True peace is found, not when temptations and trials cease, for surely He prepares a table before us in their presence? But when the heart is surrendered, hushed, and anchored in Christ. Temptations reveal our weaknesses and trials expose our need; and both become our teachers, if we will allow them.
The flesh is diminished when the spirit yields to God moment by moment, refusing to complain, trusting that Christ Himself is the victory. Suffering becomes the school of faith, because our flesh is never louder when it is seeking relief. Yet these trials are teaching us to rely wholly on God, and brings the heart into a deeper, quieter union with Him. Our life, in its entirety, is the valley. How then shall we walk through it? He has to make us lie down in green pastures. He causes us to sit beside the still waters.
And in these places we would never go by ourselves, He restores our soul.
A conversation between Kalli Womack Cook and Frank McEleny, brother and sister in the Lord.
Kalli………….
The Father said, “There is beauty in the earth.” The child asked, “Where?” The Father said, “A flower blooms in the desert.” And the child responded, “But no one sees it.” And the Father said, “Yet, because it blooms it makes it true: There is beauty in the earth, And truth is beautiful.”
This morning, the whispered prayer of my heart was, “Lord, help me to be like You, in a world that is not.” The whispered prayers of our heart are like flowers blooming in the desert. Beauty unseen. But the beauty of a flower isn’t measured by how many people observe and appreciate its beauty. A flower’s beauty is the same, whether it blooms unseen in the desert or near a well-traveled sidewalk.
Mankind does not set the standard for beauty. Nor does mankind’s measurable observations of beauty determine its existence or value. Beauty unseen by men, is seen by God. And in a world wholly unlike Christ, it makes this statement true: “There is still beauty to be found in this world.” Maybe not for long, but for now.
Frank……………
And to finish the thought from Corinthians, when we gaze upon that which is unseen, the eternal weight of His glory falls upon us. We cannot see this “weight,” yet it presses down upon our hearts and oil pours forth. This eternal weight of glory changes the very atmosphere, unseen, but rarified air breathed and glory exhaled.
When Angie and I hike, I search out the hidden flowers, often having her pull back leaves so that I can take the shot and show the world what beforehand, only God could see, and He does. Isn’t it just the same with us? He sees what the world cannot and it brings Him great pleasure.
Kalli………………
I remember a while ago, I watched a nature documentary about sea creatures that lived fathoms below the surface. They were mesmerizingly beautiful and my initial reaction was sadness that such beauty should go to waste, unseen and unappreciated by man. And then the Spirit used that moment to teach me a greater truth about beauty.
Until that moment, I had never realized how much I assumed that beauty existed for mankind. That if man doesn’t observe it to appreciate it, then it is somehow wasted. I learned that beauty doesn’t exist for us. It exists because God is beautiful and He is the One who created all things. Beauty exists because God exists.
Frank………………
Amen Kalli! It’s a magnificent truth that the God of all glory, the creator, takes delight in His creation. Imagine a world where no two flowers are alike, every one, like the snowflakes, different and every one a masterful piece of artistry. That world is the Kingdom of God, that flower, is you. And His delight is to see it blossom.
It is not that men are inherently weak, it’s that’s God is inherently all powerful. The strongest man that ever lived, whether in body or mind or spirit, finds his proper state before and all powerful God. He falls on his face as one who is dead. He would cry out with the prophet “I am undone. He would not have the capacity to stand in His presence. He would only see his unworthy state. It takes fire from the altar, to alter his state, to enable him to stand, to have the audacity to say “here I am, send me.”
In Isa 40:28-31 God speaks. He announces Himself as . The everlasting God. 2. Lord. 3. Creator of the ends of the earth. He never faints. He is never weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He is not powerful, He is power itself and the very source of it.It is His to give and He gives it to the weak. He is not mighty, He is might itself and from the abundance of His eternal strength, He gives to those who have no strength. Who are these recipients? Who are these weak people? They are the ones who have come to understand that apart from the Spirit of God, they can do nothing, therefore they wait.
