It Shall Speak, and Not Lie

Me beside the river - Friday, July 6, 2018 - early morning 

River of God

Have you ever sat by a river and listened to the water as it moves?  It may sound silly, but I love the sound of moving water. Not man-powered moving water, but God-Powered moving water.  It attracts wonder in me.  It reminds me of God.  I'm reminded of His power.  I'm reminded of what it feels like when His Living Water moves in me.  I'm reminded of what it's like when He is teaching me something - when He is preparing me for something - when He is revelating to me - when His Grace is flowing deep within the recesses of me that no man-made x-ray could scan or identify.  His Living Water transcends the limits of man's capabilities. It's miraculous.  And I am so thankful for that and for Him.

Deep calls unto deep when His Living Water begins to move within a believer.  There are no letters that I could tap on this keyboard and no words that I could form using those letters that could ever spell a word to truly capture what happens when a Holy God speaks inside of a believer.

To every person whose eyes will scan this, please know that there is no relationship more important than an honest, genuine, and loyal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.  In one part of the New Testament, the Lord speaks about the importance of knowing Him.  I'm going to use the word again because I completely believe our relationship with the Lord centers upon this:  Do you KNOW Him? Does He KNOW you?  (Matthew 7:21, 7:22, 7:23, 7:24, 7:25, 7:26, 7:27, 7:28, 7:29)  Take the time to read each of those verses.  As a true, loving husband knows his wife, so is the case with the relationship a true believer has with the Lord.  It's intimate. The relationship isn't mechanical.  Such is no relationship at all.  It's not "a show" to impress the onlookers.  It's not a self-seeking or a self-glorification relationship.  Jesus Himself said that a true relationship must be in spirit and in truth.  That's how we worship Him.  There is no other way.  (John 4:24)

Consecrate yourself to knowing Him more and more.  The intimacy of a relationship with Jesus will get deeper and deeper.  Prayer, the study of His Word, a humble heart, & a desire to just be with Him are foundational principles as we journey with Him.  Silence the world.  It is true that we can pray anywhere, but there is something sacred about leaving the presence of all distractions, bowing in the floor, and communicating with a heart of humility to the One True & Living God.  Communicate with a heart of loyalty to Him - with a desire of being used by Him - with a longing to be transformed by Him. Make this a part of who you are.  Make it what you do.  This must be the priority of all who want to know Him and be known by Him.  He will communicate back to you very personally.

The Necessity of Intimacy
Over the years, I have kept private journals of my relationship with God and our communication with one another. I have also taken pictures of "God's Voice" moments over the last years as well.  Just as the Lord told Joshua to set up 12 memorial stones as a way of remembering and a way of telling future generations of God's provision, so I do the same in the form of journals and pictures.  They are a reminder of my intimate moments with the Lord, Jesus Christ.  During anguished trials, I go back, and I remember. They are a memorial for me to endure in Christ.  This feeds my faith, and it is by grace THROUGH faith that we are saved.  ~Saved from every trial.  Every tribulation. Every attack of the enemy.  Every temptation.  Every persecution.  Every loneliness. And ultimately, saved by grace THROUGH faith to spend eternity with this ALL sufficient Savior.  May we always cling to this faith in Him.

Faith.  So much hinges on this miraculous faith because the Bible teaches that there were places that Jesus did not perform miracles because of the people's lack of faith/unbelief. (Mark 6:5, 6:6, Matthew 13:58)

I share the information below because very, very dark times are in the world right now, and the Lord's desire is to see many come to the true saving faith of Jesus Christ.  Very importantly, He does not want to see anyone currently IN the faith depart from the faith.  Intimacy with the Lord is available to all.  Come to the water and drink.  He is not willing that any should perish.   (2 Peter 3:9)

Our Faith Will Be Tried By Fire

A Brief Personal Testimony that I Pray Draws All of Us to a Closer Communion with Jesus - Our Savior     ✞

I pray what I am sharing below is shared with complete humility of heart on my part in such a way that only God can get the glory for it because only He deserves the glory.  I am so eternally thankful for the STRENGTH that He promises to place in those who follow Him.  Even when trials and afflictions come, we can look to our Great Savior and know that HE KNOWS all about it ~and that His plans are for good.  There will come a day when I will depart from this world - sooner or later, but I tell you that there is such peace in KNOWING Jesus.  Let all of us come to know Him more intimately on an ever deeper level.   I pray that I will continue to grow in His Grace and that I will be found faithful to Him all the way unto the end (Matthew 24:13).  I pray that I humbly serve Him seeking only to have His glory shine through me in some way.  How worthless I am without Jesus.  May the Lord always help me to stay low to the ground so that He can shine bright.  

