HEARING, THIRSTY and WILLING .

HEARING, THIRSTY and WILLING .

THE UPWARD CALL

I sense that there is currently such an excitement in heaven over those who are heeding the call of the Spirit to come up, with thirsty and willing hearts – yet higher and higher into new dimensions of the Spirit. God is waiting to be gracious over us, but He is also waiting for us to leave our issues at the altar of surrender, trusting Him to take control over our lives. He wants to meet those who are humble enough to realize that they can do nothing in their own strength and who have a compelling desire for the Lord Himself.

“And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come! And let him who hears say, Come! And let him who is thirsty come; let him who wills take the water of life freely”. – Rev. 22:17

Leaving the old BEHIND for the “upward” call “…

“…..but one thing I do: Forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before, I pursue towards the goal for the prize to which God in Christ Jesus has called me upward” – Phil.3:14

Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness – and ALL ELSE shall be added unto you……… Pause and meditate on that!

The Chamber of His Presence

I want to encourage you to know that in these days of uncertainty there is one place of provision for all your needs of protection, empowering, wisdom, strength and ALL else: That place is the chamber of His Presence. The Psalmist longed for this place of comfort and safety where he knew he would be hidden from his enemies, enjoying the victory with songs of praise and shouts of joy! Yes, in His Presence is fullness of joy! So, are you weary and heavy laden? Come to Him, hand over your cares to Him and find rest! There is a tent in the middle of the wilderness where we can have communion with the King of kings and Lord of lords, where He will lift up our heads above the noise of the enemy and bring us into a place where we will shout His praises with joy!

“ One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek: 
That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, 
To behold the beauty of the LORD, 
And to meditate in His temple. 5
For in the day of trouble He will conceal me in His tabernacle; 
In the secret place of His tent He will hide me; 
He will lift me up on a rock. 
6And now my head will be lifted up above my enemies around me, 
And I will offer in His tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; 
I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the LORD.” Ps 27:4-6

Have you ever rejoiced and shouted on the inside in the middle of a group of people who might be busy talking about “serious” negative matters, simply because you are overflowing with love for Jesus and His Presence and as you acknowledge Him, the joy just bubbles up? This is the result of living in the Kingdom of God – righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, remember? In this place in His Presence nothing can keep you down, no bad report, no misery of someone else’s self-pity and gloom, no threat of the enemy, no fears or doubts that the devil slings at you, for you are having communion with the King! What a place of glory to abide in! And who would choose any other place? The most glamorous palaces and earthly luxuries cannot compare with the glory of God’s Presence!

So it’s all about what reigns in your consciousness, what and who you look at and what you meditate on. Pause and calmly think about that! (Selah!) The problem is that the mouth overflows with the content of the heart. Hmmmm! When you start checking your thoughts and listening to yourself, you will quickly find the foxes that spoil your vineyard. Bad news is that in the process you are losing the anointing and your peace and joy already left out of the window. Every time you reiterate the negative, you actually empower the voice of the enemy, prophesying doom and gloom and exactly what you do not want or need in your life. But what are you going to do with these foxes that devour your harvest? Sometimes we get so used to thinking (and inevitably speaking) the negative pictures that the enemy paints for us, that we do not even realize that we are entertaining his plans for destruction and thievery in our lives, enforcing it by our agreement in our negative contemplations and speech. Let’s take an objective look at how we perceive ourselves, the people around our life’s circumstances and us. If it is not bathed in the certainty of His divine love, saturated in the River of Life, dependent on His mercy and grace, we will have no peace of mind, but constant turmoil. If the waters in our soul are troubled, it simply spells out the need for His Presence, but often we are so busy trying to sort out our lives with all its issues by ourselves, that there is no time to come into His Presence. Yet, He is yearning for a love relationship with us.

When we come into the Presence of God’s holiness, the first thing we realize, just like Joshua (Is. 6), is that we have unclean lips and live among a people of unclean lips. The change comes when we come to the realization of our own helplessness and make the choice to be purified by His fire at the altar of surrender. The Angel of the Lord is quick to respond with a living coal from the altar and the next surprise is an invitation coming from the Lord to go to work in His harvest. There is work to be done all around us, but God needs holy vessels of mercy (having received His mercy-pardon themselves), filled with the riches of His glory, to be dispensed where He wants to pour them out. Yes, it is time that we dish out His mercy, grace, loving-kindness, goodness and truth, coming from the inside of the Love-chamber – out of our communion with the King.

I want to encourage you to come up higher than your circumstances, come into His Presence in worship and come and hear and to see beyond your earthly limitations into what He has prepared for you in glory. Come, be renewed in the spirit of your mind by being absorbed in the River of life to be filled to overflowing with His Word of Life – then simply release it by faith and wait for the shift into victory.

God bless you with new height in the Spirit

Elsabe