Our understanding of our own weakness kicks down the door of our ego’s and allows the light of God to penetrate the very depths of our beings. Death to “self,” is an emptying process. We must decrease so that there can be an increase. An increase of what? The Lord Himself, in us. By dying to ourselves and emptying our “self,” we are creating capacity. And into that capacity flows the fullness of God. ….That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with the saints, what is the width and the length and the depth and height -to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with the fullness of God (Eph 3:14-21)
For those who are filled with the fullness of God, having waited upon Him in our weakness and low opinion of our “self,” shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not grow weary, they shall walk and not faint. And so the “weak,’ and those who have no “might,” shall fly, shall run and shall walk. In the dying to their “self,” they have increased their capacity and are therefore filled from inexhaustible fountains.
This is the making of the mighty men and women of valor. Warriors for Christ in the battle of the ages. Those who have humbled themselves. The broken and the contrite. The weak and the meek. They all fellowship with God in high and lofty places. To get there they need the wings of eagles. To run the race we need the strength of God. And to walk this narrow walk of faith we must have the power of God
1Sa 16:14 But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the LORD troubled him.
There are two broad categories of people within Christendom. They are not equally proportioned. One represents the vast majority and the other a remnant, a portion, “the few, as opposed to “the many.” This distressing spirit, spoken of in relation to Saul, is alive and well among the merely religious but who, nonetheless, call themselves after the name of Jesus. They seek the same comfort that Saul sought. And we see unfolding with David and Saul, an ancient battle that has always existed right from the times of Cain and Abel. In the end, one hates the other and determines to destroy the other. For the last 2000 years, the religious have mercilessly hunted down the genuine saint just as Saul hunted down David. David had what Saul did not. It really came down to jealousy.
In the beginning, Saul would get momentary relief when David played upon his harp. Modern day worship gives momentary relief to the merely religious. Its an opiate to them. Remember, the distressing spirit would leave Saul, but his relationship with God still ceased to exist. And then, of course, the distressing spirit would return. Like drunkenness, it lasts for but a short while and when one sobers up, they are distressed once again. The real malady is the malady of the soul. The only true solution is to come to Jesus on His terms. And His terms? Very simple, He requires your whole life. Those who try to save their own lives shall lose them, but those who lose their lives for His sake gain eternal life.
Therefore, feeling good when worshiping is simply temporary if you are not rightly related to Jesus. A pain killer alleviates the pain for a while but the source of the pain remains. It is only when the spirit is truly touched and changed forever that we are relieved of this deep malady of the soul, distress. God has a controversy with those who have not bowed the knee to Jesus and that controversy causes us all kinds of problems. Note that in this Scripture it is God Himself who sends this spirit and it is God alone, through His Son Jesus that can alleviate us from it. Men will try multiple religious acts to circumvent the need to be obedient to God and lay down their lives. Bonar writes……………..
“Men try rites, sacraments, pictures, music, apparel and the varied attractions of ecclesiastical ornament, but these leave the spirit unfilled, and its wounds unhealed. They cannot regenerate, enliven, heal or fill with the Holy Spirit. They may keep up the self satisfaction and delusion of the soul, but that is all. They bring no true peace, nor give rest to the weary, they do not fill they merely hide our emptiness.” Every Sunday in churches throughout the land and across the world there are a myriad of programs and liturgies and music that merely hide the emptiness of those who sit in pews, unchanged week after week.
What would have saved Saul? Obedience to the Word of God. We are called to obey the Lord our God with our whole hearts, holding nothing back. And the evidence of the reality of our genuine obedient relationship with Jesus is a changed life. You can raise your hands in worship every Sunday but without this changed life it is a futile as the worship of Saul. Saul was not worshiping God, for true worshipers obey God and are changed, no Saul was seeking momentary relief from his inner anguish. He just wanted to feel better. We may look upon the raised hands of a crowd and imagine that it denotes something, but the “Lord does not see as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Sam 16:7)
In every storm, the saint has an anchor and His name is Jesus. We are out there in the roiling seas and He is the forerunner. He goes before us into the harbor and draws us in. In ancient times when the sea was too stormy to enter the harbor and giant waves would crash against the harbor walls and the ships would drag their anchors and be in danger of overturning and being swamped, they would lower a skiff, a forerunner. The anchor would be placed on the small boat and the boat would make its way into the harbor and the anchor would be dropped in calmer waters ,then the boat would be pulled into the harbor.