Recent Sacred Moments of Intimacy and Preparation with & from the Lord:
✞-March 23, 2018 - The Lord's Living Water began speaking a particular verse to me. He did this 3 times.  Over the years, He has taught me that when He speaks to me on a verse or a topic 2-3 times in a row, that there is great significance in those moments and in the Word that He is bringing to me.  So I rejoiced in His Voice speaking to me, but the entire revelation wasn't yet fulfilled.  (During this revelation, I had been seeking His face diligently on a matter.)
✞-May 31, 2018 - The Lord's Living Water began speaking to me about what I needed to do while I waited on Him.  (I had been painstakingly seeking Him on particular issues that impacted many lives.)  The waiting for His Voice came with such difficulties and anguish, but the Lord was faithful to tell me what to do while I waited for Him.  His instructions were very specific. (He ministered to me on events I had been praying for, but I had no idea at the time that He was preparing me to endure the waiting of an event yet to come.  This future event would result in all of these previous prayers being answered.)  He was very clear to speak to me from Habakkuk 2 - 2 And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. 3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.
✞-June 6, 2018 - The Holy Spirit gave me paragraphs of details moments after I had been upstairs praying with total surrender and total faith of believing only He could move on a matter.  He promised that He was about to move in order to answer the prayer.  It was not a selfish prayer.  It was one in which I humbly requested God's absolute miraculous work this summer in order to fix, repair, and prepare in certain, specific areas.  His presence that night in answering was absolute.  There was no doubt He had heard and that He was going to take care of the needs I had placed before Him.  He said so many things, but I cannot stress this enough to those who will read this:  We must exercise great faith with great trials.  And we must - even after we have prayed all we can pray - we must then pray MORE EARNESTLY, even as Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Never give up the faith; humbly know that all hope rests in Jesus.  Go to Him as a child.
✞-June 7, 2018 - The next day the Lord's Living Water - His Holy Spirit - continued to speak.  He repeated verses and repeated His promises.

I wrote this in my journal on June 9, 2018.  

✞-June 16, 2018 evening - The Lord continued to minister to me regarding the provision of His Strength on this evening - which He had been faithful to speak to me days and weeks prior on multiple times.
✞-June 17, 2018 evening -  While putting clothes in the washing machine and then walking away, I experienced a strange health episode within my body.  My husband was at work, and my 11-year-old and 6-year-old were the only ones home.

God IS in the Details:

