you will see Him.

The Bible's coming out with some REALLY good stuff lately.

Have you noticed?

I've been reading through Scripture pertaining to living a life of invitation, swinging wide open the doors, walking with Jesus, showing unusual kindness, etc.

Romans 12, 15, 16...Matthew 9,19,22, 25...Hebrews 13...Luke 14, 24, 10...Acts 27-28...John 15.

I've been searching, seeking, recording what He says about how to live and serve and welcome and embrace and radiate Jesus to others.

While I'm looking for and studying all that, He's showing me.  AND He's doing something entirely other.  

Which is one of the ways I always know it's Him and not me.

As I study and marvel at the perfection and beauty and intimacy and practicality and wisdom of His Word, He keeps asking me to come out.  To step out.  To un-cling.  To give it up.  To go out to Him.  To trust...a little more...a little more.

And as I read and study and read and study some more, I feel my faith growing, and the stepping out on faiths that once felt so impossible, so foolish are suddenly feeling a tear-stained privilege.

Don't wait, family.  When you're reading His Word for your own reasons, and He unmistakably makes something else boldly and undoubtedly and incredibly clear, DO IT.   Do it NOW.   

Don't let time and human reason and dwelling on your emotions and seeking out human counsel fade your faith.  Step out bold in immediate crazy obedience, and you'll find that the next time He asks, you're already jumping out there.  It gets easier.  He proves Himself after you jump...over and over and over.

I have so many powerful examples from just the last week all that I wish I could share with you of Him meeting and stretching my heart.  I will sometime.  But if I tell you my secrets, you might come to my rescue, and right now, I'm waiting for HIM.  He's calling, He's providing, He's peacening.... He's even using others to answer prayers that they know NOTHING about and have no way of knowing.

If Christ cares for you (and He does) and sits on the throne (and He does), is it not possible that He can answer your prayers as you step out on Him through His children without them even knowing? It is.

This sounds so dumb and obvious saying it, but I'm frequently dumb and obvious: the more we read His Word, listening to His voice, the more we HEAR His voice and the less we hear the voice of others. The more we OBEY His voice, the more He entrusts us.  The more we TRUST Him, the more He calls us out, and suddenly we're glued and focused, out on the water, realizing that He is all and enough.  More than enough. 

Read.  Read just those scriptures I listed above, read ANY Scriptures, jot down everything that moves your heart, and read it praying that He might speak to you where and as He will.

As you read, whatever He hits you with, whatever He calls you on, whatever He asks you for...write it down and go do it.  Stop working on it on your own, stop worrying about it, stop talking about it, stop thinking about it.  Write it down and give it to Him, obey what He's asking you to obey, get right what God's telling you to get right, and write the rest down and tack it at His feet and tomorrow, KEEP ON.

Don't wait for Him to do something with those things.  Keep on!  Be faithful.  Read more.  Surrender.  Obey.  Do it now!  Give it up.

You will see Him.  It will not be what you thought.  It will be better.  It will be sweeter.  It will be more. of. Him.

Bring it on, Lord Jesus.  Help my unbelief.



As always, O. Chambers says it so much better...

Suppose God tells you to do something that is an enormous test of your common sense, totally going against it. What will you do? Will you hold back? If you get into the habit of doing something physically, you will do it every time you are tested until you break the habit through sheer determination. And the same is true spiritually. 

Again and again you will come right up to what Jesus wants, but every time you will turn back at the true point of testing, until you are determined to abandon yourself to God in total surrender. Yet we tend to say, “Yes, but— suppose I do obey God in this matter, what about…?” Or we say, “Yes, I will obey God if what He asks of me doesn’t go against my common sense, but don’t ask me to take a step in the dark.”

Jesus Christ demands the same unrestrained, adventurous spirit in those who have placed their trust in Him that the natural man exhibits. If a person is ever going to do anything worthwhile, there will be times when he must risk everything by his leap in the dark. 

In the spiritual realm, Jesus Christ demands that you risk everything you hold on to or believe through common sense, and leap by faith into what He says. Once you obey, you will immediately find that what He says is as solidly consistent as common sense.

By the test of common sense, Jesus Christ’s statements may seem mad, but when you test them by the trial of faith, your findings will fill your spirit with the awesome fact that they are the very words of God. 

Trust completely in God, and when He brings you to a new opportunity of adventure, offering it to you, see that you take it. We act like pagans in a crisis— only one out of an entire crowd is daring enough to invest his faith in the character of God.