His Rain Falls When We Prepare Our Hearts

 I want to talk about those times when we lead or participate in a praise and worship service in which we feel that God's presence just didn't move. We compare one service to another or one season to another and find ourselves playing the blame game: Yup it was that out of tune guitar, those loud drums, the tired vocalists, and definitely those new songs. It's easy sometimes for us to concoct some crazy-wild explanation for something so simple. I've even found myself saying, "Lord, why? These people needed You to show up...I was dying for You to show up." I don't know if any of you can relate but this is a horrible feeling. You come home and think that you just wasted your time and even worse that you just wasted God's time and probably made Him tear up a bit from how awful that whole service turned out. I've been there and it's because I've been there that I've sought out my Lord's council. I love how he speaks into my heart so clearly. There are specific moments when I've just felt God laugh and I'm pretty sure when I've talked to Him about these things He's been just balling out, shaking His head, ready to just cradle me because the answer is so simple.

*~*~*

(Song of Solomon 1:6) 

Do not stare at me because I am dark,

    because I am darkened by the sun.

My mother’s sons were angry with me

    and made me take care of the vineyards;

    my own vineyard I had to neglect.

(Song of Solomon 2:10)

My beloved spoke and said to me,
    “Arise, my darling,
    my beautiful one, come with me.

*~*~*

What The Lord revealed to me was that we, His children, are the ones who carry His presence and He confirmed this with His Word that says that we are the Temple of The Holy Spirit, His church. We're suppose to be putting the "C', "H", "U", "R", "C", "H" in "church". The only way to do this is through our relationship with God. He is always able to move but we also have the calling to release what He has freely given us. His Spirit is waiting to be releases but if we don't feed our spirit's how can we accomplish this? It's about talking to our Father because His Holy Spirit is with us and longs to be upon all of us, it's about getting into His Word for a fresh and new revelation, and it's about intimate prayer and worship behind closed doors when no one is looking. God is tired of His unfaithful bride who is ravished by many lovers. In Jeremiah 3 The Lord tells His people that "the showers have been withheld, and no spring rains have fallen" because of their unfaithfulness. God uses the words prostitution and unfaithfulness to describe our desire to seek another's council and even our own;He refers to anything that occupies the first place in our hearts. 

*~*~*

(Jeremiah 2:13)

“My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
    the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
    broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

*~*~*

Do we not do this today? We lean on our own past understanding and at some point stop overflowing because we've traded fountains. We think we can survive with what we know but those moments are when we need The Lord the most. Only He can see a heart naked as it is. When He says He wants a worshiper in spirit and in truth, this is what He's referring to. He longs for His worshiper to lay beside Him and hear His heartbeat and the only way for us to do this is to cultivate that relationship. Sometimes we reach moments where we hide our faces from The Lord and sink back. He's calling out. Talk to Him. He just wants to talk to us. He just wants to love us. Our wells can't hold water but His can. He doesn't want us to struggle or get frustrated anymore. When you prepare your heart's garden He will walk in and spend time with you. Because you know Him He will listen and because He knows You His Spirit will be upon you ready to be released.

*~*~*

(Psalm 132:7-8)

“Let us go to his dwelling place,
    let us worship at his footstool, saying,
 ‘Arise, Lord, and come to your resting place,
    you and the ark of your might.

//We are that resting place that 

The Holy Spirit longs to dwell in.//

*~*~*

 "Learn to steward God's presence in stillness, not just in corporate worship." 

                                                                                           

                                                                                            —Steffany Gretzinger

When we do this through intimate time with The Lord our services and corporate gatherings will be in continuous overflow. His signs and wonders will be there. The fullness of His Spirit is the key and that key can only be given to us through spirit taught knowledge that comes from the secret place. My secret place sometimes looks like a locked room with soft Bethel or Ihop music playing in the background, or a locked bathroom with me kneeling at the foot of the tub, a car ride, or gardening time outside. The one thing that all these locations have in common is that I am alone with God in order to seek Him. You don't need anything fancy just a place where you can cultivate that relationship with God behind closed doors so that when you do life in the open you will be walking in the fullness of His Spirit and that rain will fall no matter where you find yourself.

