds to the next and proclaims Your mighty works. They speak of the splendor of Your majestic glory, tell of all Your wonderful deeds. They speak of Your fearsome power and attest to Your great deeds. They publish the renown of Your abounding goodness and joyfully sing of Your justice. The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in love. The Lord is good to all, compassionate to every creature. All Your works give You thanks, O Lord, and Your faithful bless You. They speak of the glory of Your reign and tell of Your great works, making known to all Your power, the glorious splendor of Your rule. Your reign is a reign for all ages, Your dominion for all generations. The Lord is trustworthy in every word, and faithful in every work. The Lord supports all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look hopefully to You; You give them their food in due season. You open wide Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing. You, Lord, are just in all Your ways, faithful in all Your works. You, Lord, are near to all who call upon You, to all who call upon You in truth. You satisfy the desire of those who fear You; You hear their cry and save them. You, Lord, watch over all who love You, but all the wicked You destroy. My mouth will speak Your praises, Lord; all flesh will bless Your holy name forever.

EXHORTATION

God's grace is so much more than that. Right now, that grace is flowing in abundance in this place. And as we move deeper into worship, the Lord says, “Come and just rest in that grace of mercy, that grace that I give you; the grace of healing and the grace that meets whatever your need is.” He wants us to just rest in His grace and in His Presence. He is just pouring out that grace.

IMAGE / SENSE

Right after Barb had spoken about the Lord wanting us to rest in the grace of the Holy Spirit, I was given this image of being in a swimming pool when I was a young child. I had lifted up my feet off the bottom of the pool and had floated on my back. If you have ever done that, you know that you can't hear anything when your ears are under the water. You have your eyes closed and there is just a sense that you don't even know where you are in time or in space. There is just this deep sense of relaxation as you let go and float on your back in the water. When you open your eyes, you are not in the same place that you had started. I had asked the Lord what the image meant. I keep getting the sense that He wants us to let go and to surrender as that is part of being immersed in His grace and resting in Him. We have to let go of what is binding us to the bottom of the pool and trust in Him.

SCRIPTURE

I was waiting for a time to share this Scripture. Psalm 23: 1 – 3: The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. In verdant pastures He gives me repose; beside restful waters He leads me; He refreshes my soul. He guides me in right paths for His name's sake.

CONFIRMATION

I have a confirmation for Sheila's words. Psalm 62: 2 – 3, 8 – 9: Only in God is my soul at rest; from Him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be disturbed. With God is my safety and my glory, He is the rock of my strength; my refuge is in God. Trust in Him at all times, O my people! Pour out your hearts before Him; God is our refuge!

CONFIRMATION

I also want to confirm Sheila's image. As she was guiding us, I was doing exactly what she said and I was imagining myself floating. I also recalled taking my own children to the water park this summer. I was teaching my daughter how to float. In the midst of this extremely crowded water park, I was floating on my back and the same thing that Sheila talked about had happened to me. Everything else was gone; there was complete and utter peace. But when my kids decided to sink me and I had to come back up out of the water, everyone was there all around me again. But there had been this moment of tranquility. Tonight I was thinking that I couldn't come here because I had so many things to do, but my husband told me to go. So here tonight I have had two hours of “floating on my back” and feel recharged.

TEACHING

Sometimes we don't want to be quiet and tonight was one of those times for me. When Chuck said that we will have two minutes of absolute silence, that was hard for me to do because I wasn't very quiet inside and I didn't want to listen very well. As a result, I did get quiet, but I didn't hear very well. But what I did remember was something that the Lord gave me a long time ago. As I was sitting there with my eyes closed, all I am seeing is black, no images, no words, just seeing black. I was reminded of the Scripture of the blind man sitting on the side of the road as Jesus walked by. He said, “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me.” He couldn't see Jesus at that time, all he saw was black. But he trusted that just beyond what he couldn't see, Jesus was standing there in front of him. Jesus said, “My son, what do you want from me?” The blind man said, “Jesus, Son of David, I want to see.” Jesus said, “Rise, your faith has saved you; you can see.” His vision was restored at that moment. That is a very loose paraphrase of that story; you will have to go the actual Scripture (Luke 18: 35 - 43 ) to find the exact words, but that is the gist of it. So when you are sitting here and it is hard to be quiet and you are not feeling Jesus, remember that just beyond what you cannot see, Jesus is standing in front of you. He is saying, “What do you want, My child?”