Jesus is our forerunner, Jesus is our anchor and He has went before us and prepared a place for us. A place of peace and stillness, His very presence speaks to the storms, be still! When you flee to Jesus He shall be our Rock, our strong high tower. Come to Me, He says, and I will give your weary souls rest. God and His Word are immutable, that is to say unchanging over time, any time, eternity even. God is unchanging and the Words that He speaks are unchanging. He never lies and this immutability, the Word says, is so that we “might have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.” There it is, its right there, take a hold of it, grab onto to it, never let it go, let it take you into the still calm harbor of His presence so that you might survive the storm. Take hold of this brothers and sisters, and you shall not drown.
I wrote this poem yesterday after the report that the cancer in my colon was gone. It reflects upon the storm my family and I have navigated in the last several months with a diagnosis of stage 4 cancer. It was not my first storm and I am sure it will not be my last but the one ever present help has been Jesus. I have lived as a Christian long enough to know that Jesus is the anchor of my soul. I still have a pet scan next week to determine if the cancer is still in the rest of my body, but the same God who rules and reigns this week, shall be ruling and reigning next week and I will be careful to give Him all the honor and all the praise. Peace, in the midst of the storm, is among the most valuable treasures from the vaults of heaven. If you are in the midst of a storm today, come to Jesus and He will give you peace and rest for your weary soul.
The strength that takes me through.
The anchor of my soul When I was on my knees Is the harbor of my life Amidst the stormy seas
You are my strong high-tower You're the one I run into When I'm weak you are the power The strength that takes me through
The waters shall not overwhelm The fires shall not consume When Christ my Lord is at the helm When His presence fills the room
You were there from the very start You are there when I'm all alone You dwell in the very depths of my heart You are there upon your throne
So I'll praise you lord forevermore You're my life, my breath, my all When you knock I'll open up the door I will answer when I hear you call.
I could not sleep last night, a mixture of the chemo and the prednisone no doubt. It has happened many times since I began treatment, but last night I awoke with the phrase “entertain or enter in.” The Lord was laying something on my heart. It occurred to me that if you take the letters “ta” out of entertain you are left with enter in. And yet, the definitions could not be more different. The Greek word for entertain is “psychagogia,” meaning “amusement-diverson-distraction.” The Greek word for”enter is “bo,” meaning “to go out or to come in.” The choice seems clear, be amused, diverted or distracted, or enter into His presence.
Interestingly enough, if you look at the two letters “ta,” in the Greek it means “the third person,” meaning “when you are speaking ( or singing) about someone else rather than directly addressing that someone.” Speaking in the third person you remain detached. Are we remaining detached from God in our modern day version of worship? Are we merely being entertained, an amusement or a distraction? A distraction from what? From actually entering in. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise (Psa 100:4) Enter into the joy of the Lord (Matt 25:23) For He who has entered into His rest has himself rested from his works (Heb 4:10) Not everyone that says to me Lord, Lord, shall enter in (Matt 7:21)
It makes my heart long for stripped down, simple/profound congregational worship, something the modern day worship ” team,” has wholly set aside for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which is to entertain. We don’t need to be entertained and sit by as mere spectators/fans, we need to enter in. Enter into what some might say? Enter in by the only door available, Jesus and Him high and lifted up. And let every voice sing as unto the Lord and face heavenwards and not towards a “stage,” a place for actors. Let us take the “ta,” out of entertain and let us who know Jesus, enter in.
Your presence fills me with great joy And turns every shadow into light Great consolation is mine Which feeds the deepest part of me, and sustains me though the night.
Oh blessed joy is mine divine The eternal longing of my aching heart For the day when the morning star rises And then, forever, we shall never be apart
To look into the depths of who You are Even for a moment, gives life unto my weary soul The one who took the many broken pieces Before the throne and the Father made me whole
I will awaken the dawn with the praises of my King You will hear, from the ends of the earth, heavenly choirs sing Look through the door of your heart that He has knocked upon And hear the angels singing their golden heavenly song
Then shall heaven and earth be one together And we shall abide before His throne forever I in him and He in we Cast upon an eternal holy sea.
I think the closer to God we walk we see Him in everything. We see Him in the rains. We even see Him in the midst of our pains. We hear Him in the thunder, and in us it produces awe and wonder. We see Him in the changing seasons. Autumn is such a blessed relief to the heat of summer, and we have many reasons to consider our own lives as the leaves become vibrant and beautiful with age…..and then they fall. And when the snow covers everything, we see Him in this wonderland.
