INSPIRED WORD

March 21, 2007

PRAYER / IMAGE / EXHORTATION

Father, there is a desire in our hearts to see Your face, to know Your heart, and to know Your desires. Lord, call us out tonight, call us out of our comfort zones and do the necessary pruning, Lord Jesus, to take us into that place. As we were singing that song, an image came to my mind. In the king's palace, the courts were a special place to be and you couldn't go in there without a summons from the king. When Esther went into the court, she did not have a summons But tonight that changes. Just as Esther went into that court with such boldness, tonight we can stand and we can run into that court, fall at the feet of Jesus and say, “Take me, use me and mold me.” Because the Father is saying, “If you just come, if you just come, I will do the rest of the work. If you allow Me to draw you into this place, I will do the necessary work. Do not try to compensate, do not think about what you are going to do next, just come, answer My summons.”

CONFIRMING SCRIPTURE

Hebrews 4: 14-16: Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone into the very presence of God, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin. Let us approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

SENSE

......God was taking that which we surrendered – He was just taking it from us. I kept thinking of how hard it was for me to part with my little piece of paper which contained the list of things that I needed to surrender to Him. But once I placed my piece of paper onto the burning embers, He just took it from me. There were a couple of people who didn't get to use the tissue-like paper that most of us used; they had to resort to some ordinary paper. I was thinking of it as this – when we try to deal with things on our own, even issues of forgiveness, or surrendering our sins to God, it is kind of like this ordinary paper that is slowly burning on these embers. But when we surrender it to God in reconciliation, He takes it and He works miracles with it.

SHARING

It is funny how we are surprised when God works in us. The Lord has not been calling me to speak, but He has been calling me to keep my mouth quiet; to think before I speak. It is amazing how the Holy Spirit comes and covers our mouth when He doesn't want us to say a critical word. I want to thank God for that. I thank Him for coming and purifying Me. Glory to You God!

SCRIPTURE / EXHORTATION

.....with each of us and then we have to make a decision on how we want to accept His love and His blessings. This is from Ezekiel 47:1- 6, 9: “Then He brought me back to the door of the temple, and I saw water flowing eastward from beneath the temple and passing to the right of the altar that is on the south side. Then He brought me outside the wall to a north passageway and around to the eastern entrance where I saw a stream flowing along the south side. Measuring as He went, He took me fifteen hundred feet east along the stream and told me to go across. At that point the water was up to my ankles. He measured off another fifteen hundred feet and told me to cross again. This time the water was up to my knees. Fifteen hundred feet after that, it was up to my waist. Another fifteen hundred feet it had become a river so deep that I wouldn't be able to get across unless I were to swim. It was too deep to cross on foot. He told me to keep in mind what I had seen; then He led me back along the bank. Everything touching the water of this river shall live. Wherever this water flows, everything will live.” I believe what God is telling us is that we have taken the step to get into the water and now we have to make a decision - do we want His blessings just to come up to our ankles; do we want His blessings to come up to our knees; do we want them to come up to our waist, or do we want to be so immersed in His blessings that the water of His love carries us from the time we get up in the morning until the time we go to sleep at night. Because it says, “Everything touching the water shall live.” We have life; we have been blessed. He wants us to be immersed in His blessings so that He carries us through every step of our lives, so that we can become blessings to everyone He brings into our lives.