TONGUES

INTERPRETATION

It is not easy, the road is tough and the hill is high; take up your cross and come. I am leading you; I am the One to follow. Pick up your cross and come!

SENSE / EXHORTATION

Tonight the Lord presented Himself in a little bit different way. He has asked us to remember that He is our refuge, our stronghold, our strength, our guide. I think that is what He wants us to focus on. There is a tremendous peace that is settled over here tonight. I think the Lord wants us to take that with us tonight, knowing that He is really our refuge and our stronghold. We don't need to be afraid, because if God puts us in a situation, He is also giving us the resolution to that situation. So as we leave here tonight, He wants us to know not the words that He is our refuge and our strength, but He wants us to know in our hearts that He is our refuge and our strength. No matter what we do, we cannot hide from God and He doesn't hide from us. So when He says He is our stronghold, it is not just a word, but it is a way of life for us to live each and every day. So He tells us He is our refuge and our strength, but the question is: ‘Do we believe that?' And if we believe that, do we have the courage to carry that to someone else. Let us make that our goal for this week.

IMAGE

When we were praying as a group, the image that kept coming into my mind was a candle burning brightly. At Bible Study for the past several weeks we have been learning about oil and light. There is a story (I can't remember the exact words) of when they went into battle and they were all carrying the torches. And all of a sudden they have these clay pots; when they surrounded the enemy the Lord told them to throw the clay pots down and the torches surrounded the enemy. God's glory was so present, that the enemies went into confusion and started battling with each other. That is what came to mind when we were praying – the Holy Spirit within us is light for the world to see.

SHARING / PROPHECY

While you were speaking about the peace that is settled over us here, I remembered how frayed I felt with so many things on my mind. But in these two hours, God reminded me that everything is going to be okay. When we come into this place and experience this peace and we take it in, it is so great and so heavenly. We want to stay here forever, but we don't want to be locked inside the church. God tells us not to keep this refuge for ourselves. If there is a storm outside and it is blowing – I got this image from the movie of the Wizard of Oz – everything is blowing around, the cows are flying and everybody is running. The Lord said to me, “Do not keep the hiding place a secret. Do not keep the hiding place a secret! Open up the doors and let others in! Be reminded that I am God, I am King; nothing else is beside Me. I want you to proclaim My praises.”

PROPHECY

My beloved ones, have you heard? When the cows are flying around, when the wind is strong, will you remember this peace, will you remember Me? When you are spoken to and challenged, will you speak of Me or will you cower and hide? My beloved ones, I hear your praises; I hear your words, I read your hearts……….. some one else has the rest of this.

SCRIPTURE

I think the rest of the word is this Scripture that we got as we were praying in the very beginning in the back. The Lord has brought it to completion. Zephaniah 3: 17: The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a Warrior who gives victory; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will renew you in His love.

SENSE / EXHORATION / PRAYER

I think that the words, which we have just heard in Prophecy and which were continued in Scripture, require a response. God said, “Will you take My Word to others or will you cower?” We are not going to cower! He is our refuge and our strength in the storm. I think that through the words He gave us in Prophecy tonight, He wants us to reflect on that. Do we really believe that? If we do believe that, then we need to respond to what He has told us through Prophecy. No, Lord, we will not cower! We will speak Your Word to whoever You place in our paths. We will bring Your light to the people whom You have placed in our paths. We will praise You for the miracles that You do in this community and for those which we see happening in this world. Thank You, Lord!

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