ANOTHER RANT on walking with Christ. Please note....purdy please block me if my beliefs genuinely offend you. These writings are usually heart cries meant to be read by my peeps who might need or desire to read them or have something to offer in return that might help. They are humbling to share, kinda like standing naked really: (which aint always pretty in your mid 40s. ha) The Lord, since my walk with Him began, has always convicted me that --just as many others might draw the parallel for themself-- I am like Peter. The Lord said, Follow Me and Like Peter I was first given a new name--a new identity in how I saw myself. I was a renegade in my heart but He called me a son and warrior. It rocked me and virtually changed my internal identity. I have witnessed in this process, that like Peter, I am brave, but foolish. I am eager but certainly naive. I have always been willing to jump but also always ignorant of gravity and its consequences. This is a great and profound power… that is, if the battle requires kamikaze. But kamikaze has no enduring effect on the war at hand-- at best, its a flash of light in merely a single battle. Reading Oswald Chambers this morning I was shaken to my core. I learned that my following of Christ is again like Peter in that my first walk with Him (7 years) was external. It was emotional. It was easy. It was an adventure in a positive direction with obvious and immediate positive results. Who wouldnt walk that way? BUT…. heres what happened: Like Peter, when my walk became difficult….when it was no longer bread, fish and miracles… when the heat was turned way, way up… I folded. I denied Christ. I denied him 3 times to be exact. I denied Him in my lusts. I denied Him in my addictions. I denied him in my insolence--lifting myself by my boot straps in what I believed could be done in my own strength. Like Peter, at the realization, my heart was / is broken. But too, like Peter I am beginning to understand that God has brought me to the end of myself. He is showing me that all of my promises and resolutions end up in denial because I have no power to accomplish them. I am like a boy throwing a stone against a dam, where there was once a river, hollering for it to break free so that I can be washed clean once again. He is showing me that at the end of me, in the emptiness of me…the Holy Spirit will fill me. He is asking me once again… Follow Me. But this time he has refined / broken me to emptiness where I might receive the Holy Spirit. The Lord says to me that I have been washed clean, baptized in water-- that there is no need or value to smash this dam for its water. I am being called to be baptized in the Spirit. I am being called to a radical internal transformation in Christ. I regret to say that it has been harrowing, that I have been terrified, that in this refining the fire was been too hot to bear, that still… today… I stand afraid. With that, i reckon there is still some fire yet to endure. But today for the first time, although I am distraught, I actually caught a very brief glimpse of what is actually happening. And while it is hot like hell where I stand…the glimpse of it was almost like an ice chip slipped into my mouth past my cracking lips. A disclaimer would be to say that I am not quantifying or qualifying myself to the likes of the Apostle Peter. It is simply beautiful and baffling that His living Word has so much scope and breadth where life and understanding can be drawn from. Lord i hear your call. I repent of my foolishness. I thank You that You will never leave or forsake me. I thank you Father, and I confess this Word to you, that You will free me from my captivity when I seek You with all my heart. I have a job to do…but alas I am helpless to attempt it… Holy Spirit invade my life. Amen
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 16:01:16 +0000