We see Him when we hear a baby laugh or see the first stumbling steps of a little calf. We see Him in the rainbow that caresses the waterfall and we see Him in the mountains that stand so very tall. The rivers, the oceans, the eagle flying high, we see Him standing with us when a loved one dies. Brothers and sisters, if you don’t see Him everywhere, do you see Him anywhere? Lord give us eyes to see your beauty all around, and give us such a heart that in you we want to be found.
No matter where we live brothers and sisters, no matter what our situation, no matter the trials and the tribulations we face, better to do it all in the loving arms of our Lord and dwell in His passionate embrace.
There is a kind of heady rush when one faces a severe challenge. The greater the severity the greater the “rush.” The middle of the challenge can often be difficult. The first flushes and shock of it all settles down and the day to day reality of it settles in. The adrenaline winds down There is also a kind of post phase when the challenge is over and we have to return to “normal,’ life. For me, in the past, there is a great intensity of relationship with the Lord when I was squeezed and my back was against the wall so to speak. Perhaps not unlike a soldier from WW1 who goes home for r&r and finds it almost surreal and difficult to navigate due to the intensity of his experience on the battle-fields.
As saints we face this, and undoubtedly, given the nature of your circumstances, you too will deal with this. I suppose in the end the words of the Lord ring clear and true “therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own troubles” I have had much difficulty in my life trying to live this out. I know the truth of it. I know the weakness of my own flesh in addition to my own particular dysfunctions. I know that in this flesh of mine I can do no thing. The older I get the more apparent this is to me. Only in the Lord Jesus can I even begin to stand. I can do nothing without Him. I don’t want to do anything without Him. I want to walk in His peace. It’s akin to walking upon the water, and of course, when I take my eyes off Jesus I begin to go under.
And when a particularly severe trial comes to an end then I must know that the grace that filled up the valley to meet me in the depths, recedes. His grace is sufficient for me. It lifts me from the valley floor to heavens heights. It holds me, it sustains me then it gently sets me back down again and the walk continues down that narrow path that leads me home. In every situation, in every trial, in every season we are called to trust in Jesus. When the storm rages and when there is not even a breeze. When the snow falls and when the summer sun shines. When the spring rains come and when the leaves begin to fall in the Autumn. The seasons belong to the Lord. We belong to the Lord. Our walk belongs to the Lord. Our circumstances belong to the Lord. Our very hearts are His and for His own good pleasure He will mold us and shape us and finish what He has begun in us.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof (Mat 6:33-34)
Isa 49:11 And I will make all my mountains a road, and my highways shall be elevated
The Lord says that He shall feed His sheep along the roads. And even in “desolate heights,” they shall find pastures where no pastures should exist. The King of kings who owns the cattle on a thousand hills and the hills beneath their feet is well able to do as He says. He will feed your hungry soul. He will water your parched spirit as you navigate your way home. Do you hear His promises saints? He is speaking to you. No matter how tough your journey has been or is, even as you read this, He will make the treacherous mountain passes to be like a highway, a highway of Holiness. As you lift Him up, as you exalt the Lord in an ever darkening world the light of Heaven shall shine down upon you, even the darkness will be light to you, glory to God. You are inscribed on the palms of His hand. He knows you by name.
Th remnant saints of God are being gathered together for the final journey home, for the end of the ages are upon us. And despite being surrounded by a hostile world our Lord Himself goes before us. He heals our wounds, He tenderly touches our weary hearts. He feeds the deepest parts of us and sustains us for the journey. He restores the brokenhearted and gives strength to the weary. He gives us hope when there seems to be no hope. He gives us joy when there is nothing at all to be joyful about. Sing O heavens! Be joyful, O earth and break out in singing O mountains for the Lord has comforted His people and will have mercy upon His afflicted. ( Isa 49:13) We may have troubles on every side, but by the power of God we are not distressed. We may be perplexed but we are not in despair.The world may persecute us and despise us but they cannot destroy the Spirit of God that burns fiercely in the depths of who we truly are.