Blessings Birthed in the Trial ⇒ An ALL Sufficient Savior

• My husband and I prayed aloud in the car as we journeyed to the ER that is 30 minutes away.   ⇒ An ALL Sufficient Savior
• We pled the blood of Jesus the whole way and more promises from God's Word. ⇒ An ALL Sufficient Savior
• Blood tests and CT Scan at the ER - were all normal that night.  ⇒ An ALL Sufficient Savior
• It wasn't until the next day of this event that I was reminded my 11-year-old son stood up in the living room during the chaos of the event and took it upon himself to say, "I rebuke you, Satan."  He said it so forcefully and so faithfully. ⇒ An ALL Sufficient Savior
• My youngest sister revealed a day later that she hadn't prayed in a year, but this event led her to stand in her living room praying for me while I was at the ER. ⇒An ALL Sufficient Savior
• A few days later, I visited my regular doctor.  He wanted to do a series of further tests.  More blood tests, ultrasound, MRI.  He listed the possibilities. Those possibilities were not good.  Yet, even when Satan sought to bring fear on me in those moments, a supernatural joy would rise up in me.  A desire to rejoice would rise up in me.  A knowing from the Living Waters of Jesus that were stirring in me would pour forth and would pour over, and peace that this world could not know would just take over.  ⇒ An ALL Sufficient Savior
• A few days later, I sat in the waiting room (what to do while you wait), and the word balm of Jesus' blood just kept coming to my mind.  I prayed, "Lord, heal me with the balm of Gilead - with the balm of your blood."  It was like the Spirit just wanted me to say that over and over again.  I was soon called into the lab and sat in the chair.  As I sat there, the Lord did something that only the Lord could do in that split second, and a Spirit of peace and of God's provision came over me.  A few days later I was informed that those detailed blood results were "very good."   ⇒ An ALL Sufficient Savior
• On Wednesday, June 20th, I wrote verses on my chalkboard in the kitchen.  The Lord had been faithful to give those verses to me as He had stirred His Living Waters.  Some of the verses had been given to me days, weeks, and even months before the health incident.  Others had been given just the night before I wrote them on the chalkboard. ⇒ An ALL Sufficient Savior
• As I wrote up the verses, the serpent reared his accusatory words.  "Why are you writing all of that up?  It doesn't apply to you.  That looks ridiculous!  No one believes those words will prove true."  But they stayed up.  I didn't fully understand why I was writing them in that particular location.  But God did and would show me later.  God would fully reveal many things to me on Saturday, June 23, 2018. ⇒ An ALL Sufficient Savior
• Weeks before these events, the Lord had given me "The just shall live by his faith" in Habakkuk.  And through this trial, He showed me what He meant by that and how that is applied in our lives.  After this event, there was a lot of waiting.  Ten plus years ago, this type of event would have halted my life.  I would have been paralyzed by fear.  I would have shut down.  But the Lord had spent 10 years transforming my mind.  So BY FAITH, I LIVED, while waiting. By faith, I took care of my kids, while I waited.  By faith, I went fishing and wading in a river with my husband and kids, while I waited.  By faith, I shopped at Walmart with my family, while I waited.  By faith, I drove, while I waited.  By faith, I went to sleep at night, while I waited.  By faith, I prayed, while I waited.  By faith, I washed clothes, while I waited.  By faith, I mowed my yard and my mother's yard, while I waited.  "The Just Shall LIVE By His Faith!!!!!!!!!!" ⇒ An ALL Sufficient Savior
• Saturday, June 23, 2018:   When the Lord spoke to me about Habakkuk, the vision, and waiting for it back on May 31st, there was a word that caught my attention.  I remember saying, "Lord, I don't know what you mean by write the vision on tables."  But as soon as I had mentioned that to the Lord, I didn't really deeply consider it further . . . until the Lord spoke on it.  I was mowing this day (23rd) and listening to a sermon that I wasn't really that interested in...but it continued to play as I mowed.  Near the end of the mowing, I strange spirit of fear came over me - one that indicated I needed to turn off the sermon immediately.  It was a sudden fear.  I've noticed Satan do that so often.  He'll attempt to bring sudden fear, but those times have normally meant that God is about to speak, and it is one last ditch effort by Satan to prevent me hearing what the Lord would say.  This was true.  Literally seconds later, the preacher began to speak about Zacharias picking up the writing table to write: "His Name Is John!"  In that second, the Holy Spirit's Living Water began stirring in me so profoundly.  I cannot articulate what happened that day on the lawn mower and in my house afterwards, but the Lord let me know repeatedly:  "It is what God says it is" on my writing table/ my slate in my kitchen.  The Lord let me know that what I had written on my writing table would be the fulfillment of what He had been teaching me for weeks even before this medical event and that through this medical event, all prayers for the last months would be answered!

This is my chalkboard in my kitchen. I wrote these verses on it 6.20.18 and took this picture the same day.   The Lord had given each of them to me over the span of weeks.  

• Monday, July 2, 2018 - I was alone in my home hours before I was scheduled to have two major medical tests.  While I was waiting to leave for the appointments (45 minutes away), I had been praying.  And in only the way God could do it, He - again- brought me to the moment Gabriel spoke to Zacharias.  He had days before ministered to me regarding Zacharias, and yet again, in an unmistakable way, the Lord chose to present the moment Gabriel told Zacharias that God had heard his prayer.  A sense of strength and power came over me - over the years, the only times I have felt true courage and strength have been when the Lord's Living Water revelates to me and fills me. This was one of those times.  A month prior to this, the Lord had brought me to Job 23:6.  It was a remarkable moment of who God is and how His strength is our source of endurance.  Look to the LORD above all.  He will provide all that we need.  Continue in the faith of knowing He has the power to deliver us and to help us no matter the trial or battle or temptation.  With God's strength flowing in me, I drove to my tests.
• Thursday, July 5, 2018:  The results were in - and it was as God said it would be  - JUST AS GOD HAD PROMISED, the results of those two sophisticated tests were taken care of by JESUS!  All the "scary" possibilities were silent and just not there.  Thank you, Jesus.  I am still so humbled by His Voice over the last weeks and over the last several years.  ✟ What a Savior~  He is the Great Physician.  And my earthly physician that day at the doctor's office simply said there was no need to do further tests.  There was no need to see any other specialists.  I walked out of the doctor's office in awe of God and that when He gives a vision, it will tarry (waiting for all things to be fulfilled), but It Will Not Lie.  