First Fruits or Sloppy Seconds

A Relationship: "the way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected; the state of being connected by blood or marriage." 

Recently I've been listening to a Kari Jobe Worship Preaching that a recorded about a week ago and I have honestly heard it more than 10 times. Every time I listen to it—on my way to school, church, while I'm running errands, and sleeping—I learn something new and feel great having heard a new take on something I really care about. The one topic she covered that really caught my attention was giving God our first fruits. What does this mean? We read His word, spend time talking with Him and seeking Him through prayer; We work hard to build a relationship with the Lord, our Father. After all, how can we talk about someone we do not know? Giving Him our sloppy seconds would be like accepting one or two days of the week as the only time we spend learning about Him. For a hungry and thirsty soul, that's just not enough. He deserves the best and like Kari said, "You give Go the first of you, and God will give you the first of Him." Some might ask, why can't I be die hard crazy in love with God like her or like him? At the same time though, this would be like going out on a blind date with someone who your friends set you up with. Your friends might know the guy, but you have never seen him, heard his voice, or been up close to him. There is no relationship...no connection. We might do this with God. Someone else talks to us about Him or we see others who just have a beautiful relationship with Him and we become discouraged or feel like we can never touch even the tip of Jesus' garment. And some of know how wonderful it feels to just love our God and wake up filled with His presence yet, the time and the work that we have put into our ministries or our everyday lives have separated us from Him. We've forgotten what it's like to be in love with God. To have a blossoming relationship. (Revelation 2:2-4) "I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love."

Mmm...Could it be that we've forgotten who loved us first? Who first wrapped us in His arms and told us that we were special. The one who said that as long as He was around we would never feel alone again. Have we left our first love? This is God sending out a call, crying out for us to return to Him and find peace and joy in His holy presence. How powerful is it that the dictionary defines a relationship as being connected through blood or marriage, when the Bible also tells us this, (2 Corinthians 11:2-4) "For I am jealous for you with the jealousy of God himself. I promised you as a pure bride to one husband—Christ. But I fear that somehow your pure and undivided devotion to Christ will be corrupted, just as Eve was deceived by the cunning ways of the serpent. You happily put up with whatever anyone tells you, even if they preach a different Jesus than the one we preach, or a different kind of Spirit than the one you received, or a different kind of gospel than the one you believed." We get tossed around by our circumstances and let our situations define who we are. In losing our first love, we also lose who we are. We just can't seem to find a place where we fit in, a place where we belong. No church will fill the void ad neither will our loved ones. Only Jesus can demonstrate to us the love that we need and He said He did this by dying for us on the cross, while we were still sinners.

(1 John 5:6-9)"And Jesus Christ was revealed as God’s Son by his baptism in water and by shedding his blood on the cross—not by water only, but by water and blood. And the Spirit, who is truth, confirms it with his testimony. So we have these three witnesses—the Spirit, the water, and the blood—and all three agree. Since we believe human testimony, surely we can believe the greater testimony that comes from God. And God has testified about his Son." This is our connection with Jesus, the fact that He washed our sins away with His precious blood out of love. In this we base our relationship with Him. Out of this, the relationship is born. But as we all know a relationship takes commitment and work through spending time together. We have to get back to this. This is the first part of a three part series that I'm doing called "First Fruits or Sloppy Seconds," which I hope will give you tips on how to remain faithful to God as a bride should to her groom. I make no exception of myself and include myself in what I am saying because giving God the best at all times and putting Him first in a busy and complicated world is not easy.

Challenge: I dare us all to be boldly and radically different. Like Jesus did, lets wake up every morning and kneel and give God our day and lay it in His hands. Every night, I invite you with me to pray and have a chat because God wants to know how we feel and what we need, our goals and dreams. Here's a toughy for some of us, let's pray before every meal and thank God for the fact that while others go hungry we do not. Let's pray for those who do not. God is so good to us and I'm really excited to share with you this long journey I find myself on. Though I too struggle and crave intimate time with the Lord and sometimes misuse the time I do have, I recognize that He is changing me one day at a time. Change hurts...but we all need to let go and let God. He is jealous for us...Let's be jealous for Him. With love in Christ, God bless.