Isa 45:3 And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places,
This scripture speaks of Cyrus, who would conquer Babylon. Cyrus, it is said, was an outcast, left abandoned by his mother as a child and saved by a herdsman’s wife. From an outcast he would rise by the power of God and one day take Babylon. Consider Babylon. There are estimates that its walls were anywhere between one hundred and fifty to two hundred and twenty five feet tall and between forty five and seventy five feet thick. Six chariots abreast could race along the tops of its walls. Its radius was estimated to be somewhere in the region of forty five mile which is the equivalent of modern day London. Imagine the whole of London ringed by such walls? And the Lord had raised up an outcast that would one day take this city and free the Jewish people. God would open before him gates that would not be shut. He would make the crooked places straight and break in pieces gates of bronze and bars of iron. He would give him the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places.
God is in the business of raising up outcasts and those who have been abandoned. To those who find Him He makes straight their paths. He gives us the power to overcome every obstacle. There are no doors that He cannot open. There are no mountains too high that He cannot help us climb. No waters to deep that we cannot navigate by the power of His strength. He gives us the treasures of darkness. The riches that are to be found in the depths of our calamities and in the presence of our enemies. He takes the ashes of our broken lives and the hidden places of our hearts and makes beauty from them. We who were poor and outcast and abandoned He has made rich and whole by His presence. He has transformed us and He uses us to share the glory of God to the captives that they may be set free. To the crushed and broken hearted that they may be made whole. Rain down you heavens from above and let the sky pour down righteousness. Let the earth open, let them bring forth salvation. And let righteousness spring up together for I the Lord have created it. (Isa 45:8)
Act 15:39 And the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one from the other: and so Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus;
This is a well known incident. Paul and Barnabas fall out with each other, so much so that they change their plans and Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus leaving Paul behind. The plan had been to go back and revisit the brothers and sisters in every city and encourage them. It was a good plan, but the personalities of these very Godly men got in the way of the plan that very well was their own. Has this ever happened to you? Has you temper or some other personality trait caused you to fall out with someone and it seems that you have completely blown it? I have lost count over the last thirty years how many times it seems that I have “stepped on,’ the plan of the Lord. It never left me unaffected, quite the opposite. I would aid and abet the enemy in beating me up.
I am sure that as Paul watched Barnabas and Mark sail away, he must have regretted his “sharp contention,’ with his dear brother in the Lord. They had been through so much together. Barnabas must have looked back as the ship sailed away and had similar thoughts, the Holy Spirit, no doubt, convicting both for their parts in the contention. Yet I want you to see something. Despite us, despite our many failings, God has a plan and He is working it out. Paul decides to take Silas in the place of Barnabas. Little did not Paul know that he and Silas were about to live out one of the most famous incidents in the New Testament. Very shortly after leaving, they find themselves in the bowels of a dungeon, whipped to within an inch of their lives and in stocks.
And despite the previous failings of Paul, we see God had a plan. I believe that plan was for the jailer and his whole family to be saved. Silas was probably the perfect guy for this job. We find them both praising the Lord at the midnight hour and all the prisoners listening to them and then, a great earthquake. God came down. The doors flew open and the men, taken by the presence of God no doubt, stayed right there in their cells. The jailer, supposing the very opposite is about to kill himself but instead he gets saved and all of his family and goes on to have a house church in that city. Gods plan. Remember, God had forbidden them to preach the word in Asia, they also being refused permission to go to Bithynia. Then they had a vision of a man pleading for them to come to Macedonia. You see how every step of the way, God had a plan and He was bringing it to pass? Paul and Silas were on a need to know basis. Brothers and sisters, more often than nought we are on a need to know basis. I would imagine that knowing they were going to be scourged and put in stocks would not have helped them along.
If you have messed up and missed the mark, take heart brothers and sisters. You have no idea what God has in store for you. He uses imperfect individuals to carry out His perfect will. It is always about His plan and never about ours. We may go crashing ahead sometimes with what seems to be right, and yet it is completely wrong, its is simply our own plan. God will interrupt our plans. He will use what is useful to Him and bring you to where He wants you to be. My only advice is to listen for the direction or as in this case, the redirection of the Holy Spirit. Stay humble and broken and contrite and no matter what, move in forgiveness. Be quick to forgive those that have wronged you. After all, we are but vessels in the hands of the Lord, and if we are quick to forgive then He is faithful and just and merciful to forgive us. In the end, it is all His work and it is all His glory and it is His story. Keep walking brothers and sisters, God will use you.
Psalm 22:1 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?
