Love Manifested in Effectiveness

Wow.  Love manifested in effectiveness.  The very Kingdom of God invading the world of darkness, the world of less than excellent.  All less than excellence is a reflection of the presence of Death and the presence of Pride.  Love manifested as excellence, manifested as effectiveness is the Kingdom, now, pushing back the death and darkness.

So, Father, help me, help us all be good at our jobs.  You put us here right now in this place under this authority for many sub reasons, but above all for your glory.  Help us be effective at our work as an outworking of your love in our lives.  Work love in and through us, for the benefit of our company, our division, our facility, our coworkers.  Break down the blinders on our eyes, our habitual ways of thinking and seeing that are no longer effective.  Clear our ears of old filters that stop us from hearing what is being said today because of what we heard in earlier days.  Pour the oil of your spirit into the bruised and broken places in the very center of each of us, where we have built self defenses, scar tissue that keeps us from moving freely in thought, will and emotion.  Remind us of what joy is like.  Remind us of what it smells like.  Remind us of what it looks like, what it sounds like.  Remind us of when we touched joy.  I want the joy of the Lord to be my strength, our strength.

Thank you.  You are the great God, the high and holy one, who bends low to love us.  Thank you for the oil of joy, your holy spirit.

Frustration

Frustration just may be part of the landscape.
Nope. Frustration is just a marker that there are expectations that are not founded in the Kingdom. There is a day coming when every circumstance is met with Kingdom Joy. I am just not there yet. There is so much freedom. There is so much to be had in the freedom of Kingdom living. Nothing to do but to walk in it. It is in the book. People of the book and the Spirit can find the door to walking in liberty. Healing is full there. Here. Deliverance is complete. Do you come to the Kingdom for deliverance...or do you get delivered to get to the Kingdom. You have a family right to enter into the most secret place before you are clean. Before you are delivered. You can still have your crippled feet and take your place at the Kings table.
Come on. Take it.

Help me, Father. There is so much to eat and so few at the table.

Good Morning

I delight in You, my God and King. All that I am and have is from you and directed unto you in praise, honor and glory. I am entirely adrift and lost without you. But I am not without you. You have placed me in Your presence, the intimate center of Your delightful Love. In Your presence is fullness of joy. Here with You, Christ Jesus, I find my purpose and the fulfillment of it. There is great sufficiency in You and I am satisfied and at rest in Your embrace. Thank You for the Blood poured out for the redemption of this glorious Body. Thank You for Your abiding Spiritual weight in our lives. Teach us some more today, revealing your Love in and through us. Convict us and admonish us for being Love misers.

Yes

What a joyful day. A day full of Yes.

The really cool thing is the realization that it just keeps getting better. In the Kingdom, a member of the royal family, settled at home, with a place at the table, surrounded by glory, not alone, no longer Fatherless, no longer an orphan. Not going to be kicked out. Welcome to stay. Meeting new family members every day. Building for the future. Resting. Delivered. Free. With access to limitless hope.

Wow.

Run At It.

Run at the pain. Run at the fear. Run at the ignorance.
Take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Grab ahold of the thing you fear. Run right at it, grab it with all your strength, and run with it toward Jesus. Get your knees up to avoid trip hazards and run, calling on the Name of Jesus.

The next thing you know, you will be in the embrace of Perfect Love, laughing in the center of Joy. You will be mostly aware that you are loved. On the dim edge of memory, you will remember that something had been happening just before...Oh, yes. There was this opposition. There was this force arrayed against you. But, where is it? ? ? ? ? Well, whatever it was, it is gone and you are here in the Heart of Delight.

Run at it. No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper.

Thank you, Father for basic instructions. And for those who have followed them before us.

Some days I just feel like a gopher, and the worst thing going is Bill Murray

How many times do you hear Kenny Loggins singing, "I'm all right.", and you don't see that happy little gopher dancing for all he is worth. Well, okay, maybe you were not a Caddy Shack fan...

In the Joy of The Lord, there is dancing like David danced as the Presence of God was returned to Jerusalem. Actually, the Lord had never forsaken Jerusalem. There is just an extra something about the Ark.

And while David danced, Mikal scorned. She resented his joy, could not connect with it. Just like the Gopher and the Greenskeeper. This is a Gopher day. Some are dancing in the Joy. Some don't get it. Some have faked happiness for so long that they can not imagine that the Joy is real. This is a Gopher Day. The Son is shining and the way is open for intimacy with the Living God whose name is Love.

This is a Gopher Day...and I'm All Right. Thank you for Joy in Christ, and for Dancing in the Spirit, Father.

He Restores My Soul

He Restores My Soul.

My unrestored soul is making lots of noise. Heart ache. At a time like this, it makes no difference how good or bad my day was.

So the promise is, that there is a resting place for and from this heart ache. All I have to do is turn toward my place of refuge. I will find not just relief there, but my healing as well.

Wow. There it is. Just like that.

Thank you, Father for your faithfulness.

There was a man talking on the radio today. He said that he had persisted in walking away from God long enough to find joy. He was spreading his good news, the news that people walking away from God would find joy if they persisted long enough.

I have been trained to conclude that he only thinks that he has found joy. I think now that, if I spent time with him he would find that thing he calls joy, and I would understand it for something humans can have, that is not joy. Then I could unlove him and rejoice, in his face, about just how wrong he was, and just how sad his good news is.

How can he ever see the Joy of the Lord, if I am not abiding in it when he encounters me? How can he see the banquet that has been laid for him if I am not sitting at my place at the table, with my crippled feet hidden beneath, when he encounters me? It is our Father's loving kindness that will draw him. But how can he yearn for what he has no evidence of?

My King, thank you for your table. Thank you for purchasing my place at it for me. I am going to, with your help, live here.