And just as the Lord had promised to me, the prayer requests that I had presented to Him -long before this medical event- were answered.  I had prayed about past events, present events, and events months down the road - like only this Great Miracle Worker could do, they were all addressed and fixed. And I expect more overflow from this beyond my own life because the Lord assured me that he would do exceedingLY abundantly in this matter. 

Friends, we are living during perilous times.  Only through Christ can we overcome the trials.  By faith, go boldly to the throne of Grace.  Seek an intimate relationship with Him that is founded on loyalty, honesty, and obedience.  

Know that He is God.  

Know that He is God and that nothing is too hard for Him.  

He will speak and minister to you in your situation very specifically.  It will be godly, pure, and holy.  He will place a miraculous strength in you that leaves you glorying in Who He Is and what He Can Do.

May the details shared above bless someone and offer hope to you when your trials come.

Intimacy:  There are many sacred details of this event that I have tucked away in my heart and in my journals.  Just as a husband and wife in a truly loving intimate relationship will not reveal such details to others, so is the case as we journey intimately with our Lord and Savior.  

The Just Shall Live By Faith

Let Every One of Us Choose Each Day to Do Exactly That

May the Lord Bless Each of You In Christ Jesus

The Church at Satan's Throne

Video Below

Though It Tarry, Wait For It

Ever feel like you are an onlooker among many other onlookers seeing and hearing the same things as others, yet while they are being entertained, you are inwardly sorrowful at the spectacle of it all?

Do you ever become perplexed by unpunished evil -- the kind of evil that ensnares the innocents of a society? Do you find that wherever you look, to the left hand or to the right hand, evil is parading itself in all of its debauchery?  Do you ever meekly ask the all-powerful God, "Why is this permitted, Lord?"

If yes, then please know that you are not alone.  The Lord in His vast knowledge that transcends space and time used a relatively unknown prophet who lamented the sights and sounds of his time period's world stage to speak to His people thousands of years later as we are forced to be onlookers on this world's stage.

Let this bring you peace, Saints.  Let this bring you peace.  God knows all about the enemies at every turn, and while the enemy may think he is in control, God is actually using the enemy and his minions to bring about a greater good for God's faithful remnant.  God sees all and is over all.

Habakkuk - Not much is definitively known about this prophet, but I praise God that He permitted this man's short 3 chapters to be placed in the Holy Bible.  I tell you, time and again, God shows me that every single period and comma means something in His Word.  The Holy Spirit took nothing for granted when composing the Bible -- and neither should we when we read it.

When the Holy Spirit is guiding our study of God's Word, the Bible truly does become a Living Word.  It is truly made alive with the quickening of the Holy Spirit stirring our innermost being as we read it.

God is amazing.

Habakkuk appears to have been a prophet who lived during an agonizing time.  Click here to read the entire Book of Habakkuk - it is a very short book of the Bible.

Below are some key points from the Book of Habakkuk as outlined in the reference section of the Thompson Chain Bible:

• Main Theme:  The Mysteries of God's Ways in Dealing with Sin and Oppressors
• Synopsis:  The book begins with the prophet being heavily burdened by unpunished evil and questioning God as to why He is permitting such things to occur against His people.
• He receives a reply revealing the divine plan of using the Chaldeans as a swift and terrible instrument of judgment against evil nations.  Habakkuk 1:5-11
• Still the moral problem is unanswered in the mind of the prophet.  How can a holy God use these wicked heathen to waste and destroy people more righteous than they?  Are wrong and violence to continue forever? Habakkuk 1:12-17
• The prophet ascends his watch-tower to look over the world.
• He receives the reply of Jehovah, and is told the purpose of God is soon to be fulfilled, and is encouraged to wait for it, Habakkuk 2:1-3.  Then follows the sentence that has been a watchword in the Christian Church - Habakkuk 2:4.
• Content with the new light received, the prophet utters a series of five woes against the dishonesty, the covetousness, the bloody building enterprises, the debauchery, and the idolatry of the great world power.  Habakkuk 2:6, 9, 12, 15, 18-20
• Finally, he utters a sublime prayer (or psalm of praise), speaking of the majesty and glory of GOD and declaring his unwavering trust in His divine plans.  ~HALLELUJAH!~