Many men and women, down through the ages, have cried out to God in their despair. Day and night David cried out to God, yet there remained silence. Can you relate to this brothers and sisters? Have you cried out to God and the silence only seemed to add to your troubles? What kept you in that season? What keeps you in this season? Matthew Henry says “When we want the faith of assurance we must live by a faith of adherence.” Do you find yourself there today saints? If you have walked through these kinds of valleys I do not have to ask you if you remember. Who can forget the very shaping of their spirits? Who could forget the fall of the hammer upon the chisel that was shaping their lives? If gold had senses, would it ever forget the furnace? It is part and parcel of our creation.
Oswald Chambers says this of the Lord Jesus’ cry which is here foretold and prophesied by David in this first verse of Psalm 22, “The depth of this cry of Jesus is deeper than anyone can go because it is a cry from the heart of God.” No one knows the depths of this cry, no one can ever know. What we can know is that God knows the nature of this cry from His children. He knows it, because He lived it in a way that far surpasses that of any created being. And because we know that He knows this, who better to cry out to? David says this in verse three “but.” But what? “But your are Holy. You are enthroned upon the praises of your people.” He is very near to those who praise Him despite their circumstances. He is just beyond the veil of those who ever trust Him, and who can know when the veil is lifted?
Now listen to David as he nears the end of this psalm…..”I will declare Your name to my brethren. In the midst of the assembly I will praise you. ……..you who fear the Lord, praise Him! …..for He has not despised not abhorred the affliction of the afflicted nor has He hidden His face from Him. But when He cried to Him, He heard. The poor shall eat and be satisfied and those who seek Him will praise the Lord forever, let your heart live forever.” Let you heart live forever brothers and sisters. Trust in the Lord your God and praise Him for in the midst of those praises lies His throne and upon that throne sits Your God. That is how close He is to you. He hears you, He sees you and He sees your afflictions.
There is the presence of God to be found in enthusiastic and energetic worship, the kind of worship that lifts your spirit. It can lift up the head that hangs low and invigorate the heart and fill you full of joy and leave you strengthened. This is good worship. Yet there is another kind of worship that seems to have fled the land. A worship where we breath in rarified air. Oh how desperate is our need for this kind of encounter in our day.
The first kind of presence lifts your heart to gaze upon the Master, the second kind of presence invades every part of who you are. It falls from heaven like a heavy dew, heads are lowered and hands are raised. All becomes quiet, one barely dares to breathe as the Spirit of God slowly descends down through our out-strecthed hands and our hearts and minds and down to the very soles of our feet, and the ground upon which we stand becomes Holy ground. The first kind of presence uplifts us, the second changes us fundamentally. As living waters pour into us then it rises up like a great river that is so full that it overflows its banks.
The banks themselves begin to crumble and fall into this river of pure life as it swells up and floods through every part of who we are. The landscape is being changed by this flood, the very topography of our lives is being flattened by its powers and everything that is not securely rooted to its foundations is simply swept away. Changed forever. And when the flood recedes we are left with a glorious afterglow. As the deer pants for the waterbrooks, I wonder, do our hearts pant after this kind of encounter.
The Lord Himself does not need professional worship teams. He does not need people to encourage us to stand and jump up and down and raise our hands. In the Welsh revival two young women singing either acapella or simply backed by a piano typically sang “Here is love, vast as the ocean.” And there was Love, in the very midst of them, vast as the ocean, flooding the hearts and minds of all who attended.
Brothers and sisters, in all our modernity, what have we lost? In the programs of our churches and the professional class of worship leaders and pastors have we lost the simplicity of it all? And in the losing of it we now have to entertain the people. Spirit led worship is exactly that, it is Spirit led. In work we have a routine. In life we have a routine. Prisoners in prison have a routine. Oftentimes we are slaves to the routine, it is what gets us through life.
Yet, there is nothing routine about the Holy Spirit of the Living God. He is dynamic and you can never know what way the wind will blow next. Have we sold out our souls to the routine? Routine in the home, routine at work, routine at church. Routine people do not change the world. Routine people do not do wage war on the battle-fields of life. Saints, you are extraordinary because of the great treasure that lies within you. Extraordinary people change everything by the overflowing power of God that flows through every part of who they are.
