“A life of faith is not a life of one glorious mountaintop experience after another, like soaring on eagles wings, but it is a life of day in and day out consistency; a life of walking without fainting ( see Isaiah 40:31) It is not even a question of holiness and sanctification, but of something which comes much further down the road. It is a faith that has been tried and proved and has withstood the test. Abraham is not a type or an example of the holiness or sanctification, but a type of the life of faith- a faith tested and true, built on the true God.” Oswald Chambers-My Utmost for His Highest)
God honors the saints who have been tried and tested. He knows, He sees, He understands. He measures the man on the inside. The younger slightly arrogant saint believes he is holy and sanctified. Yet, let that man walk through the fires of life. Loss of a wife, or a child maybe. Robbed, beaten, hated. No standing in life. Loss in general. Does he still love God? Is his heart still pursuing God? No matter what happens does he still fall upon his God and keep on walking down the narrow path of life? It’s not about the ministry you have. It’s not about how other men perceive you. It’s not about success in this life. It’s about knowing Him. Yes, that is what it is about, knowing Him and being found in Him.The more you know Him the less you need to know where your going. God knows.
The poor pentecostal often believes it comes through the waving of a magic wand represented by the hand of the latest preacher. The poor fundamentalist believes that faith comes through study. The saint that has walked through the flood and through the fire and through a thousand storms knows that God is faithful and true. He understands that is not about his own faith but it is about God’s faithfulness. The realization of Gods faithfulness enhances our faith in God. Only one way to do that. It wont come through study. It wont come through prayer and it wont come through your own personal holiness, as great as all of these things are. Faith is obedience to the small still voice to go forward into the unknown. Faith is about still standing when the storm has raged and beaten upon your life. Faith is born and is watered in and by the storms of life. Faith is tempered and hardened by the fiery furnaces we are called to walk through.
Abraham did many things wrong. On more than one occasion he was willing to pretend he was not married in order to save his own life, hardly the stuff of hero’s. Yet in the end, Abraham was willing to suffer the loss in order to be found in Him because he knew Him. Paul counted all things as loss in order to be found in Him. Have you walked through the fires of life? Have you suffered loss? Are you still standing upon the foundation of Jesus? Is He you very life? Faith, tested and true is a beautiful thing and it pleases God. Imagine that saints, it pleases God.
This is a song I was working on with a dear sister in Scotland when I was recently over there. We are hoping to see an album come together that glorifies God, that we have written ourselves and that allows one to come into His presence.
I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron: And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel. (Isa 45:2-3)
In the life of each saint there are crooked paths. There are gates of brass and there are bars of iron. The saint knows that the path that she or he has been called to is narrow and difficult. He takes up his cross each day and he dies to himself and to this world and to the flesh. In the midst of this dying the Lord is slowly revealed. What is working death in our flesh is by the same token releasing spiritual life. Isn’t wonderful that God is working on our behalf and has promised to us that He will straightened out the crooked path. When life seems to take us down a road that seems impossible to navigate, God promises that He has gone before us. There are no surprises to God, He is in it all and we will overcome because He has went before us. The greatest example of God going before us is exemplified in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
Each saint will also encounter gates of brass and bars of iron. These will be specific situations that requires the hand of God to overcome. In the flesh there would be no solution but by the hand of God these ” gates of brass,” and ” bars of iron,” are broke in pieces. And so we are able to continue our journey down the same narrow, seemingly crooked path which the Lord is actually straightening out by going before us. Now just as the individual saint has to encounter crooked paths and gates of brass and bars of iron, so does the Body of Christ as a whole. It also has had a journey, it also has encountered many difficulties and a seemingly crooked path. It has encountered gates of brass, seemingly barring the way forward, yet the same promises made to the individual saint has also been made to the Body of Christ, praise God. He is working, always working on our behalf and He never sleeps. We can call upon Him night and day for we can be assured that He is with us and has went before us.
Hi saints. I am back from Scotland. I spent sixteen days over there and I believe there was much fruit. On many levels it was difficult and I personally felt buffeted by the enemy of our souls. Yet, there were breakthroughs in some very difficult spiritual situations and God held me and kept me and ministered to me in ways that were very special. I appreciate all the prayers of the saints that I had and they certainly held me up. I believe for myself personally that many poems and songs will come out of my experiences while there. In fact two in particular that I wrote while over there may find themselves in an album that is being put together, along with a few other one that I have written. The three other singers that will be involved in this album are very anointed and we pray that when it comes it will be fresh manna. It may take several months because it will be done as the resources are available, but God is good and He equips and supplies that which He calls. I am looking forward to getting back to writing and sharing that writing on this page. My prayer has always been that this site would be a blessing to many. We are almost at the 200,000 mark with visitors from over 160 different countries. This blows my mind, yet God prophesied six years ago that He would use me to ” write to the nations.” This has come dramatically to pass and I praise God for His goodness and His mercy and His gifts which He gives to His children. I would appreciate the prayers of the saints as I finish up a book entitled, strangely enough ” A Call to the Remnant,” with the sub-heading ” A word to God’s children for the end of the ages.” Below is a wee video I shot from the hills above my hometown of Scotland…………………bro Frank
A Call To The Remnant 