Below is an outline of Habakkuk (Bible Study Tools):

I.  Title (1:1)
II. Habakkuk's First Complaint: Why does the evil in Judah go unpunished? (1:2-4)
III. God's Answer: The Babylonians will punish Judah (1:5-11)
IV. Habakkuk's Second Complaint: How can a just God use wicked Babylonia to punish a people more righteous than themselves? (1:12;2:1)
V. God's Answer: Babylonia will be punished, and faith will be rewarded (2:2-20)
VI. Habakkuk's Prayer: After asking for manifestations of God's wrath and mercy (as he has seen in the past), he closes with a confession of trust and joy in God (ch. 3)

___________________________________________

Saints, continue to live by Faith.  No matter the sights and sounds that are so vexing, always remember that the Lord is in control.  In due time, He will bring all things together for His Glory.  Let us be found faithful to Him.  The just shall live by his faith.  Live by faith.  

Faith. Faith.  

Let God turn your sadness and complaint into a song.  He did it for Habakkuk.  He will do it for all who genuinely seek Him.  Habakkuk forgot his lamentations of the evils of the world and instead, it was replaced with a joyful song of God's control of it all!  Oh, hallelujah to my King!

Habakkuk's Psalm at the End of the Book
17 Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls:
18 Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
19 The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments.

Remember My Chains

Videos Below

Sleeping For Sorrow

Nowhere Else

The Loneliness of the Christian
By: A.W. Tozer

The loneliness of the Christian results from his walk with God in an
ungodly world, a walk that must often take him away from the 
fellowship of good Christians as well as from that of the unregenerate
world.

His God-given instincts cry out for companionship with others of his
kind, others who can understand his longings, his aspirations, his
absorptions in the love of Christ; and because with his circle of friends
there are few who share his inner experiences, he's forced to walk alone.

The unsatisfied longings of the prophets for human understanding caused
them to cry out in their complaint, and even our Lord himself suffered in
the same way.

The man (or woman) who has passed on into the divine Presence in actual
inner experience will not find many who understand him. He finds few
who care to talk about that which is the supreme object of his interest, so
he is often silent and preoccupied in the midst of noisy religious shoptalk.

For this he earns the reputation of being dull and over-serious, so he is
avoided, and the gulf between him and society widens. He searches for the
friends upon whose garments he can detect the smell of myrrh and aloes
and cassia out of the ivory palaces, and finding few or none, he, like Mary
of old, keeps these things in his heart.

It is this very loneliness that throws him back upon God. His inability to find
human companionship drives him to seek in God what he can find  

nowhere
else.

Stealth

Stealth - 
One of my boys likes to use this word when he describes certain people. Part of the definition involves doing something secretly without anyone realizing it is going to happen. Most of us have heard of the stealth bomber. 

That aircraft was built to move quickly, efficiently, & secretly, and the after-effects of the stealth bomber are unmistakable. 

Months ago, I found myself in a predicament that brought fear upon me. I wasn't sure why I was placed in the situation, but I wanted out of it. I prayed earnestly on the matter for days, and when the Lord spoke, He literally said, "Walk on." 

You see, a part of me wanted to consult people regarding the matter, but the Lord instructed me to "Walk on" past those I thought I should speak with in the matter. He told me that He would handle it and that I was not to consult 'wizards and warlocks' who just offer worldly solutions. 

I literally kept walking that day. And now months later, I see a stealth God Who knew exactly what He would do with that situation. 

He doesn't call Christians to cower somewhere in the corner or to run from the battle. He calls Christians to report for duty, waving the banner high. 

He will stealthily place His people in the eye of the storm so that we can bear witness of HIS TRUTH right in the middle of a Roman system of lies.