The Spirit of God is dynamic and those filled with His “dynamis,” change the environment around them because of the environment inside of them. Their spirits have been filled to capacity and is overflowing their banks. And all who come near are caught up in the flooding overflow of a mighty all consuming God. Lord fill us again to overflowing with the kind of presence that invades every part of who we are and may all that we encounter be caught up in the flood that overflows our spirit.
Latest collaboration between myself and Aileen Gilchrist. I wrote this song based on a vision I had many years ago of what worship looked like in heaven.
A number of years ago I was in the midst of a situation that did not last a week or a month or even a year, it had been going on for a number of years. Near the end of this situation I found myself surrounded by darkness and despair. I had no idea it was almost at an end, but God did of course. I found myself lying on the floor, engulfed with hopelessness and as far as I could see, no light. When suddenly, after months and months of crying out to God His light pierced the darkness. There is a song, an old Hymn, written by a Welshman at the turn of the last century. His words perfectly describe what happened to me and millions others like me.
I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore,
Very deeply stained within, sinking to rise no more;
But the Master of the sea heard my despairing cry,
From the waters lifted me, now safe am I.
Love lifted me! Love lifted me!
When nothing else could help,
Love lifted me.
Love reached down and with a glorious light pierced my darkness and the darkness fled followed closely by my despair. Brothers and sisters, if you know something of that situation today in your own life, don’t you stop crying out with all your heart to a the living God who sees the afflictions of His people. He sees your darkness, He sees your despair. He knows your pain and He sees your struggle. He will lift you again, He will raise you up. He will flood your heart again with love and with hope and with praise. Why don’t you start today and sing this song and remind yourself that the very same Lord, the very same love that lifted you when you were drowning in sin and far from the peaceful shore will lift you once again above the stormy waters of life and then you can sing once more “Love lifted me, when nothing else could help, love lifted me.”
I wrote these lyrics a few weeks ago and my dear sister in the Lord, Mary Greig in Scotland recorded it in the studio and she and her family created this video to go along with it. It is shot above my home town of Greenock in Scotland. Please feel free to share this, it is a declaration of who God is and who He will ever be!
There is the presence of God to be found in glorious worship, enthusiastic and energetic, the kind of worship that lifts your spirit. It can lift up the head and invigorate the heart and fill you full of joy and you leave strengthened. This is good worship. Yet there is another kind of presence of God in worship, the kind of presence that there seems to be a famine of throughout the land. The first kind of presence we spoke of lifts your heart, the second kind of presence invades every part of who you are. It falls from heaven like a heavy dew, heads are lowered and hands are raised. All becomes quiet, one barely breathes as the Spirit of God slowly descends down through our heads into our hearts and down to the very soles of our feet, and the ground upon which we stand becomes Holy ground. The first kind of presence uplifts us, the second changes us fundamentally. As living waters pour into us then it rises up like a great river that is so full that it overflows its banks. The banks themselves begin to crumble and fall into this river of pure life as it swells up and floods every part of who we are. The landscape is being changed by this flood, the very topography of our lives is being flattened by its powers and everything that is not securely rooted to its foundations is simply swept away. Changed forever. And when the flood recedes we are left with a glorious afterglow. As the deer pants for the waterbrooks, I wonder, do our hearts pant after this kind of encounter.
The Lord Himself does not need professional worship teams. He does not need people to encourage us to stand up, jump up and down and raise our hands. In the Welsh revival two young women singing either acapella or simply backed by a piano typically sang “Here is love, vast as the ocean.” And there was love, in the very midst of them, vast as the ocean, flooding the hearts and minds of all who attended. Brothers and sisters, in all our modernity, what have we lost? In the program of churches and the professional class of worshiper leaders and pastors we have lost the simplicity of it all. And in the losing of it we now have to entertain the people. Spirit led worship is exactly that, it is Spirit led. In work we have a routine. In life we have a routine. Prisoners in prison have a routine. Oftentimes we are slaves to the routine, it is what gets us through life. Yet, there is nothing routine about the Holy Spirit of the Living God. He is dynamic and you can never know what way the wind will blow next. Have we sold our souls for a routine? Routine in the home, routine at work, routine at church. Routine people do not change the world. Routine people do not do wage war on the battle-fields of life. The Spirit of God is dynamic and those filled with His “dynamis,” change the environment around them because the environment inside them has been filled to capacity and is overflowing its banks. Lord fill us again to overflowing with the kind of presence that invades every part of who we are.
A Call To The Remnant 